Margaery had never seen snow before nor had she ever seen a ghost.
Surveying the sprinkling of pale glimmers on her leather gloves, Margaery attempted conversation again: "How fascinating. Snow. It's easy to get lost amidst all this whiteness, I won't blame you. Are you lost?"
She knew that the boy leaning against a charred wall of Winterfell was a ghost. Everything about him looked washed out, as if a painter had scrubbed a damp cloth across a recently-wet picture. The boy's mop of hair was a faint auburn. His eyes were the blue of stagnant water. And his skin was a dull grey.
Margaery had asked him his name. She figured that she shouldn't be frightened: after all he had been a living man like her, once, and she had seen worse dead-things than ghosts. But he wouldn't talk. Perhaps he couldn't talk.
But now he shook his head at Margaery's question. A small turn to the right, an even smaller turn to the left.
No, he was not lost.
"That's good," encouraged Margaery, and took her time in staring back at him. He looked like a man grown, though, six-and-ten perhaps or a bit older, but not older than Margaery's one-and-twenty. He was broad across the shoulders, and tall. If he had lived to be as old as Margaery was he could have been taller.
"It's good that you're not lost," Margaery said, and with a wry smile added, "However, I think I am."
He slightly tilted his head. Margaery huddled deeper into her cloak and joined him where he was stood. Bristly shadows of fire's remnants ran across that wall of the Guards Hall, but there was no warmth left on it when Margaery leaned against it. From there they could see the heap of snow-cloaked rubbles that was an entire wall of a very old tower, what Sansa Stark called the First Keep.
From there Margaery could see Winterfell, deserted, with only stone and snow and a ghost. And, occasionally, a direwolf.
Were there other ghosts around?
"I meant," Margaery continued, "I meant that I never imagined to find myself north. I never imagined to end up – here." She tilted her head to look up at the ghost, and found him solemnly looking back at her.
"Here," she repeated. A mild frosty wind stirred the edges of her hood. "Not necessarily the place – but – I was meant to be queen. I," Margaery said, and was appalled at the slight tremble in her voice.
How could she explain it? Why was she bothering to explain it? Margaery could barely admit it in the privacy of her mind.
She was meant to be queen, and she had been queen thrice. Margaery was meant to be the queen that the Seven Kingdoms cheered for and loved, the queen fit to bring honours to House Tyrell, the queen whose bloodline would sit the Iron Throne for all the lifetimes to come.
But wars and winter had come.
Westeros was so quiet now. So strange and surreal in its quietness, blanketed by a thick winter, a lean and bleary fog having had descended on its people. What everyone seemed to care about now was how to survive the cold and the vast quietness. And somehow Margaery had found herself at the crossroads near the riverlands, after seeking refuge in the impenetrable castle of Riverrun, and eventually she had trailed along after Sansa Stark and her half-brother when they had passed by on their way back to the North.
One morning when they had just passed the Twins, Margaery woke up to find the ghost sitting by their fire. He had not been with them before. Margaery had assumed that he attached himself to a party for refuge and support, like a lot of people were doing, like what Margaery was doing.
But everything had been so quiet. When Margaery had attempted to engage him in conversation, Sansa Stark gently laid a hand on Margaery's arm and murmured that Margaery must be seeing things in her hunger.
Everything was still quiet now. There were no comforting murmurs from Father or Mother or Grandmother, no noises from Margaery's brothers, no laughter from her cousins. Even the colours in Winterfell were hushed: white and grey and dark grey. Margaery longed for dewy reds and lush greens and for flowers and fruits, and thought that she didn't envy Sansa Stark who was queen over vast silence and emptiness, queen of what must surely be the first of the seven hells.
Finally Margaery said, "I was meant to be the queen. It was all meant for me. I barely started and – and then it was all gone."
Her voice was brittle and loud in the grey and white quiet of the yard.
Margaery cleared her throat. "I do not even know if you understand what I am saying."
The ghost only tilted his head, and Margaery thought that his eyes looked sad.
