Do not seek death. Death will find you,

But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.

-Dag Hammarskjöld

Chapter Two

Winterfell

A large group of twenty two riders rode to watch a man be punished as a deserter and oath-breaker. Twenty one men, and one woman. It was Bran's first time seeing his lord father carry out the king's justice, and the woman of the convoy was less than happy about it.

Robb Stark's eyes kept flittering to his sister as she rode sullenly beside him, the only sound coming from her direction being Snow occasionally tossing his head. He knew that she was worried about Bran, about what their father had told them of the oath breakers claims. He also knew that half the guards that were accompanying them, and Theon, would watch his sister as she rode her horse, and by the looks in their eyes he could tell that they were picturing something else entirely.

Robb knew what people said about his elder sister. The Beauty of the North, the Northern Nightingale, they called her, and she was, beautiful in both body and voice, but Robb did not like that everyone else knew about it. They would say that her beauty easily rivalled the Queen's, and outmatched all of the women in the North, but it didn't mean that their compliments made Robb, or Caryssa for that matter, happy.

Caryssa and Robb often described themselves as two halves of a whole, twins even. They loved each other, needed each other, not in a romantic sense, but in the way a person loves and needs their own soul. Robb and Caryssa may have been two years apart in age, but they were kindred spirits, both bound by duty as the eldest children of their house to mature before their time and help their parents to run the land.

So when Robb caught men ogling the other half of him, his dear sister, it frustrated him, even though he knew that it couldn't be helped. Caryssa truly was the Beauty of the North, what with her glorious dark mane of hair, her icy blue eyes and perfect, porcelain skin. He knew that his father had been ignoring proposals of marriage on her behalf for quite a few years. Caryssa was a true daughter of the North, a she-wolf, wild and untameable, cold and fierce. She didn't want marriage so soon in her life.

His sister had always told him that she deemed marriage to be a cage, and that wolves did not do well in cages, though she accepted her fate. She was a beautiful high-born lady of a noble house, and she would have to marry someday to solidify ties between their house and another. It was just the way things were. They both dreaded that day, as she would have to leave Winterfell and join her husband wherever he may be, and they would be lost without each other. They had never been separated before and would not welcome the day they were.

"I don't like this. Bran is too young." Caryssa said, unknowingly breaking her brother out of his thoughts of her. She turned her gaze to him, her blue eyes always seeming as though they could see into the very depths of a man's soul, and found his eyes already on her.

"We were much younger than Bran when we first witnessed the King's Justice. We survived it, and you're a girl, for pity's sake! Bran will be fine!" Robb pointed out, and Caryssa rolled her eyes at him, before sighing.

"We are different to Bran. We are the eldest. We needed to be steeled for the harsh realities of this world. I will be a wife one day to a great lord or knight, and you will be Lord of Winterfell," Caryssa grimaced, thinking of her bleak future. "Bran doesn't have the same responsibilities as we do."

"Winter is coming, Ryssa. You know that." Robb replied, and Ryssa glared at him.

"I know our words, brother, but that does not mean that I have to like it, or this." Caryssa snapped, turning her face away from him to gaze ahead, realising that they were nearing their destination.

Neither Stark said anything as their father and the rest of the party to their destination; twenty men and one woman travelling to see a beheading of a deserter. Ryssa looked forwards, and caught sight of her lord father. Lord Eddard Stark rode grimly forward, his long-ish brown hair stirring in the wind. Caryssa noticed that her father looked tired, older. He never enjoyed delivering the king's justice. Usually he was laughing. Surrounded by his children, his wife, his trusted friends, Ned Stark would laugh and it would light up his face, but more recently, Caryssa noticed, he looked very much like the other miserable lords she had heard of. He was more grim in the face of the impending Winter.

When the northerners did reach their destination, Caryssa stood herself behind Bran, next to Robb, but before Jon, waiting as the oath breaker was brought forward. Ryssa took in the traitor as he shifted forward, muttering about the white walkers. She noticed that he looked very beaten, in every sense of the word, with cracked lips and an altogether haggard exterior. It made Caryssa wonder what he had truly seen. Most men who took the Black understood the consequences of breaking their vow, and very few men ran away. Most were rapers or murderers or thieves who would otherwise lose a body part or their life, so gladly chose to freeze their arses off on the Wall. So whatever the man had seen, Caryssa mused, must have been worse than the harsh temperatures or a beheading.

Ryssa listened as the deserter spoke to her father, of the white walkers (which sent chills down her spine, shivers of dread), of his family and how he was no coward. Throughout the whole speech, Ryssa's face as a mask of cold indifference, one which Robb and Jon quickly learned to adopt. When he was finished, she watched her father nod to Theon, who brought him his sword, and the guardsmen forced the deserter to his knees in front of the weirwood stump, already stained with the blood of other oath breakers and traitors.

