Chapter 3: To Be Brave
Sansa ran as fast as her legs could allow her with Arya and Bran beside her and holding onto Lyarra. She wanted to stop and take a rest, regain her breath, let the blood pass through her legs, but she couldn't, Sansa had to keep moving no matter what. As she continued to run back to Lord Darry's keep Sansa had to cling Lyarra onto her, she was still too young for her to be running across a forest.
"How much further?!" Arya asked throughout her heavy breathing, still keeping up with her siblings.
"Just a little more, come on!" Bran shouted out, him being the fastest of the three he was in front of his older sisters.
After running for what seemed to be hours but ultimately was nothing more than a few minutes, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Lyarra finally got back to the keep. They emediately searched the courtyard for any faces that they recognised and after a few more moments of searching they finally found one, Ser Jory off in the distance talking with someone. Noticing him, Sansa let go of Lyarra, telling her, Bran and Arya to look for their father before running to Ser Jory. As she continued to run towards Jory, Sansa noticed who the person Ser Jory was talking to was, it was the prince's sword shield and the commander of the kingsguard, Ser Barristan.
"Ser Jory, Ser Barristan!" Sansa yelled out towards the knights as they spun around to see who was calling them.
As the two knights turned around both of them widened their eyes in response. Only then did Sansa realise how she looked, she was obviously tired so her heavy breathing wasn't to suprising for Sansa, but when she looked down Sansa noticed her dress slightly torn. On further inspection she noticed her dress also being dirty and worn, another result from her running throughout a forest.
"My lady, are you alright?" Ser Jory was the first to have his wits come back to him.
"I'm fine Jory, but the prince... he..." Sansa began to stutter through her breathing.
"The prince?! Where?! Where's Rodrick?!" Ser Barristan emediately knew there was trouble from Sansa's tone.
"The Ruby Ford, you have to get there and help him, now." Sansa said as she finally regained her composure.
With that Ser Barristan and Ser Jory gathered as many men as they could in an extremely short amount of time. After she warned the knights, Sansa left to find her father. The moment she found her family, her father embraced her as tightly as he could. Sansa was happy that she could get help in time, but a part of her felt guilty for leaving Rodrick behind when she or Lady or Bran or Arya or really anybody could help him. Even though Rodrick seemed like he could handle himself, it was in Sansa's nature to worry about people she cared about. Her family, her friends, anyone she cared about Sansa wanted to protect, but Sansa didn't really know what Rodrick was to her though. Five or six months after they would reach the capital the two of them would be married. She always dreamed of marrying a prince, the man of her dreams, like in the fairy tales. Rodrick was not like that however, he never tried to be romantic with her even though the two had only really spoken a couple of times. Around him Sansa felt, well, relaxed, like she could entirely trust Rodrick. In fact Sansa didn't really have any sort of romantic feelings towards the prince, to her Rodrick had been more a friend than anything.
When the king received news of his son being in danger he grabbed his warhammer and, with Eddard, Renly, Ser Jamie, Ser Barristan and Ser Jory by his side, along with a small band of guardsmen, they all went looking for him. And so they all started to search for Rodrick. On the way to The Ruby Ford however, they were met with a gruesome yet welcome sight.
Eddard's POV
The king and queen had been extatic the moment they got the news. Robert emediately went for his warhammer and, if not for his own men following behind him, he would have ran to The Ruby Ford by himself and crushed every single bone in that bears body. Eddard himself was also worried for the prince, the two had not talked much but what little they did interact with each other Eddard thought the boy to be a kind and good man. Rodrick was not much older than his own twins, some nine or so months older than Sansa and Cregan. That is why Eddard was not suprised when Robert wanted to arrange the bethrothal between his eldest son and Eddard's eldest daughter. Sansa and his other children, as well as Lyarra, begged him to go with the king and help them save Rodrick. Eddard himself was already intending to go with Robert but now there was no question.
Eddard grabbed a sword and a sheath, strapping it to his side before calling for Ser Jory and two other Stark household guards. Along with Eddard's little group there was also Ser Barristan, Rodrick's uncles Jamie and Renly and Robert, along with two Baratheon guardsmen. All together there were ten of them, a more than large enough number to take down a bear, no matter it's size.
