CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE – THE DESOLATION OF STARKS
"There's a loneliness that only exists in one's mind.
The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart,
and all they can do is blink."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
The laughter of children filled the Godswood.
The Stark young were playing a game of 'wolf chase'.
Caryssa was the wolf, and she was hunting her prey.
Her younger siblings were too excited, giggling as they darted behind trees and hid behind the brush, and they were giving themselves away.
"I'm coming to find you," Caryssa taunted, her ears pricked to catch any sudden movements, any hushed whispers, "and when I find you, I'm going to eat you all. I think I'll start with my little Arya. She looks the easiest to gobble up!"
"No, I'm not!" The little girl cried from the distance, before a muttered 'Oh, no!' was heard.
The wolf grinned and pounced.
The she-wolf tore through the trees, only slowed some by her heavy woolen skirts, ducking under low branches and skidding around tall roots, until she caught sight of her prey.
Arya, for all her chubby, little legs could, tried to flee, but was soon caught in her elder sister's embrace.
The pup squealed as the older wolf's arms closed in around her tummy and lifted her from the ground, spinning them around as she pretended to gnash her teeth at the little girl's neck.
"I caught you, pup. Now, if you help me find the other little wolves, I won't devour you whole!" Caryssa promised, setting a still laughing Arya back onto her feet, before leaning down to shake some dead leaves from her skirts.
"We can get Sansa. She'll be the easiest to find!"
"Don't underestimate our sister, Arya. Sansa can be quite sneaky, you know?" Caryssa glanced up, but Arya had disappeared. Confused, the she-wolf turned this way and that, but there was no sign of her sister. "Arya? You can't hide again, I already found you! Arya? Arya, where did you go?"
Unease spreading through her, Caryssa took a deep, calming breath.
After her seventh namesday, she would have these fits of panic, where it felt like her heart was exploding in her chest and her lungs had ceased all function.
Maester Luwin had coached her on how to overcome the fear. It seemed the old man always had the solutions to her every problem. The kind maester had told her to close her eyes and concentrate on what she could hear, and to list each sound aloud.
Now, Caryssa closed her eyes and listened to the song of the woods.
There were no sounds at all.
The giggling of her siblings had stopped.
All bird song had ceased.
Even the leaves no longer seemed to rustle in the breeze.
The Godswood had turned silent.
"Arya? Robb? Jon? Sansa?" Caryssa called, panic rising in her, as she crashed through the tree line, her eyes darted all around her. She stumbled over a twisted root but soldiered forward. She needed to find her family. "Robb? Jon? Sansa? Arya? Where are you? Bran? Rickon?"
"We're this way, Ryssa! Come this way!" Robb's voice called, and the she-wolf sighed in relief, pivoting to head towards him.
"No, Caryssa, come this way. Don't go that way! We're here!"
Jon cried this time, from the opposite direction, giving the young woman pause.
She'd found herself in the heart of a clearing, and she turned towards his voice but did not move.
Jon, not the boy she had been expecting to see but the young man he had been when they had parted, she to King's Landing and him to the Wall, all those long months ago, stood a few yards from her, with Sansa, Arya and even Jaime Lannister at his side.
What was Jaime doing with her family in the Godswood?
She glanced down at herself, and found her belly swollen.
Instead of the pretty, Tully blue gown she had been wearing as she played, Caryssa wore a thick, filthy riding dress she recognized as the one she had worn when her mother's sworn shield and Jaime had kidnapped her from Robb's war camp.
"I-I don't understand. What is happening?"
"Everything is okay, Ryssa," Robb replied, his voice strange but soothing, from where he stood on the opposite side of the clearing. "You've got to come with us."
Caryssa was torn.
On one side, Robb, Bran, Rickon, and their mother and father stood, hands outstretched towards her, and on the other, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Jaime beckoned.
"Why- why can't we all go together? Where are you going?"
"You can't follow them where they are going, Ryssa," Jaime answered, gesturing to the other half of the Stark family, "Look at them. Look at them!"
She did.
Robb and Ned held their decapitated heads within their own arms.
