Weeds

"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them," A. A. Milne.

Willas Tyrell found Winterfell, despite its rather dire reputation South of the Neck, to be… Grand. It is not beautiful, exactly. Willas was an honest sort of man and if asked, he could not say that Winterfell escaped its reputation completely. Willas could see how such a place would hold little appeal for many of his fellow Southerners. It was not quite comely, too dark, too, well, stark against the landscape. As if it stood in defiance of the moors and hills of the North, of the wood that surrounded it. Of the cold that seeped into your bones and refused to remove itself from you unless you sought shelter in the warm walls of the Keep. Fantastically designed, ingenious the pipes that fill the walls with hot spring water. If only they would let me see the designs of the castle if just to admire the engineering. Never mind the advantage of learning the defenses of the Keep. It was a dark, imposing thing that spoke of independence, of solitude, ingenuity in adversity, and unbreakable strength.

There was something to be admired in those things.

High Garden, of course, is something of its direct opposite, open, airy, and beautifully fair that compliments the flat plains and lush of the Reach. High Garden invited you with its open pavilions, with its greenery and rolling waves of grain. High Garden was a luxurious tangled Keep that was splendent and comfortable. It said home to Willas- it was comfortable and beautiful. But there is something to be said of Winterfell's tall, firm walls, the warmth in it. Winterfell is a strong place, a strong presence and its people are no different. As he entered the Great Hall with his family, Willas found himself watching how the bannermen react to Lord Stark, the admiration and respect that is plain to see. There is true deference to him, even from the bannermen that are said to have a traditional animosity against the Starks. That is a feat that took a singular type of man.

Ned Stark is said to be an honorable man- a just man- in Willas's experience such a man is singular indeed.

Part of Willas, as always, found himself to be cynical of the existence of such a man, especially when it is a man with such a remarkable reputation. What dark secrets do you squirrel away, Lord Stark? But from his initial observation, Willas can say that Lord Stark is living up to his reputation of being a good man, if grim and taciturn.

With only one blight on his honor.

Willas sat down in the Great Hall of Winterfell with the usual exaggeration of his permanent ailment. It was a mummer's farce he had employed firstly to achieve added sympathy from his more traditionally chivalry loving father, as Willas had hated jousts and had little patience for them and wished to excuse himself from them for whatever time the injury would allow him. Later, during his horrifying realization of how permanent the injury that would require him to limp for the rest of his life, and require a special brace to prevent his muscles from withering away, his Grandmother had encouraged him to continue his exaggeration. Slyly paying the Castle's Maester to express the severity of the injury loudly and to anyone who could hear.

"Grandmother, I do not understand… Why have you told the maester to tell father that I will never walk unaided again?"

Grandmother Olenna gave a soft smile that was a contrast to the sharpness in her shrewd eyes.

"As a great heir, most men will look at you with anger, with envy. As a Lord, people will constantly suspect you. As a Tyrell, it will be worse. A man at the foot of a jape will draw less suspicion."

Willas understood with a swiftness that often made his mother proud, confused his father, and delighted his grandmother.

"Will it not lower our reputation to have a cripple for an heir?" his voice was not overtly hurt, but only curious. Despite his own apprehension over the matter, Willas had resigned himself to walking with a slight limp and already had ideas for a discrete brace to be hardly visible beneath his trousers.

His injury would be fairly minimal and if he trained both horse and his upper muscles enough, he would ride in a bout again, fairly easily. It would please his father if anything. Grandmother snorted, as was her wont, and gave him another smile. This was not sweet, but pure sharpness that became the woman he heard call the Queen of Thorns.

"My dear grandson, your offish father has a love of watching grown, trained men prance about in these bouts, chasing the old glory of reckless boys trying to lance one another. Since he is now too fat to ride him in them himself, he has thrown you into them in his stead, with Garlen soon to follow. I know you to be better than the whole ridiculous, pompous affair."

"You did not answer my question, grandmother."

His grandmother gave a sharp laugh.

"But I have."

Willas looked at her, brows furrowed, puzzling through her words for a moment. Before he understood.