Robert was leading them all, of course. His warhammer in hand and his expression absolutely teeming with rage, Robert ran as fast as he could towards The Ruby Ford. Robert was never that fastest runner and yet, right now he was outrunning all of them without any sort of Jamie, Ser Barristan and Ser Jory along with the Stark and Baratheon guards were the ones with the most trouble keeping up to pace with the king due to them being in armor. Eddard and Renly were more succesful in keeping up with Robert but not by much. Eddard knew better than to stop Robert when he was determined to do something. If this was the old Robert, it would have probably been some woman he wanted to bed or a boar he wanted to kill. But that wasn't the case here, it wasn't a whore or a boar, Robert was charging through the forest to help his son, no matter what. For that, Eddard was proud of his friend.
"Come on Lord Stark, don't fall behind!" Renly's yell snapped Eddard from his thoughts.
When he heard the king's younger brothers yell, Eddard noticed how much he slowed down. The three knights and four guardsmen were already in front of him while Robert and Renly were already leagues ahead of him now. Noticing this, Eddard picked up his pace, letting his feet carry him as fast as they could. He quickly passed Ser Barristan and Ser Jory along with the guardsmen before once again meeting back up with Renly. Now he was right back to where he was before and they still didn't reach The Ruby Ford. They continued to run past many trees before Robert just suddenly, stopped. Eddard and Renly finally caught up to Robert before they too stopped and were now standing beside him.
"Robert what's wrong?!" Renly was the first to speak up after they abruptly stopped.
Eddard was going to ask the same question before he then saw what Robert saw. Renly then also followed, turning from Robert and averting his gaze to his front of them was a terrible sight and yet, Eddard felt a sudden relief build up in him. That relief quickly dissapeared when he took another look at what the entire group was now looking at.
Cregan stood in front of everyone, his swords strapped to his side and his bow strapped to his back. He looked at the king and then his father, his usual cold and emotionless stare flicking between the entire group. Cregan was not the person everyone was focusing on though. The person Cregan was carrying had caught everyone's eye. To his right side was Rodrick, his arm's flesh being almost entirely torn off, three claw marks going across his lower neck as the crimson blood mixed with his black and gold tunic as it slowly dripped from the wound. Across the tunic was also a large gash that seemed to have cut through his skin, this wound also had blood dripping from it, covering the rest of the tunic in a crimson blood red color. Despite his wounds being more than gruesome as well as looking as painful as all the seven hells combined, the prince wasn't showing any signs of being in pain. The blood loss seemed to have put him in a state of unconciousness while still being somewhat awake.
"So are you all going to just stand there and continue to be usseles or are you going to help your prince?" Cregan snapped the entire group from their looks of shock.
For a few more moments they all just stood there, frozen in place from what was in front of them. "Rodrick!" Robert was the first to snap out of it, dropping his hammer and running straight towards his son. With him, the entire group also followed as they got out of their state of shock and ran to help their prince. As Robert ran towards Rodrick however, he was stopped by Cregan who lifted his one free hand forward to stop the king seeing as his other hand was busy keeping the prince from falling on the ground.
"Easy now, if he experiences any sudden movements then the prince will lose even more blood than he already has." Cregan said in a monotone voice.
"What about the bear, did Rodrick kill it or did you?" Renly asked while running to Rodrick's side like everyone else.
"Neither, I had my wolf Sif..." Cregan stopped himself mid-sentence, flicking his eyes back towards The Ruby Ford before turning them back towards the prince, "... take care of it".
Eddard immediately knew what this meant. To others this was very cryptic to what Cregan would do, but to him this either meant that Cregan had viciously maimed or savagely brutalised something, or it would mean that he had his wolf devour, strangle, rip appart or tear away at something. Of all of his childrens direwolves, Sif was easily the largest and was the one who would grow the biggest of the litter. Maybe that was why Cregan choose Sif in particular, or maybe it wasn't, Eddard never really knew why his son would make the decisions he made, but no matter what it was, he knew one thing, Cregan always did the right thing, no matter what.
Rodrick's POV
His entire sight was nothing but darkness. Rodrick knew he had his eyes closed but whenever he tried to open them it would all be in vain, he was to exhausted to open his eyes even a little. Despite him seemingly being asleep Rodrick was fully awake. On his backside he could feel the soft wool and cloth of a bed so Rodrick at least knew he wasn't in the woods anymore. His last recolection was being viciously mauled by a bear, something or someone saved him. The voice that he heard before fully falling into his dark void of conciousness wasn't one he had heard before.
