The Wild Wolf

Based on his recent experiences with the Targaryen prince—from the kidnapping of his sister, to being strangled to death and watching his father burn at the hands of the king—Brandon felt a small twinge of satisfaction watching his sister pummel the shit out of him. When he'd woken alongside his siblings and his nephew, they'd spent many of the subsequent hours talking of their lives. As the first of them to die, he'd missed out on the most, with Robb providing the most recent insight into he current situation of the Seven Kingdoms.

'Hello Robert. Fancy seeing you here.'

He noticed Robert Baratheon for the first time, stood with his mouth open and his eyes bulging. 'L-Lya? Can it really be you?'

'Who the fuck else would it be, you dolt. Now, might we share your fire?' In an instant, his sister seemed to shift, from the hardened Northern warrior who'd ridden down those squires as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, to the demure and obedient lady of the south that his mother had spent years trying to turn her into.

'Hello, Robert.' Emerging from behind Brandon came another. 'I'm glad to see you here.'

'Ned? What in the Seven Hells are you doing here?'

The Quiet Wolf

Seeing his friend in such a state was amusing to Ned—as far as he could recall, he'd never once seen Robert speechless. Not that he could blame him. After all, it wasn't every day that one came back from the dead. He looked good, though. Gone was the tired, fat king that'd been lying in a pile of his own innards as Ned had last seen him, poisoned by the hatred of his wife and smothered in the trappings of royalty; here was the Demon of the Trident, his oldest friend and brother in all but blood, born again.

'Well,' he began, 'Give us a moment to warm our bones, and then we'll tell you all we know.'

The Stark party sat by the fire, not as close as the Targeryens who were no doubt feeling the blood of the dragons freeze in their veins, but still close enough to keep the coldness of the pitch black night at bay.

'We all died.' Robb said, bluntly. He may have had his mother's southern looks, but there was no doubt he was a Stark—no flowery words to flatter and deceive, just the cold, hard facts. 'And then we awoke in the snow, surrounded by others who died. Did I miss anything, father?'

'Aye. None of us are, I presume, as we were when we died. For instance, the twinge in my back that came as a result of a wound inflicted by some pike-man in the Greyjoy rebellion is gone. Robert, you're not fat, nor old and tired, nor is Lyanna pregnant. As far as I can see, we're each in the prime of our lives.'

At least, that was how it appeared to him. Robb was a man grown, with the thousand-league stare of a seasoned soldier and the voice of a Lord. Brandon was as he remembered him being, not appearing as though he'd been starved and tortured in the black cells any time recently, and Lyanna was not currently bleeding out, helpless and afraid.

'I'm sorry,' Robert suddenly cut in. 'Did you say that Lyanna was pregnant?' The confusion had left his voice, and Ned swore he could hear the same steel that had laughed at the dragonspawn all those years ago being to creep into his inflection. 'With whose child?' He already knew the answer.

'With my child.' Ned turned to see Rhaegar slowly prop himself up from his previous position of lying prone on the ground and look toward Lyanna, his eyes practically shining in the pale moonlight. 'Tell me, my winter rose, how does our Visenya fare?'

Lyanna looked at him with pure scorn in her eyes. 'Jon is fine,' she said venomously, emphasising both the gender, and the distinct un-Valyrianness of the name. 'Not that I had anything to do with him. After being raped and left to rot in some desert shack, it's a miracle I carried him to term and not at all surprising I survived barely an hour longer.'

This had been the moment Ned had been dreading; the confusion on Robert's face morphing into pain Robb finally hearing the truth about the boy he'd viewed as his brother all his life, and Brandon realising simply how badly he'd failed to protect his sister. But worst of all with Lyanna. This was neither the proud warrior nor the cunning lady. This was his little sister, crawling into his bed after a nightmare, asking when their mother would come back, begging him to make one final promise.

'It was…it was all a waste. All of it.' Rhaegar had collapsed again, staring into the snow. 'All the war, all the deaths. Rhaenys. Aegon. Elia. By the gods, what did I do?'

'You seduced and abducted a child, you bastard!' Brandon broke his silence, rage filling his voice. 'You were a man, married and with heirs. And you stole our Lyanna, a child, away from her home and left her to die in a fucking tower! Were in not for her being perfectly willing and capable to do so herself, I'd castrate you myself!'

Gods, Ned was glad he was rarely on Brandon's bad side. He truly was terrifying when he wanted to be.

'I didn't abduct her,' Rhaegar told them, his voice brimming with sincerity. 'I may have done whatever else that people say of me, but I never abducted her.'

Everyone turned their head toward Lyanna.

'It's true. I went willingly.' Her voice was barely a whisper. 'He made me promises, offered me a way out of the life being forced upon me. And then they turned out to be naught but lies.'

Robert stared at her, the cogs in his mind whirring as he tried to figure out what she meant. 'You mean…you ran…from me?'

