Wild Wolf

by Vimesenthusiast

Fed up with life in Nerima, Ranma runs away, only to be followed by Happosai, who has a magic scroll he want to try out. It works but Ranma suddenly finds himself in Westeros replacing the champion chosen by the old gods in a time of great peril for humanity. How will the world change with the Wild Wolf raised in the den of wolves? A lot. Thanks to Naj. P. Jackson for the picture.

2. Chapter 2

EDIT: Changed where I said Jon would be the steward of house Stark while Ranma and Ned were gone. Thanks go to N0mster for pointing out how very strange and attention grabbing such a move would be.

I don't own ASoIaF, if I did some of the main characters would have stopped dying off a long time ago; nor do I own Ranma 1/2, there's too much Akane and not enough Kasumi.

I have decided to put this work only in the ASoIaF crossover because I will be following that version more closely and because I will be using many characters that haven't/won't appear in the TV version.

Regardless, the fact this chapter is here should tell you that it won the poll. I was amused however by the fact so few people actually PM'd me to back up any of the stories. Ah well, if you're interested check out the poll, as the PM's didn't really change any of the choices positions in relation to one another. This story won by a freaking landslide.

Normally I would respond to reviews here, but I have gotten into the habit with Third Path story of responding to them via PM, so I will start doing that for this story in the future. I will put responses to reviews from guests and people who have their PM service shut down at the end of the chapter.

Thank you everyone who pointed out the numbers screw up in the last chapter. I have gone back and corrected it, and I would urge you all to go back and reread it anyway. I have a new beta named Jessolt, and he is the man. Seriously, the chapter reads so much better its not even funny. I'm giving him a shout out for his work on this chapter too.

BE WARNED! I look upon canon as a mere guideline, something that should be touched upon a few times, but other than that… Now, on with the show.

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Chapter 2 Times They Are a Changin' (ready or not)

"I despise you right now. I want you to know this. It is important to me that you, Ranma Stark, understand how much I loathe you at the moment."

Theon Greyjoy had grown up into a somewhat tall, good looking, rakish young man with dark black hair and equally black eyes. He bore a longbow behind him on his horse as well as a longsword at his hip, chain mail and leggings along with a cloak made of deer hide. At the moment however his good looks were ruined by the scowl on his face and the fact that said face was also a little frostbitten.

Jon too was feeling the pinch of the weather. Despite the fact that he rode out regularly with Ranma on hunting expeditions, to visit their friends in other parts of the North, and on tasks for their father, they had never been this far north. The farthest north they had ever gone was the Last Hearth which was the seat of House Umber, firm ally and now close friend to house Stark in the person of the house's heir, who right now was riding behind Jon and Theon. Now however, they were well past that and about a third of the way into the Gift, the land south of the wall that had been given over in perpetuity to sustain the Night Watch.

It was the fact that he couldn't feel his face anymore or the fingers of the hand that was resting lightly on one of his short swords' pommels that made Jon speak up in agreement with Theon. "For once we agree, Greyjoy. If my face doesn't recover from this Ranma, I'm going to blame you."

A great booming voice laughed behind them and both the ward and the bastard son of house Stark turned to glare at Smalljon, who was smirking at them. "And you call yourselves Northerners, it's balmy out!"

Smalljon Umber was the son and heir of House Umber's current lord, though he was small in comparison to only a very few people in Westeros. Standing at six feet five inches with wide shoulders and a heavy brown beard, the man looked as if someone had decided to mate with a bear. Ironic, considering that Dacey Mormont rode beside him yet would not touch his hirsute body for gods or gold. "If you can't handle this, wait until you get north of the Wall!"

"Ha, as if you've ever been north of the Wall!" Theon barked back. "I'm not like you, you great fucking bear, protected by your fat and that beard or yours!"

"The weather is nothing in comparison to what our father will do if we do try to get north of the Wall, which, I may remind you, is not something we plan to do on this trip." Jon muttered as another blast of cold air came through the trees at them. This area of the North looked almost completely untouched, giving the impression that it had never felt the hand of man until you noticed that there was a single road leading through it. This was the Kingsroad, but here it was a mere dirt path leading from the western lands of house Umber and the headwaters of the Last River.

His words went unheard however, as Smalljon fired back. "At least I'm not complaining about the cold like a southerner who's seen less snowfall than tits!"

"That is pure envy speaking there," Theon crowed. "You wish you've seen as many tits as I have!"

"Point to Theon," Ranma said from the front, where he had been ignoring the not so witty repartee behind him. Jon turned to stare at his brother, who seemed to feel his eyes and turned in the saddle to smirk at him.

To an outside observer, Jon and Ranma looked very much the same, at least from a distance. Both of them were tall, slightly over six feet with lean bodies, but wide shoulders, though it was obvious that they still had some growing there to do. It was said that they both took after their fathers in looks, dark hair, long, lean faces, and dark gray eyes, in Jon's case. When someone got closer, however, they would begin to notice differences.

Ranma's eyes were not gray but blue, a deep ocean blue, deeper, darker than the normal Tully eyes and in contrast to the rest of his features, which were pure Stark. Both their hair was long, but where Jon let his hair flow free down to his shoulders like their father, Ranma had his tied in a ponytail like the Dothraki barbarians who ruled the interior of Essos were supposed to favor. Both of them had beards at present, but whereas Jon was growing quite fond of his and was thinking of keeping it in a goatee, Ranma had quickly decided that the moment he could, he was going to lose his. He didn't like having facial hair, complaining that it itched all the time. This had caused several rude comments from his male friends, to which he replied in a mature manner by threatening to thrash the lot of them (not an idle threat).

He was still boyish in many ways, shown by the smirk on his face as he looked at his brother and friends. Yet despite this, Ranma had a gravity and power to him when he wished and could exude a sternness that was all Stark, which he hadn't had when he was younger. Ranma had really come into his own as his father's heir and took his duties and responsibilities seriously. For the most part anyway, he still shied away from one specific duty that reminded him far too much of the problems he had back in his past life.

Another difference between the two brothers was what they were wearing. Jon was clad in scale mail and leathers, with a good cloak clasped on one shoulder by a white lacquered wolf's head. Ranma was clad in half plate armor. His shoulders and chest were covered with heavy armor, as were his lower legs and forearms. The rest was leather, allowing him a free range of movement to wield any weapon of his choice. For this trip he had chosen both a warhammer as well as a claymore. The warhammer was so heavy it would take a normal person both hands to wield, if they could at all, but Ranma wielded it easily with one hand and it didn't even slow him down. The claymore was a gift from House Dustin and Ranma had been obliged to take it as well, despite it being too light for his tastes. He, too, had a cloak lined with fur around the neck, which was secured on one shoulder by a small gold pin shaped like a wolf's head.

"It does my heart good to see the two of you getting along so well," he said now, blue eyes sparkling with wry humor. Those eyes were the best indication of his emotions at any moment. Ranma could control his face to a certain extent, but his eyes told that only the truth of what he was feeling. Sometimes they were light blue snapping with humor and sometimes they deepened to the darkest blue of the ocean depths with fury. Such moments were rare indeed, but they showed beyond anything else that he had the wolfs blood that house Stark was known for, despite his general outgoing nature. "If nothing else this trip has been made worth it by the fact it has given you to the opportunity to bond."

Their companions hooted and hollered at Theon and Smalljon who exchanged grimaces. They had never gotten along since being introduced, much like Jon and Theon though for different reasons. Smalljon didn't like Theon, thinking him more of a Kraken than could be trusted, while Theon thought Smalljon was an idiotic barbarian.

Theon swiftly shot back, "It'll be the only outcome, and don't get used to it Stark! This is a madcap chase and you know it."

"I knew that the moment we set out, doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile," Ranma replied, nonchalantly resting one hand on the pommel of his Claymore, staring down at the little wolf pup that was keeping up with the ride with some difficulty. That he was keeping up at all, both him and Ghost, Jon's pup, was a surprise in and of itself, for direwolves so young. Yet, the sight of Fenris running along beside his horse made him remember how they all had come to be out here.

(Flashback)

Ranma and Jon looked up from their studies when they heard a polite cough from the doorway. They had been discussing with Maester Luwin the tactics of one of the battles in the war called, rather romantically (and stupidly in Ranma's opinion), the Dance of the Dragons. Theon, too, looked up from where he had been reading a book on naval tactics, something that Master Luwin had given him since the next battle they were going to study would have a naval component to it.

In the doorway stood a servant, his face apologetic. "Young master, your father requests you to get ready to ride out with him. Patrols have found a Night Watch deserter and they are holding him in a nearby holdfast."

The three boys stood up and bowed to the maester, while Ranma made their apologies. "Sorry about this maester, but duty calls."

With that all three boys made their way out of the room and followed the servants down the corridor and out into the courtyard. There they found horses ready to go, and Ned arguing with Catelyn. "He's too young Ned! You can't let him see something like this!"

"I was younger than Bran when I first saw my father carry out a sentence."

To one side stood Arya, looking put out. Ranma shook his head at her. "Don't look like that, this isn't something you should be sad about missing, Arya."

"I'm missing it because I'm a girl," she growled angrily, sounding almost like one of their family's totems for a moment. "I'm older than Bran, why can't I go?"

"Because I said so!" Catelyn said sharply, turning from her losing argument with Ned. "This is not something that a young girl needs to see and you get out of too many lessons as it is!"

"Arya, it is not like we're just going out riding for the heck of it." Ranma said moving past her and placing a gentle hand on his mother's shoulder. She calmed down a little, hearing him agree with her, and he turned back to Arya. "There is nothing interesting about this Arya, trust me. It's simply a task we have to see to, that's all, the law of the land." Arya subsided, but still scowled irritably at not being allowed to come and Ranma sighed.

Bran was already in a saddle, looking nervous and rather torn between exhilarated and scared, possibly even a little nauseous. "Father, did commander Mormont send word about why this one deserted?" Ranma asked, smiling encouragingly at his younger brother.

His father shook his head somberly. "There will always be men who try to get out of their duty and given word, my son. Their reasons vary and rarely will they tell the truth even when caught."

Jon came back at that moment, carrying both his short swords strapped to his sides as well as a claymore for Ranma. He murmured "Were you able to talk Arya out of coming with us? You know she'll only try to follow if she's still of a mind."

"We can only hope," Ranma muttered back, and Ned carefully kept his face blank hiding his amusement. Arya was proving more of a handful with every passing year, but Ranma's initial idea of channeling her wild ways had paid off handsomely.

Because of the deal they had struck, Arya kept at her studies of needlework and other feminine skills in return for training with Ranma in the afternoon. She was still nowhere near as good at the womanly activities as Sansa was, yet that wasn't who she was either. Arya was good enough to get by, and the relationship between the two sisters, while not friendly was, at least, not combative (or not overly so).

On the other hand, she had taken to Ranma's training like a duck to water Ned felt at this point that she could even take on one or two of the other younger bucks in the guard (outside of his heir's companions or those who practiced with them often, of course) and possibly beat them. But that had done nothing to change the fact that she was a willful, wild little girl, who constantly tested her parents, trying to get away with anything she could. It was trying even for Ranma, especially when she tried to get out of her end of the agreement they had made so many years ago.

Ned shook that thought off however, simply nodding at the two boys, along with Theon who had already moved to his horse, strapping his bow behind his saddle. "Let's be about it," Ned said and turned his horse to face the portcullis of the King's Gate.

The road went through the small town that had been built to house the smallfolk during times of winter and strife around Winterfell, which in these long years of summer was home to a permanent village, and then out into the lands beyond. It took them several hours ride to reach the holdfast where Ned's patrol was keeping the deserter. They had him tied to the ground, three of them standing over him silently. Their lord had given stern commands to any group that found a deserter from the Wall (there had been several over the last few years). There was to be no taunting or any other kind of humor at their expense. The lives of the Night Watch were harsh and people sometimes simply could not stand up to it. While breaking their given word meant that their life was forfeit, that didn't mean you had to make japes about it.

Ned and the others got down from their horses, with Ranma helping his younger brother down. Ned grimly walked up to the man as his guards forced him to kneel on the ground. "Your name?"

The man on the ground was a swarthy sort, still somewhat tanned despite possibly years serving the Night Watch, and when he spoke his accent told Ned man was Dornish. Yet, there was also a broken air about him, and his face and fingers were suffering from frostbite. "A-Andrew Romario, my Lord, I come from Dorne originally. Er, I was an inn keeper before I had the lapse in judgment that landed me in trouble with the law."

Ned nodded, one-handed bringing Ice around from where it had hung on his back. "As a man of the Night Watch, you know the penalty for running from your house, for breaking your word. You have any last words before sentence is carried out?"

The man shivered a little looking up at them all with wild eyes. His eyes lit on Bran for some reason and he twitched a little. "You Northerners," he murmured, "a cold harsh people to make such a young lad face this."

He broke out of that odd little moment to stare up at Ned and at the others. "I, I know you won't believe me Lord, but I saw them, t'was only fleeing that let me live. I saw them, the White Walkers." Ranma's eyes widened and then narrowed in contemplation as the man began to giggle maniacally. "Legends, living legends and nightmares!" he shouted, shaking his head. "Legends, alive and killing, killing my patrol entire. Rangers with three or more years of service with the Night Watch and only I survived. To run and hide and run again, always running!" He raised his hands beseechingly. "I know what I saw, my lord, crazy you may call me, coward I am, but I know I saw them."

Ned nodded slightly, and raised his sword about to pass sentence when Ranma said, "Wait, father." Ned turned incredulously to his oldest son, but Ranma swiftly went to his knees in front of the man. "These White Walkers, what do they look like?"

The man stared at him, surprised, then answered hesitantly. "They, they look almost like a man, but they are slightly taller and thin, too thin, almost skeletal. But they have inhuman strength despite that. Their faces are like ours only pointed, far more angular, as if they were crossed with a fox and their eyes, they glow. They glow blue, so cold it eats at a man's mind. And they bring the cold with them, so cold…"

Ranma nodded thoughtfully and stood back. His eyes were far away and Ned watched him for a moment wondering what his son was thinking but then Ranma came back to earth, looking down at the deserter. "I can't forgive you for breaking your chosen word, for that you know the sentence. But know that I'll try to get to the bottom of what you saw, and, if you told the truth, I will have your name remembered as one of great renown."

The man looked up at him, his eyes filled with tears and he nodded. Ned took this as his cue and stepped forward, raising his sword. "Andrew Romario, you are accused of deserting your brothers and your place on the Wall, proven by your own words. The penalty is death and is to be carried out immediately."

Bran shuddered and looked away as the headless corpse collapsed to the side, the stump where its head had been spurting blood for a moment. "Don't look away," Jon said sternly, pulling his head around again. "This is the duty of a Lord Paramount of the North, the power of life and death. The man who passes the sentence swings the sword. If you take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words." Jon actually was paraphrasing what Ned had told the trio of older boys the first time he had them watch him dispense justice years ago, and it had been easier for him, since he had already been through a battle by that point.

Theon sneered a little and was about to say that it wasn't a duty a bastard would have anything to do with, but a single searing glance from Ranma made him choke on the words. Bran didn't notice, simply staring at the body of this stranger who had been alive moments ago, and now wasn't due to his own father's blade. He gulped convulsively, but did not look away again.

Ned shook his head softly and moved over to get a cloth from Ser Jory, slowly cleaning his blade, then turning to look at his oldest son. "You know he was just raving, correct? There hasn't been a sighting of a White Walker in over 400 years."

"That doesn't mean they aren't coming back." Ranma said quietly, tapping his forehead for a moment, covering the act by pushing some of his hair back up out of his eye.

Ned's eyes widened as he realized what Ranma was implying. Could this be why Ranma was given the gift of the memories of his past life? Ned shook his head, however. That's not enough, if you're asking me to do something like rouse the North or send troops north to the Wall, we will need much more than this."

"That's why I think I should go. I'll go up to Commander Mormont personally." He hurried on as his father's expression grew stonier. "You know there must be something odd going on, father. This is the fourth deserter from the wall in the past year alone! There hadn't been five in the previous ten years combined, was there?"

"No, there wasn't," Ned muttered, shaking his head, not having put that together before for some reason. He stood there thinking hard for a moment, taking in his son's stubborn face and that niggling little feeling at the back of his mind that said that this was at least in part why Ranma had been allowed to keep his knowledge, had been gifted with his physical skills. "I will agree to that, I suppose, but you will tell your mother you're going and you will take as many of your friends as are free." Ned refused to use the name given to Ranma's companions by the smallfolk, thinking it ostentatious in the extreme. Wolf-sworn indeed!

The idea of telling his mother that he was going to go out on it what amounted to possibly a personal adventure made Ranma gulp a little. She never liked watching him leave. Still, he nodded gamely and the group remounted quickly.

Bran was still having trouble with what he had seen, though Jon was helping him as best he could. Ned allowed his horse to slow until Bran's came up alongside him then began to talk to his second-born son.

About an hour later one of the scouts came riding up to them. "My Lords, we found something you might want to see."

(End flashback)

What the guards had found was a dead direwolf bitch and her litter of puppies, the bitch having been killed in a battle with a massive stag. There had been five puppies, or so they thought at first, and taking it as a sign Ranma, with Bran's help had convinced Ned to let the siblings have one each. They found another one, with fur the white of new fallen snow along the way back, which Jon had claimed. Reactions had been mixed, but all the children had fallen in love with their new companions swiftly.

That was why Ranma had decided to head further north and how he'd gained Fenris as a companion, as well as the others. He thought Sansa and her choice the name Lady for her direwolf was rather silly, though not as silly as Rickon's naming his Shaggydog. Nymeria and Ghost were much more fitting, though Bran had not decided on a name for his yet.

It had been three weeks since then, and Ranma had learned quickly that there was a far deeper connection between him and Fenris then the bond of master and pet. The direwolf was very intelligent with much more stamina and strength than a puppy his age should have. So did Jon's Ghost and they both seemed to have taken on some aspects of their Masters personalities. There were times… Ranma shook that thought off, it wasn't possible was it?

The banter behind him continued, the rest of Ranma's companions joining in and he smiled. Ranma had more friends in this dimension than he had ever had in his old one and not a single one of them had tried seriously to kill him (outside of spars anyway). Dacey, riding next to Smalljon, saw that small smile of her lord and smiled to herself looking around at their companions.

Her mother was always irritated with the fact that Dacey spent so much time at Winterfell or traveling between it and the Bear Island, and at first Maeve Mormont thought that Ranma and Dacey might be getting married at some point, but neither were under any illusions about the relationship. For Dacey, it was almost a purely physical thing. Ranma's physical abilities, the aura of command that Ranma allowed out sometimes, attracted her on some animal level. Ranma liked her as a friend, and had no issue with meeting her physical demands. To Dacey, it was simply a physical thing; to Ranma it was both a physical thing and a learning experience.

Not, she thought now, remembering their last encounter before they had left Winterfell, that he has much in the way of learning to do there any longer. She'd had a few lovers before him, but none of them had Ranma's flair for it. It was as if he was able to take his ability to learn the skills necessary for combat and apply them to anything physical, reading how Dacey's body reacted to learn what made her respond. Dacey had been the master the first time and him the apprentice, filled with knowledge but not much real life experience, now the relationship was decidedly reversed, and she loved it.

Neither of them were looking for a serious romance at this time and Ranma knew that when he married would have to be a political marriage. He hated that, and made no bones about it, but still hadn't wouldn't truly fight against it. Still, Dacey was always amused when the Lords of the North would stop by bringing their daughters with them in an effort for one of them to catch Ranma's eye.

Almost all of them were simpering silly little girls, sort of like Sansa with the same romantic notions, and utterly in awe of Ranma and his reputation, which had spread over the North despite the fact that no one who hadn't been there (outside of Dacey and his other friends) believed what had really happened at the Dread Fort. It had even spread south, and as far as the cities of Essos though no one knew it, but as a bard's tale not something seen as truth by most.

She chuckled now, remembering the last time the Karstark girl had come by with her father and brothers. All of them were welcomed warmly, but there was no hint of her romantic relationship between Alys and Ranma, who had instead taken her and Sansa on a trip to White Harbor for Sansa's name-day present. Despite her father's best efforts, the two of them saw one another as family, and the young girl, she was only a half year older than Sansa, enjoyed having another brother especially one who was much funnier and more willing to spend time with her than any of her own.

They'd do better to learn how to fight and stand up for themselves rather than all that womanly duties crap, she thought, shaking her head and trying to free it of the thought, but it wouldn't free itself that easily. A few of them were being trained in estate management, but very few and not a one of them had caught Ranma's eye. She knew the Lady Catelyn was growing concerned about it and she had taken to glaring at Dacey whenever she was around, but it wasn't her fault that none of them were Ranma's type. Ranma knew he was perfectly free to look around. There could be nothing permanent between the two of them and he knew that before they even got together for the first time.

She looked over when Edd said "What are you smiling at Dacey? There's no way this lot can amuse you any longer, their normal jests have gotten so old on this trip I'm almost inclined to try and get Hathan to join in just to break the monotony."

She laughed a little reaching out to slap Edd on the shoulder. Edd and the other companions chosen for this trip had gone through Ranma's training, though nowhere near to the extent that Jon had. Most of them had caught up with her and Theon, however. Edd, for example, was the youngest of them, a full year younger than the three Winterfell boys and wasn't even at the point of shaving regularly, but he was devilishly quick. A spear rode in his stirrups, which he could use as a lance or as a pole arm, and he wielded it with a style that Ranma had begun to teach him almost from the moment they met. Dacey had heard it described as somewhat similar to the Red Viper of Dorne by Ser Rodrick Cassel, who had seen Prince Oberyn fight at a tournament down south.

"Just remembering the last time your father brought Alys along to Winterfell. He's really trying to push that marriage, isn't he?" Dacey replied.

Edd chuckled, then laughed aloud. "Yes, he most certainly is. He's wanted a closer relationship with house Stark since I can remember, though I think he's chasing down the wrong trail there. Ranma is no more interested in wedding and bedding my sister then he is in bedding one of his own."

Dacey cocked her head for a second, her eyes narrowed speculatively. There had been something about the way he had said 'chasing down the wrong trail' there… She shook it off however, and nodded. "Exactly, I don't know what sort of woman Ranma is interested in, but simpering romantic little girls who have had their head filled with romantic and knightly drivel certainly isn't it."

Daryn Hornwood and Roger Ryswell were riding behind them, and both of them broke out into laughter. "True," Roger said between chuckles. His house had been one of the noble houses that had had ties to the Bolton clan due to the marriage of his older sister Bethany to Lord Bolton, and his family had initially been angry that the house had been wiped out and the Dread Fort razed. That was before they learned why it happened and before Domeric passed on the idea that Bethany had possibly been killed by poison, although no one could prove it so long after the fact.

Both young man were tall, fair to look upon, and wore chain mail. Daryn was a brown haired young man who wore it cut short. Roger wore his own blonde hair down to his shoulders, though his beard was nowhere near as luxurious as his friend's, which was close to rivaling his father's. Roger wielded a single bladed axe and the lance with equal proficiency, both of which he had strapped to his saddle beside him, while Daryn had a long sword and shield, much like Dacey, though her own weapon was closer to a bastard sword than a longsword. This was only natural as she was quite a bit stronger than Daryn, although he was quicker than she was.

Roger went on, "My father's been most amused by it and relieved that Lord Stark and Lady Catelyn have made no efforts to encourage the match. It's well-known that Karstark has ancient family ties to House Stark, and the friendship you have with Jon and Ranma is well known Edd. But House Stark can't favor one family of the North like that over another."

"All the same," Daryn said worriedly, pitching his voice lower now, "Ranma's sixteen, it's about time he started to look for a wife." He was an older man, full twenty and two, and he took a more stoic and somber look of at the word then Roger, who was only two years older than the Winterfell trio. "At least a betrothal should be coming soon, don't you think?"

The last member of their party, which was the majority of the group the smallfolk had taken to calling the wolf-sworn, was named Hathan Snow. He was the next oldest of them after Daryn at age twenty and he had a distinct look of the Manderly family, though he was much thinner than any of that family and none had claimed to be his father, although he was raised with the main Manderly family . He already sported a large handlebar mustache. He was but of medium height, making him one of the shorter members of the party, but had truly massive shoulders and he wore full heavy plate. He was also deadly with the lance that was even now riding upright beside him and had cut his teeth on tournaments in the South since he was ten and two, coming home only last year.

There were rumors going about that the knight he had gone south with as his squire had been killed in a tournament 'accident' after facing the Mountain that Rides in the Crown Lands. The storytellers claimed that he fell off his horse badly cracking his skull open on the ground, but the grim look in Hathan's face whenever anyone mentioned tournaments seemed to signify something else had occurred there.

He didn't speak up often, yet Hathan had the political acumen that the Manderly family was well known for. He spoke up now, his voice a soft, almost musical tenor. "I think the Lady Catelyn would prefer that Ranma look south for his future bride. Tell it true lords and lady, does House Stark really need a marriage in the North to solidify its position at this point?"

They all burst out laughing at that. House Stark and its position in the North had rarely been stronger than it was today. There was the friendship between the heirs to consider, as well as the fact that Ned was well thought of as an honorable and trustworthy man, building on the reputation of his house easily. And then there was the way that they had dealt with House Bolton.

While House Stark hadn't gained anything in the way of coins or land from doing so, all of Bolton's former neighbors had been enriched by it and with those riches, came the message. 'Cross me,' that message said, 'and I will end your house'. One or two of the houses minor might have been angered by that message, especially the ones that looked to house Bolton, but the houses major and the noble houses themselves were simply approving of it. A strong and honorable lord, who could also be ruthless when the situation called for it, was precisely what they wanted to see.

"How far south do you think?" Daryn asked. He and Hathan were really the only ones who had much interest in politics, but the others were slowly realizing that they needed to learn this game as well, something that their parents were encouraging each in their own fashion.

"Lady Catelyn is a Tully," Hathan said earnestly. "A marriage between House Stark and one of the other houses in the Riverlands would probably be a good idea tying the regions together even more. Though I'm uncertain which of Riverlands house would be strong enough to interest her for Ranma, or even have daughters of a marriageable age."

"Just hope it isn't the Frey's." Roger muttered shaking his head.

One or two of the others actually shuddered a bit at that. House Frey were the rulers of the castle/bridge known as the Twins, the biggest and best, indeed in many ways the only crossing over the river Green Fork. It was an important position in many ways, since the castle was in an excellent position over a trade route, and a bastion between the North and the Riverlands along the only quick route South for trade or any force of a significant size. The Freys however were not well thought of by any of their neighbors or indeed practically anyone else. 'We take our tolls' was the house motto, and they certainly did that, extorting as much as they could from anyone who tried to cross their bridge.

Walder, the head of house Frey, was ambitious. He was always looking to marry off his large brood of children (both legitimate and not), who he had gotten on numerous wives, to better his position. But that and the exorbitant tolls he forced on most travelers were only two reasons why the men of the North had nothing but contempt for him and his entire house. While the rest of the Riverlands had risen to follow Lord Stark and Lord Baratheon in the rebellion against the Targaryen dynasty, House Frey had sat it out until it became clear which side was winning and then sent forth its own men to claim their share of the spoils. Nor had they supplied any men to either the defense of the Riverlands' ports or the forces attacking the Iron Islands during the Greyjoy rebellion.

Only Daryn and Dacey (who at twenty and eight was actually the oldest) was old enough to remember anything from that war outside of the history books, but that kind of opportunism and cowardice did not sit well with any of them.

"Have no fear," Ranma said quietly from the head of the column. "I have no intention of marrying a Frey, come what may. They are far too ambitious and not nearly honorable enough to interest me or my family. I would wish to marry a woman with a spine, one who can stand on her own two feet of course, but alas what she brings to the marriage in terms of family and influence is indeed more important." He shrugged, "Such is life. Now hush, I think I can hear our scouts returning." Actually Ranma wasn't at all certain it had been his own ears that picked up the sounds of the scouts, but he shoved that thought aside, yet again.

The scouts had been one of Lady Catelyn's additions to the group. She had insisted that Ranma at least be able to send out scouts around his party, to make certain that they weren't being ambushed or walking into anything. North of the Last Hearth the land was harsh, and House Umber and the nearby mountain clans had often felt the sting of wildling raids.

She had in point of fact argued strenuously against Ranma going at all and had then almost demanded he take a large force of guards, but Ranma had countered that he wouldn't need protecting that much, that his friends would be with him, and they could move much faster than a larger force. Catelyn had at last capitulated, but only with the demand that he send a message back by raven whenever he could, as well as dozens of other motherly conditions. Ranma hadn't minded, still loving the fact he had a mother who cared for him now and simply hugged her and kissed her on the cheek for worrying about him. Indeed, he had sent back regular reports to her until they entered the Gift, which was even more sparsely populated than the rest of the North, apparently.

Ranma and his band had met up with the trackers on the border between mountain clan and Umber land, before they entered the Gift. They were both superstitious and did not like the fact that Ranma fully expected them to run into trouble at some point. When they had heard about the reason for the trip, both of them had looked very concerned, muttering about ancient tales and the forces of the far cold. Whatever that meant, Ranma didn't quite know. He had talked to Maester Luwin about the White Walkers, but all he could tell him up about them were tales and hearsay and had refused to believe there could be any facts behind those rumors. Regardless, the two mountain clansmen believed in the White Walkers far more easily than any of Ranma's friends, who felt this was simply an excellent excuse to go and see the Wall.

According to Luwin, however, there hadn't been a single proven sighting of a White Walker since the coming of the dragons and the Targaryen dynasty. But the dragons aren't here any longer, Ranma thought to himself grimly, waiting as the two scouts made their way back to them through the heavy, rocky scrubland and woods that made up this portion of The Gift.

One of them pulled up in front of Ranma's horse (which he only rode because he hated having to look up to his friends when he talked to them) pointing back the way they came. "Stark, there's a group of wildlings coming this way, about two hands worth." The mountain man didn't actually know his numbers, but he knew to count by his fingers.

"Could you tell what they were? A raiding party, scouts themselves, or something else?" Ranma asked sharply.

"They're armed, Stark," man said shaking his head, "that's about all we could tell. There may be some among them that're female, but amongst wildlings the women all carry weapons, too."

"About two hands worth." Ranma said thoughtfully looking around. All of his fellows were looking anticipatory, checking their weapons. "I want prisoners," he said calmly, "try to remember that, please. At least four, I think. Are they actually coming down the road or moving through the woods?"

"No, they're making straight south, as fast as they can go." The Norrey man frowned thoughtfully scratching at his facial tattoos. "If I didn't know better I'd say they were being chased, or at least runin' from something that scared them something fierce. They ain't being nearly as careful as normal, and they ain't stayin' fully on the road. They're headin' straight south… tis odd to be sure."

"Definitely want prisoners." Ranma said nodding his head. "Make that an order, gentlemen. If they're not coming down the trail, do you think they'll jump us or simply move on past?"

"Wildlings don't grow beyond puberty if they're stupid, Stark pup," the other scout, an older man with a long grey beard, scoffed. "If I was them, I'd steer well clear this lot. You're armed, there's nine o' you, and even if they took you by surprise they'd take their lumps doing it. And you ain't carrying anythin' that they'd be interested in."

"A good point." Hathan said thoughtfully. "So we'll just have to ambush them instead."

The younger scout smirked, tapping his long dagger where it was thrust through his belt. "There's a place about two miles back, Lord, heavy rocks and even more trees than here, including one large rock about on their path. One of us can be up in the trees, and we can tell you when to ride out."

Ranma nodded approvingly. "Let's do it."

With that, the group turned their horses and trotted back the way they came, anticipation rising in the air. Fenris and Ghost seemed to feel it and were jumping around anxiously, but a stern look from their chosen masters stilled both of them. Ranma motioned for Theon. "When we get it stuck in, I want you to shoot down anyone that tries to run. If our scouts are wrong and this group is scouting for some larger force behind them, I don't want any information to get back to them."

"Right," Theon answered, smacking his bow lightly. "I'll head up into the trees with the scout who's going to signal the attack. I can shoot from up in the trees just as well as I can off horseback and my range will be better."

"Good man." Ranma smacked him on the shoulder causing Theon's smile to widen into a grin. Ranma turned to Dacey and Jon and said softly, "You two will be in charge of gathering a prisoner each for us. While I trust the others to try and follow my orders, they are kind of excitable. I can trust you two to keep your cool, can't I?"

"Yes." Dacey nodded seriously. She was the most blooded warrior among them and knew all too well the value of information.

Jon simply smirked. "You have to ask?"

Ranma grinned at him and the ride continued until they reached the hiding place the scouts had found.

