The North Remembers 1.1
You are Lord Eddard Stark, and you wake with a ring of fire around your neck but your body is whole and your thoughts are spinning. You think of Sansa, tiny and pink, ever the most precious thing in your world, and you let her see her father beheaded in front of her. You think of Jon, that innocent boy who is your mirror in youth, thoughtful like Benjen and as kind as his mother. You dishonor your wife and you lie every day to everyone for him. You made your reputation for honesty ironclad for him.
You built your honor into a shield to protect Lyanna's son— Rhaegar's son, from those who would mean him harm— but you became that honorable man
too well, you think as something not unlike rage boils in your gut, something cold like Northern winter that burns if you touch it. What good has honor done you? Killed by an incestuous child, a pretender to the throne, unable to protect your family, and leaving the North with only a child to guard it.
No, you think as your fist grasps at your bedsheets and you resolutely do not scream.
Now is not the time for honor. You get out of bed.
Ah... to do what, exactly?
The stone floor is warm beneath your shaking feet, and you know from the lack of hustle and bustle that it is either early morning or late at night. This is Winterfell, and that fact alone soothes your living heart until its beating no longer echos in your ears.
You rub at the pain on your neck, and when you pull your fingers back you half expect to see them covered in blood. They are not.
You need to do— something. Anything. Anything but nothing. You turn and head toward the door.
The air in the hall is cool and dark. Familiar, it carries the scents of ancient stone and dust and snow. It settles you further, the solid realness of the detail- too ordinary to be afterlife or dream. You pause outside Catelyn's rooms, tempted for a moment by a ridiculous desire to check that she breathes. Your fingers brush her door but you continue on, passing no one at this late or early hour except Old Nan, who spares you a sharp glance.
It isn't much, but you, like your father before you and his father before him keep a written record of your days in numbered scrolls and leatherbound journals that you keep in your study for easy reference. They are what you seek now.
You want a glimpse of the man you were, before.
In your study there are papers scattered on the center table, you do not remember why. A covered pitcher of mead rests in the middle of the mess on the only clear square of wood, and several clean empty cups beside it. You ignore this, but at the same time every bit of normality grounds and comforts you.
You reread everything you've written this past year, drinking in every minor detail, all this drama from the land of the living. You struggle not to think about it, but it feels like you died and then
waited, like your spirit stretched taut somewhere between alive and dead. It is a wretched sensation and you press it away into the back of your mind.
That is easier to do because you are becoming distracted by yourself from a year ago.
Your writing is dry and uninspiring, informative, with no wasted words. You do not mention your love for your wife or your caring exasperation with your daughter Arya. There is nothing here of Robb's impressive leaps of strategy in the Maester's hypothetical battle senarios or Rickon's first steps or smiles.
Instead, Ned from a year ago repeats, page after page— there was snow.
Whole sections of days talk of nothing but the quality of snowfall. Fine and dusty. Dry and sticky. Icy and slick.
Occasionally you comment on Riverland rumors or Stormland politics, but always you've noted the weather. There was snow. Ice and snow. Summer snow. Could you not have thought of something other than that? Did you not know that these scrolls and journals might be all that would be left of you— the only writing of yours for your lady wife and children to remember you by, and you fill them with pointless
dithering about the
weather—
You hear the little journal crash into the far wall of your study and fall to the floor with a sad crumpling sound.
You still your hands and make a conscious effort to breathe slowly and you pick up the book from where it lies on the ground several of its pages bent now from your rough treatment.
You run a hand down your face and sigh. You aren't a young man anymore. You are too wise to fool yourself into thinking pointless destruction will make you feel better. It will only serve to make you impulsive and twitchy.
You turn the small book over in your hands and gently, you straighten out and smooth the pages you damaged.
There is little written in these journals because you are a man of action, not flowery words. The writing of your past self serves its purpose in documenting your days for future reference. These books were never meant to be some hapless romantic's diaries of sentimental love notes.
Sufficiently calm, you open the book to its last records. It reveals that tomorrow is your second son's seventh nameday, and you are set to execute a deserter of the Night's Watch. He died well for an oathbreaker, you remember.
Later, if your memory serves you, news will come by raven of Jon Arryn's sudden death and Robert's impending visit, and you and your family are sucked into the events that lead to your death.
Tomorrow is the beginning of your end.
You shiver, and not from the cold.
You did not die well, and you left too many tasks half finished, too many responsibilities unfulfilled. You want to change that, you
must change that, but how? It seems too large and complex a task for one man to undertake alone.
As if summoned by your restless thoughts your lady wife pokes her head into the room her red hair shining in a low knot at the nape of her neck.
"What is wrong, my love?" She asks quietly as she steps into your study, two fine lines forming between her blue eyes. Old Nan must have woken her and sent her after you. You must truly look out of sorts...
You feel the beginnings of A Plot stirring behind your heart, stuttering like kindling trying to catch fire. You are wary for a moment, because the last time you plotted you wound up deciding to decieve everyone you knew to save the true heir to the Iron Throne and then to hide
that you took up a measure of honor that would kill you one day.
You watch your wife as the lines between her eyes deepen in concern and you—
Choose one:
[x] give her a tired smile and say nothing. You have some vague ideas, but you are too muddled right now to think clearly. You need to clear your thoughts, perhaps out in the godswood or down in the cryp with your father.
You offer her some mead and bid her sit. You just want to look at her right now, in this moment, this woman you love, the mother of your children, in your warm home in the North, surrounded by sleeping family.
Just look at her, just this, for now.
[x] put a manly quaver in your voice and admit shakily that you have had a very alarming dream. Surely it is nothing, but you dreamed that your goodsister Lysa will die of loneliness alone in the Eyrie after the sudden tragic deaths of her husband and son. Oh how strange.
Your wife keeps The Seven and she believes in portents and signs. When your dream comes true in part, she'll stop at nothing to prevent it from coming true in full. Family, duty, honor are the Tully words and it will be a simple enough matter to convince her to take the children with her, and that takes care of both Bran and Sansa. They'll be safe, far away from the Lannisters and their schemes.
[x] are worried about the coming Winter. It has been a long Summer, and that means a long Winter as well. You are worried about the Night's Watch, which is undermanned and riddled with dishonorable men.
You gesture to your records and point out that Houses Reed, Tallhart, and Bolton are behind with their reported stores of grain and pickled and jarred goods. House Manderly has a surplus, but you worry. You are the Warden of the North. You always worry. Winter is coming.
Lay the groundwork for refusing to leave Winterfell.
[x] ...tell the truth?
