A/N: And so it begins, (in 300, for my convenience.) Please see endnotes for dates changes and character ages.

Winterfell

300 AC

Seventeen Years Later

Arthur knew now that eating the cold egg in the morning had been a mistake.

They had set out at sunrise, their party of five and twenty, to see yet another deserter beheaded—the fourth this year. The man had died well. Robb said so, in any case, though Arthur had not yet determined what 'dying well' looked like. Each of the six beheadings he had seen thus far had looked the same—the men always haggard, half-frozen and half-dried like venison jerky, their faces resigned and stiff, and their bodies seeming too scrawny to hold the ten pints of blood that Arthur had read flowed through a grown man.

Still, his brother always insisted they died well, and Arthur determined that once he was older, he too would be so sure of these things.

The blood had always looked the same, too—red as sweet Dornish wine over the summer snow, though by now old Flea was no longer startled by the splatter of steaming blood. This morning, the head of the deserter had rolled in a crooked, crimson line towards Theon, one of Father's wards. Theon had stopped it with his foot, shooting a wry grin at Robb before nudging it back towards the body for burial. Arthur could still see the tangle of blood-matted hair over the grimy face, and again his stomach turned.

Oh, the egg had most certainly been a terrible mistake. The sight of blood always made him sick.

"You alright, Art?" His other brother Jon slowed his horse to fall in beside him, lean and tall and dark on his horse. He seemed to stretch taller by the day and now had to bend down to study Arthur's face with his grey eyes. "You seem a bit green."

Arthur swallowed and nodded, hoping his stomach would settle. He did not wish to embarrass Father again by being sick as he was the first time he had come to witness an execution. He had been but nine then. Now he was twelve, and as Father always said, winter was coming. They were in their tenth year of summer, and already the morning air nipped at Arthur's nose, hissing of the coming chill. He would have to start being tough like his brothers and Theon. Even Samwell Tarly, their father's other ward, had looked halfway a warrior this day, his pudgy face betraying no change as he helped the soldiers bury the deserter.

"Art's likely regretting the egg he had before we left," came his twin sister's voice to his other side, and Arthur turned to give her a harassed look. Elia, ever curious, had insisted on coming to see the executions when Father had deemed Arthur old enough. Neither she nor Arya ever seemed affected by the spurting blood and the sound of steel scraping bone, and Arthur ground his teeth, the familiar frustrations resurfacing at the irony of his name. It did not help that Lia topped him by half a head now, and was a better rider besides.

"Oh, it can't be so bad," she was saying now, easily riding a tight circle around them. "At least you did not have any of the fried ham. It was so greasy I can still taste the fat on the roof of my mouth."

"Gods' sake, shut up, Lia!" His stomach flipped violently yet again, while beside him, Jon burst out laughing, though he choked it back and offered a sheepish grin when Arthur glared at him.

"Are we tormenting poor Artie again?" Now it was Arya who rode up to them. "You're looking peaky, baby brother."

Arthur tried and failed to keep the scowl from his face, equal parts embarrassed and frustrated on top of his sloshing stomach. This really was shaping up to be the lousiest morning in a long while.

Arya must have seen his face darken, for her belly laugh was loud enough to startle Flea, and unlike Jon, she saw no reason to hide it for his sake.

"Let's leave Arthur to his suffering. Race the two of you to the bridge?"

And in a shower of upturned snow, they were off: Jon, intent and serious, tearing off after a laughing Arya, while Lia cursed her sister for starting before she was ready, but managed to pull ahead of both before long.

In the valley below, Robb turned his bright red head up to them, his grin so wide that Arthur could see it from the hill. In a cloud of white, he and Theon had urged their mounts into canters, while Arya's protests of cheating floated over the air.

Arthur heaved a great sigh. Only the irrationally indignant part of him wished to follow, but there was a reason he usually rode old Flea, the twenty-seven-year-old Dornish steed that was once his mother's.

Riding even at a fast canter usually made Arthur feel as if he were about to die, and Flea had seen enough of the world not to be easily excited past a trot. For a long while he rode alone down the sloping hill, the only sound the crunching of snow beneath hooves, his mind drifting to his latest book detailing the history of the Dance.

