Note: This is based around a rough concept comment I found while trawling Game of Thrones clips on Youtube. I decided to flesh it out a bit and add some referential spice to the whole affair. Also drawing on some of the many, many, many Freys from the books to use as redshirts before the main event. First Game of Thrones fic, too. Kinda awesome, I have to say.
I do not own Game of Thrones, or A Song of Ice and Fire. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.
The Death of House Frey
Ruling the Riverlands had not, in truth, turned out to be as enviable a position in the long-term as Walder Frey had imagined it would be, and recent events had only made it worse. The Brotherhood Without Banners, some loose coalition of deserters who ostensibly fought to protect the smallfolk, and who had paid special attention to the troops of the Lannisters after the War of the Five Kings ended at the Twins, had turned their attention towards the Freys. Ostensibly, the misfit bunch of outlaws had experienced a change in leadership, if they'd ever had any sort of leader to begin with. Now, as spies and hearsay from the smallfolk said, the Brotherhood was commanded by a woman known only as Lady Stoneheart. Under her direction, they'd shifted focus.
They still murdered bandits, still attacked the Lannister parties, still tried to protect the smallfolk, but they'd been paying special attention to the men of House Frey since Stoneheart had taken over. A week earlier, Walder had received news that the Brotherhood had captured one of his grandchildren, Petyr, and held him for a not-inconsiderable ransom. Walder had sent his ninth son, Merret, to pay the price and retrieve Petyr. Well, he'd deigned to give the boy the job; Merret had practically fallen to his knees and pleaded tearfully to be able to handle something of import for once.
A few days after Merret had ridden off with a small host of men, a single rider had returned, pale-faced and refusing to speak of what he saw, bearing the mutilated corpses of Petyr and Merret in a cart the host had not left with. The maester had noted in his examination of the bodies that Petyr had been dead for many days, likely since the note for ransom had been delivered. Ryman Frey, Petyr's father, had gathered another host of men and ridden off, intent to raze the Riverlands until he had Lady Stoneheart's head ready to set on a spike.
He'd been discovered near Fairmarket, hanging from a tree by his neck, several bits of import cut away and missing. The men he'd left with were nowhere to be found. Walder had called his own banners, and while many men had arrived at the Twins, just as many had been found dead on the road.
Walder Frey and his House were under attack, there was no doubt about it. And help, it seemed, was to come from an unlikely source.
Lord Petyr Baelish, heading for Winterfell on orders from the Queen Regent, and calling the Banners of the Vale to arms to reclaim the North from the traitorous Boltons, had sent a raven ahead. He'd offered to make a stop by the Twins as he made his way to Winterfell, perhaps leave some of the knights who would join him to aid Walder in rooting out the troublesome group that was harrying his family.
While Walder Frey certainly didn't trust the man, he could not deny that he needed aid. He'd sent a messenger on horseback to convey his acceptance of Baelish's offer, and invited to meet with him properly in the Twins to discuss the exact details, if the man could spare the time in his journey northwards.
Lord Petyr Baelish strode through the doors to the main hall of the Twins, that near-permanent smirk sitting soundly on his face. Four knights of the Vale accompanied him, though hundreds more were camped outside. At the end of the hall, all the living Freys, be they trueborn or Rivers bastards, sat assembled. The Freys weren't about to keep their necks held out for the Brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart to wrap nooses around.
Baelish simply came to a stop in the middle of the hall, between each chair and table.
"We are honored by your presence, Lord Baelish," Walder began, doing his best not to choke on the words. "And we thank you for your gracious offer of aid. Please, sit and…" Walder just waved a hand, and a servant drew back a chair, while another stepped forward with a platter of bread and salt. Baelish's smirk grew wider.
"My thanks for your reception, Lord Walder, and the offering of guest rights. Sadly, I fear I must decline. I shan't stay here long and…" Baelish paused, considering. "Well, with all due respect, Lord Walder, the last time you offered guest rights, your guests were butchered over their plates. Forgive me if I seem overly cautious, especially so if I bring insult, but my experience has taught me it's better to defend against any and all possible dangers and apologize afterwards rather than to never defend oneself at all."
He began walking again as the Freys looked at each other, utterly perplexed, and Walder silently fumed. Baelish stopped, his gaze focusing on a single spot of floor. "I also heard that your wife, well, latest wife," Baelish amended somewhat carelessly, "died as well. Terrible tragedy, to lose one you love." He let out a small chuckle, and looked up at Walder. "Though I suppose you're rather used to it by now, Lord Walder. She was… what? The ninth? Tenth?" Baalish began pacing again, and the Freys were either fidgeting nervously or holding back rage at the man before them. "I suppose, after so many, love perhaps stops being a consideration. Maybe makes it easier to weather their loss, especially in such violent circumstances." He sighed greatly, and turned to face the doors. "I once loved a woman. Loved her for most of my life, in fact. All I ever truly wanted, in all the world, was to be with her. To wake each morning with her beside me, and tell her that I loved her."
"Lord Baelish, I fail to see what-" Walder tried to interject.
"But it was not to be, sadly. I tried my best to prove myself, to prove my devotion to her, yet it was not enough." Baelish carried on over Walder, who eventually stopped. "She moved on, married another man. And as much as it tore me apart to think of her with another, some small parcel of me was glad for her sake. That she had a strong, loving husband, that she had children who loved her. That her life was happy, even if it was not a life that included me." He turned then, smiling at Walder. "It was a very, very small part of me that felt that, I assure you." He began walking towards the table again, the smile still there. If anything, it was slowly growing. "Yet, these last few months, I learned she lost all of that. One by one, she lost that which that tiny part of me was happy for to have. Her husband first, then her daughters, one by one. Her youngest boys died in agony, far away from her. Though the same is just as true of her husband and girls." Walder shifted in his seat, growing suspicious and nervous, as well as low on patience. "Eventually, all she had left was her eldest son. And before she was murdered, she lost even him. She died alone, Lord Walder." The smile had withered on his face as he spoke, any trace of it long gone. "And I imagine she might've envied you your lack of love. If your own long life and luck continue to hold, you might well die as she did. Alone." Baelish's gaze bored into Walder Frey, then he raised his hands and clapped once.
