Hello!

I came inspired for another story. I'm currently writing a crossover between Harry Potter and GOT but I felt very inspired to write this story and would like to know what you think of it.

This story brings many changes regarding the canon of the book and I am definitely sure that more than one will find it interesting.

What is the main difference? Here Robb and Sansa are twins... and they are 'bastard' brothers although some explanation will be given later in this chapter as well as in the following ones. Furthermore (as more information will also be given in the future), the lands beyond the wall belong to the North; In addition, the North is a more organized territory with its own new laws, being a territory in constant turbulence.

Also Robb and Sansa were born in 280 AC, two years before Robert's Rebellion, which makes them two and a half years older than their brother Jon (cousin here in this case).

This chapter serves as a preview to see what you think and see if I can continue this story regularly, depending on the reception it gets.

Warning: violence (graphical sometimes), strange dark themes, and a much more medieval Westeros than in canon.

Complete Summary:Robb seeks to take back what is rightfully his without harming the innocent, Sansa wants to do what she thinks is right, and Lord Eddard wants peace. There is also Jon, who just wants to recover the relationship with those he loved as brothers. And, of course, there is the Game of Thrones plotting behind everyone's back.

Chapter One

Trodde

Year 297 A.C

"They will be here soon, magnar," Edwald informed him.

Robb sensed his nerves at that moment, though he didn't say anything about it. He was also nervous but tried not to show it in the slightest. Banners should never see that their Lord—or magnar, as they called him—was worried about something. That weakened morale. So instead of saying a word, he hunched slightly over Gwain's saddle—his mighty horse that had long been with him—and, without taking his eyes off the frozen valley, stroked the hilt of his sword.

His sword was called Tyddewi, a word that in the language of the first men referred to the son born of ice and flesh who struck down the frozen demons in the Lands of Always Winter. Robb didn't believe in the Others but the name was too attractive that he decided to give it to the sword. He had achieved combat, when he was only almost fifteen years old, during the siege of Frostfangs. Tyddewi had belonged to a rebel known as Bardug the Red… until Robb killed him in battle and thus Tyddewi fell into his hands.

The sword was made neither of steel nor Valyrian steel but of wildsteel, the steel that was mined from the Eagle Mountains in the Far North. It might not compare against the old Valyrian weapons but surely, there was nothing more lethal after those weapons than wildsteel.

Tyddewi was a magnificent sword, even better in his opinion than Ice, lord Eddard Stark's sword. Long-bladed, incredibly light, many were those who had yielded to its edge. A warrior's sword, and as such, Robb carried it with him that day in this forest perched high above a frost-covered valley through which a torrent ran. He carried not only his sword, but also his falchion—Attor— essential in tumultuous skirmishes like those of a shieldwall. He also carried his shield, where he featured a snarling painted wolf's head while an eagle perched on his head—the symbols together of the house Stark and the house Rayder.

He was Robb Redstark, protector of the Far North and a misguided lord cast out of his rightful claim of Winterfell. But today Lord Robb—or Magnar Robb, it didn't matter—was nervous. And since he was nervous, he was holding the hilt of his sword to have strength.

At first he thought that the sword was called Troddé because its name was written on its blade in delicate runes. Mance, Winterhold's castellan, had explained that Troddé was an ancient blacksmith who had been born in the time of the dragon dance. No one knew where Troddé came from or what he looked like, but the truth is that one day he appeared before Lord Cregan Stark and showed him a magnificent sword.

"It is as strong as Valyrian steel, Magnar Cregan, however it is easier to find, and could carve hundreds of the mountains where I come from. I can build you thousands of swords if you help me take back the Eagle Mountains" Troddé had told lord Cregan as legend said.

Legend has it that the old Lord Cregan taunted Troddé, drawing Ice in front of the blacksmith. 'My sword, wildling, is more than ten thousand of wild swords,' Lord Cregan had said.

The court had burst into laughter, especially from Lord Stark's eldest sons. However, there was one who did not laugh: lord Jonnel—the future Bloody Eye-one—the sixth son.

