Disclaimer: ASOIAF, GoT, whatevs, is not mine. I am borrowing the characters and their world.

Summary:

AU. First Part of a Trilogy, telling the story of Cadenzsa Forel, Syrio Forel's only child.

Cadenzsa's mother has decided it is time for her child to marry. Since no man in Braavos would dare touch her for fear of her father's sword - and Cadenzsa's, of course - the clever Syrio has relocated to Westeros in hopes of finding a man deeming worthy of his precious only daughter.

He has gone to King's Landing to find a Lord, or a Prince, or a Knight that will give Cadenzsa the life of adventure that she deserves. Cadenzsa, the clever girl, has decided to sail first to the North, and travel down through Westeros, in order to see the land for herself, and to learn of its people. She finds herself, though, soon stuck in the Hold of Winterfell, prey to the charms of the three young men that live there.

Robb

"But Robb!" whine Arya, wriggling like a puppy in her brother's arms. "Robb, put me down!"

"Well, it's what you get for tossing an onion tart at Sansa's face; and while we were feasting Royalty, no less," he said, Arya's heels dangling at his knees as he carried her with her back against his chest. The sounds of rowdy voices and tooting horns and othersuch musical sounds echoing softer and softer as Robb carried his sister to her bedroom. Nymeria, Arya's new pup, was scratching madly at her door from behind. Robb set his sister down and opened the door, finding a puddle of piss by the carpet.

"Nymeria!" squealed Arya. "You're supposed to do that outside...!" Arya took her rug and dragged it over the wet spot.

"Arya, get something else!" He quickly grabbed a kerchief that had been carelessly tossed to the floor, probably earlier that day, and dabbed up the piss puddle. "You want your room smelling like wolf piss?"

Arya hugged her puppy close. "Nymeria didn't mean it," she said with a pout. "She just can't get out by herself. It's not her fault!"

Robb nodded with a grin. "I'm not mad at you, Underfoot. Just clean it up," said Robb. "And to bed with you."

"But Robb! It's barely dark out! And everyone's still eating!"

"Well you should have thought of that before you hurled an onion tart at your sister's face!" Robb japed. "Now, to bed, young miss. Sweet dreams," he said, kissing her messy brown hair on the top of her head and closing the door behind him. Deciding it might be a good idea to check on his own Direwolf pup, he went and stopped at his own room. The pup hadn't pissed on his rugs or rushes, but he had decided to start gnawing at the bottom post on his bed, which was now half-eaten away with wood shavings all about his floor.

"No, no, no!" he said with a gasp, coming to pick him up. "Don't do that!" He scooped up his pup, who went calm in his hands. He was the size of a nice fat piglet at this point, and just as warm on the belly. "What's the matter, eh? Why you chewing? You hungry? Come on, boy, let's feed you." The pups hadn't yet even gotten their teeth full-in, and had just barely opened their eyes. The pup looked up at Robb like he didn't know who he was, but was willing enough to accept any love he was willing to give. Still, the pup had grown quite amazingly fast, nearly tripling in size since the day they had found the lot of them. Unlike his brothers and sisters, though, Robb's wolf pup didn't have a name yet.

Sansa had named her small girl Lady, while Arya's was called Nymeria after the great Dornish Lady. Bran had called his gray-and-silver pup Summer, and little Rickon - whom had thankfully gotten over the fact that it was only a Direwolf and not some kind of monster - Shaggydog, who was as black as night. Even his brother, Jon Snow, had found a name for his Ghost, the runt of the litter, with white fur and red eyes. But Robb, firstborn of Winterfell, had just been calling his "boy" for now.

"We'd best be discreet," he said to the pup as he opened the door with one hand and balanced his cub in the other. "We're feasting the King and the Royal family tonight. Don't know how they'll be for seeing a Direwolf." The pup snorted. "You can't understand me, can you? Oh well, you're still nice to talk to, boy." The wolf pup then suddenly started squirming quite vigorously in his arms as Robb walked down the corridor. "What's the matter, now?"

