The Royal Procession to the North was on the move.
Well, almost. The Royal Procession was VERY slow due to Cersei's monstrosity of a wheelhouse that was making the procession take twice the time it should have taken to arrive North.
"Fuck. Why do you need that fucking Wheelhouse anyway? Just take a normal carriage like anyone else and we would be there by now." Robbert bellowed irritation at Cersei as they had to stop for repairs for the Wheelhouse, again.
"I am Queen, I can't just ride in anything."
"Aye, you are Queen, but I am King and you don't see me parading around in a ridiculous shit like that." Robert said and Cersei fumed in anger. She had asked for her father to be Hand of the King instead of Eddard Stark, but when she was refused she sword to herself to make sure that she would infuriate Robert as much as possible.
Her use of the Wheelhouse was one such way.
Not resisting the desire to make her point known she spoke up.
"If you had just accepted my advice to chose father you would not need to do any convincing and you would be able to stay in the city, whoring, drinking, and hunting like usual while better men take care of the kingdoms for you."
Not a second after she finished saying that she was slapped, hard. Robert gave an annoyed glare at her before speaking up.
"I already have to deal with too many of you little shits for my tastes. You even tried to push a blond squire to me, thankfully Jon saw reason thanks to his child and I got a better option." The king said.
"You mean that Bolton boy of the North? Something like that cannot compare with my cousin." The Queen said, not carrying about the slap. This was not the first time it happened and would not be the last. She did not care, let the world see how it's king was just a brute and how noble the Queen is.
Not that anyone would actually look up at Cersei if they knew her at all.
"Aye, he grew in the Vale for a good while and is a strong lad. He was honest and honorable, honestly, he is better than most of you gold shits in my eyes. A Northerner beats a Westerman any day for me." Robert said with a proud smile as the Queen seethed in anger.
Truthfully she was more irritated than normal as this time around Jaime was not with her for her travels, the king ordered the kingslayer to stay behind. Jaime wanted to go too, but when he heard they would likely meet Tyrion, and by extension Sofya, during these travels, he quickly gave up the idea. Whenever she is involved he would try and not get involved with her if at all possible.
Thus, with no 'stress-relief' from her other half, the Queen was even more irritated than normal.
"Well, maybe Ned Stark won't accept the invite. You know as well as I do that the Starks don't do well on the south and that if he does not accept it should be father next in line." The Queen said, already imagining using her father's influence to kill Robert in secret, maybe putting the blame in Tyrion and that hateful spawn of his. Cersei was not fond of Sofya, she considered the girl an eyesore since she saw her last time in special when even her golden lion drooled over her and how she was being called the most Beautiful Gem of the West.
'That title should belong only to me. ME!' She seethed in her mind, furious that the daughter of that disgusting Dwarf was seen as more beautiful than her.
"No." Robbert said and Cersei looked at him quickly.
"What? What do you mean by no?" She asked, surprised.
"I mean that if not Ned then it should well be Tigre. The Vale was a good supporter from the start and I understand that he would make a good hand of the king." Robbert said and Cersei laughed in mirth.
"Him? He is but a child of six and ten, how can he even compare with my father?" She said as if what Robert said was a huge joke.
"Aye, he is young. But he used six years to turn the Vale, one of the poorer kingdoms, into the richest and arguably the strongest kingdom. I can't help but imagine what he would be able to do with the whole of the Seven kingdoms if he had the right authority and time, maybe he can even bring Dorne back to the fold as I would like some more Dornish whores to warm my bed, I have too many Western Whores after all. Heck, he even sent some assistants to Little Finger to manage the crown's money and now our debt is just two million dragons with 700 thousand being from the Vale itself, I believe a post in the small council would go a long way to keep the Vale happy, even though I prefer Ned. Anyway, I will get someone trustwhorty to be my hand out of this." Robbert said and Cersei felt like he was calling her a whore since she tunned down everything else as just some ramblings from Robbert.
Well, a whore sells her body for money while she sells her body for power, so... yeah. Well, not that she ever thought of it in that sense, she only thought of it as if she was the queen of the seven kingdoms with an annoying appendice on the side.
Robert perked up when he saw that that fucking wheelhouse was repaired again. "Now, let's get going already. We've fucked around long enough and I want to be in Winterfell by the end of the week!" He bellowed out. Cersei glared at her fat husband before climbing back into the wheelhouse with her three children.
Back in Winterfell, Catelyn was staring at her two eldest daughters as they argued. She sighed lightly as she looked on, for while they were born at the same time they possessed markedly different traits that set each other apart even as they had their own similarities. Sansa was very skilled in embroidery and in acting as a noble daughter, and had grown up obsessively learning and listening to various great songs and stories about noble knights and princesses, of glorious battles. Ludmila was markedly less skilled in embroidery but was like Arya in that she both didn't care and openly despised it, preferring to train her skill with a spear to a near obsessive point. She also had openly rolled her eyes and scoffed in boredom at merely hearing these stories, but was as good as, if not better than Sansa in courtesies and manners.
Once Sansa had mocked Ludmila for her actions, at how she would make for a poor wife due to her less than stellar embroidery which would leave her unable to stitch her future husband's colors and symbols onto his clothing, that she was acting like a barbarian for picking up a weapon and learning to fight. Ludmila had fired back in a glacial tone that all of Sansa's obsession with the songs and stories that Septa Mordain was idiotic, and stating that Sansa was allowing herself to be coddled, which in turn was making her weak and naive to the truth that there was far more to the world than what was contained in those songs and stories that Sansa always obsessed over, and that one day she would face something that would mercilessly shatter her painfully naive worldview with no care for how Sansa herself felt.