Briefly, Arthur wondered if, had he been born a Targaryen, he would be better at riding dragons than he was at riding horses. The thought evaporated just as quickly, though. If they were Targaryens, Lia would most certainly be the dragon rider, while Arthur pored over books on dragon care to help her fly faster.

So deep in thought was he that he did not hear the other horses through the snow until Father and the rest of the party surrounded him. Father drew up beside him, a giant in his layers of furs and dark cloaks. He clapped him on the shoulder and peered curiously at his face. Arthur felt himself blush.

"Everything alright, son?"

"Yes, Father."

Another moment of scrutiny.

"That's good." He gave Arthur a small smile. "I did promise your mother I'd see you were alright."

Arthur nodded, hoping he hid his nausea behind a nonchalant face.

"I am. I've seen this all before."

"One should never get too used to death, Arthur. I know it makes you ill. There's no shame in that."

Arthur wanted to ask if Father had ever felt ill taking off someone's head, even if it was his duty, but he held his tongue. Father always went to the godswood to be alone and clean his sword afterwards, and yet rode tall and strong before his men, his distaste never showing on his face. That was all the answer Arthur needed.

When his father had ridden ahead with Uncle Brynden and a few other men, Sam's large form appeared to his right.

"You didn't want to join your siblings?" asked Sam, always speaking as if Arthur was simply choosing not to race, even though they both knew the truth. Arthur should count himself lucky, he knew. His father never disparaged him for his lack of skill on horseback or in the practice yard, and when he had asked Amma to bring up his becoming a maester one day, Father had not dismissed the notion out of hand.

Sam was not so lucky. Since he had come to Winterfell to foster, Ser Rodrick and Uncle Brynden wrote frequent reports of Sam's poor training to Lord Tarly, and Arthur knew that Lord Tarly had long ago stopped responding. Though Sam was of an age with his brothers, he had not once gone back home to visit.

"No, I think I want some peace and quiet," said Arthur, and Sam nodded. They rode in companionable silence for a while, until one of them—he could not remember who—brought up their recent discoveries in their history books.

Sam was just telling him of the way Northerners used to nail fish barrels differently, to accommodate the bigger fish that once swam in the White Knife, when Robb appeared at the top of the hill in a flash of red. At seventeen, he was nearly as broad and strong as Father, sitting atop his horse like a warrior of old.

"Father and Uncle! Art and Sam! Come quick and see what my sisters have found!" And he disappeared into the thicket once more.

As Arthur nudged Flea forward to catch up with his father, he heard Uncle Brynden's bellowing voice wonder aloud just what mischief the girls could have gotten into now.

"You'll have a hell of a time finding them husbands, Ned," said the Blackfish. Arthur thought that was rich, coming from Uncle Brynden. His father answered with a low chuckle.

"That's up to their mother. She's raised them wild. Besides, they're too young still to talk of marriage."

The trees opened to the riverbank, blanketed with summer snowdrifts, and Arthur saw Theon at the tree-line with six horses standing around him, hesitant to approach whatever it was that his sisters and brothers were crowded around by the river.

They dismounted and approached on foot, the men trudging through the snow in front of him, and as Arthur passed Theon he shot him a questioning look. Theon's eyes grew huge.

"You'll see," he said, his voice reverent and low. "It's the freak."

Suddenly, Lia's delighted laughter seemed to bounce over the snow, just as Uncle Brynden's curses rang atop it, followed by the sounds of swords pulled from scabbards.

"Arya Stark, you get away from that thing!" Uncle Brynden cried, and Arthur struggled forward in an awkward run, trying to find footing.

"She won't hurt me," said Arya, her voice sounding muffled. "And besides, she's injured so badly I don't think she can move much."

"Surely it can't be!" gasped Jory Cassel, the captain of Winterfell's guards, just as Arthur managed to stumble his way to the crowd and emerge beside Jon. He gasped.

The dark blood against the white of the snow hurt his eyes. Half-sunk in the drift, a giant mass of grey fur lay on its side, its flank matted with rusty blood, its breathing shallow and erratic. It was the size of a pony, its head was huge, and its golden eyes gleamed like glassy orbs. Arya crouched near its head, peering at the wound and the jagged broken antler jutting from the exposed flesh. As Arthur felt his stomach protest violently at the gore, he saw his father bend down as well.