"In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the first of his name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and protector of the realm, I, Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, sentence you to die." Her father muttered the same speech he always had to, and Rowena braced herself.

Yet, as Lord Stark raised his sword, Caryssa wrapped her arms around Bran's shoulders, unable to contain her need to support him. She felt his body tense, and his heart race underneath her hands, as their father swung his sword. With one easy swing, the man's head dropped to the floor, staining the ground with red. Caryssa stared, transfixed on the spot where the earth was now greedily drinking the blood of the dead, before she blinked, letting her brother go, but leant down towards him.

"You did well, little wolf. I am proud of you." Caryssa whispered into his ear, before placing a small kiss on the top of his head.

She was the first to walk away, never having liked the sight of the dead. She mounted her steed, and waited for her father to finish talking to Bran, most likely regurgitating the same speech he had given her, Robb and Jon on their own first times. 'The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword', a line that she had always remembered since.

Once her father mounted his horse, they were off again, heading back to Winterfell. Caryssa rode at the head of the party, instead of with Robb, and her brothers noticed immediately.

"Why is Caryssa riding so far ahead? Why is she not riding beside you?" Bran questioned Robb, as all four Stark men, and a Greyjoy, watched the lone woman atop her snowy white horse.

"Women are complicated creatures, little lord, and it never ends well to start questioning them." Theon remarked, and Robb wanted to give him a dirty look, that was his sister he was talking about, but knew that Theon told the truth. Women were complicated creatures, something he knew all too well living with four of them.

"While your sister is fierce when she is training with your brothers, Bran, she also has a gentle soul. She does not like death," Lord Stark told his son, who nodded at him, as if he heartily agreed with his sister. Death was not something enjoyable in the little boy's eyes. "She is the perfect balance of warrior and maiden. She is strong and gentle, wise and wilful, wild and contained. She will make a challenging woman to be wed to."

"She doesn't want to leave Winterfell." Robb said quickly, as though he were trying to dissuade his father from any further thoughts of marrying his sister off to some old lord somewhere far away.

The men rode in silence from then on, their eyes watching the woman galloping ahead of them. The eldest of the men, like Lord Stark and the Cassel men, were taken aback, still to this day, at the likeness between the late Lady Lyanna Stark and the eldest Stark daughter. Caryssa was so much alike Lyanna, both in body and in soul, while little Arya resembled her long, dead aunt in her wild, untameable personality. Caryssa possessed Lyanna's beauty, which worried Lord and Lady Stark (and their eldest son) immensely. The Lady Lyanna's beauty had started a rebellion, and ended with her untimely, bloody death.

That was the reason his daughter was still unmarried.

Ned did not want to lose his daughter the same way he lost his dear sister.

"Father!" Caryssa's startled voice called to him, breaking him out of his silent reverie.

The men sped forward, catching her up as she dismounted across a stone bridge, having stopped in front of a dead stag with its stomach ripped open. The lady was inspecting the area around the stag, when the men dismounted as well, eyeing the dead creature with interest. Her father approached it, his eyes flickering from the stag to his daughter. She looked upset, but her sparkling blue eyes betrayed her burning curiosity.

"What is it?" Jon questioned their father.

"Mountain lion?" Theon suggested, though it was only slightly plausible.

"There are no mountain lions in these woods." Lord Stark replied, dismissing his ward's theory, and then he noticed his daughter had begun to walk into the forest, her eyes scanning the ground. His own eyes dropped to the ground, and noticed the blood trail that led to where Caryssa was heading. Thankfully, she had drawn her dagger from its sheath, ready to defend herself. Ned followed his daughter, his three sons and his other men following behind him, all withdrawing their swords.

He heard his daughter gasp, and he quickened his pace, until he spotted her crouched by a very different, very wrong, very dead animal. Ned and Jon crouch down in front of the beast, either side of the woman.

"It's a freak."

"Oh, and I suppose a kraken isn't a freak? This, Greyjoy, is a direwolf." Caryssa snapped at him, not taking her eyes off the beautiful, dead creature and her six adorable pups.

"Tough old beast." Her father said, yanking the horn of the stag out of the dead mother's chest. Caryssa flinched slightly, as her father tossed the horn over his shoulder and she felt the breeze of it as it flew past her. A dead stag's horn in the neck of a dead direwolf…Caryssa could only take that as an omen, but didn't voice her dark thoughts aloud, lest she be laughed at by the men for being too superstitious.

"There are no direwolves south of the Wall." Robb stated, as though the scene in front of him became completely inaccurate just by that knowledge alone.

