The Wolf that Kissed the Rose

by KaiserKou

When the Gods spoke to Robb Stark his whole world changed. Forsake Honour. Winter is coming, and the cold knows no mercy. And as darkness gathered around him and those closest to him turned on him he would have only one light in his life left. AU from Robb's coronation and onwards. (ABANDONED/UNFINISHED - in the process of a reboot)

15. Together

Chapter Fifteen – Together

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Margaery

As the wheels beneath the carriage came across bumps in the road Margaery was rocked back and forth, but the butterflies in her stomach had nothing to do with queasiness.

Her Mother picked at the collar of her dress as their wheelhouse made its way down to the riverside piers outside the great yellow walls of Goldengrove, fussing like she was four years old. "Oh, that you are to be betrothed properly this time!" she said aloud. "It'd be best for Lord Stark that he is more patient than Renly. These foolish men and their need to hurry-"

"I want a proper wedding this time, Mother" she told her with a smile and took her hand by her neckline, holding it softly to implore her to not worry. "Robb promised me that". From across of her in the wheelhouse, sitting with Meredyth Crane and Aunt Janna opposite her and Mother on cushioned seats of green velvet stitched with gold and silver tread, she heard Grandmother scoff loudly, and she turned her head around to look at her, still holding Mother's hand in hers. "What is it, Grandmother dear? Is something the matter?"

"Of course something is the matter" Lady Olenna gave her a level look, clearly displeased despite having reunited with Margaery and her grandsons a mere fortnight earlier. Those news had to vex her to no end, no doubt about it. Margaery almost knew what she was going to say before she said it. "It would be best for everyone if you dispensed with ceremony. Before the Lannisters scramble to meet us and your Northern boy changes his mind. Fancies are always passing". She looked then to Mother, and Margaery flinched already. "You'd best remember the Stark boy's title, Hightower slattern. Your memory is worse than mine, and you lack even the excuse of age".

"If you say so, Mother" Mother smiled back, and Margaery cringed inwardly at her tone and the face Grandmother made. Alerie Hightower had never stood up to Olenna Tyrell, never shot back at her despite her pride even after she had married the Lord of Highgarden and given him four children. Margaery had tried to explain it to her – that Grandmother would never respect her unless she spoke up for herself – but Mother had dismissed that out of hand. 'All women loath the ones to marry their sons' she had said. Margaery, again, very much doubted that.

"Don't call me Mother" Lady Olenna corrected as she pulled her thick winter shawls closer around her, her shawl and her stole the only articles of her clothing that bore the Redwyne colours, the rest in Tyrell green and gold. "If I had given birth to you, I am sure that I'd remember. I'm only to blame for your husband, the Lord Oaf of Highgarden.".

"Please, do no fight" Margaery implored, and silence fell. She loved those two women the most of all the others in her world, even though her love for Mother had been something that had waxed and waned over the years. As a child she had clung to Mother's skirts as she watched her brothers being trained to be warriors, but later, when she had come under Grandmother's tutelage, she had held great contempt for her so supposedly weak-willed Mother in her heart along with her jealousy. Then again, a great many women in the Reach were jealous of the Hightower ladies. It was in their blood.

Alerie Hightower had silver-white hair, almost like Grandmother's already despite the two being several decades apart in age, unlike the browns, red and deep tawny gold otherwise held on the heads of the people of the Reach. But Mother's hair had always been like that, just like how Aunt Lynesse had always been brightly golden, just how uncle Humfrey had always been silver-gold.

Such it was for all of Margaery's aunts by Grandfather Leyton – the Valyrian blood of House Hightower, supposedly, stemming from Rhaena Targaryen daughter of the Rogue Prince Daemon and her six daughters with Garmund Hightower, all of whom had married into the extended male family of the House. Many Hightowers had married into the royal dynasty of the dragonlords, now that Margaery came to think of it. As wives, mothers and consorts to Targaryen kings they had reshaped the Seven Kingdoms to a greater extent than even the Tyrells whom they supposedly served. They claimed to be the oldest family in Westeros, sworn to the Gardener kings of the Reach in the olden days long before the Andals came to Westeros, pledged by necessity to the Tyrells after Aegon roasted the Gardeners to cinders on the Field of Fire.

Then again, they also claimed that once, long ago, there had been dragons in Westeros, hatching around and upon Battle Ilse, the island on which the eponymous Hightower had been built. In olden days some Hightowers had called themselves "dragonlords in all but name". Margaery couldn't help but to smile at the foolishness so endemic to historical narrative. Such was it ever, when the grandiose wrote the chronicles of their lines.

Such was it ever.

The wheelhouse came to a slow halt – blessed be – at long last, and by a polite knock a herald announced that he was to open the door, ending any trace of conversation amongst the ladies. By the hands of her handmaidens Margaery was helped out of the wheelhouse with the skirts of her bustles held close around her, and on legs with knees at a slight tremble she stood to greet the grey day over Goldengrove as her family and court unhorsed around her.

Goldengrove with its tall yellowed walls more the colour of peaches than the colour of gold overlooked from its hollowed hill the river that flowed south from the Westerlands, the only waterway due South excepting the Sunset sea coast. Reavers from the Iron Islands had come to drive much of the southwards bound trade inland, down the Ocean Road from Lannisport to Highgarden, and the waterway south from Silverhill had made Goldengrove a place of wealth and influence. House Serrett had intermarried with the esteemed House Rowan many times through history if her lessons were to be remembered, and the guards of the House in their gaudy aurous tabards numbered just as many on the expansive stone docks as the Tyrell guards in steel and green and gold there far beneath the towers on the hill above. Wooden piers jutted far out into the river at its widest point, a far cry from the breadth of the Forks or the Trident to the north but deep and calmly flowing, and at the centre of the banners and the formation on the docks they waited for the ships to tie to port from upstream.

Her father and brothers in their great array and their finest suits of armour had ridden out of the keep before the wheelhouse with their knights at their side, and unhorsed to leave Lady Catelyn to come to the fore of the formation by the docks, to stand with Margaery, Grandmother, Mother and Father there. Cat had ridden though, on her horse along with her men at arms and her escort, and Margaery was miffed at that. She hated going in wheelhouses. All the accursed bumping and jostling around made her feel like a poorly bound down sack of beets and just as bruised. She wanted to ride too, but no, that simply wouldn't do for a lady. Lady Stark had the freedom to do such things because she was the nominal head of her House and the mother to the King in the North. The same sort of freedom was within her grasp, tantalisingly close, but for all its proximity made the walls of her relative captivity seem closer.

And all the closer now, for around the bend in the river from rocky hills and cliffs above a small fleet of maybe a dozen ships came, flying Northern banners. Behind her, along with Loras and Garlan, she could overhear Willas speak quietly. "Condon, Whitehill, Cassel, Cerwyn, Holt, Long" he listed the banners other than the Direwolf Stark that flew over the ships, a few repurposed merchant cogs and two galleys leading them, their railings set with shields and spears as the men transported on them formed ranks to disembark under shouted commands. "Winterfell's levies and men. The Heartland North, if I'm not mistaken".

"Where is the rest?" Loras could be heard asking as Margaery watched the banners flap on the breeze, the Direwolves flying above all others, leaping on the wind as the gale caught the edge of her cloak and whipped it about behind her. "The Northern army has almost thirty thousand men all in all, counting the Riverlords and only the men afield in the South. That there is barely enough for four thousand".

"Making havoc about the Westerlands, no doubt" Garlan supplied, seeming aloof as he watched the men crowding the decks like a hawk would watch prey. "Four thousand Northern screamers, though. Wolves. Numbers don't matter as much as reputation when news carry-" his words were cut short when the largest ship in the little fleet came boldly into sight, for it was a majestic thing.

Margaery knew a little of ships. She had always endeavoured to learn, hoping to one day cross the seas and see the Free Cities when she was but a girl, and she knew that the lumbering thing coming down the river was a warship through and through, a dromond of great size. It had double rows of oars, counting nearly two hundred with half on each side, and soldiers in grey and white with iron lances and pike in hand lined the railings and the forecastle and aftcastle, the Direwolf banner flying proud from the tops of its masts and its banners. Above the ram at its prow, the metal-reinforced wood cutting through the water in a bronze shine, painted in white against its ornate hull, was a name in white painted, and Margaery could see the Lady Stark flinch beside her at the sight. Its sails were the most striking though – both white and new, the one on its main mast had been stitched with the front-facing face of a snarling grey wolf. Robb's personal coat of arms in huge proportion. The Direwolf, fangs showing and jaws parted in a bloodthirsty roar.