"Yes, I believe it is, Jory," he said, his voice calm and level as he removed his glove and put his hand before the giant wolf's snout. For a moment it did not move, but then its nose twitched with interest, and its yellow eyes fixed on Father.

"Still recognize me after these many years?" he heard his father say softly. Arthur felt his eyes stretch too wide for his head.

"A direwolf?" he breathed to no one in particular, and it was Robb who answered.

"Yes," said his brother. "The very one Amma had at Winterfell."

More of their party had gathered now, and a collective gasp rose at Robb's words. It was a well-told tale in the North. At the tail-end of last winter, while Lord Eddard had been off fighting the Ironborn, the Lady of Winterfell had found a young direwolf caught in a storm, the first seen south of the Wall for centuries.

For more than a year, the wolf lived in the castle, following Lady Stark like a lost puppy, for all that she was four feet tall at the shoulders. When Lady Stark received Northern lords or doled out judgements in the name of her husband, the direwolf sat at her feet, as if she were a Winter King of old. Any who thought to question her authority or disparage her southern birth had been driven to silence, if not by the lady's level purple gaze, then by the direwolf's flashing glare.

His siblings had talked of the direwolf sometimes-of how Arya had ridden on her back when their mother was near, and thrown sticks for her in the godswood-but neither Arthur nor Lia had any recollection of her. Some months after Father returned with Theon in tow, she had slipped into the shadows one night, and had not been seen since. Arthur had only been three, and he was always sorry he missed the beast.

But no more. The wolf made a low, pitiful sound in her throat, and Arthur could not bear to look at her bleeding side anymore. He turned his head away, and that was when he noticed that his siblings all had little squirming bundles in their hands. He gasped like a delighted child. The black pup in Lia's arms raised its fuzzy head, sniffed the air, then yawned so big its pink tongue curled up at the end.

Lia laughed again.

"Want to hold him, Artie?"

Unable to tear his eyes away, Arthur let her place the pup in his arms, where he burrowed into the crook of his elbow, then fell promptly back to sleep, warm and soft under his hand.

"There are five of them," said Jon, also smiling, picking up a light grey pup by the scruff and laying it carefully on his shoulder.

"What think you, Farlen," asked Father, and the kennel master Farlen pushed to the front of the party. "Can she be saved?"

Farlen swallowed visibly, but steeled himself and approached the mother wolf, who fixed him with her gaze. He checked the pulse points, then examined the wound, eliciting another whimper when he jostled the antler.

"I can't say for sure, milord," he finally sighed. "She doesn't seem to be dying right this moment. If we can remove the antler and sew her back up—" here he paused and swallowed again—"before the bleeding gets bad, we might have a chance. But then, there's infection to worry about, and that's up to the gods."

"So the chances are slim?" asked Father, a crease appearing between his brows.

"Yes, milord."

"But there is a chance."

"Yes, milord."

Father nodded and rose.

"Jon and Arya, ride back to Winterfell as fast as you can, and bring back some men with one of the big horse-drawn carts. Make sure they hitch steady horses."

"Yes, Father." Jon handed the pup on his shoulder to Robb, while Arya was already trudging back through the snow to where Theon stood with the horses. Beside him, Arthur heard Lia's inhale of breath as she made to protest, but before she could, Father had looked over and sighed, resigned.

"And you too, Elia. No doubt you'll get there first. What will you tell the men?"

Lia smiled.

"I will say, 'My father says to hitch the steadiest horses to one of the big carts. We found an injured direwolf by the river.'"

"That's fine. And once you've relayed the message, go to the kitchens and put some milk in a waterskin. The mother won't like her pups being taken from her side, and might not be able to feed them again."

"Yes, Father!" Lia's eyes were shining with excitement.

"And when you've done that, go find your mother and tell her of what's happened—no, don't argue," for Lia had opened her mouth again. "You won't be any help back here, and your poor mother will want some warning of what is coming."

O~O~O~O~O

The morning sun shone orange and warm through the windows of her solar, and Ashara slunk down in her chair, trying to keep the light from her eyes. Before her were scrolls of parchment—ten at least—that had come for her by raven this day.