'Yes, Robert. I'm sorry. For all my mistakes, I never meant to hurt you.'

'But I loved you! I would've done anything for you!'

'I know. But the truth of it is, that…well, that I loved another.'

His gaze turned toward Rhaegar, who now had a smug grin spreading across his face.

'Well, cousin, it appears that I win. Commiseratio-'

'You can shut up too, Rhaegar,' Lyanna interjected. 'After all, it was your wife that I was in love with.'

The Winter Rose

'It all began at Harrenhal. Ned had arrived with news of my betrothal to Robert, and he was so happy with the idea of having Robert as his brother that I couldn't even say anything to him, and Brandon was off teaching Benjen to drink somewhere, so I was all alone.

'And then she came. Elia. She found me crying in a heap somewhere, as I knew that any chance I had at a future had vanished. She comforted me and told me it would all be alright, and that she'd be there if I needed a shoulder to lean on. She kissed me, not as a courtly formality or as a friend, but in a way that sent butterflies to my stomach and clouded my head with thoughts of desire. I think that she was unhappy too, to be honest. A family halfway across the continent, an indifferent husband and a hateful good-father. She'd been sold as property and viewed as no more than a broodmare. And here I was, in the same position. Only this time, something could be done about it. "I'll talk to Rhaegar," she told me. "He'll be able to sort this out."

'Then came that fucking joust, where he'd found out that I was the mystery knight and crowned me. I assumed that this was part of Elia's plan, and I was already so head-over-heels in love that I saw no way in which it could go wrong. That was my first mistake.'

'Gods, Lya,' Ned spluttered. I'm so sorry, I never knew, I never would've forced you into marriage, you must beli-'

'I don't blame you, Ned. There are many at fault here, myself chief amongst them, but not you. Never you. Anyhow, we soon returned to Winterfell, and the day of my wedding grew closer. That was when Rhaegar arrived.

'There were four of them in total: Rhaegar, Gerold, Oswell, and Arthur. They snuck into Winterfell in the dead of night and told me to come with them. Again, I thought this part of Elia's plan, and so went without complaint. That was when I realised that I was mistaken.

'We were wed on the Isle of Faces. I tried to leave when I discovered his intent but could not do so out of fear of the consequences. Arthur and Oswell never raised a hand against me—for all their faults, they never hit me—but Gerold did. Ever loyal to his oaths to the king, he sadly forgot about protecting the innocent, and it was under the threat of his fist that I wed into the house of the dragon. Not that I was innocent for very long after that. For then came the bedding.'

Lyanna paused, taking a deep breath. 'That first night was the worst. He kept muttering that "the dragon must have three heads", but that didn't make it any less painful as he took me. Again and again, whilst I just cried and wondered where Elia was. She'd shown me rare kindness, you see, and viewed me not just as the daughter of Rickard Stark, but as Lyanna. By now I knew that she could not do anything, but I still held out hope.

'Eventually we reached the Tower. Rhaegar was gone by now, leaving the knights as protection—Arthur and Oswell bound by their vows and Gerold by his blind loyalty—but no means of medical assistance beyond a wet-nurse from Starfall. She was kind—the first kindness I'd felt since Elia—and held my hand as the pain began, as the sounds of steel grew louder outside the tower, and as Jon came.

'I regretted it all. All, but Jon. A lifetime of obedience and a year of war and misery—as I held him in my arms for the first time it suddenly became worth it. Then Ned arrived, and I knew that the rebels had won. The rebels, whose leader hated the dragons more than any other man alive. I'd heard about the sack of king's landing, how Elia and her children had died at the hands of the lions. I knew that while such hatred existed, my child would never be safe, and so I made Ned promise me he'd protect him. At the cost of his marriage, his friendship, no matter what came, that he'd protect him. I'm so sorry Ned.'

'There is nothing to forgive, Lya.' By now, Ned had tears in his eyes.

'Gods. Your bastard, Ned?' Robert spoke at last. 'I should've known that the honourable Ned Stark could never have fathered bastard.' He chuckled bitterly. 'I loved you, Lya. Loved you more than I ever hated the dragons. If I'd known that there was still any remnant of you still surviving, I never could have hurt it. A child, not knowing of their parentage? I'm sorry I forced that upon the poor boy.'

Ned, she noticed, shot a look to his son, who'd remained silent all this time.

'Yes. I think I see that now.' Lyanna had a faraway look in her eye and seemed as though she was about to collapse. She'd been talking for near-on an hour and felt tiredness down to her bones.

With surprising abruptness, Ned stood. 'You should all get some sleep. Robb, Robert and I will take first watch.'

That was fine with her. Moving closer to the dwindling fire, she closed her eyes and only heard a few final words from her brother before sleep closed in.

'Robert, I… I need to talk to you about your children.'