And so the procession on the docks waited and watched in silence as the Lord Eddard made its way into the port in the shadow of Goldengrove. Around the buildings of the docks the crowd of villagers and smallfolk, people in service to House Rowan, stood too, in awe of it all. The dromond's crew tied it to, dropping its anchor and furled its sails, and then, as they stood there waiting, a horn blast broke the silence.

"The King in the North!" the cheer rose from the ship and the vessels all about, again and again, threefold, and then the gangplank was pushed out and landlocked, and the King there mentioned came ashore.

Robb looked older. It was odd. He was a little taller than when she had last seen him – of course, he was a young man still and it was to be expected – but also paler, and his armour was scratched and mended all over. His pauldrons looked mismatched, and the sword at his hip was one she didn't recognise. But it was Robb. Her Robb. He smiled at her when he saw her, and all others seemed to disappear from her mind as he came down the gangplank towards her.

"Margaery" he greeted her, and as she looked at him he seemed almost aghast, confused. "You look" he began as she noticed that his beard had been freshly trimmed, his hair washed and the crown on his head polished to a shine. "You look like you". It was like with the flowers, wasn't it? Blunt words hiding deeper meaning.

He wore her cloak. She met his blue eyes, and the giddiness in her stomach vanished. He's been wearing it all along. She felt like she was flying.

"And you look tired" she replied, smiling back at him as she plucked at the sleeves of her winter gown. Highgarden gowns were more or less the same for summer or winter, though the winter ones were marginally thicker in the bustle, waist and bust, and all the parts the summer gowns let be bare across the back and the arms the winter gowns filled in with double layers of thick lace over velvet. It occurred to her that this was the first time he saw her in green. She had to restrain her hands and clasp them before her waist and her girdle come sword-belt as not to reach up into her hair and undo the ornate arrangement Elinor and Alla had done there as she fidgeted. At the look in his eyes, pure fire, her cheeks warmed over. He wasn't angry or sentimental. It was more like he was starved. "I-"

And then the illusion of tranquillity passed as she heard shouts come from the crowd and the ship as a giant shape leapt over the side of the ship and landed on four paws on the stone of the docks, as easy of motion as it was giant. Coming up behind Robb it was hulking presence, fierce and titanous – only for the shadows of her fear to pass as she noticed the rapidly wagging tail. "Grey Wind!" she exclaimed and held out her arms, and the monster of a wolf, to her parents' utter terror, bounded over to her like a much too overgrown pup and smelled at her, making happy noises all the while.

"He's missed you" Robb told her as he urged his battle beast back, somehow doing despite the Direwolf's great size and weight, and as their eyes met they silently said the things they could not say out loud due to the laws of custom and properness. There was a thick section of linen wound around the wolf's front and back, the broadest at his side. Had he been injured?

"I missed him too". Barely had she said that, however, before two other shapes followed Grey Wind over the side of the ship, dismissing the gangplank as if it was folly to follow what Margaery assumed was their brothers. Some small part of her mind had considered Grey Wind an abnormality, an ordinary wolf pup overgrown by virtue of sorcery or an accident of birth. That small part of her, the one that still clung to rationality, abandoned that notion when she came across the other two Direwolves. They were, most definitely, animals of their own right.

The white one, the one with the red eyes, was even taller than Grey Wind, who in turn had noticeably grown since she last had seen him, sniffed her and quietly huffed at her at what seemed to be Grey Wind insistence. The other one, smaller and leaner, its eyes somehow darker, only smelled her once before it – no, she – huddled back and bared her teeth when her brothers seemed to implore her to be bolder. She seemed wilder than the others, somehow. If that was even possible.

Robb pried his eyes away from her to look at his mother, who quietly stepped forth and embraced him, the two holding each other as they spoke quietly to each other before separating. He then turned to Mace and Alerie Tyrell, and in any other instance Father would have been affronted that he was greeted last of all of them. Father and Mother both, however, were busy staring at the Direwolves, Mother half hiding behind Father and Father's hand on the grip of his sword. "Lord Paramount Mace, Lady Alerie Tyrell of Hightower" he began and offered Father his wrist. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you both. I'm Robb-"

"Hark!" a voice boomed from aboard the Lord Eddard, and at Smalljon's shouted words Robb made a face that vanished quickly, contained but not before Margaery had spotted it. "You stand in the presence of Robbard Stark, the first of his name! The Wolf of the Whispering Wood! Lord of Winterfell, Lord of the Golden Fang, King of the Trident, King of Winter! High chief of the First Men! Slayer of lions and unmaker of armies! The King in the North!"

"Oh, for-" he muttered out before he restrained himself, turning back to Mace with an apologetic look. "That's Jon Umber. We call him Smalljon, because his da is even louder. He's" he paused and waited for the right word "eager. Don't worry about Grey Wind, Ghost or Nymeria. They're harmless. Mostly". Nymeria was a woman's name, so it had to be the she-wolf, and the white one was quiet, silent, ghastal. Their names were easy. Mother clearly did not believe him though, not with how Nymeria passed on by her to settle before Cat- the older woman was trembling, her hand shaking as she reached out to touch Nymeria's fur. Her eyes flew open as she looked to Robb, and Father's greetings were delayed further.

"Is-?" Cat's face whitened as she asked, her voice was breaking, and smiling Robb nodded before he looked over his shoulder, back at the ship that bore his father's name. Down the gangplank from the ship Robb's honour guard was departing, many of the haggard and worse for the wear after a long time of war spent solely in the field, but a few amongst them Margaery did not recognise. The man in the leather doublet with thin sandy hair and a chain hanging loose around his neck, one fellow of emaciated strength who's hair had been coloured faintly green in some Northern ritual – or so she assumed – one was a man all in black and lacking cloak as if the wind did not touch him, and then there was a boy lordling with a thin sword at his hip like that of a water dancer. Little, perhaps no older than eight or nine years old, slight and pale. Cat blinked when seeing the last one in particular.

As that boy came upon the edge of the pier of the docks lady Cat broke from the formation, pushing past her son and the Direwolves and all the rest to come onto where he was. He looked up at her as she took her in her arms, falling to her knees to pull him close to her. Margaery realised that it wasn't a boy when he, she, finally spoke that one word. "Mother".

"Sweetling" Cat all but sobbed, blinking through the tears in her eyes as she put one hand to the hair on her daugther's head, fingers reaching through the strands as if she was used to them being longer. "Arya! My sweet little girl". Arya, in turn, weathered Cat's embrace as if she was confused, standing stock-still and statue-like, her arms flat along her sides, a blank expression on her face. "Don't worry, sweetling" Catelyn whispered close into her ear, and in the silence around the two all attending could hear her words. "Mother's here now. You are safe. Praise the Old Gods and the New, you are safe!"

Slowly, frowningly, Arya lifted her hands and laid her arms around her mother, her fingers closing around the fabric of Cat's dress as she held her tight, like she was drowning and afraid to fall back under. Her eyes, grey and cold, vanished from view as she burrowed her face into Cat's shoulder.

The man beside the mother and daughter, the one in black and without a cloak, as if the cold didn't bother him in the least, dark and sullen-eyed and tall, smiled slightly when seeing the two embrace, a smile that did not reach his eyes. As if sensing his presence Cat raised her head and looked up at him. "Thank you" she said through the tremble on her voice. "Thank you".

"I didn't save her, Lady Stark" he replied as his smile faded away, his Northern drawl even thicker than Robb's. "She did". He then walked over towards them, approaching Robb's side, looking the Margaery and Father and her brothers and all the knights beyond, but on her in particular he lingered before he put his head close to Robb's. "Slender, brown hair, big doey eyes – I should have betted. Mate, you have very particular fancies".

"Oh, shove off" Robb mouthed back before he looked back to Father, Mother and her. "Truthfully, I did not intend to disrupt the formalities. Or whatever it was that you planned with all" he looked about, to the crowd and the lords and the attendants and the knights all about "all this. This is, ehm, good pomp. A thousand pardons". He saw Mother's and Father's blinking looks, the two stunned, neither of them particularly adept at handling sudden shifts of the world, before he looked back to the tall and dark fellow. "This is-" he stopped and suddenly grinned. "Smalljon! Would you do the honours?"

"Hold a moment now, your Grace" the tall man implored back as the Umber heir grinned and drew in a mighty breath. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves and do something silly-"

"Hark!" Smalljon boomed out again, and in standing much closer Margaery thought she could all but feel her eardrums bend inwards under the power of his shout. "Presenting Jon Stark, the get of Brandon, Torrhen and Cregan through Eddard Stark! Lord of the Whispering Wood, Commander of the Guard, the White Wolf! Yr and Heir Presumptive to the Kingdom of the North!" Jon gave Robb a sour look, and at once she could tell the family resemblance. There was the same wildness about them, far more pronounced in Jon, but still there, along with the cast to their cheekbones, their chins and their lips. Though Smalljon was far from done. He seemed to be having too much fun to keep quiet.

