Yeah, I know I said I was done but a lot of people sent me PMs about how they wanted an epilogue. And to tell the truth, I felt like it didn't end right, either. So here it is.

How To Handle Your Rebel King Husband Who Is Too Young To Conceivably Die of Natural Causes—Westeros Edition

Volume Two

By Israel Loxley Frey Stark

So you're on semi-sturdy ground with your rebel king husband, are you? So you're sleeping again, are you? Congratulations! You now find yourself in the best/worst position any woman can possibly be in! Pat yourself on the back if you haven't thrown yourself from a tower by now—trust me, you've made it farther than most of us. Now that you've had a diva rant of epic proportions and have nearly broken four toes kicking a pine tree, you suddenly find yourself being able to sleep again. Smiles, tears, haters, and other nasty little obstacles have been managed or are in the process of being managed, so it looks like everything is just about right, isn't it?

Wrong, hotshot. Your troubles are just beginning.

I'm not talking about the Scheming Asshole Stewards or the Bag O' Shit Council Members who everyday sit there at the King's table with perpetual scowls on their faces as if they're disappointed that their kingdom is healing. I'm not talking about the little Orphan Girl who hugs your hip every time you set foot outside of the castle. I'm not even talking about the High Septon who stops you in the hallway to preach chastity and pureness as he subtly smuggles his latest girlfriend out the other door. Actually, I am. I'm talking about all of the above. It's not until you're out of the first leg of the race that you realize you've still got a marathon to run. Because being the Queen of a recently independant Northern kingdom is no fun, and let it not be said that the process will get easier just because you had yourself a freak out that will make history and your husband and two horses were there to witness it. So if you think that I'm gonna guide you through the orphanages, the ribbon cutting, the boat with the bottle and all that jazz, then you're in the wrong section yet again. Because believe it or not, once you've crawled out of the newlywed phase (and if by some miracle your vagina is still intact) then you've got a lot more shit to swim through. This is not a self help book. It's a survival guide, and these are words that you (whether you like it or not) will end up living by so don't take them fucking lightly.

Family:

If you're like me, having grown up surrounded by half siblings (mostly illegitimate) and the like, then family and how to treat them is not something that should seem frightening to you. And it isn't. Not in the beginning. Not when you're first meeting the cute little blonde bubbly boy climbing out of a carriage, having just arrived from House Umber and being cradled by his mommy like he just climbed out of the womb. No, that's not a problem. The problem is when the recently reunited family begins to include you in such tedious activities like the early morning rides through the lung freezing air (see: Comparisons: Actions, Volume 1) or the treks through the equally freezing woods. Many of you queens in the north wear clothes designed for fashion, not function, and said fashionable but not functional clothes do not do much to protect you from hypothermia in this weather. You own one or two fur coats but your goal was never to actually use them. This is not a decision made by a smart spending wife who hopes to save a few gold coins. This is a decision made by a tactical genius who does not want to ever set foot outside of the castle when she doesn't absolutely have to. His family will not take this hint. You will order new furs to avoid getting frostbite on your spleen. Say whatever you want. It will happen.

The family will also take every step available to inconvenience you by making you feel really uncomfortable. They will talk to you about their dead dad. They will talk to you about their sisters in Highgarden. They will involve you in 'family activities' far more annoying than the morning ride through the icy northern air, such as the evening rides through the icy northern air and maybe even the after dinner tea and lemon cakes. Take some solace in the fact that your husband hates lemon cakes more than you hate hanging around his family and you might find the situation slightly sweeter.

The family will also put you in painfully awkward positions late after dinner when everyone is having a nightcap of wine or spirits to help ease their aching heads into sleep. Oh, hey, we've got a foreigner among us! Let's regale her with the sad, miserable war stories that led us all to become an independant kingdom and hope that the graphic details we give her won't be enough to make her regurgitate her dinner! Here's to hoping!