Around him Rodrick could hear many noises, the crackling of fire, the shifting of a cloth and needle, and the humming of a girl. The voice however was the only thing Rodrick could recognise however. He could not quite point it out completely, but it was familiar.
Rodrick opened his eyes just slightly to observe his surroundings.
When he did, Rodrick closely observed what little he could see. He was in a room, seemingly back in Lord Darry's keep, laying on a bed with nothing but a white tunic and pants. Opposite of the bed was a small fireplace with the fire dancing around the charred oak, using it as fuel. Next to his bed was a small table with a jug of water and two small empty cups. Besides the fireplace, the bed and the table there was also a large closet that was probably used as a wardrobe. After looking around the room his gaze averted towards the window. Through the glass of the window Rodrick could see the sun slowly descending, it was probably early evening seeing as night had not yet gathered but this slightly bothered Rodrick. From what he could remember, it was still noon when Rodrick was fighting the bear at The Ruby Ford. While he looked at the window and the sun pierced his sight with it's glow Rodrick's gaze turned to the person beside the window.
The person seemed to be the source of the humming. Despite the sun blocking Rodrick sight he could make out that it was a girl from both the voice and the general figure of the person's body. Wanting to find out who the person was, and seeing how Rodrick was left-handed, Rodrick instinctively raised his left hand to avert the sun's light from his eyes. Instead of raising his hand however, Rodrick felt a sudden large burst of pain going throughout his arm all the way towards his shoulder. This pain made him let out a slight grunt as he placed his right hand over his left arm to try and stop the pain, thankfully, he could move his right hand, unlike his left one.
When she heard the grunt, the person immediately turned around to face Rodrick. Only now did he realise that the girl was busy sewing something during her little song that she was humming. "Rodrick..." the girl said through her small laugh and smile of relief. When he heard the voice, that was when Rodrick finally recognised the girl. It was Sansa...
"Thank goodness your finally awake" Sansa said as she quickly walked towards Rodrick and crouched down beside the bed.
"It's good to see you to my lady." Rodrick said, doing his best to keep up his prince act through the pain he was feeling.
"Are you alright? Are you still in pain?" Sansa noticed how Rodrick was still clinging on to his left arm.
When Sansa placed her hand just a bit above the wound was when Rodrick noticed the massive amounts of bandages around his left arm. The bandages covered the entirity of his left arm, going from his hand all the way up to his shoulder in length. After he noticed the bandages on his arm, Rodrick shifted his right hand from his arm to his neck. When he touched his neck, Rodrick once again felt the bandages. To have one last confirmation Rodrick slipped his hand into his tunic and noticed the bandages covering the large gash where the bear cut his skin.
"I'm... I'm fine my lady, I just forgot about my wounds for a moment, that's all." Rodrick reasurred the still worried Sansa, giving her a slight smile.
"Are you sure?" Sansa once again asked, her voice still filled to the brim with concern for her betrothed.
"Yes, I'm fine I promise." Rodrick answered, letting out a slight chuckle to Sansa's worry as it reminded him so much of his mother.
When he said that Sansa let out a small sigh of relief, calming herself while closing her eyes before once again opening them to meet Rodrick's. From what he could notice, Sansa wasn't in the same dress she was when they were walking together in the forest. This either meant it was a different day than that, or she merely changed clothes since they last saw each other. Seeing as the last time Rodrick saw Sansa was when she was running throughout a forest with her siblings, it was safe to assume her dress was either torn or dirtied while running back to Lord Darry's keep.
"Are you alright my lady?" Rodrick asked her, noticing a small cut on her left cheek that seemed to cut just deep enough to leave a mark.
"I'm fine." She said, putting it as clearly and directly as possible.
"And your siblings?" Rodrick continued to ask, seemingly not caring about his own wounds anymore but more about the state of others.
"They are all safe and sound, thanks to you." Sansa said, a smile tugging on her cheeks as the words came out of her lips.
To that Rodrick let out a sigh of relief, just like Sansa a few moments ago. "It is you I should be thanking my lady. If you hadn't ran back to Lord Darry's keep and called for help, I probably wouldn't be laying here right now." to his words Sansa gave a warm smile, giggling a bit as a response.
"While I am flattered my prince. I'm not the one you should be thanking." Sansa said, softening her eyes as she looked down towards the ground.