Catelyn's fingers gripped torn flaps of skin to hold her bloody throat together.
Bran and Rickon were both black and burnt, charred from fire.
Caryssa screamed, and around her the woods were filled with the mournful howling of wolves.
The young woman bolted upright, a scream still tearing its way out from her chest.
She couldn't stop, couldn't get a hold of herself.
Even when Jaime, real and beautiful Jaime, charged into the strange room and gripped her shoulders in his strong, steady hands, Caryssa howled.
"Ryssa, stop! Calm yourself! It's alright," Jaime urged her, but her screeching evolved into heart-wrenching sobbing that shook her entire body. "Caryssa, take a breath! Breathe, gods damn it! Please!"
"I- I can't! He's dead! Robb, my Robb- he's- he's gone, dead. Mother, gods, she's- They're dead! They're all dead!"
"Not all of them. Look," Jaime's hands to moved to her cheeks and forced her to face the entry, and her eyes widened to see Sansa in the door holding on to Rhaenyra so the direwolf wouldn't launch herself onto the bed. "Sansa is here, and she's still alive. Your sister still lives."
"Sansa?" Caryssa hiccupped, her breath still rapid, but something inside her shifted upon looking at her sister. Focused. "Is it- are you- you're really here?"
The redhead nodded; her big, blue eyes apprehensive as she looked on.
Sansa had never seen her sister so uncomposed, not once in her entire life, not even when Bran had fallen from the tower.
Caryssa was always the one who breezed into any situation with poise and grace, took charge and tried to solve any issues, but there she was wrapped up in her husband's arms, looking practically unhinged in her grief.
Sansa understood, her own eyes were still rimmed red and glassy from when her handmaiden Shae had shared the awful news with her, but it was just unsettling to see her big sister in such a state.
"I'm here, Ryssa."
"Sansa, I'm so, so sorry," the pregnant woman sobbed, fingers uncurling from where they had buried themselves in Jaime's tunic to stretch towards the little wolf. Sansa hesitantly released Rhaenyra, who leapt onto the bed and laid her head in her mistress' lap, and stepped towards the bed. Jaime stood and stepped aside, allowing Sansa to take his place. "I wasn't with them. I wasn't with Robb and Mother. I wasn't with Bran and Rickon. I wasn't with Father! I-I should've kept you all safe. I've let you all down and I'm so sorry!"
"It wasn't your fault! None of it! I was the one who told the Queen that Father was sending us away! I- I was selfish and I just wanted to be Queen one day and to marry Joffrey, but he killed Father and Septa Mordane and they took Jeyne!" Sansa cried, tears rolling down her cheeks. Caryssa yanked her sister into her arms and held her tightly. Jaime stepped out of the room and gave them their space to grieve. "They cut off his head right in front of me! Shae said they cut off Robb's head too! And they sewed Grey Wind's head to his neck and paraded his body around on horseback! And Mother- They cut Mother's throat and stripped her body naked and threw it into the river!"
The two Stark women, for that is what they both were now, clung to each other as hard as they could and simply wept.
They cried for their lost family, for their stolen home, for their tarnished name, for their people who had lost as much, if not more, than even they had.
Beside them, Rhaenyra released a mournful howl before resting her head onto Caryssa's shoulder.
After a few long moments, the Stark sisters separated, wiped each other's faces and just gazed at one another.
Caryssa took in her sister's appearance with a concerned, critical eye.
Sansa had grown at least a foot since they'd last met and would surely tower over her now, but she remained thin, appearing almost gaunt in her face, making the elder sister wonder if the Lannisters withheld food from her as a punishment. Her beautiful copper hair was down to the middle of her back, and worn in a simple Northern style, and her dress was cut in the same style that their mother always wore.
She was a woman now.
"I'm sorry you were here on your own, Sansa," Caryssa said, taking hold of her hand, "What you must have been through- Have- Have they treated you well?"
Sansa was silent, her eyes darted down to her lap, and Caryssa's jaw clenched.
"I don't know what I can tell you. The walls have ears." Sansa whispered, and her sister nudged her face upwards, so she would face her.
