They spend the rest of the morning in bed. There is no hurry, no need for them in any place but where they are. It's a small gift, she thinks, from his parents and hers, to allow them these small moments for themselves. She doesn't feel the need to get dressed, not after the night they had.
"Where did you get this one?" he says, tracing the scar that runs along her forearm, almost four fingers long. He's resting his head on his hand, lying on his side as she rests on her back, furs covering just the necessary to keep modesty.
It's a little pastime they have developed for the last hour. There are questions that arise when they see each other naked, when he sees scars in her body and she in his, when they realize there is more to the other than what they could see with their clothes on. Most of Robb's scars are from training, from playing with Jon and Theon around Winterfell as children, from the time he fell off a horse the first time he tried to ride and cut his shoulder on a rock.
"It was during the Greyjoy Rebellion," she starts, using her fingers to trace it too. "I don't remember when exactly, I just remember there was blood orange juice on our table that day, freshly squeezed. A shipment had arrived from Dorne that same day. I hadn't had any and Joffrey had drunk maybe four glasses already. I was so mad I just took the whole pitch, half full as it was, and tried to run to my chambers. I tripped on my own dress and the glass cut me. I must have cried for an hour while Pycelle sew it shut."
"You must have been scared," Robb says, which gains him a laugh from her.
"Gods, no! Maybe at the beginning, I had never seen so much blood, but when he finished and Mother was trying to calm me down, all I could think about was I hadn't gotten to taste the bloody juice!"
He laughs with her, passing his arm around her waist and tugging her to rest against his chest.
"I think it's time we get up," he tells her, looking towards the window.
"They'll want the sheets as proof." She sighs, resting her forehead on his chest. The night before they had avoided the small wet spot, the bed just big enough to allow it, but she knew people, specially her mother's people, would be sent.
"You didn't bleed, Relle," Robb says, pulling her away to look her in the eyes.
"What?" she asks, startled.
"Not all maidens bleed, it's normal, and you do ride—"
"No, Robb, you don't understand. I'm a princess, they'll want all the proof they can have—" she starts breathing heavily, grabbing the furs against her chest and sitting up.
"Cerelle, listen to me." Robb sits up too and places his hands on her cheeks, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on them. "If my family cared so much, they would have had Septa Mordane check you. We trust you. I trust you, and I know you," he tells her, close enough that she can feel his breath. She closes her eyes and leans against his forehead, her hands going to grip his wrists.
"Thank you."
"Now let's go eat." He kisses her forehead and raises. He still has his breeches from when he went to get their food in the morning, and he gives her enough privacy to get her robe and search for a dress to wear.
"Will you go on the hunt tomorrow?" he asks her, sitting on the edge of the bed as he puts on his boots.
"I don't know." She pulls her arms through the arms of the dress, pulling it up as she speaks. "I've only been to two in my life, and with the whole court here I don't know if it would be too wise."
Though she likes to dress for herself, today she's wearing something given to her as a wedding present, as she will for likely the whole stay of the many guests that fill Winterfell. She understands that some lords traveled far and long for the wedding and would stay there for a while. The Dornishmen, for their part, had probably already left. There were maybe three or four of them, all vassal houses in the name of the bigger lords. She didn't expect more, not even in her dreams a Martell would be on her wedding. There is no big insult, not when the wedding is so far and the bad blood between them and both sides of her family is not without reason.
Robbs comes to help her with the back of the dress, and he places a kiss to the back of her head when he finishes.
"You can do whatever you want, but maybe Bran would like some company."
"So he can leave me by myself and go climb some nice walls?" she asks as she walks towards the place she can see the brush for her hair, throwing Robb a smile on her way, which he answers with one of his.
He offers her his arm when she is done, and she uses her free hand to settle his curls into his head.
"Shall we, my princess wife?"
"We shall, my lord husband."
The hall is full when they arrive, although not as much as the night before. She supposes some people must be in Winter Town, in the one alehouse there is. Now that it's summer, the town is small and some houses have fallen apart since the last winter, or so she had seen in her last visit. She knows that with the wedding there won't be much gold left for that, but they must start preparing soon. This summer had been too long.
She sits beside Robb, and her father is sitting beside Lord Stark, her mother a few seats down, talking with Myrcella. Lalia is with them, and when she sees Cerelle arrive she lifts her eyebrows, her eyes wide as she looks at the princess, and goes back to the conversation only when Cerelle sends her a smile.