Once there, Jon and Ranma spent some moments trying to get their direwolves to stay put. While they were doing this, everyone save Hathan and Roger tied up their horses out of sight. The two of them were the only ones who had trained predominantly to be cavalrymen and were the only ones with lances. Ranma split them off, leaving them with the horses for now. This was going to be a quick and dirty skirmish. There would be no time for them to get up the speed that made cavalry so deadly or even space to do it here in here in the rocky scrubland, where a hoof put wrong could break a horse's leg. Neither man made much of it, being experienced enough to know that the horses needed to be watched, and that their skill set was ill suited for this.

They waited there for about forty minutes, then the scout signaled that the group work of wildlings were in view. About thirty minutes later, they were close enough and the younger Norrey scout signaled the attack.

The wildlings were a straggly bunch, clad in mismatched leathers, breeches, and straggly furs but all of them carried weapons, the sight of which made Ranma's eyes narrow in speculation. The party had gotten strung out here in the slightly denser woods, but when the wolf-sworn charged the wildlings, unlike a disciplined force, which might have felt shock, retreating or holding their ground they simply turned and bellowed their own battle cries, charging forward. If the wolf-sworn had outnumbered them, they'd probably have broken and ran, but as it was they were simply going to stay and fight.

Ranma ducked under one badly chipped and rusted sword that was trying to take his head off before that man was forced to turn aside to face off against Daryn. Ranma blocked another, slightly better, blade with his own claymore then reached out with one hand, snake quick, to grab the shaft of a spear right behind its head as another wildling tried to drive it into his side. Without even a grunt of effort, he used the spear to lift the man who had tried to kill him and, before he could let go of the spear, the wildling found himself slammed head first into a tree. There was a horrible cracking sound and he fell to the ground, neck broken along with his skull.

The wildling man whose sword was locked with Ranma's gaped at this show of strength, then when Ranma disengaged tried to lunge forward desperately. Ranma sidestepped easily, his Claymore coming back in an economical swing with the flat of the blade slamming into the man's unarmored head. He went down like a sack of wheat and Ranma moved on. By this time, however, all the other wildlings were down, dead or unconscious. The only exception to this was one who Jon had pinned to a tree, his short swords on either side of the wildling's neck like a pair of scissors ready to snip an errant lock of hair.

Ranma grimaced a bit internally as he looked at the bodies littering the woods. Despite all the 'practice' he had fighting his way out of the Dread Fort's dungeons, killing was not something he ever got used to. Nor did he ever wish to be used to it, really, but unlike in his original life Ranma would not shrink away from it either.

While the others made their way over to the still awake prisoner, Ranma looked around at the wildlings, turning one of them over to stare down at his chest and opening a few of the packs many of them were carrying. He frowned thoughtfully then nodded at Theon who had joined him from out of the woods. The two mountain clan trackers were also making their way over to the prisoner Jon had taken and the two younger men joined them quickly.

"Ha!" said with one of the scouts, as he got close. "That's a woman. At least we'll have some fun tonight."

Theon blanched and moved very quickly away from Ranma as his eyes grew dark blue. Ranma said softly, "And what do you mean by that?"

The two scouts had never been around the young Wolf before this trip. They had heard stories, but most of those stories centered around his skill in battle not his thoughts about… certain activities. So it wasn't surprising when the man answered "Why we'll be taking our pleasure with her tonight, what else! Oh, of course you'll go first but surely…"

That was far as he got before he felt a clamp lock around his throat and he was suddenly lifted off the ground a full foot into the air. His eyes widened in shock and his hands went to his throat trying to fight back but Ranma's grip on his throat was unbreakable. He held the man aloft without any apparent effort and stared at the other tracker. "There will be no further discussion about that." he said softly. "If I hear that you tried to force yourself upon our prisoner, I will kill you both myself, is that understood?"

Dacey smiled approvingly as did most of the others, save Smalljon and Theon who simply shuddered a little. Smalljon could no longer remember how it came up in conversation, but he'd whispered, probably while he was drunk if he was honest, that his father and his family still practiced the right of the first night. Ranma's reaction to that news had given Smalljon nightmares for days after. Ranma hadn't raised his voice, but when his dark blue eyes locked on you like that you knew he was very angry indeed.

Theon, too, had come under fire for his family's motto and habit of raping women they came across in their raids when he espoused the family motto once too often in Ranma's hearing. Theon had commented about it being the right of the strong or something like that. The next moment found him hanging by his ankles outside a window while Ranma calmly asked Theon if it was Ranma's right to drop him because he was strong enough to do so.

Daryn stepped forward, placing a comradely hand on Ranma's shoulders. "Let him go, Ranma, he doesn't know your ways, and to be fair, it's not as if wildlings don't steal away women. What they do with them doesn't bare thinking about."

"Just because of our enemies act like animals doesn't mean we need to stoop to their level." Ranma said dropping the young Norrey scout to the ground. "Besides, look at them," he went on, motioning with his head over at the bodies. "Only two have any kind of armor, most of them were carrying small packs full of clothing and food, nothing else, and while they were armed, does this look like something a real wildling raider would use?" He reached down and picked up a rusted sword one of the wildlings had wielded and showed the others.

Roger grunted, reaching down and grabbing up a spear, which the word makeshift could be used to describe very well. It was a simple piece of wood, sharper at one end, with none of the hardening, shaping, or the steel tip that a real spear like Edd's had. "Ranma's got a point."

Ranma moved over closer to the prisoner to stare at her. The woman's face was oddly composed, having gotten over her fear while Ranma was making his point a moment ago. "So what are you? Deserters from some wildling band or refugees of some kind?"

The woman answered in the old tongue and it took a moment for Ranma to mentally translate it into common. "We flee. I not understand word refugee, we flee."

Ranma looked at Jon, who nodded and translated Ranma's question. While Ranma could understand spoken old tongue, he couldn't speak it without a horrible accent that made him sound like a complete idiot, sort of like a male version of Shampoo's Japanese. Jon, however, was much better at languages. "Flee from what?"

"We flee from Ryder and the Others" the prisoner replied, shivering in dread. "The Others are coming South. The Great Cold is coming."

"Look at me!" Ranma ordered, turning her head so that he could lock eyes with her. "I am Ranma Stark. 'Winter is coming' is the motto of my family, but you're not scared of winter, you're scared of something else. What are these Others you mentioned?

"I cannot speak of them." She said. "They feel it when you talk of them. Monsters of glowing blue eyes and endless unlife."

"White walkers.", Ranma replied, grimly.

The woman shuddered. "Yes, but do not name them!" She looked up at the sky, where the sun was going down already. Soon it would be night. She shivered at the idea of speaking of them so close to dusk since it was at night when the Others came out. "They have powers, odd strengths, no man can stand against them, no spell or weapon works upon them. And where they go, where their will touches the land, the dead come alive. Come alive to serve them." She shuddered again and would not speak further.

Jon translated for the others, who hadn't been trained in the old tongue as well as he or Ranma had.

Smalljon scoffed as did Hathan. "Please, the White Walkers are a myth. I'll admit that you were quick enough to grab onto an idea for a bit of a lark up to the Wall, Ranma, but surely you didn't really think…"

Smalljon trailed off staring at Ranma's serious expression. "You were serious?"

Ranma nodded grimly. He had never shared with anyone but Jon and his father how he had the memories of another life inside, but the description he had heard from the deserter, the glowing blue eyes, matched what the old gods had shown him that one time in the godswood of Winterfell, or at least a part of what they had shown him.

"If that is so we should turn back." Hathan said. "We have prisoners now, they can give us an idea of what's going on beyond the Wall. Ignoring this mumbo-jumbo about White Walkers, if something is going on to stir up the wildlings, then you need to inform your father and the other Lords of the North."

"Bah!" said Smalljon. "It's some kind of wildlings trick, trying to use superstition against us, to make us wary of facing them." Roger and Daryn both nodded agreement.

"I think," Jon said, thoughtfully staring at the prisoner who he was still pinning to the tree with his swords around her neck, "that we've taken several prisoners here. We should take this one back South with us, but I think we should keep going with the others and drop them off at the Wall with Uncle Benjen and Lord Commander Mormont. "There are some wildling groups that the Night Watch work with at times. He may be able to convince them to tell him more one way or another."

Roger frowned. "I think we should turn back. We've got valuable sources of information here, watching them on the road would be difficult, and if a few of them escape…" he shrugged.

"We keep going." Ranma said shortly, reaching down to pick up Fenris, who had left the horses behind to find his chosen human, scratching the pup behind his ears. "We keep going, and we force this lot to tell all they know about the White Walkers and what's going on north of the Wall to the Night Watch. I'm getting the impression that there's more going on here than just the Others. She said something about fleeing from someone else, which might mean that there's more trouble stirring than the Others, if they weren't bad enough."

"A new King Beyond the Wall, you think?", asked Edd, remembering his history lessons.

"Maybe, and if so the Night Watch will have to be reinforced. The Wall is a fantastic defensive position but you all know how weak the Night Watch has become the past few years and how many of their fortresses have been left to fall apart in recent years."

Theon shrugged. "That process started before even Robert's rebellion, it's just getting as low as it can go now. Though I agree with that, if something's going on beyond the Wall, the Night Watch needs to be warned."

Ranma nodded and gestured around at two unconscious wildlings, which Dacey was standing over. One was her own prisoner, the other had been smacked aside by Daryn and she had jumped in before the Hornwood heir could finish the wildling off. "Tie them up, we'll put them on the spare pack horses, and I'll carry some of our gear."

"And I." Jon said. "I might not have your endurance Ranma, but we can at least give the horses a bit of a break."

Ranma nodded, and the others, all of whom knew the two Starks (for Jon was a Stark, whatever his mother's lineage or the dubious validity of his birth) brothers had much more endurance and strength than any of them, even Smalljon, went about their business.

Within twenty minutes, the group was on their way again. They stopped to rest for the evening several hours later, well away from the scene of the battle.

The next day, they were up early. The woman they had captured, whose name was Osha, had proven to be the most levelheaded of the prisoners. The others had all tried to escape at one point or another during the night and refused to say anything to the wolf-sworn but curses. Osha tried to reason with them, but they simply spat at her and called her a traitor but something about Ranma had given her courage, despite the fact that they were taking her North again.

All the others had also realized that, and it was a constant trial watching them for the next three weeks while the group continued to traverse the Gift. Having to watch the prisoners slowed the band down, but they still made good time, yet for all of that, their unease grew.

For one thing, while the Gift was supposed to be somewhat sparsely populated with smallfolk, who were dedicated to providing for the Night Watch and the Wall, they had seen no sign of anyone. That population should have been built up around the Kingsroad, yet they had not come upon a single person yet. Even the massive, well defended inns that were maintained along the Kingsroad in the North were empty here for some reason, their owners apparently having fled.

Three weeks after the ambush they passed another abandoned inn. Ranma frowned faintly and held up a hand for them to halt. The Norrey scouts came out of the surrounding forest, looking at him quizzically and he shook his head. "Stay with us for a moment. Hathan? Can you get out our map?"

Hathan was staring off into the distance, fingering his lance shaft uncomfortably. And it took Ranma several moments to get his attention. "Hathan!"

The Manderly man shook his head shaking himself out of whatever stupor he had fallen into. "Sorry, what?"

"What's wrong?" Ranma asked moving back to join him while the others looked on in concern. Hathan was not normally given to introspection or spacing out like that and they all wondered what was going on.

"I don't know, milord," Hathan said shivering a little. "There's something wrong. By the Seven, I can't give you any more clear a description than that but there is something wrong. That's all I can say."

The wildling woman cackled. She had picked up the common tongue easily over the past three weeks and was able to follow what the lance bearer had said. "The Seven." she scoffed. "You left the lands of the Seven behind when you entered the Gift, man of the white city. They're barely a whisper here. It is the old gods who hold sway here. The farther north you get, the more true that is."

For some reason Hathan shivered, he actually believed her. After a moment however he regained control of himself. Resolutely, he removed the map, putting the uneasy feeling to the back of mind.

Ranma looked down at the map, frowning faintly. "We've seen a few abandoned farmsteads and inns but we haven't come upon any town yet. According to this map, there should be a town four hours ride or so ahead of us. We'll see if we can stay there for the night and maybe get some answers about why the Gift is so empty."

The others all nodded, looking forward to getting a roof under their head and some place to stick their prisoners so that they wouldn't have to be on guard all the time. The last three weeks had been the most trying most of them could remember.

It actually took them five hour of travel. When they arrived at the village, Ranma and the others looked around in dismay. The whole place looked abandoned and somewhat in disrepair. It was as if the people here had just up and left. Ranma frowned. "Have any of you been this far north before?"

His friends all shook their heads, but Osha nodded when Jon translated the question. "We came through here scavenging for food. No one was here."

Jon frowned, looking around. "This place looks like it was only abandoned recently, like in the last month or so. I mean look," he said gesturing to a one story house that had its roof caved in slightly right above the open doorway, "if that had happened more than a month ago the snow would've built up inside it. It hasn't yet, that means this is relatively recent."

"So what happened to the smallfolk here?" Edd asked a little worried.

"I don't know," Ranma said, looking around him. "But I'm beginning to get a bit of a puckering factor."

"Yeah," Theon laughed nervously, "like we're in for a fucking and not the good kind."

The others all laughed, their laughter ranging from true humor to that used to cover concern, but the group headed deeper into the village. They found a building that was relatively intact and decided to commandeer it for the evening. They took another house that had part of its roof torn off to paddock their horses there rather than in the small corral that was outside the large inn they had commandeered, which had been an inn at one point.

The prisoners were all placed at the back of the house away from the entrance and their ropes tied together against a large supports beam. Osha, however, was allowed to move about freely but she was ordered to remain near the center of the large room that made up the first floor of the house. Yet, the closer night came, the colder it got, and the more worried and antsy most of the wolf-sworn became.

Ranma looked over at the prisoners, noticing how they were shivering in fear now that night had fallen. That wasn't anything new, but it seemed to get worse every night and tonight was the worst. They had even stopped trying to run away during the night (they still tried during the day of course) and were now muttering to one another in the old tongue. He wasn't as good with languages as his brother was, but Ranma could tell fear when he heard it. He turned to Dacey. "I want a fire right in the middle of the room, make sure that it stays lit all night," he ordered. "Get some branches and what not too, we might need torches."

"Both here and with the horses?" Dacey asked.

Ranma looked over at Osha. "These Others you're afraid of, would they go after the horses as well or just us if they came here?"

When Jon translated the question, the wildling woman looked frightened, staring out into the darkness and backing away from the doorway. "Us," she answered, shuddering. "They have no interest in horses. They had no need of them."

"You can't seriously be thinking that she's telling the truth, can you?" Smalljon asked. "I tell you, it's just a trick."

"Look me in the eye and say you don't fill something in the air." Ranma said, looking at him sharply. "I'm not saying it's the Others like she thinks, but there's something in the air tonight. You know me," Ranma said, turning to stare out into the dark, "I'm as at home moving through the woods at night as I am during the day most of the time. Hell, I've snuck out of Winterfell numerous times and gone into the wild, but I've never felt threatened. Nothing like this."

Smalljon shook his head. "I don't feel anything."

"I do." said Jon quietly pulling his short swords from their scabbards, putting them on the ground within easy reach. "Four guards rotation?"

"Yes." Ranma muttered, still staring out into the darkness, his back to the fire that Dacey was tending in an effort to keep his night vision. He had first thought to maybe snuff the fire and let them all keep their night vision, but the fire could also be a weapon at need. "I'll take second watch."

More and more, he was beginning to think that this was the threat that he had been brought here to face, or at least a hint of it. There was still the human element to be considered and Ranma wasn't about to make any plans for the future on vague visions, no matter where they came from. Still, he thought to himself, if I know I was brought here for a purpose, do some of the enemies I'm supposed to face know about me in turn?

For the next three hours, nothing happened. Ranma, who had laid down on his bedroll but had not fallen asleep, was beginning to think he was just jumping at shadows, and the others had come to that conclusion even faster. Two hours later, Fenris began to whine and bite at his heals.

Ranma sat up to look down at Fenris, and the pup looked up, his eyes locked on Ranma's. Suddenly he could feel what his direwolf was feeling, the oppressive cold coming towards them, the feeling of death and hate, the smell of something old and dead, yet moving…

Swiftly Ranma stood up, grabbing his claymore from where it had been lying next to him and moving swiftly to join the guards at the door, who at this moment were Daryn and Roger. Dacey and Theon were also both awake, looking out the windows on either side of the door.

Almost as soon as Ranma began to move, he noticed that Jon had woken up as well, although he didn't seem to understand the feelings or where they were coming from. Jon looked around wildly, as if he had just been woken from a very deep dream, uncomprehending the sudden change.

Ranma didn't understand how he could be feeling what Fenris was feeling but he wasn't about to question it at the moment. He'd seen too much magic in his life before he came here to bother with skepticism.

Roger looked up at him sharply. Daryn did as well gripping his longsword at his side. "What is it?"

"Something's out there," Ranma muttered looking out the door. It took his eyes several minutes to adjust to the oppressive gloom outside and when they did he stared. "What the…."

Roger and Daryn looked out as well, wondering what their younger friend had seen and gaped. Coming around the corner of the village's main road toward them slowly was a veritable horde of people, but there was something odd about them. First, despite the moon not being out and the stars hidden behind clouds, none of them were carrying torches, though there did seem to be some kind of glow about them. Second, they were all moving toward them. And third was the way they moved, like someone not quite in control of their own bodies, sort of like a drunk yet not quite.

"I… Are those… they look like smallfolk, are they the villagers from this town? Where were they?" Roger asked in a whisper.

"I don't know," Ranma muttered, "but they're not moving correctly."

Daryn looked closer and saw what Ranma saw. "They're sort of dragging along aren't they? I wonder why?"

"I don't think it's for any reason we want to know," said Ranma. Almost as soon as he had said that, the smallfolk turned in their direction. Ranma and the others all gasped. The odd light wasn't coming from anything they were carrying. It was coming from their eyes, so bright a blue it hurt to look at them, deep, bright, and filled with the cold of the grave. Ranma shuddered, his hand tightening about his claymore. "Get the others up quickly!"

As everyone else was roused from sleep, Ranma raced back pulling on his plate armor, clasping his vambraces in place around his arms. That was all he had time for when the back of the house was suddenly, without any warning, smashed apart by some monstrous force from outside. All they could see, before the snow that had built up along the back of the house came in snuffing out the flames, was a giant shadow pulling back a massive club made of some kind of clear ice or something.

Ranma sprinted back towards the front of the house, shouting, "Out, everyone out! We need some room to maneuver!" He plucked up a burning twig from one of the fires, hurling it back over his shoulder. There was a roar and a sizzling hiss as it hit something, but then he was out of the door, followed quickly by the others.

There were screams inside as the prisoners were killed by whatever that thing was. Ranma realized sickly that none of them had thought to even try to release them from their chains. Then he had no more time to think because the assumed villagers were on them, reaching forward, their hands grasping with inhuman strength, their eyes blazing with cold blue light.

At the front of their force, Smalljon gasped as one of them grabbed his arm when his sword stuck in another one's ribs, wrenching Smalljon's arm almost out of its socket. Smalljon gritted his teeth at the pain finally pulling his sword free and he sliced the man's head in one great blow before backing away, wincing.

Ranma snarled, then blocked two blows from the villagers before grabbing the arm of one and pulling it in front of the other, raising his claymore and slicing one man's head off before stabbing the other in the center of his chest. That man kept pulling himself however pulling himself along Ranma's blade until Ranma kicked him hard in the chest sending it back off his sword.

"Wights!" Jon shouted, his short swords blocking blows from three of them. "They're wights! Cut their heads off! It's the only way to slow them down and even then the bodies will come back against us later! We'll have to burn them!"

Ranma remembered the simple bard's tale they had heard once out in the village of the smallfolk around Winterfell. Maester Luwin had scoffed at the very idea that there could be wights still around but did not claim that there had never been.

"Smalljon," he barked, "get out your flint and tinder, Dacey, Jon, Daryn protect him, light everything up you can, grab some kind of torch throw it up on every roof we pass." None of his friends bothered arguing and swiftly began to go about carrying out his orders. Smalljon, still cradling his wrenched shoulder, moved into the center of their makeshift formation while the others began to hack and slash at the horde all around them. The two Norrey scouts were trying to protect themselves as best they could but nowhere near as well as the others. Between one kill and the next Ranma looked at Hathan and Roger, who were fighting alongside him. "I saw something back in there." he said, jerking his head back to the house they had just vacated. "Something huge, I don't know what it is, but you and your lances might be the only things that can kill whatever it is. After Smalljon starts lighting things up, we'll make our way over to the horses. You two, get out of town, build up some momentum and come back in!"

Then five more wights were on him, wielding simple weapons but with truly monstrous strength. Strength for strength, all of his fellows would have been overwhelmed, save for Smalljon and possibly Dacey, though they weren't quite strong enough to overwhelm Ranma.

The beasts that had destroyed the back of the former inn they had been staying in, however, were different matter. As Smalljon threw his first torch up onto a wooden and straw roof, they came around the edge of the inn, two of them from either direction.

They were huge, two stories tall if they were an inch. Their skin seemed almost made of rock or ice and was gray with patterns of blue shot through it, with patches of long gray hair. Their faces were like that of a gorilla (though none of Ranma's fellows would make that connection) with long beards and they didn't seem to have any genitalia or anything else. They almost looked like someone had taken something living and then built on top of it with ice and stone. Their eyes glowed with a colder blue than even the wights and they held huge clubs made of some kind of deep blue ice.

"WH-what the hell are they!", Smalljon gasped, backing away even further into the circle of his friends, unused to looking up at anyone let alone that far up. Daryn, Roger, and the others all looked disturbed as well.

"They, they look like frost giants," Jon stammered, "but they can't be! For one thing, they're too damn big! And for another all the frost giants are dead, long dead!"

"So were the villagers." Ranma muttered angrily. "Break through and away. Keep as much distance as possible from them until we can put down all of the villagers. We can't face those things and the wights at the same time!"

The others nodded grim agreement and with Ranma in the lead, forged their way through the throng of undead villagers; bashing, slicing, and hacking them to pieces as they went, although even beheaded or without limbs, the wights kept on trying to get at them. All of them were covered with nicks and bruises in short order. Ranma's plate armor was dented a few times by strong blows that he couldn't quite deflect or dodge. One of the Norrey scouts fell, his stomach sliced open by a shovel and pulled down by the horde, his screams ringing out into the night over the clamor of battle. But they kept grimly on while Smalljon continued to throw out his incendiary torches, lighting more and more fires throughout the village.

As Ranma predicted, the giants couldn't move very quickly and while they were more than strong enough to simply smash through a house, it slowed them down even further doing so. Five minutes of desperate, close in combat later, the group arrived at the makeshift stables to find their horses still tethered there, whinnying and neighing in fear. They were all wild eyed and straining at their tethers. Ranma cursed. He had thought, just maybe, they could just all ride away or just use their higher elevations against the wights but none of them were good enough to control horses maddened by fear. Only Roger's and Hathan's horses looked even halfway calm, and even they were moving around restlessly.

"Everyone back away, let the horses through when they move!" Ranma shouted, racing forward with the two. "Roger, Hathan get moving!" Ranma barked, darting in and grabbing his warhammer from where he had left it, then swiftly helped Hathan and Roger undo the tethers, pushing them both up onto their horses.

Now freed from their tethers, the horses bolted toward the open door. Theon was nearly clipped by them as they charged out, smashing a few of the wights to the ground and allowing the humans to move away from the crowd of wights. However, looming at the back of the crowd were the Giants and Ranma knew that they would be coming towards them at any moment.

"Keep moving away from the giants!" Then Ranma charged forward, slicing into the horde with his claymore in one hand and his warhammer in the other smashing out, protecting his friends backs. His friends followed his orders, pushing away from the giants and the entrance to the makeshift corral, using the moment the horses charged to move away while Hathan and Roger raced away down the street.

The fires were everywhere now. The smoke was getting to the wolf-sworn a little but the flames seemed to be bothering the undead more. It didn't seem to do anything to them without them actually being set on fire, but they were definitely wary of it, something Ranma made a note of.

Ranma ducked under one of the Giant's fists, his Claymore slashing into the thing's knee. His sword sliced into it, but only halfway or so, and the monster's empty hand came back, clipping him upside the head, flinging him aside, and forcing Ranma to let go of his claymore. It was only because of his durability that he survived that blow and he quickly got to his feet, largely uninjured. It was as well he did, because two of the wights were on him almost immediately. He swung his warhammer around to slam into the first one's head while his other hand thundered out with a blow that picked up the other wight, tossing it up into the air and away over one of the burning houses.

The others were not doing nearly as well, but even they were stronger and faster than the wights.

Edd was using his mobility, weaving and bobbing, his spear spinning around slicing and hamstringing when he could. It appeared that the wights could be hamstrung, losing much of their already limited mobility, so it was surprisingly effective. Daryn was guarding his back and sides, shield and sword both moving easily to defend them, but it was obvious that both of them were under great amount of strain. The sheer number of wights around them was beginning to pin them down.

Ranma found Dacey was the closest of his allies and she was holding her own well enough. That was discounting Fenris, who was running at his heels biting trying to hamstring his opponents. The pup was still too young however, and the wights were easily able to ignore both him and Ghost. It was simply a fact they couldn't quite get at the back of most of the enemies knees. That was, of course, until a few of them were knocked down and Ghost came out of nowhere, ripping and tearing at their knees and elbows, and even some necks.

Jon was standing with Smalljon, defending him and Theon, who was sending arrow after arrow towards the giants. Already, there were dozens of shafts sticking out of two of them, mostly in the face or the neck and Ranma realized that the Iron Lander was trying to get his arrows into the giant's eyes. Jon was the one doing the best so far, his chainmail only lightly scuffed, his blades flashing out with more skill and speed than any of the others could manage.

Ranma gritted his teeth as more wights began to come at them from the direction they were heading, though, thankfully, he hadn't heard the sounds of combat from that direction, which meant Hathan and Roger had gotten away at least. He sped up, his hammer flickering out like lightning and hitting just as hard. He was everywhere at once, his hammer slamming into any of the wights that were in a position to get behind or surround any of his friends. For some reason, Fenris also sped up and his bites became much more powerful, able to rip off the wights' feet from the ankles and he was now also able to get at the back of their knees. With that, they were able to hold the line for now and continue to move away from the giants, limiting their impact on the battle for now.

However, with more wights coming out from between every house they passed it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. He blinked in astonishment as he noticed Osha wielding a hunk of burning wood beside Jon and Smalljon.

That gave him an idea, however, and Ranma jumped up from a standing start up onto a roof. Once there he grabbed up a large wooden beam from the roof, pulling it up, hefting it above his hand, and flinging it down into the largest throng of undead villagers. That gave his friends some breathing space and they raced back towards Ranma as he ripped up another one, throwing it down as well while his friends, save Jon, looked up at him in pure astonishment at his strength before turning their attention back to their battle.

Jon suddenly stopped when he noticed something in through the broken doorway of the house he had just passed. Quick as he could, Jon ducked inside, coming back out with several skins of spirits. Above them, Ranma continued to hurl his ever decreasing number of projectiles. One even nailed a giant, knocking it off its feet with a roar, but it scrambled up, seemingly uninjured.

He tossed the spirits out over the undead pinned under Ranma's projectiles while his friends moved to guard his back from the horde that had now gotten around them on all sides. He looked over at Theon who grinned and grabbed a special arrow from his quiver, reaching out and lighting it on Osha's makeshift weapon. The end of the arrow began to blaze and he quickly placed it to his bowstring and cocked it back. "Say the word!"

Ranma saw what Jon had planned and barked a laugh while he jumped from one roof to the other racing towards what was about to be a massive conflagration. "Do it!" he ordered, and Theon let fly.

Theon's aim was true and the burning arrow smacked into the skin of wine, igniting it with a roar. The conflagration ignited quickly as Jon continued to hurl the next skin out into it.

The inferno spread over the timbers that Ranma had used as projectiles and, soon enough, more than half of the horde plus one of the giants were set alight.

The undead had thus far been silent but now they began a keening wail, accompanied by the bellow of the burning giant as it actually began to toss snow onto its burning chest. Ranma's friends answered this with a roar of approval. They went to hacking and throwing the bodies of those wights that made it around the conflagration to come at them onto the flames.

This moment of good fortune ended when two of the giants burst through a house right alongside Dacey and Edd.

Edd went down, slammed away by a fist the same size as his upper body that caught him in the center of his chest, throwing him into the air and away to impact against the wall of another house where he collapsed boneless to the ground. That same giant's club smashed the one remaining scout to a bloody splatter.

Dacey was able to dodge the other giant's club, which was encumbered by the remains of the house it'd just smashed through. Her sword flicked out, catching the giant's arm right behind the elbow slicing it as deep as she could force it. Her sword stuck there and she gasped in horror as she felt herself being lifted off the ground by it and saw the other fist of the giant incoming.

Suddenly Jon was there, leaping from the remains of the wall that the giants had just burst through. He landed on the back of the other giant attacking her with both his short swords flashing, stabbing down deep as he could force them into the giant's back, which wasn't too far, unfortunately.

Ranma appeared too, blocking the blow, forcing it to the side with one arm as his warhammer came around slamming into the giant's leg with as much force as his body could muster. The leg shattered at the thigh and the behemoth could no longer support its own weight, falling to the side.

That giant slowly collapsed and Dacey, relieved, pulled her sword out of its arm. She looked up at Jon only to gasp "Look out!"

The giant that Jon had been fighting wasn't going down easily and Ranma was standing right in front of it. As its club came crashing forward, Ranma couldn't dodge it without letting the blow hit Dacey, so instead he braced his arms in front of him.

The blow landed and Ranma felt himself lifted into the air flying over Dacey's head, gasping in agony as his left arm was broken by the blow. He turned in midair, his feet hitting a wall and he launched himself forward; slamming into a group of wights nearby, fist and feet flashing, his warhammer lost when the giant's blow caught him.

Dacey was busy attacking the same giant Jon was, dodging this way and that. Smalljon and Daryn were busy with the remaining zombies, but Ranma could see two more Giants bursting out of a house right beside them. A fifth giant burst out behind Ranma and he turned his teeth bared in a snarl as he charged forward.

Ranma's working hand slammed into the giant's stomach with enough force to actually lift the monster off his feet and throw him backwards a step. He dodged the first blow, dodged the second, and almost dodged the third one, hammering blows on the giant who was grunting now at his center of mass was almost crushed by Ranma's fierce Amaguriken speed blows, but the fight turned against Ranma when something grabbed his leg, tripping him up.

He looked down and realized that a hand chopped off one of the undead villagers had reached out grabbing his foot, pulling it out from under him.

He looked up at the giant as he kicked the undead creature off him, the goliath's club already falling toward him.

Suddenly he heard a shout. "In the name of the Warrior, go back to hell!" Then Hathan was there speeding forward, his lance point slamming into the giant's upper chest with all the force of his charging steed behind it. The giant roared, not in pain but in fury, as the lance point took it in the chest and through the heart but even that wasn't have stopping it. Hathan, however, noticed this and let go of his lance quickly, bringing around his longsword to hack into the giant's neck.

By this time Ranma jumped up, turning as he heard Dacey shout his name. "Ranma!" With that shout, Dacey threw his warhammer at him.

Ranma grabbed it out of the air with his one good arm. Turning he leaped up into the air, bringing the hammer down with a roar to slam into the giant's head, crushing it utterly.

He looked up from his personal fight to see that Roger had arrived as well, spearing the giant that had been about to destroy Smalljon and Daryn through the skull. He had chosen his target better than Hathan, though he took a blow to his armored chest from the other giant's club that threw him up and out of his saddle. His horse was running away but he had saved Daryn and Smalljon who stood over him, protectively cutting down the few remaining undead villagers. They then grabbed him and moved away from the one giant remaining on its feet.

Ranma looked up at Hathan, nodded his thanks, and the two of them turned, splitting apart. Hathan moved towards the giant that Jon and Dacey were battling, trampling several wights under his horse's hooves.

Theon raced in front of giant that had fallen to its side, which Dacey was fighting, his bow raised at near point-blank range and fired up into its face, an arrow taking the giant through the eye.

At the same time, Edd came back, roaring and screaming, his helmet askew, and blood flowing from his nose, eyes, and a cut on his face, slamming his spear into the giant's chest right over the heart. His spear broke as the giant roared, flinching away but it had done its job, taking the thing in its heart. With no heart and no brain even its undead vitality failed it, and it collapsed into the snow at last.

One outstretched arm clipped Theon as the giant collapsed, but he shook it off and turned back, using the last of his arrows on the wights before pulling out his own longsword. He blocked a blow from one of them that actually had a real weapon, a massive bastard sword that it swung at his head. The blow was so powerful it knocked Theon back several steps, but he recovered and moved with Jon and Dacey protecting one another's back.

