A/N: Thanks for the reviews, ya'll! I love getting feedback. Here's to more (mis)adventure.

Casidhe

His hand in hers felt weird. The rough callouses on each knuckle from gripping his sword, the sweaty palms, his wife's eyes like white hot irons—each detail filled Casidhe's world. For a moment she took her mind off of Roose Bolton and Catelyn Stark and instead remembered a world of dry desert heat and magic, of two men and lonely, cramped cities. But then Cas came crashing out of her daydream: Lady Stark was afraid of Lord Bolton. And there could only be one reason for that.

"Lord Bolton, so kind of you to join the Frey's to celebrate my brother's engagement," said Catelyn Stark, "we haven't seen you around the camps of late." All of Cas's fears were confirmed—the realization of it all shook her to her very core. Roose Bolton knew about Talisa, the real Talisa. Robb gave her hand another quick squeeze. She only let go to begin her dance once she felt like the Wolf's strength was her own.

"It is so good to see you again, Roose," the King of the North was properly in the room now, taking charge of the situation, "your advice was greatly missed."

"Indeed," she began, trying for strength, "your absence was felt in Riverrun." She could not believe her own ingenuity. She would use her upper hand—her father's love—and try her very best to cast doubt on Roose Bolton. The man was a pig: the stories of him only shadowed the beast that stood before her.

"Was it, my Lady?" said Lord Bolton wickedly, his eyebrows rising slightly.

"Yes, Ser, but now I see that you are here with my father so I suppose we should be properly introduced: I am Casidhe, formerly known as Talisa, Stark, wife to the King of the North and daughter of Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossing," Cas's curtsy was deep and her tone seemed respectful, all bellying the lies that poured from her tongue and her hatred for Roose Bolton.

"Ah. So good it is to finally know your true identity. It's a shame we did not meet before this, I would have married you myself if I had known you were a Frey—" he looked to Casidhe's father, on his raised chair in the hall that Cas had grown up in and began to stroke Frey's ego—"I greatly respect the House of Walder Frey. Had I known, I would have loved to join our houses permanently," he looked at her, "but it seems you have taken a liking to the Stark." Two could play that game.

"Yes. I have found the love I had wanted my whole life," she looked at Robb seeing another man's face, "but you are full bull—" Cas was cut off by Walder Frey.

"Cassidhe! You have been lectured about this. Have the years that you've been away stolen the schooling you received as a child," Frey looked down at her, made her feel as if she were only a child, but she needed to win this battle and not back herself into a corner.

"Father, are we calling the switch 'schooling' now? That's inventive," she chuckled slightly, "but no matter your feelings towards me and my preferred vocabulary, you know as well as I do that this man has no respect for you and, for while he has sworn to fight for Robb he plots with the Lannisters to kill a king—Robb Stark may not be the first king to be killed under the Lannister banner, but by the gods of whomever you choose to serve, you will not murder my husband," she paused to underline her next point, "I could not live if I knew my father were behind the death of my loved ones." Casidhe could not help the pinpricks behind her eyes, but she would be damned before she let the entire hall see her cry.

"Everyone that is not directly involved in this matter should leave now," Cas said looking around at her family. She began a silent chant of her childhood mantra, blood or not she was raised a Frey. Blood or not she was raised a Frey. "I think you all have seen enough of a show to sate your bloodthirsty palates."

"Oh, yes, Cas? And what will ye do to us if we do not care to leave?" she knew it was Stevron who spoke from a shadowed corner. He had always hated Cas, but she knew it was because he had been a man when Walder had married her mother. He knew exactly what she was, and hated her all the more because she had always basked in her own imagined light, "will ye run to yer daddy? I do not think I see him," Cas took in a sharp painful breath, "I do not think I've ever seen him, Little One," her mother's pet name for her, the one that the older siblings that like her still used.

"That is enough, Stevron," at first she thought it was Walder, but the voice came from behind her. It was Danwell speaking from beside the door to great hall, "she is our sister." Casidhe loved him even more. He was her true brother, no matter what.

"And," began a woman's voice from somewhere near Stevron, "as our sister, we have a right to hear the whole story," Cas finally spotted which of her siblings was speaking and laughed.

"You, terrible shrew of a woman that you are, are not a sister of mine," Cas rolled her eyes and turned back to her father, "I have nothing to say to Alys."

"This is getting out of hand," Roose Bolton looked irritated, "there are too many Freys in this room to even breathe comfortably. I have let this game go on long enough. You, Casidhe, are not married to the Young Wolf. I know because the Lady Talisa is standing in the doorway. Do you really expect your father to believe this…this insane scheme of yours?" Cas hoped against hope that he would say the magic words that she needed him to say to make her next move work.

"You shouldn't even be here," concluded Lord Bolton. Cas could have sighed with relief. She took a few steps toward Bolton to close the gap between them.

"I should not be here? It seems that I have somehow polluted your plans for Westeros domination and have caused a terrible mess for you, but I, a Frey, am here and you…" she paused savoring the moment before her grand finale, "…you have messed with the wrong King's wife," whispered Casidhe as she quickly kneed the man's crotch. While he gasped for breath with his hands on his knees Cas aimed one decisive blow to the side of Bolton's neck. He dropped like a stone in the Crossing's great hall. She turned toward Robb Stark.

"He will wake, but when he does I think he should be tied to something."