NOTE: I have now started a page for those who are interested. So far I have only added the official semi-canon Timeline for The Reign of the Wolves, from Eddard Stark taking the throne from Jaime Lannister up until the beginning of the story, but later I will most likely add more behind the scenes things, notes and so forth if anyone were to be interested. Thankyou so much for your continued support for the story! :)

Here is the link to my for those who are interested in the Timeline from 283 A.C. - 298 A.C.: adamdaagh/shop

...

BENJEN II

The wind swept in from the courtyard outside, as Benjen sparked off his boots in the hallway. He had been out riding around the keep, which he did most every day that he had the time for it. Today it had been only a short survey, as he had checked on the guards and the guard towers, as well as taking a quick way out to the henhouse, the chicken coop, the stables and the woodchopping yard. The head woodcutterman, Gusten, assured him that the stores were full on their way to be filled up before the coming winter. Benjen had nodded and seen to that they were.

He walked in to the hallway and further into the castle now, putting of his wolf pelts and hanging them on a knob on the walls, as he strode further in and Hal welcomed him back.

Bran had been up and awake for close to five days now, or perhaps it had already been six or seven. The time flew by when his spirits were raised like this. He seemed at last to be eating well, by the word of Maester Luwin. That was far necessary, if he were to put his weight back on again, the poor gaunt little stick of a boy, Benjen thought. His own Tommen had not been allowed to play with his friend just yet, only to greet him once very quickly, as he did not want to waste the poor prince's energy on something such as that. Sure, children needed to play, but if Benjen had understood the situation right, play was surely whathad ledto his condition being as dire as likethis in thefirst place.

Willam was sitting with the reckoning charts as he entered. That was strange, also. Cersei's idea, most likely, or his own. Or perhaps Maester Luwin had told him. Just then he came up, his grey robes treading so silently across the stone floors.

'"Ah, good to see you are back, my lord. I thought it wise to let Willam get on with some more of the reckoning charts, as he was feeling overly interested in it. He is a quick learner, I say it again."

Benjen looked at Luwin and nodded, absentmindedly.

"Ah... Good so." He nodded again, more briskly this time. "Where is Cersei and Myrcella?" Tommen he knew already. He was out with the chickens, as usual. He had seen him out there. And Jon and Theon were out clanking at each other angrily in the courtyard, training or fighting for real, with Ser Rodrik looking on at least, to hinder them from bashing away all too strongly, he guessed.

"I believe they are in their chambers, my lord", Luwin said. It made sense since Myrcella was sick.

"Good", Benjen said, and turned up to walk up the stairs himself. Indeed there they sat, each in her own chair along with [ ], Old Nan and Septa Arbane. He was surprised to see his wife sitting next to Old Nan out of all of them. Cersei was not all too fond of the old woman, he knew, thinking that she told their children all too much nonsense, but she had apparently mildened enough in her countenance to seem almost content with her only two feet away.

"Hello, husband", she said, as courteously as usual, as she looked up at him like some beautiful southron blonde bird with green eyes. She was dressed in her greyish yellow lion's dress with red linings, and Myrcella was as well, though also with her little wolf pelt dress covering her shoulders.

"Hello wife", he smiled, as he sat down in the empty chair next to them. "Myrcella."

"Hello Father", Myrcella said, smiling up at him warmly, her sweet emerald green eyes gleaming with contenment and joy at his entrance into the room. Her nose was vaguely sniveled with tears.

"I see you are hard at work", he noted. "What is the motif this time?"

He had learned the word from Cersei many years back, and made sure to use it when he saw them knitting their things. 'Picture' he had said, and Lyanna and their mother as well, in his youth before he was a married man.

"It is a [ ]", Myrcella said. "[ ]".

"How pretty", Benjen said, his voice still somewhat steaming from the cold of the yard outside as well as having climbed all the three or four stairs up to the sewing chamber where they sat.

"Still no sign of the Queen, I take it?"

Myrcella became sad then.

"No."

She shook her head, turning her doll-like visure down and shading her eyes with her golden locks. "I don't know why she does not want to sit with us now that Bran has woken up."

"Don't worry, my sweet", Cersei said. "I am sure that Her Grace will come to her senses before long. She came to us yesterday, did she not?"

"Only for a minute", Myrcella said. "And I still do not get to talk to Bran. Neither does Tommen."

