It was lightly snowing. A bone chilling breeze sweep through the camp filled with naught but fire, men, and fur. He walked by the palisades, the latrines, among the tents of soldiers of high stations and bedrolls of the common soldiers. He walked by the medical tents of the wounded and the baggage trains.
His head swam; however, he did not feel the weight of the blasted crown upon his brow. He must have forgotten it in his drunkenness. He did not need it. He had made it a point to be seen by many of his soldiers. They would fight harder if they saw their king among them his bannermen told him. He believed his Father would have advised the same. He kept this in mind as he was watched warily. Some smiled, some pointed nervously, some moved their hands just a little closer towards their weapons, and some bowed before him. Some did not notice him. He was broad of shoulder but light on his foot. Between the crackle of the fires, the bustle of the camp and the icy breeze sweeping through the camp striking up flurries and a need to pull the furs closer he was as silent as he was light footed.
A light dusting of snow covered his dark hair. He was not cold. Not after the amount he had drunk. Furs clung to him tightly.
"You shouldn't be wondering about." A voice called from behind him. He turned but he confused his step. Staggering he put one foot in front of the other but it was still wrong.
To his front stood the woman. A spiked mace upon her with the fur of a bear. She looked towards him with a mixture of anxiety and relief. She had never seen him drunk. It was not a vice in which he partook in. Ever. The weight of all lives of all the Northmen in the camp rested on him. The weight of the injustice done to his father rested upon him. He couldn't allow himself to betray them. It would have done them all a dishonor to try and forget.
It was not something he could forget. Knowing how his father died and his sisters' ongoing torment at the hands of the Lannisters did not bring him grief. It brought him rage. An icy raged that frosted his heart in ways he did not know were possible. When he was a boy and told stories of the atrocities wildings were capable and how the Boltons used to flay live men by Old Nan. He questioned her. He questioned his father and his mother. How people could be so cruel to their fellow man? To their neighbor? It burned him with a passion and it made him love his father all the more for living honorably without guilt. Always treating the common man with respect and fairness. Enforcing the law equally be it lord or commoner. Helping those less fortunate and giving mercy to those who regretted heinous crimes.
Were the boy of his past able to sense what lay within his heart he would not say it is the heart of a man. But the heart of a beast with naught but hatred and the desire for carnage.
His father's death and his sisters' torment did not instill in him the need to drink. It instilled in him the desire to sit before his war table. Considering each and every route. Every possibility. Every way for him to make his enemies bleed until they could bleed no more. And he had largely done it. The Westerlands were in chaos. He had done unto them what they had done to the Riverlands many times over. Castles were left destroyed. Their larders taken in his hard push westward towards the jewel of the West. Casterly Rock.
Tywin Lannister marched to save King's Landing from Stannis's naval invasion believing the west would be protected by the mountainous terrain of the Golden Tooth and the auxiliary army that Stefford Lannister had raised. Robb had made him pay dearly for that mistake. The regroup Riverlander army fortified itself and their lands as he ravaged the west.
He gave mercy to those who surrendered their castles without fighting. He let them live with measures of dignity as his prisoners. Behind him the lands salted and burned. He did not need to put the small folk to the sword. He had already done that when he smashed them while they were conscripted into defensive levies. Barely trained. Incapable of holding a line and pulled freshly from their farms and mother's arms. He had seen Grey Wind rip the arm off a boy younger than Bran. Likely a squire to a landless knight in the first defensive line. Maybe a squire to a unlucky Lannister knight.
The nameless boy had seen him from a distance. Even with the chaos of the battle and Stark banners stretching across the distance. Horns blasting the beat of the assault. He had known that the man astride the horse had been him. It would have been impossible to mistake him with another Northerner, not with Grey Wind next to him. His bannermen told him he was the stuff of nightmares to the people of the Westerlands, both commoner and nobleman alike. He knew it was in part flattery. He also knew that it was true.
Maybe during the assault his men had taken pity and ignored the boy. Maybe when the Lannister's first line of defense broke he had slipped between the furs of the Northmen.