There had been other arguments but that one served to display many differences that still troubled Catelyn to this day. She had been worried that Ludmila would never find a noble southern lord for a husband, who she could bring into an alliance with Houses Stark and Tully through marriage. She displayed t many similar traits to that of Arya, her younger sister, who was much more interested in horseback riding, learning to fight, and openly disdained any of those womanly duties or marrying someone her parents had chosen without her input. She had openly stated her hatred of these things, and Ludmila had taken to sparring with the younger girl, who used a sword left handed.
Of course, those were irritating, but she could put up with them to a point.
She caught sight of that Harlaw girl, and once again she mentally noted how beautiful the once very young child had become. She had grown into a magnificently proportioned woman with a large chest, a set of hips nearly as large and shapely, and her face had grown into a beautiful woman, and she knew that there would be many men from all over the North who would love to wed her.
She still remembered when Theon had tried to broach an apparent betrothal between him and Olga, only for her to calmly state that she did not care, she would go with who she wanted. Theon had lost his temper then, which was quite easy since he was influenced by the fact that he had been drinking wine that day, lots of it since it was the birthday of his father, mother, and uncle's death, and he tried to attack her.
She easily fought him off, breaking his nose in the process, before she stated that he only didn't go furtehr than that because he was drunk and that she would sooner give her maidenhood to a White Walker than kiss, much less marry, Theon.
After that she had increased her training even further, and on many occasions could be found sparring with Ludmila, clashing her training axe against Ludmila's training spear. When the two girls had first met back when Ned brought Theon and Olga north, the two of them had been quite weary of one another but they established a closeness that while not being able to be said to be friendship would be considered respect.
The two were also quite active in some areas besides their breathtaking beauty. Ludmila has managed to get some contacts with the Vale to build better roads across the north in exchange for some of the revenue they will receive from the commerce. Not only that, Ludmila also managed to identify some of the abandoned mines across the North and she got some information out of Tigre over how to improve the fertility of the lands in the North. Now the North was much more self-sufficient than ever before and with part of the people that were being directed North from the Vale the occupation of the land and labor was increasing.
Olga was not any worst, she managed to produce a stronger version of the usual steed used by Northerners, while before they were short and strong now they were much bigger and faster but still plenty capable of dealing with moving in the snow. Not only that she had learned and started adapting some of the fighting strategies of the Dothraki for horse riding and she was helping a group of 1000 men learn how to move as fast as a Dothraki in a horse. Besides that she would usually spend some time hunting and learning of medicine as well.
"Alright girls," She perked up as she heard her husband speak, drawing the attention of the two girls. "I know you two have been enjoying yourselves but it's time to clean yourselves up and make yourselves presentable for when the King arrives." He stated.
"Very well father." Ludmila responded, stabbing her training spear in the ground and walking towards her quarters so as to draw herself a bath.
"Yes, lord Stark." Olga responded soon after, walking over to the weapon rack and placing her axe on it before heading to her own quarters so she could clean herself.
Ned looked at the two and nodded pridefully, the two have grown and were widely considered the two most gorgeous women in the North by all those who had seen them. He lost count of how many requests for their hands in marriage he had to deny, it was starting to get absurd but while some of them he would not consider as too bad the two girls already left it clear they had no desire to do so. He once tried to introduce someone to them with the prospect of an engagement, one for each, and in less than five days the young lords were taken back home with broken legs and noses as well as talking about how women are scary. Apparently both turned to be a Maesters next he heard, something about a life of celibacy being easier in the spirit.
So yeah, desirable roses filled to the brim with thorns.
It was at this moment when Maester Luwin approached him.
"Lord Stark, I just got news that young lord Arryn is also close by. We believe he is at most one day's travel from here. He is going up using ships by the White Knife, he has left the ships by now and are going through to the kingsroad." Luwin said and not five second after both Ludmila and Sofya who heard it turned to Lord Stark.
"Father, please allow us to escort Tigre to Winterfell." Ludmila said with a serious face and Olga was nodding her head.
Ned wanted to say no but seeing her expression and knowing how close they were to Tigre and how the boy must be suffering and mourning even more than him it was only fair that he would try and make his stay more comfortable.
"... Fine, but you two must make sure that you present yourself to the king tomorrow. Also, take your wolf with you, daughter. It needs to walk around a bit more if you asks me." Ned said.
Ludmila and Olga nodded with light smiles on their faces as she spoke up.
"Understood, father. We will be careful and we will return by tomorrow. I will also take Luna with me." She said and did a sound before a wolf the sound of a grown dog appeared beside Ludmila. It was a beautiful wolf with silver fur and bright black eyes, it's four pawns were completely black and had the most adorable look in it's face.
Not an hour later Ludmila and Olga left with a procession of two dozen guards protecting them both, both excited for the chance of seeing Tigre again.
AN:
In case you all are wondering, Olga is grown up and looks similar to Arturia in her Lancer form. So yeah, she is NOT a loli, not by a big shot.
The North is richer but not overly so. In most fics, the OC on the North could make it's kingdom way too rich too fast regardless of who he/she is, but this time around it really isn't possible. Ludmila is a young woman now, but before she was little more than a girl and it would take a lot to make her father listen to her advice, even if he is more trusting to family than most lords. And even if Ned accepted it there is no way the other lords of the North would take it lying down.
It could be said that Ludmila focused in improving the sustainability of the North and the transport ways since this way, when it was to be the time for the war against the White Walkers things would be much better to defend. More paths means faster armies and transport of resources, thus making it better for the North when the time arrives.
As for the Bolton heir be the squire for Robbert, I imagined it as his way to show his middle finger to the Lannisters and with the Vale having some of the debts of the crown paid and all that the influence of the Lannisters and pressure lessened since the plan for payment for the crown was now much better.