If you've got a strong stomach, you will hold your dinner down for maybe an hour or two. But at some point before you go to bed, you will be bent over a bucket and your maid will be holding your hair out of your face and you will be having nightmares about a battle field in smoke for days afterwards. My advice—from one northern queen to another—go to bed straight after dinner. Trust me. If you want to hold down what you ate, you'll find your bed chambers much more appealing than the drawing room. Family is part of home and comfort, that much is true. No denying it. But bear in mind that these people are his family, not yours, so your emotional/physical well being was never too high on their priority list to begin with.

Lady's Maids

Your Lady's Maids are a gigantic part of your everyday life. Literally who else could have the patience and dedication to wake you up at like nine in the morning and help you prepare for a day full of haters, hating, Kale and weird horse gender mix-ups day in and day out?

Well...anyone. Because your lady's maids could literally be anyone on the street. Just about anyone could do their job—and probably better. But your lady's maids come hardwired to serve and protect you in whatever ways they can. They're not bodyguards—they can't save you from assassins. But they're a different sort of protector that can prove to be equally challenging: instead of swords, they carry pretty fans or gold-spun drawstring purses. Instead of daggers, they have nice words and white smiles and their brains are fucking banks. I'm not kidding. These girls dress like you so basically everyone can recognize them as your girls, but somehow they manage to slip into the shadows conveniently to pick up juicy bits of information than can make your day to day life a gazillion times easier. You will be awakened at nine in the morning and your faithful maid will be there to solemnly inform you that they've gotten word that Scheming Asshole Steward is planning on cancelling your order of bluewine and replacing it with Dornish white wine at the King's name day feast. And then by the time she's informed you of this coup de tat, she's already got twelve different ideas forming in her head on how to thwart this magnificent plan of his and guess what? Her plans don't actually involve stabbing him to death with a quill! And you know what? When you first hear this horrible catastrophy that Scheming Asshole Steward has planned, your thoughts all run along the lines of 'bloody murder', whereas your lady's maid, who has already had the appropriate time to entertain these thoughts, has overcome her shock/anger and is ready and waiting with a plan.

See? Useful.

There's also the little things they do that make your life bearable. Like holding your hair out of your face as you regurgitate your dinner (see: Family) or holding the leash for your savage pet wolf. They also double as therapists but you need to be careful. If, like me, you've projected an image of calmness and perfection, then your therapy sessions will be limited to one or two sentences about how exhausting your life is. For example:

'Life as a queen can be truly exhausting sometimes.'

That. Is. It. Do not go any further. Because believe it or not, these girls will eventually get married and new ones will enter your service, and the fact that they will one day leave Winterfell with the knowledge that you regurgitate your dinner nightly is bad enough. Get too comfortable and they'll be building themselves an arsenal of juicy, humiliating details about the life of the northern queen and you'd be surprised how much shit they'll have on you.

Cautious you may be, but don't forget to be friendly. These are the girls that handle your clothes and your pets and manage your day to day lives. If you want to avoid being poisoned one day, you kind of need them to like you. But that friendliness ought to stem from a real, genuine appreciation, because nothing is more reassuring than waking up to a young girl's pretty face as she informs you that no less than three people saw you puke into a bucket last night right before she informs you that she's already found blackmail material for damage control.

Pets:

No queen can call herself royalty without a few furry companions. And she's got especial edge if said companions scare the tar out of people. As a northern queen myself, I'd recommend a direwolf. Your rebel king husband's house sigil is a direwolf, after all, so of course nothing would shut people up more than the fact that an animal that so perfectly embodies the north has chosen you as his master. Particularly if said direwolf refuses to even let most people breathe the same air as him. The bottom line is that most of the time, your furry companions will be total assholes—even more so than the people you encounter on a daily basis—but this will not be a bad thing for once because these particular assholes are actually on your side. They will growl at people that you do not like. They will shit on the head of Scheming Asshole Steward. They will neigh and rearkick the stable boy who called you a bitch last weekend. Why? Because your pets are from the North, just like the people who very much enjoy making you suicidal, and that means that the tendency to be total dicks is as much in their blood as it is in the people's. You reap what you sew, motherfuckers.

