*A/N: This story has been re-written. Some parts are the same but most has been cut and replaced. Hope you enjoy it!
Genesis | Winter is Coming
Sybel Stark looked up at the bright orb in the sky, masked and muted by deep grey clouds, and sighed dully to her direwolf pup, Inferno. "Gods be good."
Inferno, for her part, appeared unperturbed.
Sybel, however, had the strongest sense of foreboding she'd ever experienced. Not long now and the King's company would be arriving at her home in Winterfell, and the knowledge snaked another tendril of trepidation to wrap around her heart and give a little squeeze she could feel all the way down in her toes.
Not because she was some kind of prophet, and not because she had the gift of the Sight, imbued with comprehension of the future, like in the stories their old nan told.
But because the King had travelled their country when he could've just written a letter.
Sybel had tried to raise this on a number of occasions after finding out the news of their impending arrival. "Father, why is the King coming to our home?
Her Lord father, Warden of the North, just looked at her somberly, showing the soft smile he typically reserved just for her. "It's nothing for you to worry over, my sweet."
Apparently, Sybel was not deemed old enough to be told what was going on. Sight or not, and regardless of whether her father would acknowledge it with her, she knew everything was going to change. She just would have liked to know it ahead of time. Once again though, Sybel was kept in the dark and she considered that it was likely not her age that was the barrier, rather it could've been, simply put, just her.
Sybel was just slightly too-affable and kind, probably more so than she should be, and definitely more so than what would serve her any kind of good in the world they lived in. It had always been indulged, especially by her father, because she brought with it an undiscriminating warm smile and genuine disposition that drew people to her, making it odd if there wasn't at least one person orbiting her, taken in by her soft face and sweet smile.
But an unfortunate side-effect of this seemed to be the reaction it garnered in her father and oldest brothers, because naturally—assumedly according to them—her warm temperament meant she needed to be kept in the dark and protected at all costs. Which was ironic and infuriated Sybel to no end, considering the men of her family took every opportunity to remind her now that she was a woman, that not everyone was so deserving of her good nature. Sybel was uncomfortably trapped in a cycle of being told to be more astute, and yet simultaneously being told in fewer words that she should remain resting in her obliviousness.
So, unsurprisingly, she also took every opportunity in response to roll her eyes and point out that she could very well gauge for herself who was deserving and who was not (she'd really had to, by this point). Just because she could be naïve and trusting, as any good noblewoman really ought to be she liked to point out, didn't mean she was absentminded. And sometimes the way they carried on about her was insulting and entirely of their making.
White puffs of air formed in front of her face as she breathed the sharp Winterfell air in and out, bringing her back to the present as she shivered slightly in the cold. She pushed her reddish-tinged curls away from her face, barely bothering to tame it down into something more presentable. The bite in the air wasn't a shock—she was used to the icy air and the way the land seemed to be permeated with a grey light regardless of whether the sun was hidden or not—but she pulled her fur-lined coat more firmly around herself anyway. She knew how quickly the frost could seep into your bones and kill you kindly.
She spotted two of her brothers, Robb and Jon, and her father's ward, Theon Greyjoy, walking across the yard up ahead and she hurried after them. Her path was quickly crowded with other members of their staff despite the urgency with which her mother, Lady Catelyn, had given instructions. The people of Winterfell still found themselves passing close by her, drawn into her orbit by her easy acceptance and unassuming nature, entirely without conscious thought of it.
It also meant Sybel didn't realise the awkward smile Joseth the burly stableman gave her was awkward because it was so rare he smiled at anyone. She didn't realise that the young kitchenhand, Janna, who spent the morning scavenging for flowers to brighten Sybel's room didn't mind because she knew her reaction would be to gush at how thoughtful and sweet it was of her. And she certainly didn't realise that the cheery grins and exchange of laughs between her and few of the guardsmen were usually followed by talk of what it would be like for her to warm their beds. Especially once they noticed that the eldest Stark daughter had grown sizeable breasts.
