Robb wakes before her, the day of the hunt. He leaves the bed with a feather-soft kiss on her cheekbone and a whisper she barely registers, for her to keep sleeping for a while.
She wakes again to Grey Wind liking her cheek.
"Hey, you." She pushes him away enough so she can sit up and then gathers him in her lap. "Did Robb leave you behind because you're too small?" Grey Wind lets out a yip, climbing her chest to nuzzle her neck. "Just you wait a few more months, you'll be leading the hunts, I bet you will." She grabs him lightly by the ears and shakes his head, laughing when he tries to nip her hands.
She dresses as best as she can alone and then waits until Eline comes to help her with the dress, another one that was gifted.
She sits while Eline braids her hair and lets her eyes wander around the room. Her things had been brought there the evening of her wedding, and now littered the place. And there, beside the place her brush usually rested, were Robb's leather gloves. He owned more than one pair, but she knew those to be his favorites.
"Have they left for the hunt already, Eline?" she asks, taking the gloves in her hands. They were soft, broken in, comfortable in the way leather became after wear.
"Not yet, Your Grace, but I don't think they'll take too much longer," Eline answers, moving the hair that was falling free to the front, covering her neck, still marked from her wedding night.
"Thank you, Eline."
She doesn't see anyone else on her way down with Grey Wind, and in no time she's in the open air, following the sound of voices to reach where the party was getting ready to leave. She sees Robb already on his horse, talking to his Uncle Benjen. His other uncle, Edmure, had bowed out of the hunt, while his mother's uncle was getting ready not much farther away. She can even see her Uncle Tyrion there, although not completely there.
"Robb!" she calls once she's close enough.
"Cerelle." He lights up when he sees her, making his Uncle smile at him.
"You left your gloves in our room." She passes them up to him, and he keeps on smiling when he takes them with his bare hands. Beside her, Grey Wind lets out a small bark and jumps in front of Robb's horse.
"I was just telling Uncle Benjen I was debating on whether I would make the trip there on time. Thank you."
"You're welcome. Good luck on your hunt. You too, Lord Benjen." She turns her eyes to the man as Robb puts on his gloves. The man had the long face of the Starks, trait that had seemed to skip Robb and most of his siblings.
"Just Benjen, Your Grace. We renounce our titles when we join the Night's Watch," Benjen reminds her.
"It feels rather odd, but I guess I can try. In any case, I won't keep you any longer." She inclines her head and turns back to Robb to say her final goodbyes. Behind her, she can hear the sound of horses making their way out of Hunter's Gates.
"Any requests?" Robb asks, sitting up as his horse tries to move forward to follow where her father has already started to move. Grey Wind moves to stay behind her, and when she takes a step back to give Robb's horse space, she bumps into him.
"No. Just watch out for the jokes if you spear any does." She grins at him and Robb lets out a laugh before shaking his head, knowing she knows they'll be most probably hunting boar.
"See you in a few hours."
"See you." She waves at him and stays there until the whole party has left.
She goes to the Guest House, but finds that her youngest brother and sister are still asleep and her mother had left not too long ago, so she decides to go find any of the younger Starks, hoping that maybe they would keep her company for a while.
It doesn't take her long to find a Stark, for Cerelle sees Bran as she's passing the Armory on her way to the Great Keep, jumping from one roof to the other, close to the Guard's Hall. She decides to follow him, maybe she could convince him to get down and go train with her.
She takes her time as she walks, laughing as Grey Wind runs around her legs and almost makes her trip once.
"You're pretty happy for someone whose master left them behind," she says as she moves her skirt aside so she can see the pup as he runs from one of her sides to the other. The only response she gets is a small bark and a jump.
She's near the place she saw Bran, having crossed half of Winterfell already, when Grey Wind stops, ears raised.
"What's wrong, boy?" she asks just before he throws his head back and howls, the sound echoed by at least three more animals. "Grey Wind?" She drops to her knees at the pup's side, but he leaves her behind, running away before she can even touch the ground. "Grey Wind!" she calls, standing up and running after him. He's so fast he has to wait for her before the turns, and it's not until she's closer to it that she realizes he's leading her to the Broken Tower, from where she can hear howling.
She runs there, panting, her skirts fisted as she raises them to run more freely. When she turns the corner, she hears more clearly Bran's still unnamed direwolf, howling at the sky. In front of him, there's a body.
"No—" she whispers as she freezes, looking at the little body lying there in the ground, just like a puppet with cut strings. "BRAN!" she yells once she realizes who it is. "Bran, oh Gods, no, please, not Bran."
She runs as fast as her body allows her, tears already falling from her eyes when she falls beside him. She's afraid of even touching him, but she gets her head close to his and listens for his breath. It's shaky, but it's there. When she looks up, she sees both Grey Wind and Bran's direwolf looking at her, both quiet now.
"Go get help," she says, desperate, and they seem to understand her, because they take off not a second later. She stays by his side, quietly crying, and starts to pray.
First to his Gods, to the ones watching over the North, she prays for them not to take him away, to let him live, to get to twenty and fifty, to grow old in these very same halls where she could see him age.
Then, to the God she grew up with, the one with seven faces watching over them. She prays to the Mother for mercy, for her to watch over him. She prays to the Warrior, for him to see that Bran could see battle, that he could turn into a knight one day like he wanted to. She prays to the Stanger, for him not to take Bran away from them so young, to spare him from death when he was but a child.