Most of the kingdoms seemed to believe her three eldest children had reached an appropriate age for marriage, and suddenly the letters asking her opinions on pepper cultivation and innovations on fishing vessels were instead detailing the virtues of daughters, sisters, nieces and granddaughters.

Naturally, most inquiries were for Robb, the future heir to Winterfell and no doubt the kind of goodson that any parent dreamed about. The Glovers, the Karstarks, the Manderlys and Maege Mormont had all written more than once, and even Barbrey Dustin had begun hinting in her letters of late what a capable, affable beauty her brother's daughter was becoming.

There were also those asking after Sansa. A surprising number of Northern, Vale, and even Stormlands houses seemed willing to send a second son to be a lord consort in Dorne and have children who would not carry their family name.

Perhaps their eagerness was understandable. Her eldest daughter was an heiress, exquisite, and by all accounts a perfect lady. Or perhaps they did not understand that a man marrying the future Lady of Starfall would not, in fact, have dominion over the Dayne lands.

TThough most Dornish nobles did not plan their children's marriages before twenty, a few had nonetheless written to express their interest in Sansa, asking when she would return to Dorne and once again live with her uncle. No doubt they did not wish to be forgotten should Ashara decide to follow northern engagement customs. Ashara had no intention of doing any such thing, but she saw no reason to discourage the interest.

Then, of course, there was Jon. Northern lords might look unkindly on bastards, but Snow or not, Jon was still a son of Ned Stark, raised at Winterfell and favoured by his father. As her own "generosity" to her husband's bastard son was oft-repeated, lords had begun tentatively to write her asking after Jon's marriage—most for their bastard daughters, but some minor lords for their true-born girls as well.

Despite her frequent appeals to logic and her patent emotional coercion, in all these years Ashara had not been able to convince Ned to write King Robert and legitimise her son. Granted, perhaps she did not try hard enough, but she so hated to see the helpless terror that flashed in Ned's eyes whenever she broached the subject.

Jon's bastard name was no grave hindrance at present—the weight of it on his heart notwithstanding, her poor boy—but in a few years time when they must seriously start seeking out a wife for Jon...Ashara pinched the bridge of her nose. Ned would not even allow rumours to spread of the future he planned for the boy. How would she find the best match for Jon when his father was intent on hiding him away?

She must try again to bring up the subject with Ned. It would inevitably lead to a quarrel, which she hated above all, though it was a well-worn fight by now, and she could not think of any new way to make her appeal. Her husband seemed to lose his good sense whenever the subject arose, and while she could understand his fear, it did not make anything easier.

"My lady?" Ashara looked up from Lady Dustin's latest missive, filled with ghastly rumours about Lord Bolton's bastard son. Ashara had developed a rather strange friendship with the woman since she had arranged for Borsyo to dig up and carry north the bones of Ned's companions in Dorne—one of whom had been Lord Dustin. Barbrey's mix of news and gossip was often as informative as the reports from Ashara's spies.

Maester Luwin was in the open doorway, another scroll in hand, looking very much like a benevolent mouse. She gave him a resigned smile.

"Any more letters and I'll not get to the ledgers until afternoon," she sighed.

"Perhaps you should read this one first, my lady," said the wizened maester, a frown etched into his face as he approached her desk.

"It comes from King's Landing."

Ashara narrowed her eyes at the scroll, sealed in golden wax with the stag of House Baratheon.

"Surely it was not addressed to me."

"No, my lady, to Lord Stark. But given he is gone this morning I thought it best you read it in all haste, in case the king requires an immediate reply."

She tapped the scroll against her palm, considering, then nodded her thanks, broke the wax, and read. Cold fingers reached down her neck, and she sucked in a sharp breath.

Jon Arryn was dead, the parchment read. And the king was coming to Winterfell.

000

"Amma? Amma!"

Sometime later, as Ashara was bent over a preliminary preparations list, the unmistakable sound of Elia's voice echoed through the hallways, approaching her solar.

"Slow down, love," she scolded absently as her youngest daughter charged into the chamber, and it took her a few moments to remember that Elia was meant to be with her father. Her head snapped back up.

"Lia! What are you—when did your father—"

"No, Amma, it's just me."

Ashara felt her eyes bulge halfway out of her head.