"Tell me everything, Sansa. You don't have to ever worry about them hurting you again. I'll protect you. Jaime will. Brienne will. We'll keep you safe, and if they dare lay a finger on you, I'll kill them."
"Can you do that while you're so heavy with child?"
"It probably won't bring you much comfort to know that I've had to kill men while pregnant, so yes, I can," The redhead's eyes widened at the thought. Old Nan used to tell them stories of the Mormont women, who would go into battle while heavily pregnant, but to imagine her elder sister doing so…Gods. "So, tell me everything they've done to you while keeping you captive. I need to know."
Jaime had been waiting patiently while the two Stark women reunited.
Well, not so patiently. He had paced the floor of their solar more than a few times, especially when he heard the women's crying start up again at one point. He'd sit down, only to hop back up a moment later to wear down the stone floor some more.
His brother and his bodyguard and his squire all sat around his dinner table, drinking wine Tyrion had brought to welcome him back to the capital, and bothering him. Tyrion and Bronn were making idle conversation, every so often trying to rile up the wench who, dressed in a fine new blue tunic, was guarding the door.
"Brother, sit down and have some wine. All your pacing is making my head spin," Tyrion held out a goblet towards Jaime, but was ignored. "Our wives will come out when they are ready. I suspect Sansa is helping Caryssa into one of those new gowns Father had the royal tailor slave over all night."
"How can you be so calm when our father is the cause of their shared misery?"
After Caryssa had blacked out in shock, Tywin had to hold Jaime back from beating a laughing Joffrey to death with his bare fists and had refocused his attentions to his ailing wife.
Father had followed son when he had heaved his pregnant, unconscious wife into his arms and carried her through the Tower of the Hand to the room Tywin had prepared for his eldest and his wife. There, the Lannister patriarch had summoned maids to draw baths, one for Jaime and one for Brienne (who refused to leave the side of her lady's daughter), and maids to clean Caryssa while she remained asleep.
Once Jaime had been bathed, he had demanded an explanation from the old lion.
He had not liked what he was told.
His father's hand in his goodbrother and goodmother's deaths was obvious from that start, but to have it confirmed was another thing entirely.
Tywin told him the entire scheme, from conception to action, and Jaime had nearly been sick.
Did he entirely care that Robb Stark was dead?
Not particularly. He and Robb would never have likely called each other 'brother' and certainly were not friends, having been captive and jailor respectively, but he had a certain respect for the younger man, and he knew what Robb had meant to Caryssa.
If Ned Stark's death had made his wife vow to kill his nephew, sister and father, then Robb Stark's death would force her into actively pursuing their ends.
Ned Stark had been his daughter's guiding light, the bastion of all that was good and right in her life and the man she had worshipped as she did the old gods.
Robb Stark was his sister's twin flame, the other half of her soul, her protector and the one she had looked to for stability in hard times.
And then there was the loss of Lady Stark to add to his wife's grief.
His father had insisted that Lady Catelyn was meant to have been taken alive and held as a hostage by Walder Frey but was killed after she had slit the throat of Old Walder's latest young wife after Robb had been run through by Roose Bolton.
Jaime had no idea how Tyrion had managed his conversation with Sansa about the Starks' new losses, because he was nearly shitting himself thinking of the moment that he had to reveal all to Caryssa.
"Calm? I'm not calm. I suspect that at this very moment your wife is plotting how she'd like to kill me but pacing back and forth like a mad man won't change that, so I drink," Tyrion answered, holding his wine aloft as though it were a holy relic deserving of worship. "And if this is indeed one of my final moments before being devoured by a direwolf, I intend to enjoy good conversation and fine wine."
"You didn't have anything to do with the massacre at the wedding." Jaime dismissed, as he nearly tore his hair out from pulling his fingers through it and began his thousandth lap of the room.
"That is true, but I did marry her little sister who, let's speak honestly, is still a hostage of the crown."
