Myrcella

Day by day, the Lords had come to answer Robb's call. Lord Cerwyn and Tallhart had been the first given their proximity, though those of further out lands were to come soon. Whether or not she was Robb's wife and carried his child had not seemed to matter to the Lords or the North. All they saw her as was a Pretty Southron Princess, and a Lannister at that. It didn't matter she loathed Joffrey and was the one who had talked Robb into even going to war, they still viewed her with mistrust and suspicion all the same.

The lords had all brought challenges for Robb when they came, and each in turn brought their challenges for her too.

Lord Medger Cerwyn had brought his daughter with him, a large and homely maid of near 30 years, which Theon had japed he meant to plant in Robb's bed. Myrcella thought it was just a jape at least, until Lord Medger announced his daughter would be coming south with them.

Ser Helman Tallhart took a different approach getting his daughter in the bed of a Stark, instead suggesting Robb betroth Bran to his daughter Eddarda, though Robb politely declined. Myrcella knew in truth Robb lacked the authority with which to make such decisions though that was best left unsaid lest the Lords say Robb had no right to call the banners in the first place.

Lord Roose Bolton had suggested that some of her ladies in waiting be used as hostages to try and secure Lord Eddard's release. Lord Karstark had gone so far as to suggest she may yet need to be set aside, though assured Robb that this could hardly be in service to his own interests as his only daughter, Alys, was wed to Daryn Hornwood.

The queerest arrival had been a company from the Vale, with Lord Roose's heir, Domeric, arriving with his new lady wife, Ysilla Royce, Rhea's sister, as well as Robb's uncle, Ser Brynden Tully, the famed Blackfish, Lady Anya Waynwood's eldest son and heir, Ser Morton, and the youngest of Lord Horton Redfort's sons, Ser Mychel, whose brothers had been killed in King's Landing, and had brought a woman named Mya with him.

Not long after she met Mya, Myrcella began to realize who she was, a bastard girl from the Vale who Lord Arryn had welcomed into his service. She remembered in her girlhood a time when she had overheard her mother and father fighting over some girl from the Vale.

She had asked Lord Arryn about it the next day, and he had told her that she had a sister in the Vale that her father had wanted to bring to court, but he would instead be taking into his household. All Myrcella remembered was that her name sounded a little like her own, and with how much Mya looked like father, it all made sense to her.

Domeric and Ysilla had remained at Winterfell until Lord Roose had arrived, and he had them sent to the Dreadfort.

The Blackfish had sworn his sword to Robb, and encouraged Robb that they should march to join their forces with that of his grandfather at Riverrun against the Lannisters.

She hadn't known what to make of Ser Mychael and Ser Morton. Mychel had brought Mya who his father had forbidden him from wedding, she knew, and Morton Waynwood had neither a forbidden love or dead brothers either.

All of it had troubled Myrcella, though now it was Lord Umber who had arrived today, the last of Robb's lords, before Robb would depart on the morrow, and they would be feasting him tonight.

Myrcella decided it best to not wear mourning clothes anymore, and instead wore a blue dress she was borrowing from Lady Catelyn tonight.

When they greeted Lord Umber, Myrcella had found it hard to keep her composure, remembering back to her wedding night, and how this had been the man who had carried her to Robb's chambers, but she had Greatjon, as he was called, stood near as tall as the stable boy, Hodor, though much wider and stronger.

Now they had begun feasting.

She and Robb had taken the Lord and Lady's seat as they had a hundred times before, but it was different now after Robb had begun calling men to war.

Here, Robb had to manage to look every bit like his father even if they shared little resemblance. He sat in the old seat of many Kings of Winter and Lord's of Winterfell, drinking from his father's cup, and putting on the look of a true and proper Stark. Any slip wouldn't serve him.

Robb's brothers, Jon and Rickon, sat next to him, each with their direwolves by them, while they were joined at the main table by Torrhen Stark, who had asked Robb to take command of the forces, though instead Robb had tasked the man with holding the North in his absence, and serve as the Castallen of Winterfell.

It wasn't because he didn't trust me, but because the North wouldn't, she realized. She was Cersei's daughter after all, and Joffrey's sister.

Beyond them was the steward, Donnel Marsh, the Master at Arms, Ser Rodrik, Maester Luwin, and the Captain of the Guard, Theo Wull, while the Freys, Ty and Olyvar were there, with Theon there too.

Myrcella had thought better than to seat her companions at the high table during dinner, knowing they would not win her any love here, though the Targaryens were absent from today's feast, Myrcella noted, as were their former white knights.

Across from them were the Umbers. There was the Greatjon, a booming man, who was joined by his sons, and brothers. His eldest son and heir, the Smalljon, was near as tall as his father, and at just seven and ten, was threatening to eclipse his father. His younger brother, Brandon, was a man of five and ten, who wasn't quite so tall as his father or brother, but still towered over Robb even.

