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Chapter 15 – What a tangled web we weave

"I know where we can get both dragon glass and valyrian steel without having to pay for it or tell anyone." It was the sing-song tone that Tyrion said it in that made Jon's heart sink into his shoes. He knew exactly where Tyrion wanted to go and Jon was not happy. He glared at Tyrion and uttered a single word.

"No"

"But…"

"No"

"But it's perfect…"

"No"

"Come on, just think about it…"

"Hells No Tyrion! We nearly DIED last time and that was just trying to get there."

"Well, we shouldn't have the same problems as last time because we'll know how to deal with them or avoid altogether."

"NO!"

"You could get the Girls back…."

"…No…"

"Come on, you know you want to get the Girls back. All beautiful and deadly. You love them. Admit it." A sly grin was beginning to emerge.

"….no….yes….No. No not again. Never again." Tyrion knew he had Jon now. He just needed small push.

"Think about it seriously. All that good valyrian steel just lying there collecting dust. All that dragon glass just waiting to be picked up off the ground. All that wealth of Old Valyria just gathering dust when it could be collected and used to pay for this war and everything that happens after when the Long Night retreats." Tyrion knew exactly which buttons to push to get Jon to agree to his plan.

"I really hate you sometimes, you know that?" and with that statement. Jon surrendered to Tyrion's mad plan.

Shit. They were going back to Old Valyria.

Ned, who had been lost before the valyrian steel was mentioned, now saw what Tyrion's plan was and didn't know whether to be impressed or have Tyrion locked away for his own safety. He decided to find out which one it was.

"Have you gone completely mad? Valyria is cursed and you want to go there and what? Loot the place?" He asked in a concerned tone of voice. Tyrion rolled his eyes.

"Why must everyone question my sanity? For your information Lord Stark, Old Valyria is not actually under a curse either from the Gods or some magic spell. What happen to Valyria was simple. One of bigger volcanos erupted and somehow set of a chain reaction in the rest of them. They all erupted one after the other within a short amount of time and it shattered the Valyrian Peninsula and before you say anything, their Seer's Saw it coming and all the Dragon Lords bar the Targaryen's chose to ignore the warnings. There's even a line in the song where it explicitly says that they chose to turn their backs on their end."

"But the real reason to go there is that closer to the outer edges, while still in ruins, are massive cities that still have concealed within them, hundreds if not thousands of tons of Valyrian steel just lying around gathering dust. We need two things in abundance if we are to win this war, dragon glass and valyrian steel weapons. Old Valyria has both in great quantity." Tyrion told Ned. Ned for his part looked thoughtful.

"And what or who are the Girls?" he asked in curiosity. Jon grinned as he remembered the "Girls".

"A long-sword with a matching dagger. Silver, beautiful, sharp and deadly." Jon told him. Tyrion was right, he loved those blades. He had named them after his sisters, the two most deadly women he knew.

Ned grinned in appreciation. He could appreciate a finely made weapon and it sounded like Jon had found two. As much as he loved Ice, the sword of his family, it was a huge weapon and not the best to wield in a conventional battle. When fighting for his life, Ned preferred to use a long-sword.

"Well lad, sounds like you'd best make plans to go and retrieve those fine weapons and if there's nothing else for now, I believe it's time for lunch." He said with a smile.

The other two nodded in agreement and together they turned and left the Godswoods.

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In the week leading up to Jon's name day, the week had been both busy and oddly relaxing. The constant pressure and worry that had plagued Jon and Tyrion had eased somewhat do the knowledge that they had Ned on their side. They were going to need him to lead, not only the armies of the North but the biggest army of the living the world has ever seen. Not that they had told him that last part….yet.

Ned though had been a busy man indeed. He had written letters to Syrio Forel and Lord Selwyn of Tarth to start in motion Jon and Tyrion's plan to help his children learn how to protect themselves from those who would harm them and as much as he wished it were otherwise, Ned knew that due to being Starks of Winterfell, they would always be a target for someone else's ambitions.

He had held off of sending anything to Randyll Tarly for the time being. Tarly had a reputation for being a hard man and while he was one of the finest generals in the south, Ned wouldn't want to be a son of his who didn't live up to his father's image of how his heir should be. It was going to take some thought on what to say to Lord Tarly to get him to let his son come to Winterfell.

He also took to heart Jon's suggestion of contacting the Mormont's and arranging some sort of pact for sanctuary for the children of House Stark. He decided that Jon's name day celebration would be a good cover to get them to Winterfell to arrange this pact without the other Northern Houses knowing about it.

There were two things though that made Ned's week harder than it should have been. Cat had come to see him two days after the planning session in the Godswoods. Ned knew he shouldn't have been surprised at what Cat told him she thought Baelish was planning, considering what Jon and Tyrion had told him, but he was.