Jonnel thought of the Lands Beyond, he thought of the riches and he thought of the potential of the North. So he told his father… and so his father made fun of him and took him for a fool. Legends went on to say that Lord Jonnel made no further reply and never spoke of the subject again until two years later, when his father passed away at the hearty age of eighty-three.

When Lord Cregan's heir, Lady Serena—his eldest granddaughter, daughter of his eldest son the late Lord Rickon—was to take the seat of Winterfell, Lord Jonnel staged a coup. The Night of the Wolf they called that event, brutal and fast. Serena Stark was placed in seclusion in her chambers, and her sister—lady Sansa—became lord Jonnel's wife; the others who mocked Lord Jonnel did not suffer such fortunate fates.

Then, after the pile of corpses he piled up, Lord Jonnel marched with a host of thirty-five thousand men to the Wall and there he crossed the land... and many augured that Troddé rode with Lord Jonnel. Even after Lord Jonnel's assassination, Troddé was said to have accompanied four Lords Stark into battle for decades to come, and many claimed he rode alongside Lord Edwyle Mighty Wolf and Lord Rickard Wise Wolf.

Breoloch claimed that Troddé was a magician blacksmith, an ancient one blessed by the ancient gods. If a northern blacksmith left his forge unattended, he might perhaps find the next day that Troddé had been there and left him a sword forged with magic and the blood of the children of the forest.

Robb didn't really believe that old story that the peasants and the very superstitious lords used to explain the Winter Wars and how the Great North had come about, yet the story amazed him. He had heard tales of the Great North before from the maester, but never in such a colorful way.

He decided to name the sword Tyddewi—'the youngest daughter of the Devil'—for that reason. For that and because really in his fight against—late, long after he killed Bardug, before a few months ago, Robb never gave the sword a name—the rebel Joramel the Red he almost saw the Others in combat. Tyddewi was the fastest greatsword, the one with brutal swings, and the one that almost killed Robb. So Robb was filled with animal satisfaction as he slashed open his belly and plunged his greatsword into the savage's plump belly until, amid bloody vomit and mournful defecation, Joramel died.

It was at the Frostfangs and Snowfield's sieges—when Lord Eddard crushed two full-scale rebellions—that Robb became a man. He had been proud of himself, too much, and had shown it to his father.

Lord Eddard had greeted him with the same serious, sullen expression. At no time did he look him in the face. Lord Eddard asked him about his sister, asked how they were both, how their formal studies were going... simple formal questions.

Robb felt a weight in his stomach at the memory of that.

His face hardened.

"Maybe they won't show up," Edwald said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He was a prudent, cautious and meticulous man. Robb believed that Edwald was confident that the enemies didn't really show up.

"They will come," Lord Arnarld grumbled, seizing his whiskers and pulling them, as when he was deep in thought.

And boy, did they come.

Coming from the north and at full gallop, a troop of men on horseback burst in, without shields but with spears. Robb and his bannermen called them the Headless Dogs: they were rebels trying to escape as far as possible because they had no warlords to lead them.

Robb leaned forward in the saddle and tried to count how many horsemen were spurring on the banks of the frozen river. No fewer than a hundred rebels in any case, among whom must have been the man Robb was looking for.

"A hundred and twenty, magnar," Arnald said. He had quite enviable hawk eyesight.

"I think more," Edwald pointed out.

"A hundred and twenty, then," Arnald spoke, shrugging. "What, magnar, do we do? Shall we get going?"

The men paused, waiting for his words. Most of those gathered with Robb were perhaps older than him, more seasoned warriors, but he was the lord. And as lord, it was his duty to coordinate the men in battle. And he knew that all of them would follow him in good faith.

Robb thought for a few seconds.

They were more than his group but they were headed for lands beyond winter, trying to get away through the woods, and they were on foot. If they had come out to be near the edge of the almost frozen stream, it was because they ran out of water and needed to drink, even if it was in those conditions. They were the last remnants of the Free Folk, Robb had made sure of that.

It seemed ironic to him.

While those closer to the Near North had returned to their homes after quelling the last rebellion, Robb had spent four months traversing half of the Far North hunting down and killing whatever remnants remained... as well as leaving reminders, of course, of what would happen if you rebelled against Stark rule.