Robb's pup let out an otherworldly shrieking bark and bit into Robb's arm. Robb cried out as he dropped his pup, who took off running faster than he had ever seen before. "Boy!" he shouted, taking off after him. The pup was running down Winterfell's corridors faster than he had ever seen him bolt, and it was like a blur of grey turning each corner. "Boy!" he kept calling, horrified at the idea of having to chase him under the tables in the middle of feasting his Grace, King Robert Baratheon, and all of Winterfell, and the Lannisters to boot. Fortunately, he just went into the kitchen, where he gave all of the cooks quite a great scare when he dove under one of the preparation tables and pounced on the fattest rat Robb had ever seen.

The rat let out a squeek as his Direwolf pup quickly ended its life, and began to snarl and growl and gnaw on it quite vigorously. Robb got on his hands and knees as one of the new cook's assistants fainted at the sight of all that blood, and crawled underneath to snatch up his pup. His gold eyes looked at Robb, who then laid down the rat's bloodied corpse at Robb's hand. Robb couldn't help but laugh.

"You're fast, boy," he said. "Like the wind." He picked up his pup and coddled him in his arms. "Say, that's what I'll call you. Grey Wind. Would you like that?" As if to give some sort of approval, his flat tongue came up and flicked at the tip of Robb's nose. Robb laughed and ruffled his fur. He made his way back from the kitchen after feeding the pup some stewed meat and bread soaked in goat's milk. The pup was cuddling against his chest and sighed contentedly as he passed down Greyjoy's room. Much to Robb's chagrin, a Southern girl came flying out of his room, her gown half-off and screaming with glee. Greyjoy came laughing out with her, half drunk and leaning against his door frame, a crooked smile on his face.

Robb's face went a little red when Theon's eyes met his. The Ironborn shrugged. "Southern girls..." he sighed. "Wild."

Robb sighed through his nose, Grey Wind looking up at him. His heart felt a little tight, a little tugged at. He would have said something had he been able to find the words for it, but Theon was already fairly drunk and wasn't sure if he'd remember it. Robb wasn't sure if Theon ever remembered anything when he was drunk, for he hadn't brought up what had happened between them several months ago. Lady Forel was but a memory in Winterfell, and so, it seemed, was the night between them. So much for loving her, thought Robb. He wasn't sure if Greyjoy was capable of loving anyone or anything.

"You know we're hunting tomorrow, don't you? With the king? You know you'll have to get up early," said Robb, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

Theon scoffed. "Never once had the sight of a headache after a night of drink. And I've got at least four more fucks in me tonight."

"You're disgusting," said Robb, pushing past him, scratching Grey Wind behind the ears and going off to bed. He could have gone back to the feast with the Royal family, but he just stayed in bed with his pup, letting him fall asleep on his chest. His mind often wandered when he was alone in his room like that, all quiet with nothing but the faint sounds of whispering wind at the windows and his own breathing to lull him away from consciousness. Sometimes, the thoughts would take up so much of his mind that he didn't have any time to say to himself I'm falling asleep.

How many women had Theon bedded since Robb had known him? He could recall the first time he saw Theon kiss a girl, albeit hazily, for Robb couldn't even remember what he had been doing before that moment which had caused him to spy on the Ironborn boy. It was perhaps two or three months after his father had brought home a second son from the second war of Robb's lifetime, and Theon was a scant eleven years old. It was a farm girl who was the niece of one of the cooks, and Robb remembered her messy yellow hair that looked like warm soft hay. Robb would never forget what Theon had said to the girl to make her kiss him, as long as he lived:

"If we were in my home, I would make you my Salt Wife! And you'd only have to milk cows if you wanted to."

Robb didn't know what that meant. But it worked, for the girl giggled and kissed him, and ran away into the kitchen, leaving Theon quite red-faced and happy-looking. Theon had always had a queerly good luck with women. As Robb got older, he thought it was because Theon would fuck anything that moved. Robb sort of admired Theon for that nearly shameless-well, entirely shameless-courage with women. Robb always felt awkward around girls, no matter how many times he had heard what a pretty lad he was. He liked girls plenty, of course, but Theon was the one that always bedded them in the end. Robb had never bedded any women. The only time he'd ever been in a bed with anyone was with Theon. But it was probably best to not ever mention that.

The next morning, they were joined in their hunt by the King, the Prince, the Lannister brothers, and many of his knights. The hunt was rather successful, and when Robb returned he found his sister Sansa overjoyed. Of course she was gushing about going South and becoming Joffrey's Queen. So his sister would be the Queen of Westeros? It was all she had ever wanted, to be a part of the Southern court, out where the action is. It wasn't so simple for the men of Winterfell. Robb's destiny was up here, in the frozen North, for it was his home, and he was just as much a part of this land as it was a part of him.

