*DISCLAIMER: THIS STORY IS A DIRECT REFORMATTING OF MY ROLE-PLAY; THE LINK IS BELOW. FEEL FREE TO CHECK IT OUT, BUT IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY ABOUT THE EXCEPTIONALLY HARD WORK THESE PEOPLE HAVE PUT INTO THIS THREAD, AT LEAST MAKE IT CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM-WHICH MEANS MAKE IT NICE! NO ONE NEEDS NEGATIVITY FROM OUTSIDE SOURCES.

A Song of Ice and Fire: Vengeance of the She-Wolf - forum/A-Song-of-Ice-and-Fire-Vengeance-of-the-She-Wolf/141333/

VERSE ONE – THE SHE-WOLF

Line One: Ellaria

They are gone, all of them, and she was alone.

Ever since Father was murder in King's Landing, she had seen no one; it's hard to tell which of them were even alive. Mother, Father, Robb, Richard, Arya, Bran, and Rickon—all of them, they are gone. Sansa surely isn't so far behind, as Ellaria obviously had not seen her since the day everyone left for that wretched place in the South. I am so alone here, in Winterfell.

Robb and Mother had let her come with him, and we let Bran and Rickon die alone for our foolishness. With father gone, Robb and she were old enough to be considered grown, no longer children to be protected from the ways of mortal men. Mother and did our best to help him when he called for Father's Banners, and Greatjon Umber declared him King In The North—was that before or after Grey Wind decided to try a bite out of him for insulting my brother in the first place? That night was so wonderful and full of smiles that she couldn't remember, as heavy as her wine flowed despite her inability to hold it for long.

It had been the only way to keep Father from getting to us, to go to war and keep ourselves distracted from the pain, to turn it onto the Lannisters in retribution—and then it all came crashing down that long night, one month ago. The world ended all over again, Ellaria was afraid to fall off of its face and into an abyss. Robb won every battle he fought in, ceased lands held by turncoats who backed the Iron Throne and all of the things it stood for. That night, they were betrayed, and almost all of it was torn away again—she could hear them screaming, the men and Mother and Robb's pretty wife, Talisa. She could hear Grey Wind howling and fighting the kennel they had locked him away in, preventing him from escaping and saving them all. She herself was only alive by the grace of the Old Gods and Lord Aerik Mormont, although he refused to be granted anything deserving of his bringing her home to this burned city before the Freys could kill her as well.

They call her the She-Wolf and Queen in the North now, and gave her her brother's crown. It's so heavy—too heavy –and almost too big for her; even though they were twins, Robb had almost always bene bigger than Ellaria, along with Jon. He's gone, too, a sworn brother of the honorable Night's Watch. She wants to hate him for escaping this place when he did—she is reminded of them, all of them, every day.

But she will have her revenge. The She-Wolf will burn the Crossing, and launch every Frey into their own fucking moat, their riches tied to their wastes and their hands and their ankles. The She-Wolf will flay every Bolton and feed them all to his bastard's bitches.

The She-Wolf will bury them in the snow.

Ellaria awoke from her thoughts with a small yelp into the dank air, shivering uncontrollably in the deep darkness, having nearly pitched herself down the narrowing, wilding stone steps that would lead her to the entombed. Her cheeks were itching and threatening to freeze on her cheeks as they were, and it was something she could not have, her skin cold and surely as white as snow. She was having a difficult time holding them back, despite the fact that she was presently without human company. The young woman held a lantern in her grasp to light her way, as the old and heavy ironwood door kept most of the light out.

She knew she could not show her pain on the surface, not now—not when she had a duty to keep as level a head as possibly for her people. Too many were expecting to see her strong too soon, and she was afraid to show how much pain she was really in. Yet here in the Crypt of Winterfell alone with her direwolf, the young Queen knew she could let her heart scream over and over where no one but the spirits would hear. Well, them as well as Ser Markus Reullis—a good friend who had a somewhat irritating habit of finding Ellaria when she didn't want to be found.