The only good things that came out of it was Cat had realized that Petyr Baelish couldn't be trusted and that she'd been unfairly harsh with Tyrion by painting him with the same brush as his family.

But what had really infuriated her was that Petyr had deliberately and most likely with malice, poisoned her against Jon. Cat had been honest with him. She felt guilty over how she had treated him and wished to make amends somehow, but she still hated him.

There had been too many years of Baelish's poison infecting her mind and emotions and even though she realized that she had done wrong by Jon, it didn't make everything instantly better. She would never love him, she may never like him, but she could do her best to respect him and treat him as a proper member of House Stark. It was the least she could do and she was honest when she said she didn't know if she could offer Jon any more than that.

It was at that point that Ned realised that Bran was right; he had to tell her the truth about Jon. He knew it wasn't ideal timing, but that time may never come. Ned just hoped that she would forgive him….at some point.

"Cat, I have something I need to tell you."

"Well that sounds ominous, what is it then?"

"It's about Jon. It's about who his mother is"

"Ned, I don't want to hear it. I may have admitted I've done wrong by the boy and for that I am truly sorry, but don't want to…"

"CAT! Cat, he's not my son. He's Lyanna's." He bluntly told her seeing no use in softening the blow.

Cat's face was a mixture of shock and disbelief. Did she just hear her husband right? She wasn't sure.

Ned sighed and told her everything. From the tourney at Harrenhall to what had happened when he arrived at the Tower of Joy in Dorne.

"Ser Arthur Dyane was dead. Howland Reed had come up behind him and stabbed him in the back just before he swung his sword to kill me. I heard a woman scream and raced up the steps and rushed in to the room. Gods Cat, the whole place stank of blood and there she was, my beautiful little sister, lying in a bed of blood, dying"

"One of the servants passed me her child. She told me that he was Rhaegar's son. His legitimate son. She was never raped by Rhaegar. Lyanna begged me to keep him safe from Robert. "Robert will kill him, you know he will." She told me. She wasn't wrong Cat."

"After how I saw how he reacted in Kings Landing when the Targaryen children were presented to him, to be honest Cat, I think I lost my respect for him that day. So I did the only thing I could, I claimed him as mine and thank the gods that he looked like a Stark and not his father's family."

He had showed her the sworn documents that proved that Rhaegar and Lyanna were married on the Isle of Faces in front of the Heart Tree, by Elia Martell herself, the letter Lyanna had left for her family, apologising for everything but explaining why she had to do this and a few other things that Rhaegar and Lyanna had left for Jon in case the worst happened.

Apparently, Lyanna had one of her "dreams" and foresaw all that would happen on the trident when Jon was conceived. She saw it all. Robert's Rebellion and how it ended for her, Rhaegar and Elia. She saw how Ned would be killed by a lion disguised as a stag, how the Night King and his armies would rise and overtake the living and most importantly, how her son is the Prince that was Promised come again and he would defeat the Night King once and for all.

Cat was being pulled in many directions at once. She was angry at Ned for keeping this secret from her. She was astounded that Lyanna had willingly gone with Rhaegar. She was furious with Robert, if not for him; they could have raised Jon more openly as a true Stark of Winterfell. She was irrationally angry with Jon although why she didn't know for this wasn't his fault and then there was the fact that the True Heir to the Iron Throne and Westeros had been raised as the Bastard of Winterfell and for some reason that offended Cat and made her very angry. The boy was the true heir to the Iron Throne and he'd been unfairly labelled and treated as a bastard instead of the Prince he truly was.

While Cat had been trying to work her way through her thoughts, Ned came out from behind his desk to comfort her. He went to put a hand on her shoulder when she stood up and turned to him.

"SMACK"

The impact of her open hand hitting his cheek echoed around the room. Cat turned on her heel and stormed out. Ned rubbed his cheek.

"That could have gone better"

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Cat still hadn't spoken to him two days later and it was on that second day that Tyrion wanted to speak to him about Arya.

"Are you alright Ned? I'm hearing that things are not so good between you and your Lady wife at this moment." Tyrion was concerned. Ned looked tired and rather haggard to boot and while Tyrion didn't wish to add to his burdens, he felt compelled to speak to Ned about his youngest daughter.

"Things could be better, I admit. I told Cat the truth about Jon's parentage. My Lady is rather….irked at me for the time being. Don't worry, she'll calm down once she's had time to think and adjust to it all. Now, you wished to speak about Arya?"

Truth be told, so did Ned. What Jon and Tyrion told him about what had happened to Arya and what she turned into was deeply concerning.

"Now while I like your youngest girl Ned, even now I can see something in her behaviour that disturbs me greatly." Tyrion started off with a light touch but serious demeanour.

"And that is?" Ned was now worried.