By this time, Ranma had smashed through the wights between him and his friends. He jumped up, dodging over the giant's club. His feet touched down briefly on the giant's outstretched arm and his hammer came around smashing the behemoth's head, shattering its skull.

Still the giant kept moving, reaching forward, but Smalljon raced forward, slamming his broadsword into the thing's chest with his one still working arm and all the strength of his body behind it. "Die and stay dead this time!"

With that, the battle was effectively over. The wights still up and attacking were cut down easily. The warriors went about their grim business cutting them down and tossing the parts into the growing fires that were practically everywhere now. Soon, the last went down from a blow of Ranma's hammer, the head of which was now so splattered with blood and bits of flesh that you couldn't even see the steel of it underneath.

Ranma looked around at his shell-shocked and shivering companions, feeling the adrenaline slowly leaving him a little shaky himself. He could already feel his healing ability kicking however, although it didn't seem to be doing much for his arm for some reason. He looked down at it and gasped a little as he noticed how black and blue it was, as well as the bone sticking out of his forearm. "That's going to leave a mark." He muttered, shaking his head and looking up at Hathan. "So, do you believe in the Others now?"

OOOOOOO

In the far north, far, far beyond even the most northern wildling settlements, several beings frowned in their places around a large unbroken column of ice reaching down from the ceiling of the cave they were inhabiting. It was covered with strange glyphs and had several large crystals imbedded here and there, all of them lit up with blue light.

"The trap failed." one of the beings said, his voice a lilting song on the cool breeze, yet somehow wrong as if it had the taint of death on it. "It took the bait, but shattered the thorns of our trap. The aberration still exists, and we have lost much of our resources beyond the cursed human wall. Our supply of tools there has been reduced, and our current crop of homunculus are gone."

"It was a near run thing." another said. Their faces were hidden by shadow; they distrusted one another only marginally less than they'd despised and loathed humans, though their eyes, glowing blue, could pierce the darkness easily. One hand waved at the stalagmite, which suddenly darkened. Far away the homunculus giants that they had commanded began to collapse, leaving nothing of them behind. "What concerns me is what we saw from the other humans in our tool's eyes; all of them were better fighters than normal humans should be. Still, we know its abilities, we can plan better for the next time."

"We need not do anything for a time." another one said, and the others all turned their sparkling blue eyes towards it. Only the eyes were now visible in the darkness of the cave, or at least so it would appear to human eyes. Of course a human would freeze to death in seconds here anyway.

"Use the other humans. They are skeptical, they will not believe save what they themselves see. They will not see the real danger. There is always strife among them, they will destroy one another, weaken one another so long as we play a waiting game." That voice said in response to those looks. "Merely make certain that there is no solid proof other than these humans various injuries, and few will believe them."

With a thought from one of them, the crystals buried in the frozen stalagmite lit up again and they began to send their thoughts out once more, determined to erase all evidence of the attack. Of course the humans would help them with that, fearing the pawns under their control.

OOOOOOO

By the time Dacey, Jon, Ranma, and Hathan finished throwing wight bodies and parts onto the fires. The giants had dissolved entirely, leaving nothing behind them but snow and ice. Not even their blood remained where it had splattered on rock and wood. Ranma shook his head, wondering if that was a natural thing or something magical.

He scowled, looking down at the pyre where they had also put the body of the older Norrey scout. The other one had been hacked apart and they had burned what parts they could find. Ranma was guilt-ridden at the fact he had lost two men, but at the same time, knew they had been incredibly lucky to only lose two men. He felt even more guilty at being grateful it had been the two scouts that had died.

"I lived through it," Daryn muttered, as he sat down next to Ranma grabbing some of the jerky that Ranma had pulled out of the packs for them. "And I still don't believe it. What were those things?"

Jon looked up wearily from where he had slumped next to his brother. "The large ones looked like frost giants. Like the ones from the tales from before the times of the First Men, not the giants who we know still live beyond the Wall. And the undead, they're called wights."

"GAHHHH!" Smalljon yelled, as Dacey reset his shoulder and then moved it around gingerly, wincing occasionally. "That fucking hurt! I still think this is some kind of magic trick of the wildlings, but it's also a threat, one my father and the Night Watch need to be warned about. Couldn't you have done that less painfully?"

Dacey snorted, moving away to lean against the remains of a house's wall, wincing as she did. "Hah, you're just lucky that thing didn't rip your arm off entirely. If not for Ranma's training, none of us would have lived through that. And if they are wights, going by the old stories I heard when I was young, we'll have to burn the bodies to make sure they don't come back to life again. I've never heard of any magic beyond the White Walkers that could bring the dead back to life."

"Neither have I." Ranma said, standing up join Theon at burning the pile of undead. In the distance they could see the light of day beginning to make its presence felt and he smiled before looking at his friend. "Guess now you can change your name from Greyjoy to Giantslayer, Theon." Ranma laughed, slapping the archer on his shoulder.

Theon smiled wearily but shook his head, his eyes showing how rattled he still was. "I'll think about it but this was a near run thing, Ranma, way too near for me to want to remember it later."

Ranma chuckled and moved on but there was some truth in Theon's words. If Hathan and Roger had not returned when they had the group would have been overwhelmed save perhaps for Ranma himself. And Roger had paid a price for his killing that one giant. His ribs were cracked so badly that he was having trouble breathing and he was still seeing double.

Edd was also in a bad way, he looked to at least have a concussion, maybe even a cracked skull though he had come back into the fight like a berserker. He was also complaining of back pain from where he had slammed into the wall of the house but Ranma was hopeful that that was only bruising.

Daryn had come through the best of them all, besides Theon, only taking a small gash from one of the villagers' makeshift weapons. The others were nicked and battered from head to toe and Jon was favoring his right side. Ranma alone wasn't slumped in weariness, though his arm was healing much slower than he was used to even from a wound as bad as this.

His healing ability was actually a little higher than it had been in his old world, far higher than it had been when he was sixteen and just arriving at the Tendo place. Even so, something in the wound he had taken was fighting him. He wondered what the heck that giant club had been made out of. It looked like ice, but it didn't shatter like it should have upon hitting him, so Ranma wasn't certain.

Theon's eyes narrowed as he looked at Ranma. "Speaking of, where by the Drowning God did you learn how to move like that? I know you're good, Ranma, but that was… You moved faster than I could follow sometimes, and you jumped from roof to roof with ease, as if you had been doing it all your life."

The others looked at Ranma, waiting for an answer. All except Jon who simply sat there, one hand scratching at Ghost's head. He would wait for a time they could be alone before asking his own questions. Not even these men (and woman), firm friends all, would believe the tale of Ranma remembering his previous life and carrying over the skills from it. Even Hathan, whose religion had a place for such things, would never believe that, not even with the reality of his otherworldly skills rubbed in their faces. And if they didn't believe him, well nothing good come from that.

Ranma shrugged. He wanted to tell his friends about his memories, but he knew that most of them would not believe him. Dacey might, and maybe Theon since they had lived together so long, but the others? No. The other problem came from Theon. Despite growing up alongside him, if you asked Ranma if he trusted Theon, really trusted him, the answer would be a somewhat ambivalent shrug. There just seemed to be too much of the Iron Born in Theon for Ranma to want to trust him and, if he told just the others, that kind of secret would push a further wedge between Theon and his other friends.

Still he ignored that once again and replied, "I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm simply more physically skilled than most. You all know how strong I am, how skilled. Is it such a surprise to see that maybe I've got other skills you haven't seen yet? And as for jumping from roof to roof, other than Smalljon and Roger, I bet every one of you could do it if you practiced. I like to climb trees and jumping from one to another. The skills and coordination that I learned doing that, made jumping from roof to roof pretty easy, actually."

All his friends frowned, wondering why he was so skilled in the first place, but couldn't really come up with a reason to question him further. After all, without those skills, none of them would be here.

It would have surprised them all that Ranma was thinking along similar lines, though he wasn't thinking positively about it. I need to figure out why I can't use ki attacks and why I can't move as fast as I could in my old life. That barrier, whatever it is, that's blocking my ki from coming out of my body, I need to break it. Whatever those things are, to fight them on a more even footing, I seriously need to get better than I am right now. He had a few ideas as to what that barrier was, but he would need some time to think about it.

"What should we do now?" Hathan asked trotting up to him. He had not gotten out of the saddle since the fight, and had made himself a new lance almost as soon as he could. While the others were busy burning the bodies and tending to their injuries, he had been gathering the horses and had actually done a better job than he had realistically hoped, coming back with five of them. Those plus his own and Roger's gave them seven.

Ranma stared out into the distance, watching the sun's rays make their way across the land. "We'll continue as fast as we can go towards the Wall."

The others looked up at him in astonishment and he shrugged. "It's the nearest place with a maester healer and we need to tell commander Mormont about this." He gestured around them. "A verbal report will be much more easily believed, though I could wish we had some more physical evidence than our injuries and your word Osha." he said, looking over at the wild woman.

She had been tending to the injured, and she and Roger seemed to be talking quietly to one another. By the look of interest in Roger's eyes, he wondered if the man had designs on her. He shrugged that thought off as none of his business, especially since Roger wasn't the type to force his affections on anyone.

In reply to Ranma's nonverbal question, Osha nodded but resolved to keep her own secrets. She had given her word to the King Beyond the Wall, and though she had run from his army she had no desire to be a betrayer as well as an oathbreaker. She would tell the men of the Wall as much as she could, however, about the Others. She looked down as the two direwolves frolicked around, still energetic despite the nights activities, and wondered about what she had seen in the one called Fenris or his owner.

Ranma knelt down, holding out a bit of jerky to Fenris, who pounced on it gnawing at it happily while Ghost moved to his other hand nuzzling in and whining a little. He held out another bit of jerky to Jon's direwolf, wondering about the odd sensation of being Fenris for a moment there when the pup somehow warned Ranma of what was coming their way. If not for that warning, even with how on edge they had been, the group would've been taken completely by surprise by the giants.

What was that? Ranma thought to himself, rubbing at Fenris's head, causing the wolf pup to wag its tail. He noted absently that Fenris was bigger than he had been before this trip began and he wondered if that was normal for puppies. He had seen on this trip that Fenris had more vitality and energy than Ghost did, though he would have to wait until they got back to Winterfell to see if that was simply Ghost being much more calm and laid back than Fenris or something that was different in Fenris from his brothers and sisters.

He also resolved to get a handle on what the heck had happened between the two of them and he continued to look down at Fenris who looked up at him suddenly meeting his eyes. Suddenly it was as if Ranma was staring at himself. Pack leader, good hunt, run good, strong, partner.

Ranma shook himself, moving back from whatever that had been when Hathan trotted back leading the horses already packed with what they could salvage. He and Jon and Daryn had created a makeshift litter, tying it between two of the horses for Edd and Roger. "We're ready to go, milord."

"Let's be about it then," Ranma replied, and the others wearily got to their feet and began to prepare themselves to leave. Ranma himself moved quickly to Roger, lifting him into the litter along one side before moving to Edd and doing the same with him. Within minutes they were on their way, with Ranma leading the way.

Around them the undead continued to burn. Within a few hours, there would be nothing left of them but ash and an hour after that the ash, too, would disappear. Nothing would remain but the wreckage of the village behind them and the wolf sworn's own injuries to provide evidence for their tale.

OOOOOOO

The Lady Catelyn moved through Winterfell, smiling faintly at the servants as she passed them. She paused a moment outside the solar, looking inside at her two daughters who were working at their stitching.

Watching them at this task, the contrast between them was even more apparent than other times. Sansa sat quietly, sewing with dexterity and skill. Already her needle and tapestry work was famed throughout Winterfell and the lands around it. A 'scarf from the lady' had become a gift sought after by both the guards and the smallfolk, something that made Sansa smile faintly when her mother informed her about it, though in truth she was often bored with Winterfell. She always enjoyed hearing stories about the South, where things actually happened rather than here, where nothing seemed to change from day to day or, if it did, it was always happening somewhere else tosomeone else.

On the other hand, Arya had never taken to sewing, tapestry, painting, or anything else that a normal lady of her station should have liked. She was fidgety, anxious, looking out at the sky through the window wistfully every other minute, and wasn't even a third of the way as far in her current design as Sansa was.

Catelyn smiled faintly, shaking her head at the sight of her youngest daughter. She had lost many battles there and so Ranma continued to train Arya so long as she continued to try and learn the womanly duties. The young girl was taking to Ranma's lessons better than Bran in truth. Bran had enthusiasm, though that seemed to have wavered since the day that Ned had taken him out to see justice done, but none of the skill or energy Arya had. All in all, even if she still thought it barbaric and far too cruel to force a child to see such, Catelyn was happy with the result, as Bran had taken to his intellectual studies even more.

Yet it was coming to a time when she would have to put her foot down, permanently, about Arya, though she was not looking forward to that. Not only would it prove detrimental to her relationship with Arya but it might also impact her relationship with her oldest. Ranma had never backed down from his statement that Arya would do whatever Arya wanted, regardless of station or gender, and Catelyn was not looking forward to his reaction when she decided to put a stop to this nonsense.

At the moment, Catelyn moved on searching for her husband, a letter clutched in one hand. News from the South was welcome at times, but this news she knew would change everything and she wasn't certain if it was going to be good or bad change.

Catelyn sighed faintly, wondering why her son was off gallivanting when both she and Ned might have need of his counsel or, at least, support. Ranma rarely gave his opinions on anything outside their family unless asked to, although he had taken to being his father's messenger and voice easily enough, getting real world experience and fulfilling every duty asked of him with flair and energy.

Of course, she smirked, that might be because he knows that he is shirking one particular duty in particular. She was still searching for a suitable wife for her son and had found one or two that looked promising on the surface, if the families weren't too proud to see the merits of at the least looking into the match.

At first, she had thought that possibly marrying him to a Frey might actually be a good idea, but upon consultation with her father and with Ned that idea had been halted in its tracks. She hadn't realized how much bad blood was between her family and the Freys, though she had known of the disdain the northern men had for the family, calling them opportunists and cowards.

Yet if you removed the Freys from the equation, there were no families in the Riverlands of suitable importance that had daughters of the correct age. And all of the families in the North were unsuitable for one reason or another, be it age, no real need to weld their name to the Starks, or other reasons.

The Karstarks, the Reeds, and the Umbers were the only ones to have daughters of the appropriate age. The Karstarks were related already to the Starks from long ago, and their newly reinforced friendship made anything more unnecessary, despite Lord Rickard's ambition. House Umber's girl wasn't from the main line and she was already promised to another. Meera Reed was the right age but the two had met when they were very young and had fallen into the role of cousins easily, much to the later chagrin of Catelyn and Lady Isolde Reed. Ranma however was not going to be willing to change that relationship.

Catelyn found her husband working with his castellan in his office, going over some notes on field production and transportation. She recognized one of them as a note coming from House Reed, stating that the last of the stone taking from the Dread Fort had arrived and work was going to begin on renovating Moat Cailin.

Catelyn frowned at that, not liking the implications and not liking the fact that her advice on what to use the stones of the Dread Fort had been ignored. Catelyn had felt that the stones from the Dread Fort should have been added to either an existing Castle, or to help House Glover renovate their castle's walls. It was well known that Deepwood Motte was an old and poorly designed castle, yet it was an important one despite this, being on the Bay of Ice. It protected what was easily the best landing zones for coming and goings from between the mainland and Bear Island. If anything was going to be defended that should've been, since it was on the shore closest to the Iron Islands.

She did not trust house Greyjoy and the Ironborn to remain loyal to the crown and, in fact, didn't even trust Theon overmuch. Moreover, Catelyn felt that repairing Moat Cailin, which had been allowed to fall into disrepair over the past decade and a bit would send a bad message to those further south, since it was such a powerful defensive position against any threat further south.

She had been overruled by Ranma and Ned however. A survey of both castles had revealed that the Moat was the one most in need of repair and House Glover had been unable to come up with the manpower required to renovate their own castle or even help transport the stones through the wolfswood. Winterfell would have had to supply the workers as well as the money necessary to pay them.

House Reed was able to produce both so long as House Stark dealt with the transportation. Many of the poisonous plants and animals in the swamp of the crannogmen were sold for medicine, bringing in a goodly amount of money, making House Reed much richer than they appeared to outsiders, though they truly had need for little in the way of possessions given their lifestyle. And the transportation would be much easier, since the Kingsroad could be used for the majority of the trip.

Still, Catelyn was worried about how it would be seen by those further south, most especially those who were apparently coming north even now. "My lord," she nodded her head at Eddard, her face serious. "There is a message from King's Landing."

Ned's face gave nothing away as usual but he knew somehow it wasn't good news. He nodded his head to the castellan, indicating he should leave. Catelyn handed the note over quickly and Ned read it silently. He sighed as he sank back into his desk's seat raising his free hand to massage his eyes for a moment. "I take it you have read this?" he asked.

"I have." Catelyn frowned, reaching forward to take his hand gently. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Jon Arryn dead," Ned muttered. "I know he was old man, but he was still hale and hearty the last time we saw one another. This is a sad day. Have you had word from your sister?"

Catelyn's younger sister, Lysa, had been married to Jon Arryn in an attempt to forge an alliance between the Riverlands and the Vale of Arryn. It hadn't worked as well as it might have, exacerbated because the marriage had borne little fruit, save for one sickly child, and Lysa and Jon's different ages. The fact that Lysa had to marry such an old man and the fact that no love had blossomed between the two was a major point of contention between the two sisters. "I have not. I'll send my condolences but we haven't talked in years. You know she somewhat resents the fact that I am," she smiled as their fingers twined together, "happy in my marriage to you and that it has been so fruitful."

Ned smiled faintly reaching out to take her hand in both of his as she sat down on his desk. "I see. Nonetheless, the king is coming here. We will have to send ravens out telling Ranma and the others to return here to welcome them. It will take the royal party weeks at best, months at worst, to get here depending on how many they bring. Yet for all of that, there is only one reason for that I can think of that would be enough for Robert to come north."

"King Robert means to make you the Kings Hand." his wife replied. "A great honor, though I am uncertain if it is a good idea."

"You do not think that Ranma could handle himself here?"

"I think he most certainly could!" she said angrily then blushed a little shaking her head. "You know what I mean. I am proud of our son, but he is still a young man, with all the impetuosity of the breed. This whole adventure he's on at the moment should be proof enough of that."

Ned frowned, once more wondering if he should share his suspicions about why Ranma had the memories of his past life fueling his abilities, and why he had really gone north, something they had not shared with her for fear of stiffening her resolve against Ranma's going. While reincarnation was a part of the Seven's doctrine, Ranma and Ned were both certain he was here at the will of the old gods, which would not sit well with Catelyn, despite the fact that she had come to at least not look down on the old god religion.

Eventually, he said, "I cannot in good conscience turn it down. Robert is my friend and without Jon there to watch out for him he will be at sea when it comes to politics and running the kingdom. And besides," he said, reaching out to stroke her cheek tenderly, "Ranma will have your counsel here to rely on."

That was said with quite a bit of pride in his voice. No other lady in the northern lands could handle herself as well as Lady Catelyn in the area of land management or politics, and Winterfell and its environment had thrived under the two of them. Indeed, the ideas that she had brought to farming alone was a large advancement. The idea of rotating crops, as they did now, had made the lands his family commanded, as well as those of the vassals that answered to them directly, richer than they had ever been before. They actually produced a bit of a surplus, allowing them to send food elsewhere in the North to lands that didn't have as much arable land such as House Umber or Glover.

"I know," she sighed faintly "but I still worry. And… I have had some thoughts about possible betrothals for our son."

"Oh?" Ned chuckled. "And who exactly are you going to recruit to control our wayward boy?"

Catelyn told him her two best choices and he looked at her in shock. "There is no chance of them agreeing! We aren't wealthy enough to interest the first. Besides, the last time someone from that realm married a northerner, it did not turn out well for either the houses or the individuals. And as for the second, no, just no. The hatred they have for anyone who had anything to do with the rebellion means any marriage into that line would be folly at best."

"I will bow to your experience with those of Dorne, but you cannot think that a single marriage is a good test of such things, Ned. And besides, unless we start looking at much younger or much older ladies, outside of the Freys and the Western Lands there isn't anyone of a suitable rank."

Ned frowned, not liking either option for much the same reason. "I suppose you can pursue this, though I would be astonished if you got a positive response."

"I as well," Catelyn admitted, "but it would not hurt to make inquiries, possibly set up a face to face meeting between the two."

Her husband nodded at that then turned back to his paperwork, and Catelyn excused herself to see to sending out several ravens to various parties.

OOOOOOO

Ranma and his now extremely ragged band of friends continued on their way for another week before they were within sight of Castle Black, the home and headquarters of the Night Watch. All of them, even Smalljon who had actually been here once before with his father, stopped and stared at the sight of the Wall.

A loud horn coming from one of the small towers announced they had been seen and that they were friends, seeing the black wolfs-head banner fluttering in the breeze from Hathan's lance, standing upright by his side.

To say the Wall was massive would be like saying the ocean was wet. It was simply monstrous, made of stone and ice, more resembling a mountain carved semi-smooth by the hands of a god rather than something made by the hands of man. Even from here only Ranma could barely make out the top of the wall, and even he could not make out the buttresses or crenellations, which disappeared into the clouds well above them.

In comparison, Castle Black didn't seem to be a real castle, as it didn't have a wall surrounding it, instead being a series of keeps and towers, all of which, even the largest, was utterly dwarfed by the massive wall behind them. Most of them were sturdy looking and seemed well made, though a few had obviously seen better days. On the southern face of the Wall, was a long wood and pulley elevator, its wooden beams hammered into the ice of the Wall itself. From here, several men could be made out exercising in the courtyard around one of the keeps. Other men had already begun to race to what looked like a stable.

Yet, it was the wall that grabbed their attention. "They say it was raised by Bran the builder," Jon said looking at the Wall in wonder, "our ancestor, Ranma."

Ranma shook his head, pride for his family filling him. "It is an amazing sight." he said, his voice full of awe. Even in his old life he had never seen something that came close to this. It made the portions of the Great Wall of China he had seen seem small and miserly in comparison. In truth, it made anything made by man on Earth seem small.

Osha, however, had a much different reaction to the Wall. She simply glared and spit to one side. The Northerners saw this but ignored it, knowing the wildling disdain for the Wall and those that lived beyond it, who they called 'kneelers'.

The group remained there, staring up at the Wall as three riders approached them quickly.

Ranma smiled faintly as he saw one of them was his uncle Benjen, Master Ranger of the Nights Watch, though all three pulled up sharply in surprise as they came close enough to see how battered the group was. Both Roger and Edd were being carried in a litter between two of the horses and Osha was riding next to Roger. She had taken over looking over their wounds as best she could. Despite their condition and the injuries of the riding wounded, Ranma had set a brisk pace. They hadn't stopped since the battle against the wights and monster giants, crossing nearly half of The Gift in that time.

"Ranma!" Benjen reached down from his saddle to grasp his nephew's hand. The fact that Ranma was on foot didn't bother him, he had seen the almost unnatural endurance the boy had before, though the injuries of his companions were much more worrisome. "What, in the name of the old gods, did you all run into?"

"Uncle." Ranma said, grasping the man's forearm with his good arm. His other arm still hadn't quite healed, though most of the black and blue marks had faded slightly and the bone had been set. For some reason, whatever the club he had been hit by was made of, it seemed to be fighting his ability to heal himself and he could barely force any extra ki into that arm, to help the process. It was still healing but Ranma had no idea what the club could have been made of to create such an effect. "We need to talk to you and Commander Mormont."

Not ten minutes later, Ranma sat down in a somewhat comfortable seat in the commander's office in the Lord Commander's tower, sipping at a very hot mug of tea while Jon and Theon did the same, leaning against the wall behind him. The office was small, dominated by a single wide desk but it had a few chairs with one somewhat good one on the other side of the desk where the Old Bear, Jeor Mormont, sat.

Jeor was a large man, now bent slightly with age, yet still possessing wide shoulders and lively eyes set into a weather beaten face. He had no hair on top of his head but a white and grey beard grew down to his chest. His hands, clasped on the desk in front of him, were large and strong looking despite the signs of age there. All in all, he cut a formidable figure and had an air of command that could be felt by anyone in his presence.

Throughout Ranma's narrative he had remained silent, simply taking it in while Benjen asked a few questions, mostly about the giants and what they had been able to glean from talking to the wildling woman. He sat that way for several minutes after the tale concluded then slowly shook his head. "That is an unbelievable tale young Stark, and I mean that sincerely, in admiration of the fact that you all survived and in disbelief of what you ran into."

"I know sir," Ranma said seriously. "It was near run thing most of the time." And it had been, even for Ranma. Caught by surprise and unable to open up any distance without leaving his friends behind, he had been forced to fight a more constrained battle than he would have preferred. Without ki attacks, it had been damn difficult. Not exhausting really, but tough.

"I'm not doubting that or your word, but then again, I've spent more years than you've been alive up here on the wall, I doubt even many people even here in the North will believe you with only your injuries as proof. And you say the giants or whatever they were decomposed quickly?"

"They came apart almost as soon as we killed them, sir." Jon replied. "I thought that was unusual but there didn't seem to be anything we could do to stop it. And by the time we were ready to go, a lot of the undead bodies were also ash."

From where he was leaning against the wall behind the Lord Commander, Benjen Stark frowned thoughtfully, tugging at his beard, which was rather short, only coming down to the top of his chest but was still completely brown, although it was somewhat unkempt in comparison to Jeor's. Benjen was Ned's younger brother and looked it, having much the same facial features: a long face with high cheek bones and dark grey eyes that could appear blue tinted if he was happy. He was a tall man, though not as broad as Ned was across the shoulders, and seemed built for speed and endurance over strength. His eyes were set deep into a face worn by weather even more than Jeor's, despite being much younger. Even here he wore a longsword at his side.

When he spoke, he seconded his commander's thoughts. "I don't believe even our fellow Night Watch members will believe you ran into a force of the Others, Ranma. I'm not even certain that's what you did, either. I don't know how it could be done, but wildlings could have found something, some way to raise the dead and control them, or perhaps some kind of mind control spell. There are supposedly sorcerers and mages over in the free cities of Essos, possibly one of them has come to the lands beyond the Wall? No, you personally didn't see a White Walker, so you only have supposition, not proof, and as for the undead rising, that is even more unbelievable."

"When you talk to anyone but possibly Greatjon, don't mention the giants and do not, by the old gods, mention your opinion that this is a sign the White Walkers have returned. You'll only make them disbelieve you entirely. Tell them you ran into a trick of the wildlings, some illusion or other that covered their approach and that'll be enough to arouse their interest without arousing their skepticism at the same time. That will be enough for you to rouse the North and get us some aid on the Wall."

Ranma nodded. "Makes sense, I suppose, though I'm not happy about it. Still, I'll talk to my father when I get back and we'll stop in at every Castle we can on the way back. Do you think it might be a good idea to leave our injured here and head back without them? Normally I wouldn't even think it, but I want to get the word out about this and I want supplies, especially, to start heading your way as soon as possible. The Gift is practically empty, there's no way it can support a large force on the Wall."

"True enough." Jeor nodded, smiling faintly. "I'll take whatever help we can get."

"The wildlings have been acting oddly lately, we've seen a lot of movement on their side, especially in larger groups, larger than we've ever seen before in my time as a ranger." Benjen added. "We might be looking at another king beyond the wall and if we are, even without the White Walkers throwing their weight in, we could be in for some rough times."

Jeor nodded grim agreement with his Master Ranger. "The Night Watch is weaker now than it has ever been in my lifetime. But no, I think you should take your wounded with you. The Karstark boy has a concussion but he will survive and Roger Ryswell's ribs are already on the mend, as are all the other cuts and bruises you lot sustained. I wouldn't recommend going very fast for either of them but if you stay here and rest for a few days, they'll be up to riding again."

"Besides, Ranma," Benjen stood moving around the desk and clapping his nephew on the arm, "this gives me the chance to show you lot the Wall." Despite his relatively upbeat attitude, however, Benjen was very worried. The White Walkers had not been seen in millennia, so the odds of this being them were slim. Yet even if this was some sorcerer who was able to mimic their powers somehow, it would be a very bad time indeed for the men of the Wall. He hoped his nephew could convince the Lords of the North of the seriousness of the threat stirring beyond the Wall, because he doubted that without their aid, the Night Watch would be able to withstand the storm he could all too easily see on the horizon.

For the next few days, while Jeor spent time with his granddaughter and sent out orders to the rangers, pulling them back closer to the Wall, as well as to the other two fortresses of the Night Watch, Benjen showed the rest of the wolf-sworn, those that were not convalescing at any rate, the Wall. Every day they went up the elevator (save for Ranma who raced them up the steps, which he felt was damn good training) and were shown the Wall, moving along the top of the massive fortification. The wall was so wide, the entire group could walk side by side along it with room to spare on either side, comfortably away from the drop to the ground so far below. Here and there they came upon ballistae, ranging from catapults to massive crossbows, and there were hundreds of large, man sized pots, ready to be filled with something to dump on any attackers that tried to scale the wall.

Yet, for all the obvious strength of the Wall, it was quite obvious that much of the defenses were in disrepair due to lack of personnel. Once they got more than ten miles from the castle along the Wall, they began to run into ballistae and other defenses that were rotted, falling apart, or simply frozen in place, becoming part of the Wall. Of course, men patrolled the Wall in groups of ten along its entire length, but even so, there wasn't enough of them to do that and get the defenses back in working order. Both Jon and Ranma noticed, also, that most of the ballistae were older styles, not having the range of newer types, and none of them were mobile.

All this, combined with the threat they had run into (or, as Ranma was almost certain, been ambushed by) made certain that all the wolf-sworn knew how important it was to get as much help to the Wall as soon as they could. They also all agreed to not share the true nature of the threat for a time. The fact the wildlings were gathering would be enough to get the North to send aid. After that, they might be able to convince them of the real threat, later.

During this time, the two brothers also talked alone, and Ranma told Jon as much as he could about the vision he had in the godswood. Ranma told him about visions of betrayal, the fact he was fighting humans a lot of the time, and the fact the vision ended with a White Walker staring at him with those glowing blue eyes. Jon agreed that part matched the historical description of the White Walkers, and vowed once more to stand with Ranma come what may. He also demanded they step up his training as soon as they could so he could come closer to matching Ranma's sheer lethality.

The Night Watch Commanders expert opinion was proven correct, and within three days, the group was once more riding out, with Osha still traveling with them. The Wall was no place for a woman, as the song of Brave Danny Flint told anyone who cared to listen. More, she hated the Night Watch with a passion, and had refused to even stay with Jeor himself in his quarters.

Ranma and Jon were at the back of the group, looking down and smiling faintly at their wolves, who both of the young men had taken time over the past few days to get even closer to. Ranma couldn't quite figure out their connection just yet, but he could feel it growing with every passing day He was certain now that Fenris had taken on some aspects of his abilities and maybe a bit of his personality, too. He was already three inches larger tail to nose than Ghost as well as standing a little taller at the shoulders and he could keep up with Ranma on foot for several hours. The wolf was always running around everywhere and seemed to delight in play fighting with Ranma or Ghost.

Jon however soon switched his gaze from the two direwolf pups to staring back over his shoulder at the Wall. Ranma noticed this and nudged his leg. "It was amazing, wasn't it?"

"It was," Jon said softly, "but that wasn't why I was still staring. I just feel as if I'm going to be up here again, sometime. As if my fate is tied to the Wall." He looked down at his brother. "Does that sound odd to you?"

"A little," Ranma laughed, "but not all that much. We both know why of course," he said looking ahead of them where the rest of their party had opened up a bit of a lead on them, "but for now, your fate is tied to mine. Remember what you said, you stand with me. Your fate might be on the Wall, but that will only be because I'm there too."

John nodded seriously and the two brothers clasped hands briefly renewing their vow before racing to catch up with their fellows. None of them noticed a single raven winging its way overhead heading toward Castle Black.

OOOOOOO

"Welcome, your grace." Lord Howland Reed bowed his head, seeming even smaller than he normally would as he stood next to the king on his steed. Like all crannogmen, he was short, wiry ,and somewhat hunched, though the women did not share that last aspect. His clothing was well made, but durable rather than high quality, in colors of green and brown predominantly, able to blend in easily with the swamp of the Neck. He had a short, well-trimmed beard, and his hair was cropped short as well. His eyes were bright and intelligent. His cloak was clasped with a green lacquered pin shaped like a lizard-lion, its back arched and mouth open.

Robert grunted, looking around at Moat Cailin. There was a lot of work being done in the area, several dozen men had stopped their work, repairing and renovating the towers of the Moat with stone, to bow their heads to Robert and his entourage. The Moat had once been a massive castle. It was designed to dominate the causeway, the only route through the Neck that was large enough to be viable for an invading army to use going either way, much like the Twins further south, only more so.