The new Queen in the North instinctively followed the silver-white form of Winter's Keeper as the female guided her into the most recently quarried tombs of the Winter Kings. They moved past the numerous pairs of granite pillars two by two until they veered to the right, where the latest sepulchers of the House Stark lay. There stood the stone likenesses of Eddard and Robb Stark, iron swords rested on their knees, ready to keep spirits as vengeful as she from wandering. Father's sword had gone missing during the Sack of Winterfell, but it had been replaced, along with Brandon's and Rickard's; Robb's tomb had been freshly erected days ago with Grey Wind, a brother to Winter's Keeper, curled about at the Young Wolf's feet. Both his and Father's were empty, and it bothered her that there was no one to talk to—in fact, they were all empty, and Ellaria let out a sob as she wished to anyone who hear that they were laden with the bodies of her kin. There were several more mounds of partially cut stone set into their designated alcoves, yet unfinished—they were for Mother and the rest of her brothers and sisters and their direwolves, all gone save for Sansa and her Lady, who was buried lichyard and seranded into the realm of the dead by her brothers and sisters.

First, she went to Father's statue; Winter's Keeper made a soft noise as she spread out her dark blue skirts and sat on the icy stones in front of him. direwolf circled her and then lay curled half around her for overtly welcome warmth. Ellaria's heart ached as she stared into the stone carving of her father's face, his expression strong and his countenance proud. It was as if he was there, in the flesh, giving her one of his small, infrequent smiles... If only the Gods could give a man back his head. She took a heavy, shuddering breathe and sent the Gods a silent prayer for her father before turning to the statue of her twin brother.

She felt unwholesome without him in this world—especially with no other Stark to turn to when the rest of them were laying right next to him. That aching let room into her chest and gave way to a hollow feeling, and Ellaria was afraid that she would never be whole again, not even when her younger sister and heir was safe and protected within the First Keep. In fact, her half-brother Jon was a man of the Night's Watch who had forsworn his family—by her father's own mechanisms, no less —and was such never a Stark despite Robb's plans to legitimize him. Even though his name Snow, she never considered him illegitimate in the first place, and which there had bene time for Robb to send word and bring him home... And so, there were no Starks left in the North but her.

With the weight of having lost those who personified the pieces of her heart, she was left barren and alone. The sobs kept coming, a flood much like the sea that had drowned Winterfell in blood, and they echoed like screams into the vaulted ceiling above her head. She turned her head into the silver-grey coat of her direwolf and cried her heart out yet again. She had lost track of time by then, never with the capability to tell whenever she visited the forever empty tombs of her family; by her eyes could no longer produced tears, and after she had half-slept for some minutes or hours afterwards, she lifted her head to see that her lantern was almost out.

It was time to go, until she could spare more time, something she had too much of if there hadn't bene much for her to do as Queen. Ellaria had pushed herself partially away from Winter's Keeper when she felt the muscle in her back tense for a moment, and then relax just as swiftly. Footsteps echoed on the stone just soon after, and the she-wolves rose their gazes from the warmth to brace the cold. Torchlight glowed in the icy darkness, and they could just make out the handsomely shadowed face of Markus. Ellaria swiftly caught the tears on her cheeks that hadn't been cleaned by the direwolf's coat and swiped them away, leaving her fair skin temporarily red; she sniffled and looked away from his tall, approaching figure in order to collect herself. She had seen Markus' face on numerous occasions, when she was in a mood as empty as a cloudy winter sky, and it always bothered her, his current expression. She never liked it, usually because a smile was never able to stray too far from Markus' face for long—and without one, he never looked right. He looked just as weary as she felt. A heavy sigh escaped through her nose, and she gave him a weary smile.

"I've been down here so long that you had to come and fetch me, Markus?"

"Of course, Ellaria," he answered with a smile of his own, adding somewhat cryptically, "I'll always come."

Winter's Keeper made a soft noise, and Ellaria's hand moved of its own accord to scratch her behind the ear as her heavy head rested in her lap among her skirts. The Queen turned back to her father and twin brother, and her pewter and ice blue eyes lost their light before she closed them again. Ellaria was beginning to send the Gods a silent prayer, but was interrupted as a man's voice called out from somewhere above, startling them both,

"Your Grace! The Red Reasoner has asked for an audience!"

Winter's Keeper lifted her head and pushed herself onto her paws; she padded back the way they had come without further hesitance, and Ellaria took it as a signal that she should resume her queenly duties. It was hard not to notice how mockingly Tybalt Lannister's epithet had been used; after all, the foolish man had been captured by her brother because he was fool enough to come to Winterfell in order to negotiate his brother's release from custody. She shook her head at his daftness and stood slowly on stiff legs, brushing the dirt from her skirts as she moved to Markus' side.

