Rob I
The halls of Riverrun were alight with laughter and scented candles. Lords, Ladies, knights, and everything else in between from across the Riverlands and from the North had all gathered for a tourney being held by Robb's Grandfather for his new baby brother being born. He sat at a table with other children born of lords like him, while his Mother and Father sat at the high table with his Grandfather. Various dishes had been brought out at that point, but the hall was still full with conversation and food past served. The first day of the tournament had concluded, with the joust being the first event. Robb felt drunk off of all the happiness radiating through the air. The children Robb had been sitting with clearly felt the same.
"We should sneak out! My lord father has had more than enough time to drink enough not to notice!" A Frey boy said with a mischievous grin. Olyvar was his name, the young Stark heir believed. He was a funny boy, and Robb knew his half-brother would have liked him if his Mother had not kept him from coming. Robb couldn't help but grin back, but he knew that his own father was no heavy drinker, and that he would have to take more care.
"You have so many brothers and sisters, no one would notice if you'd left, Frey!" Barked another boy from across the table.
"Shut your mouth! I'm surprised they even let you at the table, considering how close to common born and savage YOU are, Blackwood!" Olyvar quickly countered. The two boys quickly descended into bickering, much to the amusement of the other children, until Robb spoke up, cutting the two off.
"Say, how about we DO sneak away? We shall go to the training yard, and you two can settle this like men!"
Olyvar, the Frey boy and Brynden, the Blackwood, exchanged a glance before both nodding and grumbling in agreement. Seemingly forgetting the idea of sneaking out of the hall, a great crowd of the children at the table rose up and ran out of the room, laughing and screaming. To Robb's surprise and relief, the Lords of the halls found it all amusing, his father included. His Mother gave him a look that said 'not to get in trouble,' and Robb shot her a toothy smile before he chased after the children out of the hall.
The halls of Riverrun were not as expansive as his home of Winterfell, but Robb thought that they bore much more finery. Weapons and paintings heralding the history of the castles adorned the walls, and as Robb chased the other children through the castle, he couldn't help but feel a sense of wonder at everything he was seeing. Guards sentried the hallways grunting for the children to slow down, something which they all ignored as they continued to run to the yard. Robb wasn't sure how or if the children knew where to go, but he knew at that point it would be futile to try and slow them, and instead continued to follow.
"Look!" Exclaimed one of the children as the group rounded another corner, "Is the yard through there?" As they stopped and looked at the large opening in the wall, they saw that it led to an opening outside. In the middle sat a large white tree covered with red leaves with a carved face on it's bark. In silent reverence, the children all stared at the tree. It was Robb who broke the silence, "This is the godswood, they wouldn't put the training yard in a godswood."
A serene calmness washed over the group as the children looked out at the great white barked tree. as if a silent voice told the children to pay respects to the weirwood. The group balked at the weirwood garden for a second more before their stupor quickly wore off, and the search for the training yard began for them once again. A loud clamor of laughing and yelling accompanied the lordlings and future ladies as the left, leaving Robb Stark to continue to admire the weirwood on his own.
Compared to Winterfell's, Robb thought Riverrun's weirwood was nowhere as large or majestical. Nevertheless, the boy couldn't help but want to explore the area. Open air and moonlight washed over Robb as he stepped into the godswood. A slight breeze rippled through the branches of the Weirwood as if to welcome Robb, which the boy smiled at. Since being in the Riverlands, the boy had often found the temperature to be uncomfortably warm, so the Northern boy found the breeze pleasant. Various types of trees sprouted across the Godswood much like his own did, but where there was moss and rock, in Riverrun instead was grass and flowers.
The boy was daydreaming about what the next day of the tourney would bring as he approached the weirwood and ran his hand along the carved face on the bark. It was a sad face. Not for the first time Robb wondered who, or what carved the faces into the weirwoods when the sound of someone clearing their throat snapped him back into reality, startling him. The boy did his best to sound brave before he spoke,
"W-Who's there?" He called out as his eyes tried to scan the dark corners of the grove.
"Just an old woman," a voice replied. From behind the tree where Robb had not yet explored stumbled an extremely short woman. The old woman carried a gnarled black stick to help keep her balance, and her hair was so long it went past her back and to her ankles. To Robb, the woman looked like the oldest person he had ever seen.
"Who are you?" Robb asked, backing away slightly as the woman became clearer to see under the old woman looked him over before sitting on the ground and leaning against the ancient weirwood, right underneath it's frowning face.
"Just a ghost who likes to wander the halls of happy gatherings such as these."
Robb stared at her for a moment before responding, "You're not a ghost." The boy said as confidently as he could, "You're just old."
"You don't have to be dead to be a ghost, Robb Stark."
Her voice croaked out of her mouth, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.
"How do you know my name?"
"How could I not? You are the Young Wolf, another great bringer of death. I can smell who you are and will be on the wind, hear it in the echoes of my dreams."
"No, that is not me! I am just Robb, and you… You are some mad old woman and…. And I will tell my Father and Grandfather on you if you don't speak plainly."