Well over a dozen knights of the Vale poured in through the doors, charging at the Frey guards still present. Taken completely by surprise, they were cut down before they could even draw their swords.
"Kill him!" Walder screamed, pointing at Baelish. "Kill-" A crashing sound made him stop short. A body had been dropped from the balcony. Another Frey soldier. His throat cut and caked in blood, his face already pale. He'd been dead for minutes, unbeknownst to all but Baelish and the knights of the Vale. More bodies tumbled over the railings of the upper levels, and Walder could see that the men there were not knights. They were something else.
"The Brotherhood Without Banners, to answer that particular question." Baelish called. "And, as to the woman I spoke of, her name was Catelyn Tully." Walder gazed at Baelish in fury, and just a bit of fear. "Now," Baelish stepped closer to the table as the knights of the Vale surrounded it, swords, spears and crossbows pointing at all those seated, making sure they remained so. "Were it up to me, you'd suffer dearly for what you did to her. I hadn't entirely decided as to how, to be honest. Drawing and quartering passed my mind. I also had a moment of fancy, to take a page from Stannis Baratheon's book, set you onto a pyre and burn you alive. No offering to some Light god, of course. I'd do it purely for the agony of the thing."
The smile was back, in earnest now. Walder was certain he could see Baelish's teeth. "However, it is not up to me, Walder. It's up to Lady Stoneheart." Bealish waved a hand in the direction of the doors and held it there, as a young woman wearing a hooded cloak over a black dress collared with raven feathers walked through the doors, flanked by several men. Chief among them was a man with bandages covering one eye and a great collection of scars visible even with armor, and a man who was almost certainly Thoros of Myr, if the flaming sword clutched in his fist was any indication.
Lady Stoneheart walked forward and stood before the table. She reached up and pulled back her hood, and in that moment, Walder Frey realized truly what he faced, and felt fear like he never had before.
Gazing at him could have been Catelyn Tully in her youth, though a fair bit more beautiful than the real Catelyn had ever been. Stoneheart's beauty, however, was marred by hardness. The set of her face, her expression, spoke of a woman who had seen and survived far more in barely a year than a thousand of the most desperate men and women did in all their lifetimes. It spoke of the dreams of youth, of happiness, of hope itself, dashed to pieces again and again. Her face reflected her new name in truth. Her face, her heart, had become stone, hardened by a cruel world that hounded her without relent.
But it was her eyes that were the most terrible thing. Her eyes saw him, and they hated.
Edmure knelt in the dirt road before the Twins, holding a wailing Roslin in his arms. He'd been at the table, though his hands beneath it had been shackled, and he'd hurled himself across it, thrown himself on his knees before his niece. He'd begged for mercy, not for himself, but for his wife, who had played no part in the slaughter of his sister and nephew. Who had spent more time with him in his cell beneath the earth than with her father and many siblings. Who had expressed her horror at what her father had done because Robb Stark had spurned him. Who had cried for them that very night, and cried in terror of her father's wrath if she should have given him away. Who was with child, his child.
A part of Edmure, most of him in truth, was still amazed he and Roslin yet lived. He remembered Sansa…Stoneheart, as he pleaded. She'd simply looked at him, at Roslin. Her face unchanged from when she'd cowed Walder. Her eyes showed not an ounce of pity. He had been certain, so certain, that he and Roslin were to join the rest of the Freys. He took a shuddering glance back the ruins of the Twins. Fire burned within the Twins, consuming everything and everyone still within. All the other Freys, from Walder to the youngest Rivers, hung in nooses, strung from the tops of the towers. The armies of House Frey, assembled as a precaution against the Brotherhood Without Banners and with intent to wipe them out, lay slaughtered around their tables and in their tents, butchered by the Brotherhood and the knights of the Vale that had remained waiting outside, ready to pounce upon the unsuspecting.
Edmure returned his gaze to the mass of knights and warriors beginning to get back on the road. At the force that was now to move on Winterfell, home of the Starks, occupied by the Boltons, though given recent events, Edmure was unsure who among the Boltons could possibly still live. Edmure gazed at Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale, who'd spat upon guest rights as sure as Walder ever had. At Beric Dondarrion, who he was certain had taken a bolt through his covered eye as they exited the main hall, and who Thoros of Myr had raised from the dead, seemingly little worse for wear.
Most of all, though, Edmure could not tear his gaze from the terrifying visage of his niece. Sansa Stark, Lady Stoneheart, the woman who with a single command had reduced one of the most powerful Houses in the Riverlands to burning, twitching ruin.
So, yeah. Doesn't make a ton of sense in terms of who's where and doing what currently in the show, but it was such an awesome idea I had to do it anyways. I also melded in some book bits (that line about the eyes of Lady Stoneheart is lifted almost verbatim from the books, as are the Freys that Stoneheart kills before Baelish comes to the Twins, and her character itself, while not at all Sansa in the books (like, not even close to being Sansa), Stoneheart is a character I've hoped Sansa in the show apes a bit of as she gains and regains her agency, gets to playing the Game and getting even for her family). There are other book bits in here, but to confirm what is and isn't also drawn from the parts of the book(s) the show hasn't caught up with or shown yet would potentially spoil things for the show-watchers. So I'll just leave things as: this was really fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.