"Now there a six," Jon said, picking one up and passing it to Bran. Ned watched as his daughter picked up a pup of her own, an almost pure white one with patches of grey spotted randomly on its coat, smiling at it as it attempted to lick her face. His wife was not going to like this. "You want to hold it?"

"Where will they go? Their mother's dead." Bran said, already growing attached to the adorable creature in his arms.

"They don't belong down here." Ser Rodrik said, and Caryssa's head snapped towards the man, a sinking feeling in her stomach, and she clutched the pup closer to her heart at the implication. He surely wasn't suggesting what she thought he was suggesting, was he?

"Better a quick death. They won't last without their mother." Her father said, standing, and Caryssa's eyes widened, before she turned to glare at Greyjoy as he almost gleefully jumped down beside Bran and reached out to take the pup in the boy's arms.

"Right. Give it here."

"No!" Bran cried, as Theon snatched the direwolf pup.

"Put away your blade." Robb ordered, and Theon looked at him, scoffing at his 'future lord of Winterfell' tone of authority. It was one of the reasons that Caryssa had always hated Theon. His family were traitors, and her father had taken him in as a kindness, yet he managed to become entitled and arrogant regardless. It infuriated her to no end.

"I take orders from your father, not you." Theon replied, and went to say more until he felt the cold feel of steel at his throat. He turned his head slowly to spy the Lady Archer holding her sword at his neck, a pup in her free hand and a deadly ice in her eyes that spelled trouble for him if he did not comply.

"That may be, but not even the King will be able to save you if you do not put away your blade, Greyjoy. Just remember, there is no place on this earth where you could hide that I would not find you," Her voice retained the pleasant, soft quality it always had, but had a dark, deadly tone to it that sent shivers down all of the men's spines. There was nothing more frightening than an angry woman, especially an angry Stark woman. "Give the pup back to Bran or lose your head."

Theon masked his own apprehension, but didn't relinquish his hold on the pup. He was waiting orders from his lord, who had a look on his face that was a cross between amusement at his daughter's threats and irritation that she was threatening his ward yet again. He knew that there was no love lost between the pair, but he had hoped that it would eventually get better as they grew older. Yet it seemed that they had only gotten worse with age. Or at least Caryssa had. As his daughter grew more beautiful with each passing year, he had noticed his ward take more notice of her, but he was just one of many who did, and more likely had less chance than the butcher's son.

"Lord Stark!" Jon called, as their father was walking away, getting his attention. "There are six pups. One for each of the Stark children. Three males, three females. The direwolf is the sigil of your house. They were meant to have them."

Caryssa didn't lower her blade until she was certain her father was going to concede to their wishes. Even then she didn't lower her blade until after he had finished telling them that the pups were going to be trained by them, and that they alone would bear the responsibility for their fates. Once Theon had passed Bran his pup back, he looked pointedly at the sword still held to his throat.

"Aren't you going to put this away, before someone gets hurt?" Theon questioned, and Caryssa arched a brow at him.

"As you wish, but next time, perhaps I won't hesitate," Caryssa smirked darkly at him, before turning her attention to Jon, who was direwolf-less. "We can share this pup. I don't feel right having one when you do not."

"I'm not a Stark." Jon replied, and tried to ignore the upset look on his sister's face. He knew that it hurt her when he himself separated himself from her family with harsh words, because in her eyes, he was much of as Stark as she was.

She turned her back on him, and began the short trek to her mare, until she noticed that Jon had not followed the rest of them. She twisted her head to look back, and saw that John had a pure white, tiny direwolf in one hand.

"The runt of the litter. That one's yours, Snow." Theon said, smirking at him.

"Close that needless hole you call a mouth, Greyjoy. Shit keeps falling out of it." Caryssa said, resuming the short journey back to her horse, leaving her three brothers and the idiot Theon behind her. She sheathed her sword, and put it back into her saddlebags, and then awkwardly remounted her horse with the pup in one arm. As soon as she managed to get herself seated comfortably again in her saddle, the direwolf pup yipped excitedly and caused Caryssa to laugh.

"I shall name you…Rhaenyra." Caryssa said to the pup and it barked happily at her in response.

Winterfell would not know what hit it when they brought these direwolf pups home.

Her mother came to her with news from King's Landing. Caryssa was then sent to the Godswood to break the bad news to her father. Ned Stark and his eldest daughter were always close, being that she was his firstborn, and were each other's confidantes. Catelyn was always there for her husband, in all things, but sometimes, she knew, he needed his daughter's comfort more than hers. Caryssa was softer than she was, more comforting, more like the cold, falling snow than the harsh, freezing ice. So instead of going to the Godswood herself - she still felt like an outsider in front of the old gods, despite having six Northern children - she sent her daughter, knowing that she could break the news gently.