"No boy, I tell you only the truth. I have been dreaming of this for many moons now… Great misfortune and misery are coming for you and your family…. I care not for these dreams, and I care even less of what you think of them. I wish for them to end, but the grief… The tragedy haunts me." The old woman paused for a moment, and pursed her lips as she looked at the ground. "I thought that if I came here and told one of you Starks, perhaps I'd finally be unburdened by these dark dreams…"
Fear like Robb had never known in his young life crept up his spine. Death was something he had experienced before. Just a few months prior, his Lord Father had taken him, his new Greyjoy ward, and his bastard brother Jon to watch him execute some rapist the guards in Wintertown had caught. Robb's father had beheaded the man with the family greatsword, Ice. Before the man had died, his Lord Father had offered the man the choice of death or the Watch. The man chose death immediately, without hesitation or apparent fear in his voice. Still, the man shook violently and pissed himself when his father drew the blade. It was the only thing young Robb could compare the fate the woman described would befall his family.
While she was talking, the air around them seemed to grow more and more still. He wanted to cry and run away, but a gross curiosity found its way into the boy's thoughts, and he instead found himself creeping towards the old woman, "How do you dream such things?"
The old woman studied him for a moment, the rustling of the wind in the godswood seemingly answering for her before she finally responded,
"Brave boy. Aren't you afraid of me? I thought you were to tell your Lord Father on me for speaking such things… "
Robb did his best to try and copy his Lord Father's demeanor, despite how afraid and close to pissing himself as he truly was. "My Father says that the only time we can be brave is when we are afraid. And one day, I am to be the new Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell, just as he is. Do you know what that means?"
The old woman nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders, making Robb feel as if she didn't take him seriously. The seven year old bristled at her disregard, "It means I won't be afraid of old women and their dreams!"
A wide grin stretched across the Ghost woman's face, which only seemed to further irritate Robb. "Since I was a girl, I've had these dreams. When I was younger, they were not as vivid, but I could still see glimpses of things to come."
Maester Lewin had told Robb many times that magic was something long dead, something that had died alongside the last dragons before even the Maester himself was born. History and science were the magics of this world, he would tell Robb and his half brother during their lessons. Learning that magic no longer existed was something that greatly disappointed the boy, but if what the old woman was saying was true… Perhaps he could do the same? "But how though? How are you magic like that? How do you have such dreams?"
"Power resides in blood, boy." The old woman replied easily, "I can't remember when I first had my dreams, or what caused them, but I can remember what made them more vivid."
"What?"
For a moment, the old woman opened her mouth to speak, before closing it again. The two sat there in the godswood of Riverrun in complete silence for a minute, The old woman studying Robb intently, as if she was looking past the boy and instead at the spirit that resided within him.
"For what reason should I tell you, wolf boy?"
Robb answered honestly, "I want to have them too."
The old woman let out a short, mocking laugh. "You are just a child. You know nothing of what you want."
"I may just be a child, but I know that I don't want what you said to come true." Robb said haughtily. Another brief period of silence took the place of their conversation in which Robb came and sat in front of the old woman, "Maybe if I do things differently, it will stop your dreams?"
From where Robb sat, he could stare directly into the old woman's face. Up close, Robb realized she looked even older than she did from afar. Lines decorated her face as waves do an ocean, and her eyes were a deep red. It took Robb only a moment to realize there were tears in her eyes. When she finally spoke again, the tears finally broke free and began to run down her face freely, "Only death can stop these dreams, boy." She began. Robb thought she sounded even older than she already looked.
"But as I am now, I cannot die, I believe. I learned that when I watched the people closest to me all burn to death. It was after that when my dreams became more vivid. More intense."
The old woman began to sob loudly, and all Robb could do was watch on, unsure of what to do. A large part of him felt responsible, so he reached out and took one of her old, gnarled hands to hold. Robb could feel her bones under the skin on her hands, and a chill unlike any the child had felt before ran up his spine. The old woman shuddered as well, and snapped her hand away. She wiped away her tears, sniffing. "Say wolf boy, would you happen to know the song Jenny of Oldstones?"
Robb shook his head no, and the old woman sighed. "I told you all I know, wolf boy. Sincerely for both of our sakes, I hope you can change what is to come." With much effort, the old woman hobbled to her feet with the help of a warped, black walking stick. Robb was surprised to see that she was even shorter than he was. "Where are you going?" The boy asked as she slowly shuffled away.
"Back to my hill," the old woman said over her shoulder. "I've done what I need to do. It's up to you now."
She left him there, alone in the godswood, to his thoughts. Robb sat under the tree for a long while, staring up at the branches above him thinking over the fact that his family would die soon. The more he thought about it, the sadder he got, until he eventually began to cry uncontrollably. Robb was glad he was alone, his Lord Father would surely scold him for crying at his age. But at that moment, he knew not what else to do. The pressure of knowing the fate of his family weighed on him, and he curled up in a ball underneath the weirwood tree, sobbing to himself. Eventually, he cried himself to sleep, and in his sleep, he dreamed.