Merry Crimbo everybody & a happy New Year! (For tomorrow, obviously.) Anyway, sorry it's such a short chapter update, but what can ya' do? Enjoy!

Gifu

-ooo-

Dinner was a sombre affair. Gifu's eyes slid around the room slyly, she could feel the anxiety of the Starks radiate throughout the room. Bran's fall was still playing quite tangibly on almost every Northerners mind. The Southrons seemed to be enjoying the feast well enough for everyone though. King Robert was boisterous and laughing jovially, hugging wenches and smacking their rumps. Gifu had to bite down her laughter at Ned's thunderous face; his honour was most likely affronted in the sight of his friend, Robert's, lechery. What a fool. Gara was firmly planted in the Northern half of the atmosphere, Gifu had to nudge her sister and prompt her to stand up straight and smile.

"I can't do this..." She complained and Gifu clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. Pushing her on the small of her back, Gifu hissed menacingly,

"You can and you have to, Gara. If you don't do this I'm lost."

Gifu watched her sister nod and gulp down some air. "Alright, alright...but-"

"But what?!"

Snapped Gifu and Gara's eyes twitched over to where Robb was sitting sullenly drinking from a horn. Gifu could feel her temper rising and she pinched Gara's arm.

"Ow!"

"Look," Began Gifu brutally. "Get over there and talk to Thegane. Go now, Gara. And for the love of the gods, smile!"

Gifu watched anxiously as Gara walked off; as inflexible and rigid as a plank of wood in Gifu's beautiful blue dress. She wouldn't pull it off. Gifu knew it. There was no way Gara could become Gifu. The older twin licked her dry lips and mentally shook herself, drawing herself up like a dancer on the first beat of music; she strolled over briskly and airily to Robb Stark. His face was like marble as he watched her descend into her stool and sit beside him. His expression lost its stoniness and quickly changed to confusion as he looked more closely at her,

"Gifu-?"

He stumbled and Gifu flashed him a brilliant smile and squeezed his knee very hard to keep him silent,

"Wha-?"

"Keep quiet, Robbie." She hissed pleasantly; a smile still on her face and said, "You'll spoil the game." His brow was knotted in confusion as he followed her steady gaze over the room. Snapping his head in that direction, Gifu watched as his throat contracted at what he saw; Gara in Gifu's lavish blue dress, sapphires and aquamarines winking at him from across the hall and in the company of Thegane Lannister. He was carving some lark and placing it very gentlemanly on her platter. Gifu looked away, her jealousy blazing and caught eyes with Robb. He gaped, and Gifu reckoned her own covetousness was mirrored in his visage.

"What in blazes is going on, Gifu?!" Robb barked in an undertone. She didn't answer straight away and nodded for him to pour her a drink and quieten down. He did, rather irritably and slammed the goblet down before her.

"We're only playing, Robb. Gara and I do this sometimes. Doesn't she look nice as me?"

"Gara does not do this, Gifu! What is it you're doing?"

She gave him a sidelong look before her dark gaze flicked back to Thegane and Gara and she sighed. Robb's brow puckered as he watched her; a look of real weariness swept Gifu then. Drawing her shoulders back, Gifu cocked an eyebrow and was all glittery and hard again as she turned her orbs of unbreakable onyx on him and stated flatly.

"We're just playing, Robb. We're not doing anything." He did not look convinced. Gifu watched him as he peeked back over the hall and eyed Gara. She was smiling now, when she usually only had smiles for him at dinner; Gifu wondered if he would do anything since he'd seen through the rouse. With a shrug, she ignored his brooding stares and tried to look dowdy. It was so boring being Gara, Gifu decided. Where was the fun in sitting with one's eyes downcast pretending not to know that the men were looking, or that the women were envying? Gara was just boring.

Gifu found she couldn't take her eyes off of Gara and her betrothed. At least she wasn't sitting sulking; Gara was smiling and smothering giggles, and each one smothered Gifu could feel Robb tensing beside her and growing more and more agitated at the sight of them his jealousy was so potent. The music was covering them well enough, Gifu sipped her wine and leaned into Robb and asked,

"So, d'you love her?"

Robb's eyes were on her in an instant. Gifu didn't flinch; she never would. Not from Robb. She'd been pushing him around the nursery when she was three and he was five. She blinked and waited for his response and saw his shoulders sag under the weight of the question. Her eyes widened as she kept her eyes rapt on him and she understood; it wasn't just a may fling to him. Gara was no summer love, a green affair as Gifu had believed. He was not a boy making eyes at a girl, he looked like a man who wanted to draw his sword and defend his woman.

"Then you do love my sister?" She said aghast and Robb nodded, his eyes were locked to hers.

"More than anything...But it's-"

"What, Robb?"

"Complicated...I can't proclaim it." He sounded wounded as he spoke. Throwing back his goblet, he banged it down and breathed huskily. Without thinking, Gifu refilled his cup and looked at Robb Stark for the first time and saw what this fiasco with her sister was doing to him.

"And why can't you proclaim it?"

Asked Gifu with a frown as she slid his goblet in front of him and he drank deep.

"I shouldn't say..." Gifu's eyes flashed with curiosity and she moved closer. They must have looked intimate, and Gifu could feel Gara watching them clandestine from across the way.

"What shouldn't you say?"

Robb looked at her; his eyes were bleary and he looked melancholy as he turned and gazed longingly, absolutely longingly over to Gara and shook his head while he uttered,

"Your father's got someone in mind for her..." He looked back at Gifu and shrugged downtrodden. Gifu felt an unfamiliar feeling of grief when he whispered,

"So I've lost her."