Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Thanks so much for the reviews for the first chapter! I really am grateful for them, considering I really hadn't thought I'd get any for a project so freaking ambitious and vague and complicated. That first chapter introduced the Lannisters - AJ and Lita and Finn. This chapter focuses on the Starks (and one particular Greyjoy), who have a very different way about them than AJ and her family. I really hope that everyone likes this chapter. I would love to hear that y'all think!

Hail to the King
Chapter Two

- Seth -

Another winter in Winterfell. Or, at least, that was the common saying throughout the castle's stone walls as of late. Seth Greyjoy hadn't experienced a winter in his short life, and that means that this constant onslaught of snow is just the beginning. A long summer means a long winter, and so on and so forth, of course, of course.

He ran a hand along his hair, brushing out the fallen flakes of snow as he did so. His eyes raked along the expanse of the field and suddenly he found it - a flash of gold waves, a complete

Seth stalked forward, his feet crunching lightly in the snow, as he approached the thin slip of a girl he has just spotted, a smirk crossing his face as he reached down and picked up a handful of snow, slowly patting it into a ball before -

Splat!

Seth let loose a rather undignified yelp as the cold snow came into contact with the back of his head, sliding down the back of the woolen coat he wore, causing a shudder to ripple down his spine. He spun around, eyes dangerous, and spotted just who had attacked him so.

Dean Snow, grinning and with that ever-present twinkle in his eye, stared back.

Seth's lip curled. "Bastard."

"Bastard by birth, yes," Dean spouted. "But not bastard by character."

Seth found himself smirking despite himself. Although his true home was not in Winterfell - Pyke, he thought fondly of the rock and the harbor and the smell of the ocean in his nostrils, where all the Greyjoys called home - he had taken a liking to this place, filled with snow and cold winds and pine trees. He had also taken a liking to the people he had been fostered with.

House Stark held Winterfell, as they had for ages. Adam and Beth Stark had three natural children, one of which Seth had been trying to tease at the moment of Dean's interruption, and one bastard - the aforementioned man himself. Dean had, supposedly, been a product of a dalliance between Adam and an unnamed woman. Seth had been curious about it, but every time the subject was broached, hard looks were sent his way, and no one talked further of it.

And, of course, then there was Seth himself.

Seth didn't belong anywhere near Winterfell. He knew that, the Starks knew that, his own father knew that, but here he stayed. And here he would remain, a ward at Winterfell, all because of his father's rash actions against the kingdom.

The young man shook his head, unable to think on that subject any further without a strange tugging developing in his chest. His sharp brown eyes spotted that Dean was about to launch another snowball in his direction, and he dodged it accordingly, but it was no use, for another snowball smacked him directly in the back of his head.

Summer Stark showed herself, that blonde hair of hers looking like a sort of outlandish sunlight, from behind a near pine tree, her eyes glittering with mischief.

"Good job!" Dean shouted to her. She grinned toothily back at him, looking oddly like the wolf on their House's sigil.

Seth wrinkled his nose just slightly, irritated at being bested by the silly blonde girl and the bastard, but he bent over and started preparing another snowball nonetheless. "I'll show you a good job..."

Just as the snowball left his fingers, a voice shouted, "We are wanted inside, you three."

Dolph Stark stood, looking as regal as any king, in front of them.

"C'mon," Dean said, tilting his head and smiling, an odd sort of madness overtaking them. "What is it now?"

Dolph shrugged his large shoulders, his wavy blonde hair moving across his shoulders as he did so. "Father needs to have a word with everyone."

Father, Seth thought, almost sadly, but nonetheless, he followed.

They walked through the wide doors that led into the great hall of Winterfell's castle, brushing the snow from their boots and coats as they did so. Seth had to vigorously shake both his coat and his hair to rid himself from the snowy devil that Dean had sprung on him.

Adam Stark sat at the head of the table, looking rather disturbed, his fingers steepled in front of his face. Beth Stark stood at his side, looking the picture of Northern sternness, her face rigid, her light colored eyes like two specks of ice in her face.

As they came upon the site, the last of the Stark children, Renee Stark, sat next to her mother, fiddling with some embroidery that she so loved. Seth looked from Renee to Summer, trying to hide his smile. It was odd how the two of them looked so alike - with their golden hair and blue eyes - and yet were so different in terms of personality.

As Seth walked closer, he saw Summer sway to one side, having been pushed playfully by Dean himself. She wrinkled her nose at him and shoved him back, saying, "I'll get you once we're outside again."

To which he responded, "I'd like to see that."

To which Adam interrupted, "That's enough, you two."

"What's going on?" Dean asked, without guile.

Beth sent him a look that could curdle milk; Adam just sent a sad smile his way. "Many things. Too many, if I am to be honest with my family."

Renee looked up at her father, the picture of innocence. Seth wasn't sure if he found that charming or annoying. "What do you mean, Father?"

That same smile continued to haunt his face, making Adam look as if he were years older than he should be. "We're to be host to the king for a few weeks."

"The king?" Renee gasped. Summer looked equally as slack-jawed.

"Well, shit," Dean murmured barely. Dolph punched his brother's shoulder good-naturedly.

Seth, however, only looked at Adam and asked him the question no one seemed to be asking, "Why?"

Adam shrugged his thin, wiry shoulders. "The letter said nothing, that he would tell me when he arrived."

"Well, that's odd," Summer snorted.

"Summer!" Renee shouted, slapping her sister on the shoulder.

"Well, if I know His Grace, then it's supposed to be a riddle. We're supposed to be left guessing."

Seth hated riddles.

"I suppose," Adam continued. "The point in this meeting was to tell everyone ahead of time. The staff is to get the castle ready. My family - including you, Seth - is to be on their best behavior. We are to show that the Starks of Winterfell are not a bunch of wild, uncontrollable things."

As he said the words wild, uncontrollable things, Dean and Summer promptly stopped their rough-housing and stood at attention.

However, Seth couldn't get Adam's words out of his head.

"My family - including you, Seth - "

He clenched his fists tightly around the necklace that hung, secretly, beneath his clothes, the necklace that no one could see, the necklace that displayed his own House's sigil - the mighty kraken.

He remembered his own father's words, the night he was taken as a ward by the Starks, the night the Greyjoys were defeated by the very man sitting in front of him now, defeated with sword and shield and bow, "The Starks are not our friends, son," he had whispered. "We will take what is ours, and you will help, in the most pivotal of ways."

The sharp edges of the kraken's tentacles dug into Seth's fingers, drawing blood.

"They will capture you. They will take you in as a ward of their House. They will feed and clothe you. Mayhaps they will treat you as familiy. But you will not be one of them. Ever, son, do you hear me?"

Seth remembered the heaviness of his head as he had nodded like it was yesterday.

"They have defeated us today, but no more. We will take what is ours. We will have Winterfell, and you will help us."

Inhaling shakily, Seth focused his gaze on the stern yet friendly face of Adam Stark, the man who had taken him in and treated him with the utmost courtesy, the man who had - indeed - clothed and fed and considered him family.

Seth Greyjoy looked at Adam Stark and - for what seemed like the thousandth time since he had been captured - regretted agreeing to his father's plan to destroy the North.

End Chapter Two.