I'm still not sure if this is chapter 4 or 5. This is the 4th chapter because technically the first was a prologue, but is calling it chapter 5. I'm still just as awful at writing author's notes, but I'd love to hear what you guys think of this. Enjoy!

Chapter 4/5ish

The wind whistled through the cracks in the battlements, making the torches flicker and the flames dance. Alana's heart clenched with homesickness, as it reminded her of the screaming of the wind during the many tempests that plagued Storm's End. Her stomach rumbled again, despite having eaten barely an hour earlier. After being forced to eat with her lecherous uncle and conceited aunt for the past week or so, Alana was more than happy to fake a stomach illness and take dinner in her chambers. There were multiple reasons for avoiding dinner with Lord Tully, she reasoned. She couldn't risk him discovering her identity, whether he would recognize her from memory or from description. By now, Uncle Robert certainly sent out ravens notifying the kingdom of her escape, maybe even offering a bounty. She had to be gone by morning, else Lord Tully might realize who she was.

That raised another question: where she would go after they left Riverrun. Alana pushed the thought out of her mind before she could begin to truly worry about it. She would deal with the problems as they arose, she decided.

She tried to sleep, earlier, when the candles burnt low and the sky darkened, but she found she couldn't. She needed the howling winds of the storms that used to keep her awake in order to fall asleep, which would have made her laugh, had she been in the mood for it. Instead of tossing and turning for several hours until she reached a sort of half conscious rest, she decided to take a walk along the walls and collect her thoughts.

Coupled with a deep-seated love of all things mystical and supernatural, she found herself walking towards the mossy barracks, the torches on the sides of the door long since burnt out. Curiosity pushed her to wrap her hand around the rusted doorknob and push, entering the room with a whine from the hinges.

Scanning the entryway, Alana almost signed with disappointment, taking in the stained white bedsheets covering each bunk and the muddy floor. It was clearly lived in, missing any cobwebs or dust. It was, it seemed, no different from any other barracks, no different from the one in Storm's End.

She was just about to turn around and leave when a flash of movement caught her eye, a white form silently darting between two bunks. Interesting, she thought, and slowly began to walk over to the bed she saw it disappear behind, stepping over discarded clothes strewn about the floor.

Her heart was pounding as she took another step closer, then another, then another, until her hands were resting on the bedframe and all she had to do was lean forward to see past it, to see whatever it was that walked past her. She took a deep breath, swallowed her apprehension, and took a final step foward.

Instead of a ghost, as she had been half-expecting, a small white cat sat curled in the corner, its eyes wide open with fear at the newfound intruder.

She let out a disappointed sigh and straightened, brushing out the creases in her dress and trying to preserve her dignity, after kneeling on the floor to look at some cat. Thinking about it, it seemed as though being a spirit wouldn't be so bad. She would be free from her family, free from her obligations, free to haunt Byron until the end of his days.

But she was stuck with a cat, a flea-ridden one at that.

"What are you doing here?" came an amused voice behind her. Alana whirled around to see the man who took her to her room, the guard from the gates, watching her, his lips quirked in a half-smile.

"I thought I saw a ghost," she explained, shrugging nonchalantly and pretending her heart wasn't racing. "It turned out to be a cat."

The man crossed his arms over his chest, his chainmail vest clinking as he did. "What are you doing here? In the barracks."

She opened her mouth, but couldn't think of a lie to tell him, choosing to mislead him instead. "I'll have you know, my father-"

"Lord Estermont?" he interrupted, taking another step forward, his mouth curling upwards even more. He wasn't even smiling maliciously, Alana noticed, curling her hands into fists. He was actually enjoying the conversation, and it pissed her off for a reason she couldn't quite place. "I highly doubt Lord Estermont would care whether Lady Baratheon was being bothered by a guard." He smirked at her shocked expression.

"How did you-" she managed, her eyes widening.

The man shrugged. "I knew you were from the Stormlands. And all Baratheons have black hair and blue eyes. It wasn't hard to guess, especially with the royal party passing Lord Harroway's town a few days ago." He took a step back and leaned against the frame of one of the beds. "If you don't mind me asking, what's a princess doing pretending to be a different girl? You could have had all of Riverrun wrapped around your little finger from the moment you arrived, yet you didn't."

Alana huffed indignantly. "I am not a princess. I am a bastard, and not even the bastard of a king."

The man gave a shrug of his shoulders, as if to say my bad. "You are still the relative of a king. Lord Tully would have loved for you to go tell King Robert of his wonderful generosity, but you seemed to be avoiding him at all costs."

Alana briefly debated lying to him. He could benefit from telling his liege who she was, when all she would get from telling him would be bad luck. "I'm being forced to marry a man I have never met by my uncle and father," she confessed. "So I ran away. That's why I was pretending to be someone different, so I wouldn't be recognized."

The man twisted his mouth in a bemused expression. "I see." He stood up. "Why are you telling me this?"

Alana shrugged. "I don't have any other plans. Even if I leave Riverrun undetected, I have nowhere else I can go. Everyone in every castle across Westeros will know who I am.

"You remind me of my older brother a little bit," he mused. "I have a story about him."

"If I listen, do you promise not to tell anyone who I am?"

He nodded smirking again, but this one was more rueful, more wry. "I promise."

"Then I'll listen."

He grinned. "When I was just a boy, my brother took me to the market. We were, as you would say, peasants, and didn't have much money. But I saw a trinket I liked. I waited until the owner looked away before snatching it." He chuckled to himself. "Later that day, the owner noticed it was missing, and managed to track it down to my brother and I. He wanted to cut off my head, or at least my hand for thievery."

"You seem to have both your hands," Alana noted. "As well as a head."

"I'm getting to that. My brother confessed to stealing it, even though we both knew it was I who took it. He was sent to the Wall for a crime I committed."

Alana tried to respond, but her words escaped her. "Why did you tell me this?" she managed.

The man shrugged. "There's a lesson in there you could appreciate."

"Which is…"

"Family comes first. Always." Before she could protest he raised his hand. "That was how I was raised. Maybe things are different for the nobility, but I was taught that without family, we have nothing."

"Wow," Alana murmured.

"Don't let me make a decision for you, but I would stick with my family if I were in your shoes."

Alana nodded. "I think I need to get back to bed. Thank you."

The man shrugged. "It was nothing."

Alana made for the door, brushing past him as she went. Before she left, she froze. "What is your name?" she asked.

He grinned even wider. "Don't you know, I'm the ghost of Riverrun."

"Ass," she muttered, turning back around and walking into the cold, dark night air. As she walked, a small, quiet voice echoed through her mind. He never did tell you his name.