"Sooo, Your Grace." She hears a voice before a body slides into the seat on her right. "Enjoyed your first night as a married woman? Do you miss being a maiden?"
"Fuck off, Greyjoy," she bites back, focusing back in her meal.
"I would mess with you any other day, but you shouldn't have this day ruined," he says, and she feels his fingers as they take a lock of her hair. She tries to pull away, startled, but then she realizes he's only pulling it forward, in front of her shoulder.
"What are you doing?" she asks, and when she looks at him, his eyes are tender.
"You don't deserve to have your day full of giggling ladies around you," he says, looking over her head at Robb, "just because someone couldn't keep his teeth from you."
She blushes, but her eyes and smile are honest. It warms her heart, to know that someone she usually bickers with cares about her enough, knows her enough to know that the last thing she would want is to be the talk of the court—more than she already is.
"Your Grace." She hears behind her, and when she turns, it's Lalia in a full body courtesy, no doubt sent and being watched by her mother.
"Lady Lalia, good day." She says, and then her friend can stand and look at her.
"Her Grace the Queen wishes for you to join her and the Princess Myrcella for an afternoon tea and supper today."
"Of course. Tell her I'll look forwards to it." Cerelle nods to her. "Would you mind coming to my chambers after this meal?" Back in King Landing's, she hadn't been watched as closely as she is being watched now by her mother, so they had never really bothered with all these formalities, all the titles and courtesies. Lalia had always been the closest thing she had to a same-aged sister.
"Of course, Your Grace" Lalia courtesies one last time and leaves to sit by Myrcella's side with other ladies.
"That's cold for a mother inviting her daughter to eat," Theon says, turning back to start putting food into his plate.
"That's my mother to you." She shakes her head, and grips Robb's hand when he offers it.
Mother's chambers are the nicest visitor's chambers in the whole of Winterfell. She had made sure of it, had helped Lady Stark and Maester Luwin chose everyone's chambers to avoid any problems. When she opens the door, Myrcella jumps from her seat and into her arms. Her mother remains seated, a cup of wine already in her hand and different sweets laid in the table in front of her.
"Cerelle! We have honey cakes! Mother asked for them to be done just like in King's Landing, those were your favorite, weren't they?" her sister speaks, words rushed and eyes alight and she can't bring herself to tell her she liked them better the way the cooks in Winterfell did them.
"They were. Thank you, Myrcella." She pats her head and smiles at her little sister, pulling away just enough to be able to walk. Myrcella takes her hand to lead her to the seat beside her and keeps talking even when she stuffs her face with sweets. There are candles in the room, even if it's the middle of the day, and it's subtle but certain, the way her mother doesn't like even the light from here. It's not as bright as King's Landing, that much is true, but in the year she has been here, Cerelle hadn't light candles in days there was no rain or snow falling outside her window.
"Where is Tommen?" she asks once Myrcella has finished a story about Tommen's littlest kitten and the day it had gotten lost in the throne room.
"He's with Joffrey, practicing outside," her mother answers, putting her empty cup back in the table to refill it. She notices that she's been drinking a lot more of wine than back when she lived with her, but it is not her place to say something like that, much less to her mother, so she nods instead and focuses back on Myrcella.
Her sister excuses herself for a moment just before supper, and when they're alone, her mother doesn't waste time before sitting beside her.
"Did you consummate your marriage?"
"Yes, mother," she answers, looking down at where she's gripping her wrist.
"Was he kind? Did he do anything to hurt you?" her mother's blunt nails dig into her skin, hard enough to leave a mark, but not hard enough to draw blood. When she looks up, Cersei's face doesn't betray anything, but Cerelle would risk it and say she's scared. She doesn't know anything about her Father and Mother's private lives, doesn't know anything that happens behind closed doors aside from the fact that it had happened a handful of times because she and her siblings are the proof of that. Before, she couldn't have said if her mother's experiences had been good or bad, but it breaks her heart a little to realize this is the confirmation she needed to know they hadn't been kind.
"No, Mother. Robb would never hurt me, he's kind and honorable," and he loves me, she wants to add, even if it is little more than wishful thinking. It had been on the tip of her tongue last night, when she had locked eyes with Robb in the middle of their night, hours after they had left the banquet, panting and sweating, gripping his back with desperation. There had been something soft in his eyes, in his kisses, something she had never even dared to dream about.
He could love me, she thinks, the way Father could never love you.
She decides to stay silent until Myrcella comes back, and when she slips into bed right beside Robb, she places her head close to him and thinks, I think I love you.