It was possibly one of the three deadliest defensive positions in Westeros, only matched by the Bloody Gate of the Vale and Casterly Rock. There were stronger, larger, and better built castles, but no others whose positions gave them such natural advantages.

Even now with only three large towers, it could hold for years against any army from the south. Each tower could hold two to three hundred soldiers comfortably, including two ballista on each tower. All the towers were situated around the causeway and any army that tried to attack or pass through would be mauled by the defenders. And given the bend in the causeway, no ballista or other siege equipment could be brought to bear on them in turn without being well inside their range.

But most of the rest of the castle had fallen into disrepair, making the Moat vulnerable from the North. Yet, the work being done now was putting two more towers back into working order plus three connecting walls, covering the Moat from the back and western flanks, leaving the only entrance, other than the causeway, the shifting, dangerous trails leading further into the swamp.

Robert took all this in, then turned back to the crannogman. "Ho, Howland. We mean to press on." Robert spat to one side of his horse, away from the crannogman since otherwise that could have been taken as an insult. "The queen is not one to rough it out here with you lot. But I must ask, what's all the work about? Where did the stone come from, it already looks cut?"

Howland blinked. "Your grace, surely you've heard about House Bolton and the destruction of the Dread Fort?"

Robert frowned a moment, then nodded, his face lighting up with humor. "Aye, now that you say it, I remember reading a missive from Ned about that several years ago. Something about Bolton taking the normal raiding too far, and it rolling over his son? Killed the old leech himself didn't he?" Robert laughed loudly and rather abrasively. "So that explains where the stones come from, but why here?"

"We outbid House Glover to be the house given the stone to repair our castle, your grace. We could provide the workmen and pay them while House Glover could only provide the workmen. Also, transporting the stone down to here was much easier than trying to send any large shipments of stone through the wolfswood. We can of course make use of the Kingsroad, they could not."

"I see, a good use of the material, I guess." Robert mused. "Well, if we want to leave the Neck behind before finding an inn, we need to get a move on. We'll you see on our way back." With that the king turned back and rejoined the company.

Howland stared after him thoughtfully, taking in the king's body, the wine stains on his clothing, and the red eyes, shaking his head. He had seen people drinking themselves into early graves before and the king definitely looked like he was doing the same.

The king rejoined the party, telling the others with him about the reasons behind the new construction, but unlike the king, they were much more suspicious. "I cannot understand it my lord, there is no need to repair the Moat unless you are concerned with threats from the south," Varys, the Master of Whispers, suggested.

Varys was a eunuch, fat and bald, always coiffed in purple silk or other outrageous color and smelling of perfume. He was also known as the Spider due to his extensive spy network. Indeed, he was ostensibly along with this trip to check in personally with a few of his 'little birds', his personal spy ring. Considering the rumors that the man had been following up on, Robert had been willing to let him come with them.

"You heard the explanation, Varys." said Robert coldly. "It makes sense, especially if House Glove can't fork out the money."

"Possibly, my Lord." Varys muttered. "Yet, still it seems odd to me."

Robert grunted and ignored him from then on.

Varys frowned, he never truly liked the fact that King was almost immobile on some issues, and far too easily manipulated in others. Robert also had a blind spot when it came to those loyal to him. But he could be right in this, the eunuch thought to himself, after all house Stark has never made any move against the crown, it would not have done so even during the rebellion if not for the death of the Lord and his heir as well as the daughter of the house. Still, it is odd to me.

Such was the nature of those who work in the shadows; they are always on the lookout for other shadows, other plots, and those with dangerous ambitions. It would never occur to the eunuch to just take Lord Reed's words at face value, a problem that would carry over into other matters.

OOOOOOO

The trip back South was as uneventful as the trip up had been, up until they ran into the wildling refugee party. It took them a month to reach the Last Hearth, seat of House Umber, where they were welcomed with open arms.

The Last Hearth was a squat sort of castle, melting into the ground around it, made of stone torn from the earth nearby. House Umber was known for its stocks of wood and stone and their castle showed it, though, thanks to the lack of roads here in the North, they weren't actually able to sell much of it to anyone else. Even getting from the quarries to the Kingsroad was a trial for anything larger than a mule. Their castle was nowhere near as large as some of the castles further south but there was a certain blunt practicality about it, much like Winterfell. Around it in clusters were several small communities, not even villages really, for smallfolk, with a few more scattered through the forests of the Umber lands. People this far north tended to band together like that, there wasn't a single farmstead or woodcutter's cottage in these lands. Too many such had disappeared, sucked up by the wilderness or taken out by wildling raids.

As they came closer they heard the harsh calls and commands from the castle's wall, always at full strength here, unlike Winterfell, which only had fifty men on the walls, most of the time.

Osha looked scornfully at the Castle knowing it to be the main bastion of the Umber kneelers, but she became subdued when Ranma glanced at her. In truth, the wild woman was rather in awe of the young Stark. The speed and monstrous strength he had shown during the battle against the tools of the Others had astonished her.

As soon as they were close enough, someone hailed them from the walls, shouting down. "Smalljon! What the fuck happened to you all, you look as if you've run into an army!"

Smalljon waved his hand up at his father, who had been the one to shout. Indeed, even so many weeks later their clothing and general appearance hadn't changed overmuch and Roger and Edd were still riding gingerly, even though all their other injuries, even Ranma's arm, had healed.

Greatjon Umber was a massive man, taller than even his son, though admittedly, his son still had some growing to do. He stood at around six feet eight, three inches taller than Smalljon, and even broader in the shoulders. He was reputed to be the strongest man in the North lands. In reality, Ranma knew that Smalljon was stronger than his father these days and Ranma was stronger than Smalljon. "We ran into something new father, something that we need to share with you!"

Later that evening Ranma, Smalljon, and Jon met with Greatjon in his Hall, while his servants were preparing a meal for their arrival.

Greatjon was not only a large man, but he had a full head of hair, a massive beard, and big shaggy eyebrows. Everything about him was larger than life really, even his voice. "So," he boomed, "what did you lads run into?"

Ranma cocked his head to one side thinking of whether or not to follow his uncle's advice. He shared a glance with Smalljon and shook his head slightly, something his father missed, thankfully, and decided to follow Benjen's advice. "We ran into a wildling force before we hit the wall." Ranma explained. "They'd hit one of the villages in the Gift, emptied it of people and hid everywhere inside it. We didn't suspect anything for a bit, since we couldn't find any sign of anyone being there, despite having searched a few houses. They attacked us in the middle of the night, and they brought giants." That was close enough to the truth that Greatjon would get most of the pertinent information without getting so much he started to question what really happened.

"We lost both of the Norrey scouts the clan assigned to our expedition, and it was touch and go for several of the others too." Ranma grimaced at that, still not liking the fact he had lost men and the fact they had to burn the bodies. He had sent a raven from the wall to the Norrey clan telling of their heroism, though giving them the same prepared story as he would everyone else.

The older man looked at them in surprise. "Giants, truly? They haven't been seen even close to the Wall in hundreds of years." From anyone else, he would have scoffed at the very idea that the almost mythical giants, who resided in the Frozen Lands beyond even the wildlings land, would ever come south. But he had never known Ranma or Smalljon to tell such a bald faced lie. The rest of the story was much easier to swallow, since the wildlings were masters of ambush. The fact they had wiped out a whole village without word getting out, however, was a worrisome sign of how empty the Gift was becoming.

"I don't know what to tell you." Ranma said shrugging. "One minute all was fine, then there were giants smashing through the back of the house we had taken over for the evening." From there Ranma went back and explained how they had run into the first group of wildlings, who were heading south fleeing from something, he didn't specify what, letting Greatjon come to his own conclusions.

"So something is stirring behind the Wall." Greatjon muttered shaking his head. "That is fell news."

"Yes," Ranma answered crisply, "and it is for that reason that I want you to spread the word that something is going on with the wildlings, we may be facing another King Beyond the Wall here. The Night Watch is weak now, weaker than they've been in a hundred years, and commander Jeor needs all the aid we can send him. You'll start the process, both people and food. The Gift is nearly empty, the wildlings seem to be able to get small forces around the wall, and without the Gift the Night Watch can't sustain itself, unless we all send aid."

Greatjon leaned back in his large chair, scoffing. "You may be your father's heir boy, but you don't order me."

"Yes," Ranma said coldly, "I do. Winter is coming, and we must prepare." His hard blue eyes held the older man's.

Eventually Greatjon looked away. "I won't be alone in this, just the first?"

"Yes," Ranma replied. "We'll stop at every hold along the way we can and I'll be sending Edd home from here to Karhold to get them moving, as well."

"How much of my ready force do you think we should send?" Greatjon asked now past the posturing. The boy had proven time and time again that he wasn't someone to cross and always met such challenges head on, just like he should. Greatjon approved of that.

"I'd like you to send half, you keep four hundred men, yes? Send two-hundred, that'll leave you with more than enough to guard your castle, and give the Night Watch a decent addition for their forces. If every lord, major and minor, can send half of his ready men up there, then that should be enough. Hell," Ranma laughed sharply, "the Wall is such a good defensive location that one man is worth a thousand attackers. Though I've also asked my uncle to make certain that word is sent to every Castle in the North if any large contingents of wildlings approach. If we are facing a King Beyond the Wall, their numbers will be staggering, plus with this new ability to get forces large enough to be a threat around the Wall, we might need a defense in depth as well. With the Gift as it is, any supplies we send will have to be well defended."

It was actually that suggestion that had made the commander unable to send a raven after Ranma and his group, having used all his ravens up sending the news to the other lords of the North.

"I'll send my men out in the morning, with my uncle Mors in command. He'll take orders from Jeor easily enough being of an age with him, and he has a hatred of the wildlings that burns bright in him." Greatjon nodded his head then smiled suddenly, his whole face creasing around it. "You've your father's way about you, lad, both your take charge attitude and seeing true to the crux of the problem."

Ranma shrugged, looking a little embarrassed, and Greatjon guffawed, slapping him on the shoulder. "Go on lad, at least we can set you on your way with a hot meal and good night's sleep."

Ranma feasted well that night with his friends, of whom Smalljon was going to stay here and help his father, while Edd rested for some more days before heading home with a small escort. In fact, Smalljon was probably going to be put in charge of the wagons and two-hundred or so smallfolk that would eventually go north. This would be the first small caravan that would be sent, but within four months the Wall would be strengthened massively.

The very next day, the group rode out again, leaving Smalljon behind them with many clasps of farewell. The plan was to head to Hornwood, through the ex-Bolton lands, then send Hathan home to White Harbor with the news from there, while Daryn would remain with his family at Hornwood. The others would continue on, returning to Winterfell. There Ranma would speak to his father and the two of them would send out messengers to rouse the rest of the noble houses and prepare their bannermen.

A week later as they rode, or ran in Ranma and the direwolves case, they came upon a hill that overlooked the site of where the Dread Fort once stood.

Osha had breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they were out of the Umber lands, knowing them for the most implacable of enemies and grateful to have been under Ranma's protection during their stay. Yet, now she was looking around with wide eyes. She and Jon often spent time conversing, Jon getting better at the old tongue while teaching her their own in turn and he filled her in on what had happened here. Once she learned this had been the flayed man's land and what had happened to them, she was relieved beyond all measure. Umbers would kill or rape you; what the flayed men did was worse by far.

Ranma pulled the horse he had been given by Greatjon momentarily, looking towards where the Dread Fort had stood. The others left him to it until he shook his head and moved to join them. The majority of the stone had been sent South, but two minor lords, answering to Hornwood and Umber, had their longhouses expanded and built up in turn. As the Dread Fort had never been designed to house any smallfolk, the impact on the people of the region was minor, save for one or two houses that had shared Bolton's inclinations, who were most put out by their new lords. When they took to banditry to express this feeling Greatjon had responded by removing their heads for them and adding their holdings to other houses in the area with Ned Stark's approval.

All that remained of the Dread Fort was the godswood, now standing free of any man made walls. It had grown in the past few years, almost mystically fast, to completely cover the area previously occupied by the castle. Nor was that the only change. The heartwood in the center of the godswood had once looked like a flayed man's face, constantly weeping sap. Now however for some reason the sap had dried up and the face, which had seemed to be screaming in agony before, was now smiling. Ranma had seen that once a few years ago, and the sight had made him smile.

Now, however, he frowned as a thought came to him. "Does anyone know what happened to Domeric anyway?"

Daryn shrugged. "He went across the sea to the free cities of Essos. That was about, what, two years ago, I think."

"Ah," Ranma said nodding, "I'd wondered. I wasn't exactly fond of him, he was a nice enough guy but way too interested in putting me in song and story."

They all laughed and he growled at them then looked down at Fenris who had imitated the sound. The puppies could now run along with the horses and him for half a day before having to ride and their endurance was building daily. Still, he knew that Fenris was done for the day and he leaned down, allowing the pup to leap into his hands. Fenris licked his face and Ranma chuckled, pulling out a bit of chicken, which the two shared, as Ranma made plans on how to train Fenris and figure out what the hell their connection was.

OOOOOOO

Domeric Snow, as he rather fondly called himself after Lord Stark's decree that the Bolton line was dead, loved the bard's life. He sang for his supper, he traveled and saw new and interesting places, and he had no ties to the land of his birth or his father. Here in the cities of Essos, he was known as Domeric, the Crooked Hand, due to his hand where the skin had grown back to look stiff and inflexible. Yet, for all that, it slowed neither his sword nor his harp playing and his wits were still as sharp as they ever were, tempered now by the memories of betrayal and personal suffering. Domeric had made his way from city to city, sampling each in turn, but not finding anything (or anyone) that could compel him to stay. He was always more interested in what lay just beyond the horizon than what was right in front of him.

Right now he was in Pentos, a city where life was based off of the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. The rich magisters ran everything, using a puppet prince to add a bit of theater to their iron grip but nothing more than that. Rules and laws only mattered to those not rich enough to bribe their way out of trouble or pay to have the laws changed. Case in point: there were not supposed to be any slaves here, but the rich had servants who wore bronze collars and had as little rights as slaves.

He looked up slightly, letting his eyes rake over the young man and younger girl who had just turned onto the street where he was singing in front of a medium sized crowd. Both were dressed in ragged cloaks covering them from head to toe, yet, a flash of platinum still could be seen underneath their hoods.

Domeric had written several new songs and many of them, especially his masterpiece, the Ballad of the Young Wolf, were always well received. Of course he had changed a few things for the Ballad, making his own part in that conflict into a maiden to add some romance to it. And he had kept his promise to young Ranma. In the song, Ranma had flowing hair, true, but it was his normal black. His eyes had needed no embellishment, and many a girl had tittered about those 'deep sapphire orbs'.

Like all experienced bards, Domeric was able to play and sing while keeping his attention on other matters and he watched the two silver-blond haired siblings (With that hair, who else could it be but the Beggar King and his sister?) moving down the street even as he played the 'Ballad of the Young Wolf. They stopped, however, at the edge of the crowd around Domeric. From underneath her hood, the sister smiled faintly at the current tale of heroism Domeric's harp was playing, while the older brother was staring at him with a burning intensity, a look that somewhat worried Domeric.

They waited until the song ended then, when Domeric bowed and told the crowd that was it for the morning, the older sibling began to move through the dispersing crowd. Soon he stood before the bard and spoke abruptly, his voice even and cultured, belying his ragged clothes. "Your voice has the tone of a Westerosi, be that true? Have you any news from Westeros?"

"Aye, a man of the North I am. Domeric Snow at your service, formerly of house Bolton." Domeric bowed extravagantly. "What kind of news are you interested in, scion of house Targaryen?" At the young man's sudden sharp glare, he shrugged. "Who else has hair or eyes that color, Lord Viserys?

"Bolton?" The young girl looked up. She must have been all of fifteen, if that. She gave the impression of being shy and mousy in demeanor, yet her general intelligence shown through those violet eyes. "Then that tale you just sung, it was true?" At her brothers glare, the girl hunched her shoulders and backed away, pulling her hood further down to cover her face.

A face, Domeric could see now that they were standing in front of him, that was quite beautiful, if too young for his tastes. Still he answered her question readily enough. "Aye lady, 'tis true as death, t'was a tale of the death of my former house and good riddance besides. What they found in the hidden halls of the Dread Fort." Domeric shook his head, shivering theatrically. It had been years after all and he had become used to the memories of that time of his life, both what happened to him and the sights of the skins, hanging in the air of his father's dungeons that they had found after sacking the fort. "Yet, let us not dwell on such things, again, what kind of news are you interested in?"

The older boy continued to glare at his sister for a moment then turned back to Domeric. "You follow house Stark then, the traitors. Why should I listen to you?"

"Because you came up to me, my lord. And the Starks were no more traitors than the Mad King Aerys was sane. No family could have allowed his horrible murder of its lord and heir to go unpunished, to say nothing of the young lady of the house being kidnapped by Rhaegar."

The younger man snarled while the girl gasped in shocked incredulity. But it was Viserys who had the most violent reaction. He reached under his cloak and pulled out a long dagger. "You lie and I'll gut you for besmirching the honor or my family!"

Domeric quickly caught the younger man's wrist with his good hand, holding the blade still. "Calmly, lord, calmly. I said not a word that was untrue, and every man and woman in Westeros, aye and maybe more than most here in Essos, know the tale by heart. If you react so badly to all such inconvenient truths, then how will you convince any to serve you?"

"They should serve me because it is my right to sit on the Iron Throne!" Viserys gritted his teeth, trying to free his hand but having little success. "The Baratheon usurper has no right to it!"

"That at least is true, if by right, you mean by blood. Yet, Baratheon won the throne the way your own ancestors made it, by killing and forcing any who stood against him into submission. That is not to say that he is a good king, because he is not. I have heard many things in my travels both on Westeros and here in Essos, and I know that for truth. Now, have you calmed down enough for me to let you go? Or should I turn this blade of yours on you, then walk away and let your sister, I believe I have heard her name given as Daenerys, to her own devices?", Dominic asked, his voice showing no strain at holding the younger man in place. Indeed for all his bluster, the boy had no muscle to speak of and was obviously untrained in matters of combat. Domeric, on the other hand, was reckoned a fell blade and his undamaged hand was his dominant one.

Viserys frowned, then regained control of his anger, that pure violent anger that he knew proved he was a true Targaryen. He nodded his head sharply. "Very well, I will hear what you have to say. Tell me anything you know about the court and Kings Landing."

Domeric kept from rolling his eyes with difficulty, wondering how the hell someone dressed in rags and who had next to nothing to his name, no swords at his back and no real power base, could ever sound so imperious. "Well, your highness, if you are interested in such as that, the first thing you must know is that the Hand of the King, Jon Arryn, is dead. He was an old man but the suddenness of his death is astonishing, and possibly suspicious."

"If you have news of Essos, sir bard, then pray come into my home and share it in more seeming environs." a new voice interrupted.

Domeric turned and looked toward the speaker, nearly bursting out in laughter at the sight of the man. The man was obese, so over weight, it was a surprise he could move under his own power at all. He was also the proud owner an oiled, forked yellow beard and beady, yet intelligent eyes set into a fat, florid face.

It was his obvious wealth, however, that stopped Domeric's laughter in his throat. The man had a ring worth a normal man's yearly wages on each of his fat fingers and he had jewels and golden thread worked throughout his red and gold shirt; a vast expanse of silk that again was so expensive Domeric could have made enough money off it to live for years without needing to raise his voice in song even once. On either side of the man were two very competent looking bodyguards, each with long spears in hand and short swords on their belts, wearing quarter plate armor.

The man continued to speak, looking now at Viserys, his voice taking on an buttery tone. "I had heard news of you arriving in the city, my lord, but had no idea you were so close, else I would have had my manse to meet you all the sooner. I am Illyrio, I'm glad you got my message. Come, let us take this bard inside and sit down to eat while he tells his news."

Domeric knew he didn't actually have a choice, but then again this looked to be interesting. In many ways, he had somewhat tired of the lonely life of the road and being adviser to these two young dragons looked to be fraught with peril and daring do, all of which he could easily turn to song. So he merely nodded, smiling faintly. "That sounds like a lovely idea, magister, so long as I am invited to sup as well?"

Illyrio laughed, loud and false to Domeric's ears, before turning to lead the way back to his house. As they fell into step behind him, the young girl looked up at the bard. "Is, is what you said about King Aerys true?" She whispered fear and revulsion in her eyes. "Is he really called the Mad King?"

Domeric paused, looking down at the girl thoughtfully. "I was a young squire in the Stormlands when the Rebellion began, lady. I well remember the reasons behind it, the murders and the use of fire on innocents, young and old, lord and smallfolk alike no matter the infraction. All that is public record in Westeros, lady. You have no need to take my word for it, simply find a recent history book or scroll. Always remember, if someone tells you something, make certain it is the truth and do not take anything at face value. I will say that when he took the throne, Aerys was well liked, even loved. But by the time he was slain through Lannister treachery, aye, he was hated and reviled. Time and power lass, can change many a man or even a woman."

Daenerys nibbled at her lower, lip taking in his words, but the moment was broken when her older brother shouted for her to come and walk with him. Domeric looked after the young girl thoughtfully, then at the guard who had taken position at the back of their small group, shrugged his shoulders, and followed the Targaryen siblings into the house, wondering what the future held for him.

OOOOOOO

The trip continued, and a few weeks leisurely travel later they arrived at Hornwood castle where they were greeted with open arms by Lord Halys, as well as his Lady Donella.

Donella was older than Catelyn, pushing fifty years old, but despite that she was still beautiful. She had straight black hair falling down her back with only a hint of gray to it, a curvaceous body, and a beautiful face, which hid a witty brain besides. As such, her husband was the envy of many a lord in the North. Ranma had heard that there had been many men of the North trying to woo Donella Manderly when she was younger and could well believe it looking at her. She was also like Catelyn in that she was a decent enough administrator, able to help her husband manage their lands effectively.

"You are welcome here young lords, though I'm afraid you should not tarry," Halys said holding out his hand to Ranma and the others one after another as they jumped down from their saddles, before pulling his son into a hug. "We have fresh horses for you and you must hurry to Winterfell."

"Why?" Ranma asked, cocking his head. "Has our news gone before us?"

Halys shook his head. "No, we have had no ravens from House Umber or the Wall, what is your news? But in any event news has come from Winterfell. The King is riding for Winterfell even as we speak, he's halfway to Castle Cerwyn by now going by the last urgent raven we had. The King's Hand, Jon Arryn, has died, and he needs Lord Stark's advice on who to choose to replace him."

Those words sent a cold chill up Ranma's spine. For some reason, something inside him was telling him that this was going to change everything. "I see, and how long do we have before he arrives?"

Halys laughed. "As I said, the last raven put him halfway to Cerwyn castle, which was several days past. You'll probably arrive quite a bit later than him, and you'll need to make your excuses for that. Your father, in his last message, said that he will be handing you over to your mother for 'proper chastisement'."

"But we never got the message!" Ranma said, a little panicky now. His father wasn't much of a disciplinarian unless the issue Ranma and the others were being disciplined for was physical. Then he very thoroughly shouted at them, raising his hands very rarely. In fact, the only time Ned had raised his hand was to Jon and Theon because one of their fights had occurred in the wine cellar and had ruined several hundred gold dragons worth of wine, including several bottles that had been laid down on the day of his younger sister's birth.

The lady Catelyn on the other hand… She made you think you were the smallest, stupidest boy in the world. She never raised her voice, she was simply very, very condescending. Ranma couldn't quite describe it, but it made him feel small, silly, and foolish. It was never fun.

"And since when has a mother ever been moved by such a logical argument?" Halys laughed, ignoring his wife's look of mock indignation. "You're in for it lads."

Theon groaned his head in his hands. "We are so dead. Your lady mother is going to skin us alive."

"She can't do that." Jon said shaking his head, pointedly not looking at Donella, who he had developed a childhood crush for years ago that he hadn't quite gotten over yet. "Flaying and skinning are both outlawed, remember. No she'll just cut out our tongues and pickle them."

Ranma shook his head at their antics but there was definitely very real fear there. "Not if we can get there fast enough."

"Lad, you're dreaming." Halys laughed. "The King is but four days away, at best, and it's the better part of two weeks journey from here to Winterfell even if you switch horses and ride as fast as you can."

"I aim to try it anyway, get those horses of yours out here, Lord Hornwood." he laughed, clapping the older man on the shoulder. "Your son will tell you what we ran into," he looked over at Daryn, who was looking rather relived at the need to stay and not having to face the Lady of Winterfell, "that'll give you all the information you need about our news."

"So you did run into something?" Donella asked looking between them while Halys cocked an eyebrow at his son.

Daryn nodded. "Yes, we did, which is why we convinced Greatjon to send half of his ready men to the wall. He's also sending out notes to all of his vassals, telling them to ready themselves to be called up at a moment's notice."

Halys' eyes widened and then he looked at his son through narrowed eyes. "That is grave news, what did you find to warrant such an action?" Behind him several stablemen had already pulled out horses, two for everyone continuing to Winterfell, exchanging their weary horses with fresh ones plus a remount. Hathan would remain here for a few days, allowing his own excellent mount to recover before heading back home to White Harbor to carry their news.

"The wildlings," Ranma said, nodding to toward Osha, who glared back at all the people sending glares her way, "seem to have found some new tricks and were able to get a pretty decent force around the Wall. Your son will tell you more, but for right now, we need to be on our way."

"Are you sure you want to take her with you?" Halys looked at the wild woman askance. "We could hold her here for a time then send her to Winterfell after the king leaves."

"No," Roger said quickly, "I'm to take her with me. My father might need more convincing after all then you or Lord Stark. He is most set in his ways and often doesn't believe anything he personally doesn't see."

"And hasn't had the opportunity to meet the young Lord Stark." Halys muttered to himself.

Ranma waved away the stable hand leading two horses toward him, telling him to hand the reins to Theon and Roger. "You're not seriously thinking of running the whole way are you?" Theon asked. "Even you can't keep up with horses galloping at full stride for that long."

The Stark heir chuckled. "We'll have to see about that, won't we? Let's go!" With that Ranma broke into a run, heading down the road that would take them toward Winterfell, eventually. And as the hours went on and Ranma continued to run keeping up with the galloping horses, Theon was forced to change his tune.

OOOOOOO

Far South of Winterfell, a raven sent by Catelyn had arrived and a woman who was called by many the Queen of Thorns was contemplating how to reply to the surprising missive.

"You can't be serious, grandmother! The North, it's so cold, so lifeless! More importantly, the North is the weakest realm in terms of money and men. Surely, there are better options!" The young girl who spoke thus was a true beauty, with long brown hair tied in a loose cascade that lay on one shoulder going down one side of her chest. She was currently dressed in an elaborate and extremely well-made gown of green, with rose highlights going down in two lines down her sides and on either sleeve. Her face was beautiful and her eyes were normally snapping with good humor, adding to a somewhat flirtatious air she put off. That humor was not visible at the moment, and she stared at her grandmother in shock.

"Enough of that, granddaughter. You will do as you're told!" The woman who spoke was short of stature, bent and wizened with age, and with a face best described as wrinkly. Yet she carried an air of authority, an intelligence that few could match, and her eyes were sharp and cold. This was a woman to command respect even from her own family and her name was Olenna Redwyne.

"I see no reason why my daughter should marry one of the Starks! After all, we've been pushing for marriage between her and Renly Baratheon, which would put us much closer to the throne!" Mace Tyrell was a forty something- man who had once been powerfully built, yet, was now trending to fat. Though his face was hard, there was something a little soft about the set of his eyes, about the way he stood. This was a man who despite his position as Lord Paramount of the Reach, arguably the largest and most powerful realm of Westeros, was used to following orders.

"I know." said Olenna, nodding her head. "I thought it a good idea at the time, yet we all know where Renly's real interests lie. Besides, mayhap Loras alone can be surety of our alliance." She barked a laugh and Margaery frowned slightly, but did not comment on the truth of the matter as Olenna went on. "Even so, it would have been a good match, yet things are happening in the realm, as you would know if you kept your eyes and ears open!"

Mace flushed under her gaze and she went on, speaking now as if she was talking to a rather small and idiotic child, which in her opinion she was. Mace had no political acumen at all, making him less than useless at anything beyond waving around his sword and bellowing threateningly. "John Arryn is dead. That means there is an opening for the most powerful position in the realm, one the King no doubt means to fill with Ned Stark. Now, let me tell you a thing or two about Ned Stark. He is honorable to a fault, straightforward, compassionate despite the Stark Stone Face of his, deadly with a blade and with an army. And utterly unprepared for life at court! He has not the skills necessary to survive there, where the most dangerous blades are the ones that are formed, not from steel, but from words and gold. Yet for all that, he is dogged and determined, and as long as he has the king's ear, which he always will, have no doubt of it, he can do quite a lot of damage to anyone who crosses him or the king. This might be enough to cause a shift in power from the growing reach of House Lannister. On top of that, Robert has always wanted to bond his house to that of the Starks, in memory of his dead love, more than anything else."

The old woman sneered, having many questions about the strength of that love, as well as whether or not Robert had ever been the sort or could become the sort to love a single woman. There were, perhaps, a dozen bastards born to the king, including one in the Vales who had been conceived during the time when Robert was affianced to Lyanna Stark.

She continued, pushing those thoughts away as unimportant. "Myrcella is too young, especially since Joffrey is not yet wedded. Yet, Joffrey is almost of an age with the oldest daughter of House Stark, which means the Starks will become even closer to the crown."

And who knows, she thought to herself,keeping this thought from her face with the ease of long practice, with a father-in-law like Ned maybe Joffrey could possibly be made into something less of the disaster that I envision him to be in the future. Though, it's not as if his father has been all that good a king, either. But Ned is a different matter entirely, if he can perhaps learn the rules of the political arena.

"Now think of it, we can wed our power to the Stark's growing power. Or," she said, smiling cunningly, "we may be able to show Joffrey and his mother at the very least that there are better options closer to home than Sansa Stark."

"You mean for me to go there and see if I can attract Joffrey?" Margaery pursed her lips distastefully. "There's been so many rumors about him grandmother, I'm not quite sure if that is any better an option for me."

"You will do what is best for the family." her grandmother growled and the younger woman backed away slightly. Yet, unlike her father in similar circumstances, she didn't look away, merely staring back at her grandmother. This earned her a slight nod of approval from the old woman, but Olenna went on inexorably. "Things are happening, the balance of power in the realm is shifting, and we need to be in a position to capitalize on it one way or another."

Both Mace and his daughter frowned, but nodded eventually and the woman turned to a table, with parchment and ink on it, to write the missive that her son would then copy and send off. She wondered whether or not Ned was ready to play the game of thrones, but in the end that hardly mattered. Olenna and her family were ready, and they would wring what they could from whatever advantage came their way.

OOOOOOO

Ned looked around at his somewhat depleted family, shaking his head. The missive from Hornwood had arrived a day ago, but even as fast as his son and the others with him could move he doubted that they would arrive in time. It was over a week's travel between here and Hornwood for a small group like that, and there was only so much you could do by continuing to move even at night unless you wanted to kill your horses. And now it's too late, he thought to himself rather irritably. While he had made the decision to let his wife handle chastising their sons and wayward ward, he also decided at that moment to put his own coins into the equation.

How dare Ranma disobey me. he thought to himself grimly. I told him not to go past the Last Hearth. And instead I find that they bypassed the Umber castle on their way up and went straight to the Wall, then went to house Umber's seat after? To be fair, this alone wouldn't bother Ned, especially not given the news the raven returned with, if the King wasn't arriving within the next hour and his son and heir would not be here to greet him, a grave insult. Ned suddenly realized that someone who was here, was missing and he frowned. "Where is Arya?"

"She ran off, father." Sansa replied, shaking her head at her younger sister's stupidity. She also hoped that Arya wouldn't make their entire family look like bumpkins in front of the king and his family. She had heard lovely tales of how handsome the prince was and wanted to impress him if she could. To that end, she was wearing one of her best dresses, a black and blue dress lined with white fur, and her hair was done in an intricate twirl down her back. "She refused to get ready with the rest of us."

Bran suddenly laughed and pointed. Rickon, who was standing next to his older brother, grinned too, waving his hand wildly.

Marching across the open field of the courtyard was a very short soldier, and Ned shook his head. He moved over quickly, catching the young guard by the back of the shirt. "And where do you think you're going dressed like that young lady?"

Arya pouted at being caught but stared up at her father innocently. "I'm going to join the guard for the king's arrival father."

Ned reached down and took the helmet off his daughter's head, filching her spear in the same movement, though where Arya had come up with that was a mystery. "Do you think you can make this young lady presentable quickly, my love?" he said turning to his wife.