Moons later, and people barely trickled back to the stronghold that was Winterfell. When they did come, to seek shelter and to help, and perhaps even to lend a sense of continuity in offering their service to Queen Sansa, it would only be a short while before they were pulling on their boots to leave again. Margaery knew that it was because of the strange sounds.
The strange sounds had not always been there, though.
At first it was only Queen Sansa and her half-brother, called Lord Jon out of courtesy, who rattled around the enormous castle. Queen Sansa and Lord Jon had firewood chopped through the first few people who had come, and candles made, and some game hunted in the snows.
But as these people left the castle for winter town, it was left to Margaery and to the direwolf to gather food. Ghost – and was that name not funny – who was Lord Jon's direwolf, was the size of a pony and could hunt by himself.
Margaery did their trading with the establishments of winter town outside the castle walls. She even foraged for wolfberries in the godswood and in the yards, and she welcomed the company of the ghost. The castle was always so quiet, but even though the ghost was just as silent he still responded to her.
Mostly, though, the ghost stuck by Queen Sansa's side and consequently by Lord Jon's as well.
One mid-morning when Margaery thought that she might go mad with all the quietness and asked the ghost to accompany her and refresh himself from the Starks' company, the ghost vehemently shook his head.
"The queen and Lord Jon can't see you," Margaery reminded him. "They don't know you're here."
But the ghost only frowned, and shook his head some more. Margaery supposed that he liked hovering by Queen Sansa during the morning and most of the afternoon, and no one could steer him from this course.
Margaery thus spent many an afternoon sewing woolen blankets in Queen Sansa's solar and exchanging looks with the ghost, who would be hovering by the queen's chair. The queen's auburn head would be bent over some sewing or some household rolls, and beside her chair would be Lord Jon's chair and he too would be preoccupied about something and utterly unaware of the ghost.
Margaery always sat apart from the two of them. Queen Sansa had assured her that she was welcome in Winterfell, but Margaery knew that as she had ghosts of her own so did they.
There were three pairs of woolen socks that Queen Sansa had sewn that she kept waiting on a side table in her solar.
There were three arbitrary days in the past year when Queen Sansa had set one more place on the table, and on each day Lord Jon had briefly closed his eyes and reached for the queen's hand.
Margaery had seen Queen Sansa mix and stir a salve for Lord Jon's "stab wounds," and Margaery knew not to ask.
And so Margaery let them be as they let her be. She would make herself comfortable in her chair and finish her task, occasionally glancing at the queen's auburn head bent close to Lord Jon's dark head, and with the ghost determinedly not leaving his place by their side.
Sometimes the ghost would pace around the Starks' chairs, peering down at their work and nodding his head thoughtfully. Other times he would just sit on the empty chair beside them, put one ghostly elbow on the armrest, and survey the queen and Lord Jon with rather wistful eyes.
But then on one such afternoon, they were interrupted when some men brought home the body of Queen Sansa's lady mother.
Lady Catelyn Tully, the Lady Stark, their king's mother, those men called her. She had died in the riverlands, the men said, died where she had been born. But even in death – and here the men paused, looked away from the wrapped body, and shivered – even in death the memory of the riverlands had not been as kind to her as it had presumably been kind to her in girlhood.
The men would not let Queen Sansa see the body, to spare her apparently, but the queen demanded to see. She did so with a quiet heavy timbre in her cold voice, her back stiff in that drafty entrance hall.
Lord Jon moved closer so that his shoulder was almost touching Queen Sansa's, and Margaery saw how the ghost gently clasped the queen's wrist. As if to tug her away or perhaps to steady her.
And that was when Margaery understood who the ghost was.
But at that same moment the men unfolded and lifted the coarse cloth from the body, and Margaery had to look away.
She kept looking away as the men, on Queen Sansa's word, explained what happened to Lady Catelyn Tully in death. They uttered words like river and naked and three days, the lord of light and brotherhood without banners, stoneheart.
Queen Sansa was very quiet. She sounded her usual gentle self when she made instructions to where her lady mother should be laid to rest.