"Talk and talk..." Cersei got that strange stiff look about her, as her lips parted, giving way to her side-faced westerland smile, as fretting as it was arrogant. "What could you possibly have to talk about? You are a girl, and he is a boy, and he has been asleep for the past month, my love."

"But then... I could tell him about all the things that has happened while he has been asleep", Myrcella suggested. Benjen smiled.

"Aye, you do that, love", he said, putting his hand to pat her softly on her head, "as soon as he has regained some more of his strength back into him. It is no easy thing to lay sleeping without any proper food for so long. He needs some more time to rest, and to eat meat, and his greens, and much more, just only a little more before he is well enough to come talk and play with you."

Myrcella put her sewing needles together and looked up.

"Maester Luwin says that he fed him with only wet porridge for a whole month. Not even with honey in it. Could he not have gotten someting better to eat than only porridge? He is the prince, after all."

"Not the prince", Septa Arbane corrected her. "A younger prince. The true prince is Crown Prince Robb, down at King's Landing. He is older than Prince Bran."

Benjen wouldhave rolled his eyes if he'd hadthepatience to complete the was always over-tutoring her, with nothing else to do cooped up in the castle inside all day long, as Myrcella was a gifted natural at almost everything she had to recite out of the Seven-Pointed Star.

If anything, she would need to be brought out to the godswood more often, to learn and feel more about the Old Gods, not sit with the septa all day long arguing over semantics and smallput. He pitied his daughter, but she seemed glad as ever nonetheless.

"Yes... Crown Prince Robb..." Myrcella repeated. "He was ever so handsome. And he called me graceful when I danced with him at the feast. He was ever so gallant." She smiled sweetly.

Benjen smiled as well.

"Aye, the Tullys will do that to you, if you don't watch out..." He laughed. "My brother has not guarded himself entirely against the charms of our dear Queen Cat, I suppose."

Old Nan stirred herself from her silence then, looking up through her faint little white veil of hair, as she stirped her mole-like eyes at him with a serious look and put one sewing needle in the air slightly above her blanket-covered lap.

She was so fragile and little, he thought, despite her high age, but with her hard composition/countenance weighing up for it, it looked as if she might have directed the happenings of the entire castle with only her needle pointing before her in the air, just like that. Her mind was far off, as usual, but her old northern voice did not waver any in the slightest for that.

"You must not speak ill of the Tullys, my young lord. Your older brother is set to marry one of them some day before too long. The daughter of Lord Hoster, she is, and a beautiful young ruby at that."

Benjen had to laugh. His old grandmother – for she might as well be, although they were not blood-related as far as he knew – had gotten her head thrown back twenty years in time again. Bless her, the sweet old crone, he thought warmly, as he smiled and laughed at her again.

Catelyn has not looked a ruby in a fortnight, he thought... Or perhaps a fort-year...

"Aye? Is that so?" He said, almost jumping to be giddy in the air, as he saw Cersei put down her sewing needles and stared reproachingly at him already. But Old Nan had already taken the bait.

"Indeed it is", she said, not amused in the slightest, as if she saw fully through him and treated him as if he were still the rowdy young four-and-ten-year-old straggler that he had been in the time she was referring to. "You can go and tell your lord father to have the old logs by the sawmill cut down as well, to tend to the fire, for when Ned comes back from the Vale you will all be better off to serve him some hot food, the poor boy. I hear he was in clash with the mountainsmen down there."

Benjen laughed again, and for a moment he felt as if fifteen and a half years had just ran off him. He loved Old Nan as dearly as any man could, and he would make sure that she could talk her nonsense for as long as it pleased her. He had not the faintest semblance of how long already that had been. He was surprised at times that she had not mistaken him for his own father, but surely that was because he had never truly grown up. Not here, in Winterfell, although I am its lord, still no...

He had thought in his mind and heart to finally grow up once he came up to the Wall, but so far that day had never come. And having a family of young children, as well as an uptight southern Lannister wife, as beautiful as she was, did not help particularly much in that. More or less, he felt to be becoming more of a child than ever all since Ned had been there. Ned was ever the alware.

The matters they had been discussing were certainly serious, however, pertaining precisely to the matters around the Wall, and that was surely the only particular reason why he had felt forced to uphold a more mature position before Ned, and prove himself to be worthy of the rule over Winterfell in his elder brother's absence. Ned was ever the older, as he had shown in their many and long, severe talks.