"I can certainly try." Catelyn said grimly taking her daughter sharply by the shoulder. "We will be having words young lady, whatever you might think, there is a time and place for such things, and this is not the time.

Aria quailed a little under her mother's gaze but stared back defiantly. She hated doing all this women's stuff, and without Ranma or Jon here, she had lost her closest allies in her ongoing war against them. Arya just couldn't understand why she couldn't be what she wanted to be, why she had to pretend to be this lady of the court or whatever, when she was anything but. Arya scowled further seeing her older sister's smirk of triumph.

However, she didn't have any chance of escape and not ten minutes later, she was back dressed in the dress that her mother had originally laid out for her. She stood at the end of the row of children scowling angrily, wondering where her big brothers were, and Theon as well. Though in truth, Arya wasn't as fond of him as she was of her brothers. Of course that made sense, since she was related to them and Theon really didn't make that much time for her.

Ned sighed sadly when an outrider he had sent out returned, telling them of the king's approach, and still there was no sign of his sons.

OOOOOOO

"Look, see there's Winterfell, and is that the king's party just coming into view? Who's the fat guy at the front? And you said we wouldn't make it!"

"Hate you so much right now! And that might be the king you're speaking of, worthless piece of sea jetsam! Actually, please, say that to his face, I would love to see you without your head at the moment."

"If I could feel my legs I would kick you! And if my thighs never recover I'm going to curse you!"

From the back of another horse there was only the sound of snoring while the two women in their party were awake, yet far too tired to join in. Osha had thought she was tough, the veteran of many battles and a life spent in the wilds of beyond the Wall. But the pace they had set after leaving Hornwood had beaten her thighs and back to mush.

Ranma, for it was indeed he who had spoken first, laughed at Theon and Jon's words. "Ha! Listen, I'm going on ahead, you all keep moving, but no offense but my own presence is going to be much more sorely missed if I'm not there than any of you." Ignoring their gaping faces Ranma leaned down, picking up Fenris who had been running with him for the last full day. Then with a final wave of his hand, he sped up, leaving his friends and brother behind with their almost exhausted horses.

OOOOOOO

Ten minutes later, not a minute after the watchers on the wall had spotted him, Ranma charged through the Hunter's Gate, dropping off Fenris in the kennels with Hodor, the gentle giant that was one of the castle's better stable hands. After exiting the kennels out into the courtyard, Ranma skidded to a halt as he saw the group already prepared and waiting for the King.

Catelyn and Eddard were both staring at him, their faces showing something of an inner turmoil. They were happy to see him of course, but his timing was horrible. He looked as if he hadn't shaved or bathed in months and was altogether rather scraggly, in no way ready to see the king. His younger siblings, of course, had no such qualms, and were simply smiling at him in welcome, happy to see him after nearly three months, with only Sansa seeming at all dismayed about his appearance.

Ranma quickly ran up to them and said, "Mother, father, do I have time to…"

"Barely." Ned said sharply. "I'm not even certain how you got here, it's nearly two weeks from Hornwood to here even with remounts."

Ranma shrugged. "I ran, the others galloped and they all had remounts. We didn't stop. They even strapped themselves to their saddles when they were in danger of falling asleep and we kept going every night. I left them about fifty minutes ago."

Ned nodded. "After we have given our greetings, I will send a group of guards out to escort them in. And we will be talking later."

"Yes, father, we will."

Something in their son's tone made both his parents look at him sharply, and Ned looked at him with one eyebrow raised, wondering if more was going on than what the raven carried message had told him. But Ranma merely nodded his head firmly and Ned sighed. "For now, run and get a shave and clean clothing, one of the servants will prepare both for you." Indeed two servants had already broken off from the crowd of them waiting outside the keep and hurried inside.

Ranma nodded, racing over and hugging Arya and his younger brothers before winking at Sansa. "I'd hug you too dear sister, but I'm afraid I'd get your nice dress all sweaty."

Sansa scoffed at him, not liking how wild looking Ranma seemed at the moment. "After you take a bath, maybe I will deign to allow you to give me a hug."

At that, Ranma chuckled and ran inside leaving the two parents to stare at one another. "Well," Ned said, a little weakly, "he's here at least." Catelyn rolled her eyes, but ten minutes later their son was back, just in time to slip into the line again. Now shaved, clean looking, and dressed in good leathers, a white jerkin, and dark grey coat lined with wolf's fur. He exchanged a quick hug with Sansa, now that he was clean, ruffling his two brothers' hair fondly before standing at attention next to his parents.

OOOOOOO

Queen Cersei Lannister hated the North. She hated its ruggedness, she hated the trees, she hated the fact that it snowed here even in the summer. She hated the people, rustic idiotic peasants, the lot of them. She hated the roads; despite the comfort of her specially made carriage, the trip was hideously uncomfortable without nearly enough creature comforts. And above all, she hated the Starks. Too cold by far, too honorable, too stupid! Moreover, every time she heard that name Cersei was reminded of why her husband never truly loved her, never committed fully to their marriage. No, he was more in love with a dead woman than her. Well I've had my revenge there.

She looked across at her children, all of them hers and none of them Robert's, smirking internally. No one seemed to be able to see the truth right in front of them, the truth being so terrible, and in the end Jon Arryn was the only one to realize anything. He was dead now, and hopefully with him, the chance of anyone discovering the truth about her children.

Myrcella glanced at her mother looking at her older brother and shuddered a little. She was a very bright young girl of ten, one had to be in the court after all, and over the last year she had begun to see things in her older brother that she hadn't noticed before, especially given the way he treated her and Tommen. She winced a little as the carriage went over a bump aggravating her badly bruised ankle. But she kept the expression off her face, not wanting to let on that Joffrey had hurt her stamping on her ankle like this morning when no one was looking. He had begun to do things like that, hurting her and Tommen in small ways whenever he could get away with it.

Yet, she knew nothing would come of complaining to either parent. The king wouldn't care, their father spent as little time with any of them as he could. And the queen was even worse.

He might not have meant to do it, after all, or at least that's what their mother would say, just children playing. Their mother always took Joffrey's side over everything. Joffrey was the golden boy, the heir to the throne and thus more important than either Tommen or Myrcella.

Soon enough they were in sight of Winterfell and she stuck her head out the window despite her mother's hissed injunction to act appropriate to their station, and looked at the castle.

There was something solid about Winterfell. It was big, larger than the Red Keep she thought, and there was nothing about its exterior that hinted at anything but it's simple purpose, defending those within. Yet even so, there was something majestic about the sight, coming out of the mist, situated there among the hills and forests like it had always been there, simply a part of the landscape.

From the head of the column of one hundred forty men-at-arms and sixty five servants, Robert laughed. "Winterfell!" he roared out, laughing, "by the Seven, it's been too long."

OOOOOOO

Not five minutes after Ranma joined them, Robert descended from his horse with difficulty and Ned took a moment to examine his friend, sighing internally as he saw what the years had done to him. Where before he had been a heavy, muscular man, now Robert was simply heavy. He still looked somewhat muscular, but his beer belly was huge, sticking out over his waistline by a wide margin. His eyes were bleary from drink, his hands looked slightly palsied, and his good tunic, possibly made specially to make him look less fat, was dotted with wine stains.

In stark contrast, the Queen, as she got out of the carriage, looked as if time had not affected her at all from the last glimpse of her Ned had seen. Cersei's blonde hair fell in waves down her back and her dress was magnificently embroidered, all in white of course, as well as the white pelt of some animal or another on her shoulders and back for warmth here in the North.

He turned back to the King as Robert walked up to him Ned bowed formally. "Your grace, Winterfell is yours."

Robert looked at his old friend and said bluntly, "You've gotten fat."

At Ned's back his wife and children looked a little shocked as did members of the king's party. But Ned merely looked the King up and down, one eyebrow interrogatively. Robert laughed, then the two men hugged like brothers, clapping one another on the back.

Ranma rolled his eyes, but inside he was thinking, This is the King? He was not impressed. Ranma hadn't been impressed by much he had learned about Robert Baratheon, certainly not after Robert had taken the throne at any rate. He really wasn't much of a King. The tales that reached the North told nothing about what he truly did as a king other than putting down the Greyjoy rebellion. All they spoke of was his drinking and whoring. To Ranma, raised as a martial artist and steeped in the Code, then raised as a Stark and knowing his duty to family and those who looked to him for protection, this was not what a king should be known for. Where were the new laws, new public works, hell, new taxes? But no, Robert Baratheon, the man who had led the successful rebellion against the Targaryen Mad King, was not known for anything but his drinking, whoring, and past glories.

"My Lord," Ned said after releasing the King from their hug, "My children and my wife Catelyn."

"Cat," Robert said pulling her into a hug.

Catelyn returned it demurely. Ned turned and said "And these are my sons, my heir Ranma, Bran, and Rickon and my daughters Sansa and Arya."

Robert grunted at them all, giving a cursory glance to the daughters though his eyes seemed to linger on Arya for a moment before he shook it off. "Where is she?" he said, "It's been years and I want to pay my respects."

Ned understood immediately. "Lyanna is in the crypt of course, where she wanted to be. But that can wait."

"No, now." Robert growled.

The Queen came forward. "Husband, surely this can wait until we're all settled in, it's been a fatiguing journey and…"

Robert turned to Cersei and gave her a glare which shut her up quickly, then turned and moved away. "Now, Ned!"

Ranma's father shrugged apologetically at the Queen and went off after his friend.

As soon as the pair was gone, Catelyn moved to step forward, but Ranma shook his head, speaking before she could. "And that is our king? My deepest sympathies, milady." He said, bowing from the waist towards the Queen.

"Ranma!" Catelyn scowled, horrified by the lack of respect. "You cannot speak of the king like that!"

Ranma shrugged. "I don't turn a blind eye to what I see, mother." He looked past the queen when he saw the children getting out of the carriage. The oldest, with short blond hair, green eyes set into what Ranma would call a WT (weak type) bishounen face with a small pouty sort of mouth, was the first to get out during the king's greeting. He had been looking around somewhat disdainfully, but seemed to have schooled his expression and was now studying the Starks, or possibly just one of them, with interest. The little boy, who had the same blonde hair and same hair style as the older boy, was looking around with great interest, especially at the array of five direwolf puppies arrayed with the Stark children. Fenris had since rejoined the others after having had his own, admittedly rather splashy bath (hence why Hodor was the one Ranma had left him with).

The middle one and the only daughter had honey gold hair done in twin braids going down her chest, and was wearing a dress much like the queen's, white with highlights. Though in the princess's case, the highlights were Baratheon black rather than Lannister red. She was a very pretty young girl, with a face and developing figure that hinted she would someday rival her mother in beauty, though her face had yet to develop the lines or regal coldness that Cersei exuded.

That wasn't what had caught Ranma's attention however; what had was the wince Myrcella couldn't quite hide as she stepped off the carriage's small step onto the ground. "I think however that the young lady should be taken to see the maester. She seems to be favoring one of her ankles."

The Queen turned sharply, her shock at a Stark of all people speaking so about the king overridden for the moment and saw that her daughter was indeed favoring one of her feet as she stood there.

The young princess watched in surprise as the young Lord of the castle came bounding towards her, so fast it took several of the White Cloaks aback. Ser Selmy, the White Cloaks commander, blinked in shock at how fluid and quick the boy was while several of his fellows made to grab him but were too slow.

Myrcella didn't notice that, blushing more than a little at the older boy's good looks. Stark cheekbones framing a thin and handsome face, with hair swept back into a long pony tail and deep Tully blue eyes which were sparkling with humor at the moment. She squeaked a little when, before Ser Arys Oakheart, the Kingsguard assigned to her, could intercede, Ranma had lifted her into the air, perching Myrcella on his shoulder without even rumpling her dress somehow. Before any of the guardsmen around her or her mother could take Ranma to task for his lack of courtesy, Ranma asked, "And how exactly did you hurt yourself?"

She gulped a little, swiftly looking at her mother and Joffrey before answering. "O-on one of our stops I-I tripped, getting out of the carriage and twisted my ankle. I, I didn't want to make a fuss…"

Hearing that the mother in Cersei rose up over the queen's indignation and she shook her head sternly at her daughter. "You should've said something, sweetling." Cersei looked askance at the young man who was holding her daughter on his shoulder, as if Myrcella weighed next to nothing ,and then looked over at Catelyn, having lost her forward momentum for a moment.

Catelyn frowned a little but eventually just gave in. Her son was not one to waste time on courtly manners and decorum. She had been trying for years to change that and failed. She wasn't about to suddenly succeed in the next five minutes. "Ranma," she sighed, "yes, you can show the young lady to the infirmary, I'll be showing the Queen and the rest of her party to her rooms. Our servants will see to your ladies and men."

The Queen nodded and Catelyn turned to Sansa who had been almost blatantly staring at Joffrey, a blush on her pretty face which so looked like Catelyn's own. "Sansa, could you go with your brother and princess Myrcella? I'm sure that the Princess would prefer to have another lady around, even for so short a time, in an unfamiliar place like this."

Myrcella looked down at Tommen, who was staring up at where she was perched and said, "Don't worry, Tommen, I'll be right back."

"You can both come," Ranma said, shrugging. Without dislodging Myrcella, Ranma then knelt down and picked up Tommen setting him on his other shoulder. "I carry my siblings like this all the time, anyway."

The two younger Royal siblings looked at one another in shock and amusement, they had never before run into someone who treated them like this. It was a little weird, but also rather fun and it was about to get a little better. Joffrey on the other hand, carefully hid a sneer of amusement at someone volunteering to be a beast of burden like that. This went unnoticed, however, as Ranma said "Perhaps I can tell you both a story as we go?"

"Oh," Sansa clapped her hands together, her irritation at leaving before she could speak to the prince, disappearing, "do you have a new one about why you were so late getting back? You were supposed to be back weeks ago!" At the word 'story' both his younger brothers raced over to Ranma as well.

"That is indeed a tale, dear sister." he said, reaching down and taking her hand. "Yet, it is a tale of derring-do that I'm afraid Arya would prefer to you, though possibly I could revisit some of the tales I told you when you are younger. I doubt you remember them very well."

The chattering of the children receded and Catelyn turned to the Queen. "I'll show you to your quarters."

The Queen, still extremely nonplussed by he young man had forcefully kept the proceeding informal, simply nodded and followed along. Around her Jamie and the Kingsguard were left shaking their head save for Oakheart who moved swiftly after his young charge. Joffrey however merely sneered at the other young man being so concerned about children rather than the royal prince and turned away, thinking however that the older Stark girl was rather attractive…

Arya was about to go after them when she paused, frowning and looking around. "Where's the Imp? I've heard about him, but I don't see him here?"

That question about her freak of a brother was actually just what Cersei needed to get her brain rebooted from the surprise of Ranma acting so informally with her children. She looked around, scowling angrily. "Where is that little nuisance? Probably in the nearest brothel, I'll wager. Jaime, could you go and retrieve him?"

Jaime Lannister was a good looking man in his late twenties, with long dirty blond hair down to his shoulders; a very small, well-trimmed mustache; and the green eyes of all Lannisters in a face set into a permanent smirk. "I will take on this most arduous duty, dear sister. It wouldn't be the first time after all."

Cersei smiled at her twin, relishing the secret they shared for a moment before turning back to their hostess, her mask of hauteur falling into place easily. Catelyn smiled tightly at her and led the way inside the keep.

OOOOOOO

An hour later found Ranma sitting in the middle of the maester's sickroom, telling his younger siblings, a few friends, and their guests a story. Myrcella's ankle had been wrapped with gauze and she was sitting up in one of the beds, a large pack of snow on it. At the foot of the bed sat Sansa with Lady, her very well-mannered direwolf pup between them, being scratched behind her ears by both girls . Arya and his other siblings sat on the ground with Tommen and the other direwolf pups all in a jumble, something that the young prince had been a little leery of, but seemed to enjoy. Luckily his mother wasn't here, or his enjoyment would have been short-lived indeed.

"With that statement, the pigtailed hero realized that the curse on his hair was all in his mind! After all, he was still a young man, not bald like his father. So he had no need for the cursed item to keep his hair! With that knowledge, he grabbed the massive lengths of hair that had sprung from his head, and began to use them as weapons, like so many ropes and whips in his hands. He flicked his hair weapons through the air, grabbing his beloved out of her kidnapper's hands and swiftly bringing her to his side before tying up the four bald attackers in his hair from the ankles up to their necks."

Ranma's audience laughed and giggled at the tale he was spinning, never realizing that it had actually happened to him in his past life, except for the 'beloved' part. Though at the time, Ranma would have been hard pressed to tell you yea or nay on that, looking back on it Ranma knew he hadn't really loved Akane, been infatuated with maybe, but not love.

"And then, the hero of our tale finished tying up his enemies. After that the hero put all four of them on a boat to a distant land. After that he returned to his lady's house, wondering when the next challenge would occur." As the children cheered, he nodded at the servant in the doorway. "Can I help you?"

"Lord," the servant bowed his head, "your father requests your presence in his study."

Ranma nodded and reached over to pat Rickon on the head where he had been sitting right across from his older brother. "With that children, I will see you all later this evening for the feast. I understand it is expected."

The children all thanked him for the story then began chattering excitedly amongst themselves about the story. Even Sansa and Jeyne Poole, who had heard the same tale when they were younger, had enjoyed this retelling.

He exited the room, smiling slightly at the smiling Kingsguard standing at the door and the maid Cersei had assigned to her daughter. The maid curtseyed, bowing forward to give Ranma a very good glimpse down her bosom, blushing as she stared avidly at the handsome young lord. "A most lively tale, Lord."

Ranma shrugged. "I have a very good imagination for some reason, and my siblings have always seemed to enjoy it."

The woman looked at him and smiled but before she could follow up he bowed again, leaving quickly, and she clicked her fingers. She had only been here a few hours but already she had heard many strange tales, wonderful tales in many ways of the Young Wolf and his amazing endurance. She was eager to see if that endurance carried over into other things, and that line had given her on almost perfect opening.

The servant who had come to fetch Ranma hurried after him, smiling a little at the way he had ignored the girl's attempt at flirting. Whether or not there was any truth to his and the lady Mormont stepping out together, the young master was amazingly adept at ignoring or simply not responding to the come-ons of women.

Ranma found his father in his study, writing something down, and Ranma noticed it had a lot of numbers on it. He figured it was probably a bill of some kind for the food necessary for the king's stay.

Ned looked up as his son entered and smiled at him. "Jon has returned along with Theon, Roger, and the Lady Dacey. They filled me in on what you saw." he said his voice becoming much grimmer. "I'm not certain if I agree with you that the White Walkers are back, but I do know that there is something brewing beyond the Wall, a threat that must be faced, which wields magic long unseen."

He looked hard at his son with a grim smile, not having liked much of what he had heard, yet, still proud of how both his sons had acted. "Jon gave me an almost blow by blow account of the battle. Including how Hathan Snow saved your life." Ranma might have mixed feelings about that, but he wasn't about to speak up, after all, it might well have been true. "I was thinking of this as an appropriate reward for that."

Eddard picked up a piece of parchment from his desk and handed it over across to his son. Ranma looked down and read it swiftly. "therefore in recognition of service to the heir of our house, we, House Stark, cede the holdfast of Eastshield to Hathan Snow, now given the name Shieldarm, to be held by him and his family in perpetuity…" Ranma looked up and smiled widely at his father. "You're giving him a holdfast and a minor title? That's fantastic father, and I think he'll do well as a landed noble. Eastshield, though, is that one of the holdfasts in the wolfswood?"

"It is, on the outer edge toward Torrhen's Square. The land has been reclaimed by the forest, but the holdfast's walls are still there and it is still a strong defensive position, once you reduce the woods around it. It will not be a sinecure to be certain, but with the title and the holdfast will come several smallfolk families and money to entice a few men at arms to his land. It will be up to Hathan to choose them, of course, and to keep their loyalty."

Ranma nodded, smiling happily as he envisioned his older friend's reaction to the news. Ned raised the paper he was currently working on and Ranma saw it was a numbers tally of men-at-arms. "I've been working out how many people we can send and still have a goodly force here, both ourselves and our vassals. I make it over twelve hundred we can send from our own lands without pulling too many men from the fields or from the workshops and still have a force large enough to patrol our lands and guard Winterfell."

"You'll send them after the King and his party leave, of course, father?"

"Of course," Ned replied, then changed the subject suddenly. "I understand that you are not exactly enthralled with the King?"

"If you mean I think he's a drunkard then you're correct, father," Ranma said now sitting down across from Ned at one of the chairs in front of his desk. "You did not see the look that passed between him and the Queen? That's a look I wouldn't give my worst enemy."

"Their marriage is not one of love that is true." Ned said diplomatically. "Robert was still grieving for my sister, but he had to do something to appease the Lannisters, who had control of King's Landing and an army almost as large as Roberts own, but well rested and well provisioned."

"I understand that, but in all this time he hasn't learned how to, at the very least, not show his contempt of her? He basically rubbed it into the Queen's face that he doesn't care for her opinion!"

"I know what you are saying, but Robert was always one who loved fiercely. My sister was possibly the only woman in all of Westeros that could have made him leave over his womanizing ways and, since then, he's always been pining after her memory. And regardless of what you think, he is the king, and you will respect him as such."

Ranma bit back a sharp retort, merely nodding. "Will you inform him of what we saw?"

"Of course not." Ned scoffed. "Robert might give lip service to the faith of the Seven, but he isn't religious and he's not someone who'd understand something like that without seeing it himself. I'll bring up the idea of sending more men to the Wall, but I doubt even the idea of there being a new King Beyond the Wall will be believed by the others in his court. The best I can hope for, is to get him interested enough to head to the Wall himself to speak to Commander Mormont and my brother in person."

Ned went on, now looking at his son with shrewd compassion. "I also understand you lost people, the two Norrey clan scouts that met you on the edge of their territory?"

Ranma nodded grimly, looking down. "I, I've dealt with the guilt about losing people, father. It, it took me a while, but I think the worst part about it was that I was so happy it was the two of them dying and not any of my friends."

"That is a natural human reaction, Ranma." Ned replied, smiling a little sadly at his oldest son. In many ways, Ranma had been forced to grow up far faster than the father in Eddard, Stark or no, could have wanted. First the whole Bolton incident, and now this, what do the old gods have in store for you, my son? "We care for our friends more than we should when they are also our soldiers. It is our duty to not show favoritism in combat or other situations. And," Ned went on more grimly, "not to let grief or anger at the passing of a friend or loved one cloud our judgment."

Ranma nodded his understanding and the two sat there in companionable silence for a moment as Eddard let his son assimilate his words then he went on more briskly. "Your mother has been told you ran into a sizable force of wildlings in the Gift and our suppositions about a threat growing from that corner. She doesn't believe it, however, we don't have enough proof and it's been too long since the wildlings were a real threat."

He waved his son around the desk. "Now, I think if we both work on this we can get it done quickly, if you take House Mormont and the others from the west I will take everything east of Winterfell, and we can figure out how many each house can spare without weakening their own territories defense or harming their economy."

Ranma nodded but added a word of caution. "I also told Greatjon to send supplies up with his men, as well as people to take over the remaining farms and villages in the Gift. As far as we could tell it was practically empty, father."

Ned sighed. "We'll send up some villagers from here, I know of several married pairs that want new land, and I believe House Cerwyn and House Flint of Flint's Finger have a similar issue. The Gift will most certainly be colder and harsher, but much of the territory up there is actually arable land and it is much easier to put a house in working order than build your own and carve out a farm from the wolfswood."

His son nodded in reply but had a question. "Will Roger and Osha be staying with us for a time or will you send them on to the Rills after Roger recovers?"

Ned looked at his son with fond pride. The connections and friendships his son had forged among the heirs of the noble houses of the North were a sight to see, and he took pleasure in particular in seeing the connection between House Ryswell and House Stark started by himself and Mark Ryswell continued. "He'll stay for the king's visit. An heir of a house leaving when the King is in attendance would be seen as an insult save for truly pressing business elsewhere. Roger is right however; his father will need some more convincing of the danger."

"Though I would caution you when you go over the numbers for the Ryswell lands to be cautious in how many men you ask them to send. House Ryswell is the strong arm in the southeast; the Rills, the Barrowlands, and the Stony Shore look to Dustin and Ryswell over the other houses and unfortunately House Dustin doesn't have the men and numbers it once had." That was made worse by the fact that the Lady Dustin had never remarried after her husband had died in the final days of Robert's Rebellion.

Ranma nodded and the two of them set to work quietly for the rest of the afternoon before breaking off to prepare for the feast that evening.

OOOOOOO

Reactions to the very odd young man that was the heir of Winterfell were varied among the King's party. Robert didn't think one way or the other about him, he had been completely concentrated on paying his respects to his lost love. Cersei was oddly ambivalent; the Queen was irritated at his lack of propriety or any kind of deference to her rank or her children's rank, but at the same time somewhat amused at his obvious distaste for Robert. Of course, she was also irritated that he treated her children like children rather than princess and prince, yet at the same time he had noticed Myrcella was injured, something Cersei had missed. So all in all, Cersei was waiting to see how he and Joffrey got along before painting him with the same disdain and hate she had for the rest of his family: the wild little female, the stupid pumpkin children, the idiotic Catelyn, and the all too cold and stiff Eddard.

Joffrey thought him an idiot, and was more than a little irritated that the other boy didn't even try to talk or even acknowledge him outside of a nod of welcome (which Joffrey answered with a small nearly imperceptible sneer that Ranma had caught and filed away). Myrcella and Tommen both thought he was magnificent and a fantastic storyteller. Myrcella, for one, was sad that her own big brother didn't act anywhere near as kindly to her.

It was in the White Cloaks however where the decision on Ranma was most sharply divided. "He's an idiot!" Boros Blount, a heavyset ugly man with a mind quicker in politics than the sword, spoke up first as they made themselves at home in the barracks room set aside for them. "Did you see how he acted, he showed no care for the station of the Queen or the King. It's as if he has no sense of propriety or decorum, or the fact that either one of them could have his head for the asking!"

"That would be folly of the highest order," Jamie said looking up from where he was stowing his gear alongside his bed. "And is that what you really think? Something about him is telling me that he is much more dangerous than he appears."

"Oh, please." said Preston Greenfield, one of the Queen's appointments to the Kingsguard. "The boy is an utter idiot, like Boros said. You can't honestly think that those stories we've heard since entering the North are true? They're but bard's tales, if any were true, they would have made it past the Neck in more than bard's tales."

Jaime shrugged, something was bothering him about Ranma, the way the Stark heir moved, how fluid he was reminded him of a Braavosi water dancer, yet not quite. There was something more there, something that reminded him of someone else, though for the life of him he couldn't bring the memory to the fore.

Arys shrugged his shoulders, keeping his own council, along with Ser Mandon Moore and Meryn Trant. Meryn was not one to give his opinion lightly, while Mandon was silent as a matter of course.

While his so-called brothers discussed the young man of the house, Ser Barristan Selmy sat as memories of years gone by played through his head. They were of a better time, a brighter time. When the White Cloaks weren't a paper shield, when they truly were the best swords in the land rather than the bought swords they were today. Only Jaime was truly worthy of the cloak in terms of skill, but outside of skill he should never have been allowed to retain the White after betraying his oath whatever the reason. Selmy could cut the others down with ease, and some days he was tempted to do just that despite his own oaths.

But right now he was filled with memories of his past, comparing them to the young man they had seen earlier today and smiling to himself in wonder. Ser Arthur Dayne moved like that, that fluid motion, his body under total control, that confidence, only young Stark moves even more fluidly, even more confidently. I must talk to this young man, he is interesting. Possibly the type we need so desperately amongst our company. And while it might cause problems with House Stark, it isn't like Ned doesn't have other children who could step up and become his heir…

OOOOOOO

Later that evening, as was his duty, Ned broached the subject of the threat rising beyond the Wall with the king and the few advisers he had brought to Winterfell with him. Of course, he didn't speak of the White Walkers or anything else he couldn't truly prove, but what he could share was more than enough to come under fire.

"You cannot be serious, you expect us to believe that? The wildlings have not been a real threat for thousands of years!" the Queen scoffed. She was not normally part of the king's council, but since there were so few members of said council here, she had pushed herself into the conversation.

Robert glowered at her and she glared back for a moment before Robert turned away. "Unlike this one," he said, jerking a thumb at the Queen, "I've never known you to tell me anything that you couldn't prove Ned, so I believe you."

"But this isn't Lord Stark, is it?" said Varys, looking at Lord Stark apologetically, though if that emotion was real was more than anyone there could say, the eunuch was a past master at showing only what he wanted people to see. "This is your son. While I can fully understand the young boy overreacting after his first taste of combat adrenaline and concern for comrades can make a man count every enemy twice. If the wildlings have found a way to get sufficient numbers around the Wall, then surely their predations on the North of your lands would be even worse? Has there been a marked increase in raids?"

"There has not," Eddard said, "at least, not to the best of my knowledge. But there is no doubt the Gift has suffered heavily from their predations given how empty my son and his friends reported it was. If their goal was to weaken the Wall, then taking out its logistic support was much more important than raiding the mountain clans or House Umber. And this was not my son's first battle, he has fought and killed before, do not try to denigrate his abilities, Spider."

"Yet even so, I know that you have more experience, more historical records to call upon when talking about how to read the intentions of the wildlings, but that sort of thinking is well beyond anything I have ever read the wildlings exhibiting before." Varys said, staring at Stark, his voice sly and probing.

"Not if there is a King Beyond the Wall behind it." Eddard responded, looking at the eunuch with scant favor yet keen eyes. Ned knew that the Master of Whisperers was a dangerously bright 'man' but had never had dealings with him before. Robert had yet to explain why he was here at all, but regardless, Ned knew not to trust him.

"And as the Queen said, there hasn't been a King Beyond the Wall in hundreds of years," Varys reposted. "And the wildlings have never been known for subtlety even when one piper is able to get all the rats moving together." The eunuch's fat jowls twisted into a smile at his own clever turn of phrase.

"Even if they can get small groups around the Wall, they need to go through it to get any forces large enough to truly threaten the North and the Wall is inviolate." Ser Selmy stated, there to provide a military perspective. While he was willing to believe Lord Stark about what could be brewing, he didn't see why the problem was so important.

"The Wall needs help," Ned's answer rang sharply. He looked over at the King. "The Night Watch's fighting strength is at the lowest ebb it has ever been in recorded history and the Gift is too unpopulated to provide for it. I'm going to send men north to the Wall. Half of my house's men at arms and an equal fraction of my vassals men as well, and I'm sending the call out to all the other Lords of the North."

Robert frowned. This sounded exciting and it had been a very long time indeed since anything really exciting had happened to him outside of bedding a new wench or five. He could feel his heart pounding, rather too quickly it must be said, and his blood flowing again. This was just what he needed, a chance to ride out, to go to war again. I was not made for the crown Robert thought, not for the first time or even the ten thousandth time. Jon Arryn or Ned should've taken the crown instead of me. I am made for war. This is what I was made for.

Yet before he could speak, Varys spoke up again. "Again my Lord, I'm not saying you shouldn't. But this seems like a purely local affair. We have no proof that there is a King Beyond the Wall rising again. We have no proof of anything unusual save a surprising number of wildling raiders and one wildling woman's word. It's not enough evidence for us to rouse the kingdom. We must have proof before we pay to put armies on the march, to pay for the food and other necessary supplies."

Robert was about to bellow something about penny-pushers not being generals when Cersei interjected her own view. "And besides husband, remember what we heard before from our sources about Targaryen loyalists making noises of rebellion in Highgarden, the Crown lands, and even Dorne. Something has stirred them up. That is the entire reason Varys is with us, after all."

Cersei had used the magic words 'Targaryen loyalists' and completely derailed Robert's attention, much like waving a red flag in front of a bull. By the Seven, I sacrificed too much to take the throne, I'll be damned if any fucking lizard supporters gain any head way at all! Robert glared at his Queen then over at his old friend. "They're right Ned. I know you don't like it, I don't like it either. But your son didn't bring back enough proof for us to act on it."

Ned nodded. "I honestly hadn't thought I'd get you to agree, but it was my duty to inform you of what might be a threat to the realm, and what steps I have taken to solve it."

Varys looked a little dubious for a moment, though the fact he let the emotion be seen at all meant it was probably false. In truth, the eunuch was concerned about the changes he had seen so far in the North and, despite the fact that most of those changes, on the surface, seemed to be good things for the North, did that translate to being good for the whole kingdom? Change of any sort could disturb the delicate balance of power, which was already in turmoil due to Jon Arryn's sudden demise.

"Now that that's settled," Robert said, looking around at the others, "leave us."

