A Stark Family Adventure

Disclaimer: all of the characters belong to their respective owners.

Across the multiverse…

…At a time that was quite some time before King Robert, the First of His Name, and the rest of his entourage came to the North, Bran Stark, not yet a Three-Eyed Raven, a Greenseer, or a lot of other things, but just the middle son of the Lord Neddard and Lady Catelyn Stark, went to climb a tree, since at that time, he wasn't anywhere near paralyzed.

And so, up a tree he went, almost as quickly as any squirrel would. What he found, however, was no squirrel, but rather a Westerosi marten, an animal similar in size and appearance to an American marten, (rather than a fisher, for example). It looked cute, but was actually rather nervous: even in Westeros, humans would hunt them for their fur to keep themselves warm in winter. As such, while Bran was certainly excited to meet a new furry friend, (he was that sort of a boy at that moment, after all), and a cute one that, the marten was certain unhappy and scared to meet a human being in its tree – and while it was smaller than its' badger and wolverine cousins, it still had their temper…

"You're so fluffy!" Bran declared brightly, failing to realize that the pressed down ears and exposed teeth of the animal implied that he should leave ASAP instead. "Nice to meet you! I'm Bran!" and he tried to tickle its' chin, (the way that his lady mother would do to him, if he behaved especially nicely, and not like, say, Arya would).

Things went downhill from there, as you never try to establish physical contact with a wild animal…

/ / /

"Robb!" Lord Stark exclaimed sometime later, as the eldest Stark son returned with the one in the middle. "Did you find Bran? What took you so long? And why do you look so rough?"

(Lord Stark's atypical behavior came from the fact that his family was due for a visit from some other noble dignitary or other, so he was feeling the pressure from his wife, and it showed).

Instead of replying, Robb just thrust his brother in question forwards, complete with the marten, which was still clamping Bran's wrist in its jaws with all the intensity of a vise.

"Mama! Papa!" Bran wailed…more from fear than from pain – yet. "I'm stuck!"

"Robb! How could you not help your brother?" lady Stark yelled at their eldest with a volume that could easily match Bran's – say what you would about her, but she had a reddish-brown temper to match her hair, after all.

Robb just shot their parents a dirty look, which they ignored. Actually, he had a good reason for not helping Bran – Bran had found him first, if by calling the fall of a dirty, yelling, flailing mess right onto Robb's…lap a finding or a discovery. Robb would not call it anything, because the impact proved to be quite sore for him, so he was not entirely sure if he should utter some sort of a dirty swear word that he had invented on that occasion, or make a whining sound of pain, (something like 'Hwee'!). As such, he said nothing, while his father moved towards Bran to remove the 'stuck', (or more appropriately – the adhered) marten from the boy's wrist before the damage became irreversible.

The marten is a cousin to the weasel too, but apparently it wasn't as bloodthirsty as the smaller animal is: it took one good look at the approaching lord Stark, weighted its options, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor, here: it released Bran's wrist and bolted across the Stark courtyard, right past the spot where Arya was sneaking peeks at what was going on.

"Yee!" Arya yelped in a manner that was very much Sansa-like: at this moment in time, both Stark sisters had more similarities in their characters than they would later, as they would grow apart… Right now, though, Arya yelled and fell flat on her butt instead.

"Robb, help your sister," lord Stark said curtly, as he began to lead Bran to their maester, while Robb managed an equally curt laugh despite his soreness. That was actually a mistake, as Arya was already demonstrating a different character from Sansa: she immediately got back onto her feet, marched over to Robb, and hit him right in the sore spot on his body.

"…" Robb spoke the curse that he had invented, when Bran had fallen onto it, even as the pain from Arya's blow forced him to fold like a rusty door-hinge. "…" he repeated it right into Arya's innocent, pink, maidenly ears. (Remember, this was the time before Arya became an orphan and learned some very rough sides of life despite her own resiliency and toughness).

However, even at this state in life, Arya's eye lit-up in deceptively child-like wonder: "…" she repeated Robb's curse, all but tasting it. "I love it! I think I will use at it dinner tonight – yeee!"

The last part came from the fact that lady Stark may've had a temper of her own, but regardless she was a woman of certain views, and right now those views led her to grab both Robb and Arya by the ears and march them off to the local bathroom, (or to whatever was in place of bathrooms in Westeros), in order to wash their mouths out with soap, (or with whatever passed for soap in Westeros, again).

…Lord Stark looked at his eldest son and youngest daughter, who were being led by his wife (and their mother, cough Jon Snow cough) for their punishment, looked at his middle son, who was currently being treated by their maester, and sighed:

"If any person of any significance ever comes to us from the south, we're doomed," he told no one in particular.

PS: And the marten fully intended to return to the wild woods where Bran found it, when it, instead, discovered the Stark family poultry, and immediately re-thought its' plans, and decided that its' confrontation with the Stark family deserved a sequel.

End