Later that evening the quiet was shattered.
The queen and Lord Jon had retreated into the kitchen to prepare supper. Margaery was sewing her treasured red thread on the hem of her cloak and softly chattering to the ghost of Robb Stark about roses in Highgarden – when they heard a crash.
In the cavernous kitchen they found a supper halfway prepared, and Queen Sansa smashing pots and plates and cutlery across the flagstones. She was screaming, yelling in a broken way, and a wild-eyed Lord Jon was attempting to calm her.
In the dimly-lit kitchen Margaery thought she saw tears on the queen's cheeks but when Lord Jon managed to clamp his arms around the queen and the queen grabbed onto his arms, Margaery definitely saw the anger in Queen Sansa's clawed hands.
And then.
Queen Sansa's yelling turned angrier. Rasping, snarling, horribly livid yells. Ripping sounds as her gown burst into ribbons. Her shadow across the walls loomed larger.
Robb Stark darted towards them and tried to grab Lord Jon away.
Margaery was already dashing out of the kitchen doors when a gigantic white blur streaked past her.
There was now hair-raising howling in the kitchen, and sounds of more broken pots and brass, and shouts and pleadings of Lord Jon. And then the bang of the doors, muffling the awful howling inside.
When Margaery managed to catch her breath, the moonlit snow on the yard glittering and blurring at edges of her vision, she turned around and saw Lord Jon slumped against the kitchen doors. There were gashes on his cheek and arms, and his long Stark face was crumpled. Robb Stark was stood over him, alternating his sad eyes between his half-brother and the doors.
Not one of them dared speak as they stood vigil in the smithy from across the kitchen, not even Margaery, as the sounds of Queen Sansa's grief and fury echoed in the winter night.
In the first grey light of the morning Lord Jon warily opened one of the kitchen doors. They found Queen Sansa sleeping, curled up on the floor and the direwolf Ghost curled up around her.
"Her Grace needs food and rest," Margaery said at once, and briskly removed her cloak to cover the queen's nakedness. "My lord," she addressed Lord Jon, "needs to clean those wounds. We need to be there for Her Grace when she awakes."
Late in the afternoon, Margaery decided to pick more wolfberries to preserve whilst they waited for the queen to awake. Robb Stark walked with her, leaving Lord Jon by the queen's bedside and Ghost prowling outside the queen's chambers.
"I'm not frightened, don't worry," Margaery told Robb Stark. She plucked a particularly plump wolfberry, dusted snow off it, and put it in her basket. "In the south we call this place a den of wolves."
She smirked up at Robb Stark, but he only blinked at her.
Margaery moved over to another bush, carefully wending her way around the ruins of the glass gardens. "I'm not frightened because I already got unbearably tired of being frightened."
Imprisonment by the Faith. More wars. Shut in castles and thinking that it was the end of the world and that she would die barely a queen. The worse dead-things from a more sinister winterland.
"You know," Margaery said, "it just struck me that we are of the same age, are we not, Your Grace? And if things had been different, if you had only managed to take King's Landing and kill Joffrey Baratheon – you could have been king like how King Robert became king. And I could have been your queen. You were a king anyway, and eldest-born. I was born to be queen. I wish it happened that way. I wish we could have put everything right. I wish – I wish –"
Robb Stark made a movement, and when Margaery looked down she saw him take her hand and gently squeeze it. Margaery felt nothing. But the sight startled her enough that she almost dropped the basket on the unkempt snow-covered ground of the garden.
Recovering herself, Margaery hung the basket's handle around her arm. The wicker coils dug into layers of her clothes to press onto her skin, heavy with the weight of wolfberries.
This was now, Margaery thought, as the wicker coils pressed more heavily, more solidly, so that she had to support the base of the basket with her other hand.
Wishing was useless unless she could do something to make the wish real. If Margaery wanted to be queen, Grandmother had always said, then Margaery and her family should do something so that she could be queen.