The Queen and his spymaster left then, with the spymaster going to work immediately on the real reason he had come to the North: setting up a spy network in the North. Of all the realms it was the realm he had least coverage in, which had heretofore been acceptable since the North was also the most loyal realm to the current king. But there had been so many odd tales coming south and the upheaval years back about the destruction and disavowal of House Bolton, that it was obvious he needed some of his little birds here to see if anything was brewing that might threaten the good of the realm, of course.

With the two irritants gone, Robert turned back to Ned. "Bah, good riddance, necessary evils the both of them, don't mean I have to like 'em. Anyway, you ran off to talk to your son before we had a chance to really talk after I paid my respects, Ned."

Ned chuckled. "My wife and I have developed a rather twitchy feeling whenever our son leaves our sight, and with good reason apparently."

"Yes, that crap with the Boltons. Heard you killed the old leech yourself, would have loved to see that! Man was too cold and bloodless by half! We heard about that, though we only heard that your son was captured. Then we started to hear a tale of him actually fighting his way out, once we hit the inns past Moat Cailin, any truth to that?"

"He did fight yes, as I said earlier to Varys," Ned replied, not willing to give any details about what had really happened there.

"Brave lad." Robert nodded. "Your wolf blood is strong in him I see? And were those direwolves I saw with your children?"

Ned shrugged. "They are the totem of my house, we found them as we were coming back from one of my holdfasts. They can be trained you know, in fact they are already very well-trained for their age."

Robert barked a laugh. "Just keep them away from my wife. She hates dogs of all sorts. Except for the two legged kind, I suppose, else she would never have assigned the Hound as my oldest brat's defender." He guffawed again and then looked at his friend seriously. "You know why I'm here Ned. I need your help. With Jon Arryn dead, I need a new King's Hand, and I want you to be that man."

Ned was silent for a moment. This was what he had secretly feared, but as he had told his wife, this was a matter of duty. "Your grace I am honored, what else can I say?"

"Say you'll accept." the king said bluntly. "I need someone to run the kingdom while I am off drinking and whoring, after all!"

"With that lofty a goal in mind how can I refuse?" His friend replied smiling slightly.

"Then don't refuse." Robert said laughing again and clapping him on the shoulder. "I'll even sweeten the deal, we can still unite our houses you know, just like we always dreamed of doing. Your young girl Sansa seems much taken with my oldest brat. Think about it, the stags and direwolves united at last."

"We'll see." Ned said slowly. "I would prefer to watch the two of them together for a time before making a final decision. After all looks aren't everything, there must be something else there as well."

"That's the spirit!" Robert said clapping him on the shoulder again. "Now, where do you keep the wine?"

OOOOOOO

That evening, everyone congregated them main Hall for a feast, save for Ranma and Jon. Catelyn found the two of them in Jon's room and Ranma was giving Jon something from the maester. "That'll help with your legs, you stupid bugger." Ranma said clapping his brother on the shoulder. "Though you'll have to apply it yourself. I'm not touching your hairy legs for love or gold."

John looked up at him wearily. "Hate you," he said slowly, "hate you so much."

"That'll teach you to try and pace me on foot." Ranma said laughing a little. "It's not my fault you tried to run with me." That was actually what happened. Jon had tried to give his remounts a rest and ran beside Ranma for a time with Ghost. Ghost lasted five hours, a very respectable time at the speed they were going and his age. Jon lasted five hours before he too had to give up, his legs burning and sore. Fenris had lasted nine hours, before Ranma had to pick him up the first time, and seemed to get a little stronger each time after that.

"Ahem," said Catelyn, coughing a little to announce her presence. "Jon, I realize you're still injured so don't let this son of mine bother you. There was a time when he couldn't have kept up with himself, either." She tapped her head gently signaling what she meant, and Jon stifled a chuckle as Ranma pouted outrageously. "Unfortunately, you know I couldn't have allowed you to come tonight, anyway." Catelyn went on apologetically. "The Queen has views on bastard children, I'm afraid, and they are not like your father's."

"With a husband like that, I don't blame her." Ranma muttered.

"Yes, well." Catelyn said, not really willing to protect the king's whoring and drinking, but not willing to speak against him either.

Jon merely looked grim. "I just hope none of them have delusions of grandeur. I would like the last war to be the last civil war Westeros ever fights." He shared a glance with Ranma. "We've got other problems brewing."

With that Ranma and his mother walked out. Catelyn looked at her son. "I expect you to be on your best behavior." she said firmly leaning forward and grasping his chin with one hand making certain she was looking into his eyes. "While the King's younger children seem to have welcomed the way you act, it is still not the way you comport yourself around royalty. You got away with it once, do not push it. And I can understand that you have rather ambivalent feelings towards your King, but remember he is the King. You must respect the office and Robert's past, if nothing else."

Ranma took a deep breath and gently reached out pulling his mother into a hug, breaking her hold on his chin. "I'll try okay? I just don't like the look he sent at the Queen. She's also a cold fish sort of person too, but she doesn't deserve that."

"He is the King," she reiterated, but did not move out of her son's hug. "And you must respect the office. Do you understand me?"

"If I realize I can't keep my tongue anymore, will I have leave to excuse myself?"

By this time they had reached the family's personal quarters. "After the music for dancing has begun yes you may leave."

Ranma nodded. "Then you have my word I won't say anything to him."

Later that evening Ranma sat next to his father, and they stood respectfully as the King and his family entered. After Ned gave a brief speech in honor of the King, they all sat down again, the food was brought in, and the feast began. For about forty minutes, it was a convivial atmosphere, if a little stilted, and Theon and Ranma were talking quietly to one another, answering questions from the adults when asked. Robert was in particular was plying Ranma with questions about his experience as a prisoner of House Bolton and asked Ranma to show him the scars from Ramsay's torture, which he did reluctantly.

This again drew various reactions. The Queen looked away, her face drawn and sneering at the scar on Ranma's shoulder and side. Robert grunted in something like approval, while Joffrey sneered a little at the ugly scars, thinking he would never allow anyone to mark him like that. His sister, sitting with the other younger children further down the table had blushed at the flat, dense musculature of Ranma's chest and stomach.

Robert laughed as Ranma quickly pulled down his jerkin again. "Don't worry lad, women love scars."

"I haven't had much experience in that area," Ranma said shrugging, "but I'll defer to your far greater knowledge in that area your majesty."

Robert guffawed again, slapping Ranma on the shoulder with enough force to stagger most men but Ranma merely took it, not even grunting. For the next hour, as Robert got more and more into his cups, Ranma simply sipped at his wine, though he ate nearly as much of the king. The king didn't notice this but he did notice that Ranma hadn't finished even his first cup of wine. "What's the matter boy? Can't hold your wine?"

"I can hold it quite fine, your Majesty," Ranma said simply turning from his talk with Theon to address the king "but I prefer not to overindulge."

"Bah!" the King shouted, "That's only because you haven't had good wine here in the North. Ned, you surely broke out the good stuff for this feast, right?"

"I did indeed," Ned replied smiling faintly, "but my son has never been a major wine or beer drinker."

"Tell me you know how to fuck, at least!" the King said with a guffaw, causing Lady Catelyn and Cersei to both frown slightly.

Theon laughed. "He doesn't indulge in that either!"

"I save it up for more needful times, it loses its luster if you just go rutting around like some people." Ranma replied.

Robert looked up sharply at that, but that line was directed at Theon so he ignored it, laughing loudly instead. "Ah, but they say practice makes perfect, and I mean to get all the practice I can!" The dangerous moment over Ned, sitting between the King and Ranma, breathed a sigh of relief, shaking his head at how Ranma needed to learn how to choose his words more carefully, a thought shared by his wife.

The Queen had heard all this and smiled a little approvingly. Ranma might be uncultured, discourteous, and have no respect for rank but at least he seemed to be a respecter of women, which put him in a very small minority. She caught her brother's gaze from where he was sitting at another table and she felt her breath quickening under his gaze but shook her head slightly at him. Now was not the time to indulge in such things.

Cersei's face blanked utterly when she noticed the King had pulled one of the serving girls into his lap and was making her drink some of the wine.

Ranma had noticed this, too, and looked over at his mother sitting next to Cersei, raising one eyebrow, asking non-verbally 'can I be excused?'

His mother frowned and shook her head. The music hadn't started, and until it did it would be impolite in the extreme for someone to leave the King's table.

Ranma tried to ignore it, he really did, but there was the King flirting outrageously with a girl who was almost young enough to be his daughter. Closer to Joffrey's age than Myrcella's thankfully, or Ranma would have not been able to stop himself from playing punch-the-pedo. Some things had most definitely carried over from his previous life, and his own idea of the age of consent was one of them. But what was worse was that the Queen was sitting right there next to him. It just wasn't right. To Ranma's mind it wouldn't be right at any time to cheat on your wife, but rubbing it in her face made it even worse. "A drunken whoremonger is our King, really?" he murmured to Theon.

"Oh, I don't know," Theon responded. "I like it well enough."

"You would." Ranma said shaking his head again.

Thankfully at that moment songs began to play and Ranma stood up quickly. "I hear the dance floor calling my feet, if you'll excuse me mother, father, your majesties." With that he escaped, leaving Theon to make his own excuses and head out to hunt up his own willing wench.

Ranma however wasn't searching for a wench at all, he merely nodded at Dacey, who was at another table with Roger. When she had arrived with Jon and the others, the King's men had been scornful at the idea of a woman being a warrior, but here in public they weren't about to make a point about it, not on Stark land. He shook his head very slightly after he caught her eye and moved on, leaving Dacey to shrug mentally. She hadn't recovered from the trip, so a night spent simply sleeping sounded excellent to her. Moreover, she hadn't been able to get to her stash of moon tea, anyway, and she made a point of having at least four cups after her trysts with Ranma.

Joffrey was about to get up from his seat and his eyes were locked, rather disturbingly so in Ranma's opinion, on Sansa. Ranma got there first and he held out his hand declaiming grandly "My lady, may I have this dance?"

His sister giggled a little at his antics but held out her hand willingly. "Of course, young sir, I would be delighted," she said and he took her hand pulling her easily to her feet and moving with a whoop onto the dance floor.

The two continued to dance through both a fast song and a slow song. In the middle of the slow song Ranma said seriously, "I see you're interested in the young prince?"

Sansa blushed at that. "Oh, he's ever so handsome and he comes from Kings Landing! I've heard so many fascinating stories about it and it must be so much nicer than here and so many things happen there!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "And do you find being a Stark of Winterfell so boring?"

"Oh, you know what I mean." Sansa laughed, slapping his upper-arm lightly. "It must be amazingly interesting there and the weather is supposed to be warm, wouldn't that be nice? You can wear so many more fashionable things if you don't have to always be worried about staying warm."

"Possibly," Ranma said "but that isn't the stories I've heard. I don't like what I've seen of Joffrey, yet. He seems a little spoiled and whiny to me."

"Pooh," Sansa laughed again. "he's only been here a day, you know you shouldn't jump to conclusions."

"Be that as it may." Ranma said dancing around her. "Fenris doesn't like him much, either."

"Oh, now you're just being silly. Of course the dogs don't like him, he probably smells of cats or something like that, or he ate some southern food or other that they don't like the smell of."

Ranma held her still for a moment as the song ended, his face uncommonly serious. "Sansa, remember they are direwolves not dogs, they are as much a part of our family as we ourselves, the living totems of our house. They have instincts, dear sister, Fenris's instincts saved my life not too long ago and the lives of all of my friends."

Sansa was taken aback by his seriousness and then frowned. "I understand what you're saying Ranma, but that doesn't make him a good judge of character."

"No, it doesn't," he said equably, "but it doesn't make him a bad one either. All I'm saying is don't fall in love so quickly that you fail to see what you're signing up for, all right?"

Sansa nodded. "I promise. Now, since you're done delivering your big brotherly injunction," she said laughing and dismissing most of what he said, though taking a bit to heart, thankfully, "why don't you go and see what Arya is up to? I think she's about to throw some food at Myrcella and that would be very bad indeed."

Ranma turned and looked seeing what Sansa had spotted. He bowed swiftly, kissing her hand and moving from where he had been in the middle of the dancers to right behind the Baratheon princess. Behind him Joffrey moved quickly to claim his dance with the pretty Stark girl, a handsome and roguish (in Sansa's opinion anyway) smile on his face.

He arrived just in time, smacking the food out of the air with one flashing hand down onto the floor so fast Myrcella didn't even realize she had been targeted.

Quickly Ranma moved around the table to stand by his sister's side. Once there, he leaned down speaking into her ear. "Now would that have been very nice?"

"It would've livened things up at least." Arya muttered.

"Bed, I think for you." Ranma laughed, reaching down and picking Arya up easily despite her squirming. "I'll be up later to tell you the tale of what happened to Jon and I when we went North."

That made Arya stop fighting. "You promise?"

"I promise."

Arya nodded. "All right I'll go to bed willingly, but you better be up soon." Ranma promised to come up soon and set Arya down. She went to their parents, kissing each on the cheek and then left without further incident.

At the same time, the Queen came over with two of her maids and picked up her two youngest children. She looked at Ranma and Ranma bowed his head slightly to her, which she returned stiffly and the two turned away from one another.

Ranma shuddered just a little. That woman is dangerous. There's a lot more going on behind those green eyes than she lets on. That stone mask of hers is good, too good really, and it's pretty obvious she resents either my family or being here at all, not certain which, or why.

He sat down at a random table, grabbing up a mug of water thankfully, and he quaffed down a few glasses worth.

"It's good to meet a young man who knows to avoid the devil drink," a voice, rather old sounding but still strong said from across the table from him.

Ranma looked up and bowed his head respectfully. "Ser Barristan, I trust you're having fun?" He knew of the older man's history of course and had found much to respect in the old man. He had served the previous king and continued to serve the throne regardless that the king had changed, doing so to the best of his ability. There was honor in that and, outside of the Kingslayer, he was possibly the only one of the Kingsguard Ranma could respect in terms of skill. Ranma knew that back in his old life Cologne and Happosai had been the most dangerous people he had ever met, possibly even more than Saffron in Happosai's case, so knew not to confuse 'old' with 'decrepit', even if the Barristan was portably no threat to Ranma. Never overlook the old, they only get that way by killing or outliving their enemies. Not as applicable in this case as in those two old fossils, but still…

"I'm a little too old for these fetes, alas," The older man muttered, "and it's not really what a knight is made for." The younger man chuckled darkly at that and continued to drink from his water. Barristan raised an eyebrow in amusement. "You don't approve of something I said?"

"Oh nothing like that, I'm just always amused though by the way some people view knighthood. I don't think being a knight means anything," Ranma said shaking his head. "Not when someone like the Mountain that Rides can be one."

Barristan winced at that, but didn't say anything. Ranma was merely giving voice to what he had thought many a time, though he also held Jaime Lannister in just as much contempt for his breaking his vows as he did Gregor Clegane for butchering Elia Martell and her children.

Ranma went on. "The oaths mean nothing if you don't keep to them, if the knighthood cannot be taken away for breaking them. Outside of House Manderly, we here in the North don't have much time to waste on such things, believing a warrior's actions speak louder for him than any oath." Ranma took another long gulp of water then stood up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a little sister who I promised a story to." With that he bowed and took his leave, making his way upstairs to see Arya.

Behind him the Kingsguard commander frowned thoughtfully, and decided he would continue to observe the young man. Despite his disdain for knighthood, he carried himself like one who was truly worthy of the appellation and every time he moved Barristan had flashes of Ser Arthur Dayne. If he could be convinced to join, he could be a breath of fresh air the Kingsguard needed to get rid of all the rotted wood in it at the moment.

Outside, Ranma paused as he heard himself hailed. "Ho, be you the son or the bastard born? I've been told you look alike at first glance."

Ranma turned and took in the odd man before him. He was a dwarf, with stubby legs and a jutting forehead over mismatched eyes of green and black, and another mixture of hair color, pale blond and black. In one hand he held a large wineskin, and his face was somewhat red from drink. "I'm Ranma Stark, and you are?"

The dwarf rocked back on his heels smirking wider than before. "I would've thought my dear siblings would've mentioned me or you would have heard tales about me at least. I'm Tyrion, sometimes called the Imp."

"I've heard of you." Ranma responded. "They say your tongue is a very dangerous weapon, as is the mind behind it. I was told about you as an example of why I shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

"Hah, and there we see the normal Stark method of diplomacy. My wit and my tongue can be very dangerous, young Stark, but you're not my normal target for my tongue and certainly my wit can be better used elsewhere." Tyrion chuckled, though only a twitch of Ranma's eyebrows showed he had gotten the joke. "Oh, don't be like that lad, you're far too young to start using the Stark family stone face all the time."

"Why are you out here, Lord Lannister, instead of inside enjoying the feast?" Ranma asked, actually finding himself liking the Imp for some reason.

"Hah, no lord am I, not even in contention for the Lannister name. No, I'm just Tyrion the imp, more mind than might. And why pray would I be in there? For one, my sister never likes me to be around in polite company, especially when she is trying to overawe people like your family. She has enough trouble trying to fight against Robert's lack of manners and general Robert-ness. Out here I can have my wine, I can raid your kitchen for food, and then, when I'm full up on wine, I can head into town and find a whore to fill up in turn."

Ranma rolled his eyes, amused at the jesters' turn of phrase. "Well then, Lord Tyrion, I will leave you to it. I have a sister who has demanded a bedtime story and the amount of mischief she can get up to doesn't bear thinking about, if she takes it into her head to be annoyed that I'm late."

"Hah, a most dangerous assignment to be sure, though before you go a question. I hear from the servants that you had recently been up to the Wall. Is it as magnificent as they say it is?"

"Magnificent? I suppose, in a way, awe-inspiring would be closer." Ranma replied, pausing his turn to look back at Tyrion. "But if you're just going up to see the sights then I would recommend coming back in a few years. If you heard about my trip, you know my friends and I ran into some trouble up there. I'm afraid the Night Watch would not have people free to show you around."

Tyrion bounced on his feet, more dexterous and mobile than one would think in someone so deformed, and now he was standing in front of Ranma again. "Yes, I heard about that, do you honestly think there is a King Beyond the Wall rising again? Surely the wildlings couldn't rally around one person after so long. That's as likely as you Starks developing a sense of humor."

"I would not have told my father what I did, or told Lord Umber or Lord Hornwood about it personally if I did not truly think that something was going on!" Ranma said, now nearly snarling at the idea of someone calling him a liar, even if the story going around wasn't the full truth. He calmed himself down, though, seeing the Imp's grinning face and knowing that the man saw his ill temper and enjoyed it too.

At this point, Ranma's years of dealing with Theon came to his aid. "If you go to the Wall, I suggest you think of ways where you can be useful. I understand you have a reputation as a smart man, though possibly only when it comes to talking whores out of their clothing or in aiming japes at others. Do try to turn that mind to something else if you go to the Wall, hmm?"

Tyrion laughed a little harshly, signaling Ranma had scored a bit of a hit there, though what specifically he said to get that blow in, Ranma didn't know. With a final nod, Ranma turned away again, continuing up to Arya's room.

OOOOOOO

Early the next day, Ranma was up and about. He moved on silent feet out of the keep and out to the exercise area, smiling in a bittersweet fashion at the faintest hint of light in the distance.

It was moments like these where Ranma most missed not being back in his old world, with Kasumi there to greet the morning with him and a cup of tea. If only I recognized my feelings toward her at the time, he lamented once more. If only either of us realized we had grown so close. Yet it would never have worked, not with Akane being there, or my other so-called fiancés or my father. Still, maybe if we had tried to make a go of it from the beginning.

Fenris jumping up onto his leg broke out Ranma of his maudlin thoughts and he smiled, reaching down to rub the direwolf's ears affectionately before moving on. Soon he began his initial exercises, Fenris accompanying him. The only one awake at the moment was Hodor, the large and friendly stable man, who was simple, unable to communicate beyond saying his name. "Hodor?" The big man smiled happily at seeing the Stark heir. "Hodor?"

"I'm fine Hodor, don't worry, I'm just going to do a bit of exercising, though if you could make certain that the horses we brought back are well cared for? They were run pretty ragged."

The giant man, nearly as large as Smalljon, and actually stronger than Smalljon had been before he started to train with Ranma, smiled happily. "Hodor!"

"Good man." Ranma smiled, patted the large man on the shoulder, then moved on, moving into some exercises while Fenris jumped around him.

About an hour later he smiled at Jon who was limping towards him with the silent Ghost at his side. "Are you sure you shouldn't rest some more Jon? I won't hold it against you if you want to rest a day. You did damn well to run with me for so long."

Jon shook his head with a smile. "I'll be alright, so long as you don't have me doing sprints or anything like that." Inside however he was once more amazed at how much endurance his brother had. Ranma had jogged alongside them for weeks, then sprinted alongside galloping horses for four days at the end, and didn't seem to be tired at all.

"No, I think you got enough of that yesterday. Let's start with some arm exercises, then when the others wake up we'll break to help them and then spar afterward when Ser Rodrick joins us."

With that the two of them began to move into a few of the martial arts forms that Ranma had taught Jon before, then moved on to upper body exercises. At about ten, the rest of the Stark brood got up and went about their day. Bran and Rickon joined the two older boys in exercising and were soon joined by Arya and Nymeria, her wolf, who immediately began to romp around with the other pups having a play fight of Fenris against all of them, which looked rather fun.

Ranma looked at his sister, his hands busy helping Bran to aim the bow and arrow correctly, while Ser Rodrick was helping Rickon with some hand exercises to build up his finger and hand strength. "I thought you were scheduled for lessons in etiquette and embroidery in the morning Arya, or did that change in my absence?"

His youngest sister scowled. "Ugh, it's so boring though! Myrcella's joined us, and all she and Sansa can talk about is boys and fashion and other boring things!" Actually the two were sort of comparing brothers in a way, with Myrcella trying to steer Sansa away from her interest in Joffrey. She was meeting with limited success, alas, while learning more about Ranma and Jon, who she had glimpsed that morning.

"Arya…." Ranma sighed. He liked seeing his younger sister enjoy learning how to fight so much, yet at the same time he didn't like the fact she tried to often to get out of their bargain with their parents. "You know our agreement with mother, you need to keep at your studies, or else I can't train you."

"Hmph." With that, Arya turned to Jon, "Well, that makes you my new favorite brother Jon. Do you think you can train me instead of this traitor?"

The Stark siblings broke out into laughter at that, even Rickon who didn't quite follow the joke, being all of seven. Ranma shook his head, holding up his hands. "Alright, alright I'll train you, but if we get in trouble you're going to be the one to take the blame for it. Go get your bow, and we'll have you and Bran practice together."

Arya grinned and ran off to grab her bow, made by Jon as a present for her, smaller and lighter than regular bows from the armory. Bran however seemed to sag, a motion Ranma caught. "What's wrong Bran?"

Bran was going to deny anything was wrong but Ranma caught his eyes and he sighed. "It's, it's just that Arya is much better than me at stuff like this, she's only a girl and she can shoot better than me, fight better than me, and she's even a little stronger too."

"First of all, forget all that 'only a girl' stuff." Ranma said sternly. "I would have thought watching Dacey and I practice together would have knocked the notion that women are weaker on the head for you." Bran blushed, having indeed watched the two of them and Ranma's other friends exercise several times in the past. "Good, then you should know there is no dishonor in being weaker than someone else. For another, there's no reason you need to be a warrior, Bran." Bran flushed further, looking away. "Just because Jon and I have to be, just because Arya wants to be, doesn't mean you and Rickon couldn't be something else."

Ranma reached down and forced his younger brother to look up at him again. "Let me tell you something, thinkers, scholars, builders have their place in the world. When you get right down to it, it's thinkers that change this world, builders that build things for the generations to come. Warriors can only defend things that other people have built. Take the Wall for instance, the Wall was built by our ancestor remember, Bran the Builder! Without the Wall the Night Watch couldn't do its job, and the North would have to deal with the wildlings raiding us all the time even down here in Winterfell, which was also built by Bran. If you want to go down that road, or become a maester or anything, you know our parents and I will support you."

By this time Arya was back and she raced up to Ranma grinning. "All ready!"

Ranma held Bran's eyes for another moment, and Bran sighed, then breathed in deeply and nodded, smiling now. Ranma clapped him on the shoulder then motioned the duo over to the archery range. "Alright Arya, you're aiming at the one on the farthest left, Bran the next right."

Above in a window, Ned had watched all this and Ranma turned his head to look up at his father, who nodded approvingly down at him. Ranma smiled happily then went back to instructing his younger siblings. Seeing that, Ned smiled and turned back to writing out messages to his vassals, sending them in small lots up to the Last Hearth, where they would then move en-masse to the Wall.

Later that day found Arya, Bran, and, surprisingly, young Tommen practicing with their practice blades. Arya was easily the best of the trio and she was working out one-on-one with Jon while Ranma instructed the other two. Ser Rodrick, who was still the official Master at Arms of Winterfell so had to be in attendance was also there, despite Ranma leading the majority of his sibling's instruction in arms. Rickon ran around with the direwolf pups, save for Lady, who was inside being pampered by Sansa and Myrcella.

"Bran, keep your shield up, don't let it drop like that or you're opening up your head to an attack!" Ranma shouted over the clangor of wood clattering on wood. "Good! Tommy, don't just try to hack and slash like that, remember that swords have points, too! Both of you aim your blows, don't just hack and pray!"

Tommen laughed at Ranma's nickname for him. It was a pretty obvious one, it must be said, but something no one in King's Landing would have dared to call him. Both youngsters responded with loud "Yes sir's!"

"What's this, the children's play area, or a training ground?" A sneering sort of voice said from behind Ranma. Both Ranma and Rodrick turned to see Joffrey standing there, a sneer on his pretty face. The prince wore simple, yet well-made armor and was carrying a blunted steel blade, the next step up from the wooden practice blades the youngsters were using. Behind him was his shadow, the swordsman called the Hound, Sandor Clegane, and a pack of other knights, the majority of whom wore Lannister colors, like the majority of the men-at-arms that had come north with the king.

One of them, however, wore the White Cloak of a Kingsguard, but it wasn't Jaime Lannister, much to Ranma's regret. The Kingslayer's skill with a sword was known to be among the finest in the kingdom and Ranma was eager to see how good he really was. Where Jaime was handsome, this man was somewhat plain, with short cropped orange hair and beard under a sallow face, with none of the sardonic humor that marked the Kingslayer. This face was marked with lines around narrowed eyes, which had a certain unpleasant glint to them.

"I wanted to come out here and practice, but I thought you northerners would at least divide the children from the warriors." Joffrey continued.

Ranma chuckled lightly, shaking his head, although out of the corner of his eye, he noticed how Tommen had shrunk in on himself at the sight of his older brother and how Arya was now glaring angrily at the prince. Nymeria had also separated herself from her siblings and stood next to her human. "If you must know, oh prince, the warriors have already practiced for a bit today. If you wish, you may wait a bit and Jon or I will accommodate you."

Theon, who had joined them halfway through the archery practice (and showed up both Arya and Bran, taking some pleasure in beating children) laughed harshly. "Are you sure you can still remember how to swing a practice blade, Ranma? It's been several years since you last did so, after all."

"I have no issues with using real steel." Joffrey shot back.

"I, however, do," Ser Rodrick said sternly. "There will be no live steel practice until you prove yourself able to handle it like what it is, a dangerous weapon that can turn in your hand, not some kind of toy."

"Why not let the lads practice?" Sandor grunted. "The young can learn more from a few nicks and scrapes than from hours of practice with blunted weapons."

"I am master at arms of Winterfell, not you Hound, and as such, I say no. I'll not be responsible for any scarring on either side." Or deaths, Rodrick added mentally. The Young Wolf was a blooded warrior, had been for years, and was easily the most dangerous warrior Rodrick had ever met. If he wanted to, he could carve the princeling into pieces.

"I am the prince, if some Northern lout can use it, so can I!" Joffrey declaimed angrily, as if he was not used to being told no.

Ranma again chuckled, not taking offense at the prince's posturing, seeing it as an example of a little dog barking the loudest. We might be the same age, but that is where the similarities end, Ranma thought. The prince almost sounded like a whiny, less physically inclined, version of Kuno. "If you are so interested in using live steel, your highness, I propose a wager."

"Oh, what kind of wager?" Joffrey asked, his eyes lighting up with interest.

"I will use a regular training blade, and you, with someone else of your own choosing, can try your luck against me, two on one. But if I win, you will stand up at dinner tonight and tell everyone that I beat you, and if you win, I will do the same, though making no mention about your companion." Ranma smirked jumping up and over the training ground's surrounding fence to land lightly on his feet, then moved so quickly, only Jon could follow his movements. Suddenly, Ranma was holding Bran and Tommen's practice blades. He turned, now facing the prince and his followers, eyes alight with battle lust.

Jon chuckled, then motioned Bran and Tommen to join him while Arya grinned, looking forward to this.

Joffrey scowled but Rodrick shouted, "No! Ranma, you know I can't allow that. It's blunt blades or nothing, I know not how good the prince is and I will not allow something like that to happen on my watch."

Ranma shrugged unconcern. "Then let it be practice blades but four of them instead of the original two, I care not."

"I think the Northern bumpkin needs to be put in his place," the man in the colors of the Kingsguard muttered in a low voice, his eyes alight with barely hidden glee, "and besides, your highness, you can beat someone black and blue with training blades and no one can say a thing."

That turned Joffrey's scowl into a somewhat eager, rather disturbing smirk and he nodded. "If the Stark heir is so certain of himself then let us see if he can back it up."

Ranma grinned and threw one of the practice blades to Jon, who caught it easily. Jon then leaped over the training ground's encircling fence, before reaching back over and lifting up the children one at a time, setting them on their feet outside the fence. He and Theon exchanged a smirk, united for once in the thought, This is going to be good…The rest of the Stark clan hadn't ever really seen how good Ranma really was, so were looking a little worried at the unfair odds.

Ser Rodrick frowned, but finally relented. "Very well, but no crippling or killing blows, I will be watching."

Joffrey strutted forward with the, as yet, unintroduced White Cloak, the Hound, and another knight in Lannister colors. They all grabbed practice blades, then entered the salle, grinning and stalking forward.

Ranma, however, didn't wait for them and jumped forward, his blade flashing out to catch the White Cloak's blade, which he had risen in a desperate parry to keep Ranma's blade from his chest. Ranma then ducked away, circling easily, his blade flashing out to cut the leg out from under Sandor when he tried to get behind Ranma.

The Hound went down, yet his sword lashed out automatically, but Ranma danced away, chuckling and circling the trio still on their feet, as if all the advantage was his, not theirs. Sandor's deep-set eyes had widened at Ranma's initial speed and he pushed himself to his knees, eyes narrowed, actually taking Ranma seriously now.

Goaded by Ranma's mirth like it had been a whip, Joffrey growled and charged forward. Ranma dodged aside, the flat of his blade catching the young prince on the rear. Joffrey fell to the ground face first, his pride and rear smarting.

Swift as a striking serpent, Ranma turned, charging the two left on their feet, leaping up and kicking out to catch Sandor in the chest as he tried to grab Ranma's legs with a quick lunge. Sandor was sent flying backward and Ranma's blade caught the Lannister knight's blade locking them as he ducked under the White Cloak's blade which had aimed for its head.

Arya and the other Stark men and siblings began to laugh at the display, while those wearing Lannister colors either gaped or cursed in turn. The bout lasted another ten minutes, accompanied by the heckling and laughing of the Northerners. None of the four southerners were able to land a single blow on Ranma, who was simply too fast for them.

This was especially galling for the Hound, who knew he was one of the better blades in the kingdom, not in the top five perhaps, but certainly in the top twenty, and this young puppy was making a fool of him and the others, as if they were no threat at all.

About ten minutes into the bout, Joffrey realized this and he moved back, wincing only slightly. Outside of that first blow to the rear, Ranma had been very careful to pull his blows. In fact, Ranma had simply dodged or otherwise ignored the prince, outside of landing one more blow that caught the prince on his side, in favor of beating the other three black and blue. "This is a damn farce, you're just dancing around, this isn't real fighting! I've had enough!"

Ranma stopped, negligently blocking one last blow from the still unintroduced Kingsguard, throwing him back on his rear easily. Ranma was rather amused. His initial thoughts on the Kingsguard had been proven correct, if this man was worth the white cloak they were not nearly as good as their reputation suggested. The Hound had been the most dangerous of his opponents and not even he was much of a threat. "Just remember to look before you leap from now on, prince."

Joffrey scowled, a somewhat mad light in his eyes. "If we were back in King's Landing, I would have your head cut off for your insolence!"

"But we aren't, nor would you be able to simply command an enemy to fall down dead in the real world," Ranma replied scornfully. "On your way, prince, and be glad you only have a few bruises and wounded pride. Many of my own lessons have been much more painful."

