A/N: I had not realised it but I had missed some very important characters in this story and it was not till a reviewer commented about it I had, so this chapter is going to be where you meet them all for the first time in this story, albeit a lot later than in the actual series.

The following morning after the incident with the king's sons had blazed a glorious sunrise, and Robert decided that he wanted to go hunting. It had been a few stressful days at Winterfell and he needed to relax somehow or otherwise he thought, he was going to end up killing someone, someone he thought wryly and with a bit of sadistic glee with Lannister blood running through their veins. He had enough of the Lannister scum amongst the group of courtiers, guards and soldiers who had accompanied him from King Landing to choose from. Perhaps he thought, an accident could occur that would get rid of the parasite he had married, at least he was now getting rid of her twin brother and that alone filled him with some joy, the thought of Jaime Lannister ending his days on the wall and well away from his sister. The king smiled grimly to himself but his eyes danced with a mirth he found hard to contain, he knew just how close his wife and her brother were, a bit too close, in not only his mind but a few others of his court had thought so too and when Jon Arren had given him the news of possible incest between the two, he had rubbed his hands with glee. Before Jon had died, he had been searching for more evidence to prove what both he and the king already believed to be true. That Cersei's children were in fact not the offspring of her husband and king but rather the incestuous offspring of her brother, Jaime.

Robert had wandered through Winterfell in search of Ned and eventually found him on the furthest side of the great castle, inspecting the brickwork of one of the battlements with his captain of his guards, Jory Cassel and the Winterfell steward whose name he did not know nor particularly wished to know either. Ned had thought about it for only a moment after Robert had told him what he wanted to do and thought it was a good idea, he could see that Robert needed something to get rid of the aggression and rage he could see shimmering in his old friends eyes, and besides he thought the kitchens were probably running low on meat. The court that Robert had brought with him were large and they ate a lot, so the hunt would solve two problems. If they didn't hunt and find fresh meat, he realised that they would have to break into the winter stores that had been put by and that was something he was not wanting to do, those stores were the only things that kept his people alive during the winter months and without them, there would be many hungry bellies this winter and possibly more than a few deaths from starvation, something he was not willing to inflict upon his people who looked to him to lead them.

It didn't take long to gather people for the hunt as there were many keen to go, and the horses were saddled and down in the courtyard ready in almost record time. The king did not want any of the Lannisters on this hunt, he wanted to enjoy it without having to hear any of them whinging and moaning, about the sentence he handed out to their kinsman, nor did he trust them to protect him and those they were consigned to protect, mind you his wife, the queen was still confined to her assigned quarters, so the Lannister contingency could stay and protect her.

Two of the kingsguard were assigned to guard her door, both as protection for her in case anyone aimed to harm her, he would be so lucky he thought and to make sure she stayed put in the chamber. One of them was her cousin Lancel, the king did not trust Lancel what with him being a Lannister but with not wanting any of the Lannisters with them while they hunted, going with the king on the hunt, there was no choice but to leave Lancel guarding the queen while four others guarded the queen's children and one guarded the door of his brother-in-law, Tyrion.

Well they guarded Mycella and Joffrey, the younger boy had wanted to come on the hunt along with Bran, but Robert did not trust any of the children that he had supposedly had with Cersei. Mind you, he thought to himself if the reports he had received from John Arran were correct they were not his children anyway. A small matter he intended to rectify once he had returned to the capital and should further information prove to be correct then, he was going to have Cersei executed for treason and her bastard children along with her. He felt a small twinge of pity for the younger two children, they were not as bad as their elder brother Joffrey, in fact if it were not for the fact they were Cersei's children and therefore Lannisters, he might have allowed them to live but he surmised they were most likely as treacherous like their mother, and the rest of the Lannister family and therefore they had to die too.

XxX

Ned watched Robert as he downed another tankard of beer, they were sitting awhile, resting while the younger ones had gone off looking for more game. Robert finished his drink and wiped his lips dry with the back of hand, burping loudly.

"BY THE GODS. I NEEDED THAT!"

The king exclaimed loudly, as he wiped the back of his hand against his lips, and belched loudly again as he did so, he leaned back and eyed his oldest friend, they had been riding hard all day and there was now plenty of game to be taken back to Winterfell to be carved up and and either cooked for the meal that night, or to be salted down and stored away in the kitchen stores for the coming winter. He stared intently at his old friend the Lord of Winterfell before asking the question that had niggled at the back of his mind ever since discovering that Jon was Lyanna's child and not Ned's bastard like everyone had always believed.

"Why did you never tell me the truth about Jon, Ned?"