Robb thought how curious this whole situation had been.

Regardless of the figure of Troddé the magician blacksmith—which was probably an invention of the peasants and fool nobility—the truth is that in the year 147 A.C the most important war began in history since the arrival of the Targaryens to Westeros: the Great Unification Winter War—sometimes mistakenly called Edwyle's Glory War—started by lord Jonnel invading the Lands Beyond the Wall.

Lord Jonnel was assassinated a few years into the conquest, so his brother Barthogan Blacksword had continued the war until a revolt in Skagos cost him his life. Barthogan's successors—including Brandon Bloodtears and Rodwell Summerdream—continued the war in their quest to conquer and expand the region while the rest of Westeros kept their eyes averted from these northerners savages.

The destruction of wildlings, the disinterest of Aegon III and his successors in the matters, and the internal turbulence within the North, characterized one of the most brutal conflicts in the entire history of actual Westeros. Thousands of lives were lost, minor homes were lost, lands were turned into phantom cemeteries... so much destruction.

The war was almost lost had it not been for the birth of the greatest warlord in the North: lord Edwyle Stark the Mighty Wolf. He ended the conflict sixty years or so ago, when he defeated a confederation of wildling tribes in the Land of Always Winter. Thus Lord Edwyle proclaimed the Unified North—divided into the Near North and the Far North—and the Starks as 'Lords Paramount and Warden of the Unified North'.

However, it had been Lord Rickard—Edwyle's unique son—who had brought order to the Unified North: he created cities at various points in the Far North and began the process of civilizing the farnortheners (before called wildings), creating various houses of wild origins by mixing them with nearnorthern blood; as if that were not enough, Robb's grandfather created the so-called Rickard Code—a compendium of laws and rules that applied to all the lords and peasants who inhabited the vast region. Furthermore, lord Rickard had also created three lesser Warden titles for defense: the Warden of Winter, under the hands of House Thenn; the Warden of the Frostfangs, under the command of the lords of Barren Oak; and the Warden of Far North. Of all these positions, the last one was the most important: the guardian of the Far North was the lord who established order and protected the territory—as a kind of lord of the region—on behalf of the Starks of Winterfell.

Unfortunately, not everything was rosy. The Far North was still a troubled land: occasional rebellions by tribal chiefs reminiscent of the time when they were free and did not obey Stark laws were not uncommon. They called themselves Free Folk, and they were a nuisance to both trade and regional unity.

Months before, Joramel of Snowfield—a land beyond Frostfangs—had declared himself in full rebellion and executed the southern lovers who were in his land, proclaiming himself King- Beyond-the-Wall.

Lord Eddard, in his duty as Lord Paramount, had intervened: he had taken three thousand six hundred men from the North, joining more on the way, and had called upon all his banners. It had been the third time that Robb had tried himself on the real battlefield and it was the third time that he had gained popularity among men.

Robb the Red Wolf, Robb the real lord, Robb the good lord, Robb the Young Wolf, The Hero of Snowfield... so many nicknames it made him dizzy to think about. Lord Redstark, the one who should have been heir of Stark, was also another nickname they had for him.

The war was suppressed but still the situation had not improved at all. Robb frowned at the thought.

No, nothing was over.

The people of the Near North might be suffering from the taxes of the Stag King, but who was bearing the brunt?

The Far North.

The land, even with its surface covered in snow, was quite good for agriculture... but what good was that if almost all the grain went to the lords of the South?

The rebels weren't monsters. Joramel the Red, that fucking bastard, neither. They were hungry peasants, farmers. And that war has only served to make the North weaker, taking away their own reserves even more.

Despair raged in the Far North, throughout the entire North as one voice. There was so much suffering and so much weariness, so much discontent, that anyone would think that the Stark were failing in their duties to their banners.

"Just because we've been fighting too much and we're not really united. There will be more wars to come" Sansa once told him.

He thought about his sister.

His lady Sansa.

He hasn't set foot in Winterhold in over months, too focused on hunting down rogue Free Folk and quelling any rebellion.

How would she be? He was sure she was safe, after all there were over four hundred men who would give their life to make sure she was safe, but he still cared for her.