It almost made him sick in a way, to see his sister wed to that right royal prick of a Prince. But brothers and sisters were not meant to be on the same side all the time. They were cut from two different sides from the same cloth, their mother would say. He wasn't necessarily ready to just ride off and leave right then again, but he knew he had to prepare himself for a ride up to the Wall with their Uncle Benjen; Jon was leaving. For good. And they all had to prepare.

He understood. Robb understood why Jon wanted to do it. The Wall was an honorable place to find redemption, where it didn't matter what your last name was. Jon was just as good a warrior as Robb and Theon were, but it didn't matter anywhere other than the Wall. Jon's goodbyes were sad ones, but quiet ones. Jon was even going to give Arya a Dancing Sword as a goodbye present, as inspiration of her new idol, Lady Cadenzsa Forel, who had been quite long-gone at this point. She even was excited to go along to King's Landing, hoping that she might run into her again. Robb could just imagine Lady Forel walking about the capitol city, wearing those lovely furs and blue silks draped over her shoulders. Maybe if she did run into Arya, she could teach her how to be a Lady in a way that his mother could never do. Too bad Jon could never see Arya become that, the poor little horseface. Too bad Jon could never wed and come to Robb's wedding when that day came. Too bad Jon couldn't be there for all the important moments of their lives, such as marriage or children or the days when Winter turned to Spring.

He wondered what kind of woman Robb would end up marrying? He sometimes dreamt of a beautiful Princess to bring up to Winterfell, and show her the wonders of the castle. There was hot water that ran through the walls of Winterfell, you see, so it wasn't ever that bad when the hundred-foot snows came to the walls. But he knew that it was a hard place to live. He didn't really ever think about it until he had met Lady Forel, but this was a hard place to convince a woman to stay at. It would probably be easy to find a Northern girl from a Noble House to bring to Winterfell with him, one that his mother and father would both approve of. But that, of course, was not for a long while.

About halfway through the day, he went to Theon's room. In an uncharacteristic move, Robb didn't knock for the door was ajar, and he walked in on Theon writing a letter. Robb gave a crooked smile and shut the door behind him. The click of the door's handle made Theon gasp and jump out of his chair. He quickly grabbed the parchment and crumpled it up and stuffing it into his pocket. Robb's eyes went wide as Theons were, who was panting with shock. He gulped.

"What do you need?"

Robb frowned. "What's that?" He pointed.

"What's what?" asked Theon with a very nervous shrug.

"What were you writing?" Theon's eyes darted nervously. "Let me see."

"It's nothing," insisted Theon.

"If it's nothing, then why can't I see it?" Robb grabbed for the letter, and Theon didn't protest. He just looked the other way with a slow sigh as Robb uncrumpled the parchment, and the ink-spotted surface was blank, except for a smudged "Cadenzsa," written at the top. Robb felt his hands begin to shake. It had been over three months, and the Starks hadn't heard a single word from Cadenzsa, only that she had arrived in King's Landing with her father safely some time ago. Young Lord Stark looked up at Theon, who was looking away in shame. Robb's mouth went dry.

When Theon's eyes met Robb's, he felt his heart stop. His eyes wandered slowly down to Theon's pale throat, and he caught sight of a gold chain that was so thin, it looked like it had been spun from a sprig of straw. Young Stark furrowed his brow and reached up and caressed the chain with his bare fingers, drawing out the pendant; a golden turtle with a great oval-shaped aquamarine gemstone as its back. If Robb hadn't been holding that chain and had a fear of dragging Theon down with him, he might have fainted.

"Are you out of your mind?" Robb rasped. "Did you steal this?"

Theon snatched the pendant away from Robb's fingers and tucked it back into the leathers of his doublet with a very angry look on his face. "It's mine."

"It's not yours!" whispered Robb in horror. "It's Lady Forel's! I saw her wearing that pendant while she was here! What will they say? What will everyone say if they find you with that?!"

Theon's voice was a low and desperate whisper. "She gave it to me so I wouldn't forget her-it's mine!" Robb had never seen Theon like this before; so afraid and so...vulnerable? He felt his knees go weak. He fell backwards a little and sat on Theon's bed. The two of them exchanged a long look.