Benjen had asked him of sending more men from the south to the Wall, and Ned had complied straight away. He said that he would send close to thirty good men from the black cells, if he could, and more at that, along with woodworkers, builders, and huntsmen. Poachers, that meant, and far worse, but Benjen was fine with that, so long as they did their best and helped with the rusting up.

The fifth and six castles along the Wall would have to be ready within a year. Icemark and [Greyguard?], he had decided. They seemed the most suitable for occupation, and with the builders the king had promised, it would be finished before long. Perhaps two months or more, he guessed. Maybe three.

He turned his gaze over to Cersei, as Nan continued to ramble on, her voice undeterred that noone was listening, as she recounted the tale for the twentieth time of how Ned and Robert Baratheon had first met with Lord Arryn and been set upon by a pack of the mountain clans in the Vale. It was one of his favourite stories, all of it twenty or more years old, and all of it told through the memory of a letter handed to her lord Rickard by old Maester Walys, taken from the black leg of an old raven who must now had surely been dead as long as the Mad King. Benjen still remembered the day clear as water, after all these years, and knew beforehand all that she meant to say.

"I thought we might go out to the godswood for a while tomorrow, and pray.", he told Cersei.

"Tomorrow?" Cersei felt at unease. "Can't it wait a while? It is such high winds today."

"Aye, today. That's why I said tomorrow, could you imagine?"

He laughed, as he went up to her chair and planted a sneaky kiss on her forehead, although Cersei did her best to shy away, raising her needles against his nearings almost into the air as a shield.

"It will be cold tomorrow just the same", she insisted. "Myrcella is cold even sitting here by the fire. She does not have yours or her brothers' constitution, in case you had failed to notice."

"Aye, but it won't get any better by hiding from it, I'll tell you that much. Winter is coming.", he told her. "Best that we be in line with it by the time that it's truly here. Summer will be over before long. I had hoped that I did not have to drag her out against your wishes, of course, but... if that is the case..."

Cersei sighed. "Fine... Fine! Just take her, then." She put her hand on her forehead,closing her eyes as if she was beginning to get a headache just from speaking with him about the matter.

"And what about you? … wife?" Ben asked.

She sighed again, seeming to weigh on her options, as she heard Old Nan continue her speech in the background.

"It's either come with us out, or be stuck in here for the entire day tomorrow as well. You could go check on Tommen in the henhouse if you want. He's been asking for you, just now when I went to see him."

Cersei considered her options. Her heart at last went soft at the mention of her little boy.

"All right. … Yes, all right, I will come. But don't tell me to leave any of my pelts in here, for the thousandth time!"

"I won't!" He promised, reaching out his arms in a gesture of non-[ ]. "Take all the pelts you want. Perhaps you would like to come as well, septa? See some nice woodland instead of books?"

"I am quite content to stay inside the castle, my lord, thankyou", Arbane said curtly. As ever,...

"Suit yourself", Benjen shrugged. "But I don't think the Seven are immune to winter either. If they were, they would have come up here and made a septry out of it a long time ago."

Arbane glared, but said nothing. He always enjoyed vexing her, along with her stupid gods. The old gods were the only ones who were true, he was more than sure, and the seven would not save them when winter did come. Though the fancy Star book might surely serve as good firewood, he supposed... In short, he was not fond of Septa Arbane, nor the disturbing hold she had over his wife and children. She seemed to bring out the worst in Cersei, making her plotting all the more intense."

…

The day was indeed a rather windy one, although not quite as bad as yesterday had been, as they rode up and out on their horses, Benjen on his old fast and trusted [Sprinter? S[ ]], Cersei on her golden palfrey/jennet Lynesse, Willam on [ ], Tommen on his pony Beda, and Myrcella on her [golden grey/tabby/fuxen[ ] pony [ [Gull-Mary/Golden Mary/ ].

Benjen made the way each day, and for him it was just as natural as going to the privy. For his younger children, however, and especially his daughter, it was a great and ravenous outing close to an adventure in truth. He watched as Myrcella huddled shivering on her horse, covered already in her wolf pelts and [ ] over her grey and gold-and-red dress lining, as Cersei did her best to merely look on towards the horizon of the godswood with a look as if a spike of iron lodged emiddle her eyebrows. She is not happy, he saw. But what wife was happy who had left her home?

Willam went forth in front of them, steagering incessantly with his horse, as Benjen smiled slightly, but he walked slowly himself for once, taking good care to not frighten his daughter from the small ordeal of it. Ned's little princess Arya had not been at all so scared, sure, she had felt cold, but also excited by the prospect to go out riding, even though she had been born and brought up all the way down in King's Landing, and only ever seen Winterfell once before.