Sansa was his only true family and his only asset in the real world, the person that always gave him the right advice and supported him in the times of greatest need. From the time they lived in Winterfell with Lady Stark's sour eyes until the moment of their exile... They had grown up together and they were both half of the other, they were twins. Baric, the maester of Winterhold, said that the twins were born from a soul that was divided in two. Robb, still sneering at the southern gods, thought how true his words were.

And he also thought that he should go home now.

He needed to see his sister again.

They trotted down the hillock some time after the rebels and headed south along the creek. He ordered Arnald to go ahead of them to better keep an eye on the rebel group. From the moment Arnald stepped ashore until he found a spot where he could get an idea of what was happening to the west, Robb kept an eye on him.

Crouching low and holding up a hand to tell them to go carefully, it was a long time before Arnald hurried back to his mount and motioned for Robb to get going.

When Robb and company reached him, the bearded man greeted them with a wide, raw smile. "Magnar, shortly after passing to the other side of the valley, they made a halt" he said with a sibilant voice. Anarld was missing his front teeth due to a complete lack of hygiene. "And they stripped off their shields."

Robb had been told that the fleeing rebels had their shields strapped to their backs but Tyw—the rapist rebel that Robb was looking for—knowing the difficulties they would be in at the end of the valley, had seen to it that his men were in a fit condition. quarrel.

Robb ordered his people to get ready. "They'll dismount as soon as they see they've reached the end of the valley, then"

"And they will form a shield wall," confirmed Torva, another of his henchmen.

"So there's no rush," Robb concluded.

'Maybe they'll be in a hurry,' Rundwald said, worried that the fray would start without us.

Robb denied, "there are sixty-five men waiting for them. Tyw may think there are many more. Even so, he will be careful".

Tyw had two warriors for every soldier Robb had, but Robb had the advantage of being on top and having his own in a shield wall. If Tyw didn't want to be exposed to an attack while his men formed their own wall, Tyw would have to order them to dismount at a safe distance and, only once they were in formation and the horses safely secured, would he decide to advance—maneuver that perforce would have to be slow.

The southerners fought roughly, without thinking, but the northerner fighting was more ruthless and violent. Shield walls were the most popular form of fighting... and fighting in shield walls—where you could smell your opponent's breath, and slashes and slashes rained down everywhere—required courage.

Tyw probably believed in his numerical superiority but still he should be wary and scared that he was being followed so he would proceed cautiously…just what Robb expected.

Tyw was in no condition to take casualties.

With Joramel long since slain, many wildlings calling themselves the Free Folk had launched an exodus to flee the retaliation... not before looting, of course. Robb chased after them one by one, collecting their heads to reduce the number.

Tyw was one of the last heads missing from the bag that would arrive at Winterfell. And, no doubt, he was one of the most deserving. Joramel was a dreamer but Tyw was a rapist and a murderer.

"Remember!" Robb yelled at his people. "Only one has to be left alive!"

Only one has to be left alive.

That he had learned since he was fourteen. Only one should be the bearer of bad news and put fear into the body of others. Only their hands would be cut off, simply because an emissary capable of holding on was not needed, of course.

Sansa didn't like swords or using weapons, she always found it too rustic. She knew how to use them—what northern woman really didn't know how to use them?—but she never really felt comfortable with them. Not that brutality that ran through others veins when they fought.

She had learned to fight because of Robb and because she had a duty to be a Lady of the Winter Wives. The current wife of Lord Stark refused to follow these wild ideas of adapting to the role of her so Sansa had decided to continue with her role.

Winter is Our Husband, as the motto said. It had been the idea of lady Marna Locke—the wife of lord Edwyle—to create two organizations of specialized and permanent warriors for the protection of the North. Thus the Winter Horde and the Winter's Wives squadrons were born. The Winter's Wives were women of Northern and Farnorthern descent who served the lady of Winterfell and were trained to be the best of the best. When the North marched to war on a grand scale, the Winter's Wives marched with their Warrior Lady in command while the Winter Horde closely followed the Lord of Winterfell.

