A/N:
Please see the Character Glossary for this fic in my profile for an ongoing list of characters, including birth years.
I have a very long story planned, and most of it will take place when AGOT starts, but these first few (ie 14) chapters will be a prologue of sorts set right after Robert takes the throne.
I won't be writing in this metaphorical bard-like language in the rest of the story, I promise, but it felt right for this prelude.
For near three centuries, dragon lords of old Valyria had ruled over the Seven Kingdoms. They came to Westeros on their beasts that blocked out the sun, pale hair flying, and with Fire and Blood they brought these lands to their knees.
Even that unbending kingdom, Dorne, finally accepted the dragons as their masters. Grand flew the years, like a star shooting across the night sky—years turned to decades, and decades to centuries.
Yet the Targaryens were but men, of flesh and bone, of vice and greed. First they lost their dragons, and then they lost their minds. Lords paramount began muttering, to themselves and to their friends, that perhaps it was time these kingdoms found a different house to place upon the Iron Throne.
Six and twenty decades after Aegon's Conquest, King Jaehaerys called upon his banners to suppress the rebellion of the Ninepenny Kings. Amid the smoke and blood of battle was forged a friendship of great lords—the stag, the falcon, the trout and the wolf.
The dragons gave them little power and less influence now, and the lords would reclaim their due. All agreed that the time was ripe for the stag to replace the Targaryens on the Iron Throne, for the lords of the Stormlands had dragon blood running through their veins.
For twenty years, the lords schemed and plotted—trained men, stocked weapons, braved winter, bore children, and forged an alliance armoured in marriage and friendship—while in the Red Keep, King Aerys was losing his mind.
The dragon prince was a man grown by then, and his wife was a Dornish princess, small and slight and delicate of build. He could be a better king—the great ruthless lion of the Rock had proclaimed as much—and supported by his white cloaked friends, the prince, too, plotted treason.
In the year of the false spring, Lord Whent invited the entire kingdom to his tourney at Harrenhal, and it was here that the dragon prince planned his own ascension to the Throne.
For months he planned and plotted with his bosom friends, and to seal the support of the lords, the Sword of the Morning offered the hand of his beautiful, laughing sister to the second son of the Winterfell wolf. The maid was heir to Starfall then—an ancient house, descended from kings—for the Dornish let their daughters rule just as their sons.
The dragon prince was to crown his wife the queen of love and beauty, and in the same breath announce her queen of the Seven Kingdoms. At this sign, the lords and white knights were to seize their mad king, and so the crown would land bloodlessly on Rhaegar's silver head.
But the alliance of the lords conspired behind the backs of both their king and their prince. They had different plans. Plans to push their young storm lord onto the Throne. They had men and arms and force to spare, and once the mad king was disposed, they would rise up with their forces of thousands and topple the new crown from the dragon prince's head.
And so it was—plot within plot, treason behind treason—but the quiet wolf knew nothing of it, save that his father would see him marry a Dornish maiden with purple eyes. At the opening feast at Harrenhal, he saw the glowing beauty of the girl who would soon be his betrothed, and felt himself frozen to the bench, though he longed to request a dance.
His brother the wild wolf laughed and laughed, then clapped him on the back and spoke to her on his behalf.
The maid from Starfall had been asked—by her gallant brother and by the dragon prince—to wed a northern wolf for the good of the realm. The Seven Kingdoms needed a new king, and it was within her power to play kingmaker this once. All she need do was say yes, and because she loved her brother, and loved her princess who would be queen, she came to Harrenhal to meet her betrothed.
They danced around the hall, the music lively and quick, and the poor quiet wolf landed time and again on the maiden's foot. Yet it bothered her not one whit, for he was earnest and his grey eyes kind, and when he praised not her beauty but her mind, she thought her heart might burst.
They fell in love amid the ruins of old Harrenhal, the quiet wolf and the Dornish maid, and each thanked their own gods for their fair fortune. In darkened alcoves and clearings hidden by trees, they whispered sweet words between them, and stole kisses as they opened their hearts.
I am enough, thought the quiet wolf, amazed that it was so. She makes me feel that there is nothing wanting in me, that I need only be plain Ned, and that is enough for her.
Beneath the blanket of stars they joined in another dance, this one as old as man, and the quiet wolf told himself that it was no smear on his lady's honour, for she was soon to be his wife.
Yet all was not well, for the sweet winds of false spring were souring back to winter. Someone had told—someone always tells. The dragon prince came to suspect the lords' treachery. On the tourney's last day, as the triumphant prince rode before the royal stands, he did not crown his own pregnant wife the queen of love and beauty; did not announce his intentions and call his council to dispose his father.
Instead, he crowned the wolf maid with a wreath of winter roses, and all the lords and knights and smallfolk were silent with dread. The wild wolf howled with rage then, for how dare he dishonour his sister, who was promised to another? And how dare he tumble their careful plans? How did he know? Someone told. Someone always tells.
The quiet wolf watched with bleary eyes and knotted brow, for he could not understand what the prince meant to do, dishonouring his sister so. Yet the maid of Starfall understood, and she felt her heart tear in two, for the wolf lord of the north might be no friend to the prince, but foe.
No one spoke a word of their ruined plans—not the prince, not the lords. The king was still watching, and any change in the wind smelled like treason to the mad dragon. So the dragons left, the king to King's Landing, the prince to Dragonstone with his wife. And the lords left for their keeps, to lick their wounds, and test the waters of Rhaegar's suspicions.
The quiet wolf rode with the storm lord and the falcon, back up through the Mountains of the Moon, while the maiden attended her princess, whom pregnancy suited ill. Yet in five turns of the moon, the maid herself sailed home to Starfall, swallowing bitter tears at her parting.
In her own womb had been a wolf pup growing, a babe who returned to the gods before she saw the lavender dawn. The Silent Sisters had cleaned her tiny bones, and the maiden built her a pyre on the Torrentine.
The winter winds rose, bitter and sharp. In the new year, news reached the wild wolf that the dragon prince had kidnapped his sister. Off he rode to demand her return—rode to his death and that of his father's—and the treasonous lords found a new cause to rise in arms against the dragons.
The quiet wolf had rallied his troops, and with the falcon, the new lord of Winterfell arrived at Riverrun. His father was burned, his brother strangled, and the dragons held his beloved sister. His father's bannermen had died at the mad king's hands, and the north would not forgive this tyranny. Duty won out over love.
He married his brother's betrothed—the Tully girl with the flaming hair—and prayed to his Old Gods that he might find peace from shame and guilt, though he knew there was no help for his drowning heart.
My version of Robert's Rebellion events are largely based on u/KingLittleFinger's 4-part Harrenhal Conspiracy post on Reddit. It's mindblowing and definitely my new headcanon, so if you have time, I strongly recommend a read.