"I could use good company," she told him as she impulsively took his offered arm.

"I know."

Together with Markus and Winter's Keeper, Ellaria strode through the hollow keep of Winterfell on natural instinct, following a path she had walked so many times in the past month—especially since the Lannister's capture in Riverrun. Her fingers instinctively curled into a tuft of her direwolf's coat, and the couple and their guard returned to the Dungeons her prisoner called home. The moment Winter's Keeper began to growl, the young Queen steeled herself for what was to come: a battle of words and wills.

Even if he was a bloody Lannister, she never really liked to see the man chained to the stones at his back and mistreated by her men for the hell of it. She hadn't been able to agree with Robb's treatment of Jamie, either—Mother would always turn her words against her, however, just as the Bannermen have done with Tybalt. It had been an argument she was having with her brother, feeding into his frustration and stress; he had nearly put her on house arrest, so tired was he of her constant moaning of Lannister retribution.

"Can we not treat him with some decency? How do we know that your brutality will not add wood to the fires and give the Lannisters more reason to think they must crush us, Robb?"

"How do you think your sisters are being treated, Ellaria, now that your father is dead? If Arya and Sansa are not dead already, they will have been beaten—and much worse. This man is the Kingslayer: the only person this side of the Narrow Sea that we have as leverage to gain the girls' freedom. We must be seen as strong and unwavering, willing to do anything in order for our demands to be met."

Her face morphed into a mask of stone as her mother's voice slipped away from her; the She-Wolf didn't want any man present to see her weaken, and a harsh frown darkened her features as they came upon Tybalt's cell. The man was in terrible shape from what she could see beyond the dim torchlight: his hair was a dirty and overgrown golden weed sprouting from his crown and face; his clothes were in pitiful tatters, ripped and torn asunder; she could even see that one of his boots was missing a heel.

"Seven Hells, you look half dead—a state I, despite my people's intentions, cannot have you in," she said gravely, her old self slipping through the cracks in her armor as her brow knitted with small worry lines.

"Someone get him out of this damned cell!"

The words burst from her raspy throat; the guards only hesitated a moment longer, and Winter's Keeper gave a sharp bark. The door to his cell was unlocked and Tybalt Lannister was halfway unchained when she forced herself to turn away from the sight, silently ordering them to follow her to the Great Hall. Behind her, Tybalt gave a weak chuckle,

"Please gents no fuss. Just feeling a bit under the weather is all. Little wine and meat and I'll be right as rain. Well rain as in the water that falls from the sky. Reyne the family is a different matter. They are anything but fine..."

He was babbling, which was actually usual for him; Ellaria was beginning to wonder if she had left him down here in the darkness for a tad too long when he added, "Speaking of Reynes... We must discuss something akin to them, mi'lady."

Ellaria shook her head slightly at his manner of the baseborn pronunciation, the urge to snap at him for the slight to her title saved when Markus did it for her. Tybalt Lannister had happened to be born under the wrong name, and so had been imprisoned for over a month for it. She honestly didn't think there was any room for him be so easy if he wanted to survive his stay in the North. Naturally, she turned his favored tune against him, reciting a pair of the memorable lines of the cautious melody before adding,

"Your father felled the Red Lions years ago, Tybalt Lannister—so what reason could we possibly have to speak of them?"

He waited to reply until they were inside the Great Hall, and she rose the dais with Markus at her back to sit on the Granite Throne. Of course, Tybalt's voice is solemn and serious as he speaks, but she still finds his words quite insulting.

"Because, it is about to happen again, except the song will now be the Snows of Winterfell.

My father holds onto a grudge for longer than is good for him. He has the support of the Westerlands, the Reach, parts of the Stormlands, the Freys, and the Boltons. He means to wipe House Stark from memory. He has killed the alpha male and the matron and their oldest pup, he holds one pup, another has gone missing, and the kraken strangled the last two. Now it's you and a ragtag group of lords in a ruined castle soon to be set upon by enemies. You now have one choice.

Negotiate."