However, Lady Catelyn had relinquished that glorious right long ago. Lady Tully—Sansa refused to recognize her as a Stark—was a southerner, a southerner accustomed to her seven-faced gods and her Andal beliefs far removed from First Men lore. Warrior women? Gods carved in trees? Different religion? All these ideas and many others horrified Lady Catelyn. Especially the presence of Robb and Sansa. All northern customs were disgusting to her.

Sansa decided to take the role of Lady Warrior, in a clear show of defiance, although no one objected when she sheltered the Wives of Winter and became her protector. As a lady of the Far North, even though she was a 'bastard', the people did not object to a Stark woman leading women to war. Twice, when the situation called for it, she went to war with Robb... and with her Winter Women.

Besides, honestly, who liked the Lady of Winterfell? She was striving to southernize the North to the point that none of her children wanted to go the way of the Wolf?

Sansa focused on the women practicing in the castle's inner courtyard. There were over three hundred specializing in sword spins. Such a crowd could fit comfortably in Winterhold's inner court, and possibly much more.

Moat Cailin was perhaps the largest castle in the Near North, but nothing compared to Winterhold. Winterhold probably rivaled Harrenhal for the role of the largest castle in Westeros.

Edwyle began to build it in what was the Haunted Forest area, seeking to create a castle that would be one of the seats of Stark power and protect the Far North. Unfortunately, construction was only completed during Lord Eddard's time, more than sixty years later.

The castle had six towers—one more than Harrenhall—of dizzying size, with equally monstrous curtain walls. The walls were incredibly thick and its rooms were built on a enormous scale. It covered four times as much ground as Winterfell and its buildings were so much larger that they could scarcely be compared. Its stables could house a thousand horses, and the Godswood covered twenty acres, and its kitchens are as large as Winterfell's Great Hall.

To face the bitter cold, Winterhold had been built over natural hot springs, and the scalding waters rushed through its walls and chambers, filling the halls with a moist warmth. However, the castle had a great weakness: it was too big and many servants had to be hired to keep it functional. Also, Sansa suffered from headaches when she had to hire masons every month to keep all the areas in good repair.

It was too expensive a fortress to maintain but Sansa did her best and she decided to make the best of it that she could.

Her brother Robb was the lord protector of the Far North and should keep the region well but she was the Lady of the castle. It was her duty to make sure everything was in order and the banners and peasants were fine. Every day she used the great hall in the morning to receive nobles and peasants and listen carefully to their demands, just as she tried to keep the gigantic barns full which would be opened in times of greatest need.

People would always talk about Lady Sansa and Lord Robb, the good lords who took it upon themselves to protect everyone under their charge in the Far North… and that was the good thing about being gentle, because people forgot a little of the bad. Robb was the weapon and she was the one who softened the blow.

She thought of Robb, her Robb.

She hadn't seen him for months and she was already starting to worry a little, although she received letters every so often from one of the banners. Lord Thenn had said that Magnar Robb was close to his lands and the lords of Barren Oak as well as the Giantsbane said the same from time to time. And everyone said that the Red Wolf had passed by recently, and that he brought order to the land... and left the bodies of rebels on pike nailed to all the roads, even though the leaders hung upside down with their guts falling from their skinned bodies.

That sounded too much like something Robb would do.

Robb's ways were too wild but effective against traitors. She and Robb were seen as good lords but there would always be people who would consider them bastards and those people needed to learn the brutal courtesy of the North instead of the southern kindness that Lord Eddard had brought. Northerners didn't value kindness, they would only follow a really strong leader who knew how to be brutal and honorable at the same time.

You only had to see that in the last eighteen years there had been six rebellions in the North. Lord Eddard wasn't a bad ruler when it came to honor but he was heavily influenced by the South, especially the fact that he let King Baratheon bleed taxes to the North.

"And he is the illegitimate Lord Paramount," she muttered under her breath. A usurper lord who was in league with a usurper king. Almost poetic.

"My lady" she heard a voice behind her, coming up the stairs.

Lady Sansa turned to see Maester Baric and Mance hurrying up the stairs.

She stopped watching her soldiers training and turned her attention to the castellan and the Winterhold maester. "Good morning" she commented, her steel blue eyes taking in the two figures.