"You ain't paying me nearly enough to fight that bloody wolf for you, just so you know," Bronn supplied helpfully, necking the last of his wine and reaching for the jug. "That thing is nearly twice the size of you, and I heard, thanks to fighting in the war, it has a taste for human flesh. I don't think you Lannisters mine enough gold to make it worth jumping in front of that beast."
Jaime rolled his eyes, tuning his brother and his mercenary out as they began to bicker over what price was acceptable to fight a direwolf, and tried to refocus on the bedchamber, silently stepping closer.
The talking had ceased, and he no longer heard any sobbing, but before he could press an ear to the door to truly hear anything, both the doors to the bedchamber and the solar opened.
Glancing between them both, Jaime sighed and dropped his head.
"Well, fuck."
"You can't go out there in that," Sansa insisted, holding up a plain red pregnancy gown that apparently Lord Tywin had forced the royal seamstress to cobble together overnight, but Caryssa ignored her, tying the belt to a white silk robe around her waist as best as she could to cover the nightgown that she'd woken up in. Rhaenyra waited by the door, tail thumping a beat on the floor as it wagged. "Lord Tyrion, Ser Bronn and Ser Podrick are all out there with Ser Jaime. It's not proper!"
"Marrying my baby sister while she was a hostage wasn't proper either, but Tyrion still did that."
"I told you that he didn't want to! Neither of us did!"
"Yes, but he was in a position to say no! You weren't! And stop waving that thing at me like I'll change my mind," Caryssa snapped, grimacing as she had to force her swollen feet into a pair of slippers that would have fit before but now were tighter than a vice around her toes. "I'm not wearing it, or any of those crimson gowns. I need a black gown."
"They won't let us mourn, Ryssa. I wasn't allowed to mourn Father; they won't let us mourn Robb or Mother- No, don't go out there like that!"
Caryssa ignored Sansa and continued towards the door, yanking it open at exactly the wrong moment.
At the same time as she entered the solar, so did Lord Tywin.
Rhaenyra immediately ducked into a defensive position in front of her mistress, growling lowly as the Lannister patriarch stepped further into the room, followed more nervously by Grandmaester Pycelle and paid the direwolf only a cursory glance.
"You're awake. Good. It's time you woke and were seen to."
Caryssa's grip on the cast iron door handle tightened, her breathing grew rapid, and her ice blue eyes narrowed into slits.
"Caryssa, wife, you should be resting-"
"How dare you show your face after what you did to my family," the she-wolf stalked closer to the old lion, her direwolf close to her side, teeth bared and ready to pounce, "You're a murderer, a kinslayer, and you dare to walk in here as though you have every right? Get out. Get out!"
"I was not at The Twins when the Freys and Boltons ended this war by killing your treasonous brother, nor was Robb Stark my family. So, I'm neither a murderer nor a kinslayer, but I'll hold your grief responsible for that outburst," Tywin said, likely believing himself to be charitable, and then looked at Pycelle and gestured towards the agitated woman. "Pycelle, take the Lady Lannister into her bedchamber and examine her to see about the health of the babe."
"Do not touch me. I'd rather be examined by a thousand lepers than have your puppet place his withered hands on my skin," Caryssa spat.
Pycelle ignored her and still lurched towards her, one wrinkled hand reaching out towards her wrist.
That was his first mistake.
Rhaenyra lunged. Pycelle screamed. Blood sprayed.
Caryssa whistled sharply twice, and the direwolf turned back and plopped down at her mistress' side.
"That beast bit me!"
"Good girl," Jaime grinned, earning a glare from his father, but smiles from the rest of their guests, "You shouldn't have tried to touch my wife without her permission, you old wretch. I'll send for a new maester from the Citadel, one that isn't so repugnant."
"Hear, hear! Maybe a maester that isn't so close to the grave," Tyrion added, stifling a laugh as Bronn held out a strawberry from the table to entice the wolf towards him so he could pet it.
"That beast should be killed before it can hurt anyone else!" Pycelle cried, clutching his injured hand close to his chest and shrinking behind Tywin when the direwolf padded towards the men at the dining table, accepting fruit treats from the lord and his mercenary.
"Or at least caged with its sibling in the kennel," Tywin agreed.