Joffrey growled, staring at Ranma hatefully and Ranma saw something in his eyes. For just a second, there was something more in his eyes than the normal teenage anger at someone who had just bested him. Unfortunately, Ranma couldn't identify it before it disappeared behind cold disdain. Ranma had hoped that this would teach the young prince to think things through or at least to assume that his opponent might be better than he thought, but it looked as if he hadn't learned either lesson.

After a moment, Joffrey turned and walked off, shouting at his retainers to follow him, forgetting, for a moment anyway, that his younger brother had been a witness to his humiliation. The three men who had fought with him stared at Ranma, but there was much more wariness and even a bit of fear in their expressions as they took up position at the back of the crowd of Lannister men. The entire group retreated, sent on its way all the faster by the barking laughter of the Starks and their men.

Ranma turned to Arya, Tommen, and Bran. "Now then, I believe you all were practicing before I had my bit of exercise." With that they all turned back, and Ranma moved to Tommen and Bran, walking them through some sword forms.

Above them, an old man wearing white enameled armor turned away from the window previously used by Eddard to stare out over the training area, a smile on his weathered face.

OOOOOOO

"Are you mad Barristan?! Did you learn nothing from Tywin and his response to Jaime being raised to the white?! Fucking hells, I want Ned to be my new Hand of the King, not throw my offer back in my face!" Robert bellowed, staring at Ser Barristan, having nearly spat out a mouthful of the wine he was currently drinking when the man told the king his intentions.

Barristan weathered his king's ire with ease, it wasn't the first time he'd been yelled at by his king, nor was Robert the first king to yell at him so. "I assure you, my lord, I am quite sane. I think I have never seen a more dangerous young man, not even Ser Jaime before he was raised to the White. The Kingsguard are supposed to be the best blades in the kingdom. What I saw today and the tales I have heard about the boy since we arrived make it certain that he is already such a blade. Nor is this the same circumstances as Jaime's being raised to the White at all. For one thing, Ranma is not the only one of Lord Stark's children that can take the lordship after Lord Stark's passing. Young Bran or even young Rickon could step up in time. After all, Lord Stark is not an old man, he could live for another forty years or more."

Robert paused and thought about it for a moment, but then shook his head. "I understand that, but given what the Queen was bitching at me for before you got in here, putting Ranma and Joffrey in close proximity would not be a good idea." He smirked, "The fact it would piss off the brat and my 'dear' wife is nice, but she's shrill enough at the best of times. Besides, there's no guarantee that he would accept."

The older man blinked in shock, as if the very idea of someone declining the honor was beyond his comprehension and Robert guffawed, loud and long. "Hadn't thought about that had you, oh Bold one, hahahaha!" After a moment, he got control of his mirth and shook his head. "No, if you want to ask you may, but don't be surprised if he says no. Starks learn duty at their mother's teats and the heir of Winterfell knows his duty."

"His duty should be to the kingdom as a whole, not just to his house, but I take your meaning your grace. I will try to pursue this subtly."

OOOOOOO

Catelyn stared down at the message, rather surprised that house Tyrell had responded so promptly and she wondered why they had. One thing Lady Olenna wasn't known for was hasty, snap judgments or decisions. Yet for now she had to go see her husband. This might change things tremendously, at least she hoped so, and as for the other message Maester Luwin had passed on, she really didn't know what to make of it.

As Catelyn suspected, she found Ned in the godswood. Ned always went there when he was deliberating on weighty matters. Today he was sitting silently, staring contemplatively into the deep, cool pool of water at the base of the heart tree. He looked up when her footsteps announced her presence and Catelyn's breath quickened as she saw that faint, small smile that Ned used only for family, with a certain lopsidedness added to it that she knew was just for her. "My husband, there is news."

Ned nodded. "I have news I would share with you as well."

Catelyn frowned at the tone in her husband's voice and sat down next to him. She never truly felt comfortable in the godswood but had learned to respect the religion of the old gods. "First, we have heard back from the Tyrell family. They wish to set up a meeting between Margaery and Ranma, to see if there is any arrangement that might be reached. But they want the meeting to occur in King's Landing at court."

That last bit caused Ned to wince a little but he nodded, as it wasn't unheard of to have marriage deals occur on neutral ground, so that both parties came to it as equals. "Ranma will not like the idea of leaving the North right now." That, Ned knew, was an understatement. As far as he could tell, his son hadn't yet realized that Ned himself might be heading south, but this on top of that news would not make for a pleasant conversation. If an alliance could be forged with the powerful Tyrell family however, it would be well worth it. If, of course, was the major question.

"Bran can reign here as the visible lord, with myself, Ser Rodrick and Jon as his 'advisers.' While Bran gains good experience, I can control the household and Jon can organize the whelming. He's taken all the lessons Ranma has and he is nearly as bright as Ranma, and he has served as your voice a few times as well." Catelyn responded. "While i realize it is unsual for the heir to leave as well as the lord, this is important; a marriage alliance with House Tyrell would strengthen our house's position tremendously. I think even the king would give his blessing. It would weld the most powerful house that remained loyal throughout the war to the Targaryen dynasty to the crowns strongest supporters in House Stark."

"True." Ned mused, but inside he was worried that removing Ranma from the North would allow the White Walkers to move against them. "Winter is coming." he muttered, thinking how true his family's motto was, a truth every man and woman, young or old, should heed. But will this marriage help us stand against the coming winter, or take our attention from preparing to meet the forces of the endless cold?

Ned put that aside for now, and looked at his wife. "Your news mirrors my own. The king has offered to wed Joffrey to Sansa, despite her still being young for it."

Catelyn gasped in shock. "But that is amazing! In one swoop we can go from being the least powerful of the realms to the most powerful!" She frowned, "Why do you sound so uncertain about this, the marriage would be a great honor. And from what I have seen, Sansa is enamored of the young prince and there seems to be interest flowing the other way as well."

"I am not so pleased with the stories we have heard of Joffrey coming up from the south. I know tales should not be taken as fact but they can have a kernel of truth to them. I would like time to get to know the lad before giving my blessing." He suddenly smiled. "I can use Ranma's coming along as a reason to put it off until I gain knowledge of Joffrey's character, first hand. After all, it would be unseemly to have the younger sibling married off before the older would it not?"

"That… that could work, I suppose, though it isn't all that uncommon Ned and everyone, especially the Queen, would say that Joffrey's marriage is of more importance. I think you are jumping at shadows, yet I would prefer to know as well that my daughter would be happy in her marriage." She chuckled. "And of course you would have Ranma with you to help you and vice versa. I doubt that Ranma will respond calmly to the news that his sweet sister is to wed."

Ned joined her in chuckling but after a moment he asked, "You were uncertain of the wisdom of my becoming Hand of the King leaving Ranma in charge, yet now, despite the news Ranma carried back from the Wall, you think you, Bran and Jon can handle even more responsibility, why?"

Catelyn shook her head with a wry smile. "Jon is nowhere near as impetuous as Ranma, as much as it pains me to admit it. If we tell him to only organize the whelming, he will stick to it, and he will back Bran in all matters as much as Ranma would. Jon is truly a part of this family, it is easy to see the connections between all the siblings."

That made Ned smile a bit, for it was true. Ranma acted on his feelings and intuition much more than Jon, not that they had steered him wrong yet, or at least, not too far wrong. It was also true that Ned had made certain both his oldest sons, regardless of Jon's true parentage he was Ned's son in all ways that mattered, had as much practical experience and book knowledge as he could. Jon would perform well in organizing the whelming, and it was high time for Bran to start learning some responsibility. With Catelyn, Rodrick, and Jon backing him he wouldn't make too many mistakes. He looked at his wife, head cocked to one side. "You said this news from house Tyrell was the first of your news, what is the second?"

"I honestly don't know what to make of it." Catelyn confessed. "The raven I sent to my sister with my condolences came back with a small package, a small piece of worked glass for a telescope Maester Luwin is constructing. Yet inside the box which held the glass, there was a message to me from Lysa. I… it says, well you better read it yourself."

She handed over the letter. Ned took it, reading the short, somewhat hysterical message quickly. In it, Lysa wrote that her husband had been looking into something to do with the King's bastards, and that she felt that the Queen had been angry at this, then went on to point a finger at the Lannisters, saying one of them had Jon Arryn poisoned.

For a moment, Ned sat silently then shook his head. "Lysa barely sounds coherent in this, I would say that maybe there is something going on, but she doesn't provide any proof. Until we see some proof one way or the other, I think we should take this with a grain of salt, if that. I don't mean to sound disparaging, but this letter doesn't say anything concrete, so using it for more than a starting point would be foolish. I can look into what Jon Arryn was doing when I arrive in King's Landing, and I will take more men with me as well as a cook I can trust, but that is all."

"That is more than enough for me, my love. In all honesty, after reading that note I am more than a little concerned about my sister's sanity. I trust you will be taking those guards that have been trained by our son?" Many guards in Winterfell had trained with the Young Wolf, but only about twenty made it a point to train with him as often as they could. They all were markedly better than their fellows and also, younger in the main, since older guards were less willing to take instruction from (and be soundly beaten by) the young heir.

"Of course. I will take Ser Jory Cassel and all the others, as well as ten more. More than thirty men, I'm afraid, would show that we do not trust the guards with the King, or feel threatened by the idea of going south." A thought struck him and he smiled. "Could you send a missive to your father, my love? If he could loan us some more men from his household, they could meet us in King's Landing and join us there, where they would be most useful. It would also seem to be more natural that way, his knights and men taking the opportunity to get to know his grandson first hand."

Catelyn smiled somewhat sadly. "I will certainly do so, though I do not know if it will be my father or younger brother Edmure that sends them. My father is old, Ned, and I don't know how much longer he will be able to continue as Lord Paramount of the Riverlands."

The two talked about their plans some more and then exited the godswood arm in arm. They were intercepted by a furious looking Queen, trailed by a rather irritatingly smug looking Joffrey.

OOOOOOO

"You wanted to see me father?" Ranma asked, standing before his father's desk. He had been out with Arya and his younger siblings, save Sansa. Sansa, the perfect little lady, had made a firm friend in Myrcella and was happy to remain inside all day working on her latest project. It was a jacket with the Lannister lion and Baratheon Stag on either shoulder done in varied hues of red (Lannister) and brown (Baratheon) for Joffrey. Of course, Ranma had vowed to himself to get her training with Lady later.

Lady and Sansa missed out with Ranma leading the others in a rather impromptu learning session, bonding with and learning how to read their direwolves moods and sense their feelings. This was in no way an exact science, but with Ranma's vague feeling that they should be able to get something from their wolves like he had, they all were able to make some progress, though it was a mixed bag without Ranma able to give them any real instruction, having only the vaguest idea of what they were doing himself. It wasn't something he could go to the maester or anyone else for advice for after all.

For one, Bran's, as yet unnamed, wolf seemed to know instinctively what Bran wanted and was always friendly to everyone. Rickon's Shaggydog was at the other end of the spectrum. Rickon couldn't get any feelings or anything else from Shaggy, though he was quick to pick up some of the training words, thankfully.

Nymeria and Arya had a very good connection and Arya seemed to be able to get some feelings from Nymeria. What was better, however, was that Arya had already been experimenting with it, got Ranma's rather out there explanation of what they could do, and wasn't afraid of it. Bran was a little, though Rickon, at age seven, merely found it a fantastic idea, and spent most of the time on all fours following Shaggydog around and vice versa.

Ghost and Fenris however were head and shoulders beyond the others in endurance, training, power, size, and the connection they had with their humans. They responded not only to verbal commands but also feelings, sent out along whatever link they shared with their masters. Fenris was larger by a full hands length than Ghost and was much more energetic and personable than the almost silent Ghost. Ghost, on the other hand, seemed to develop his own ability to blend in and disappear like his owner could at need, which was a little scary, frankly.

Ned looked up not smiling at his son and wordlessly gesturing him to sit down. When Ranma did, Ned spoke, his voice cold. "What possessed you to dishonor the prince so? You are a blooded warrior, you thrashing him as you did caused nothing but bad feelings." He held up a hand as Ranma made to interject. "I know that is not what happened, but it was the end result. The Queen came and complained about your behavior, calling it combative, discourteous, and unnecessary. There is enough bad feeling between her family and ours without you adding to it."

Ranma frowned but nodded. "I'll keep that in mind, I suppose, but I thought that four on one would be enough to offset any loss of dignity."

Ned's face became marginally warmer. "I can understand that my son, but try to get along with the prince, please, like it or not he is the heir apparent, and you will be dealing with him for decades to come." Ranma nodded stoically and Ned allowed his face to relax even further, sighing. "That was not the only reason I wished to speak to you, there are three other things I need to tell you. I am certain you have figured out by now that his grace was not just here to visit an old friend. He wants me to take on the position of Hand of the King and I have accepted."

That made Ranma start in surprise, for in fact, he had not spent much thought on why the king was here, since it had been only a day, after all, and he had been simply spending time with his siblings since he got back. "So, as your heir you're saying that I will have to fill in, I suppose? I can't say I'm pleased by the timing father, in many ways."

"No… that brings me to the second point. Your mother has been very concerned for the past year about how few marriage prospects of the right station there are in the North for you, and has been looking into other alternatives. Do you know of House Tyrell?"

"House Tyrell is the house of the Lord Paramount of the Reach, the largest and, in many ways, richest nation of the kingdom. Mace Tyrell is the current head of the house. He backed the Targaryen dynasty, and relations between House Tyrell and the throne have been strained, but peaceful since Robert took the throne." Ranma recited from memory, then asked suspiciously "Why?"

"Your mother has communicated the idea of having you and Margaery Tyrell, the daughter of the house, meet on neutral ground. So you will be coming with me when we go south."

For a moment, it didn't register, then Ranma's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. "Father, don't take this the wrong way but are you insane?" Ned reared back in shock at the sudden discourtesy from his son, but Ranma continued. "You know the real story about what Jon and I ran into, you know what that could mean! You can surely see that this threat might be why I was allowed to retain my memories of my past life yet you want me to leave the North? That is utterly insane!"

Ned was about to retort sharply then clamped down on his temper with his habitual control before he said something they would both regret. After a minute he responded, his voice and face once more controlled. "Yet for all that you ran into, my son, you have no idea when the White Walkers will strike, nor what the wildlings are really up to. Unless the wildling woman has shared more with you and your friends than you have shared with me?" Ranma reluctantly shook his head and Ned continued. "The attack on you might have been a preemptive strike, when the bulk of their forces are not yet ready for war. If it was part of a larger plan, they would have continued to try to kill you and your friends rather than being happy with a single assault that showed their hand."

"Now, let us think about what you can do with that time. An alliance between us and the Reach would weld us to the most powerful realm in terms of military potential and the breadbasket of Westeros, something that will be incredibly important with winter coming. Moreover, as your mother pointed out, it will weld the most dangerous and powerful family that stood against Robert and our forces during the Rebellion to us, which would help the stability of the kingdom as a whole."

"I see…" Ranma mused, then shook his head again. "I still don't like it, but I suppose that you've thought about it and I will respect your decision father. I don't agree with it, but I will of course abide by it. And what is the third point you wanted to inform me of?"

Ned smiled internally, knowing that this would take away the last vestiges of discontent Ranma felt for going south with the King's party. "His majesty has offered his son Joffrey's hand in marriage to Sansa, and your mother and I have provisionally accepted. It will not become official until we all arrive in King's Landing, and even then we will be able to use your own need for an arrangement to hold it off until we, and by we, I mean you and I, are able to put our worries about Joffrey's character to rest."

Fenris leapt up suddenly, his fangs barred in a surprisingly intimidating show of aggression, given the pup was barely five months old. Ranma reached down, rubbing Fenris's head comfortingly as he got control of his own emotions. Fenris subsided under his hand and Ranma let out a breath. "I am not happy about that, but at least we will be able to have time to get to know him better. And if we learn that some of those rumors that Theon shared with me this morning are true, we can pull back from the deal?"

"Yes we can, though I am not looking forward to telling Sansa, in that case. I told her not twenty minutes ago about this and I am almost certain you can still hear her squealing in joy, if you listen hard enough." Ned responded dryly.

"I'll do that, if you want," Ranma said, his face grim. "Something tells me that pulling out of this arrangement will be necessary. I don't like Joffrey. That may be my first impression only, and I'll try to keep an open mind, but there is just something… off about him."

"I find myself in reluctant agreement. There seems to be all the worst parts of his mother's line and nothing of his father in him, which is a pity." Ned was also wondering how Jon Arryn had come to die so suddenly and if there was indeed anything in Lysa Tully's hysterical letter. He hoped that, as Hand of the King, he would be able to look into that when he arrived in King's Landing.

Ranma nodded again, though in truth he didn't see much in Robert either, but he knew the man had been different in his youth. "May I be excused father, I feel the need to clear my head."

Ned nodded, and Ranma stood up, moving swiftly out of the study with Fenris padding at his heals. Ned chuckled a little. "That actually went better than I expected."

OOOOOOO

After an extremely quick run, Ranma found himself in the godswood, as always when something was bothering him. He sat down eventually, leaning back against the heart tree, Fenris laying out across his legs. He wasn't there to seek advice or anything like that. Ranma had never really been the type to do that in his past life or this one. He was simply there to think.

From what he could remember of the vision he had been given in this very wood by the old gods, humans, human armies ,and betrayal were some of the threats in the future, but Ranma wasn't really built for sniffing out traitors and he didn't like the idea of going south while the White Walkers were still out there. He wanted to face the threats he was here to face one at a time, defeat them, and then move on but he knew that was wishful thinking.

There was also the fact that he was possibly going to be getting married. He knew his relationship with Dacey was one that could never go anywhere. They both knew it. Despite this, the idea of marrying someone else did not interest him at this point. This was especially true, given his past life, where he had more than enough problems with arranged marriages and girls. He had generally gotten over his fear of the latter but not the former, which added to his current problems.

"I'm worried." he said honestly, leaning back against the tree, both of his hands rubbing Fenris's back as the beast lay on top of his legs. "I'm worried that I am heading into an arena where my skills will not be of much worth, where words are going to be the only weapons. I'm also worried about what the White Walkers will do in my absence."

Ranma closed his eyes, thinking hard. He couldn't disobey his father, it was his duty to go, and even his marrying was a duty because it would strengthen the family. Yet, is that what I should be doing? He thought to himself.

As he laid there, a soothing feeling came over him and he felt his worries fall away. That feeling seemed to say whatever his choice he would be able to face the challenges to come.

He suddenly smiled. "And it's not as if going south will leave the North entirely defenseless. The Night Watch is being strengthened even as I sit here, with more help heading north every day. My friends and Jon will still be here as well, and Jon is well up to leading the whelming. Bran might find he has a passion other than running around and climbing." In fact, he thought to himself, Jon might actually do a better job at this point than I.

There was nothing his instincts could latch onto here, no way to bring the White Walkers to battle. Well, there was one, he could simply march north of the Wall and dare them to come at him, but that wasn't really an option. Wildlings were dangerous at ambush and night attacks here in the North, on their own ground they could cut any army to ribbons. No, now was the time to prepare, to gather supplies and prepare your lines of supply, something that Ranma, while having learned it from his father and Maester Luwin, wasn't really mentally put together to be very good at.

Jon could. He was much more methodical and a little better at numbers (and at writing, Ranma's handwriting was horrible) than Ranma. He had the same connections across the North. He had the friendship of the wolf-sworn who would aid him as they would Ranma in his place and of course Lady Catelyn. So really, Ned was right, there was nothing Ranma could do here, save for being a visible target and threat to the White Walkers.

Decision made, Ranma reached out to gently touch the bark of the heart tree in thanks before turning away and making his way purposefully out of the woods.

Ranma frowned suddenly, looking up towards one of the oldest towers in Winterfell, one that was falling apart and unused. What had caused him to frown was the sight of Bran climbing up the walls. But it wasn't just the spectacle of Bran climbing that had caused Ranma to frown but the fact that his brother had stopped and looked to have almost fallen for a moment but had caught himself. Ranma shook his head and started to move in that direction, ready to help or simply order Bran to come down, if need be.

A moment later he was much closer and, suddenly, he saw a flash of a hand from the window slit Bran was perching on and then Bran was falling, falling to the ground, so far below.

There was no time to think, no time to do anything but run. Pushing as much of his ki into his legs as he could, Ranma's body obeyed his mind's command, going faster, faster than any human could move unaided. Blue-gold energy appeared for just a moment around his legs as he rocketed forward. Even as the barrier inside him, which had held back his ability to use ki for so long, shattered under his urgent need, Ranma knew it would not be enough.

OOOOOOO

Bran loved to climb. He loved to explore, to find secret nooks and crannies. He knew it drove his mother up the wall (figuratively speaking) but there was just something inside him that urged him out to explore and to learn. It was the same reason why he spent a lot of time of an evening in the library, reading far more than his siblings, even sneaking books out to read in his bedroom by candlelight, now that he was old enough to be trusted with a candle. Today, Bran was going up the Broken Tower's side. He had seen some birds nesting up on top, and he wanted to see if there were any chicks.

The Broken Tower had once been the largest tower of Winterfell, but had fallen into disrepair after a lightning strike decapitated it. It was almost entirely forgotten these days. Unfortunately that meant that it was an obvious place for someone to go to have some private time without being found.

This was how Bran came to catch the Queen in a heated tryst. But even more shockingly than the Queen breaking her wedding vows to the King, she was doing it with her own brother! The sight had so shocked Bran he had paused, one hand reaching out to the next handhold, and nearly fell when his other hand's grip failed under his weight.

The sound Bran made while scrabbling around desperately to stop himself from falling, had alerted the two lovers to his presence. Jaime, after popping himself back into his breeches, strode over grabbing his hands and pulling Bran up. Cersei rearranged herself, pulling her blouse shut over her pearly white breasts, glaring angrily at the boy all the while.

Ever after he fully recovered, Bran would never remember the words that were spoken, the promise he tried to make, the Queen urging him to keep her secret, until Jamie spoke a single sentence, which would forever burn itself in Bran's memory: "The things I do for love." Because it was after that, Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, tried to kill him by pushing him out the window slit.

Yet, Bran had been trained by Ranma not only in sword techniques but hand-to-hand for several years and his hands quickly reached up to Jaime's one hand, threatening to break his thumb while the other gripped his wrist. It took all of Jaime's considerable finger strength to keep his thumb from being pulled back. They struggled for a moment, then Jamie, ignoring how his sister was shouting at him to stop, pulled hard up and to the side, slamming Bran's head against the side of the opening.

The pain from that blow caused Bran to reach up to his head crying aloud and Jaime completed what he wanted to do, pushing the boy out of the window, cursing all the while.

The push wasn't as strong as he wanted however, and Bran slammed his head into the side of the wall as he fell twice more, then he knew only darkness.

The Queen stared at her brother, aghast. "You didn't need to that! We could have…"

"He would've told eventually, no way a boy that age could have kept quiet long." Jamie said, wringing out his thumb and wincing a little, wondering how the boy had been able to fight him like that. Looking out the window slit, he gasped in surprise as from the wall surrounding the godswood jumped the Stark heir. More than six stories he leapt and landed safely on this side of the wall before rushing forward. He was moving faster than Jamie could follow and he hissed, wondering what how the hell the boy could move so fast. "We need to get out of here!"

Cersei didn't question her brother, simply turning and rushing toward the rickety stairs. The Queen growled low in her throat as she quickly and expertly made certain her clothing was once more immaculate. "From now on, let me handle this! That little abrupt moment back there might have ruined everything!"

"You weren't complaining when we…" Jamie drawled then broke off as his sister slapped his face.

"Fool!" she whispered fiercely, "that was not what I meant! You should never have pushed the boy, now we'll cover this up my way."

Jamie frowned touching his cheek for a moment then shrugging. "Very well, dear sister, though if it comes to it, I will protect you. You know that the wolves will respond badly to this."

Cersei sneered at him. "Let the thinking to me, dear brother, trust me I'll come up with something if needed." Thankfully for the incestuous couple, the actual entrance to the tower was away from the direction Ranma was coming, allowing them to leave without being seen, thus they were able to get back into the main keep and go their separate ways. This was helped by the amount of uproar occurring elsewhere in the keep.

OOOOOOO

As fast as Ranma was, he had been correct that he would not be time. By the time he was halfway to the tower whoever was inside had already pushed Bran. By the time he was at the base of the broken tower Bran had smashed his head several times against the wall as he fell like a broken marionette down the side of it, though Bran would not finish his descent. With legs still infused with his ki Ranma jumped up, clearing half the height between him and Bran's falling body before latching onto the wall and snagging his younger brother as he came down.

He jumped back down to the ground landing easily and stared at Bran's direwolf, which had been nosing around at the bottom of the tower until his master ran into trouble, as well as Fenris, who had somehow kept up with him. Ranma would figure out how later, right now there were more important things. "Run!" he ordered. "Get Jon! Tell him to meet me at the infirmary!" Both wolves turned at his command racing away, though Bran's wolf was markedly slower in both obeying and his speed.

With that, Ranma zoomed off, heading towards the keep and already shouting for Maester Luwin and his mother at the top of his voice. It was a shout soon taken up by others as they saw him racing toward the keep with his brother's body in his arms.

They both met him at the doorway to the keep. At the sight of the bleeding, broken Bran in Ranma's arms, Catelyn seemed to freeze, her face going from concerned to appalled when she saw the bloody mess that had been Bran's head and face.

Ranma didn't mention the reason behind Bran's fall for the moment, simply saying to the healer, "He hit his head at least four times on the wall before I could get to him. He's still got a pulse, but it's fading in and out."

They both made way for him and the maester immediately began to work on Bran's head, walking next to Ranma. His hands felt around the boy's head and Luwin clicked his tongue in concern. "Lay him down, quickly!" he ordered, motioning toward one of the beds. Catelyn followed them, her hands over her mouth as great large tears appeared in her eyes. But she forced herself to stay away, knowing she would be more hindrance than help right now.

Out in the corridor Ranma could hear the sound of his siblings and possibly a few of their guests coming to see what had happened, but he ignored that, following the maester's instructions to lay Bran out. "Hot water!" Luwin ordered, "And some clean dressings."

Ranma nodded and made for the doorway only to find several servants turning and hurrying off for the water. When he turned back, his mother was already grabbing some bandages from the shelf.

After handing the wraps to the maester Catelyn looked at Ranma, wanting to ask what happened, yet pausing when she something in his face. Something that made her own face go from tear stained, anxious, and fearful, to angry. "He didn't just fall, did he?"

Her oldest son shook his head, too angry to speak for a moment. Jon ran up just then. He looked wild-eyed at Ranma and then into the infirmary staring at Bran then back at Ranma.

Ranma clapped him on the shoulder, pulling him close. "Take our direwolves," he ordered in a whisper, "head over to the Broken Tower and up it as far as you can, look for anything unusual, anything that could hint at who did this."

"'Who did this'?" Jon asked his face going grim. "You mean someone pushed him?"

"I don't know who did it," Ranma said, nodding his head at both him and Catelyn, who had come close to listen to his words, "but when I looked up and saw him, I saw Bran fighting with someone's hand in one of the windowsills. If only I had been closer!" Ranma slammed his fist hard against the wall, cracking the stone there with the force of his blow. Only Jon noticed this, his eyes going slightly wide despite his previous knowledge of Ranma's strength.

Catelyn shook her head. "Don't blame yourself Ranma, Bran is always climbing every chance he gets, it's not your job to watch him all the time and it's not your fault that someone pushed him. Just…" her voice trailed off as she looked down at her young son, afraid that she would never see him smile again, never see him run up to her with an interesting plant or a tale of something he found or read. "Find who did this," she said her voice cracking as she looked up at her oldest, torn between a bottomless rage and an equally bottomless grief.

"We will," Jon said turning on his heel and rushing away. Ghost, Fenris, and Bran's unnamed wolf all followed him, for once not looking like oversized puppies but true direwolves on the hunt.

The servants quickly arrived with the needed hot water, helped in this by the fact that Winterfell had been built over a hot spring, both heating the castle and allowing for clean, disease-free, hot water.

Ranma made way for them, staring down as they began to work with the maester and his mother on cleaning Bran's wounds. He hissed angrily as he saw the large gash on the side of Bran's head, as well as the broken nose and another large cut over one eye that would need stitching.

He looked around as he felt someone touch his shoulder and turned to see his father with the rest of his siblings behind him, as well as their guests, even Joffrey. Both the girls looked a little weepy, though Arya was holding up better than Sansa. Ranma had to stop himself from yelling when he saw that Joffrey had taken the opportunity to comfort Sansa and had an arm around her shoulders. Rickon was crying, not really understanding why everyone was running around and shouting but understanding something bad had happened to his brother.

Theon, too, was there looking angry and worried. Ranma nodded to him and motioned over to the kids. "Get them out of here," he muttered, "We'll tell them later what happened, after that get back here quick." Theon nodded and started to shepherd the young children off, uncaring of which family they belonged to.

The Lannister guard, who had followed the two royal children from where they had been playing with Arya and Sansa, and Joffrey paled under Ranma's glare and the guard quickly turned and followed them away.

Joffrey however remained, while the rest of the royal party began to make an appearance, wondering what was going on. Robert was the next to arrive and he leaned around the door-jam looking inside. "The lad fell? You mentioned his love of climbing last night Ned, I suppose it was almost inevitable."

"He did not fall, your grace," Ranma growled, his hands clenching and unclenching and his eyes blazing, "he was pushed."

"Do you have any proof of that?" said Varys, who had followed the king, "Or are you simply guessing?" He was now standing well away from the doorway, unwilling to see what had happened to the young boy. Some said Varys had a soft spot for children or too much of a liking for them, and Bran was precisely the kind he recruited to be his 'little birds', the boy and girl prostitutes who were the most important agents of his spy ring. Though here in Winterfell, he had been completely unable to find any such to use and had been force to use other agents.

"I saw him fighting with someone's hand in a windowsill of the Broken Tower, there is no doubt he was pushed. I've sent Jon and our wolves up to see if they could sniff out any clues." Roger and Dacey had just arrived and, at those words, both turned and ran off to join Jon.

At the back of the crowd, the Queen heard this as well and started, looking over to Jamie who was now finally looking worried. She turned, quickly moving over to Sir Preston Greenfield and began to whisper in his ear, so low no one could make out the words. The man gulped and began to shake his head but the Queen continued to speak low and angry. Something she said seemed to change his mind and he finally nodded, whispering back something.

Only Tyrion noticed this and the Imp's eyes narrowed, wondering what his sister was up to.

The Queen nodded grimly and moved on to two of her maids. When she was certain Preston was no longer looking in her direction, she began to whisper in their ears. Both of them blanched slightly, but they both were loyal to her and her family, and had served her long before she became queen. Eventually one nodded her head, somberly.

"If all you saw was a hand, I'm afraid that's not much to go on," Varys said rather apologetically. While he had no family he understood the motivations that drove them.

"I don't care." Ranma said coldly, looking past his father at the eunuch before repeating himself, "I don't care. If I find even a hint of who was behind this, your grace, the barest piece of evidence, I will kill that person. I do not care about his or her station, I do not care about his or her family connections, I do not care about his or her gender! For this assault on my younger brother, he or she will die."

"Well said, boy." Robert grunted, wondering who the bastard was and why the boy had been attacked.

"Agreed." said Ned grimly. He wondered if this had anything to do with the message that Catelyn's sister had sent her, which suddenly was making much more sense than it had an hour ago. He looked over at Robert, wondering if he should tell him about the letter, but decided not to, since it didn't have any evidence backing its claims. The last thing the realm needed were the Queen and King to become even more at odds with one another without any visible cause.

About two hours later, the maester finished and he turned to the audience outside the door. "I've done all I can but I am still uncertain of the extent of the damage. I cannot feel any cracks in Bran's skull but he might be bleeding inside his head. At this point, my healing knowledge is at a loss; it is up to Bran now whether he will live or die. I have some poultices and medicines that can help heal the surface wound. I even have tonics that will speed the healing process and encourage his bones to mend faster. " he said, looking over at the now heavily bandaged head of the young Stark. "But if there's something inside his head that is injured, I cannot do anything about it but wait."

Ranma frowned, cursing the fact that he had never found out a way to use ki to heal other people. He knew it was possible, both Cologne and Dr. Tofu had done it a few times, but Ranma didn't know how to do it. He didn't even have a hint since they had never done it around him after he developed ki sight.

"I'll stay with him." Catelyn said, sitting down in a chair next to the bed, her hand reaching out to grasp her son's limp hand firmly. "I'll watch him and I'll feed him whatever medicines you make, maester."

Ned nodded grimly. He turned to see Ser Jory in the audience and motioned him over. "I want two guards stationed at this door at all times." he ordered. "If someone tried to kill my son because of something he saw, they might try again."

Ser Jory nodded grimly, and moved off to grab two of the guardsmen.