Despite being barely seventeen years old, Sansa was quite a woman. She was as tall as Robb, which was saying a lot, and her graceful figure was not dampened by her cold features. She was a northwoman: she wore a white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of white leather, with a white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved wolf head and a white tunic with bone fastenings.

The blood of the first men boiled in his blood in the purest possible way, not yet corrupted by southern blood. The banners called her Fiery-haired Lady, considering that her hair was a blessing from the gods.

"We are sorry to disturb you so early, my lady, but we have important news to discuss" Mance, the castellan of the castle, told her. He was slender, middling height (but broader in the chest and shoulders), with long brown hair painted with gray.

"Has something happened, Uncle Mance?" Sansa inquired. Her face remained completely relaxed but her eyes narrowed slightly. "It's about my brother?"

"We have not received a letter from Lord Robb, my lady," said the maester. Sansa felt a little relieved. "However, it is about him. Lord Stark wants him to come forward as soon as possible to discuss his behavior."

Sansa's shoulders relaxed a little more, before she looked back at the inner courtyard. "So he wants to execute my brother. And probably marry someone" she commented.

"Lord Paramount would never do that, my lady. He is honorable," Mance objected though there was really no strength in his voice.

Sansa didn't even look at them, "he's honorable, too honorable to know that he should take that belonged to my brother and keep it."

Silence fell.

Sansa had been very young when it happened but she didn't forget any of it. How could she forget those things? How could she forget her own history?

Twenty years ago, Lord Rickard had decided to make marriage alliances for his children and ensure the strength of the kingdom at all costs. He planned for his eldest son, Lord Brandon, to marry Lady Catelyn Tully against his will. However, Lord Brandon—whom people called Wild Wolf—escaped from Winterfell and married a woman from the Far North. Wanting to do it as quickly as possible, Lord Brandon used an old northern wedding custom (swearing to betrothal to him in front of a weirwood).

So Lord Brandon married Lady Skaists of house Rayder—a small but honest house—and as there was almost a civil war between the Trident and the North for the second time but in the end they managed to make a peace compromise. The truth is that despite everything, the marriage was never considered legitimate nor the children that came from this—Robb and Sansa. However, Lord Brandon was acclaimed and loved by all so nobody would have said anything when he became Lord of Winterfell... unfortunately the Mad King had a lot to say about that.

Sansa was three years old when her father and her grandfather were executed in King's Landing. Her mother had died of grief a year after her father's death. Her memories were dim of her father but she wholeheartedly hated the Targaryens, and she still did.

When the war was over, and the Baratheons were kings, Robb was supposed to be lord of Winterfell as the son of the late heir. Lord Eddard was supposed to be regent until Robb came of age... and instead, the king declared that Brandon's sons were bastards and therefore had no right to rule. The wardenship of Winterfell and North passed into the hands of Lord Eddard; Sansa and her brother became bastards in their own home, forced to bear the last name 'Snow'.

Did she blame Lord Eddard?

No, she didn't.

Her uncle was too honorable and she knew this was all pressure from the king. She couldn't blame the Northern banners either. Lord Eddard was a renowned lord and famous for the war in which they deposed the Targaryens. It was all Baratheon's fault. However, just because she didn't blame her uncle didn't mean he liked him. She never loved him, nor her cousins.

Robb, on the other hand, tried to be as close as possible with their cousins... even if they received the most cold shoulder from Lady Catelyn. That woman hated them. Robb hated her but Sansa didn't. Not even when she had them sent to Winterhold at the age of ten.

Sending ten-year-olds to such a large castle and sending their legitimacy to the king, allowing them to use the Stark name, was a way to get rid of them. Maybe their uncle did it because she felt guilty about everything, because he believed that he had failed Brandon. She even went out of her way to give the title of 'Warden of Far North' to Robb, an empty title.

However, she and Robb prospered better in Winterhold. Since then they had Uncle Mance, the castellan and leader of the House Rayder, and the Maestre who was in charge of teaching them.

They grew and learned. Already at the age of fourteen, they had participated in his first successful battle and from then on they began to take their role seriously.