"Well, Jon and Arya are back by now, too, the snails. Father bid us come back." Her eyes grew bigger, but her daughter only gave her a wide, toothy smile.

"We found your old direwolf! The one I can't remember. Me and Arya!" Here her smile slipped for a heartbeat. "She's hurt and all—no, no not Arya, the wolf—but Farlen thinks there's a chance he could heal her. And she's got five puppies! Amma, they are so cute and I got to hold them and they're all sleepy and soft." The smile was back, and her violet eyes were glittering.

"Father's bringing all of them back to Winterfell so I had to come back fast and tell the men to bring a cart over to the wolf. Father says I had to come tell you after I got the milk for the puppies and I wouldn't be much help to them at the bridge, but now that I've told you, oh, can I please ride back with them? I want to hold the puppies on the ride to Winterfell! They'll be so cold otherwise."

Finally, Elia stopped for breath. For some moments Ashara's head swam, but she was used to Elia's prattling ways.

"Did you say you found the direwolf I brought back ten years ago? And that she is hurt?" Her chest warmed but then clenched with fear. The wolf had been just a young thing, barely past her pup stage, and had needed Ashara as her children did.

"But Farlen says there's a chance he can save her! Amma please, please can I go with the men? Jon and Arya are going back."

"I—uh—" she shook her head to clear it. "Right. No, love, if your father says you'll be in the way then you must stay." Her daughter's face fell dramatically, and Ashara gave her a patient smile.

"I'm rather busy here, and no doubt she has grown since I last saw her. It can be your job to arrange a place where the men might lay her out and tend her wounds. And to ask Yli if she can help the beast."

Elia perked up like a weed after rain, then scrunched up her face.

"She'd never fit in the kennels. She's the size of a pony now." Gods help her, a pony? Ashara had forgotten the great size of the wolf, even at so young an age. Again her chest warmed. In the intervening years, she would sometimes see one of the hunting dogs playing the yard, and in a flash of nostalgia would miss the grey wolf who had stood guard over her in those bitter months Ned was off at war.

"Try the old stables then," she said, trying to settle the rising swirl of hope and fear. "Take a couple of the stable boys with you, and make her a bed with fresh hay. Then make sure to get her plenty of fresh meat from the kitchens. And don't forget to tell Yli. Can I trust you to do this, Elia? Make everything ready for when your father returns with her?"

Elia nodded, eyes bright.

"She'll be the most comfortable direwolf in the North, I promise. Can I get her some old blankets?"

Ashara couldn't help her laugh.

"Yes, you may do what you think is best, but for everyone's sake, I do hope she and her pups are the only direwolves in the North. Well, go on then. I trust you will do this well."

000

Ashara made her way to the godswood when all was settled with the she-wolf and her pups. Farlen had removed the antler without much more blood loss and stitched her wound with help from the maester, and now all they could do was hope Yli's herbs prevented infection and permanent damage to her muscles. That boded well, and in light of the earlier news from King's Landing, not only for the wolf and her own heart.

The she-wolf's size had truly been a shock, but Ashara had recognised those golden eyes and the curious, twitching nose the moment she had stepped into the old stables. The wolf had known her too, licking first her hand, then her face with a tentative tongue. For some time Ashara had sat by her head, stroking her between the ears, trying not to weep. She would live. She had to. All those nights in her cold bed, it had been the wolf who kept her from freezing to her core, and whose fur she had wet with her tears.

Despite Ned's admonitions that they would have to return the pups to the wild once their mother had healed, her children were already in love, feeding them with rags dipped in milk. And who could blame them? They were the sweetest creatures Ashara had ever seen. Even Theon and Sam had ventured to hold and pet them, for all that Theon still kept a healthy distance from their mother.

Poor Theon. At eight, that had been Theon's first memory of Winterfell: a strange, purple-eyed woman standing in the outer bailey, a snarling wolf as tall as he was standing by her side. An image that would have seared itself in any little boy's mind.

She walked through the trees now, her feet needing no guidance. There had always been a strange, foreign sort of peace in the Winterfell godswood. With its watching weirwood and black pool, the place still reminded her that she was not of this cold land, with its snow and forests and whisper of old magic.

