Lady Catelyn Stark was not a very strong woman. At least, not in her youngest daughter's eyes.
Arya resented the way her mother was always attempting to truss her up like Sansa; the pretty gowns, the ribbons in her hair, the curtsying and smiling.
But she was no lady. She was Arya Horseface, Arya Underfoot, the little she-wolf.
Catelyn Stark was a lady.
One day a raven brought a message and no sooner had Maester Luwin brought it to her than did all of the colour drain away from her mother's face. They were breaking their fast along with many others in the great hall.
Silently, Catelyn got up and left her children.
"What is it?"
"Hush, child. Finish your food," Maester Luwin urged solemnly.
"I'm no child." Irately, Arya climbed down from the table where she'd been seated alongside Bran. Bran, whose pudgy little fingers were covered in far more porridge than he had actually managed to eat, even with the aid of his nurse.
"Tell me what has happened, I know it's something," she demanded in her best grown-up voice.
When the Maester turned and went away quietly, Arya felt a queer ache beginning to build in her stomach. She left the great hall.
In the stables, the familiar and comforting scents of horses, hay, and dung greeted her. Something brought her to the stall her father's gelding usually occupied, but another animal stood in its stead. And for some reason this disturbed her deeply.
Arya swung open the door and chased the bay mare out, sending the animal away snorting in protest. She climbed into the straw and sat there, huddled in the corner.
In her chest something felt like it was dying. Breaking slowly.
He's never coming back. He's never coming home.
"Promise me, Ned. Promise me."
His eyes had been so full, so full of grief and wretchedness and censure, and she knew it was all those that had died that he was thinking of in that moment. How it all could have been avoided.
"I promise."
Lyanna opened her eyes to the sound of her brother's voice still fading into oblivion.
He had held to his word. He had returned her to Winterfell and sent Robert sniffing after some other bride to fill his halls with squalling babes.
And now Robert was dead and her brother was a captive.
Treason. They'd charged him with treason and imprisoned him.
But where Robert's death had left her empty, Ned's arrest choked her with malice.
Steadfast and honorable Ned.
Lyanna could see shock and dismay chase each other across Catelyn Tully's face when she entered the great hall to find the good-sister she had not lain eyes on in over a decade. She was quietly impressed by how little time it took the older woman to coach her features into something resembling civility.
"You've heard, then."
"We must call our banners."
"What?" The question was asked stupidly, as though Catelyn could not possibly have heard right.
"The Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North has been falsely accused of treason. We must call our banners."
"Are you mad? They hold my children as hostages!"
Lyanna was too incensed to take notice of Catelyn's scathing tone. She'd long since curled her hands into fists by her sides to still their trembling. "Need I remind you that the 'they' to which you are referring includes the man who ordered the slaughter of a girl of four and a mere infant?" Even now Lyanna could not give names to the children that had perished as a result of her love for their father. "All you have is the word of Lannisters that your children will not be harmed, but only dangled before you as insurance of your continued good behaviour for years and years to come. When do you think it ends, Catelyn? When do you think your children will be returned safely to you?"
She was struggling, Lyanna could see easily past to her thinly veiled terror, the inner conflict.
"Ned will be freed, Catelyn. And your children will return to Winterfell and to your arms. But not if you sit idly by and allow the Lannisters to dictate the terms."
While she did not need Catelyn's approval or permission to call their bannermen, Lyanna knew a singleness of purpose between Ned's wife and herself would go a long way in justifying their cause. She expected a lot from the Karstarks, Umbers, Boltons, Flints, Glovers, and others. A lot of criticism, distrust, and residual anger for the sons and brothers they had lost during Robert's Rebellion.
"They won't follow you."
"No. They will not."
But still the ravens went out.
The great hall was alive with conversation.
"You've said your piece, now let us get on with our drinking and wenching, it's a long ride back to Last Hearth." The Greatjon announced summarily over the ruckus, deep voice drowning out all others without effort.
"A great bloody waste of time." Someone else agreed, a Karstark perhaps.
"…shouldn't have gone south…" "…little and less that can be done about it." "…a bad situation…"
Lyanna heard all of these excuses and more besides and felt a rage burning deep within her core, building with each muttered word.
"I see something has gone amiss. Ravens were sent to all of the great and small houses of the North, yet I see no Northmen here. I see cowards with flimsy excuses."
"You dare to brand us craven? You who ran away from your duty to become a dragon's whore and brought upon us a bloody war?"
"Slut! She-bitch!" "…no better than a common whore!" "How many were slaughtered because you just couldn't keep your legs closed, harlot?!"
Their derision washed over her in waves, crashing higher with each new hurled insult, and Lyanna waited. Eventually the flow ebbed and still she was standing with flint eyes flashing defiantly.