He found it all so strange... But then again, she looked like Lya. And Myrcella only ever resembled her mother more than anyone else, but a sweeter, more happy young version of Cersei which had been gone far long before he married her. He hoped still now that it would somehow find its way back into her heart, so that he might undo the terrors she had no doubt felt from growing up under the hard and stern rule of her father Lord Tywin, and all else at the massive castle of the Rock in her youth, to make her see that there would be a better time for her, and for her bairn, but this would not be the day for that, he sensed.

"How are you feeling, Myrcella?" He asked, his breath wavering over the swell of the wind.

"I'm cold!" She replied, complaining beneath her draped cloak and golden-red and grey hood.

He felt a tinge of worry inside himself. If she was truly this ill off now, how would it be in winter? He did not say so, however, preferring to give it to her in small steps.

"How about you ride quicker, then? Give her a little tug on the reigns."

"No, I can't. She might throw me off, Father, and... The wind will get into my face..." She said.

Marry a southerner, and you'll be raising your child twice as hard to become a northerner, he thought. He still did not know if it was truly a saying, only something that Hal had told him once.

Speaking of Hal, he rode beside them as well, as was ever his place, being the [household steward/captain of guards/[ ]]. Harwin was by their side as well.

"Don't worry, my lady! She won't throw you off. Just try it!" He encouraged, smiling a broad smile through his youthful scruff of brownish grey beard to show her it was no problem.

Myrcella looked up at him with a doubtful look, then tugged slightly at her reigns, and harkened the horse on to trot. [ ] obeyed, clippeting and cloppeting and soon giving into a small trot ahead, as Benjen did his best to match the rhythm and call out to her while keeping to her side.

"Good! See, now, that was no problem! Good! Fine!" He smiled.

Myrcella was deep in concentration, as she watched the shape of her horse traversing the courtyard beneath her. Cersei gave a fleeting but worried look to her side before looking away at the godswood again. Tommen was ever so sweet as he called out to his sister, the two little goldclimps.

"Very good, Myrcella! That's it! Yes! Yes, Myrcella! Go on! Go quicker! Do it like this!"

Tommen set his pony into a trot himself, as he [ ], and Benjen reached out a hand in the air, steadying for him to stay calm. Tommen calmed down again, disappointed. Benjen sighed.

"Is it going all right, love?" He called.

"I don't know!" Myrcella called back. "She's going very fast. I can't keep up."

Benjen had to laugh.

"You don't have to keep up with her, you only need to make sure you don't fall off!"

"But that's what I mean, Father! I don't know how to stop!" Her voice was growing to a panic. Benjen sturdied himself, becoming serious again.

"All right then... All right. Pull back with the reigns, and go Ptthroo. Tell her to stop, Mylla."

"Stop! Stop! Ptthroo, [ ]. Stop up!" She clumsily steadied the horse to a halt.

Benjen raised his eyebrows at Cersei somewhat. "She's learning."

"She's terrified", Cersei said, dismissively.

"Best we do this more often then", he concluded in a quiet voice so their children would not hear. "Now... off to the godswood with us."

The gates to the godswood were broad, flanked by the massive ancient stone walls, and easily admitting four riders on the breadth side... The dark green and grey trees all arose up before them, granes and pines, great sentinels, maple leafs, elms and cedar trees and [ ]...

They all rode up, their cloaks and pelts flapping in the wind but gradually subsiding as they made their way forth and strode to a somber halt by the great white roots of the heart tree. The weirwood was just as bony white and ancient as ever, watching them all with stern red eyes and a bleeding mouth as they came upon it and made to dismount. Harwin took their reigns as they did so.

"See? It looks the same, doesn't it?" He asked Myrcella. She only nodded quietly, not speaking.

She needs to feel it in herself, to come close. He signalled for her to approach, and she did so slowly, ever so slowly, walking nimbly and numbly, still wrapped up warm in her yellow sheep pelt.

"What do I say to it? To... them.", she asked silently.

"You don't have to say anything. Just go up and they will know you."

Or so he hoped. Myrcella had not been out here for a good five or six moons, or more, as far as he had seen. She was the one out of all of them who visited the godswood least. Even less than Cersei even, who seemed to have a strange sort of relationship with the old gods.