She rested her hand in Inferno's thick black fur to encourage her forward in a hurry, the white strip along the length of her snout flashing silver. The pup was aptly named, if she did say so herself, for she could be quick to bare her teeth at anyone who came too close to her master too suddenly. Inferno was the largest of the pups, seeming to grow visibly bigger with each passing day, and already she reached to Sybel's thigh.
She fell into step with her brothers and Theon, glancing at them as they glanced at her. All three of them were handsome; Robb, with auburn hair and a keen sense of honour and justice, Jon with near-black eyes and a solemn, guarded face, and Theon, with dark brown hair and an arrogant, cocky attitude.
She smiled suddenly, forgetting the swirling in her belly, as she noticed they'd been shaved and sheared for the King's arrival, probably against their wishes. It wasn't uncommon for Northernmen to have longer hair and beards, giving them a wilder look that went with their lands; untamed and dangerous. Though, it had more practical advantages. Keeping warm, for one. Less hassle, for another.
The lack of beard highlighted Robb's prominent jaw.
"Who would have known my brothers were even remotely handsome under all that…" Sybel gestured at their newly shaven faces where their beards had been. Then she laughed, finding the word she wanted, "Scruff."
The people of Winterfell were moving to congregate in the courtyard to meet the King's arrival, and that was where her feet were taking her. She laughed again when Jon scowled, dancing her fingers lightly on his smooth cheek. Jon had a mop of curly black hair which, according to Robb, he loved more than any girl he'd met. And right then, it was cropped shorter than he'd ever had it before, his expression somewhat dismal. Sybel thought it funny that simply shaving their beards made them look younger, sweeter, softer.
"Oh, don't worry Jon, it will grow back." Sybel's own hair was pulled back in the typical northern fashion; the sides pinned back, the rest tumbling messily down her back in thick curls. She had pinned a small red flower behind her ear, one of the ones Janna had picked to brighten her room, to go with her pale red dress and coat.
"I hear the Prince is a golden-haired little prick," Theon cut in abruptly, taunting her, an overconfident, brash smirk pulling his lips as he teased her in the way her brothers teased her. Though his teasing was usually cruder and blunter and not really befitting the brotherly kind at all. But like the universal intention behind all teasings, he just wanted to get a rise from her, and Sybel always, always rose to the bait; far too easily provoked for a girl with two brothers about her age and Theon Greyjoy to contend with.
She supposed most girls were anxious for the arrival of the young Prince, at nearly fourteen namedays, and Theon assumed she was just as excited as the rest of them. This time though, he missed his mark and Sybel snorted a laugh. It wasn't the response Theon wanted, and he wrinkled his nose in disappointment. Her reply did not dissatisfy, however. "If you are so desperate to gossip about the Prince, Theon, then maybe you should seek out Sansa. I have no interest in boys."
And they chortled at her then.
"'Boys'?" Robb mimicked, quick to grin. "Your taste runs more towards men, then?"
Sybel scrunched her nose at him, her cheeks pinkening as she shoved him lightly, "Shut up, Robb."
He made to shove her back playfully, but was interrupted by a warning growl from Inferno. Her jowls smacked and Robb quickly retracted his arm.
"Inferno, no." Sybel said, taking care to enunciate clearly. "Robb is harmless."
Annoyance flashed in Robb's eyes, not appreciating her comment while Jon and Theon snickered. "You need to learn to control her."
Mostly, Sybel thought the pup was all growl and no bite—she had never actually bitten anyone; she was just fierce and protective. Sybel shook her head ruefully, smoothing the fur of Inferno's face back and holding her head so she was forced to look Sybel in the eyes. Intelligent amber eyes blinked back. "Stay."
Inferno sat on her haunches and remained there as the four walked away. Sybel lifted her chin pointedly at her older brother, saying in a lofty voice, "Perhaps you should not have tried to attack me."