"Presenting Arya Stark, the get of Sansa, Lynara and Lyarra through Catelyn Stark!" he went on as Cat rose from her daughter's embrace and held her by the hand like a toddler of three as they walked to stand with Robb and Jon, her cloak swept over to warm the girl too. "Lady of the Wolf's Den by her own right, rider of Direwolves, slayer of men! Sixth in line to inherit the Kingdom of the North! Presenting Catelyn Stark, begetter of Kings! Lady dowager to Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, Lady Heiress to Riverrun and Harrenhal-!"

"They know Mother, Smalljon!" Robb called out and silenced the man, and he laughed with all the other Northmen around him as the Reach lords and ladies watched in relative and shifting confusion. "You don't have to introduce her!"

"Sorry, your Grace!" the young Umber grinned back. "Couldn't help myself!"

"Aye, that's well enough of that for now" Robb shrugged then, turning back to Father and her with the same smile as before, the smile that was meant for her and her alonge judging by the way his eyes locked with hers. "Can we go up to the keep now, Lord Mace? My men've been on the ships for days on ends now, and you all must suffer in the briskness out here. Introductions can wait a wee while, can they not?"

It was then, Margaery noted, that Father found out two things. Firstly, that the Northerners did not stand very much at all on ceremony. Secondly, that he liked Robb Stark very much. Within moments he and Robb were loudly conversing and jesting with one another as Father introduced him to Lord Rowan and some of the others while Smalljon, an almost emaciated Ser Robar Royce and that Maester-chained warrior – was it Ebbert, by any chance? He was hardly recognisable – followed him like loyal guards, Jon Stark hovering like a shadow behind them while the Direwolves gathered around Lady Cat and Arya.

Margaery pushed past the wolves and made to crouch down before Arya, Cat giving her an encouraging look even as she pulled her cloak closer about her daughter. "Good day to you, Arya" she smiled at the young woman, who gave nothing back but a glare of cold suspicion. "I'm Margaery. Margaery Tyrell. I'm not sure if you have ever-"

"Summer-Sun" Arya said suddenly, and Margaery and Cat blinked both. "Robb thinks about you all the time. Grey Wind says that, at least. You smell strangely". Margaery frowned, restraining herself from raising her arm and smelling her wrist. She had bathed in rosewater that morning before she scented herself with perfume and pouches of fragrance sown into her gown. "Past all the rest" Arya began to scowl in confusion "there's something old in you. It's a bit like Neversleep, only more distant yet deep". She blinked and shook her head ever so slightly, glancing over to Nymeria in seeming reprimand. "You're pretty. You wear pretty dresses" she then went on to state in a firm manner. "Sansa would like you".

"Well" Margaery was utterly confused at the girl's strange behaviour but didn't put it past her. She had been taught courtly ways by the Queen of Thorns herself. "I hope you'll come to like me to. I hope that we will be sisters one day soon".

Arya blinked back at her, impassive. "As long as you're not too much like Sansa" she seemed to gradually admit with a curt nod, and Margaery stood, looking the small girl over. If Robb was to be believed she was ten, which might very well be true but for the fact that Arya was as thin as a rake and as slender as a reed. But for her boyish clothes and hair she had fine features, and her grey eyes were quite striking. She would become quite a beauty one day – if she shirked britches and tunic and doublet for dresses and learned courtly ways. Which, given circumstances, did not seem likely.

"Aye, the ship?" Robb answered Father's question as the horses of his kin and his honour guard were in the process of being let off the equine barge on one of the smaller piers attended by servants and squires. "It was Lord Serrett's flagship, I believe. They began building it around the time of the Greyjoy Rebellion, though it wasn't finished time for even its maiden voyage. Last morning the lads worked it over. Put up the sail they had been working on since we set off from Silverhill, repainted the hull, renamed it-" he saw the look Cat gave him and paused. "Aye. Right of conquest, so it is".

"Thus be it ever!" Father belted out, and she could tell by Robb's expression that he didn't agree with Lord Tyrell even a little bit. "Now, we shall head up for the hall. Surely you are wary after your-"

"Now, now, bring him over here first!" Grandmother's seat had been folded out and cushioned by the servants before the wheelhouse's steps and door, and before the procession made its way up the winding path past the houses and onto the forecastle before Goldengrove's drawbridge approached the Queen of thorns. She didn't seem to impressed by Margaery's reckoning, but then again she never did for anyone. "Solid enough, I suppose – though your heraldry could be less snarling and more regal" she scoffed at him, and Robb blinked, seemingly stunned. "Are you an oaf, boy?"

"I don't believe I am" he answered, and Margaery couldn't help but smile as she went to stand beside him, measuring Grandmother all the while. "Then again, I feel oafish at times. Can a man ever really know if he's an oaf, especially a powerful man? All the ones around him would praise him and call him shrewd no matter his faults. Perhaps I am an oaf, and no one's ever bothered to tell me".

Grandmother looked at him in silence for a while before she nodded. "You'll have to do, I suppose".

All the way up to the castle, riding by Robb's side on Arya Stark's horse as the young lady herself sat in the saddle before her mother clutching at Cat's cloak, she could not stop smiling.

She was relieved, beyond ken. Not that the weeks preceeding Robb's arrival and following Grandmother's had been hard or dreary. They had been… usual. They had been like they always had been, but now it was as if she noticed how empty they had always been. Scheming and dancing and empty revelry, and for what? It wasn't in service of honour or vengeance or a noble ideal, it was wealth and poetry for the sake of wealth and poetry. The Northerners lived so very different, didn't they? They had showed them that. How they would all march South to war by one man's word because of his name. Somehow, she had found out during her time at Goldengrove, that the name of Stark meant much more than she had ever realised.

She had first begun to understand when she had taken to her embroidery more than she had ever before out of frustration. Everyone, even Garlan, ever so dutiful in all other things for the sake of "properness" and the "holy order of things" had gently but firmly dismissed her when she asked to be taught the sword. She was too delicate, she supposed that they thought. Not meant for martial matters. And when she had her boss set up in the courtyard and a bow borrowed from a guard in hand along with arrows the stares and probing questions made her stop. So she took to her embroidery and lessons about the North with renewed vigour, keeping it up even when Father, Mother, Garlan and Grandmother came from Highgarden with their mighty entourage in tow.

Stitching the entirety of the House of Stark for the last hundred years onto a cloth even the size of a sail proved to be a challenge. The House tended to bloom out and bubble with numbers, as Cregan Stark's ten children with his three consecutive wives and Beorn Stark's seven children with Lorra Royce, Robar Royce's great-great-great grandmother. Then, in flashes, it tended to die out, only a few members of the House remaining as if they were the sole survivors of a sudden flood, standing alone on the cliffs in the raging water as the bodies bloated around them. Such it is in the North, Cat had explained to her. Not only did wars and raiders and the occasional infighting kill them – they seemed to be awfully eager to join battle in the South, that principal Northern house – but sicknesses, accidents, hunting mishaps, and, at times when entire branches of the family were wiped out, cold and starvation.

Nothing like such would happen to her or Robb or any of his kin and family, she swore to herself. Not while the North was allied with the Reach. When the food grew scarce, when the snows fell and the white winds blew, Highgarden would come to the aid of Winterfell. She had been present for much of when Grandmother and Willas drafted the terms of the alliance – which also happened to be her marriage contract. Or, at least, the terms of it. And she had pressured them into putting a clause about preferential trade laws, taxes and tariffs in there.

It was an odd thing – being but a piece in the great game, but being the centre piece just the same. As it was, everything revolved around her. The Tyrell efforts in the War, the coming alliance.

That was it, wasn't it? The centre piece was a piece and a pawn just like all the others. But still it was the most important one.

She'd still rather not be a piece at all.

The banquet they held that night was less rowdy than the ones she had experienced at Pinkmaiden. Perhaps it was because there were fewer Mormonts and clansmen and Umbers around to shout and have rows and bash pitchers over each other's heads, but she thought it was something else. Part of it was Robar Royce's fault. Somehow he met Alyce, Alyce in her airy maroon dress meant to hide the fact that already her stomach was swelling, and between his stunned silence and her teary eyes a damper was put on Margaery's own following of ladies even before they both vanished from the banquet without a trace. She had Elinor and Megga look for them, but with the ruckus around them and the severe droning of Lord Rowan from his seat of high honour just up from hers and Robb's there was only so much she could afford to do. She had to attend, after all. It was her prerogative as the Rose of Highgarden.