Ice pierced her chest, having stiffened at the mention of her family's bedraggled state. The Starks were forever lost, never to be found. Ellaria knew full well just how badly she needed support. Theon Greyjoy was a traitorous bastard who would rather suck his father's cock dry than stay loyal to her— her family. The support of her Bannermen sans the Boltons was a fragile thing, a taunt swing back and forth in front of her until she could actually prove herself in battle just as any man could; action behind the words was all that mattered. The Riverlords were with her in a sense, even if the house that held the Crossing were as much a load of turncoat wenches as Theon and the Lords of the Dreadfort. And The Vale would back her, if only her terribly insipid Aunt Lysa would actually lend aid to her family instead of coddling an unstable boy-child who needed some sense knocked into his head by force.

The urge to knock him onto the stones at her feet was so strong, she could barely contain herself. She almost turned on him and used her ring hand, which was laden down with signets and seals, but she didn't want to break the man's jaw before she heard what he had to say to her. With clenched fists, the red-haired Tully-like Stark forced herself to lack motion. Her voice was soft and hoarse, but deliberate in enunciation.

"From where I stand, you are the one who has reason enough to negotiate, Tybalt Lannister. Now speak your peace, or you will be reacquainted with the walls of your cell."

"I say it how it is. Believe me mi'lady, I wish none of this had ever happened. But things have spiraled out of control. Your allies run few. Your sister herself is a Lannister. So I need to ask you to do this: endure. Let the Starks live on. Let me negotiate with my father for you. Most likely you will be stripped of the title of Lords Paramount and Wardens of the North, but you would keep Winterfell.

You would all live.

I cannot guarantee you the revenge you want against the Freys and Boltons but I can promise you that you will survive. Do not make me watch as you let your pride be your downfall. I do not want to see you raped by Freys and then flayed by Boltons while hanging over your own gates. Negotiate! Please. Let me help you end it all. The blood-shed, the betrayal, all of it. Enough have died. Live. Let House Stark continue.

Do not become Reynes!"

"Sansa is no Lannister—mind your tongue, my lord. My sister is a prisoner of that arrogant little bastard you call Nephew, who thinks he rules from the Iron Throne. And yes, my allies are few, but we are not Wardens— I am no Warden. We have been Kings and Queens in the North since Bran the Builder laid the foundation for this castle; since even after the King Who Knelt earned his name..."

On her throne, Ellaria remained quiet and contemplative for a few moments, attempting to understand why such a genuine expression of worry had come over Tybalt's face as his words filled the air. Her words suddenly faltered under the weight of her situation, and the confusion as her thoughts jumbled together. Tybalt's plea had been so sincere—why? She shook her head and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Why in the world should I trust a single word you say? You are a Lannister! Lannisters have a knack for lying, you know, pray tell me, what exactly should I say to your father to abate his so called "wrath"? And what would you care if the Freys and the Boltons did disgrace me?

Yet again, I say that you are a Lannister! You took my family! All of them! I have no one, Tybalt; do you know what that feels like? To lose every single person you love to the people you hate the most?!"

Her voice had risen in octaves, until she was screaming at him, but she hadn't been able to tell until she'd stopped. Her cheeks were a feverish red as the blood in her body rushed to her face and angry, frustrated tears spilled over unnoticed as her chest heaved. The man was stirring her blood on purpose, but she couldn't help being goaded into the reaction; it was something she had wanted to say for the longest time, she wanted him to know just how much pain his family had caused her. The guard shifted in their armor, hands hovering over the hilts of their swords or blatantly grasping them, and Ellaria knew that they would gladly slaughter Tybalt Lannister in the breath she would draw to give the order.

In this instant, she nearly gave in to the temptation to make Tywin Lannister feel as she felt every day. She would take his son just as he had taken Mother and Robb and Arya and Sansa. And then she would take Joffery from Cersei, so that she would know Mother's pain for herself. Ellaria wanted so badly to make them hurt, pure and simple… Markus stood quietly behind her, but the familiar whisper of metal against leather told her that he had brandished his long spear. In the face of his surely imminent death, Tybalt replied quietly as though he understood her every word,

"I took no one from you. It was Ser Ilyn Payne under Joffery's command who cut your father's head off. It is Joffery who holds Sansa now. It was Roose Bolton who stabbed your brother. It was Raymund Frey who cut your mother's throat. I am Tybalt Lannister. Now maybe my last name does make me a liar, but what is that saying about Lannisters and debts?"