He grinned, glancing behind him swiftly to find Inferno had wandered off, before moving to try to shove her again. She darted away from him quickly, moving to the other side of Theon, who was walking beside Robb, putting the most distance between them as she could. "You're the one who made us tease you, saying you have no interest in boys. What do you want with a man?"
They laughed at her again, and Theon leaned down to say in her ear, his voice low so as not to carry to her brothers, and resonating with a hint of suggestion, "Do you want yourself a man, to show you how to fuck?"
Her eyes flashed up to his in surprise, though she supposed she shouldn't be—she had heard him talk with Robb about his conquests with Ros and the other women at the brothel, in great detail, and it was not the first time he behaved more intimately with her than he should. He found it fun to taunt her, and his sense of humour was sometimes a bit cruel, but Sybel knew he was harmless. He just liked to get that reaction, the indication that his words had an effect. Knowing that, she still couldn't stop her blush.
Theon grinned pointedly, smug at the red colouring Sybel's cheeks. The way she puckered her lips slightly in indignant embarrassment had him imagining what those lips would look like wrapped around his cock, and Theon knew he was not the only man to notice how her body had curved into that of a woman's.
If her mother or father had been present then, Theon would be reprimanded for speaking in such a way in front of her, and to her for that matter. But Sybel would not tattle on him, he knew, ever one for keeping the peace in her home, and so he found his tongue far more liberal around her than it should be. It gave him a debauched sense of excitement to watch her blush when he said words like fuck and cock.
He spoke again, just as low as before, for he was not stupid enough to test her brothers' limits when it came to their sister. Particularly Sybel, who was both considered a woman and unaware of what that really meant to the men around her. "Or do you mean to say it's girls who get you excited?"
The flush crept down her neck to disappear under her dress at his implications, and she regained her composure. She tried for a lofty voice again, attempting to tease him back, as if she was unaffected by the way he spoke so calmly of such things, and thought him rather unsophisticated.
Unfortunately, she lacked the conviction needed to deliver a scathing remark or mocking statement well, and it came out sounding more self-conscious and mortified than the pretend, haughty-superior voice she was trying for. "Watch your tongue, Theon. If it keeps flapping about like that, one day someone will take it upon themselves to do us all a favour and cut it out."
His grin widened as she skipped away from him to where Jon and Robb had pulled ahead of them slightly. Her brothers eyed Theon suspiciously, having heard her words and wondering what he'd said to her to make her say that. Then Jon and Robb looked at each other, seeming to be thinking much the same thing, before Jon looked to Sybel and gave her a smile that spelled more mocking for her. When her brothers wanted, they could tease her like they would never get the chance to again.
"We've seen you looking at the captain of the guard." Jon began.
"Is Jory man enough for you?" Robb finished.
As Sybel spluttered, embarrassed at having been caught—for he surely spoke the truth, and her attempts at denial would be useless, considering her poor ability to lie—Jon's usually more somber face cracked into an even wider smile. He laughed softly at the way his sister brought their teasing on herself, quite by accident. They all knew she had been commenting on the fact that the prince was younger than herself, and nothing beyond that.
"Robb!" She cried, swatting his hand away as he reached around Jon to tug playfully on her hair. "Gods, I had only meant that Prince Joffrey is of no interest to me."
"Because he's a boy," Robb reminded jokingly.
She grumbled, though she wasn't particularly annoyed. Sybel rarely became livid—she could remain remarkably calm in most situations, and where others would yell angrily at their insulting and taunting, she would just laugh it off.
Jon was usually the one least likely to mock her with the insinuations her poor choice of words could create and usually the first to comfort her when her face became so hot he feared it would catch fire. "We're only teasing you."
She jerked her chin up in a mock haughty way, making an unimpressed sound in the back of her throat and pretending to ignore them as they entered the large courtyard. They just grinned at her, leading her through the lingering people, the space already full of people. They made their way to the front of the crowd, Jon clearing a path for her to walk through more easily, to where her family would stand.