And the Greatjon's brothers were all imposing men as well, larger than her father. The second oldest, Osric, was a man of five and thirty, was the smallest of them, and he was joined by Cregan, a man just past thirty, and Jonos, was nearing it. The youngest, Benjicot, was little past his twentieth name day.

Simple courtesies had been exchanged, but she did not fail to note the looks she was given by them.

Myrcella found herself quite shocked by just how much the Umbers were capable of drinking but for the most part it had seemed to be a normal night. Rickon had been well-behaved, much to everyone's relief, after weeks when he had been rather angry to learn that his brothers were going off to war.

Things went well for a time, until where they were marching came up.

"I mean to make for Riverrun, to join with my uncle's forces there, that we might join with them against the Lannisters to negotiate my father's release," Robb had informed them, which had not gone over well to say the least.

"You speak of Lannisters and your plans when you are seated next to one my lord. You might have done well to use her as a hostage, rather than keep her at your table." Cregan suggested.

Myrcella looked at Robb, who seemed unable to contain his rage at the suggestion, so Myrcella spoke first. "Someone had better have told me that I was a Lannister," she said, fumbling with the stag brooch that served to pin her grey cloak. She was a Baratheon by birth and a Stark by marriage after all, Cersei's daughter or not. It was Robb's child that grew within her, not Joffrey's.
"You are just as much the queen's daughter as you are the king's," the man insisted.

"Careful now," she urged, placing a hand to her belly now. "The future lord of Winterfell grows in me, and he will be just as much my son as he is Robb's then," she told him. Myrcella felt Greywind nuzzle his head to her stomach as well, a bit protectively that she found comforting. Even if a son did not grow within her, she decided it best to say that one did for the time. One day she would surely have a son if not with this babe.

"Do not speak ill of my lady wife, if you wish to keep your head, my lord," Robb managed to let out calmly. She heard a level of iciness in his voice she hadn't ever heard before when he said it, though it made Robb sound like a true Lord of Winterfell.

"And you, my lord, would do well to remember the importance of the Last Hearth. Threaten my brother again, and I'll take our men home," the Greatjon boomed.

"Aye, you can do that my lord," Robb replied. "But we will return from the south, I will march on the Last Hearth, where you will hang for breaking your oath."

The Greatjon cursed, before he flung an only half empty flagon of ale at the Hearth behind them, which the fine consumed happily, but also got wine all over Myrcella. "A green boy against Lord Tywin!" He boomed, before he rose and kicked over the chair he sat on.

Two of the men from Winterfell rushed forward to try and restrain the giant, but he just shoved them away, before he drew his longsword, and all throughout the hall men began to do the same.

A word from Robb to Greywind though, and in a flash the giant of a Lord was on the floor, having dropped his sword.

Myrcella felt her heart was beating so fast that it seemed it was going to explode out of her chest, when the Greatjon rose, blood dripping from his hand. Two fingers were missing from his right hand she saw.

To her surprise though, the Greatjon did not pick up his sword, or begin to charge or fight, and the rest of the Umbers in the hall stopped as well.

There was a moment of uneasy silence throughout the hall that was only broken when Robb spoke up next to her. "My father always told me that it was death to the man who would bare steel against his liege lord. But doubtless you only meant to cut my meat."

Myrcella looked at Robb nervously as he still remained seated next to her, his face not showing any fear to her astonishment. How are you not scared Robb? She wondered.

When the Greatjon stopped sucking at the bloody mess where his fingers had been before he began to laugh. "Your meat… Is bloody tough," he roared, and the rest of the hall began to laugh with him, including Robb. Myrcella joined the chorus, albeit quietly, as she watched the situation diffuse, and her heart began to slow back to normal.

Deep down she still felt a little terrified, but she tried to hide it the best she could. I cannot show my fear here, she had decided.

The rest of the feast had gone with little incident. Myrcella ate to her stomach's content, and drank her fill too, as the night dragged on. She found it in herself to jape with the men around her, and watched as Robb spoke with all the confidence of a proper lord, a man, not a boy.

She was tired though, no doubt because of the pup inside her, and eventually she drifted off to sleep on Robb's shoulder.

Myrcella woke when she was being carried by Robb to their chambers. For a moment she thought to tell Robb to put her down, but she still felt too tired, and before long they were all the way back to their chambers, with Robb placing her on the bed gently, and Myrcella fell asleep again shortly after.

In the morning when she woke, she felt miserable, but she forced herself up anyways, taking off her clothes from yesterday, and dressing in a golden wool dress she had made while at Winterfell.

