Author's Note

I do not own Game of Thrones.


Cat had hoped the morning might bring some clarity and normality back to her children.

Instead, as she arrived in the great hall to break her fast, it was to find Robb and Jon Snow engaged in a fistfight with Theon Greyjoy while Rickon begged them to stop from his place by the wall.

"What is happening here?" Cat demanded.

Jon fell away from the fight, but Robb continued to lay into him with fists and feet, screaming and wailing.

"Mo– Lady Stark! Robb, Theon, and I were… having a disagreement?" he said weakly.

"Ri–ooobb!" called Rickon. "Theon was good really, you can stop hitting him!"

"He's a traitor that tried to kill us!" Robb shouted.

Cat gasped. "He did what?"

Rickon shook his head. "No, none of that– He hasn't done it yet!"

"But he intended to?" Cat asked.

The three boys were sullenly silent.

Cat looked about herself and called for one of the maid to fetch some of the household guard. "Have him taken back to his rooms and kept there."

"I haven't done anything!" Theon spat.

"That decision will be my Lord husband's," Cat replied.


Sansa and Bran never came for the meal, but her other three children ate as though they'd not had food in a sennight. Jon Snow, meanwhile, picked at his, his expression distant. Most likely he knew he'd be punished for last night.

Cat finished her food and left the children under the watch of the staff. She needed to check on Arya, and find Sansa and Bran.


Bran she found on the balcony above the training yard, balanced on the railing, eyes closed and arms outspread.

"Bran! Come down from there at once!"

The boy didn't respond, and Cat rushed to seize his arm, pulling him down.

"What did you think you were doing?"

"A girl is not afraid to fall."

"And Bran Stark missed breakfast." Cat passed him to one of the maids, with instructions to see him down to the hall to eat. Another one she'd have to speak with later.

Ned and Sansa were in the godswood, where Cat would not intrude, and so she visited Arya next.

Arya was awake, and frowning at her bruised reflection in a handmirror. "But I can't do half the things Arya does!" she was saying to Luwin.

He ruffled her hair. "I have faith you can succeed, Lady Arya."

"How is she?" Cat asked.

"A little bruised, but little serious damage has been sustained. Perhaps it'll teach her something about surprising her sister in the middle of the night."

"But I wasn't– I thought– She must be one of the boys," Arya said.

"I believe you can take her for breakfast," said Luwin.


It was a long hour before Ned and Sansa came in from the godswood. Ned was wearing his usual fine white surcoat, with a grey tunic underneath, but Sansa looked to have raided Robb's closet, and was dressed in a tunic and Stark grey doublet, along with britches.

"Sansa Stark, what are you wearing?" Cat exclaimed.

Sansa grinned up at her. "Clothing. Don't you like it?"

Ned flicked her ear. "Don't."

"You haven't seen what she wants me to wear."

"We have," said Rickon, who had finished eating and was pushing food around his plate. "It pretty!"

"You're not helping," grumbled Ned.

"What is going on with you all this morning?" Cat asked. "You were strange last night, and you're still odd this morning!"

"We must have all caught a fever." Sansa helped herself to unhealthy amounts of bacon. "Mayhaps we should all retire to bed again and continue to avoid terribly restrictive dresses."

"Must you?" asked Ned.

"You're not the one that ended up as your three and ten niece!"


All the children, along with Ned, took themselves off after breakfast, before Cat could ask any more questions. According to Jory, they'd all gone to Ned's office.

Cat hoped they'd work this insanity from their minds, but two days later Ned, Jon, and Sansa rode out into the Wolfswood and returned with a wounded wolf almost as big as Sansa's mare.

Ned informed Cat it would be cared for in the kennels.

At least its presence seemed to calm Robb's temper.