It was her idea to change his last name before the law. Redstarks. "Red means revenge" she once told her twin brother, "and it is also the favorite color of the gods."

From nominal lords of a region plagued by instability, they became people who had weight in the Far North. It was their land, their rightful home… and in the future, she and Robb would take back what was taken from them, and bring back the principles of the North again. They would bring a change to the region, independence perhaps.

And they would purify the family.

As she had said, she didn't hate her family... but not hating doesn't mean not seeing their weaknesses.

And the Starks were now steeped in southern principles.

In the North there was talk of the inveterate king who spent lavish tournaments and levied heavy taxes on the Northlands, to the point that the people had to try to survive however they could. Most of the gigantic North's barns emptied quickly and the winters were difficult to support the peasants and banners.

Sansa was sick of having to listen every day to how the people lived in the Far North, how the bannermen cried out for a liberator... and her uncle never did anything to rebel against those abuses.

In times of crisis people put their faith in something that gave them hope and the young Redstarks were them. In the North there was talk of Lord Robb's bravery and Lady Sansa's kindness and poise; the lords of the Far North always came to give an account to both, and even lords closer to the Far North came instead of Winterfell. "Lord Eddard's sons haven't battled yet, maybe they don't even worship our gods. They're weak. Besides, Lord Robb is Brandon's son. He's the real heir" people said.

Sansa did her best to smile, to pretend that they were only bannermen of the crown and Winterfell even as she thought of Winterfell day and night. Winterfell, Winterfell, Winterfell. Missed Winterfell.

However, it was also that Lord Robb valued traditions above all else. He was honorable but he never forgave betrayal or abuse. And his drastic responses were not agreeable to Lord Eddard.

Her uncle would find an excuse to scold her brother, seeking to lead him on a good path... and probably marry her off.

Sansa was disgusted by the very idea of being separated from Robb, from the other half of her. She missed her brother so much right now.

"We just have to wait for my lord brother to come back" she said, with a neutral voice, hiding her feelings. "We'll go visit our uncle then"

"The problem is that he doesn't want them to come to Winterfell" Mance commented through clenched teeth. His laughing expression was now bitter and worried.

Sansa narrowed her eyes even more.

"What does that mean, Uncle Mance?"

"It means," the Maester began instead of Winterhold's castellan, "that Lord Eddard is on his way to Winterhold with his eldest son and his entourage."

Sansa nodded, smiling. "Wonderful" she said before ignoring Mance and Baric's stunned look.

Everything went as planned.

The battle took less than an hour, and was such a slaughter that the frozen valley was stained with blood and guts. Tyw was imprisoned and the men with him were cruelly executed in front of the rebel leader's eyes.

Of the rebels, Robb ordered to leave a single survivor. He was a scared and bloodied young man, a child. "Our sole survivor, magnar," Edwald pointed out.

"Sounds good to me," said Robb, "cut off his hands and let him go. It is a minimum punishment for looting the poor"

And after taking care of him, Robb devoted himself completely to Tyw and teaching him what it took to abuse. As he had said before, he felt pain for peasants and nobles... but not for those who engaged in pillage and murder. Especially in the Robb lands.

It took him three days to take her to the nearest town, in the lands of the lords of Vestrilund. The village had been burned by Tyw's men and looted so Robb gathered the villagers together and made them observe justice in person.

"In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm; and the name of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the Unified North; and by the word of Robb of the House Redstark, Warden of the Far North, I do sentence you, Tyw of Free Folk, to die for your crimes... but not like men but like the wildest creature that bites its own and abuses us" Robb spoke.

Men and women alike looked at Robb with the mixture of terror and pride that is born of the most miserable misfortune and that, numbing the soul, gloried in the suffering of the abuser.

Edwald and Arnald brought the condemned man. He was naked, and had grown quite thin from torture and starvation in those days. His feet barely allowed him to stand on the snow, leaving bloody marks on it. His once haughty face was all bruised and bloody, and he could barely speak.

Robb made sure that each soldier could give Tyw his opinion of abusing Northern hospitality.