For a moment she panicked, thinking that Robb had already rode out without her, but when she looked out from the window in their chambers, she saw that the host outside the Wintertown remained there, and didn't seem to be departing yet. He wouldn't leave me without saying goodbye either.

Myrcella looked under the bed, and found the Valyrian Steel sword that she had discovered in the crypts. After he had confessed to her about Daenerys she had decided not to give it to him, but now with him going off to war she figured he could make use of it.

She took the sword, and the favor she had made for him and began to look for Robb throughout the castle, looking first in the Great Hall, to see if he was breaking his fast, the courtyard and the Lord's Solar, before finally she went to the Godswood where he turned out to be, praying before the Weirwood Tree.

Robb wore grey chainmail with leathers underneath, and his sword and dagger both in his belt at his waist, and a fur-trimmed grey cloak that was fastened to his shoulders.

"My lady," he greeted when he had turned around and saw her.

"You are leaving today are you not?" She asked him.

"We are," he answered. There was a red stubble on his face, no doubt because he wanted to grow a full beard now that he was going off to war. "I came here to pray."

Myrcella nodded, understanding. She was worried about Robb, now that he was going off to war. Her grandfather and uncle were not like to laugh and jape with him after a battle as the Greatjon was.

Robb must have recognized her fears too. "I will return, my lady."

"I hope you do," she said, contemplating for a moment what would happen if Robb were to fall in battle. It would depend on if she had a son or a daughter she supposed, but she shuddered at the thought of having to hold Winterfell for her child as Joffrey's sister. The North was cold now as it was with him here, if he were dead she feared she would freeze. If Robb lost, surely that would mean his father's head too, and his mother and sisters and brother.

And doubtless she would be made to remarry too, and the prospect of that made her nervous. She had always gotten along well with Lord Stannis's sons, and perhaps one of those would do, but her uncle had been angry with her father, and she would need to marry a Northerner too for her children's sake.

Myrcella decided she didn't want to know what would happen then. She had wept enough for her uncle and father, she didn't want to have to weep for her husband as well.

"Come home soon," Myrcella said to him.

Robb knelt and placed a kiss on her round belly. I'll have at least one more present waiting for him when he returns, Myrcella thought to herself.

When he had finished, he rose and looked at her again. "I will be back before the birth," he promised, though Myrcella didn't feel so confident. Grandfather is not a man to be defeated quickly.

But she kept that to herself as she took the sword she held and gave it to him.

He took the scabbard with a curious look on his face, and drew the sword from it. The pummel had a wolf's head now, after she had gotten the smith, Mikken, to replace it, and as he pulled it out, it revealed the magnificent dark ripples of the blade.

"Where did you-" he started to ask her, his face seemed to be completely mystified by it.

"-In the crypts, with the dragon eggs. I had thought to give it to you before but… It's yours now…" She told him. He seemed to understand why she hadn't given it to her from his face.

"Does it have a name?" He asked.

Myrcella shook her head. It wasn't like when Jon and Daemon had gotten Dark Sister and Lamentation where they knew what sword they had found, as far as Myrcella knew this sword had been brought back from the ruins of Valyria along with the rest of the treasures.

For a moment she wondered if perhaps it was Brightroar, the lost ancestral blade of her mother's house, that Lord Tywin had spoken of his desire to replace, and who her great-uncle Gerion had even gone on an expedition to find, though that was a two handed great sword, and this was a one handed longsword, and there hadn't been a lion on the pummel like she had seen in drawings of the sword.

She thought about a possible name for it, before she ultimately settled on a name that seemed right. "Wolf's Blood," she suggested, remembering how Lord Eddard had spoken of how his brother Brandon and sister Lyanna had the Wolf's Blood in them, and Robb's sister Arya too.

Robb nodded, as though he thought it was a good name. "Wolf's Blood," he echoed, before he began to take off his belt to put the new sword on.

While he was doing that, Myrcella took out the golden scarf she had been knitting as of late, and put it on Robb around his neck. He seemed to understand what it meant, and after they had finished, they walked out of the Godswood together, arm in arm.

They broke their fast together, one final time before Robb rode off to war, before they finished, and he made for the stables and gathered his horse. Others were preparing to depart as well, and Myrcella could only watch as Robb began to ride out from Winterfell atop a shaggy grey stallion with Greywind by his side, out with all the rest of his host.

When he couldn't be seen from inside the castle gates, Myrcella went to the top of the Winterfell walls, and watched as the great Northern host began to disappear in the distance, and a sense of dread took hold over her.

Author Notes:

I try to avoid ever taking pieces of the text word for word, but this was one instance where I did.

Next chapter should be out soon too.

Thanks for all your reviews, follows and favorites guys, and thanks as always for reading.

I think you guys know the drill by now, that I don't own ASOIAF.