Catelyn Tully Stark

Had the Seven Gods deigned to listen to Cat, the world would have been a very different place. And it would have been so much easier to live in.

If everything had gone according to Cat's plans, Lysa wouldn't have been so impossible to live with. No matter how many times someone reminded her of the Tully motto, Lysa would continue to be an air brain chasing butterflies and believing that she was allowed to. Cat had been happy when she'd learned that she had a sister; Lysa's lack of decorum left her wishing for a different sister.

If things had gone the way that Cat wanted, their stubborn father would have decided to have Petyr be honourable and marry Lysa after he'd deflowered her. And in Cat's book, that would have solved the problem of silly Lysa and Petyr the kicked puppy in one go. Cat and Edmure could put their family first, could perform their duties, could carry their honour as they carried themselves: with heads high and straight backs.

If things had gone according to Cat's plans, she would be married to Brandon Stark. Not that Ned wasn't wonderful, but in many ways he was as cold as the Wall that marked one border of his territory. Brandon had been wild, had had warmth, had been fascinating. Their marriage would have been a passionate one, publicly and privately, and Cat would have revelled in her happiness.

If the gods were following Cat's plan, Lyanna and Rhaegar would never have laid eyes on each other and started the War of the Iron Throne.

If things had gone according to Cat's plan, Robb would not remind her so painfully of his uncle Brandon. Bran would not be so like his father. Sansa would not be a second Lysa. And Arya, the most difficult pregnancy and easiest birth, would not be the reincarnation of Lyanna.

Because then Cat would not oscillate between longing for Brandon and loving Ned. She would not guard Sansa so carefully from men outside of the family, and eventually even her brothers, both by birth and adoption. She would not resent Arya and leave her to be ruined.

If things had gone according to Catelyn's plan, Sansa would have married one of the young lords of Highgarden and lived in the warm gardens of those lands. Bran would not have fallen, and would have completed his knight's training and met a lovely girl at court whose father needed a son and heir for his estates. Robb would have wed one of Walder Frey's daughters, and Cat would have been able to help raise her grandchildren. Arya would be married off to Theon Greyjoy, and would rule both him and the Iron Islands with her steel will and sharp tongue. Rickon would have grown up. Jon Snow would never have existed at all.

House Stark and House Tully would know happiness and prosperity. If everything had gone according to plan. Which, of course, it didn't and now never could.

Catelyn's slashed throat gapes and gushes lifeblood over Walder Frey's floor. Her firstborn lies in a puddle of his own blood mere feet away. Her younger sons are reported dead, Sansa is imprisoned in King's Landing, and wherever Arya is, no one can find her. Lysa has run mad in her Eyrie. Edmure is upstairs, bedding his pretty new wife. Ned is dead. Lyanna is dead. Brandon is dead. Hoster Tully is dead. Cat is close to joining them.

As she falls to the floor, she thinks she sees her younger daughter's anguished face wreathed in flames. But that, Cat thinks, is impossible. Arya, like Lyanna, like direwolves themselves, has become a myth. Pure mist, the existence of which is questionable.