In the Near North the law of beheading might have been followed, but Robb had been raised in a way that allowed him to understand that punishments were given depending on the sin committed. He could never behead a man for the mere act of stealing a loaf of bread any more than he could whip a murderer, much less simply behead a person who moved from people's desperation.

What happened to justice? What happened to the widows and the orphans and the tortured? Justice is the only thing I seek was the motto of the Redstarks.

The executioners pulled the man down and forced him to his knees. A soldier began to drive several metal studs into the ground forming a square that would have about three steps on each side. When it was finished, the soldiers dragged the victim to the center, fastening the chains on his arms and feet to all four sides, tightening them so that he was totally immobilized, and began their task.

Robb had wine with himself and took several sips before it all started. Even if it was his duty to bring justice, he needed to dull his brain. Seeing such a man would never be easy in his mind.

Never.

They started with Tyw's left hand.

One of the executioners, his name was Harman, drew a copper knife from his belt, the blade of which, though quite sharp, seemed ragged in places. While he began to cut from the tip of the middle finger to the palm, the other sprinkled water on the widening wound, partly to clean the blood but mainly to intensify the sufferings of the condemned.

He then made a second incision from the tip of the thumb to the wrist and once he was done he began to peel away the skin until finally he had skinned the entire hand in one piece including the fingernails. Then, after removing the handcuff for a moment, they began with the arm.

And, of course, Tyw screamed. He yelled too much.

Robb has never heard a man scream like that before.

Never.

Until then, perhaps, Tyw—a rebellious thief who was even worse than Joramel—had not come to believe that he would be subjected to such excruciating suffering, because in the subhuman shrieks that rent the air there was a certain mixture of panic and disbelief, as if in addition of everything that happened to him experienced the absolute terror of what

unforeseen, like a fatal blow from the darkness.

But that nuance quickly disappeared as if everything human about him had been stripped away with his skin. Tyw soon ceased to be a man, simply becoming an object capable of experiencing pain.

It was easier for Robb.

The crowd watched in sullen silence. There was fascination and horror in each of the faces, and beyond… admiration. Admiration for Robb, for the man who avenged them. Tyw had become a body that suffered and experienced extreme pain but at the same time became the symbol of the union of the North, of Robb and them.

The peasants would never have to kill or be afraid because their lord would defend them... and if they rebelled, then they would know that he would protect them by going against the red wolf.

"Lord Stark will probably find out about this," Arnald pointed out, standing next to Robb's horse.

Robb looked at his warrior and nodded. "I hope so, Arnald. I hope so."

Robb was too close to catch the scent of blood that covered those naked, quivering muscles, but his face remained expressionless.

The death of that unfortunate man lasted a long time; his executioners were in no hurry. Tyw, if he could still give that mass of raw, bloody flesh a name, lived at least until his chest and thighs were skinned and castrated, at which point he still uttered a short, useless groan.

The gods only know how long after Tyw survived, since only his muscular contractions could be distinguished.

At last the executioners got up.

One of them, covered in blood, exhibited in his hands the complete skin of the executed man, including his face with hair and beard, like a garment offered for sale.

Rob was not smiling. "It hurts me to do these things, because it is inhuman... but he who rebels against his brothers, even if it is hunger, instead of coming to me first, then he is not a human. He is an enemy of the North and an enemy of the Starks" he said to the peasants.

The assembled peasants nodded, most kneeling. Their faces showed fear but also that feeling that they were sure that the suffering would stop. And Robb was sure it would be a long time before a new Free Folk group appeared.

After that, he had the skinned corpse hung from a branch, with the belly split wide open, and the skin was given to the pigs.

All this done, Robb marched with his men to Winterhold. He hoped all of this would get Winterfell's attention. His far northerners subjects were happy with his rule but the Starks would have a lot to say.

Robb wanted to visit Winterfell.

So far the first chapter of this story. Tell me the opinions of it and what do you think. In the next chapter, we'll see Eddard's and Catelyn's point of view... and we'll see who the Stark children are, and we'll see Jon.

What should I improve?

Do you have any questions about this lore? Any suggestions? Feel free to comment! I would like to know what you think of my work. Also, the reviews are what inspire me to write and push myself :)