"Think what you will of me, it changes nothing. Your overlord is still standing falsely accused of a crime any of you who truly know him know he is incapable of committing. His heir and daughter are still being held hostages. And if you will not take up arms in the name of the North, you are still spineless dogs little deserving of your titles and less deserving of my brother or any other decent man's respect."
What her declaration was met with was a wall of silence. Tension hung heavy in the stagnant air. Dozens of pairs of condemning eyes glared back at her.
"No one, man or she-bitch, will accuse the Umbers of cowardice." The Greatjon stood, nostrils flaring, his bulk easily towering above all else in the room.
Lyanna's gaze did not waver from his for one moment, and yet her breath had hitched in her throat.
"For the North!" He roared finally.
The hall erupted into shouts of approval which soon had all united into one glorious chant.
"For the North! For the North! For the North!"
All preparations had been made; forces from Deepwood Motte, Last Hearth, Karhold, the Dreadfort, Bear Island, and Hornwood, as well as some lesser houses were encamped just outside the winter town.
The hosts of the Tallharts, Cerwyns, and Ryswells will join up with them as they march south toward Moat Cailin, where men from White Harbour, Widow's Watch, and Flint's Fingers will be waiting along with Howland Reed's crannogmen.
Winterfell's defenses will be left in the capable hands of Ser Rodrik Cassel, whom Catelyn appointed Castellan after insisting upon accompanying the Northern army.
The Northern army led by Greatjon Umber. The decision had been left up to the Stark bannermen, and they had finally settled on the Greatjon after precious days spent in argument which had more than once led to physical altercation.
She could not be sure whether this was because they'd all grown tired of fighting (which was less likely) or because the Greatjon had bodily lifted two men above his head and knocked their heads together when they refused to stop their quarrelling (which was more likely).
Lyanna repeated the details rapidly in her mind; searing every face, every name, every impression she had gotten from these men she would be riding south with into her brain. She didn't trust them, and she knew without a doubt they did not trust her. Many of them she had known in her youth as being leal servants to her father, had eaten and laughed with them in the great hall. But much had changed since those days. They were as much strangers to her now and she must be to them after shutting herself away for eleven years.
But Ned needed them.
And just as he had once saved her from an unbearable fate, now she had initiated his salvation.
"I promise."
The stench was acrid, palpable; clawing its way into his nostrils, burning and blurring his vision.
Even after days there was no growing accustomed to it.
His leg no longer ached, though this troubled more than relieved him. The crisp white bandage Pycelle had wrapped around the wound was filthy, crusted over, and yet oozing something obnoxious at the same time. He could not be sure whether some of the smell was at least due in part to this.
He worried for Robb and Sansa. They had done nothing wrong and he should have been more comforted in the knowledge of their innocence, yet was not. Alone and at the mercy of lions while he languished somewhere far beneath the Red Keep, awaiting judgement.
No, not judgement. Punishment.
"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."
But he had not won. He had not even come close.
All he had done was wander far, far away from the North. From everything he understood and believed in, and into this abysmal place, where taking a king's life was as easy as keeping his wineskin full. Where knowing was not what mattered, but what you did or did not do with the knowledge you had.
Eddard Stark had been a minor player attempting a major play in a game whose only rule was that there were no rules. He knew when to accept defeat.
But that did not mean he did not still hold a card in his hand.
"Ned, I've changed my mind. About the girl."
"Daenerys Targaryen?"
"Let her rot in whatever forsaken corner of the Free Cities she's been packed off to by those Dothraki shits."
"She cannot be held responsible for the actions of a brother, committed before she was ever born."
"Rhaegar. Every night I kill him half a hundred times in my dreams. And still he rises."
"But those are dreams and Rhaegar is long dead. You slew him yourself. We burnt his body."
"Yes, he was dead and we burnt his body."
"You should rest."
"You think I'm delirious."
"No, I think you're drunk."
"Can't a dying man drink his fill without your nagging? Ned, listen to me. The buggering fire didn't burn down for three days. I watched it after you took the men on to Storm's End, I wasn't much good for anything else. I'll never forget the smell of that fire, Ned. When it finally burned down to embers, I looked. But there was nothing."
"Robert…"
"There was bloody nothing. No splinters of bone, no scorched armor, not even those fucking red rubies. What sort of fire doesn't just melt the flesh from a man's bones, but consumes him, Ned?"
"Wildfire."
"Aye, wildfire. But this was no wildfire. It burned red. Black and red."
"What are you saying, Robert?"
"Can't kill a dragon with fire, Ned. They'll all burn. It all burns. Fire and blood."
"Rest now."
"It was her name he whispered."