Margaery should stop wishing to rewrite the past. Here she was, now, here.
She looked up into Robb Stark's eyes again. "I wish I could improve my fruit-preserving skills," she told him. Robb Stark's eyes were faded but she could still see a kindness in them, so Margaery found a smile crawling up her stiff cheeks. "Have you ever wished you were better in improving fruit, Your Grace?"
Robb Stark inclined his head, the corners of his lips faintly tugging up.
They spent the rest of the afternoon amidst the ruins of the glass gardens, the wide glass panes dully glinting with the reflection of the grey skies, the plants with hard dry curled up from the snowy earth, and Robb Stark silently pointing out wolfberry bushes.
Softly, almost under her breath, Margaery started to sing.
Margaery found Lord Jon pouring ale into a jug in the queen's solar.
Lord Jon made adequately good ale for the three of them, but to hear Queen Sansa hum with each sip you would think it was the best ale in all of the Seven Kingdoms.
"Has Her Grace awoken?" Margaery asked, lowering her hood and lowering her basket onto the floor.
By her side, Robb Stark was intently waiting for the answer as well.
Lord Jon nodded yes, picked up the jug of ale, and led the way to the queen's chambers.
It was a chamber of brooding shadows and tasteful furniture. Most of the walls were covered with a tapestry depicting a sprawling Northern godswood, and beneath the red leaves of the weirwood Queen Sansa was sat on a carved chair, huddled in grey furs, the skin beneath her eyes smudged dark.
Margaery and Robb Stark paused by the threshold as Lord Jon approached Queen Sansa with soft measured steps. Lord Jon crouched by the queen's feet and then, in a voice as soft and measured as his steps, convinced her to drink.
When the queen absently lifted her head, her eyes distant for some heartbeats before she seemingly recognised Lord Jon, Margaery knew that now was not the time to visit.
She was promptly proven correct when Queen Sansa's eyes widened and she took Lord Jon's face between her own scratched hands. There was a red puffy gash from the corner of Lord Jon's left eye stretching down to the corner of his mouth. Queen Sansa started shaking her head, looking down on Lord Jon with misty shadowed eyes, and Lord Jon started to shake his head as well, clasping the wrists which were cradling his head and murmuring reassuringly that he did not blame the queen.
Margaery started to discreetly back out of the chamber.
And then Lord Jon laid his cheek against Queen Sansa's lap, almost as if he were beseeching her to believe that he trusted her.
Queen Sansa had given him his name, thought Margaery. She imagined that for a born bastard like Lord Jon, nothing was as close to being reborn as reversing your bastard colours at last.
Margaery glanced at Robb Stark and found that he had already looked away from his siblings. There was a resigned droop to his shoulders as he slowly walked out of the chamber.
Not missing a beat, Margaery softly closed the door on the quiet of the queen's chamber: on Lord Jon breathing steadily against the queen's lap, on Queen Sansa's wet eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair, on the silent weirwood tapestry over the both of them.
Margaery started embroidering flowers on her sewing tasks. There would be roses on the table cloths, poppies on the solar curtains, tulips on the tea cloths. There would also be clumps of grapes on some blankets.
When Margaery brandished the table napkins embroidered with rolling apples, cheerfully saying, "I am bringing spring to this castle," Queen Sansa laughed and even Lord Jon smiled.
Robb Stark grinned at her, warm in his faded face, and he watched the three of them eat a modest supper of lamb stew and lumpy bread. He gestured at Margaery's stew, and Margaery had to wait until they were alone in her chambers before she could ask him without appearing to be talking to thin air.
"Do you like lamb stew?"
He shook his head.
"Do you not like lamb?"
He shook his head.
"Oh, why not." Margaery paused in trimming her hood with precious red thread. "Let me think. Is it the taste?"
It turned out to be the fact that Robb Stark found sheep adorable.
When Margaery laughed, loud and delighted, a wide and easy grin swept across Robb Stark's face and Margaery couldn't help but appreciate how handsome he was.