Her siblings lined up in order of descending age beside their father—save for baby Rickon, who stood beside their mother on the other side of their father—so Sybel stood between her older brother Robb and younger sister Sansa. Jon was relegated to the row behind them, with Theon, as he wasn't her mother's son and did not get the Stark name. Though, Sybel held him in the same regard she did for her true brothers.
There was a commotion about Arya, the youngest Stark girl, being missing right before she turned up wearing a helmet and causing laughter at her antics.
There's no taming that child, Sybel thought, her lips twitching, trying to form a smile on her frozen face, as she watched Arya shove their younger brother Bran out of the way so she could fit between him and Sansa. Her youngest sister detested anything ladylike; she was the wild daughter, who would rather be a knight than a lady. She was a complete opposite to their other sister, Sansa, who was delicately beautiful and proper, with flaming red-orange hair and an ability to glide places on a graceful cloud, like the winds had picked her up and carried her there.
When Sybel heard the faint sound of horse hooves, it knocked her out of her musings and she straightened slightly, her hands brushing down the front of her coat in a smoothing, straightening way. The worry in her gut returned with a vengeance.
The sound of hooves became louder quickly and then the visitors poured through the castle gates, a steady stream of shiny steel and horses. At the front were soldiers, then came who she assumed was Prince Joffrey, lean and golden-haired, a crown upon his head, taking in his surroundings with an uninterested expression. Though, that expression became a smirk when he spotted Sansa, his eyes lingering on her. Sybel could hardly blame him and nor was she surprised, not when Sansa cast such a graceful picture of feminine beauty.
Sybel glanced at her, then at the prince, and back again. They continued to watch each other, and Sybel had to press her lips together to stop from grinning. She subtly nudged Robb, who spotted her poorly-suppressed smile straight away, looking in the direction Sybel nodded her head in. His face remained stoic as he eyed the Prince and their sister. Robb was protective of all his sisters; it was his duty, as eldest.
Then the royal carriage rolled in, followed closely by King Robert Baratheon, who was rather fat, with round cheeks and a bushy beard that tangled with his hair. He was helped off his horse and the courtyard lowered to one knee. The King stomped his way straight to her father, Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, Warden of the North, before indicating that he could stand up. They all stood up.
"Your Grace," her father said gravely, in deference.
"You've got fat," was the King's reply, and Sybel had to suppress a grin. They laughed and embraced, old friends, and Sybel's eyes moved to rove over the large group, feeling the weight of many stares back at them, too, assessing the Northerners.
The carriage door opened, and the Queen and the two other royal children, Mrycella and Tommen, stepped out. All the royal children were blonde and attractive, just like their yellow-haired mother. Sybel had never seen someone as beautiful as the Queen.
"Where's the Imp?" Arya wondered, referring to one of the Queen's brothers, who was well-known around Westeros to be short and lame, but incredibly clever.
"Arya," Sybel warned, looking around Sansa's form to pin her with a serious stare. "Don't call him that."
"Why not?" She asked, not thinking to lower her voice. She frowned, not understanding, while being stubbornly defensive. "He is an Imp, isn't he?"
"Will you shut up?" Sansa whispered hotly, nervous. "Why do you embarrass me?"
"I don't—!"
"Hush now," Sybel cut in gently, her eyes on the Queen as she approached, before their argument could escalate. Because it could; it often would—Arya and Sansa were just too different to see eye-to-eye, with Sybel often the peace-keeper between the two. And it would be no good for them to insult the Queen's brother.
"What have we here?" The King asked, walking to stand in front of Robb and extending an arm to him so they could shake hands. "You must be Robb."
He moved down the line of children, saying to Sybel next, "You have your father's eyes."
Sybel's eyes were the colour of dispersing soot, and she turned them downwards as she dropped into a quick curtsey. "Yes, my King."