Mind you, your pets are not therapists, either. You cannot complain to them about life because a) they don't understand you, b) they wouldn't give a shit if they did and c)most of the time you're going to be trying to prevent them from killing each other. Which they will try to do. Semi-regularly. Chivalry may be slowly dying in the world, but I'm fairly certain it never even existed between animals.

While on the topic of pets, I ought to tell you how to handle your husband's. This guy is a king, therefore his pet is the most badass by default. You're going to be competing with a big gray direwolf for the public's affections maybe fifty percent of the time, and that's an absolute. Unsurprisingly, the direwolf is usually going to be better liked than you. Nothing personal, just that people around here don't take much liking to anything that has 'Made In Somewhere Other Than the North' written on the tag. And if it were up to them, then their precious ginger king would be pumping his meat into a wolf every night of the week instead of a Frey girl, because apparently Frey girls are pretty fucking low on the social heirarchy here. Your instance of power—marrying aforementioned gingersnap—is a terrble mistake that everyone wishes they would take back no matter how gorgeous your newly completed Great Sept is and regardless of the fact that the castle now glows during the sunset. Glows. Like a fucking star.

I'm going off topic here.

Anyways, this wolf of his is absolutely terrifying and isn't too quick to befriend people, but unlike your own savage pet wolf, your husband's wolf isn't a total bitch. He's mature and quiet and really fucking cool, except when he stares into your eyes and looks at you as if he knows just how desperately you wish you could pull out a flaming crossbow and shoot everyone in sight. And every night when you tuck into bed, he will nudge your hand softly as though silently thanking you for all the effort you put into not being a serial killer. He is the only living creature—human or not—who will do this, so you'd better believe that this is the closest thing you'll be getting to a true friend that you're not obligated to actually talk to.

Hating on Haters

It will happen. You will hear something nasty whispered in passing. Your lady's maid will come bearing news of Scheming Asshole Steward's newest plan to fuck you over and make himself shine. Or someone will simply not give due appreciation for the newly completed Great Sept. It doesn't matter how it gets to you because it will. And you will act like it doesn't bother you but it will. It will slow simmer in your brain for hours at the best and weeks at the worst and there is not a damn thing you can do about it because it will sting the same every single time. If you're a grown ass human being, then you will be able to simply shrug off the meanness you encounter daily. And if you're an immature angry teenager who was almost literally dragged into the spotlight kicking and fucking screaming, then you will take a more/less wise approach: you will seize every opportunity to show people just how useless they are and just how much shit they'd be eating without you.

Believe it or not, Rebel King Husband can be useful here. Because husbands deal with you day in and day out, they usually get a good look at how much work you put into something. And if your backwater gingersnap husband is a rebel king that fought for the winning side, then he will most definitely understand that your frustration with his subjects can—and will—one day end in everyone being eaten alive in a canniballistic rage. This chronic terror that you will eat his subjects will result in all sorts of neat gifts. The recently completed Sept will have a plaque of jewel encrusted silver honoring you. The observatory will be named after you. A bronze sculpture of a wolf will be erected in your honor. Everywhere you look, there will be standing memories of your greatness/contributions to these people masking the silent prayer your husband is making to the Gods that his wife won't snap and bite everyone's head off their shoulders.

It's going to take a while to get into the groove of things, but the unfortunate, inconvenient truth is that these people are always going to hate you. No matter what you say, what you do, what you've done already, they will hate your rotten Riverland guts. They will hate that they are not you, that they can never be you, and you must accept the fact that these people will need at least a decade or so to get used to you. Remember when you're in doubt that your Riverland-born mother in law got these people's heads inside her asshole at some point in the last twenty odd years, so you definitely can, too. Until then, haters gonna hate. Just keep them eating shit until they decide to cough it up. Eventually they'll all come around. One by one. Keyword: eventually.

Food:

Your homeland and the North are two different places. Although you both have things like sheep and bulls and fish and stuff, nothing will change the fact that in a new place, it's hard to eat their food. It doesn't matter how good or bad the cooking is. It will freak you out. You will drink nothing but water for the first three weeks. This will happen. You will wake up and go to sleep thinking about the food that people have been forking down. You will feel gross and uncomfortable at the idea of eating it yourself. If you shovelled veal down your throat every night of the week back at the Twins, then you will only get in a bite or two before you get sick to your stomach in Winterfell. It will be several months and maybe twenty pounds lost before you finally have it in you to eat half a plate of food. The upside is that your measurements will make everyone jealous.

