Lucy: The Beginning

As the world falls apart around us

All we can do is hold on

All stories have beginnings, but when stories merge, when one absorbs another, it becomes difficult to tell what's the beginning of one tale and the end of another. My story is no different: a narrative inside of an adventure, wrapped in an anecdote served with a side of tragedy. Actually, make that a course of tragedy. Screw that- tragedy is the whole meal. My whole life has been a tragedy since the Red Wedding. Maybe that's where I should begin...but then again, it all started long before that.

The Starks were good friends with my family. My father, Ned Stark, and Robert Baratheon had all been fraternity brothers. They were hazed together, played together, partied together, almost failed college together- they were inseparable. After college, Ned and my dad built themselves a small business empire while Robert relied on his looks, his family money, and his booze. They were some of the worlds most powerful men- drowning in money and dabbling in politics. Eventually, they all got married- Robert twice- and had a bunch of kids.

My father and mother had four: Peter, Susan, Edmund and finally me, Lucy.

Robert tied my dad for number of kids; one with his first wife, a boy named Gendry, and three with his second wife: Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen.

Ned beat them both with six kids: five from his wife and one...not. Oldest to youngest, they were Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon.

So I grew up both rich and with "built-in" friends- my siblings and my father's friends' children. People used to tell me how lucky I was, but truth be told, it wasn't that great. Robb, Gendry, Jon, Peter, Edmund- even little Bran, Tommen and Rickon- would wrestle and run around. The older boys would play basketball or football, always Jon and Rob verses Peter and Edmund, with Gendry joining whatever side he felt like that day. Bran, Tommen and Rickon would watch on, join in or start their own little game. Arya and I were always desperate to play with them, but none of the mothers would let us. We used to try and appeal to the fathers, but they would shake their heads in unison and Robert would tell us to go play with Sansa and Susan.

Sansa and Susan: now there was a pair made in heaven. Both were poised, soft-spoken, delicate young ladies. Company parties were filled with good natured arguments of which of the two was more lovely, more charming, more beautiful. They spent their school nights studying studiously and their weekends at school events and parties. They could french braid each others hair in two minutes flat, knew the latest trends in makeup and fashion and spent hours entertaining Myrcella, playing princess and pop star.

Since we couldn't play with the boys, would rather die than play with the girls-and both of us hated Joffrey- that left Arya and I to play on our own. While Susan and Sansa were Myrcella's ladies-in-waiting, Arya and I were brave knights rescuing the villagers from dragons. We would practice sword fighting with sticks, wade through the nearby creek and see who could climb trees faster. My mother wouldn't let us play with the boys because they were too rough, yet it was Arya and I who came into the house filthy and bloody. Even as a child, the irony wasn't lost on me.

And life pretty much went on, more or less like that, for most of my childhood. Then Robert died. I was ten, Arya was eight.

Apparently he and Cersei (his second wife and major bitch) had been fighting quite a lot. Robert hadn't really been a one-woman sort of guy since Gendry's mom died and Cersei was creepily close to her family, especially her twin brother. So Robert had been sleeping around and Cersei had been...well, herself and Robert had turned to his good old hooch , drinking himself to death. Though I had never really liked Robert, he was one of my father's best friends, so the loss was devastating to our family. I still remember Robert's funeral- it was the only time I'd ever seen my father cry. To make things worse, Cersei refused to take custody of Gendry and he was sent to live with some uncle I never heard of. He was twelve at the time.

Though it was sad, Robert's death seemed insignificant. The only change was that we didn't see Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen anymore. No one had heard a word from Gendry. Our lives moved forward. Arya and I saw our first PG-13 movie with our fathers. Robb won a full-ride scholarship for football and was engaged by his junior year of university. Jon joined the military, much to Arya's great sorrow. Susan was Homecoming Queen and Sansa was Prom Queen. Bran fell while climbing and broke both his legs, leaving everyone to wonder if he would ever walk again (the doctors told the Starks "only time would tell").

It's true what they say- day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.

I watched the world slowly fell to pieces around me; whispers of White Walkers filled the air, but everyone shushed the subject and pretended things were normal because that's what you were supposed to do. People began to disappear around The Wall, but Sansa and Susan had their double date nights. Conspiracies and blame flew about, but Ned and my father watched football like it was any other Sunday. I was beginning to go mad, believing I was the only one who felt something… something just wrong, deep in my gut when late one night, Arya confided in me she feel so afraid, but she didn't know why or of what. I tried to comfort her, but I couldn't- for the first time, I realized I was terrified of whatever was happening to our world.

Then came the Red Wedding.

I honestly don't remember much. One minute I had been dancing with Peter, the next, gunshots filled the air. Peter threw me to the ground. My father fell, his chest opened by lead. Edmund grabbed me, a man grabbed Susan. I tripped over Robb Stark's body, Rickon was being hauled out over Peter's shoulders. I found Arya in the hallway, looking distantly at the body that lay in front of her with a dinner knife sticking out of the chest. I grabbed her hand- there was blood on it. Somehow we made it to the car: Peter, Edmund, Arya, Rickon and I. Peter sped away, crying and trying to explain that the Lannisters must have taken control of the government and wanted to eliminate any competition or resistant to their power before it conspiracies weren't conspiracies anymore, they were fact.

A sudden shift in control could only mean emergency protocol had been activated; there could only be one cause. The Wall had been breached. The White Walkers were coming for us all.

I was fourteen years old.