Something else did put a damper on the festivities. She noticed how lean and hollow-cheeked the Northeners were, bleak of face and wan, tired to a one. Many weeks on the march had taken its due, even as the lands they had marched into had been softer than they had been used to. Some were worse than others, though. The lot with only a few attending, the ones relegated to the rear recesses of the hall while the rest of their number ate and drank with the troops in the camp outside the castle walls. Motley, all of them, down to a one, knights and smallfolk drinking side by side, deferring all to the man with the coloured hair. No, it wasn't colour. His hair simply was green by nature. And soon she recognised him as Roren Bulwer. Neversleep himself, almost unrecognisable.

As the musicians played, Laena of Lys playing first lute amongst the rest while Rymund watched her pluck almost unblinking from over Robb's shoulder, she ate and drank sparsely in comfort. Robb sat at her side, and though they did not speak anything else than pleasantries and short words. In all the noise and the ruckus, as a gathering of Cerwyn and Stark men and women rose up to the clapping of a hundred hands to dance about, arm in arm in rings before the tables, it wasn't the right time to speak of gentle matters.

She watched instead, and listened as she idly petted Grey Wind over the head as he lay happily panting at her feet. She watched Cat and Arya Stark sitting on the same seat, the girl doing perfunctory motions at her mother's behest as if a mimicry of normalcy, none of Cat's smiles reaching her face, none of the happiness showing in her eyes. And she saw Jon, Robb's brother despite the lack of overt fraternal resemblance, moving amongst the men down far below the high table, casting dark looks up at Grandmother. And Grandmother watched him in turn, old eyes as clear as day. Margaery knew that look. In her experience it didn't bode well.

"Your words, Lord Umber". She overheard Willas sitting by the side of the gargantuan Umber heir Smalljon, his words spoken in a polite tone as made smalltalk while watching the crowd and the entertainers. "I must confess that I don't know them, though I know your coat of arms. It is quite" she could tell that Willas was holding back from making a face "memorable".

"'All chains but one', little man" Smalljon boomed back and laid a massive hand over Willas's shoulder, grinning like a fool with his beard filled with foam from ale and stout. "It used to be 'No Chains May Hold Us', you ken? But it changed over the years. See, all other chains may break or be broken but for the one that binds our House to Stark. Stark! Stark! The King in the North!" he lifted his tankard, and a cheer rose at his proclamation.

Margaery couldn't help but to smile at his eagerness even as Dacey Mormont reached out and made to bop him across the head, saying that she knew for a fact that his House Words didn't mean quite that or what he thought they meant. Then again, the Words of a family were supposed to be grandiose and both vague and specific at the same time. They meant quite a few things.

"He's quite enthused" she looked to Robb – only to find him looking back at her with a smile splitting his face in twain. Past the paleness and the ring both around and within his eyes he seemed almost like a boy again, and she reached out to take his hand, putting her smaller fingers inside his larger ones. "What are you thinking about?"

"That I'm very happy to see you again". He held her hand gently, as if he was afraid that he would break her fingers with his strength. "That finally, for once, I might have a while to rest". His eyes broke from her a hint, a frown appearing on his face, and she turned to follow his gaze past her to see Aunt Jenna and Merry Crane approaching her seat.

"Your Grace, Lady Margaery" Meredyth curtsied along with Jenna, her eyes downcast in an attempt at shyness that was nothing short of perplexing. "Lady Olenna humbly requests your presence in her chambers. She says she wishes to speak to you tonight regarding certain" she glanced aside to Jenna "arrangements".

"Well then" Margaery nodded and stood, Robb standing alongside with her along with most of the rest of the Northerners around, some crashing to the floor in wobbled drunkenness. "If you would excuse me, your Grace – we must obey our elders. Its late, and I think it is time that I retire for the night. I will see you at dawn, Robb".

"On the morrow" Robb, still holding her hand, brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed them, his blue eyes locked with hers, and by the gesture she felt a thunder in her chest. "Dream sweetly, Margaery". She didn't tarry very much longer, even though it was hard to tear herself away from him. His presence was almost as intoxicating as wine and more easily supped upon, but the Queen of Thorns was not to be disobeyed by her own kin. Led by Meredyth Crane and Aunt Jenna and escorted by Garlan and her ladies-in-waiting she headed for Lady Olenna's chambers.

Grandmother had gotten the warmest and sunniest of the guest suites in the castle, her solar overlooking the tiered gardens of Goldengrove with vast balconies that could be set for an entire soiree come spring and summer, and by the couches and stretches covered in velvet and silk and cushioned richly Grandmother sat, looking up from her knitting as Margaery entered with her following. "All you girls get practicing" she commanded to Margaery's ladies, and all of them, even Alyce, spread out around her and pick up the instruments and books and knitting that were doled out around the solar. They didn't even hesitate.

"Grandmother!" Margaery greeted her happily, but it seemed that Lady Olenna wasn't in the mood at all for joyous tidings. "You retired so soon from the festivities. Are you feeling unwell-?"

"Oh, suspend with the idle yapping, won't you my dear?" Grandmother rolled her eyes and sighed, tutting as she looked up at Margaery before she gestured to the seat beside her. "So" she put her hands in her lap on top of her richly embroidered skirts "your man, the Stark boy. I've certainly seen worse men with greater power. Good shoulders, thick arms, stunning blue eyes – I can see why you singled that one out amongst the lot. Certainly good enough for our ambitions. And he's said that he's willing to put Edric on the throne?"

"Yes, Grandmother" Margaery bent her head, arranging the bustle of her dress around her before she sank down on the cuishions, almost too comfortable. "King Robert-" she saw Grandmother's inclined look and changed her pace to brutal honesty "the Usurper was notorious for his wenching. Beyond Stannis Baratheon and the Baratheon children of King's Landing-"

"The Kingslayer's bastards" Grandmother corrected pointedly, and Margaery smiled to hide her discomfort. "Of the Tyrell girls Alla is the closest to Edric in age. Make her to be his playmate, and tell her to bat her eyes at him and laugh at all his jokes. Soon he'll be in love, as much as fool as all men are at his age and on upwards. We'll betroth them to each other, and we'll have one pet Baratheon bastard on our hands to place on the throne that we can control. Better than Stannis and the Lannister-ruled children. Thus is best" she grumbled "since we are committed to treason either way".

"Joffrey Hills is as mad as a Targaryen, Grandmother. Aerys the third, rather. His brother and sister might be sweet for now according to the word of the land, but they will no doubt show their true colours in time". Or so had Father said. Grandmother scoffed at the foolishness as if taken from Father's mouth itself. It was a justification to ease her conscience, even she knew as much, but by whatever right they could they would. Such was it ever. "This is the right thing, that which we are-"

"Right or wrong – we have no choice by now, so it matters not". Grandmother, of course, was the furthest thing from trying to justify anything. "What does matter is the Stark boy. More specifically, the dark one. Jon, the one they call 'the White Wolf'. He's close to your boy in age. The Northerners listen to him. Should your boy fall in battle or die before his time, they'll turn to him".

"Jon is loyal" she repeated what she had been told and what she had seen of him, the way he deferred to his brother utterly and instinctively. "He is no danger to us or our cause".

"Not to us, perhaps. But authority is only secure as long as it remains unchallenged". She looked down onto the midsection Margaery's gown, and Margaery held back a frown. "Suppose: ten years from now, five – your boy dies. I know you do not want to even imagine it, but for our purposes let us say that he does. Maybe in some battle, maybe drowned at sea, maybe a pox or a flux. It matters not how. He's an eager boy, and there's little history of infertility in our family. By then you will have children. Imagine all that" she reached out and took Margaery by the hand firmly. "Now imagine what happens to your little ones when the Northern crown is contested. Do you honestly think the Northern screamers will let children with more South in them than North rule them?"

"We can trust them, Grandmother" she said, the blush in her cheeks half from fright and half from the thoughts her mind conjured up by those notions. "They love Robb. With a little luck and time-"

"Fortune is a fickle whore, and time is a precious and fleeting thing" Grandmother turned her head around and looked over her shoulder at Megga at the stool by the solar table. "Oh, get your fat fingers off the strings! It's a harp, not a cat you are trying to strangle! Trade with Alla, will you? Maybe you are better with the odes – you certainly like things in your mouth!" She looked back to Margaery while Alla took the harp with Megga with a kind smile as the older girl fought back tears. "There is a matter of succession. To secure your place, and that of my great-grandchildren" she inclined her head meaningfully "something has to be done".