Yet she found comfort here somehow, like a shipwrecked sailor washed ashore in a foreign land after years of drifting at sea. It bore no resemblance to the scenes of her childhood, but she was a child no longer, and this place had been her home for nearly half her life.

Ned looked up as she approached the weirwood, though her feet made no sound on the mossy forest floor, and tried for a smile. Ice lay across his lap, so dark it seemed to drink in the light, and he wiped the blade carefully with a cloth dipped in the black pool before him.

She sat down on the rock beside him, feeling the weirwood's eyes on her back, watching the rippling veins on the blade shift in the low afternoon light. Valyrian steel it was, and had not needed sharpening in the four centuries since its forging, much like she had never seen Arthur take a whetstone to Dawn.

Yet Ned had told her the name of the sword was older still—a legacy from the age when magic reigned over the land, and the Starks sat on their thrones of winter with their direwolves at their feet.

"All is well with the direwolf?" asked Ned.

"Yli gave her milk of the poppy, and she should sleep until tomorrow."

"And the children?"

She looked at him from the side of her eye. "They have each named one already. When their mother recovers, I should not wish to witness the children parting with them."

Ned sighed.

"They are direwolves, Ash. They would not stay with humans as dogs do."

"I have been to your crypts, Lord Stark. The mother was with me for more than a year, and she was half-grown then. You saw how she was. And besides. You do not think it telling somehow that there is a male pup for each of our boys, and a female one for each girl? And the way Jon found the last one…the one that looks different from the rest…"

For her children had told how there had only been five pups near their mother, snuggling close and feeding despite her injury. But as they were loading the wolf onto the cart, she had whimpered, and Jon, having heard something on the wind, had strode several yards downstream, and come back holding a sixth pup with red eyes and fur as white as the snow itself.

He turned to look at her, giving her a small smile.

"You are listening too intently to Old Nan's stories, my love. Perhaps my ancestors kept direwolves once, and perhaps they had powers we cannot imagine, but now…they are wolves, and they are wild."

"We shall have to see then. I do not think you put enough stock in these old stories, Ned. They are passed down for a reason. It is true for us Daynes, and it is true for Starks as well."

She had told her children every story she could remember from her childhood—of ancestors who could hear the stars speak; ancestors who commanded the wind and chased a falling star to the ends of the earth; ancestors whose touch turned rock to water and back, and who forged swords from sunlight itself.

Ned did not argue and slid Ice back into its sheath.

"This man was like the others," he said, his voice low, and Ashara knew it was to the man he had executed that he referred. "Terrified half out of his mind. I don't understand how there are suddenly so many such men."

"Has Benjen written at all? Or Commander Mormont?"

"Ben only writes that they do not like their numbers, even with the influx of new recruits these past years. They have lost many on rangings of late."

"Surely they are used to the viciousness of the wildlings."

A humourless smile.

"They have a king now, and if they become truly disciplined and united under this Mance Rayder, I may have to call the banners."

Ashara felt her stomach turn. Her brow knotted, and Ned reached up to smooth it away.

"'Tis is only a distant concern, my love. I do not think it will happen so soon, and I am sure there is nothing to fear from this King-beyond-the-Wall, though Mormont seems convinced there are darker forces at work."

"I know you are dismissive of talk of magic and creatures from legend, but with the direwolf coming so far south again…" she shivered, feeling once more the eyes of the weirwood on her back. "Mormont did not seem to me a man prone to flights of fancy."

Ned gave a short laugh.

"No, that he is not, but just because he believes he has reason to fear does not make him right. Men have always claimed to see dark shadows and the stuff of nightmares. Ben thinks it's nonsense. The man is approaching seventy, and men become superstitious with age. As for the direwolf, perhaps she sensed the coming of winter, and wished to raise her pups south of the Wall."

Ashara chewed on her lip, not fully convinced, but Benjen had always struck her as an intelligent man. Surely he would write if they truly had cause for concern.

"Now, have you come just to keep me company then?" asked Ned, surely knowing her answer.

She shook her head.

"What is it?"

She swallowed, but there was no way to tell him gently.

"I am so sorry, Ned. This came for you from King's Landing today." She held out the parchment. "Jon Arryn has died."