Because your body doesn't seem to care how uncomfortable you are, you do actually need to put something into the tank to avoid dying of starvation. In such situations, I suggest you find something you can recognize that doesn't require every ounce of your concentration to convince yourself isn't going to make you vomit up your trachea. Lemon cakes, perhaps? Or maybe even a good old fashioned slice of honey bread? Whatever keeps your blood pumping until you can actually eat people food.

And then the next big step is eating the actual people.

Music Night:

Musicians are aplenty in a king's court, but every now and again a bunch of college trained bards and minstrels are gonna roll into the castle, and when that happens, then I sincerely hope you've got yourself a dandy hangover cure. You're gonna need it. Not for yourself, of course, but for your rebel king backwater gingersnap husband because I guarantee you that you will not recognize him the morning after Music Night. But let it not be said that rebel king backwater gingersnap hungover husband looks any less fabulous than he always does—just closer to dead.

The songs sung during a Music Night are the same in every Westerosi territory, but of course every land has its own favorites. In the north, you will find songs about snow and ice and war and blood and bloodshed and men and slaughter and manslaughter and wolves and swords and the freezing morning air and the freezing evening air and mead.

You are not expected to partake in the singing. But you are also not allowed to leave until it's done. I'm not kidding. Try to get up around one in the morning because you're so tired you could sleep on the table. They will not let you go. You will be cheered back to your seat and handed a tall glass of mead or wine and you will not even want to drink it. You will be pinned there in your seat. Once the minstrels have passed out from inebriation (typically at three or four in the AM), you can be forgiven for thinking that you can go to bed at last. Wrong again. You will be dragged back to your seat to witness the drunken lords and Sers of your husband's court as they all pick up the instruments from the bodies of the unconscious performers and they will proceed to pick up where they left off. Everyone will be tripping or falling over something. Absolute carnage. And you will have no choice but to watch every painful minute of it.

On the upside, you will be allowed to sleep in the next day. And because you are not hungover, you will look reasonably better than most of the people that you see.

On the upper upside, Music Night happens maybe once every few months. So your brain has some chance to recover, but never forget the profound effect that music and liquor can have on some people. Hell hath no fury like a minstrel with a pint of mead.

Bodyguards:

Haters hate. It's a fact of life. They hate and they glare and they lurk around with their eyes, ears and bananas peeled searching for some slip up to exploit. But the bottom line is that at the end of the day, these haters are nothing more than sour critics and the truth is that none of them would ever wish to actually do you any real harm. However, because you are a queen, it goes without saying that the Bag O' Shit Council Members and your Rebel King Husband and most of the other people you encounter daily are still thoroughly convinced that there are people out there in the wide, vast world—people you have never even heard of—who for some unknown reason really want to fuck you up. For situations like this, I'd recommend carrying a knife, but of course because you're a queen in the end, that's not enough. You need a bodyguard.

I strongly recommend that you hop onto the band wagon as soon as you can. A bodyguard will happen. I'm sorry. It's true. You can try to fight it but it will not work. A bodyguard will be assigned to you if you take too long, so jump on the wagon early and get a chance to pick one out for yourself. If, like me, you're not overly fond of the idea of being followed around by some beefy, muscly guy five times your size who could just as easily rape you himself as he could save you from being raped, then I'd recommend the next best thing: a beefy, muscly woman five times your size who could turn the tables and let any guy who tries to touch you feel what it's like to take it in the ass. Mind you, this beefy, muscly woman will already be sworn to serve your mother in law and you'll have to sit through a few painful conversations where she reminisces her dead husband before she decides that you have more use for that bodyguard than she does.