"Do" she supposed that there was a through reason behind Grandmother's concerns, and given that to allay them something had to be done "do you intend violence? That won't ingratiate us-"

"Oh, there is no need for something quite so primitive" Grandmother scoffed and settled back against the cushions. "We don't need to kill him. We just need him out of our way".

The bargaining began at dawn the day after, and sitting at the table with Father on one side and Grandmother on the other she imagined she knew how cattle felt at auction.

"Don't you worry, sweetling" Mother said from behind her, hands upon her shoulder in a reassuring motion as she leant down to whisper into her ear. "It's just a little thing. It's ill at ease now but it will be over soon". Mother knew, after all. She too had been present when they negotiated her betrothal, when they did this, this horse trade. Like she was some manner of commodity. Then again, she supposed that it was what they had to do, with the world the way it was. By a look from Grandmother Mother straightened and left the room along with Loras, leaving Father, Willas and the Queen of Thornes sitting at the table on her flanks with Garlan at her back in his finest armour. Silver and gold, his cloak green and lined with roses and brambles along the edges, the sword at his side seemed a part of him. Every inch of him the perfect ideal of a knight.

"They are late" Garlan pointed out behind them, and Margaery shot a glance aside at Grandmother and Willas beyond her. Punctual dutifulness or annoyance? It was hard to tell with Garlan sometimes.

"I've no notion why. It is not like they were up revelling all night". The bad part of Willas was his tendency towards a biting mood in his more annoyed moments. "Honestly, if I am to feast with these people every night" he grumbled and reached up to rub his brow, dark shadows beneath his eyes "I'd best never stop drinking. The accumulative crapulence will most assuredly kill me".

"They are certainly a cheery people" Father said with a broad smile, and she almost felt pity for him. In his youth he had been as handsome and strong as Robb, though far from as shrewd or martially gifted. He fancied himself a most puissant warrior, but Robb had won more battles in one year than Father had in twenty. Father's single military victory was the fault of Randyll Tarly, even. Now, as had sat with Robb during the feast and spoken to him on matters he thought military he felt indulged. It reminded her of an old horse gone senile, rolling in the summer grass like it thought it was still a foal.

It was the lot of women in the world as it was to all but belong to men. It was not something she liked to think about, something she found good even, but something she had come to accept no matter how it tore at her. Given that she could not help but compare Renly, Father and Robb, and given the choices she'd rather be Robb's possession. But perhaps she wouldn't need to be. Northern women owned land and ruled without being widows. They fought and drank as equals with the men. At least she thought they did. Maybe she-

The door on the other side of the oval room, flanked by a pair of trusted guards, Ser Garvin and Ser Ledon, in their truest and finest armour and surcoats, opened and cut short her thoughts. Smalljon Umber came in first, looking severely disappointed at not having to have announce his leal sire, having to duck under the arch of the door as not to hit his head on the stone. At the corner of her eye she noticed Garlan shift ever so slightly into a ready stance with his hand across the pommel of his sword, a world of difference between him and Smalljon's chainmail and studded umber doublet.

They really were very different. Now, like this, it was almost frightening.

"-and tell Roren to have his men settle. If his men get closer than a hundred paces of the Sept I'll have them find out first-hand what Roose Bolton thinks about fanatics". An answer in an impassable Northern drawl responded, after which Robb followed Smalljon through, scowling. "Bloody would-be sorcerers" he muttered as he went, his eyes coming up to meet Margaery and making him smile so brightly. Like a spot of sunshine on a cloudy day, rays of light breaking through the overcast. She swallowed her uncertainties and gave him as much of a smile back as she could manage to.

"Your Grace!" Father stood from his chair and greeted them jovially as Lady Cat and Jon, the dark one that was supposedly Robb's brother even according to Grandmother, followed. Cat wore a dress she didn't recognise even from their long time spent together, one in black and blue with a white shawl over her shoulders – colours of grief, Tully and Stark intermingled. She held out one hand into the shadow of the doorway, and Arya emerged to take Cat's hand, followed by Ser Royce in his full bronze raiment. "Pardon me" Father asked "my Lady Stark, but is the boy truly supposed to be-?"

"I'm a girl!" Arya's exclamation silenced him thoroughly, and Cat looked to Father, meeting his gaze with a fierce look. Her brothers thought otherwise of it, like Jon, who smiled down at her. Inwardly Margaery sighed. It was a notion of Father being absentminded again wasn't it? Had he already forgot the antics on the pier the previous morning?

"She'll be quiet enough for your ears, won't she?" Robb reached out and tussled about in Arya's hair and gave her a look before Cat put her palm to the back of his hand, trying in to keep them from disrupting the arrangement of tresses on the Stark girl's head. "You'll sit with Mother, aye?"

"Aye" Arya inclined her head before she shot Father a scalding look and followed her mother to one of the three seats placed opposite the four Tyrell ones, lifting herself into Cat's lap at the woman's behest. From out of the corner, as Alla, leading the servants, began to set the table with wine and refreshments, Laena began to softly play the lute, plucking lightly as not the disturb their peace.

"Thank you" Robb said to Alla as she set a mug before him and poured it with wine from over his shoulder, following to do the same to Lady Cat, Jon and Arya in that turn. Royce and Umber took their places behind the Starks, standing in all their armour, a world of difference between them yet their purpose the same – to represent the strength of their lord and sire. Smalljon stopped Alla on her way and gave her a meaningful look, to which she fetched him a cup and poured to. Only once she had gone back to her place did Robb speak up again. "Let's get on with this, shall we?"

"Now" Grandmother began the proceedings before could get a word in edgewise, and that did set the tone for it all. All throughout the meeting he opened his mouth again and again as if to speak, only to be cut short by the others. Such was his whole rule, wasn't it? A shame of a thing, puppeted by others. Margaery loved her father, loved him dearly, but he was ill-suited for ruling, even ruling himself going by the girth his stomach had taken. "I suppose you have wants. Tell us, Stark - what do you need from us?"

"In short terms?" Robb wondered, shooting Margaery a smile and a wink, his good mood turning into a frown when she only offered a slight smile in return. "I need the swords of Highgarden and the Reach pointed at the Lannisters, not myself. I need the South secure and not turned against me while I end this war. I need grain and barley and wine to feed my people through the winter". He made a motion to incline his head at Grandmother, obviously understanding that she was the true power at the table. "And I want Margaery at my side, through the winter and all my years, at Winterfell. Everything else is less in my eyes. I can make Joffrey's due without".

"And you shan't require our soldiers to fight for you?" Grandmother asked back, a disbelieving smirk curling one corner of her mouth upwards as she looked at him under raised eyebrows thinned with age. "You will need no sons of the Reach to die beneath your banners or the walls of King's Landing?"

"No. If the Gods be good and the Ancestors keep their shields above us, not a one". Margaery frowned. If he wasn't in need of the soldiers, then why did he-? Oh. So that was what he intended. "I need your men at the roads and the waystations and the gates, your ships in their harbours. I need your siege engines breaking down their walls. If fortune favours us – which, granted, she rarely does in full – your soldiers will not have to kill a single man".

"They get to watch idly by from up close as we burn the skin the Lannister lion" Jon Stark scoffed from beside his brother. "I would envy them, if I wasn't to hold the knife myself".

"You" Father cleared his throat and spoke up, reaching for his cups to wet his mouth "you shan't do that truly, will you? You will not truly flay them, will you".

"No, we shan't, Lord Tyrell" Robb shook his head.

Arya shifted in her mother's lap. "Speak for yourself" Margaery heard her mutter.

Silence fell quite heavily after that, for a good long while, setting the tone for the rest of the negotiations in her mind, until Grandmother spoke up. "Setting that bit of unpleasantness aside, I am sure we can live by such an arrangement. The boys get to march up and down the roads and bash steel together and have something to write their silly songs about. And yet all but no one gets to grieve, and my most precious Grandchild is well cared for. That suits us perfectly, I would say. Wouldn't you say?"

"Yes indeed" Willas nodded while Father said an almost absentminded "Why, certainly". She was the only one left, and she looked to Robb and did her best to smile. "Aye".

"Aye" Robb repeated back at her with a smile before he laid his bare hands atop the table, fingers linked together. "You want something in return, then. Loras has sworn eternal vengeance on Stannis Baratheon on your behalf, so if you intend your reputation to remain unblemished- well, he's not your champion in this fight. And I've little inkling to let a murderous kinslayer sit the Iron Throne".

"Accursed is he and his line, until the end of time" Arya and Jon said as one, Cat trying to repeat along with them but missing the pace by just a hint.