"Bran's direwolf will be back soon, he'll guard the infirmary as well father." Ranma said. Catelyn frowned at that. She always felt a little worried about the direwolves, but their affection toward her children could not be denied, and one of them could be useful.

The crowd began to break up into small clumps, but no one, save Tyrion and Varys, noticed Ser Preston staring hard at the door then at the two guards that were taking up position outside it. He nibbled his lips worryingly, then seemed to have a sudden idea and moved off.

Tyrion followed him with his eyes for a moment before deciding not to indulge his curiosity further, leaving to head to the library, which was rather extensive here in Winterfell. Varys too left, wondering, but his head was already filled with the desperate need to put a spy ring into place here in Winterfell, as there seemed to be many things going on that he was not able to follow.

At Ned's command, Sir Rodrick began to close all the gates of Winterfell, closing all the entrances so that no one could leave. Hopefully this would trap the would-be killer inside. Not fifteen minutes after the group broke up, Ned and Ranma met with Jon, Dacey, and Roger in Ned's study. Ned looked at his 'bastard son' anxiously. "Did you find anything?"

Jon and Roger shared a glance, and Roger spoke for them both. "We did my Lord." Jon reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a very small piece of leather which he opened to show a few short blonde hairs on its inner surface. "We found these up there, and…"

Both men looked over at Dacey, who let out a chuckle, amused by how embarrassed they were at not having recognized the next clue, letting it to her to mention it. "It smelled of sex my lord, that scent you get in a room after two people have been going at it for some time."

Ned and Ranma leaned forward to examine the hairs, and Ned frowned a little. "They're blonde and short but that's about all I can tell about them. They don't seem to match precisely the hair color of anyone I can recognize off hand." Not the Queen's, thank the old gods. If this was because of some tryst of the Queen's, that would be a disaster for the kingdom. "So, Bran caught someone having sex with someone they shouldn't and that was enough reason to assault my son?"

Jon sighed wearily. "From the height that he was pushed, Bran would've been dead or at best crippled for life. Ranma saved him from that, at least. Maybe he'll wake up and be able to tell us who pushed him."

"We'll see." Ranma said grimly. "Head wounds are tricky, remember how Edd was for weeks after that giant caught him a good one. If I've just saved him from instant death but not a slow lingering one, I'm not certain that's any better."

Ned looked over at his son, and frowned slightly seeing a tense readiness in the boy, the need to act, the wolf's blood rising in him with the need to avenge his family. Ned decided, again not to share the missive from Catelyn's sister containing her rants about how there might be something unusual going on with the Lannisters with Ranma. He could not, for the life of him, see any connection and knew that if Ranma heard even a hint of that, he would attack the Lannister party with disastrous consequences.

He sighed tiredly and sat up. "I'm going to go see your mother and Bran. I suggest you four get some sleep."

Ranma frowned, but nodded and Jon, Dacey, and Roger left, leaving him alone with his father. "Does this change your plans, father?"

Ned sighed sadly and shook his head. "No, we still have to leave in four days, though Rickon will now serve as official regent, with your lady mother behind him and Jon helping as much as he can until Bran recovers or..." Ned shook his head of such thoughts and went on. "To be frank, the King has been away from King's Landing too long already. He should never have made this trip or, if he did, it should've been quick, not this slow procession. By the time he gets back, Robert will have been gone from King's Landing for over six months and that is a dangerous amount of time to leave a power vacuum, even if he has a trusted regent watching the kingdom for him."

Ranma frowned a little. He had heard very mixed reviews about Renly Baratheon. He seemed a likeable sort but Ranma hadn't heard anything about his leadership ability. Still that didn't matter at the moment and Ranma nodded, then left the room.

OOOOOOO

Ned remained with his wife for the remainder of that evening and well into the night. He didn't even leave the infirmary to have dinner with the King and his party. Under other circumstances, this might have been seen as a gross act of discourtesy, but Robert understood. He didn't like it, but he understood that Ned cared for his family, something Robert had never been able to do with his own children, disappointments the lot of them.

That very night, the Queen's plans began to move while the iron was hot. It was made all the better, in her opinion, because Cersei had merely set it in motion and left the rest of the plan to her pawn.

It was well past midnight when the crackle of flames drew the attention of the guards on the wall in towards the barn. They could see Hodor, who regularly slept out with the horses, racing around pulling horses out of the barn. All of the men who saw the flames began to shout, raising the alarm. Not a moment later, another fire started up in the library nearby.

Ned had been roused from his place by his wife and son by the shouts and raced out, followed by one of the guards, leaving the other behind to guard the door. The moment he was out he began to shout orders, and soon enough two lines of bucket carriers were in place, fighting the fires. The one in the stable set most of it alight, but thanks to Hodor's heroism, which earned him both many claps on the back and burns on his arms, none of the horses died.

The library fire was fought much more easily, and only a few books and a table were lost entirely. However, there was a casualty, the Imp Tyrion. He had apparently been staying up reading in the library. During the work to save the library, he was found by his brother and a few others of the king's party. Tyrion had been knocked out and was bleeding from a gash on the back of his head in a corner when they found him. It was well away from where the fire started, though right next to an open window.

OOOOOOO

All the adults, save Catelyn and her guard, had run out to help, except for Ranma. Ranma was a very heavy sleeper once he got to sleep (a holdover from his past life, much like his liking for fish over red meat), so it took him a while to rouse even with the shouting going on outside. But once he was awake, his first thought was not of the fire, but whether or not the fire had been set by someone for some other reason. So instead of racing outside to help, Ranma made his way down to the infirmary.

It was well he did. The guard, one of the older guards, a fat man named Tomard, had been slain outside the door. Inside someone draped in an all-encompassing black cloak had smashed his mother to the floor and was wielding a longsword at Bran's direwolf pup.

Despite being only the size of a medium sized dog, the direwolf pup was game, snarling and leaping around, trying to get at the man with scant success. His sides were already bleeding from several, albeit superficial, cuts. Catelyn was getting to her feet woozily, her face a mass of black and blue, possibly her jaw broken when Ranma arrived.

The man turned as Ranma roared and charged, raising his blade.

Ranma knocked it to the side with one hand, his leg flashing out in a kick whose strength he had, alas, neglected to pull. His foot slammed into the man with enough force to literally rupture his insides and shatter his ribs while throwing the man through the glass window behind him with a cry of agony. That cry was abruptly silenced when he hit the ground below.

Ranma cursed under his breath, but had no time to spare for the man's fate, kneeling down and examining his mother closely where she had slumped against the side of Bran's bed. Her face was a mass of purple, but her eyes were tracking well, and she stared up at him through her tears, hugging him around his chest. As Ranma's arms went around her he looked over at the direwolf pup and nodded his head. "Good wolf." he murmured reaching out and rubbing the little pup's head affectionately.

The pup subsided, knowing that the alpha was here and would protect him and his chosen partner. He twisted around, licking at his wounds, noticing that his larger brother had now taken up position by the door.

OOOOOOO

By this time the King's men had joined in with the effort to stop the fires and Jamie had found his concussed brother. The Imp looked up at him a little woozily and asked, "I think I had some bad wine brother, do find the innkeeper and flog him for me, would you?"

Jamie chuckled a little dryly at that. "I think not brother, come, we'll get you fixed up." Inside, however, Jaime was wondering what his sister had done or who had set the fires at her behest and why. Further, he wondered when he would get the chance to kill whoever had done this deed for attacking his brother.

The cry from the keep and despairing wail of the man ejected from the infirmary's window, drew the attention of several of the people at the back of the group working on the fires, including Ned and a few others. Ned, fearing the worst, ran inside to check on his wife and son, followed by Dacey. Roger and Jon hurried over to the body of the man who had come through the window quickly, then stopped, staring down at the body. "Bring a torch over here," ordered Jon, looking up as Jaime, carrying his concussed brother and followed by a few others, joined him.

A torch was quickly brought and the group stared down at one of the Kingsguard. His face was a rictus of agony, the chest of his breast plate shattered and warped by a great blow, caving in the chest under it. Jon knelt quickly touching his throat. "Dead." he muttered then stared at the man's head, which was full of blonde hair. "What was this knight's name?"

"Ser Preston Greenfield," Jaime said grimly, "a landless knight from the Stormlands, he was raised to the white for courage shown in the Greyjoy Rebellion." Jaime's free hand, the one not holding his brother up, twitched searching for his sword, which he had left in the barracks set aside for the guests. "He must have been the one who set the fires, and attacked my brother for some reason. Maybe he didn't want witnesses."

"I see…" Jon muttered then nodded over at Roger. "Grab some men and take the body somewhere, I think we just found who pushed Bran from the Broken Tower."

Jaime almost couldn't help himself and nearly sighed in relief as Jon jumped to that conclusion, much like, he was certain, his sweet sister had wanted. Yet, for all that they had been brothers in the Kingsguard, he could not find it in him to mourn Preston's passing. No, the only thing he felt was relief that Cersei's plan seemed to be working, despite the assault on Tyrion.

OOOOOOO

The very next day one of the Queen's hand maidens named Fiona Mescarny, a married woman from a minor house in the Westerlands, came forward with a tearful tale. In front of Lord Stark, his heir, the King and the prince, with the Queen staring hard at her, Fiona explained through tearful sobbing what had happened. She and Ser Preston had been having an affair almost since the king and his party had set out from King's Landing. She had cheated on her husband with him because her husband refused to move to King's Landing with her years ago and it had finally got to her. She hinted however that Preston had broken his vows to take no woman well before their dalliances began.

They had been getting together more and more often, despite her wishing to break things off and that day he had accosted her and taken her up to the tower for some privacy. Bran had come upon them and Preston had panicked, promptly trying to push the boy off the tower, but he had fought back. Fiona had tried to stop him, but Preston had succeeded in pushing the boy off the tower and the two had escaped back to the keep about five minutes before Jon and the other searchers had arrived. She knew nothing about his activity the night before, but it was obvious Preston had attempted to kill the boy who knew his secret.

Cersei promptly dismissed her from the Queen's service, ordering two of the Lannister knights to go with her back to the Western lands that very day. The knights were also under orders to tell her husband of her shame, or so Robert and the others at Winterfell were told. In actuality, Fiona wasn't married, and the two knights would bring her to the Casterly Rock, where she would enter her father's service with a very handsome stipend for lying to the King and everyone else. She turned to the others shaking her head. "I had no idea those two were involved, Fiona has always been most level headed, this affair on her end is quite a shock, though I have had concerns for some months about Preston's reliability."

"He was one of your father's suggestions," Robert growled. "And now look where we are."

"My father knows fighting men, my husband, but he doesn't know how men can weaken overtime when deprived of pleasures of the flesh."

"True, that man isn't one to enjoy a good frolic, I doubt it would even occur to him to think that a man would miss it." Robert frowned, then laughed. "You sure as hell'd never catch me swearing to the white and the whole 'no women' thing!"

The queen smiled thinly, then turned back to look at Eddard and his family. "I hope, Lord Stark, that your son will recover from Ser Preston's mad attempt to keep his name clean."

Ned nodded his head, his face set like stone. "He will survive, though Maester Luwin thinks his brain might be damaged in some way. It could range from short or long term memory loss to becoming as damaged mentally as our stable boy, Hodor. He, he feels it will be closer to the second option than the first." That was a lie, Luwin had no idea where on that spectrum Bran's wound would fall, but Ned feared the worse. That way, he would be pleasantly surprised if anything better happened and prepared for the worst.

Robert sighed sadly as the Queen, hiding her elation with ease shook her head in sorrow. "I'm sorry Ned, I wish we could have seen this coming." He looked at his friend, and shook his head. "It might be kinder to the lad to…"

"Don't," Ned barked. "Don't even suggest it, Robert." He knew where Robert was coming from, but hope sprung eternal, and that was one decision that Ned would never make.

The King subsided, still shaking her head, and the group broke up moments later.

Later that day Ser Preston Greenfield was stripped of his cloak during a ceremony that hadn't been used in over a hundred years, and his family was sent a raven describing his disgrace. His body was burned, a horrible punishment under the Seven, something that was only done to the bodies of oath breakers, then his ashes scattered to the winds in dishonor.

OOOOOOO

Things began to calm down after that, though Varys, for one, was still wondering about why Preston had gone insane. Catelyn, too, was wondering about his guilt, since he was a knight who owed his loyalty originally to house Lannister, the house her sister's message warned her of. Still, no evidence had been found of some larger conspiracy and, that, plus her own injuries, made Catelyn unable to peruse things.

While Ned took Robert out on hunts, the announcement of Sansa and Joffrey being engaged was announced. Ranma tried to get to know the Southerners with scant success, though Ser Barristan seemed to be as interested in him as Ranma was in trying to figure out if there was anything but childish arrogance behind the somewhat mean streak Ranma saw in Joffrey a time or two. In the end, however, he was unable to make a decision just yet, though he kept an eye on Joffrey whenever he was around Sansa.

Ranma was very busy during this time. He spent time with Arya and the other children during the afternoon and trained with Jon and his friends during the mornings, now that Dacey and Roger had recovered. During the evenings, he was forced to join the nightly meals with his father making nice with the King and his party, watching unhappily as the affianced pair of Joffrey and Sansa became closer under the watchful eyes of their families. And at night, he regaled the children with his tales, taken for the most part from simplified versions of his past adventures. This and spending time with them during the afternoon, finished the job of solidifying the younger two royal children's admiration and friendship toward the Stark heir.

But while everyone else slept, Ranma would stay awake, working with his ki. He still wasn't certain what that final barrier had been but he felt maybe it had something to do with need and the body's ability to truly push past its physical limits. After all, a normal human's body couldn't really handle the amount of energy Ranma could put out, so it made sense that the first time you needed to actually project ki there would be a final barrier to it. It was only his desperate need to save his brother that allowed him to finally break through it.

His ki abilities however were still a little strange. For one thing, while he could mold it much more easily, shaping it in his hands and across his skin in a way he had never truly seen before (outside the Sneaky Thief technique, which really wasn't the same) he couldn't project it very easily. Even projecting a single mini Moko Takabashi, a small ki ball the size of his fist, took a lot out of him. What was more, it dissipated quickly, so quickly it very nearly didn't impact the fall wall of his room.

Yet, at the same time, Ranma could imbue any weapon he carried with ki, something that he hadn't really experimented with before this, leaving weapons use to whenever he needed it rather than as a normal portion of his repertoire. In this world of course, that wasn't the case, so he was glad to see it.

In discussions with Maester Luwin over the years, Ranma had discovered that magic was known here, though most in Westeros didn't really put much truck in it. Still, projecting magic was known, even if it wasn't normally seen or believed here in Westeros. That told him the magic users here were just that, magic users, not ki users. He still wasn't certain why, what power the wizards called on, or how it differed from his own, but chalked it up to a difference in the way energy worked in this world.

There was one ki attack however that didn't dissipate, primarily, Ranma thought, because it wasn't a simple ki attack, but something that changed from ki to something else the moment it left his hands. The vorpal scythes of the Bold Thief certainly worked, and Ranma caused a bit of a minor mystery among the smallfolk by practicing it out in the woods. As deadly as they were, the blades would be something he would only use as a last resort, but they sure as hell were a nice ace to have, just in case.

Ranma came up with several new techniques to work with the 'limitations'. He also worked with Fenris, trying to figure out their connection. After four days Ranma had figured out what their connection was, and even what it was called: warg. The library had several copies of old tales and odd magics that had been known to the Starks in bygone eras, and the ability to project your consciousness into an animal, warging, had been well known at one point and, indeed, revered before the coming of the Seven. Yet that was only a part of it. A warg's bonded animal, and Fenris was certainly that, took on some of the aspects and personalities of the warg. In Fenris's case, this went even farther, giving the direwolf some of Ranma's abilities, which would make him into a very dangerous animal indeed in the future.

Despite all this, Ranma couldn't help his younger brother. Bran had not yet woken up, though his head wounds seemed to be healing. Catelyn, despite her own injuries (thankfully, her jaw hadn't been broken, but her face was still a mass of bruises) rarely left his side, though Rickon often joined her there.

Yet there was a bit of joy for the family despite Bran's continued convalescence. During his examination of her the day after the attack, Maester Luwin announced that Catelyn was pregnant once more and even through the bruises on her face, those around her could tell she was radiant with joy at the prospect. Sansa and the others were all happy about the idea of having another sibling. Ned, however, was sad at the idea of missing the birth, but Robert had promised he would have time off when the moment came.

Ranma looked away from his mother, Sansa, and Arya gleefully speculating with about what gender the baby would be. When he did so, he noticed the Queen, who was staring at Catelyn. Just then, her eyes were not a pleasant sight, and Ranma wondered why.

Dacey and Jon had taken over watching Rickon outside the training area where Ranma had begun to put Arya through even more training. When Ranma left Dacey and Jon would continue Arya's training.

Seeing that Bran hadn't woken, Robert had made the decision to return to King's Landing, and Ned and Ranma would be with him. Four days after everything with Preston had happened, the King's party began to make preparations to leave, while more and more men began to arrive for the trip to the Wall.

Eventually a thousand men of House Stark and their vassals would head north, under the command of Ser Kyle Condon, who would bring a further eight hundred men of House Cerwyn with him. Cerwyn was the closest noble house to Winterfell (their castle was actually only half a day's ride away), and despite the fact that had no heir of an appropriate age to have joined the wolf-sworn, the relationship between Cerwyn and Stark had been close for centuries. Cley, the young son, was Brandon's age, much like Jojen Reed, and would be coming to Winterfell with Lady Jonelle, the only daughter of Lord Cerwyn. She would remain with Catelyn and provide another mothering figure to Rickon and Arya, with their own mother too preoccupied with Bran to watch them.

Others too were preparing for both trips.

OOOOOOO

"So here you are, dear brother. What in the world has you so fascinated in this library? You're usually too busy studying practical anatomy to waste on actual book reading. After that incident a few days ago, I would think you would distance yourself from it." Jaime smirked staring down at his younger and far smaller brother, who was sitting in front of three open books and had a large pad of parchment in front of him covered with sketches he had apparently made himself.

Tyrion looked up at Jaime and laughed lightly, though his eyes were unwontedly serious. "Ah, I can always take up my favorite field of study whenever I wish, though at this point I am more the maester than the student. As for my attack, well, Ranma Stark put paid to my attacker and the reasons behind that attack are simple to see." He shrugged. "I merely was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Jaime saw something in his brother's expression, something that told him that Tyrion had his own ideas about why Preston had done what he did. Still Tyrion wasn't saying anything and Jaime decided to let sleeping lions lie. "So, what are you here searching for?"

"Purpose." Tyrion said, enigmatically. At Jaime's confused look, he smiled but went on more seriously than normal, baring more of his soul than he would to anyone else. "You know that I am not in line for Casterly Rock, no matter what all happens. I've always sort of followed you and Cersei around, trying to keep you out of trouble." Jaime laughed loudly, and Tyrion smirked. "And getting into trouble on my own, it must be admitted. Yet, I haven't ever really done anything with my life up to this point, nothing that would have people look at me and see beyond the Lannister name and see me as more than the Imp. I might be able to, if I go to the Wall."

Tyrion gestured at the papers in front of him, where he had sketched out hundreds of designs for various siege weapons, including one whose size and scale made Jaime's eyes widen. "The library here had a copy of the siege weapons the Wall has; all of them are old, most will probably break if they are actually used, and none of them are able to be aimed outside of a very small area. I'm good with designing, with fulcrum and levers. I can possibly update the Wall's weapons, so much that maybe, if the wildlings do attack, we can slaughter them so badly they will never attempt to attack the Wall ever again. And maybe that way, I can be known for something other than whoring or japes or being the Imp of the Lannisters."

Jaime frowned, but couldn't say anything to that, and at last sighed. "So I take it, you mean to continue on to the Wall as you wanted back in King's Landing?"

"I do." his brother replied firmly. "I'll be heading up with the men Lord Stark is sending from Winterfell in a few weeks." He smiled suddenly. "Of course, until then I'll be able to continue sampling the wares of the whore house here. There's this one woman, my god the thing she can do with her tongue…"

The Kingslayer laughed as the conversation turned to a much more familiar topic. Yet somehow, Jaime knew that once they parted, it would be many years before Jaime and Tyrion saw one another again, if they ever did.

OOOOOOO

Lord Varys frowned for a moment before dismissing the maid who had just passed on an 'interesting', bit of information. She was one of only two agents he would be leaving here, his efforts to recruit local talent having failed miserably. The smallfolk and servants of Winterfell were almost nauseatingly loyal to House Stark, and not a one of them was willing to spy on them for him.

Moreover, he hadn't been able to recruit any of the whores in town or even find any urchins to recruit. There were very few urchins at all here in the North, where if you didn't have a home, a roof over your head, you quickly died from the weather. Added to this children were precious, and any foundling was quickly taken in by one family or another. The whores, however, had simply refused him flat out. The ones born in the North shared in the same belief in loyalty, and those from farther south knew that their fellows would rip them apart should they try to spy on House Stark for him.

That wasn't good, yet on the whole, it was possibly better than what the information the maid had just given him implied.

"The prince is hiring a footpad, to what end? And is it part and parcel with why the Queen was talking to Ser Preston before his aborted attempt to finish the task he started on the boy? Or was it someone else that was seen by the boy?" Varys muttered to himself, then shook it off. Regardless, he thought to himself, things are shifting and I mean to be on the winning side, whatever happens.

OOOOOOO

The night before the King's party (and additions) was set to leave Winterfell, Jon and Ranma sat in his room, sharing a skin of ale and a plate of roasted chicken instead of being down at the last feast. Both of them were rather feasted out, and Ranma, who had excused himself from his position as host as soon as he could, shook his head. "I don't envy you or the castellan the task of figuring out how much putting the King and his party up here cost us."

"I don't envy you, having to keep dealing with him. I had heard so many stories about Robert as a young man, what's become of him is rather sad to see." Jon replied then took a gulp from the ale skin, staring across their plates at his brother.

Ranma saw his look and shrugged. "Unless you see some way of convincing both our parents that I shouldn't go, I don't see a way I could get out of it. Both going south at all and the whole marriage thing." That still left a bad taste in his mouth, given all the problems he ran into in his previous life through arranged marriages. Part of him had thought to use that as an excuse to at least get their father on his side, but it would have been cowardly and probably not worked in any event.

"No, there's more to it than that. There's a… it's…" Jon faltered, trying to put his feelings about the King's party, all of the party into words. "There's something wrong, I can't describe it better. It's like there are undercurrents all the time, and we can't see them, but…"

"I know," Ranma replied. "I can feel it too at times, I just wish I knew where it was all coming from." Ranma had an idea it came from the pretty obvious discord between the King and the Queen, but was that all of it, or were there deeper currents here, deeper meanings or ambitions at play? Ranma just didn't have the ability to tell. "And then there's Varys the eunuch, who's playing his own game, at least I think so, and Joffrey being an utter little shit, and the fact the Kingsguard are packed with scumbags. Yeah, this trip will be a real barrel of fun. At least Tommen and Myrcella are nice, good kids. And I'll be able to see Meera and Jojen again on the way down. Maybe even make a side trip to see grandfather Tully, I've never met the man after all."

Jon simply stared at Ranma through narrow eyes and eventually Ranma sighed. "I know, don't worry I remember the vision all too well. Betrayal and human enemies were a part of it. I'll be on the lookout."

His brother nodded, and then asked, "What do you want me to do here with the whelming and backing up Arya? Any special suggestions or ideas?"

Ranma frowned but then nodded decisively. "Once we're gone, make certain that any of the men and women from the King's party that have decided to stay are what they say they are. Varys the Spider was along for a reason and just because he serves the crown doesn't mean shit to us. In regards to the whelming, concentrate on making certain the logistics of providing for the Night Watch and the men sent north are as good as we can make them. Be ready for anything is the best I can tell you outside of that. My gut is telling me that the Wall will be hard pressed but the real blow may come from somewhere else, so be prepared to react somewhere else just in case. Still you'll have our friends to help there, and of course, Tyrion too."

"That wasn't as much advice as I could have wished. Still I actually like the Imp," Jon admitted. "He's an amusing fellow and extremely quick-witted even outside of his jokes. I wasn't prepared to like any Lannister, but for him I'll make an exception."

"I like him too, though I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw the king, that man's mind and tongue make him dangerous out of all proportion to his physical size. Still, he wants to prove himself, that will probably make him trustworthy as long as he can make an impact on the Wall's defense. But putting that aside… there's something else you and our other siblings should know, about our connection to our direwolves, something I found out recently. You know how I was trying to train you and the others to sense out your partner's feelings? Well it turns out…"

That conversation lasted well into the night, and while Jon was more than a little freaked out by the idea of being a warg, he was also intrigued by it. He vowed to try and see if he could figure out how to do it consciously, like Ranma was trying to do. He also vowed to keep up his exercises and training Arya, then, as it was late bid his brother a good evening.

Ranma had spent about five minutes clearing up the refuse of their late repast when he looked up smiling faintly but warmly at a very quiet knock on his door. He moved to it swiftly and opened it silently, bidding Dacey to enter.

She had to wait until everyone, even the King was ready to leave the party, causing enough confusion so that no one would be able to realize she had made her way up to the Stark's personal quarters. She had nearly been caught a few times, but had made it without anyone spotting her.

Ranma smiled and moved back to sit on the bed, looking at her as she moved around his quarters, smiling faintly at the small items and pictures, many of which she could tell were made by his siblings. The rest made by the smallfolk, either commissioned by his father or gifts. "Did you and Jon have a nice talk? You exited the feast so quickly it was rather amusing to see, though thankfully the King was too far into his cups to take offense."

"We did, I hope you and the others are able to help Jon through the trials ahead. He'll have my lady mother as an adviser of course, as well as Ser Rodrick and others, but he'll need you all to lean on. Just as I would've if I were staying."

Dacey smiled, but her mind was on other things. "And with you going south this is our last night together, possibly ever, if you come back married." Her breaches and shirt quickly fell to the floor, leaving her standing there naked facing him. Despite being a warrior Dacey had full, heavy breasts with dark nipples. Besides her breasts, there was little in the way of softness about her and her body was covered with the scars of battle, yet for all that she was still extremely attractive.

Ranma smiled, standing up and moving toward her, his eyes showing his desire clearly. "Then I think we should make the most of it…" After that his lips were on hers, and there was no more talking that night. No coherent talking anyway.

OOOOOOO

The next day, Ranma sat on a horse next to his father and surrounded by fifty of their guardsmen, staring back down the road to Winterfell. Catelyn hadn't even left Bran's side to wish them farewell as she normally would if her son or husband left, but she had been tearful in her farewells in the infirmary, putting up with considerable pain in her face from the tears as she hugged them both farewell.

Ranma, his friends and siblings had wished each other farewell, though thankfully, only Rickon had cried and that when he learned that both Ranma and Ned would be leaving. Theon looked a little worried for Ranma going south, and worried too about staying, with Jon being given so much responsibility without Ranma there to provide a buffer between them. Arya was sad to see Ranma and her father leaving as well as worried about Bran but was consoled by Ranma whispering about a present for her hidden under his bed, that she should retrieve and under no circumstances show their mother. It was actually from both him and Jon, with Jon having paid for it, but Ranma having designed it, and Jon would be training her in the use of her present in the days to come.

Dacey and Ranma hadn't bothered with anything more than the handclasp between warriors in front of the others, much as he had with Roger and Jon. Both of them had known that their relationship would never go anywhere. Neither had been romantically interested in one another, it had been merely a physical thing, more an offshoot of their friendship and Dacey's interest in Ranma's physical abilities.

Roger would be leaving for his family's castle that afternoon with Osha going with him. With the decision to leave House Ryswell mostly out of the whelming being sent to the Wall, she didn't actually need to but the two of them had come to something of a… 'understanding'. With Roger being the second son of the family, he was somewhat freer to make such arrangements than his brother Rickard. Rickard was three years older than Roger, and while nowhere near the warrior Roger was, he was a consummate manager of both land and people and was well up to ruling their house's land after their father passed.

That had been over an hour ago, and now the King's party passed the two Stark men as they sat on their horses, unable to look away from their home. Sansa didn't have the same trouble, and was in the carriage with the queen and the two younger Baratheon children. Joffrey rode at his father's order, an attempt to, in Robert's words 'toughen the brat up'.

Fenris whined a little, a sound that made several of the horses around them shy away from the direwolf, whose head was now on the level of Ranma's waist standing on his own two feet.

Ned looked down at the wolf, smiling faintly. "I think your friend there doesn't like the fact you're riding rather than running with him."

"Oh, I have no doubt I'll be running at some point during this trip. Before or after I meet my prospective bride is the question. Or maybe after we get to court. I'm not really built for court intrigue or politics you know." Ranma smirked, looking over at his father while leaning down to pet Fenris's head.

"Ha, and you think I am? Besides lad, Margaery Tyrell is supposed to be a beautiful young girl."

"It wasn't her looks I was worried about." Ranma replied dryly, and father and son exchanged shrugs, neither of them knowing anything much about Margaery, though Ned knew her father somewhat. He just hoped the daughter was her own person rather than a female version of her father.

Even a younger version of Lady Olenna would be better than that, Ned thought to himself. After all, Ranma will need to marry to someone who has a good grasp of politics. As much as I hate them, I know that politics and diplomacy are important. "Well on that score, we'll just have to see. Hopefully things will work out."

There Ned was talking about more than the possible match between Ranma and Margaery. He once more vowed to talk to his son about his concerns in regards to the Lannisters if they ever found any evidence that the crazy message from Lysa had any basis in fact. He couldn't afford to have Ranma act precipitously, and he knew that Ranma would act if he had even a hint that the Lannisters were planning anything that could harm his family.

"NED!" Robert bellowed, laughing loudly from the front of the column. "Quit your wool gathering and get over here!"

Ranma and Ned looked at one another, then back at Winterfell, before turning away, wondering when they would return, and what the future held for them and their family.

End chapter

---

Here is my second chapter of this story, which has continued my changing of canon, and expanded on some points raised in the first chapter. Expect the White Walkers to be major players, though they will keep their visible forces to a minimum, husbanding them until the coming of winter, which will be long and dark indeed.

I should warn you all that I might be kinder to Cersei than to Jaime, but the Lannisters are going to be slowly wiped out (just like in canon only the Starks don't join them). I have always felt a little sorry for Cersei, and in this work she won't be as blind to Joffrey's insanity as in the original, but will be unable, as in the original to truly control him. 'It must be hard for any woman to realize she birthed a monster.' And well, Joffrey will be Joffrey, 'nough said. Jaime on the other hand, I've never liked.

Her other children however are just that, children. Here you see them respond to an older brother figure that doesn't care about being seen as childish or anything like that, and who treats them kindly. Myrcella is too young to be in the pairing, but she will develop a crush on Ranma. In terms of age, btw I added two years to everyone's starting age. The very idea of kids as young as thirteen being married off offends my modern sensibilities. I know that in terms of the story being set in the equivalent of the Middle Ages this is wrong, but I just can't write lemons for characters that are that young, sorry to all you purists. On the other hand, I might be open to a well-reasoned argument that can convince me to replace Arianne or Margaery with Myrcella in the far future. After all there is far larger difference between 10 and 16 then there is 18 and 24 (objectively speaking obviously). But like I said, it would have to be a very well- reasoned argument.

To recap, the North is more united and stronger in the main than in the original, but will have divided priorities which will force it to keep more of it's strength home whatever happens south. Stannis will have no need however to head to the Wall to aid the Night Watch. Jon will be the unofficial arm of the Starks for a time, and have his own issues and adventures (no learning ki for a few years at best, sorry) so that I can make him stand out in his own way rather than being in Ranma's shadow, and Tyrion won't be returning south anytime soon and will play a major role in the battles of the Wall, though he won't be seen for a chapter or two. Theon was left behind too, and whether he'll be making trouble or what have you is still up in the air. Very much waffling on what to do with him, but leaning towards not redeeming him. Again, if you have strong feelings either way, tell me.

Ranma has gone with his father south to King's landing to meet his fiancée. Oh, and no Arya coming south with them, I always felt her reason for going south was so stupid it isn't even a very good plot device no matter what adventures she had later on. So no Arya the assassin, which I have always despised, Arya the warrior fine, not Arya the assassin, the killer in the dark. Going forward she will start to be a 'perspective character' just like Tyrion and Jon, don't worry Arya lovers. She just needs a bit more seasoning. She and Jon and even Tyrion for a bit will become prespective characters in the next chapter.

No, Ranma won't be joining the Kingsguard. I have other plans in mind for him.

Now a quick question: Should I kill off Gregor Clegane quickly and publicly or wait to kill him of in battle? Either or, he is going to die by Ranma's hand.

Lemons? Yes/no? Honestly could go either way, though don't expect me to attempt to match the original style or the times.