They offer the Iron Throne peace terms they know will be denied.
When her cousin, Ser Alton, remarks on Joffrey being a Baratheon, Robb turns to her.
She stands too, puts on her best sardonic smile, straight from her mother, and makes a show of leaning forward, letting her black hair fall over her shoulders.
"Is he?"
Theon leaves the tent with his mind reeling. Him, tasked with rescuing Sansa. With help from Lalia Lannister? He and her had shared many a dark corner back in Winterfell and many hours chaperoning Robb and Cerelle, but he had not suspected her of espionage. She had always been such a good lady, never letting him fuck her, but so wicked at the same time, that maybe he should have suspected. She liked teasing him with that damned smile of hers, and her sweet-smelling hair, pulling him around corners and letting herself be led into closets.
He had gathered all his courage that evening, to go and talk to Robb about sending him to the Iron Islands, and instead, Robb had asked this of him.
"I know it is dangerous. I know what you would risk. But I trust you, and Sansa knows you. There is no one else that could do this."
He knows he will do it. If he gets Sansa back safe, he could ask anything of them. Robb might even let him take Casterly Rock for himself, to rule until he was set to inherit Pyke, and to give to his children. He might even take Lalia as a wife, give her the kindness of living in the castle she had been born in, if only because he knew she would give him strong sons and strengthen his claim. Gone are the days when he had thought that Lord Stark might give him Sansa's hand to marry, to make him one of the family for real.
All he has to do now is talk to Ser Aedan and plan for a path from Gulltown to Riverrun, but his musings are interrupted by the unmistakable sound of someone puking their guts out.
He follows the sounds of retching, and hears the whispered voice of a man and the clunking of armor just before he turns the corner.
He finds Cerelle kneeling in the grass, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and accepting a waterskin from Ser Aiden. He has his hand on her back, probably has just stopped rubbing soothing circles on her. He has a half mind to snap at him to take his hands off his Queen, but his voice has him stop and listen.
"You need to tell him, Your Grace," Ser Aiden says, and Cerelle shakes her head strongly before she sips the water, washes her mouth and spits it out.
"It is not that. It cannot be. I won't tell him." She repeats the process of rinsing her mouth, then she slumps against her Sworn Sword's side, letting her head fall to rest against his armored shoulder.
"You can't travel like this."
"Of course I can. I'm not crippled." She offers him a glare, takes a few sips of water.
"What won't you tell Robb?" Theon asks, and watches as Cerelle jumps and Ser Aiden's hand flies to the pommel of his sword.
"Theon," Cerelle says, opening and closing her mouth like she wants to say something but doesn't know what.
"Well? Go on. What will you keep from your King?" He watches as Cerelle closes herself off, straightening her back and bringing her arms close. She fixes him with a glare, but her voice begs him instead of commands.
"You can't tell him. You can't. He won't let me go and we need this alliance, we—"
"What, Cerelle? What."
Cerelle and her sword share a look. They hold each other's eyes for a few moments, and he can see them fighting without saying a word.
Cerelle loses, but she puts up a good fight. It's because Ser Aedan looks like a disappointed father, he's sure. A kind one, though.
"Ser Aedan believes I might be with child."
"A babe? Robb's?" is the only thing he can think to say, which seem to be a bad thing to say.
"Are you stupid in the head? Whose else?" Cerelle stands, and Theon eyes her. He can't find anything different about her. There's no bump, no bigger tits, no shiny hair. Only exhaustion, but that is common enough in camp nowadays.
"And you are sure?" He asks, but this time he directs the question to the man.
The knight nods.
"No sure way of knowing but waiting, I suppose," Cerelle says. "Did Robb talk to you?"
Theon nods.
"We leave in four days' time. Us three and eighteen more men. I will leave you near King's Landing, find Wyl at the docks." Cerelle nods at what he says, and then gestures to Ser Aedan.
"You two can discuss the strategy for your return in the morning. For now, it is late, and we will need our rest."
They leave early in the morning, Cerelle's body is still bearing the markings of Robb's love on her, the feel of the lingering kiss he gave her in their tent still on her lips.
Robb and the army will keep on marching West, towards Oxcross, where they say Lannister forces are being trained. They might even reach Renly's camp before Robb sees battle, being so fewer men.
The road is not easy. Cerelle keeps waking early to empty her stomach. She realizes halfway through the journey that if she nibbles on a piece of stale bread before even opening her eyes, the nausea allows her to dress and go on her day until some smell triggers her.
She feels tired. Not dead, but sleepier and heavier, and it makes them keep a slightly slower pace than they expected.
And her moonblood does not come. Not in the whole journey, making it two whole moons without it. Her argument of the sickness being an answer to the nightmares and the stress of war crumbles right before her eyes.