"Arya can hold a grudge is such a way, that it puts my father to shame. I can see it now with Sansa. Sansa disapproves of her sisters "wildness" and picks on her for it with a variety of nasty little comments. Also, she's always being compared to her "perfect" sister and always being asked "why can't you be more like Sansa?" Now Arya knows it not really Sansa's fault but she can't help but feel resentful towards her sister. The more people compare the two and the more Arya is found lacking, well those sorts of things can often lead to hate. Trust me Ned, as the "imperfect" sibling of two "perfect" ones, I know how these things can fester and turn to bitterness, anger and hate and Arya knows how to hate." the bitterness in his voice as he spoke about his siblings was evident.

Ned was now more worried than ever because he had seen what Tyrion was speaking of in regards to Arya and Sansa and from what he had been told about Arya's fate in the Time Before, Ned feared she had turned into a cold blooded killer who took joy in her kills.

Tyrion confirmed this by telling Ned about what had happened late one night shortly after Daenerys and he arrived in Winterfell. It had been very late when suddenly Tyrion woke up to find a knife at his throat and the hand that wielded it belonged to Arya. She had no emotion on her face and her eyes were dead. She had questioned him as to his true purpose in the North.

Tyrion had told her the same thing they had said in the great hall they were there to help them with the war against the dead. Arya had been silent for a moment and seemed to accept that but didn't withdraw her knife from it position. She then asked him if he planned to hurt his family, especially Sansa. This time, there was a hint of barely controlled anger in her eyes and a wild look that said if he answered wrong, he'd not live more than a second after.

Tyrion had done his best to convince her that he had absolutely no intentions on hurting anyone least of all Sansa. He told her that her family had suffered enough and he'd not add to it if he could help it. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew the shutters open and before he could realise it, the knife and Arya were gone.

The next morning when Tyrion went down to the great hall to break his fast, Arya was there acting completely normal. Tyrion had wondered for a moment if he had dreamed the whole thing when Arya looked him in the eye and what he saw in hers both chilled him to the bone and convinced him that he hadn't been dreaming.

This had disturbed Ned more than he thought. He didn't like the fact that his baby girl had to kill someone in self-defence before she was even a woman, but what she had been though after he died had shaped her anger into an all-consuming hatred, making her want to seek out bloody revenge against all those who had wronged her and her family.

She just couldn't let go of her anger and hate even after everyone on her "List" was dead either by her hand or another's. The hate had kept her going when she should have by rights given up or died. The hate made her strong and the hate had killed the real Arya Stark and left a empty cold blooded killer behind.

Ned knew something had to be done to curb this type of behaviour before Arya repeated the mistakes she made in the Time Before. He knew he was going to have to interfere in what was usually Cat's domain. He didn't want to but he knew he needed to speak with both his daughters separately.

Sansa needed to be told that the South was not as the stories say. That there weren't very many gallant knights who would save her and not expect something from her in return. She needed to understand that the world was not a song, that the world was a harsh brutal place that uses and hurts little girls just like her. That the only thing she can truly count on is family for when winter comes, the lone wolf dies, but the Pack survives.

Arya's problem lay in the other direction. She knew that the world wasn't a good place and that it doesn't matter who you are, the strong will always pick on the weak. She had no illusions like Sansa did about the world and it drove Arya crazy as she couldn't understand why Sansa couldn't see this and so thought Sansa was stupid because she still had those illusions of a perfect world.

It was because of this, Arya didn't see the point of being a Lady if it was going to make you stupid. Besides, she's much rather be learning how to fight, or shooting arrows or riding then learning how to sew and play the harp.

The girls resented each other and they had for a while now and Ned didn't understand why Cat wasn't stepping in and re-enforcing the fact that they were family and family comes first. After all, her House words were Family, Duty, Honour. Ned felt that Cat had really dropped the ball on this one. He also couldn't understand why she hadn't started to instruct either of the girls in politics and court intrigue as it was a vital part of any Noble House.

There was a saying in Westeros that went, A Lord may rule the Manor, but his Wife rules the House.

What it meant was while a Lord rules over his lands, command his armies and makes all the big decisions, his Lady rules the house. It is she who makes sure his children know their duty. It is she who manages the budget. It is she who gives the final approval on who her children marry and it is she who is his closest confident and advisor and she does it all in the most subtle manner so her husband never knows that it is she who truly rules.

Cat had had this education and the fact that she hadn't taught her daughter's what they need to know in order to survive the cut throat world of House and Court politics did not bode well for when they had to go to Kings Landing. There was no choice in this. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't say no to his King.

It was just another issue that Ned had to speak to Cat about, when she started speaking to him again….That if she decided to speak to him again.

Right now, it was doubtful that she would.

Next chapter will be a look into Cat's point of view.