Ned looked at his friend the king, as he considered his words. He knew why he had at the beginning not told Robert about Jon and that was because of the way, that Robert had coldly and without emotion looked down on the bodies of Prince Rheagar's children after the Tywin Lannister had presented them to him after Kings Landing had been taken.

"It was your reaction towards the bodies of Rheagar's and Ellia's children when they had been brought before you in the throne room, your total disregard for the death of the children. You remember what you called them Robert, dragon spawn."

"What has that got to do with you not telling me about my son?" Robert asked with anger in his voice.

Ned took a deep slow breath before he continued, Robert was getting angry he could both see and hear that and an angry Robert was an unpredictable Robert. The past had proven that to Ned and he did not believe that time and age had improved Robert's emotional state since the last time he had seen him all those years ago.

"Had I come to you all those years ago following the final battles, that had seen the end of the Targaryen family with a baby in my arms, my sisters child would you have believed it was your child or Rheagars?" he asked his old friend looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

Robert went to answer but Ned held his hand up.

"Let me finish please before you say anything."

Robert closed his mouth but glared at the man who was his oldest friend in all of Westeros.

"The mood you was in then, the battle lust still upon you," Ned continued, " you would not have even for one moment have thought that the child I held in my arms was your son, your first thought would have been that it was Rheagars and you would have killed Jon and don't deny it Robert, because you know you would have."

The king glowered as he sat pondering what Ned was saying to him, he liked to think that he would not have thought that Jon was that bastards Rheagars child, but he knew deep in his heart that what Ned was saying was true, he would have thought and believed that the new born babe that Ned had found with his beloved Lyanna was the bastard child of the dead targaryean prince and he would have had the child killed. He was not proud of his actions back then but it was a time of war and people die in wars, he reasoned with himself.

"Then as time went on, as the years rolled by, I knew I should have told you," Ned continued, " but I didn't trust the Lannister's. I knew they would have done everything they could have to get rid of Jon, had I finally told you or anyone the truth about him. I owed it to my sister to keep her son safe, I promised her on her deathbed that I would keep her son safe and I have till now. My only regret is that Jon has been brought up believing he is base born, a bastard in the eyes of those here in Winterfell and the rest of Westeros as large."

The king bristled at Ned's words, he knew that many within the kingdom would always see Jon as a bastard, regardless of the fact he was in fact true born, legitimate. He had observed the way Ned's people had treated Jon here at Winterfell, in the short time before he had made his drunken announcement at the feast which had announced the lads true identity to the world.

Some of them had not been nice at all to Jon he had seen, treating him with scorn and acting in a derisive arrogant manner towards the boy and then when they had found out he was his son, some of them acted in an almost sycophant way in trying to do whatever they could for the him.

XxX

The hunt had proceeded well, with much game being bagged and while the king and Lord Stark with some of the court rested back at the camp, and servants began to skin and dress some of the meat for the return journey to the castle but some of the younger members of the hunting party had ridden out to see what else they could find. It also gave them the chance to escape the ever present eyes of their elders albeit they had Jory with them but he was not that much older than they, a mere fifteen years.

As Captain of the Winterfell guard he should have stayed back at camp protecting his Lord and the king but Ned had ordered him to stay with his children, nephew and their peers. His nephew Jon, not his base born son, that was something that Jory was still getting use to in his mind, he had always liked young Jon and was one of the few within the castle who had never treated the young boy badly. He had always liked the lad, had treated him kindly especially when he had seen some of the others within the castle treating the lad so unkindly.

He knew from whispers within the guard that there were a few within in the castle who thought that the news of Jon's true identity was nothing more than just a big jest and that the king would the following morning of his announcement would deny all knowledge of what he had said and deny the lad was his firstborn son.

However, when that had not happened and his Lord had confirmed that Jon was indeed Lyanna's and Robert Baratheon's true-born son, then those same people who had thought it was a jest the night before suddenly became too nice in their attitude towards the lad, falling over themselves to do anything and everything they could to get in the lad's good graces.

Jory did not trust certain people, who on one hand was trying to be so nice to the lad when they had treated the lad all these years with such disdain and contempt as he grew up in Winterfell with his supposed half siblings and he was determined to keep an eye on those who he felt might be a threat to the lad, he hated to think that there might be some within the keeps population who might harm the lad but he was not stupid, he knew what people could and might do, especially if the price was right!

The group had been riding for a while when they suddenly heard a strange noise up ahead and a huge deer hurtled across their path, the riders at the front of the party pulled the reins of their horses sharply, to prevent the creature hurtling across the path in front of them from crashing into them, and a couple of the southern riders were unseated as their horses reared, in fright at the sudden intrusion of the deer on the path in front of them.

