This story is slightly AU but still in the TV settings. None of the characters belong to me besides Aoife and her family. Please enjoy and let me know what you think.
The sun was shining through the thicket of the trees and she could hear the birds chirping above her. Aoife always loved the outdoors and her parents knew where to find her.
Most likely with a book in her small hands, her back leaned against the bark of a tree in their garden and her small nose pressed to the pages, reading about valiant knights romancing high born ladies.
"You know, if you wouldn't just bury your nose in your books, you might actually find some guy to love you and not pine for all those fictional men on the posters you keep hidden in your drawers." Coleen, her older sister said, giving her a disapproving look for having had to come out again and look for the smaller brunette.
Squinting her eyes at the red headed beauty standing over her, Aoife closed her book. "Well I'd rather be alone with my imaginative lovers than have one that is always putting it in another woman while telling me he loves me."
Of course she wasn't a naïve little girl like her sister might have thought she'd be, after all she was sixteen, only four years younger then Coleen. The brunette knew that Daniel was cheating on Coleen, but the red head was too in love to see it.
"You know nothing, Aoife, keep reading your romance novels for all I care." her older sister huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Get inside, mum is waiting with dinner for us and dad said, he wanted to tell us some important news."
Snickering, the younger girl got up from the ground, brushing grass and dirt from her bright yellow shorts and ran past the redhead, holding her well read copy of Game of Thrones, the first volume of the A song of ice and fire series. She had already gone through all five novels, but turned back to the first one again. "You sound just like Ygritt, Coleen, she said the same thing to Jon Snow."
"Who said what to whom?"
Rolling her eyes, the brunette knew that she shouldn't try to explain fandom things to her sister as there was no sense in getting angry at her sister and ruining a perfectly well family dinner. "Just forget it. Whatever did father want to tell us?"
"How should I know?" Coleen shrugged her shoulders and trudged up the stairs that lead to their home in the Irish country side.
Breathing out a soft sigh, Aoife shook her head and followed her sister, having a bad feeling regarding their family dinner.
"Ah there they are." Niall Finnigan said with a forced smile gracing his as he saw his daughters walk inside the dinning room. "Sit down."
He had been talking about it with his wife for months, both feeling that it wasn't working any more in their relationship and there was only one way to do this.
Taking their seats across from their parents, both Coleen and Aoife waited for either their father or mother to explain what was going on.
Moira nervously rubbed her palms together, looking to her husband. "Girls, your father and I, well"
"We're getting divorced. You girls will stay with your mother, unless you'd like for one of you to stay with one of us." he said, looking at the shocked looks of his two daughters.
Aoife jumped up from her seat, her eyes burning with anger. "How can you say that father? You love mother, why would you separate now?"
"Sweetling, it is for the best. We both are moving further away from each other than we can bare. I think it is the right thing to do." the older brunette said, reaching out to put her hand on her daughter's, but the teen pulled away.
Of course she had eavesdropped on one of her parents conversation, her father having told her mother about the affair he had had with one of his coworkers at the company he worked at in Dublin. That day Aoife had ran out of their house and spent the whole day in the woods surrounding their home, only when her uncle, who had visited for her sisters upcoming birthday, had come to look for her.
"I hate you, daddy. You promised to never hurt anyone of us, but now you go back on your word." she told them, a tear making its way down her cheek.
Without another word the young girl ran, not looking back as the other three members of her family tried to stop her. The brunette didn't care that the weather had changed drastically and the rain had come pouring down in buckets, thunderbolts illuminating the sky. It was like this often once a week and she was used to it living on the Emerald Isle. She only wanted to get as far away as possible from her home.
Running through the bushes and trees, she didn't care if her clothes got dirty or her exposed skin scratched up from the sharp twigs. All she wanted was to be as far away from her home as possible.
She couldn't believe how her father was able to hurt them all in that way. Reaching out, Aoife stopped abruptly and leaned against the hard bark of a tree, hard sobs taking her breath away. Shivering from the cold, the brunette teen sank down to her knees, biting her lip to keep the loud cries at bay that threatened to escape her.
The young girl often wondered how other children could cope with their parents separating. She had a friend at school, Louise, who lived with her father after her mother divorced him to marry her younger lover. She often told her that it was the best decision they made and that she was happy.
But would she be happy? Knowing her mother's heart had been broken and couldn't be repaired?
Brushing away the last remaining tears, Aoife sniffed and finally got up from the ground. She shivered from the coldness, the rain soaking through her light shorts and shirt, making the material almost see through. The air had grown colder, something that never happened in her home, at least not in the summer.
A twig snapped just ahead of her and the teen turned sharply in the direction. "Hello? Is someone there?"
Silently, a dark shadow approached her, a foreboding feeling washing over the girl as she moved back against the tree.
"Lord Stark! What have you found?" a deep voice spoke, moving a flaming torch to see what his liege was so focused on.
There against a tree leaned a young girl, clad only in her smallclothes, strange ones at that, Jory wondered. He had seen many a things in his life, but the girl that stood in front of them was a curiosity in itself.
"Where have you come from girl?" Ned Stark spoke, water dripping down his stern face, a trait most Northerners had.
"I was running away from home." Aoife spoke, her words coming out in a stutter. "It's a little cold out here actually."
Nodding his head, the lord pulled his cloak from around his shoulders, draping it over the girls smaller ones. "And where is your home, child?"
"I live in a country home just outside of Dublin. These woods are just behind our house."
Chuckling, Jory Cassel looked over to his uncle, seeing the dark look he had in his eyes. "I believe my lady you must be mistaken. I have lived in Westeros all of my life and there was never a town nor village by the name you called yours and neither of us has seen a home here in the Wolfswood."
"Westeros? Wolfswood?" she asked, pulling the warm cloak tighter around her and mumbling softly to herself. "That's impossible. It's only a story."
"My name is Eddard Stark, what are you called, child?"
Before anyone could react the brunette fainted and fell down to the cold, wet ground. The lord of Winterfell kneeled down next to her, making sure that she only lost consciousness and was still breathing.
Rodrik Cassel, the master-of-arms of Winterfell stood next to him, holding his own torch above so they could see. "We should probably take her with us. Maester Luwin should take a look at her. Maybe she has only hit her head and was confusing things. The child is cold and wet and far away from home.
Ned Stark nodded his head, scooping her in his arms and wondered at the girl lightness. He wasn't used to carrying them around any more since his own children were rather running on the grounds of the castle then swing from his arms like they used to. "You're right. Let's get out of this weather."
"Coleen! Have you found her?" Moira called to her oldest daughter, fearing the worst when Aoife ran out and the storm started. She had never seen anything like it.
Shaking her head, the redhead felt the water drip down from her nose. She hadn't been particular fond of her sisters infatuation with her book characters but wishing her gone was something that not even she would do. "No. Maybe dad did."
Just then Niall came running toward them. "Anything?"
"No. You?" his wife asked him sniffing softly from the cold rain and the tears that made their way down her reddened cheeks.
He shook his head and pulled both into his arms. When they had talked, both he and Moira had thought it best to separate and had hopped that both daughters would understand, but Aoife was always one to value family and love the most. "We'll find her. Maybe she just went to stay with one of her friends. You know how she is."
Nodding, the older brunette laid her head against her husbands shoulder, hoping their daughter would come home safely before something bad would happen to her.