"Oh?" Rodrick said, slightly confused by Sansa's words. He was sure that someone came and saved him and although he couldn't recognise the voice Rodrick it was probably because he was too far gone to be able to recognise it. For all he knew it could have been his father, or Ser Barristan, or even his Uncle Jaime. But now he realised it was someone else entirely. The real question now was who the person that saved him was.
"If it wasn't my father, or anyone else, then who was it?" Rodrick asked, finally giving into his curiousoty.
"My brother Cregan helped you and carried you back to the keep." Sansa answered, looking back towards Rodrick.
This made Rodrick's eyes widen in suprise. He barely even knew the second eldest Stark and the two never even had a conversation with each other. Of course it could all be reasoned by the fact that Rodrick was the crown prince and Cregan's twin sister was going to marry him, but that didn't seem like 'The Demon' from all the stories Rodrick would hear. Since he arrived in Winterfell Cregan had done nothing but give Rodrick stares that would chill him to the bone, even when he himself wasn't looking back at him.
Before he could continue his train of thought however, a large amount of footsteps could be heard quickly approaching the room where Rodrick and Sansa were. "Huh, I wonder who that could be?" Sansa asked, also hearing the footsteps and getting up from the chair to open the door. Before she could get to the door however, she was stopped by Rodrick who gripped her arm with his own and stopped Sansa.
"I... wouldn't reccomend going near that door..." Rodrick said, seemingly already aware of who was approaching.
"What? Why?" Sansa asked as she looked at Rodrick in pure confusion.
"Wait for it..." as he said that, Rodrick closed his eyes, let out a sigh, and let go of Sansa's arm.
'In 3... 2... 1...' the moment Rodrick completed his mental countdown the door burst open, almost breaking down completely at the sheer force of impact that was used to open it. From the door came Rodrick's mother, running directly towards Rodrick and she would have pushed Sansa down to the ground if she hadn't quickly moved out of the way. The moment she reached Rodrick Cersei gripped her son in a tight embrace, slowly crushing Rodrick in the proccess.
"My baby, oh my baby..." Cersei whispered, still crushing Rodrick with her grip.
"It's... good to see... you too mother..." Rodrick whispered, slowly suffocating under his mother's embrace.
After Cersei came the rest of Rodrick's family. First it was his father, followed in by Tommen and Myrcella, and after them came Rodrick's uncles Renly and Jamie. All of them were in tunics except Rodrick's mother, who was in her Lannister red dress, and his uncle Jamie, who was still in his kingsguard armor with his sword strapped to his side. When they all came in Sansa bowed to the Royal Family and quietly left, but not before shooting one last look at Rodrick. When the two meet looks Rodrick mustered up a smile although it was quickly wavering due to his mother still refusing to losen her grip on her son. To Rodrick's smile Sansa also gave him a smile as well as nodding her head and quickly and quietly leaving the room, leaving only Rodrick's family now.
"Mother... please... let go... your... crushing... me..." Rodrick once again started to feel his conciousness slowly start to slip away from him as he was losing more and more breath. "Mother... can't... breathe... gonna... pass out..." he continued to try and plead for his mother to let go of him, but to no avail. If not for his uncle Rodrick would have probably passed out again.
"Alright Cersei, easy now, we don't want to suffocate the boy." Jamie said as he slowly and carefully pried Cersei away from Rodrick.
"Rodrick are you alright? Do you have a fever? Do your scars hurt? Did your bandages come loose? Can you still feel your arm?..." Cersei continued to barrage her son with question after question. As she overwhelmed Rodrick with the thousands upon thousands of questions Tommen and Myrcella also joined their mother and were now by Rodrick's side beside the bed.
"Cersei! Let the boy breathe!" Robert interupted his wives interrogation session.
"How can you be so calm about this?! Our son was nearly killed!" Cersei hissed at Robert before turning back to Rodrick.
"He's fine Cersei, the maester said that no permanent damage was done!" Robert continued to argue with Cersei.
"His arm was almost torn off! Isn't that permanent damage?!" Cersei once again hissed towards Robert.
"ENOUGH!" Rodrick yelled out, finally regaining his breath after almost being suffocated by his mother. "Mother, I'm fine, really..." he reassured Cersei, gently placing his left hand over his mothers hand. When she noticed this Cersei grabbed the injured arm with both of her hands and slowly and gently lifted it. Rodrick didn't really mind the pain then, even if it did hurt like all seven hells, his mothers gentle and warm touch softened the pain a bit.
