Author's Note
I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.
They're never sure how it happened. They were so careful after Bran, having resigned to their fate. Cat was always sure to drink moon tea after they spent a night together, sometimes even on the nights when they had no intercourse.
"I won't bring another one into the world," she says, fierce and true.
But four years after Bran, she is pregnant again.
Ned agrees to the idea of moon tea to destroy the babe, but refuses to force it on her. It is her choice whether to keep it or not.
And part of Cat must still hope for a normal child, because she does.
#
The fifth is the roughest pregnancy Ned has known Cat to have, though she tells him Arya was worse.
"She must have been… doing it even in the womb. Some days I feared she might tear me open," she admits one day, when her sickness is worst, and all Ned can do is hold her close. He wonders if Brandon would have had these issues, if he'd lived.
These days, Arya holds shape more easily and resembles human most often, with a long Stark face and mop of dark hair, though they try not to be surprised when they see her with fangs or fur or icy silver skin. Where Sansa will sit and tolerate the Septa, Arya refuses, bearing fangs and sharp claws.
"What are we to do with her?" Cat sighs as Arya roams the godswood with Robb. They will hunt this afternoon, something Ned has stopped trying to prevent.
"She must remain a Stark of Winterfell."
What other choice do they have?
While Robb and Arya hunt, Sansa is content to remain with Septa Mordane or carry Bran about the castle so they might play with the cats. Ned has forbidden Sansa to weave her strings into them, though he knows she does, behind closed doors where she thinks no one sees, but Bran will wear their skins and roam the walls of the castle. Ned cannot prevent that while he is still young, but perhaps he can be taught, once he is older. Sansa and Bran may be closer to human than Robb and Arya.
#
Their fifth child comes wailing into this world during the most horrendous summer storm, the worst Ned has seen since Robert's Rebellion, bringing with it a scattering of snow and hailstones the size of a man's fist. Jory runs to tell him Robb and Arya are trying to go out in it, but they must be his responsibility because Cat wants Ned with her as she births.
The babe is a boy, with a tuft of Cat's red hair and piercing ice blue eyes. He screams as Luwin lays him in Ned's arms. There is no suggestion of offering him to Cat.
"Is it healthy?" Cat asks.
"Indeed, my Lady. A healthy baby boy."
"Rickon," Ned says. After his father, though he doubts this babe will honour him. After four children, Ned has come to the conclusion that none of them will ever be human. "He is to be called Rickon Stark."
#
There is little discussion about moving Bran from the nursery. He is mostly a peaceful child, but he cannot be trusted alone with a babe, lest he slip into its skin and steal away its mind.
#
Like Arya, Rickon is a wild and angry child. They never question whether he too has it in him, for it is seen from the first day, sometimes so brightly his eyes seem to glow. Cat feeds him herself, though Ned sees the way she struggles to look at him. The wetnurses and maids all claim that when Rickon cries in the night, the dogs in the kennel bark and the wolves can be heard howling in the Wolfswood.
He is quiet when Robb and Sansa hold him, however, and sometimes the nursery staff request them do so just to have some peace.
#
Singers rarely make it across the North, and Ned is wary of inviting the two that visit in, but both carry sealed letters from House Arryn, the last place they performed, and Cat is eager to hear from her sister.
So the singers enter and stay three sennights in the Winter Town, performing in Winterfell's great hall every evening. Sansa seems to enjoy the performances, but Rickon and Arya are puzzled and Robb looks at the singers as though they might be food. On the third night, when one approaches the high table, Rickon growls and Sansa wonders if she can make them dance.
Ned forbids the singers return
#
Rickon is mobile sooner than any child, and joins Arya in h haunting the castle with fang and claw, but as he grows, his favourite places become the kennels and the godswood. The beasts answer to him, though not the way they dance to Sansa's tune. For Rickon they circle and growl and hunt; for Rickon they accept him among their number. He joins Robb and Arya more often than he does Sansa and Bran, and returns to the castle many afternoons with blood on his face and fur in his fangs.
#
A letter comes from Robert, informing him that a pair of singers came to the Red Keep telling tales of how Ned's children are monsters wearing human faces. The letter details how Robert cut their tongues out for the slander and the pair beaten for the lies.
Ned does not tell Cat, for she will weep for the singers and the unintentional damage their children have done.
Author's Note
Robert: Fear not, Ned, I am defending your family's good name and honour!
Ned: Ahhhh, about that…