He had come fast. His eyes full of fear. But something else too. Excitement. Hope. Maybe he wanted a reward. Maybe he just wanted the war to be over so he could return to his family. Robb thought his eyes changed fast, nearly as fast as Grey Wind barreled into his side. The small sword in his hand becoming a weapon in a different way as it flew through the air. Blood flying across men of the North already soaked in the youth of the Westerlands.
A boy no younger than Bran, no older than 10. Arm flying through the air. Throat gouged and ripped out and ribs crushed by the wolf, many times his own weight. Robb imagined his eyes changed. He did not look into them as his his horse passed over the corpe. He did however notice how the redness of the blood blended with the crimson tabard the boy wore.
He did not feel guilt or shame. Only resolve.
The knowledge that his brother's bodies were swinging above the gates of Winterfell had fractured that resolve. He could win all the best battles, but it would not matter if he lost all of the worse ones. The heart of the North had been sacked and burned. His brothers put to the sword of no common man, but a man whom he had considered a brother and would have defended as a brother.
Theon Greyjoy. The name. The person. The betrayal. It all brought such wroth to his mind that was incapable of control. He burned. He had felt such anger and hatred after news of his Father's death that he could scarce feel anything else.
With this he could scarce know anything else. It was all encompassing. Blindingly radiant hatred with crimson pouring from the holes within his heart. It took all he had not to kill every Lannister captive that he held. Few things would have brought him joy so great and fewer thing yet could bring him such relief.
It made his head hurt. However, it was pain of mind that caused him to take the first drink. Nor the second or third. Nor any of the ones after. It was the rage. It was consuming him. He had to quell it, to conquer it. If not with his own willpower than with the help of drink.
And it was with his brothers' corpses still swinging that it was not the pain of their death that had brought him to this point, to this brink. It had done a great deal. There was no doubt about it. But no, it was the pain of his failures. His failure to them. His failure to the North. His failure as their King. As the King in the North. He was to protect it and yet he foolishly unleashed the worst possibly enemy upon it
Dacey called. He staggered again.
"Come" she encouraged. Gesturing towards him. He followed. She did not talk and he was thankful for that much.
She led towards to his tent. There were quiet murmurs from the men of the camp as they walked. His head hurt too much to understand what they were saying. But he had ideas and it would do it him no good. Dacey Mormont may have borne the sigil of the bear but she was a comely and attractive woman nonetheless. Were he not betrothed he may have asked her if any of the Mormonts had slept with wolves. However, the last thing he needed was a scandal to erupt. A King walking alone through the camp with naught but a pretty high-born daughter of the North was bound to spread. Especially since he was following her like a puppy.
He cursed himself. He cursed his weakness. 'Dammit,' he shouted in mind. The rage came back. Pushing past the drunkenness for a moment. An alertness swept through him during this moment. The bright light of the torches forcing him to squint away. The pungent smell of the long unwashed and long bloodied camp nearly causing him to retch. His stomach leaped through the air before falling freely.
Worse yet his thoughts jumping and leaping at him like trout out of a fresh spring stream like his mother had described in some of her glowing tales of her childhood in the Riverlands.
He did not need this as much as he did not need a scandal. He closed his eyes and willed his thoughts to bay.
'Become as cold as Winter,' he repeated to himself. It was a mantra he had taken up. The Stark kings of old were characterized the most by Old Nan as possessing great stoicism. He had never thought that the stories he had raptly listen to around the fireplace with Jon would become a pillar of his strength.
He missed those times. Simply living their lives as carefree boys. Pressing each other in the training yard. Exploring the recesses of Winterfell and playing in the Godswoods.
Finally, they had arrived. He scantily noticed as he hurried inside. The warmth of the tent was not relieving however. It was stuffy and moist. He saw his mother wringing a cloth over a bucket before wetting it again and moving to the bed.
He saw himself on the bed, flushed and breathing deeply but evenly. He looked down and he saw paws and not legs. He had not realized that he had warged into Grey Wind. Every previous time he had been watching through Grey Wind's eyes or had it within the backdrop of his consciousness, never in control but able to encourage certain actions. Never fully in control.
As he moved towards the furs next to the bed he questioned whether he was rumored as. A monster.