"So, after we have vacated King's Landing by dragging the lot of the fat pricks in there out by their heels" he went on as if there had been no interruption at all "there's going to be an emptiness. Now, you might fill that emptiness with Tommen or Myrcella or any of the old boar's baseborn children, I could not care less. As long as your family guides the new king or queen on the Iron Throne and keeps peace with the North, the South is yours. All of it".

"Then you are the only man in the world who doesn't want to be king of all of it" Grandmother noted with some amusement. "How remarkably un-oafish. If terms are agreed upon we will work to make these matters more precisely inked. Until then" she shifted in her intentions, a tactic meant to keep her enemy unsettled and off their balance "we have to set a due time for the ceremony. Now, Margaery needs to be crowned, yes? And we would insist to be present at both moments. Important occasions deserve to be marked by kin and family. Given that, and the state of the Realm, we think it best that the wedding take place at the same time as the crowning, in Highgarden. We have Godswood there with Weirwood trees, for your leisure and your needs. The first full moon on the new year, perhaps?"

"That will be very hard to arrange, my Lady" Cat spoke up, making as if to rock back and forth like her daughter was a babe at the breast and not a child that had seen a little more than ten years. "The Lords of the North will want to attend. All of them. And I would have all my children attend my eldest's wedding".

"Send for them, then". For their concerns she was all but oblivious. "Rickon, your youngest, and Bran the crippled one, if I am not mistaken?" Arya glared at her and she could tell that both Robb and Jon ground their teeth at the epithet, but it was Cat who flinched. No one was looking at him, so no one noticed, but so did Willas. "Our people would know the family our greatest treasure leaves us for".

"We can't" Jon shook his head, speaking out of turn though no one seemed to care. "The North can't be left unattended like that. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell-"

"Alys Karstark can hold Winterfell" Robb dismissed his concerns with a wave. "We'll send for them. Not all will come, but all will send envoys and gifts at the very least".

"Are you sure that this is wise, Robb?" Jon asked, staring straight ahead over Margaery's shoulders at Garlan. "Gathering all our hearts and heads at one place. Screams of folly to me, so it does".

"If we are to be allies we need to trust each other" Robb said onto his brother, and inwardly Margaery could not help but make a face. She understood Robb's sentiment, though it seemed to her terribly naïve and somewhat childish. Seven Hells, he needs my help. Accepting it all like a fool, eyes shut tight and arms opened wide. "We'll send for them" he nodded curtly, firmly ending the talks regarding that particular subject. "Now, any other terms?"

"The dowry and brideprice can be negotiated on in greater detail once we've had this matter settled" Willas proposed, shifting his bad leg over in his chair by his hands before he settled back down. "Though, one matter disrupts us: the crown is indebted to our House. Almost eight hundred thousand gold dragons merely to us, the rest of the debt spread out over the coffers of the Faith, the Lannisters, Tyroshi merchant companies and the Iron Bank of Braavos. Also, the Lannisters themselves are indebted to us through their vassals, though we've yet to tally all of it to a number. That being given, we are reluctant to-"

"We'll repay the debt for you. We have well more gold than that loitering about, being utterly useless". Willas was surprised, and Robb shrugged. "It is surprising how much gold you can gather up when you march into a Westerlands city and break open all coffers".

"A bloody fee? Savagery or no, I am loath to look a gifted horse in the mouth" Willas submitted to the term with a bend of the head. "Now, then, some of your customs might seem peculiar to the people of Highgarden. We would never ask you to shed your identities or cast of millennia of tradition – merely that you reign in your men and your people while in our lands. The Reach, excepting the lands of House Crane, House Meadows and House Florent, is all but untouched by war. I think that we would all prefer that it remain thus".

"We will act in full chivalry" Robb told back at him, his good mood falling at the accusation. "I forbade reaving and pillaging in the Riverlands under the onus of punishment. If we march half our army and all our willing Lords to Highgarden before we head northwards towards King's Landing, we would do so in peace. Under a banner of truce. What customs worry you so?"

"I grow concerned" Garlan said aloud from behind them, and Margaery looked right on ahead as the Starks as one lifted their eyes and looked to her brother in turn. "It is not for naught that Northerners are considered savages in this part of the realm. I am not doubting your courage or your prowess in matters puissant, or your nobility of heart and blood. I am, however, questioning the notion of raising a woman to be a warrior". Arya's looked turned into a glare even as Robb's and Jon's faces turned dark. "Please, your Grace, my Lord. Is not the fairer sex weaker of limb by nature? Less suited to martial affairs and battle? The Mother and the Maid teaches us that the destructive nature of men must be tempered by the caring and tender nature of women. Creative and destructive in harmony-"

Something shifted in Robb's gaze, and they could all see it, even Garlan who promptly fell silent. "So all women are caring and tender, is it? You say that true, for all? Even for Cersei Lannister?" He didn't even raise his voice or change his tone. His voice was the same as always, but his eyes were like ice. Faintly, on the wind outside the windows, Margaery thought she could hear a growl.

"That's some fancy armour you've got there, Ser Garlan" Jon said aloud before Robb had a chance to go on. "All gold and precious metals and not a scratch on it". His gloved hand, in black just like the rest of him, trailed to his side to lay atop the white Wolfshead of his sword pommel, the garnet eyes of stone staring back at them, red as blood. "Is that because you've never been in a real battle, or because you're just that good?"

Garlan raised his gauntleted hand and cleared his voice. "I am quite confidant in my fighting skills, my Lord Stark" he said without a hint of pride to his voice. "I haven't been bested yet".

"Funny thing, that. Neither have I, and my armour's all scratched up". Margaery's heart began to beat faster as the sullen-faced man glowered, fear coming over her for her brother's sake. "I've met men like you before, Ser Garlan. Knights who sit their horse on high and think their valour makes them better than everyone else. Knights who refuses to know that a peasant's sword kills as easily as theirs. A woman's sword kills as easily as a man's, brave Ser knight. And swords held by those that are neither kill the easiest". Neither? What on earth did that even mean? Something Other than man or woman?

"Jon, peace". She sensed the tension go out of the grim Stark and saw his hand settle back on the armrest of his chair at his brother's command. "With all due respect, Ser Garlan, my Lords, my Ladies – our laws and customs are different in the North. We all aware of that. But I believe that with a little effort we can find a middle ground that's respectful to both North and South".

"Eager to please, aren't you?" Grandmother scoffed, and Robb turned to her with a cocked eyebrow. "Yes, yes, I suppose you must be. Now, if we would let up with this foolish posturing we have more important matters to discuss". She snapped with her fingers, and Alla re-emerged from the shadows with a selection of parchment scrolls, and Margaery could not help but wince. Now for the moment she was dreading. "Now, onto the order of succession. We are given to understand that you have five siblings, your Grace?"

"Aye" Robb nodded, not sure of where their talks were heading. "I'm the oldest, then Jon, then Sansa and Arya, then Bran. Rickon's the youngest, and what about it?"

"As there hasn't been a King in the North for three hundred years, and before then succession law was splotchy beyond belief before then" Grandmother went on swiftly and fluidly, pressing the proverbial attack "we are in need of unifying the customs surrounding inheritance. I shan't have my favourite grandchild shipped off to the far freezing North unless these documents are adopted as regular custom". She reached out and handed the principal parchment over to Robb, who took it and rolled it out in a serious motion, reading aloud from it.

"'Agnatic primogeniture with male-preference accords succession to the throne by-' ya, ya, ya, 'a female member of a dynasty if she has no living brothers and no deceased brothers who has left surviving legitimate descendants-' ya, ya-" he paused and looked up, meeting Grandmother's gaze. "'Order of succession is determined by which order each member of the family is named proper, be it from a milk name or baseborn offspring of a dynast being-'" he rolled it back up and handed it on to Jon without as much as a look. "Let me see I understand correctly. You want me to place the members of my family in succession by order of which they were named Stark, with male preference".

"In short terms?" Grandmother, before his questioning gaze, showed no sympathy. "Yes".

"Which means that Jon gets punted down the line of succession to just beneath my dead uncle" Cat and Jon both flinched at his words, and Arya gave him a look of defiance, as if daring him to affirm that Benjen Stark was actually dead "and the one who stands to inherit my crown would be my crippled little brother?" Not quite right, that. Any children Margaery and Robb would have would come before and be uncontested. In theory, at least.

"In this affair, in this little alliance of ours" Grandmother began to retort in her best lecturing tone, the one she otherwise reserved only for teaching the young ladies of the House how to play the harp "do you except us to leave our kin to be placed last? After the legitimized bastard and the cripple? We need assurances, not your word, no matter how you much you intend to never break it. Who knows, your concert of lords might just force you to cast off your betrothal again". Her tone left no doubt in the room about what she thought about such a notion being performed.