She looks up when she hears footsteps coming her way, and she sees a few men.
"Please, help! Bran has fallen!" she cries, and she sees an old guard, Tomard, take command.
"You, call for the Maester. You two, bring a table, a door, whatever you find that we can move him in." He kneels beside her, looking over Bran.
"I couldn't leave him alone. I don't know what to do. I saw him coming this way and followed and then the wolves were howling, and I found him like this," she weeps, clutching her hands close to her chest.
"You did well, Your Grace. Moving him might make things worse. We should wait for the Maester's instructions." Tomard uses his fingers to touch the pulse on Bran's neck as she nods, using the sleeve of her dress to wipe her tears, but more keep falling.
"Oh, Gods," she says after a second, rushing to her feet. She looks away from Bran, unable to keep watching him lay there, motionless except from the faint movement of his chest. "Someone has to tell Lord Stark."
"Your Grace, someone will, these things travel fast."
"But what if it doesn't." She turns then, running away to the stables.
She sees a flurry of activity all around her as she moves, hears shouting and more people running to where she came from, but she doesn't stop until she reaches her destination.
"Hullen!" she calls the moment she steps foot into the stables. "Has anyone left?"
"Not since the party left for the hunt, Your Grace. Is something the matter?" The man appears from behind a door, holding a mount on his arms.
"I need to get to Lord Stark right away!" She marches in, right into the stall where her mare is, opening the door completely.
"Your Grace, your mare is not saddled—"
"There's no time for those things, Hullen!" She goes for the little footstool that's kept in the corner, putting it beside her mare and using it to sit atop her, using her legs as best as she can to stay stable as she grips Apple's mane. "Come on, girl!" she yells, using her heels to make Apple move. Her mare been born in the Red Keep, raised gentle and trusting to answer to Cerelle's commands without hesitation.
"Your Grace—!" is the last thing she hears Hullen say before she exits the stables.
The woods are not new to Cerelle. She couldn't say she knew them like the back of her hand, but Robb and she had taken plenty strolls there, usually with Arya, Theon and Jon for company. She knows the paths there are, and even if she didn't, she's not quiet as she rides, urging her mare faster and faster as she leads her to where she's sure the party must be, if the plans Robb had shared with her the morning of the day before were to be believed.
It hadn't even been two hours since they left, she remembers, and suddenly there are tears in her eyes again. Less than two hours and everything had changed, from a perfect morning to the worst nightmare.
"Lord Stark!" she yells the moment she sees horses. A few men guarding them call for her to be quiet or she'll scare the game away, but she doesn't pay them any mind. "Where are Lord Stark and my father," she demands, and only then do the men look at her twice. Either they notice her face or the tears on her cheeks, because one steps forward and points south.
"They went that way, you just missed them. Go straight and fast, lass," the man says, and she nods her thanks before taking off.
It doesn't take her long at all to reach men, some Lords she has forgotten the name of, that say the same thing the other men did.
"Where is Lord Stark" she demands again, using her most regal voice. She follows their fingers, Apple moving slower as the trees started to grow closer together. "Lord Stark! Robb! Father!" she calls, alerting men until she sees them walk towards where she is.
"Cerelle? What happened?" Robb is the first to speak, coming closer faster, but she shakes her head to him.
"Lord Stark, you need to go back to Winterfell at once," she says, jumping down from Apple. Damn it if he was riding bareback in the way back, he needed to get there soon. When she speaks again, there are tears on her eyes again. "Bran has fallen from the Broken Tower."
She hears the murmurs that start in the crowd they have attracted, but most importantly, she sees the way the pain flashes in Lord Stark's face, sudden and true, and he steps to Apple without hesitation. Robb hurries too, standing there and letting Lord Stark use his hands as a stirrup to climb.
Lord Stark looks back to her once he's situated atop Apple, and she nods and then he's gone, back to where the other horses were left.
"Cerelle, what happened?" Robb turns around to look at her, and she doesn't hesitate to throw her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as she could while he passed his arms around her waist. After a second, she notices he is trembling.
"I found him there. I was chasing him, I wanted to convince him to come down and do something with me, and then Grey Wind was howling so much—I don't know how he fell, that's not like him at all, but I—I just came here as soon as I could, I couldn't bear the thought of you both not knowing." She wills her tears away, focusing on holding Robb as he shakes on her arms.
"Is he—Was he—?"
"He was unconscious when I left him, but still alive," she confirms, and Robbs sags against her. She buries her hand on his curls as he squeezes her even harder, placing kisses against his ear and his hair. "Let's go back to Winterfell. We'll walk to your horse."
And so they go, her arms around his waist this time, his arms around her shoulders. She doesn't know what's happening to the hunt, she doesn't care for it.
When they reach the horses, she finds Apple with a rope around her neck, waiting by Robb's horse, who has been untied and whose reins are in a boy's hands.
"Why did you ride bareback?" Robb asks, only then processing her horse doesn't have a saddle on.
"I wanted to get here as soon as possible," she says, and receives a kiss on her temple for it.
"Thank you," Robb says to her as they walk to their horses, accepting the reins the boy offers to him and mounting easily. "Are you riding with me?" he extends his hand and she accepts it easily, placing herself behind him.
Apple is trusted to one of the boys, and so they make their way back, her arms around his waist as Robb urges his horse on.
Cerelle: you're not naming our kids, what kind of name is Grey Wind.
Also Cerelle: names her mare Apple when she's twelve.