"Better to take a dip in our reputation, ease suspicion in my future actions and avoid participation in the Tourneys I abhor and remind father of my injury for the sake of Garlen's future participation."

Approval shone in shrewd eyes and despite the dour turn of his physical health, Willas allowed pride to enter his breast at the approval from his Grandmother.

"If only your father had half your intelligence as a child, sweetling."

The true relief of not being on his leg was somewhat minimal. Present, but minimal. As Willas sat, he noted that the Snow boy is near a replica of his Lord Father. Jon Snow, a young boy of three and ten that has inherited the House looks, something Willas had long observed in his cousins who claimed the name Flower. Though the difference in their appearance is made evident of the boy's more delicate nose, fuller lips his mother certainly was a handsome woman if her son was set to be so pretty, and the wild curls that the boy does not bother to tame. A Northern trait, I see, to not groom yourself. The heir, next to Snow is just as unkempt with his auburn hair, and unlike the Snow boy is slumped over the table, rubbing his eyes in tiredness.

Willas felt his lips quirk in sympathy, as he knew the boys had lessons before this meeting, and it was frightfully early already. Margaery had looked at the hour settled for the meeting and been fairly horrified, whilst Garlan had to adjust his own training time to be able to attend. He had mentioned, earlier, that both the elder Stark boys and the Greyjoy hostage had been already within the training grounds when he had arrived and had been finishing up by the time Garlan was mid-way through his own paces. The standing observation from his knightly brother from his discreet eavesdropping was the fact that every morning, the Stark Household held a daily meeting, no matter how early other matters were set on the agenda for the House. One that even the Greyjoy hostage was not privy to as he had stayed behind to perform duties with the Master at Arms. Neither had their Maester, if Garlen's quick visit to his surgery for a muscle paste was any indication. The fact that every member of the Household looked fairly alert in comparison to the younger Starks made Willas suspect that it was a family-only affair, most curious.

He watched intently and is surprised as Robb Stark sat straighter, setting his jaw as another comes to the great table. Sansa Stark walked carefully, he noted, walked carefully and with an unhurried grace that he found interesting to see in someone so young. It is a difference in how his own sister walked, her endless bouncing energy that Willas always found himself smiling at. She is actually well-groomed a rarity in the North for even the ladies if Lady Mormont and her daughters are any indication. Her hair is in neat, if plain braids that hold half of her hair out of her face, whilst the rest is an auburn river that fell beyond her shoulders. She sat delicately, between her brothers, and gave them a nod. Both boys turned to her, orbiting her like moths drawn to a candle flame. An easy affection is apparent in them, and Willas is surprised by the usually so restrained Northerners by the way the young girl is bestowed with a kiss on her cheek by both her brothers. The way a small smile bloomed on her face hinted on how she will surpass her mother's beauty and Willas thought of the similar fate that would befall his own sister.

The Stark heir and the Snow inclined their heads and speak, quietly, and the girl listened with a few delicate nods and murmured words in return. Then Lord Stark turned to his daughter, and Willas found it very interesting to see how the great Lord's shoulders relaxed at the sight. You are beloved, I see. Just as Margergy is to us. He wondered, with sympathy, if such a treatment and the sword lessons that both girls attend is a byproduct of the fate of Lord Stark's sister as his Grandmother had lamented the first night in the Keep, in the privacy of their given rooms.

Willas remembered little of Lady Lyanna, a combination of his young age and having paid her little mind in the Tourney of Harnelhel himself. Mostly besotted by the mysterious Knight of the Laughing Tree and the different horses. At least until the gallant Prince had trotted by on his magnificent black stallion and placed a crown of blue winter roses upon her head. He remembered thinking she had been pretty in a plain way, not the type of Lady he would have chosen, but that she had turned beautiful when she blushed under the Prince's careful consideration and given him a smile that had been so brilliant it had taken his breath away, young as he had been.

Lady Sansa, sensing his gaze, or perhaps having a habit of watching a room, turned to him. Despite her youth, Lady Sansa did not have an expressive nature, something he had first noticed upon her small smiles to his sister and her careful dutiful looks to her parents. She simply returned his stare with a politely quirked brow, before she turned away at the appearance of her mother. Lady Catelyn too, glanced towards her daughter and gave her a beatific smile that Willas could not help but find fetching. She was a great beauty, Catelyn Tully of the House Stark, and she remained so after giving birth to five children was a feat in itself.