And when she looked back up, the King had moved past and she was looking straight at a tall, golen-haired man holding his helmet under his arm as he leaned in to speak to the Queen. Sybel quickly surmised this was the Queen's twin brother, Jaime Lannister, and the more she looked, the more she could see the similarities; beaten-gold hair, green eyes, a form that drew attention. His well-muscled shoulders looked like he'd been training to walk through a battlefield and claim victory since he was born—tall and strong, and everything a knight ought to be. He was just as handsome as the songs claimed knights should be, she mused to herself. Maybe even more so, though she wasn't one to have paid much attention to those songs.
Definitely more so, she thought when his lips twisted into a smirk and she had to bite her lip to stop from sucking in a harsh breath, surprising herself. There was an absurd amount of beauty in his masculine features.
His face picked up and carried an expression of arrogant disdain, eyes roving over the sights of Winterfell like he found them lacking and disappointing and all together not worth his time. And Sybel suddenly felt defensive of her home, the feeling welling in her chest (she noted, though, that even contemptuous, he was more beautiful than any other man she'd ever seen in her life—though it could have everything to do with the fact that she could actually see his face while all the Northerners seemed to hide theirs in bushy beards).
It was not an uncommon reaction from a Southener, though. The Northeners loved the North, and the Southeners loved their South, and the two were so vastly different (both the people and the land) that it could hardly be surprising. She could not help but frown at him though. If he just gave Winterfell a chance, if he was really looking; he could find the beauty in it; he could find what kept them there. If he would only look. From the outside, the North was rather drab and grey, but there was a harsh magnificence to the North that was only visible if you let yourself see it.
She was still frowning at him when his eyes swept over the Stark family, and she quickly looked away, her heart hammering for a second at the possibility of being caught. She studiously ignored the feeling of eyes on her, a prickling sensation over skin that made her uncomfortable, and instead she looked around at almost anything else. She spotted Jory, standing in the row behind her, beside Theon and Jon. He was a rugged man, with the kind of appearance that always left her in the middle of a decision as to whether he was handsome or not.
She smiled warmly at him when he saw her looking, and he winked at her. She flushed and quickly turned her head to face the front again, ever so slightly irked at the way people seemed to like to make her blush. Perhaps, she pondered, it is just too easy to make my skin warm as if I'm standing beside a fire.
She was most certainly the epitome of a blushing maiden.
Then the King demanded to be taken to the crypts, and her mother was left to finish greeting the visitors herself. The feeling of being watched left her.
She was startled out of her head, when her mother laid a hand on her arm, "Seek out Maester Luwin and make certain he has seen to my last instructions. And have him tell the serving girls to begin to boil water; I assume our guests would like to bathe after such a journey."
"Yes, mother," Sybel nodded and turned to move back through the crowd, not needing Jon's help to forge a path this time. The people gathered could see her coming and they parted easily for her, murmuring greetings to her and dropping their heads in respectful nods that she generously returned in smiles.
A little girl, no older than three namedays perched on her mother's hip reached a hand out to touch Sybel's hair as she passed, her small fist curling around the spiraling tendrils as she looked at the red sheen of them with wonder. Coppery hair wasn't the most common trait in the North—most had hair in varying shades of black, brown and dark blonde. It was her mother Catelyn who had passed the colour on to her.
The mother—Ilia, if Sybel remembered correctly—apologized profusely, attempting to untangle her daughter's tiny hand from the strands. Sybel laughed, waving off her apologies as she smiled at the little girl, making faces until the girl laughed and released her hair. She pulled the little red flower out from behind her ear and showed it to the girl. The little girl's eyes watched the flower closely as Sybel gave it to her, tucking it behind her small ear, and she giggled shyly.
When she made it back inside the walls of the castle, she relaxed her grip on her outercoat, not needing to hold so much warmth in. Sybel didn't let herself think too much on the King's visit as she did her mother's bidding, seeking out their maester and requesting water for baths, before returning to her own chambers. There wasn't anything she could do, especially with them here now, and so instead she set about distracting herself, especially when her mind explored down the path of the King requiring her father's presence in Kingslanding.
She didn't want to think about her father leaving.
She picked up a book and laid herself down on her bed. There was nothing a good book couldn't do, especially in easing her mind.