And what's cool about having a girl as your bodyguard is that it sort of demonstrates how much no one should fuck with you. You're so badass you don't even need a guy to keep people five feet away from you. This queen in the north is so cool that her entire entourage is made up of girls. Even her bodyguard is a girl that could probably make mince meat out of any guy scratching his balls in the king's barracks. And because she's a girl, she comes with a naturally enhanced sense of smell which means that you won't have to deal with a sweat smelling ball of odor problems. The only downside is that every month she'll be virtually incapacitated and leave you suddenly vulnerable to whoever out there wants to fuck you up.

This aside, treat your bodyguard right. Like your lady's maids, this person is a part of your daily life and also has access to food and drink that you consume. There's also the touchy little fact that this person routinely carries a weapon. So it goes without saying that you need her to like you. But again—like your Lady's Maids—be genuine. The only thing more reassuring than a blackmailing lady's maid is the satisfying feeling of walking down the halls with a six foot something woman who could peel a person's face back off their head.

Boredom

Your mother in law has begun to talk about her early life in Winterfell. The Maester has started to go on about the teachings of the college. The council meeting has a taken a turn to discuss finances. Or it's a weekend. What do all of these instances have in common? In every last one of them, you'll be bored to tears. This will happen and it will happen often. There is no avoiding it. By the end of the first month as queen, you will have perfected the art of being bored out of your fucking skull.

Boredom is part of a three piece set, closely allied with procrastination and distraction. It's a pretty shitty family. You'd think that by being bored, you'd be inspired to run those errands you've been putting off, but you're so distracted by your boredom that you literally can't even move. What did I tell you? Triplets. I guess the more active people out there would seize the opportunity or whatever, but for the majority of people out there, boredom is more of a chance to lie around and stare at their fingerprints than it is to do something as tedious as that outline that's due in like an hour.

So the next time you find yourself sinking into the cushions of your sofa counting the specs in the air, remember that this makes you an artist—a scholar. Not the lazy, entitled, whiny shit you probably are. Boredom is art. Who didn't want to be an artist once in their lives?

Pretending to Be Listening:

The Maester will have caught you in the hallway during one of your precious few moments of peace. The little brother in law will have dragged you along for a walk through the forest. An old crone will be going on about how she could swear she smelled Furrow bark in the godswood once. These are just a few of the situations you will find yourself in where you will have no choice but to pretend that you are listening. You will not have the option to wave it off and walk away. Every single time, you will have to smile and nod and tilt your head interestedly and pretend that you are actually hearing what these people are trying to tell you.

It's not just for these chance conversations. Council meetings will be a good rehearsal ground as well. In a matter of months, you will have razor sharp pretending skills. Unfortunately, pretending to be listening is not a good thing because these people are usually telling you important things so hearing them is sort of non-negotiable. This will apply to Orphan girl who hugs you every morning as you trek through the grounds. This will apply to Scheming Asshole Steward who plays a drinking game every time you open your mouth. This will apply to Rebel King Husband when he does or says just about anything. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. Sorry. You have to listen.

Two-Faced (In)activists:

You know what I mean. The people who say 'someone should do something' while looking pointedly at you as they do nothing. A support in the inner courtyard needs bracing? Someone should do something! A band of silent sisters has gone missing? Someone should do something! Ser Holland is choking on a fishbone? Someone should do something! How much they go on about what needs to be done will always be inversely proportional to how much they actually get done. This is why there are council meetings.

Here, more than anywhere else, is where the Bag O' Shit Council Members gather regularly to discuss problems—and thereby make them worse.

Fact: any problem can be made worse if enough meetings are held to discuss it.

Fact: no one will care about the above fact. They will have meetings to pretend that they are actually doing something.

Fact: if they are holding a meeting to discuss it, that means that you are going to be the one to make the problem disappear.

These northern people love their meetings. They will meet to discuss weapons, medicine, storage, and even the week's menu. Different people, different groups, same two faced (in)activists.

Bitching:

There's a lot of things you left behind when you came to the North. This list includes but is not limited to your home, your family, your feeling of comfort and your peace of mind. You will be surrounded on all ends by weary, sour people hardened by the cold and this will take its toll on you. You will want to bitch to someone, and there's only one candidate who can take up this job: Rebel King Husband.

