Robert

"What do you think?" Stannis asked me as I walked beside him to the dining galley below the decks of the ship. We had spent the last few hours sparing the best we could on the decks of the ship. Traveling this way was faster and cheaper but made it harder for me to keep busy and to work out frustrations so that I did not turn back to drinking again.

"She is naught but a child who has never had love nor guidance. While I know she is technically a woman, and many will want her hand she seems so much younger. I wonder if we could have saved her mother or good sister if she would be different, happier." I responded thinking over all I had learned talking with Daenerys. She was not what I thought she would be, and you could see the sadness and hurt in her. The need for love radiated off her and she would need to be protected because many would use that need against her and lead her down a bad road.

"I had the same thought, once I spent time with her, she is much like our girls, inquisitive and curious, younger than her age in action but also a deep hurt about her that makes you want to protect her and care for her. What are you to do now?" He asked me and I watched the girls and other kids come in and behind them timidly but with her head high and back straight and the caution in her purple eyes. He had to respect her because while everything was new, and she was unsure of her place and security, she still held herself like her queen mother did.

"I am going to have her taught our ways and history, give her lessons with Myrcella and Shereen, foster her and protect her as I should have from the beginning. She will eventually marry and have a hold in the North somewhere." I said and left his side making my way to Daenerys who was still standing at the side looking over everyone and who needed direction where to sit.

"This is Princess Daenerys. She is joining you in your studies and will be staying with us for a long while as my foster. I expect you to help her learn what she needs and to be kind to her." I told the kids as I escorted the younger girl to the table and introduced her to the others and then left them there to get on with it.

By the end of dinner, the three girls were talking in old Valyrian and laughing as they taught each other new words or told stories about places they had seen recently. He nodded because this is what Lyanna would have done and he could almost feel her squeeze on his arm agreeing with him. She would have taken the orphan girl in and raised her as her own. Made her family and he would as well.

"What do you think is going on beyond the wall that Lord Stark would be kept so long? It seems out of character for him to have sent his daughter in his place." Stannis asked as we took our seats with Jon who was the only other on this ship. His wife and son were shut up in their rooms demanding service there. Lyssa was never one of my favorite people and I often wondered if Ned was cursed with a harpy as well looking over at the table where his daughter was sitting quietly listening to the other ladies her age talk and not joining in much. There was something about her that he could not put his finger on, but she seemed to be expecting something more than what she had been given and it bothered him in a way. If only she knew the hell her life would have been and the monster, he was glad she would no longer meet because he would see to it that they did not walk the earth much longer.

Shaking my head and coming out of the memories of the past, future or whatever that vision had been that I thought too much about somedays and not enough others. "No, it is very out of character and one reason I worry about what is happening and decided to go to him instead of waiting for him to show." I responded, while filling my bowl with a hearty stew that smelled divine. It was full of a thick broth and meat and potato chucks, vegetables that were fresh and still had a slight crunch and thick hot bread to dip it up with. Talk was minimal as we ate our sup and slowly the children were sent off to bed with us adults following.

Retreating to my room as soon as dinner was done. I sigh and sink into the bed that was just barely big enough to hold my tired body. There were nights like this one when my mind would race and the mistakes and loss of the past haunted me that I craved something to make me forget even if for a few hours.

Days later we were finally set to arrive in White Harbor, I had not had a few good days mentally having been locked into this confined space with no real outlet of my pent-up emotions and thought. With a effort to get out of my dark thoughts I have been reading more of the histories that were brought with us and learning more about the history of our known world. Two nights ago, I had slipped and drank my self to oblivion and when I had come to the next afternoon the look on my daughters heartbroken face was enough that I had all the wine tossed over board and bared any to be replaced. I felt even worse and more like a large jackass and incapable of being in control than ever before. I almost envy the me in the other timeline because at least he was oblivious to the pain and suffering he left in his wake.

I have always had an anger problem and would often lose my temper and fight it out with Ned or someone else as a child through my younger years. That steamed from losing my parents and feeling so helpless watching as their boat went below the water and I could not do a thing about it. The fight to make a woman I was totally in love with want me and the constant rejection from her did a number on my self esteem even more. Yeah I could get whores a plenty but if the money dried up so would they just as quickly. I was a shit leader, a shit father, and a shit friend. I thought in a spiraling pattern for the last couple days almost driving myself crazy in the process so when I heard the knock it was a welcome distraction from those pains and truths.

"We are docking now Mi' Grace and you will be able to disembark in just a few minutes." The young man that was the son of the captain of this ship informed me.

Closing the book that I had been staring at for the better part of three day now and not remembering a thing I had read in it I nodded to the young man with my thanks and once the door closed, I took a few deep breaths to relax and pull the mask on that I was starting to develop for the public. I could not wait to make it to where Ned was and maybe find some sort of peace once again.

All I knew was that time was running out for something and that I needed to get there soon. The pull in my chest and in my mind was undeniable the closer to the North we get.