Ellaria attempted to compose herself, but she couldn't keep her hands from shaking. Her direwolf was surely on the verge of tearing out his throat, and she thought that she would surely get to him before Markus and the guard did. Perhaps that would be a mercy, letting Winter's Keeper maul him to death before the men got their hands on him? So the fuck what Tybalt himself had personally nothing to do with the butchering of her family?! He was his father's son, and that old and bitter bastard was a ruthless demon!

"A Lannister always pays his debts," she scoffed at Tybalt, unable to keep the full weight of her icy glare from him.

"If you haven't noticed, Winter has come to Westeros, my lord. The ice and the snow will blanket this world and nothing will stop it. Heed me when I say that mine is the fury."

She wiped angrily her cheeks again and settled back into her throne. Reaching up and backwards, she ran a hair through her dark red hair and glanced over her shoulder at Markus. He looked just as murderous as she had been moments ago, although his intent had yet to be abated. She could see how tightly he gripped his spear—his knuckles were snow white. After a few more moments of gauging the reaction of every other Northman in the room she sighed heavily, feeling foolish and weak for her reaction to Tybalt even when she tried to keep her emotions in check. She glanced at the weary-looking man and gave a soft huff of indignation. Damn him, but he was actually a reasonable man…

But why? Why must he make good sense when faced with sword and the wrath of the Queen? If she didn't know better, Ellaria would wonder if he had ever been faced with his own mortality before. Of course she doubted that he ever had until these past moments, or when Robb first captured him for the sake of leverage against the Lannisters for Sansa's release…. She blinked, almost staring at Tybalt whilst the thoughts raced about in her mind. She didn't actually have the kill him—perhaps if she could make the Lannister believe that she would, however, that would make getting Sansa back all the more easier!

Quickly, Ellaria spoke up before the idea ruined itself in her mind.

"Markus, would you see to it that Tybalt is bathed, fed, and clothed? He has been in the dungeons for too long—I cannot murder a guest in my own lest my I wish to incite the Gods' wrath, after all…"

Ellaria rubbed her eyes again and stood, resisting the urge to worry her bottom lip and talk herself out of it as she moved somewhat gracefully down to the floor in order to be level with Tybalt.

"You are no longer my prisoner, Tybalt Lannister, but a guest in my home. Consider yourself welcome until I say otherwise."

He nodded and stood from his position, looking her in the eye so blatantly that she was taken aback for the moment. It was quite forward, and almost even rude; Tybalt Lannister wasn't a man to keep protocol, it seemed—how seemingly unfortunate for him. She noted that his sharp emerald eyes now held something else, although he couldn't quite place it. Was that pity? Sympathy? It is was, she may just put him back into those horrible chains herself; Ellaria wasn't prone to being pitied for really any reason, so she felt as though he was looking down on her for some reason.

There was also something odd there, something even more difficult to take note of than any other emotions…. Affection? But it was impossible to tell before he looked back down to the ground and stood up to follow Markus. Ellaria watched him go, frowning hard at the back of his head. Just as he neared the heavy doors of the Great Hall, he said over his shoulder,

"And once more mi'lady, my condolences. I don't know how it feels to lose all that. Sad thing is... I've never had it to lose it anyway. Sleep well, Your Grace."

How ironic, a Lannister actually apologizing for something. She kept her face in a cool mask, refusing to show just how much those rare words affected her. Who was he to make her feel this sympathy and pity for a man with a name she despised? He was nothing—overtly fortunate to be of use to her, and so she shouldn't feel obligated for any reason to take care of him. The only thing that kept him alive was the fact that Sansa's life depended on him. She was all Ellaria had, and she would damn sure make certain that her sister never had to fear for her life again, and neither would she ever leave the North.

"My lord."

Ellaria watched the men go before she turned away from the door. Her feet, on the heels of Winter's Keeper, at last carried her to her private quarters; she had done nothing to alter them from the way her parents had, a testament to their memory and her love for them. There, Ellaria waved off any maid who tried to assist her and undressed herself, as she was in no mood for the idle gossip of ninnies. She drew her own bath, and the laid down to rest with her head on her direwolf's flank until supper was ready, so much of her energy having been spent in so little time.