She learned many things about Robb Stark in this way. Margaery learned how Robb Stark had trained with Lord Jon as soon as they could walk. How his lord father used to gather Robb Stark and his siblings before a hearth and tell them stories. How Robb Stark and Lord Jon had conspired to dress Lord Jon up as a ghost and scare their siblings in the crypts. How Robb Stark had yearned to go home for years as he wandered around the riverlands, sometimes following his lady mother's outlaw band, but often leaving them since he couldn't bear to see his lady mother like that. How Robb finally had the chance to go home when Queen Sansa and Lord Jon passed by the Twins, and swearing that he would always be by their side and come to their aid.
"Have you ever not come to their aid?" Margaery asked. It was already deep in the night, and she had lighted another candle so she could clearly see his face.
A terribly sad frown hooded his brows, and Robb shook his head.
When Queen Sansa invited Margaery to pick winter roses with her, Margaery gathered her curls in a bright red ribbon and wore her red-trimmed hood and felt very loud indeed.
The queen had a small smile on her face, and her eyes were bright, as Margaery sang her own songs and laughed halfway through her own japes. And when Queen Sansa offered to make a wreath of winter roses for her, and to read books with her in the evenings, Margaery thought that perhaps this time - this time they could truly be friends with each other.
It was a complete surprise to them when Queen Sansa turned again, a few weeks later.
It was even more of a surprise to Margaery when Lord Jon immediately shut himself in his chambers, leaving Margaery alone but for a single direwolf and a ghost who wouldn't be able to fight off Queen Sansa.
"What is he doing?" Margaery demanded, and made to vigorously knock on Lord Jon's doors.
But Robb shook his head at Margaery and assumed his position by Lord Jon's doors.
"What are you doing, then?" asked Margaery. In the distance she could hear Queen Sansa's howls from the Guards Hall where Ghost had herded the queen. "Are you guarding him?"
Robb looked at her, biting his lip worriedly, then nodded. She knew then that something was just kept a secret from her. He gestured for her to stay by his side.
Margaery's palms were sweating. There were only a handful of sconces lighted in the corridor, only a sheen of moonlight visible from the window at the other end, the shadows creeping across the stone direwolves and Stark banners sly and skulking, and in the distance a wolf-woman was howling.
Margaery was surrounded by wolves.
She almost startled when Robb made a gesture again.
He was indicating the window and then Margaery, then the window again.
"But Lord Jon," began Margaery.
Robb only thumped his own chest and shook his head.
Doubtfully, Margaery walked towards the window and peered out of it.
All the stone and snow of Winterfell were silvered by the frosty moonlight. Everything was so still inside the castle walls, and Margaery nearly yelled herself to see such a frustrating barrenness, but down below she caught a glimpse of movement.
Ghost's massive form was almost camouflaged by the snow save for the blood-red of his eyes. But the other one, almost as large as Ghost, and howling and snarling where Ghost was mute, Margaery could clearly see. How could she not when it was almost as large as a pony and when its furs were the colour of deep auburn.
Queen Sansa had her head tipped up towards the moon, clawing at the snow, still furious, still grieving. Ghost was crouched low beside her, his body braced, waiting. And where Queen Sansa often had her face arched up towards the moon, Ghost had his tilted towards Queen Sansa's, steady and quiet just like Lord Jon was.
Later when Margaery pressed Lord Jon on what he was doing in his chambers, he would wryly smile at Margaery and say that he had dreamed of Queen Sansa.
But for now Margaery only leaned against the dark grey stones of the sill, her hood brought up to protect her cheeks from the wind, as all the world remained silent on this winter night except for the howling of a wolf. A few times she glanced back to find Robb leaning against Lord Jon's doors and facing her, and whenever their eyes met his smile would be bright enough that Margaery could see it from where she was stood.
And really, Margaery was fortunate enough to be alive to find herself in such a situation that she couldn't help but laugh a few times, and what a situation it was: here was Margaery in Winterfell, surrounded by stone and snow, with only wolves and a ghost for company.
fin