"WHAT IN THE HELL? cried one of the southern riders.

It took the some of the riders a while to get their horses all back under control, the near miss with the deer had unnerved most of the horses and a few of their riders too but when they did, it was decided unanimously to follow the path that the creature had left behind itself in its wake, and it was not long before the riders came across another sight, even more shocking than that of the deer almost running a few of them down, when it crashed through the trees onto the trail in front of them.

Laying on the ground was the biggest wolf that any of them had seen, the broken antler of the runaway deer was embedded in the beasts side. Cautiously some of the riders including Jon, Robb and Jory approached the great beast that lay before them, they could see that it breathed no more but none were taking the chance that it might be faking death.

The wolf-like creature lay dead centre in the path, its blood congealing beneath it in a large pool. Never had any of them seen such a beast, for it was at twice the size of a normal fox, Robb peered closer, his cousin beside him.

"It can't be!" he started to say, Jon glancing at him.

"What is it, it cannot be a normal wolf, it is way too big for a normal wolf but never has a wolf of this size been seen this far North, the only wolf known to be that size was the sigil of your house my lord, a direwolf?" Jory said, as he too looked on in wonder at the size of the creature that laid before them all.

"What else can it be, but a direwolf?" Jon said. "I know none have been seen this far South of the wall in many a year but as we all know, the winter is coming. SO perhaps with the winter comes the creature that is the sigil of House Stark"

A sound to the side of the group, a soft whimpering alerted them to the existence of other creatures within their vicinity and a small group led by Theon went to investigate, Bran included amongst them. Reaching down, by a hole in the embankment, Theon pulled a small furry pup out of the hole lifting it up for all to see. His lips curling back at the sight of the young beast, his hand reached for the dagger at his hip.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Bran shouted, as Theon made to kill the wiggling pup he held aloft in his hand, clearly intending to end it.

Bran threw himself at the Winterfell ward, intending to save the young pup, for some reason he felt he had to, the pup was important, a lone sigil of his house.

Theon put his hand out to stop him, pushing young Bran slightly to one side to stop him attacking him.

"It is for it's own good, it is too young to live without its mother." Theon told him, roughly.

"YOU CAN'T!" Bran cried, turning his head he looked imploringly at his older brother and cousin.

"Tell him Robb, Jon, he can't kill it."

Robb looked in sympathy at his brother, he knew of Bran's love for small animals but he knew that Theon was right, the pup would not survive without its mother and it would be kinder if it was killed now. Jon stepped forward, towards Bran and Theon. Looking at the pup that Theon held still, he made the decision for his cousin.

"If this is indeed a direwolf, it is a sigil of House Stark and your father as Lord of Winterfell should decide the creatures fate Robb."

Robb nodded at Jon's words, Theon merely scowled at the former bastard, he still did not like Jon.

As the decision had been made to take the pup back to the camp where Lord Stark was so he could decide its fate, more whimpers were heard from the hole and Jon knelt down and pulled more pups from the hole, handing each one to those standing behind him who watched and soon the group found themselves holding a total of six including the one that Theon still held.

"Well, it looks like Lord Stark has to decide the fate of six possible direwolfs my lord." Jory said, as he and all those present gazed in wonder at the tiny creatures.

XxX

"My Lord, a message has come for you."

Lord Tywin Lannister looked up from where he was surveying some parchment, to see his steward standing deferentially before him, holding out a parchment which he assumed had, whatever the message was upon it.

He put his hand out for the message, which his servant handed to him quickly, his eyes studiously not watching his lord and master.

Tywin studied the parchment in his hand for a moment, reading the words of the message that the raven, had brought from his son Tyrion. For a mere second the words on the parchment did not register as he stared at the words, words of the action and in his mind, the betrayal by Robert Baratheon of his actions in condemning his son Jaime to the wall.

He glared at the parchment for a moment longer as the words finally sank in at the king had done and when he raised his eyes, the steward could see a cold fury in them.

"Send the word out to my banner men, tell them to prepare for war!"

A/N: Well there you are, finally, this chapter is finished. I have prove read it several time but there is a possibility that I might have missed the odd grammar or spelling mistake but bare with me. This is the longest chapter that I have ever written and I apologise that it has taken so long. But finally it is finished. I am already working on the next one and hopefully you will not have so long a wait for that one. It will be not so long as this one and it will focus mainly on the reactions of those within Winterfell to the discovery of the direwolfs.