So Caryssa made the trip to the woods alone, listening to the soft crunching of the fallen leaves under feet and staring at the small scroll in her hand. Her father was sitting in front of the Heart Tree, cleaning his sword, Ice, from the earlier execution. He never failed to feel guilty after an execution, especially when it came to men who had fled from the Wall and their vows out of fear, like the man today had.

He didn't look up, though she knew he had heard her approach.

"I can still remember the first time I came out here to find you cleaning your sword. You placed it on the ground, pulled me up onto your knee and told me that you were going to ride off into a war." Caryssa said, a soft, sad smile played on her lips as she remembered that particular memory.

Ned looked up at his daughter as she strolled ever closer to him, her blue Tully eyes not on him, but on something far away, lost in her own memory. He remembered that moment too, being one of his hardest moments. Leaving behind his wife and two year old had been difficult for him, harder than he had expected it to be. Even as she toddled around, a precious little dark haired babe, she had been far too intelligent for him to just leave and come back without her notice. He'd had to explain to her, his small, beautiful girl, that he had a duty to his friend, that he had to ride into a war to remove a mad king from his throne, to save his sister, her aunt. He remembered how she had cried silently, her large, wide eyes making him feel the most incredible guilt.

"I'm surprised you remember, you were still only a babe." Ned replied, watching her as she seemed to glide towards him, her eyes now fixed on the tall, white Heart Tree behind him. Caryssa always seemed at home in the woods, in nature, and he had always assumed it was due to the Northern blood that ran through her veins.

"I remember the pain of it, but also the pride. My father…saving the realm from the evil king. I worshipped you, you know," Caryssa smiled widely, finally turning her gaze to her lord father, a twinkling of amusement in her unusually sad eyes that made a smile spread on his face. "A fearsome, intimidating warrior, a man that men would gladly fight and die for. I may have been but a child, but I was always proud of you, father."

"As I have always been of you, daughter."

It was only then did Ned spy the rolled up parchment in between her hands, and her sad expression, but it wasn't sadness for herself. It was for him, he noticed. Caryssa saw where his gaze had gone to, and looked down at her hands, fiddling with the parchment.

"I'm so sorry, father." She said simply.

"Tell me."

"There was a raven from King's Landing. Jon Arryn is dead. A fever took him. I know how dear he was to you. It says it was quick, he didn't suffer too much." Caryssa said, emphasising the last of her words, trying to give her father that small comfort.

"Your aunt, the boy?" Ned questioned, pushing his own grief, as debilitating as it was, aside for the moment, needing to know that Jon Arryn's family were well and looked after.

"They both have their health, gods be good," Caryssa said, as she took a seat on the only stone seat left in front of the Heart Tree, close enough for her to reach out to her father should he need her. He remained stoic, working through his emotions quietly in the same solitary way he always had, the same way she had learned to. "The raven brought more news."

Her father's head snapped back towards her, and she gave him a moment, before she continued to speak.

"The king rides for Winterfell, with the Queen, his children and all the rest of them."

"If he's coming this far north, there's only one thing he's after." Ned replied, looking towards his daughter, whose face had become an emotionless mask. She had perfected that over the years, withholding the emotions that she thought would only add to the burdens already on his shoulders, he knew. They were always open with each other, but his daughter was always a complicated character.

"My father…the Hand of the King. Winter is truly coming," Caryssa said, her voice hiding her emotions as well as the stoic expression of her face. "You could always say no, father. King Robert would understand."

"Only a fool says no to a king." Her father replied, and she shook her head at him.

"No. Only a fool would walk willingly into the lion's den."

Both father and daughter knew that while Robert was king, it was the Lannister's who had overall control, with their money and their lioness on the throne as Queen. Aye, a man, or woman, would surely be a fool to walk into the lion's den, and the Stark's were not fools.

A/N:

So this is chapter two, thanks for giving it the time of day and everything, I hope you enjoyed it.

Oh, and I've decided that this fic will be updated every Wednesday and Sunday, so this is the last Thursday update you'll see. Since I'm in a total Game of Thrones mood, I'm focusing on this fic, so my others will be put on the back burner for a while, until I regain the passion to write them.

Thanks to the following awesome people for their kind reviews on the first chapter:
Narsilla Lyanna Elendil, Cooky Crumbla (awesome name btw), KrazyKeke, LittleNK, Forever Fanfiction Lover22, Soaring Hawk1, and waterbender19. Thank you guys so much, I hope you review again on this chapter, and I hope that any other readers feel okay enough to drop a review here as well.

Til next time guys,

SophStratt.