Her words seemed to strike him like a blow, and he fumbled for the letter, pain carving itself into his brow. She slid her arm around him and pulled him into her, kissing his shoulder. The man had been more father to Ned than Lord Rickard was. Though Ashara had met him but twice, she still remembered the way his eyes had twinkled beneath his white brows as he wished her a long life of health and happiness at her wedding all those years ago.

His eyes scanned the parchment, as if hoping he had misheard.

"Fever…taken ill and was gone in a week..." He read under his breath, then looked up.

"I had not heard of Jon being in anything but perfect health. How could this be?"

His voice was desolate, and sounded impossibly young. Ashara bit her lip.

"I am so sorry," she said again. Then,

"I was going to wait a few days to broach the subject. It does seem…rather sudden, does it not? You must ask the king for details when he arrives."

She heard his sharp intake of breath, and his eyes returned to the parchment.

"Robert is coming to Winterfell?"

She could see the grief warring with unexpected joy over his face.

"I have begun preparations—we have a moonturn's time, though I will need to drop our other endeavours and give Sansa the usual running of the castle. There is much to prepare in feasts and entertainments and housing for his party."

"Damnation, ten years and all the man gives is a month's notice before he appears on my doorstep."

"I doubt he intends it to inconvenience you. Not when he would do so another way. There can be no other reason he chooses to come north now."

Ned's eyes narrowed before her meaning dawned on him. His eyebrows shot up.

"You think he would ask me to replace Jon? As Hand? That's madness. He knows I am not made for such things."

"And he would tell you he was not made to be king," she shrugged, remembering the drunk man sprawled in the royal sept, demanding answers from the mute statues. "He will ask this of you. I am certain."

Ned sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Well, I've got a month to figure out how to refuse him. Have you told Brynden of this? No doubt he'd want to see to his niece." Robert's letter had told of Jon Arryn's widow and son returning to the Eyrie as if fleeing from demons in the night.

"Not yet. You must be the first to know, naturally, but have no doubt Ser Brynden will wish to travel to the Vale."

Some months after she and Ned had arrived at Winterfell and Hoster Tully had begrudgingly sent an infant Robb north, Brynden Tully had ridden alone to the gates of Winterfell and asked—or rather, demanded—to enter Ned's service. It did not take a mastermind to understand why Ser Brynden had come, but the man had certainly found no need to mask his intentions.

"In case your new wife sees fit to orchestrate some accident or illness for my grandnephew," he had told Ned, before a hall full of servants and guards, and Ashara had needed to step in before her husband threw Ser Brynden off the Winterfell walls.

But Brynden Tully was not blind, and it was only months before he realised Ashara was as much in love with Robb as she was with Jon. And when her other children had arrived, they all called him Uncle, and no one saw any reason to correct them. She did wish Hoster Tully shared his brother's goodwill towards his grandson's family, but she had penned him that rather extortive letter more than a decade ago, and if Ser Brynden was any example of Tully stubbornness, Lord Tully would never look kindly upon her.

Ned kissed her hand now as they both rose.

"I will tell him," he said, tucking the king's letter into his double. "You have enough to be getting on with."

Ashara gave him a small smile, but when he made to lead the way back to the castle, she pulled him back, taking in a determined breath.

"Ned."

"Hmm?"

He really saw her face then, and tensed. He might not have the ability to read all her expressions, but this determined one he knew.

"Ash..."

"Ned, when the king arrives, it would be the perfect time to ask him to legitimise Jon. You could even present it as an afterthought. He won't suspect a thing."

His eyes bore into her, his gaze weary, the corners of his mouth strained.

"Just…I'm sorry to bring this up today, but…only, think about it. You will need to do it sometime in the next few years, so why not now?"

Ned closed his eyes, his entire body stiff, and she could almost see the fear-laced memories flashing in his mind. She squeezed his hand, and he sighed.

"Ash, I do not wish to quarrel today." Again, he pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand, then walked soundlessly through the woods and back to the castle.

A/N: Let me point out some character ages, as I've been rather liberal with my age manipulation:

Theon is 18 and became a ward at 8
Robb and Jon and Sam are 17
Sansa is 16
Arya is 15
The twins Arthur and Elia are, of course, 12

The Greyjoy Rebellion happened in 289-290, and Summer started in 290 as well. So, the summer has lasted 10 years at this point.