She can feel Ser Aedan and Theon's eyes on her, but she tries to ignore them. She cannot let the other men know she is anything but perfect, that she is anything but healthy. They might buy her slower pace on her supposedly still tender ribs, but it cannot explain everything, and she cannot breathe life into it by recognizing it.
It is just a few days before Theon leaves them when Cerelle approaches them as they are keeping watch, away from the rest of the men.
"You were right, I think," she says, sitting between them, on the ground. They've lit a small fire to guard off the chill, even if it's somewhat dangerous.
"About what?" asks Theon, playing with a couple of pebbles to keep himself awake. The road has been easy, but that does not mean there are no threats around. They are past Lannister held territory, but there are outlaws all around Westeros.
"Not you," she spats, all bark and no bite. She reminds him of Yara, sometimes. Of what having a sister was like. "Ser Aedan. About me being with child."
"I am the oldest of four, Your Grace. I remember my mother being with child. And you were not ill," Ser Aedan says.
"You told me about a brother."
"Two brothers and a sister. Only one lived to his tenth name day."
"I'm sorry," Cerelle says, and Ser Aedan nods his thanks. She turns to him, then.
"You know I'm the youngest. My brothers were near grown men when I was born."
But that wasn't all the truth, was it?
Mother had lost a babe, a year before their Rebellion. The younger sister that had never been, born too soon and gone too quick. He remembers the wind on his hair, the morning they had held her funeral. He remembers Mother's silent tears on her face, and Father's impassive face.
Most of all, he remembers Yara's hand on his, and the way she had bitten her lip to stop her own tears.
Gods, Yara. The only sister he had left. If he saw her now, he would not know her. He could recall each of the Stark's children's faces, but his own sister was a blurred thing on his mind.
She liked to mock me, Theon thinks, and once I made her trip into the sea for it, and suddenly there's a smile on his face when he remembers the way she had spluttered when she had come up to the surface.
Cerelle rises her eyebrow at him for it, but he shakes his head.
They are silent then, until he starts to hum a tune under his breath and Ser Aedan joins him and Cerelle decides she's had enough of the cold ground and goes back to try and sleep.
They are well past Stoney Sept when they hear Renly's army has begun marching east to Storm's End. Stannis has sieged the place.
They change their directions, but even by being so few of them, they do not catch up to them until Storm's End.
The banners flying in her uncle's camp are green and gold, the familiar stag of her family surrounded by the wrong colors. Other Stormlanders flags are up too, some she can recognize and some she cannot, her lessons lost to time. There are many tents, for it is a big camp, but not enough for 100,000 men. Not nearly.
Guards come to them before they can get too close, but they do not carry Renly's banner. They do carry a stag, but it surrounded by fire inside a heart. They come to a stop before them, and order for them to identify themselves.
"This is Cerelle Baratheon, the Queen in the North!" Ser Aedan says from her right side. On her left, Harrion Karstark, and behind her a mixture of other sons of lords and Starks guards.
In a chorus, those men around her call "the Queen in the North!".
"I come to see my Uncle," she says, and the two guards in front share a look, and the one in the right speaks as the one in the left turns around and rides back to camp.
"Renly Baratheon is dead. The Storm Lords have bent the knee to King Stannis Baratheon."
Cerelle closes her eyes and gives herself a few seconds to mourn. In her mind, flashes of Renly come to her.
Renly sweeping her off her feet in the courtyard of Storm's End. Renly dancing with her, a black mask around his eyes. Renly giving her a beautiful golden gown, leaning over and making her giggle and snort at a tourney with his commentary, twirling her around on her wedding day, carrying her to her chambers and reassuring her.
He might have been as vain as a peacock, and a fool for naming himself king, but he had been her Uncle, and he had been kind to her.
"How did he die?" She asks, swallowing the lump on her throat. There was no time for tears now.
"He was found dead, stabbed through the heart. Two Kingsguards outside his tent and no one heard anything, they say."
"And the Tyrells?"
"Gone back to the Reach."
"Stannis is here?" The guard gives her a curt nod, and Cerelle nods back. "Take me to him."
They lead her into a richly decorated tent in the middle of camp with only Ser Aedan by her side. Her Uncle Stannis is in front of a table, reading papers and looking at a map. On the other side of it, a man is arranging wooden ships on what she guesses is Blackwater Bay.
"Your Grace, Ser Davos," the guard says, halting at the entrance of the tent. Her Uncle raises his eyes as the other man, Ser Davos, turns to face them. "The Princess Cerelle."
"Queen Cerelle," she corrects him, entering the tent and placing herself in front of her Stannis. "Uncle."