"Have you been writing to her?" Robb asked after a long moment of consideration for what to say next.

Theon sighed and shook his head.

"Has she written to you?"

Theon shook his head again, and sank into his chair.

There was a long pause. "You said once...when you were drunk...that you loved her." Theon snapped his head up. "Do you love her? Theon, do you love Cadenzsa?" Robb wasn't expecting it to hurt so much when he said it aloud. Theon didn't say anything. He had never been so silent before. Theon was not the kind of man to stay silent. "Theon..."

Theon said nothing. He bent his head and pinched the bridge of his nose in his fingers.

"Theon... Does she love you?"

Finally, he spoke. "She never said she did, really," said Theon. "She didn't even really say goodbye when she left."

A beat. "What do you mean?"

Theon shrugged and leaned back in the chair. "She said she hated goodbyes. She asked me to tell her instead that I would see her soon." He closed his eyes and sighed with a sad smile. "I didn't see the harm in it, at the time. Poor stupid foreign girl, giving her that kind of hope. I've wanted to write to her, just to check in and make sure she's alright. But you know, she's probably in Dorne right now. A Raven might die of exhaustion before reaching her all the way down there in that hot sandbox."

"Why do you say that?"

The Ironborn looked around to make sure nobody was paying attention. "I told her that I'd keep it a secret." The way Theon said it almost made Robb pause; he had rarely seen Theon ever nervous before.

"But she's not here," said Robb. "We'll probably never see her again. Please, Theon, tell me," he nearly begged.

A deep and soulful sigh came from his full lips. "You have to swear not to tell anyone. If this gets back to her that I told you, I don't know what she'll do."

"Gods be good, you are in love!" gasped Robb, going pale with either horror or shock.

"Shut up!" snapped Theon.

"No, you are!" said Robb, putting his hand on Theon's. "You would never care what a girl thinks, ever! You've never cared about a girl, ever! Gods, Theon! You've got to do something-!"

"Shut up!" Theon shouted, pouncing on Robb and holding him down against the bed. "You shut your fucking mouth, Stark! It's not like it would make any difference even if I was, it's not like I could do anything about it. I'm a prisoner here, Robb. A Prisoner. Not a Ward, a Prisoner. A Hostage. No matter how much anybody might want it, I can't get out of this frozen wasteland until my father dies. Gods only know how many years that will be. Even if I could marry her, she'd have to stay here, in Winterfell, a prisoner's wife. Do you think that's the kind of life she wants for herself? She could barely even stand it here when she was a guest! I can barely even stand it here!"

It stung like an arrow through his heart, to hear those words from him, whom he loved like family, like no other. "Theon, please, I thought we were brothers!"

He must have said something to strike Greyjoy's salty, iron heart, for his lip quivered, and his hands shook for the tiniest of moments, and his body went soft and pulled away off of Robb's chest. For the first time, Robb saw Theon go weak, and soft, and hurt. He sank back into his chair. Robb sat up and reached out; their fingers twined together, and for that moment, they found comfort in each other.

"Is she marrying someone in Dorne?" asked Robb.

A shrug came off of his father's Ward's shoulders. "Maybe. Maybe in King's Landing, she'll find her husband. I don't know the details, but I know that she just can't marry someone in Braavos. Nobody is good enough, I reckon, according to her father, out there... So now they're here in Westeros looking for someone with money and a title and all of that other bullshit that can take care of her." He sighed. "I don't know what I was thinking even starting that letter. I was just staring at that parchment blankly when you walked in. What to say to that woman? I don't want to fuck up what ever she has in her future by letting any possible suitors see some letter from me. I was foolish to even start that letter."

"You miss her." It wasn't so much a question as it was a realization. "You really miss her." It was almost enough to make Robb sick with shock; Theon had never spoken of missing anyone, not even his mother, father, sister, or home before this day. Theon's feelings about missing anyone or anything had been either silent or nonexistent until this moment. Robb felt the world shift in that moment, and were he not so aware of it, he might have actually appeared to be short of breath as his brother-in-arms answered, after a very long pause.