Up until recently, the Rebel King Husband would have been the last person you'd complain to about anything. But after a particularly peculiar episode involving lots of screaming and kicking a pine tree, this guy has suddenly morphed into your personal therapist. He will pour you a glass of wine at the end of every day and you will drain the entire thing while debating what poison to feed to that Bag O' Shit Council Member. He will join the debate. Not because he's serious—don't get your hopes up—but because he's bitching, too. So there it is. You will develop an unofficial scheduled nightly session where you consume liberal amounts of wine and complain about your lives and the people that you hate. And then, in maybe a month, you will give these sessions a name. You will call them Wine and Bitch. I'm not fucking kidding. You will do it.

Rebel King Husband will not mind that you are contemplating the murder of his council because Rebel King Husband has taken a great liking to your honesty behind closed doors (see: Groping). Rebel King Husband is an asshole who will leave you at the mercy of the in laws for a week and a half while he goes on an extended hunting trip, but he will never miss out on an opportunity to Wine and Bitch.

Groping:

A minor freak-out in the woods will not change this. He will probably ease up a little once he's watched you almost break your fist punching a tree, but it will never stop completely.

Fact: your Rebel King Husband is a toddler who will do things that piss you off on purpose to jerk a reaction out of you.

He will smack your ass. He will wink at you. He will kiss you at the dinner table. He will follow you around to every single meeting—even with the cooks. Aside from sending the message to all of Winterfell that he's hot and bothered, he's also sending the secret message to you that you're getting sort of cold and he's trying to tease out that firecracker he saw in the woods. You will respond to these situations by giving him a very brief glimpse of said firecracker—scream at the top of your lungs as you throw something heavy at his head.

Nights will be surmountable, however, because you will finally have the balls to tell this guy to use his hands every now and again. So the two nights of peace, if you're careful, can become as many as three or four—if he's feeling generous. Which he will not feel most of the time.

This is not a two-way street. He will not become shy and respectable when you smack his ass in public. You will instead be instantly repenting because he will be searching for the nearest closet. He will do it. And you will regret it.

Kale:

So the family is a nightmare and your head is pounding and being a queen is worse than being castrated with a blunt rock. There are lots of ways to react to these unfortunate circumstances you now find yourself in. The best/worst of these is a handy flask of Kale.

Kale, the miracle drink made from pressure boiled potatoes, is a double headed snake. One head consumes your problems, the other head consumes you. More than three sips at a time of this stuff could make you go blind. So you only take one at a time, and only when you truly need it. And a word of advice—keeping it stashed in your husband's study is a terrible idea. He will find it and he will know it's yours and he will laugh at you for three weeks straight because of it.

Kids:

You will have to smile at them. You will have to kiss them. You will have to sit them on your lap and listen to their sob stories one by one. You will have to hold their hands and laugh with them and pretend that you are sad that you're too busy to play with them. And once people see you with kids, they'll start asking the big question: where the fuck is yours?

Fact: queens are supposed to have children. A queen who cannot have a child is not a real queen.

If your Rebel King Husband is largely aware of the fact that you have slight...fertility issues (you are—in all likelihood—barren as a brick) then you both have reached a stalemate to never discuss children with anyone. That will not stop people from asking. That will not stop the stares and the underlying question 'when will you give us an heir?'. Like whoa, people. Are you sure you want a baby mothered by a Frey girl?

So of course being the skinny bitch with no bun in the oven that you are, people will believe that your job is still not entirely done yet. And in truth it's not. You're not off the hook until you've got something cooking in that old, dusty womb of yours. So for those northern queens who have painful odds of delivering children, I say carry yourself with the knowledge that your measurements will be forever flawless. At least until you wake up one morning and find yourself ready to vomit all over the place right before it occurs to you that your bleeding is later than usual. Well by golly, you're knocked up.

About the author:

Israel Loxley Frey Stark was born and raised at the Twins. She currently lives in Winterfell with her husband Robb, two savage wolves, two he-she horses, and a non-housebroken falcon.

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Sequel, anyone?

It's called Definitives, and it's coming soon so keep up.