"So I've been told. Niece."
"My condolences for the death of your brothers. You must know I grieve my father and uncle with all my heart."
"Renly was a traitor," Stannis says, lowering the paper and setting it aside. "But I grieve the boy he was, and the brother Robert should have been. Have you come to bend the knee?"
"No. I have come to negotiate an alliance against the Lannister." She takes a seat in front of her Uncle, leaning back.
"Why is not your husband here, instead?"
"He marched West. He is not playing at war. He planned to attack Oxcross, where Lannister forces were being trained. Something that benefits both of us."
Stannis looks at Ser Davos and then back at her.
"Robb Stark smashed the Lannister forces on Oxcross," Stannis informs her. Relief courses through Cerelle's body, and a weight she hadn't even realized she was carrying is lifted from her back. She had faith in Robb, but dying was far too easy in the battlefield.
There comes a silence as they look at each other. Cerelle is the one to break it.
"We have no interest in the Iron Throne. You are its rightful heir. My claim is not stronger than yours, and I have not been blessed with sons that could rival it." She considers, for a second, telling him she could be with child. But what would stop someone from putting something in her cup? From making her bleed her child out, or even from outright killing her? No. No one could know. "But we were crowned by our Lords," she continues, "and so I am much more interested in trying to keep the loyalty of the North than to gain the loyalty of six more kingdoms."
"You are a traitor to my cause, stealing the northern half of my kingdom."
"You were a traitor too, at my age. So was my father. And we are no traitors to your cause. You had no cause when we were crowned, and what kind of ruler would we be, if we denied the people what they expect of us? They would see it as betrayal, and do it in turn to us. No." She shakes her head. "The North is enough for us. That, and revenge for Lord Stark."
"I see nothing I could gain from this. I only lose the North."
"Allow us to remain independent, we'll help you defeat the Lannisters, and back your claim. My sons, when we have them, will not put forth any claim. With me publicly denouncing my mother's sins and declaring your legitimacy as heir, there is little others can say."
"You would battle the Lannisters anyway."
"Mmm, yes. But who's to say we'd fight them while you attack King's Landing? If Robb stays West or marches North, nothing would stop Tywin from going to the capital when he hears you plan to attack. Together? You'd be sitting on the throne before the year ends."
Stannis doesn't look convinced, and Cerelle knows she will have to keep sweetening the deal. If it even works. Stanis might have been the better choice in her mind, but it had never been the easiest.
"We'd even offer Bran as a husband to Shireen."
"The boy is crippled. He will father no children," Stannis bristles, and Cerelle sighs internally. There is no one to offer Sansa or Arya for, if the younger girl was alive, and Rickon is already betrothed. Bran is all they really have. Had it been Renly, Sansa could have been given to the Tyrells for either Willas or Loras, and Bran to the Tarlys. It would have been useful for winter.
"Bran has not soiled himself since he was three, I've been told. It has not changed since the accident. The maester has no reason to believe other functions could be affected. He is a Prince of Winterfell, now, of an age with Shireen, and a guarantee we will not try to take the Throne. I don't see a better match for your daughter."
Stannis seems to think about it, but he still does not say anything.
"Perhaps we can continue after a meal, Your Grace?" Ser Davos suggests, and Cerelle realizes this man might be the Hand or a very close advisor. His name rings a bell, but she's sure he is not someone she has met before. "Surely the lady here is tired after such a journey. Allow me to show her to a tent."
Stannis nods to Ser Davos, and the man comes to offer her a hand to stand. When she takes it, she notices half his fingers are gone.
"Proof of your Uncle's justice," Ser Davos says when he notices her looking, nodding to Stannis.
"You are the Onion knight," she realizes as she takes his arm and follows him outside. Ser Aedan falls into step behind them.
"I am. You should know I tried to convince His Grace to ally himself with you and your husband."
"I would assume he refused. I knew what I would get himself into with him, Ser Davos. Renly would have been easier, but Stannis is the rightful King." They walk along the tents, the motif of green and gold still everywhere she looks.
"Something we agree on." Ser Davos stops in front of a tent and Cerelle realizes she will be staying very close to the center of camp. "Should you need anything, all you have to do is ask."
"Thank you, Ser Davos," she says as Ser Aedan goes inside the tent.
Only when he comes out and nods does she let go of Ser Davos' arm and goes inside.
We have officially gotten to the canon divergence. I have so many thoughts. So many things have stayed the same since I first started writing this story (why Lalia is the daughter of that specific Lannister and why it matters, who would end up in the Iron Throne after Joffrey) and so much has changed (who would get Sansa out of King's Landing, Theon betraying Robb, who would win the Battle of the Blackwater), I keep surprising myself as I write.