"I think I just miss talking to her," he confessed in a low whisper. "Not really the fucking - of course it was very good - but just talking. Every day that she was here, trying to be kept away from you, I got to be with her. We sat and talked, and we Danced and talked, and we rode together and talked. I took her into town with me, and she shot arrows with me, and she even tried to show me how to play the lute at one point, if you can imagine it... I miss her stupid foreign voice the most." Robb didn't know what to say. After a long while, Theon shook his head, adopted his normal demeanor of Iron and salt, took the letter from Robb's hands and tossed it over his shoulder. He laughed, just then, and gave a cocky smile. "Well, fuck it. Even if she does end up under the flying banners of the great House Martell, I can rest easy knowing I'm the best fuck she'll ever have. You should have seen it. She sprayed me like a salty wave crashing against a rock." Theon laughed while Robb groaned uncomfortably.

"Why do you always have to make things so vulgar?" asked the young Lord with a roll of his eyes.

"I guess I'm just a vulgar man. We all can't be honor-bound Northerners, can we, Stark?"

It was a jape that was transparent to Robb and Robb alone. Anybody else wouldn't hear the pain in his voice. Sometimes Robb felt as if he knew Theon better than certain members of his own family, especially Sansa. Come to think of it, Sansa would probably be better off in King's Landing with all the other frilly Southern girls. She'll be there where the action is, and there where all the hustle and bustle of the city is. Sansa and Cadenzsa were alike in only one respect: neither belonged in Winterfell.

"I'm sure you'll marry somebody someday," said Robb quietly, figuring the best thing to do now was offer some kind of solace, no matter how well Theon could mask the pain inside.

Theon scoffed through his white teeth. "Everybody will marry somebody someday, Lordling. You will, I will, everybody will. Even smallfolk marry. The only ones that don't marry eventually are cripples, eunichs, Kingsguard, and whores. Gods only know what kind of cow I'll end up with. My brother Rodrik, before he died, was betrothed to someone from House Stonehouse, if I remember. He said she was pretty enough and had huge tits." Theon suddenly laughed out loud at the memory of his elder brother. It had somehow only occurred to Robb just then that Theon had never been the big brother before coming to Winterfell. "You know how they decide who to marry in the Iron Islands?" Young Lord Stark shook his head. "They duel over it. They pay the Iron Price. Gods, were I in the Old World again..."

A scream was suddenly heard muffled from outside. The two men exchanged a look of distress, and all was suddenly forgotten. The young Lordlings hurried down the corridor as fast as their feet would take them, and when they came into the yard, there was a crowd gathered around the bottom of the tower, along with young Summer's frantic barking and whimpering. Robb pushed everyone out of the way, and Theon was close behind. His heart stopped, and in his shock he had to turn around and fall sick to his knees with the eggs and toast he had eaten that same morning come up in a great brown river as he saw the twisted and mangled body of Brandon, his baby brother, his favorite boy, lying broken on the ground of rock and hay and dung below the tower where he'd fallen.

And we're in the part where the book/show starts, now!

I'd like to remind everyone that this is AU, so I will be changing a few things here and there, to match the story, along with keeping the same fucked-up tragedies that George R. R. Martin has decided to torment my soul with over the past [X] years (i.e. Red Wedding, Ygritte, Reek, fukken Khal Drogo and Dany doing the nasty even though she's ONLY FOURTEEN, YOU SICK PEDOPHILE OLD MAN)... I'm going to be changing things, yes, but it won't be any less tragic. The only TRULY AU-ish part I want to keep for TSSoB is that Cadenzsa exists. This may not SEEM like a huge change, but let's remember that a single grain of rice can tip the scale, and it only takes ONE needle in a haystack for sitting down to be a living Hell.

The wonderful thing about GoT/ASoIaF is that it's so dark and sick and twisted, but at the heart of it you have a story about family and love that holds every fucked up, incestuous bit of it together.

I'm looking forward to writing about Joffrey and Jon and Sansa, so look forward to me adding in some new POVs in the somewhat near future! I will, of course, take polls/requests as to what you'd like to see next in either the comments or private messages.

Also, I know that this is one of the shortest and-let's face it-most boring chapters I've written so far, but there's only so much, creatively, I feel comfortable with changing something we all know and love so much. Sorry, kids. Brandon's now a cripple. Sorry. It's part of the story. And, as Disney has taught us, we can handle a FUCKTON of FUCKED UP SHIT AND DEATH so long as there's a happy ending.

Peace, love, and comments!