She claimed they understood her, that they heard her. He believed her enough, although he did not know what secrets she would share with them that she could not tell to her southron gods. Nor did he want to find out. A glad wife mean a happy life, Hal said. He would know. Merry was just that.

As they got up to the white roots of the heart tree, Benjen Stark felt a sudden tinge of something deep within himself at the feel of the presence of the tree. Something deep, strange, ancient and forbidding, which was threatening to leap itself up and out of the deep dark burrows of history, long and buried ever since... The tree canopy above was a dark tangle of vines and leaves, the weirwood itself, along with the pines, the great granes and soldier pines and sentinel trees, the air thick with the musty smell of thousands of years of red and brown humus covering the forest floor where his boots tread down. He almost thought that he could feel the presence of the roots far underneath the ground, calling to him, speaking to him in their ancient, silent voices, stretching out in their vast network of roots, yearning, growing, still growing, still aware and still longing for... something.

He became nervous for his daughter. He looked at her. She was so innocent, and so small and weak, such a little bright blonde bundle of joy and mildness, just like a bundle of butter wrapped in her furs like a southron babe... The tree's face was hard and solemn as ever. It smelled blood. Ben would have to tell it no, but he was unsure if it was listening. He was not his father, nor his grandfather, nor any of the hundreds of ancient Starks that had come before him. In truth, he feared.

At any rate, they put Myrcella down on the ground, as Harwin helped her to steady herself.

Perhaps I should not have taken her out like this, he thought suddenly. She is sick after all... I might should have could waited for a week or two. But on the other hand, she needed the strength. It was only a matter of whether the tree would give her some strength, or sense her weakness and choose to take some from her instead. He hoped for the former.

Myrcella stepped forward on precocious legs, her blonde locks tugging in the wind, her little legs taking her closer and closer to the tree, as Benjen cast a hard and worried look at Macks, who nodded back to him, where he stood waiting closer by the tree.

"It will be no trouble, mylord. She will be the better for it."

He thanked his old friend, and hoped in his heart that he was right.

Then Myrcella went up to the tree, sat down right in front of its vast white roots, and began to pray. She prayed like a southerner, with her hands placed together as she did to her seven gods, but he supposed that it was okay. The old gods did not care much for how one held one's hands, so long as one held them close, and so long as one did not bare steel.

He made sure to put down his weapons to the ground as a sort of offering as well. No harm shall come to you, I swear, for as long as I may control it, so long as you do not take the strength from my child. I will put an end to this nonsense and weakness that her mother has put into her. I will raise her to be better. Stronger. Into a northerner. I swear it, on my line, he told the old gods in wordless thoughts as he closed his eyes and felt the cold wind sweep against his face.

[

]

When Myrcella got up, she looked spryer, but also ready to get back to the castle's warmth again.

"How are you feeling? Are you all right?" He asked her, as he helped to pull her up.

Myrcella nodded with a brisk smile and with eyes of blue-green clarity.

"Yes, father. I believe so."

Her smile was so sweet, as he thought to himself once again, as he silently thanked the heart tree and gave his gratitude to the bark of the old tree. He had cut himself earlier, just the tiniest bit on the rim of his poking finger as he'd taken his gloves off and put his hand against the tree, and now he let just a tiny smudge of red smear on the bark as a way of saying thanks. He did not know if that was right, or whether it would only be a mockery to give so little and not more, to stir the appetite of the gods without more, but he did not know how else to thank them.

Better my blood than that of my children, he told the tree. Take me instead, if you need to, aye, if you must, when winter comes. Take me, if that should be the price for my sins, and bring me back to Lya again.

And with that, they raised up and got back up on their horses, as Cersei hurriedly rushed from and huddled her blonde little lugg-doll of a daughter in her thick beige and grey wolf pelts again, as she had done before and surely would do a hundred times again. Ben looked at the tree one final time.

Forgive her, if you would, for she is only a foolish southron woman. You know that, surely. You can sense that. She does not understand it, he thought. She is still scared. She does not understand it.

He saw his daughter, the soft little golden bundle of innocence, sitting up on her horse again, and once again wrapped in the wolf furs of his line, and he thought deeply, contemplatively, hoping, praying, despairing but praying, wondering.

Let winter wait for just a few more precious years, and I will help her. I will guide. I will make her stronger, I swear.

He stopped himself, just as he jumped up back on Sprinter and made to turn back to the castle. Myrcella was smiling, looking forward towards the gate leading out of the godswood as the snowflakes started to swirl down around her again. Had her eyes always been that color of green?