"She would be a good match," mentioned his sister, simply, bringing his attention to the table around him.

He found it amusing and telling that the bannermen of Lord Stark had made the effort to leave left a large space between them and his party. The seats next to his party being empty by two, even though space was limited. But it at least it gave them some semblance of privacy if they spoke quietly. Especially if all the Northerners were inclined to be so… Boisterous in the morning. They threw japes and insults at each other with the same fierce temper, and looked warmly to the Starks.

"Oh, Lady Margaery?" he said, even more amused.

She let out her cheeks, puffed them in a most childish manner before she remembered herself and sat primly straight and gave him a good imitation of their Grandmother's arched brows.

"Sansa Stark. She would be a good match. She's going to be a pretty one."

Sansa Stark would be a good match, politically speaking, giving the Reach ties to the North, and looking so much like her mother, she would no doubt grow to be one of the greatest beauties in the Seven Kingdoms. But the ten and then some year age gap made him more than uncomfortable. Not to mention, that despite being the heir to Highgarden and being in need of marriage and a child of his own, Willas felt little to no remorse that Garlan was set to beat him in that regard. He had not found the right woman for the Reach, and he very much doubts he will meet her in this young girl.

"She is much too young," he tweaked Maergery's nose and chuckled at the huff she gave at the gesture.

"She's only a little younger than me."

"Exactly," said their Grandmother in a sharp voice, raising a brow at her, "And you only wish to take her back to the Reach with us for a playmate, not for your brother."

Margaery blushed a pretty pink, lifting her nose in the air. She gave a delicate sniff.

"She could teach me how to use a sword, and I can teach her how to use a bow. And to properly falcon- But she cannot be here. She has so little time. You have to rescue her Willas."

It is so painfully evident at times, how young his sister is. To be so busy as at such a young age would seem horrible to any young child, but to Willas it spoke of a trust given to all of the Stark children to do their house proud. In the wake of the coming Winter, he believed it to be prudent to demand such. He knew after this visit, his Grandmother would demand more of himself, Garlen, Margaery, and Loras for the sake of House Tyrell. Willas even suspected his youngest brother would be demanded from his squireship before earning his Knighthood, or Lord Renly would be 'pursued' to expedite his Knighthood to bring Loras home. Considering, how Loras's ravens had overtones of affection for the Stormlord, Willas also suspected that his younger brother would turn the demand into a request to stay outside the Reach for the sake of the House. He made a mental note to send his brother a Raven, to make his position with Lord Renly unshakably advantageous.

A rose in love bloomed too quickly and wilted too swiftly, or so said his grandmother. But from his own observation, Willas had long suspected that a rose in love bloomed, quickly, but also had the sharpest, most potent thorns.

"We didn't come to the North for a bride, little rose, but to better our relations in trade. You are here to learn on these terms, not to play."

Margaery sighed, unhappily, before she gave a nod.

"I'll just have to steal her away then, as much as I can," she said, with relish, her brown eyes shining. Margaery was obviously fond of Lady Sansa for however little they had interacted with each other.

Willas suspected his younger sister coveted the time of someone who had been denied to her, and the pretty look of the young girl to hang on her arm. His sister was just now making her own first inner-circle and all that entitled. Sansa Stark was no doubt a young girl's ideal companion in that regard. Exotic with her queer skill, beautiful and had unique customs of her own to contrast that of the Reach. A pretty, shiny new toy to flaunt to the rest of the cousins that constantly fought for a place against the only daughter of the Head Family of Tyrell. The fact that she was strangely stoic did not deter his talkative sister. He made a mental note to tell his sister that kidnapping the eldest girl of a fellow Lord was not the best of action.

Especially the daughter of this lord.

"You do that little rose, and tell me what horrible things her family forces her to do, won't you?" crooned his Grandmother.

