The snow was hard under her feet. Her dress was not comfortable either; The pale grey gown trailed behind her as she meandered by her older brother. A nine-headed snake brooch held her hair up in a tight braided bun, letting down only enough of them to hide the back of her neck. The black nine-headed serpents sigil of her family embroidered on her dress, contrasting against the pale silver colour of the Saltcliffe house. Her cloak was heavy on her shoulders and when she entered the Godswood, she saw Brandon Stark standing tall by the heart tree. Her father was near him. She felt her heart drop to her stomach, trying to flee by her heel. Her father's men assisting the ceremony chanted their family motto once, loud enough to make the birds of the weirdwood fly away in fright. ''From the waves, we rose!'' The sound of the bird's wings made her heart flutter. She too wanted to flee more than anything now.
Brandon was twenty-eight years of life now. He was looking at her without a smile on his face, tall like a giant and dark as the night. His hairs in a bun just like hers reflecting the light of the fading sun with his strand of silver and his beard too was braided. He had exchanged the usually black cloak and clothes for the dark grey and white colours of his family banner. When Walton and she reached their father and Brandon, their lord father walked before them.
''Who comes before the Old Gods this day?''
''Meira, of the House Saltcliffe'' stated her brother '' comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessings of the Gods. Who comes to claim her?''
Brandon took a step toward her and spoke.
'' Brandon, of House Stark, heir of the Starks and Lord of Winterfell. Who gives her?''
Once again, her brother spoke.
''Walton, of the House Saltcliffe, who is her brother.''
Her brother didn't hesitate over his words, as if he had practiced saying them over and over in his head. Maybe it was because she was nothing more to him than a disposable woman, she couldn't say. She didn't really want to find out either. The cold wind was piercing through her cloak and she tried to ignore a shiver. Her lips, she could feel it, were turning blue from the cold of the soon-to-come night. Her father broke her from her thinking.
''Lady Meira, will you take this man?''
Her mouth went dry, and her lips seemed to have forgotten how to move, but they said the words even though she didn't feel them get out of her mouth. ''I take this man.''
Walton smiled at his sister gently, taking her hand to put it in Brandon's. He left her to walk with her now-husband toward the heart tree to kneel and pray. So she did. She prayed the Old Gods to set her free form this miserable life she was to live. Controlled and restricted to bear and raise children she didn't want to have. The wind and the last songs of the bird before the night were the only sound to echo. She prayed for her mother to give her strength for what was to come when she felt that the Old Gods were not to answer. She didn't pray the Drowned God, for she hoped not to need it tonight. When she rose from the ground, Brandon took off her cloak and gave her his, patting away one stray of her hair that had taken place before her eyes. ''Take this cloak, you look cold and winter is coming.'' He took her hand in his and guided her out of the wood slowly, under the scrutinizing eyes of the soldiers assisting the wedding.
Her heart was hammering in her head, in her throat, in her soul. She couldn't hear anything else but her heart pounding. She could feel her blood run cold in her vein, her feet, it seemed, were not touching the ground any more than she was walking. She felt like everything was a dream; she would wake up in her mother's arms. She would wake up and cry about how this dream had been a nightmare, that she woke up just in time before her end. She felt like dying; The earth was to open beneath her feet and take her whole before her lord husband could make her completely his.
His room was large and empty. Fur was on the floor, under the bed so it wouldn't be so cold when they walked upon it. A fire was burning in the room and someone had set two chairs near the fireplace, she didn't really know if they had to be there or if the chair had somehow lost their way, too. Brandon let go of her small hand. Her father, Walton and Urion, her brothers and a maester came in the room with them. Brandon smiled at her before walking to reach the back of her gown. He took him, or now her, cloak embroidered with the pale grey direwolf of the Stark family from her shoulders. Her back was nude; Only her neck was covered and attached, from her back to the start of her bottom, her skin was offered to the cold air.
She heard clothes hitting the ground, and felt an ice-cold hand touch her neck. She shivered. Her dress loosens suddenly, making her jump slightly, the dress falls on the ground, pooling over her ankles. She took a sharp breath and closed her head off what was happening to her. She imagined herself on the shore of the Saltcliffe, her home, in a grey and black dress, pledging allegiance to an Iron Island husband just like she wanted. She would drink wine and eat fish. She would bathe in the sea and be offered to her husband as a pearl, a gift from the Drowned God to their land, or so told the legend. She felt a pressure on the small of her back, and she came back to reality. She entered the bed slowly.
In the night's dark, after the bedding ceremony, when Brandon Stark left the bed to sit near the fire, leaving her alone in the fur. She watched the stone ceiling absently. Her brother Urion had left under her pillow a bottle of she knew was seawater. And in the cold's silence summer, the North was experiencing, she prayed, opening the bottle.
"Let Me your servant be born again from the sea, as you were. Bless me with salt, bless me with stone, bless me with steel. What is dead may never die.'' She poured a small portion of water in her hand and took it to her forehead slowly, murmuring the rest of the ceremonial baptism. '' What is dead may never die, but rise again, harder and stronger.'' She had no one to execute the ceremony for her, but knowing she died that night, she needed to feel comforted by something that felt like home.