"Rhaenyra is my fiercest protector. Something that I'll need desperately in this lion's den. Starks don't fare well in King's Landing. My grandfather, uncle and father all those their lives here and my sister, an innocent, has been tortured and abused," Caryssa stated, "Lady should be released too. To protect Sansa since you have all failed so miserably to keep your key hostage unmolested and uninjured."
"Done, providing my lady wife can keep her pet from eating me."
Sansa tried to hide her smile behind her hands, but Caryssa knew that she was excited that she would have her companion back.
"I won't have direwolves running around this keep unchecked."
"Then they'll be leashed when outside of their respective rooms, just as Robert ordered," Jaime offered, moving across the room to wrap an arm around his wife's waist, "They've both received training from my wife, and listen to her commands. They won't harm those who mean no harm, and I think you have taken enough from my wife, Father. I'm not about to let you take her direwolf who serves a purpose in keeping her safe."
Tywin noted the resolute expression on Jaime's face, and, after a long moment, nodded his agreement.
"They will be leashed in common areas and there must be a guard with them at all times to put them down if they lose control," Tywin conceded, "And I will send for a new maester for the Lady Lannister since the Grandmaester is so offensive to her. He will be here within the week to examine the babe."
With that, the Hand of the King stalked out of the room, one hand dragging the still spluttering ancient Grandmaester behind him.
"Well…that went better than expected."
A/N:
Hey guys! I do believe this is the second update of 2021, and I'm just as shocked as you guys are!
So, yes, Robb and Catelyn are both dead. I know a lot of you wanted me to save them, and Grey Wind, but for what I have planned, the Red Wedding had to happen and I had to break my own heart by killing three of my favourite Starks. It does hurt me as much as it hurts those of you who wanted them to live, trust me!
So, Caryssa had a disturbing nightmare about her dead family members, then we had a Sanryssa reunion, then a nervous Jaime, then a confrontation with Tywin. Also Rhaenyra bit Pycelle, which Sparky She-Demon suggested (thank you for your help with this chapter - it's super appreciated!) and I agreed because Pycelle needs to bleed. There will be loads more confrontations between Caryssa and our least favourite Lannisters, I mean obviously, but I hope this one was okay. Tywin is so intimidating to write for.
Anyway, thank you to all my lovely reviewers from the last chapter, but I just want to focus on one review in particular first quickly;
mattywilkss, you wrote that my timeline was fucked because in this story, Ned and Catelyn married before the rebellion because Brandon accidentally impregnated a farmer's daughter and married her to do the noble thing, and then both mother and baby died, and then he died via Aerys, and that I should just admit that this story was a vehicle for my Jaime Lannister fantasies. Well, you're wrong about my timeline being fucked. It makes sense if you're open minded. But you aren't wrong about this story being a vehicle for my Jaime Lannister fantasies. I love Jaime. Like a lot. I had a lot of hopes for his character development and redemption arc that did not come to fruition in the show, and so I am making them happen in my story. Because that's kinda what fan fiction is for. So sorry if you don't like the story, but it obviously isn't for you. It's for me, my Jaime Lannister fantasies and the 1,782 people who favourite and the 2,192 people who follow this story. You are welcome to continue reading or you can leave and find something more to your taste. Your negativity will not be missed, my friend.
Now to the rest of you, whom I love and adore, I love you for your reviews, they make my day when I see them;
hateme101, IsaLaw-AL, painted heart, DarylDixon'sLover, xrysatan, NicoleR85, Sparky She-Demon, BrittStark1199, Guest (1), Guest (2), Guest (3), Bella-swan11, Guest (4), Hapsgurl80, Guest (5), xrayahsunshinex, Wikked, CrimsonMother, EvangelineZabini and ZabuzasGirl.
Seriously, thank you to everyone who has favourited and followed and reviewed this story since I first uploaded it seven years ago (can't believe it's taken me seven years to get to Season 4 :/) - you all mean the world to me!
Fingers crossed I'll be able to get an uploading hat-trick and we get three new chapters this year!
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the new chapter!
Lots of love,
Sophie!