Robb glared, eyes flashing as Jon took in the contents the scroll before he handed it on to Catelyn in turn. "If this is the price of our alliance-" he began to rumble before he stopped and gave Margaery a look. A long look of sadness and apology, and she knew that if she hadn't felt numb all throughout her heart would have been breaking. "I cannot in good conscience-"

"We will not negotiate on this final matter" Willas voiced aloud, and Margaery's eyes shot to him. Of course he was part of it. He was always part of it. Always playing Grandmother's games for her, just like she herself. A whole group of pawns painted green and gold.

"Robb" Jon spoke up and laid a hand on his brother's shoulder. "It's fine. We need those soldiers, surely more than we need me. If that's the price-"

"I traded the lives of fifty men for you. I broke my mother's heart so that I could name you as my heir. And you want to make all that needless?" Robb shot back, but before the two came to blows – as they looked to do – Cat urged Arya off her lap and stood from her chair.

"If those were all of the terms of our accord, my Lord Tyrell?" Father, ill at ease and incapable of words, nodded, and so she inclined her head towards him. "We would need some time to deliberate in regards to this arrangement. We will retire and confer before making a decision, and send you our reply once we have reached an accord. Shall we?"

She smiled at Robb as they left the chamber in pack. He looked back at her for an instant, but he didn't smile back.

For several hours she hated her Grandmother. It was selfish, she knew that, but she couldn't help it. Grandmother was the political power of the House Tyrell. She had ruled the House by her will and manipulation ever since had married Leo Longthorn's grandson. And there were bound to be times that she made orders, for the good of the House and her family, which chafed against them.

But she did what she had to do, and she endured what she had to. For Grandmother.

For House Tyrell.

She had almost surrendered hope, sitting in Grandmother's solar for hours on end with her ladies and her brothers to attend her, when a man wearing Stark livery was showed into the chambers, and everyone turned towards him and ceased their songs and their playing, eager to learn what he had to say. Only, it wasn't a man.

"What is with you Northerners?" Grandmother asked without any introduction as the young woman, in full Winterfell armour and tabard, bowed like a man over the sword at her hip. Brienne, attending Margaery in silence despite having become sworn to lady Cat in all but name, gave that woman long looks as the Queen of Thorns went on. "Is life up there really so dull? No music or courtly games or turnery to entertain you, so every single one of you go South to murder people?"

"Food's scarce in the winter, m'Lady, and there're no sodding tourneys. T'was this or watching my kin starve". She was certainly martial, that slender woman, her hand laid casually over the pommel of her sword while the Stark cloak hung proudly on her back. "Also" she grinned past her freckles "I wanted to shove a sword up Tywin Lannister's arse. See if he really does shit gold".

As gasps and outcries at her casual profanity could be heard throughout the room Grandmother narrowed her eyes at the interloper. "Who are you, you crude girl?" She seemed intrigued.

"My da Hullen was master of horse at Winterfell, so he was. Served at our Lord Stark's band, Gods keep their souls, just like my brother Harwin does now. The name's Harra" she said, reaching out to offer her wrist for Grandmother to take like a warrior, being thoroughly ignored in doing so. "It's a common enough name, so it is. Ever met the servant taskmaster at Harrenhal, the one that-?" she saw the look she was given and stopped, mercifully enough. "Aye. Not important. None's the matter. His Grace the King in the North says he and his family has spoken about the betrothal". She paused and looked to Margaery, unintelligible in purpose and mood. "He says that he consents to all terms. The lot". And all the strength fled from Margaery's knees.

Even beside her, out the corner of her eye spotted as she sank down into her cushions while her ladies gathered about her in concern, Grandmother smiled triumphantly for a fraction of a moment, a flash hardly glimpsed, before she grew stern again and nodded back at the Northern woman. "Good. I knew the Stark boy would-"

"His Grace's nae boy, m'Lady" Harra said almost in warning, to which the Queen of Thorns shot her a glare no doubt meant to kill as the swordswoman turned towards Margaery. "M'Lady Margaery – the King in the North invites you to dine in his solar this even'. A private supper, to speak of things more closely. I'll be about to escort you, so I will".

And so she had hope again. She felt horrendously foolish, relying on a man so much for her emotional sanctity, but somehow she could not help it. Strength be damned, pride be damned – when she looked at him she felt like smiling.

So she hurried back to her own quarters not far from there and redressed after a hurried bath. One of the newer gowns, a Highgarden winter gown in green trimmed with grey and silver, fitting perfectly in the colouring but unfortunately fairly modest in the neckline. She had others in the making back in Highgarden, where the seamstresses and the dressmakers would readily create nearly anything she asked for, but for now this would have to do. Alla and Elinor accompanied her as she followed Harra towards the chambers Robb had been given for the duration of his stay. Harra, it turned out, was even more talkative than Lady Crane and cousin Desmera.

"Now, m'Lady" Harra said aloud as they approached Robb's chambers on the floor of the west wing set aside for the Starks and the Northeners, walking past guards in dull colours and warlike strides. "Since I've been doing such a good thing of escorting you, mayhap you'd put a good word in with his Grace. To join his honour guard, maybe? I'm quite the beast with a sword. I won't say I'm as good as Dacey Mormont or her Ladyship Arya-"

"Lady Arya is that good with the sword?" Margaery asked absently, frowning as they rounded a corner and saw the solar up ahead. In answer to her question Harra nodded eagerly.

"Aye, so she is! Once, on the ship down here, it was raining. Like the skies opened up and released the Hammer of Waters? And as the rust of us hurry and scramble the Lady Stark just walks out into the middle of the deck, never slipping like the slick wood's just like solid land. She drew her sword, and then she started to dance. I understand why they call it that now, water dancing. I've never seen the like for grace and skill. She didn't even as much as skim the water, and her blade was swift enough to cut the falling drops in twain". Harra paused and looked to Margaery's side at the sword hanging there. "You know how to use that thing?"

"No" she answered, looking squarely at those doors up ahead, furrowing her brow together as she stopped for a moment. "I don't. I want to, but no one's ever bothered to teach me".

"Well, you're lucky his Grace's agreed to your concord then" Harra shrugged, going ahead of Margaery to open the doors for her, greeting the two guards on either side of the door with familiar words. "Oi mate, what about you? Bored much, are youse?" She turned back to Margaery as the oaken planks swung open and gave her a grin. "A Northern queen may do as she wants. You want to learn how to use the sword? You'll have a thousand swordswomen, and swordsmen, at your side within the hour, willing to teach. Now, go along, will you?" she went on needlessly as Margaery strode on by her. "The King's waiting".

The King in the North had been given the largest solar and suite on the floor of the entire wing, the doors to the servant rooms, the bedchamber and the privy all as richly decorated with golden vines as the pillars that held up the ceiling of planks of polished birch. Most of the furniture had been taken away or pushed aside, leaving room for a single long table to dominate the middle of the solar floors in ordinary circumstances. These were not, though, for that table too had been carried aside, replaced by a small round thing and a pair of chairs that looked almost lonely at the centre. Robb's squire, a boy she thought she recognised from somewhere, was setting it along with few others, and as Margaery entered that westwards facing chamber and her ladies retreated into the shadows to escort her and see to it that her betrothed did not infringe on her honour, Rymund the Rhymer began to play from atop his perch in the far corner by the open windows unhatched even in the winter chill.

Robb watched the courtyard down below his windows in silence as the two servants set the table for their supper, the Young Wolf clad in a dark doublet and britches and white tunic shirt, his clothes changed since that morning. As she approached him she heard a distant clatter from down below, the clashing of wooden swords coming together, and behind him and a little to the side she looked down on the courtyard with him and saw shadowy shapes move across the cobblestone by the far side of it, coming together and breaking apart in charges and ripostes. "It's Jon" he supplied quietly as they stood there, having spend a good long while saying nothing. "He asked about your brother. Asked all. I think he's gotten a bloodied tooth for it. That he wants to challenge your middle brother in duel and win. He's been sparring with Dacey and Royce for hours".

"Garlan's never been bested" she offered, though she knew that if anyone could beat Garlan it one of the unknown fighters from the North, fighters whose manners and ways had never been observed in Southron tourney. "Robb" she said softly, reaching for his hand from behind. "This wasn't my invention. I did not learn of it until last night. I truly had no inkling that Grandmother would strive to usurp you like that-" her hand found his, and he didn't pull away. He held her merely.

"I know" he offered back turning about towards her, offering her a slight smile, his cheeks hollow and pale, his eyes red. "I could tell by your look. And though I was loath to accept it, Jon and Mother convinced me. In the end. It took a bloody lot of bickering".