"Rodrick..." he could hear his sister Myrcella quietly whimper. Rodrick turned to look at his sister and when he did he noticed her sister at the brink of tears to see her older brother in a state like this. "... are you really alright? You look, pale." Myrcella finally managed to speak up, parting the words from her lip through her tears. Although she wasn't really crying, Rodrick could tell that both her and Tommen were on the brink of tears.
This hit Rodrick right in his heart. His siblings always looked up to Rodrick as their idol, almost placing him on a pedestal. Rodrick was their hero, the person they would always go to whenever they needed help, whenever they wanted to play, whenever they wanted to talk. That is why seeing their older brother in such a gruesome state made them want to cry.
"What? This?" Rodrick said as he looked at his left arm, "Trust me Myrcella, this is nothing." he said with a confident smirk.
"But uncle Renly said you might never be able to use your arm again." Tommen whimpered through his tears, desperately clinging onto his cat, Ser Pounce.
"Did he now?" Robert said as he, Cersei, Rodrick and Jamie all shot a death stare at him with furrowed brows, Renly only took a step back from his older brother and raised his hands jokingly in surrender.
Rodrick only sighed before looking back to Tommen with the complete opposite warm and soft look. 'Seven Hells, what do I say to him to cheer him up?' Rodrick thought nerviously before as if a candle lit up in his mind. Rodrick once again smile at Tommen before looking back at his arm.
"Wait, you think this was from the bear?" Rodrick asked his little brother causing everyone to raise their eyebrows in confusion.
"It isn't?" Tommen asked, sharing in everyone's confusion while his tears stopped for a moment.
"No, of course not!" Rodrick said while letting another sly smirk, "I... fell down some stairs."
"You fell down some stairs?" Tommen asked, his sadness slowly fading away.
"Yes... I tripped, and fell, down some stairs." Rodrick repeated himself, telling every word as slowly as possible.
"Rodrick what are y-" Renly tried to say something before he was cut off by his nephew's cold stare.
"Uncle shut it before I throw you down a flight." Rodrick said, his Baratheon blood kicking in for once.
"But if that was because you fell down some stairs then what happened with the bear?" Tommen continued to question his older brother, his tears now fully dissapearing.
"What? You think a big old bear was enough to take me down?" Rodrick said, keeping up his little act to keep his little brother from crying.
"That's my boy!" Robert roared out as he sat beside Rodrick on the other side of the bed.
Tommen's teary eyes and sad expression now dissapeared, replacing it with a look of awe and excitement. His big brother went face-to-face with a bear and came out on top. And while Myrcella knew that Rodrick was clearly lying, she was happy to know that her big brother wasn't in too much pain. The Royal Family then continued to joke and laugh, quickly going from faces of grief and sadness to expressions of happyness and joy.
Note:
Alright people here you have it, chapter 3, and what good timing I have because in less than two days, GAME OF THRONES WILL RETURN.
This chapter was really dialogue heavy and the I didn't want to give Rodrick and Sansa any romantic implications JUST YET, so just a warning guys don't expect any sort of actual 'romance' any time soon. Most of the early chapters will really be fluff between the two until they become lovebirds. Also, I wanna ask you guys. Do you guys like this Sansa? Keep in mind that this is the Sansa that I have made up in my first story in which she's not so starstruck and dreamy about the whole marriage with the prince thing. NOW BEFORE YOU GUYS GO ALL "It's not fitting with the original character! You should have just made a female OC!" basically my defence for this is because Sansa is older than she is in the beggining of both the show and books. And seeing how we all get more serious as we get older that is why I made Sansa more 'down-to-earth' if you will.
And speaking of age, here's a genius segway into what all the ages of the characters are because I forgot to do this in the fucking prologue because I'm a forgetful fuck...
Robert Baratheon & Eddard Stark - 36 years old
Cersei & Jamie Lannister - 34 years old
Tyrion Lannister - 28 years old
Renly Baratheon - 23 years old
Rodrick Baratheon - 16 years old
Cregan & Sansa Stark - 16 years old
Myrcella Baratheon - 13 years old
Arya Stark - 11 years old
Bran Stark - 9 years old
Tommen Baratheon - 7 years old