Willas gave her an arched brow, but her grandmother only snorted at his unease at his grandmother so blatantly using her to spy on the inner workings of House Stark. But Margaery, of course, had been trained to do so since she was very small, and had always had a knack for ferreting out secrets. If House Stark had any, which Willas sincerely doubted after a few days of observation, Margaery would be the one to find them.

For himself, despite his natural distrust, Willas found that the missive sent out by House Stark over the coming Winter to be mathematically sound. Willas had little faith in people, but he found great trust in numbers and history. The numbers and history told him that winter was coming, and it would be a frightfully long one to match the fair summer they had been dealt. His father's speculation of House Stark gearing up for a rebellion had seemed plausible enough if you dismissed the coming Winter and considered the actions of most men. But by Lord Stark and by the grim certainty displayed by all of the Northerners, Willas was now half ready to dismiss any notion of rebellion from the North.

More's the pity. I have no love for the reckless King Robert and even less for his foolish and boisterous son. The few interactions between us were enough to last me a lifetime, young as he is, the thing that child needs the most is to be taken over the knee. And then there was the business with that cat...

"Maybe you should find yourself a bride," said Garlan with a sly grin, "You have lost to me on that race, brother."

Willas gave his brother a chuckle.

"I am a poor runner, Garlan, but I never entered the race to begin with. I have no urge to wed."

Garlan, two years his junior, shook his head.

"You are the future Lord of High Garden," he began, and the words you are acting Lord whilst father fitters away at schemes was left unsaid, "You must think of the son that will inherit that title from you."

Willas shook his head, giving his brother an easy smile.

"You are my heir, for now, Ser Garlan the Gallant."

"But not for long, Willas, you must give me a great-grandchild to bounce on my knee," said his grandmother with a firm stare, "Though perhaps you should not rob the cradle of Lord Stark's quite yet. His sword Ice is so frightfully broad and long."

Willas gave her an appeasing smile. But wisely, did not say another word. He knew his duty, he would marry some woman that would bring good tidings to House Tyrell, get a child on her, and so on and so forth. It was the pace of history, but with Garlan and Loras next in line after him, he technically had some excuse not to marry whatever woman was found for him. His father had not pressed him, unlike his Grandmother and Mother both, so Willas found he could skirt on that responsibility for a while yet.

Perhaps a few more years, even, he thought, faintly as Sansa Stark posed a quill readily above the parchment.

As if that was a signal in a mummers play, all the Lords ceased their talk and made fairly attentive looks toward Ned Stark in quiet anticipation and endless regard. Waiting, hand reaching for his own quill and parchment, Willas listened carefully.

AN:

EDIT: 06 March 2022

The author hasn't edited earlier chapters yet what?

*Cough Cough*

Welp. I did say I would continue to update some of my stories in the interim. Honestly, the reason I haven't worked on the earlier chapters of this fic because I'm kind stuck on another story, because in my genius *sarcasm* I made the executive decision to focus on my longest fic called Blooming Again that has an average word count per chapter of 10,000 words. I also have a lot of job hunting to do at the moment because *dunt dunt ta dun* I just gained my Bachelor... I have a part-time job that I'm hoping to make more permanent but that most come with time, I'm mostly resume building at the moment. That takes up a lot of my time flitting from job to job.

Also. Depression. That's a thing. And the dread of a rudderless existence without the strict structure of collage to guide me.

Life is fun.

I'm mostly joking. Go to school, earn degrees, I'm getting paid minimally 20 dollars an hour at any job and I'm just starting out a few months after graduation. That sure beats working at a fast-food restaurant for 7.25 an hour. Go forth. Educate yourself.

Where was I? Oh right, fanfiction. *Gets off of soapbox*. Honestly, Willas is a sort of fun character that was written out of the show and has never appeared in the books, at least, not beyond a mention of people related to him. I sort took the basic framework of what people have said about him, tried to incorporate the fact that he is a favorite of the Queen of Thorns and tried to imagine what sort of man would come from that. Not to mention taking his siblings into account. Also. Winter Thorns in Highgarden was some inspiration for him as well, if less playful than that version of Willas.

~Happy Reading,

Moon Witch'96