"Cat wanted her own children to inherit first, I take it?" she asked, and he nodded, visibly still sore about the whole matter. "I think I can understand that. What about your brother? What made him advocate for his own displacement?"

"He has a strong sense of duty, and a lesser sense of self-worth". Robb made a face, his expression wry and reluctant. "Comes with being a bastard for most his life, I suppose. And I suppose it might be better this way, pushing him out of my shadow an inch or so. Free to be Lord of the Whispering Wood and my High Marshal as best as he may". He shook his concerns from himself and seemed to hang his head in defeat, and she took his other hand. Before she knew quite what she was doing she leaned into him, embracing the front of his body with hers.

"I missed you" she said into the fabric of his doublet, inhaling his scent, her very skin shivering with relief and delight. "Things were awfully boring without you".

"And the war was decidedly not boring, so it was" he muttered back and kissed the top of her head atop her hair. "I missed you too. Be gentle, will you? I took a quarrel through the shoulder at Silverhill". She looked up at him and frowned her displeasure. "A couple of my commanders made some fool choices. I had to charge my horse contingent in and save them". He raised one hand to her face and made as if to smooth out her frown with the pad of his thumb. "I thought I was buggered there, for a moment. And somehow all I could think about was my kingdom, and how it would fall apart without me. And how I haven't written you a single letter in all the weeks we were apart".

"They would have gotten lost, or the riders would have been taken by the Westermen" she let her frown gradually go away at his touch, fade into her relief once more. "I understand. I wrote you a few, but I didn't know where to send them. Maybe-" her words were cut short when he inclined his head and kissed her.

Their supper was a quiet thing, Rymund playing his harp in the corner for them, a mournful musical ode that made her heart ache even without any words – how come he no longer sang, even a little? – and the two of them spoke over their meal, sitting opposite each other across that small table. He confessed to her how good it was to not have to eat dried pork strips and stale bread and wash it all down with stolen Westerland wine for a change of pace, and she told him some jests at which he laughed. For long hours, after the lamb racks were eaten and their cups all but empty, they sat talking, about the war and their wedding. They had unwed siblings – perhaps their alliance could be secured better by further intermarriage? – and spies in their midst. Whispering into her ear he told her about Smalljon and Ebbert, how his web of informants had a full three strands. Cute, really. She knew Grandmother and Willas had hundreds.

But something was amiss. Something was tense behind his smile. She asked him about it. She also asked him why Ebbert had come onto his side so fully, abandoning her brother's service even after she had convinced her family to stop scheming against the Northerners out of a matter of contingent plans. Robb told her that they'd talk about it in the morning. That it was thing best discussed in the light of day, far from any darkness and Weirwood.

She wondered what that was, as she took her leave and returned to her chambers after Aunt Jenna's incessant prodding.

When she found out she wished she had never wondered.

"Margaery" he implored her softly as they by following morrow sat side by side on a marble bench in the recesses of the tiered gardens, the upper one, Lyra and Dacey standing at a far respectful distance. She hadn't thought that Brienne should hear any of the madness Robb had told her. "Please. Say something".

"Robb, it's a lot to take in" she told him slowly, her mind filled and crowded over with the notions he had placed in there. Sorcery, visions, Skinchanging, wargs and seers and Green men and people who could cast people to the ground in agony with but the sound of their voice- "How does that, that Bane Shriek matter work? It doesn't seem to make any sense to me". It was supernally odd, indeed.

"None of it makes any bloody shred of sense" he answered, his lips pressed together and drawn tight. "And when it starts to-" he shook his head, a look of disgust distorting his pleasant features. "That's when you should fall on your sodding sword. That's when it has you. Damn it all, Margaery, I understand if you want to call this whole thing off after learning that I am a warg and a-"

"Don't". She reached out and took the hand he was lifting to rub at his eyes, taking it softly in both of hers. He looked to her, and she did her best to smile. "You could be the grand wizard king of Yi Ti and it would still matter none to me. I care for you, Robb" she placed his hand to her cheek and kissed the tip of his forefinger. "More than I ever could for Renly". Or any other love I've ever had, you selfless fool of a sorcerer. I love you. I love that you are noble of heart. That you hold no secrets from me. "It matters none to me that you can do magic". She wasn't superstitious, after all. And she liked to think that she had an open mind, even if all this scared her.

"I don't think anyone does magic – I think we simply are it, like it's a part of us". And now he went and stopped making sense again. But slowly he began to smile once more. "If it's any consolation, I'm not very good at it. Warging, I mean. There's a lot of Tully in me, and that apparently extends to the blood". Relief was paramount in him then, as he leaned forwards to kiss her, and she met his lips without hesitation. That kiss was a sweet thing, one of acceptance and understanding and easing of tension out of him. When they came apart she shifted on the bench and made about a little, leaning back to support her head against his shoulder as his arms went around her. Warm, strong arms. Sorcery or not he made her feel safe.

"I shan't lie to you, Robb – this will take some time familiarising myself with" she said, turning her face against the fabric of his doublet. "In some parts of the land Wargs are burned at the stake at mere superstition. That you let them roam freely about in your army" she couldn't help but hold back a slight shudder. "It frightens me. Such power – most aren't as noble as you. They'll surely abuse it". The sorcery of the stories and the legends were certainly not the sorcery of reality, but if one mere fraction of the powers of legend were true then it was fierce power indeed.

"You have such faith in me, love – more than I have in myself for certain". She heard him sigh and close his arms about her waist, and she laid her hands above his, feeling the skin of his knuckles idly. "All this, it's just bloody grand, isn't it? In all honesty, Margaery, I miss the days when the oddest thing that could happen was that I could smell what Grey Wind sniffed. Like how it was back at Winterfell and Father was alive and only us Stark children were wargs. Now there's magic all about, and it feels like every time I turn around there's sorcery at my back. That every fuckwit with a falchion is some kind of-" he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, drawn out, somehow regretful. "I don't like this, Margaery. I don't. The world's not supposed to be like this".

"Don't fret, Robb" she patted his hand, mind drifting off into other thoughts as the autumnal birds sang in the gardens around them. "Have you ever heard the Mermaid's Lament?" she asked, and she knew that he wondered what she was talking about. "It's one of my favoured ones. I know it's sad, but" she smiled at the memories that came with hearing it in her mind "I've always thought it was beautiful. Poignant. 'Drown your fears in me, my dear – as you drown, my dear, in me'".

"You'll have to sing it to me sometime". She felt the vibrations in his breast with his every word as much as she felt his breath upon her hair, inhaling her scent like a Direwolf in early springtime – lean, and hungry. She sat up straight and turned her smile onto him, reaching up to tuck an errant strand of his red hair back behind his ear and out of the way. "Margaery-"

"We will shoulder through this, Robb. Together". The moment drew on and would have resulted in more idle kissing, if not more than merely that, had not Grey Wind come bounding out of the bushes like a massively overgrown puppy, happily panting as he chased a clutch of late-hatching butterflies. She laughed at the great beast that acted so joyously and stood from the bench with Robb.

As she called on the Direwolf and headed out of the garden Robb walked alongside her, his hand gasping hers and their fingers intertwining. Quietly, he repeated.

"Together".

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END

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A/N: This chapter took a little longer than it should have. Sorry about that.

Anyway, there are a few things to note.

Smalljon booming out titles and kicking down doors was a recurring thing already, so I decided to take it a little further for a spot of levity. In his titles for Jon he mentions the word Yr, which is as far as I can tell a Scottish title referring to the successors of clans. It seemed appropriate. Also, in his title for Arya he brings up the names of women born within the Stark family only, which were quite difficult to pin-point from the rest. The first one, Sansa, was added for some variety.

I like to think that that Sansa was the wife of Torrhen or Brandon the Builder or something. It seems to be a traditional name in the Stark family in the canon lore.

Olenna's work behind the scenes made sense for me, as she'd want her granddaughter's children to hold undisputed right in the ranks of House Stark. Also, she schemes by nature. I wanted to transmit a notion of the power that she holds through this. More importantly – this chapter needed conflict.

Lastly: House Umber's words – they made sense to me. The breaking of chains and the bonds of loyalty are recurring themes for the house members. As for House words, their meaning isn't supposed to be single-faceted or simple to explain. Easy to personalise.

The next chapter will see some scenes from the war, the appearance of some characters that have POVs in canon, and the thickening of the intrigue. After it and the one after that we finally get to the wedding arc.

I hope that you enjoy those chapters, just like how you enjoyed this one. The best is yet to come.

Ta.