It's the perfect afternoon for a climb, Bran thought as he scaled the brick walls of Winterfell. Although I should have started sooner. Indeed, the sun was beginning to set, the wall face in front of him growing less visible in the shadow of the evening sun. He had climbed in much darker circumstances, to be sure, but he didn't want to be late for supper and make Mother worry again all because he had to move more slowly on his descent. She already seemed worried when they all broke their fast that morning, although Bran couldn't seem to understand what the matter was. It was only a training wound, Robb said so!
All of the Starks (including Jon Snow) took their breakfast together in Winterfell's main hall. None of them ate before all eight of them had arrived, and the last to show up was almost always Arya. Bran rose with the sun every morning as a man grown would. To date, he had never been the Stark that stalled breakfast. This morning, though, it had not been Arya who made them all wait, although she had been nearly ten minutes late (a good test of patience, Father would say, but Bran just called it rude). No, today it had been Robb's absence that cost Bran a warm, early meal. He was so late, in fact, that Mother sent a servant to Robb's room to rouse him. At that, Sansa flushed a little and looked like she wanted to object, but the elder girl held her tongue.
The sound of hurried steps not a minute later, though, signaled that the eldest Stark sibling had finally (finally!) arrived.
"Forgive me", Robb apologized as he appeared through the hall's doorway. "I must have slept in." Father just waved him off with a stern look and motioned for him to take his seat.
As he made his way across the long room to the table, though, Bran had recognized a change in his eldest brother's gait; he seemed to walk stiffly and the trek to the table looked almost painful. It didn't get better once he reached the table, grimacing as he went to sit down. Bran took that as his queue to begin eating.
"Are you alright, sweetheart?" Mother had asked with a worried edge to her voice. "You're limping."
Bran had never seen someone's face go that red that quickly as Robb mumbled some dismissive response about training at swords with Theon. Sansa had choke-coughed into a napkin, Bran remembered, and that had been the end of that conversation.
None of that mattered now, though, because Bran was nearing the top of the wall. It wasn't an exciting climb, not like when he went to feed the ravens, but he couldn't risk a higher vantage point so late in the day. The view from here was decent enough, though. He could see the training grounds from here and watching his Father's men train was almost as fun as climbing. Maybe they would be dueling today! That was always Bran's favorite.
But when he pulled himself onto his watching ledge, there were only two figures on the grounds, and neither of them built like soldiers. They weren't even dueling, he noticed with a disappointed humph. One figure, which Bran quickly recognized as Robb, was drawing a bowstring towards his cheek, but no arrow was notched. The other figure was, predictably, Theon Greyjoy. He was standing behind Robb, one hand covering the one on the bowstring and making slight adjustments to his grip, while the other seemed to be doing the same on his hip, correcting his posture. He was saying something, but Bran was too high up to hear what.
Deciding that if he were to spy on his brother he might as well do so properly, Bran climbed down to a lower crevice in the wall.
"...your shoulders. They're too tense. And your stance is too tight."
"And whose fault is that, I wonder?" Robb replied with all of the sarcasm Bran had ever heard him use. But Theon just grinned in that sly way he always did and pulled him closer.
"Fault is a strong word, Stark, especially when the blame goes both ways." And the hand that had been on his hip began to slowly travel up to his waist, wrapping around and pulling Robb flush against him.
They're not very good at training, Bran thought with confusion. He had seen Theon hold other people like that before, mostly serving girls in tucked-away corners when neither of them would have seen a small boy like Bran peeping curiously through the window. But this was Robb, not a serving girl, and the training grounds were most definitely not a tucked-away corner in some unoccupied chamber.
His brother lowered the bowstring and turned his head slightly to face his "training" partner.
"Not here, Theon. There are windows and corners all around, and you know how Arya and Bran like t- mph!" Whatever he had wanted to say about Bran was forgotten as Theon pressed his lips fiercely against Robb's.
"Stop worrying, love. No one will see." The bow fell to the ground, all but forgotten, and Bran winced when he thought about the damage it may have sustained. Ser Rodrik will blame me for that, you meanies!
After what seemed like far too long, the two pulled apart, still touching foreheads.
"We should head to the dining hall," Robb said lowly. "Mother will fume if I'm late to another meal because of you".
"Will she now? And Lady Catelyn knows it was me that caused that limp of yours?" Theon joked, which made Robb huff and playfully push him away, a flush visible on his cheeks even in the dim evening light. The two left the grounds not long after, leaving Bran to the now-dark castle wall, cursing himself for ever deciding to climb that day.
Bran was late for dinner that night, and he cared much less than he thought he would about breaking his perfect meal attendance record. For once, he felt he had a much more pressing issue to weigh on his mind. The look Sansa gave him when she caught him staring confusedly at Robb halfway through the meal told him he wasn't the only one.