2 Chapter 2

Lady Lyarra Stark now was not seen as a fierce woman who protected her family, rather the timid and forgiving wife of Rickard. She didn't like the brand that the new babe gave her, a mother who allowed her husband's bastard to be raised by her own, but when she saw those eyes look into her own...Lyarra couldn't possibly allow her to fend for herself outside of the castle.

Besides, she'd think to herself, in a moons time there will be another thing for them to gossip about.

How she was wrong, on one of the many feasts her husband held for the Lord's under him, Lyarra was questioned by the ladies of the North on why exactly she had chosen to keep the foreign babe. She couldn't win them over with introducing Arianne to them so instead, she told them to worry less about others and more about themselves. Reminding Lady Bolton, one of the many who questioned her, that her own husband was known for doing perverse acts with the whores of their town, but people didn't bother her about it.

Lilia, who would be invited to the feasts as Lyarra's lady in waiting would stifle a laugh and continue eating the bland rabbit, finding anything else much too heavy for her Dornish taste.

"You mustn't treat them that way," Rickard told her one night. They had been in bed for some time and neither could fall asleep.

Lyarra laughed at him. "Rickard...she is our daughter now and we can't just throw her out. Especially not now that we've told Lyanna she has a sister," she reminded him. "Besides, I am their Lady Paramount, they can't tell me anything."

Rickard let out a chuckle. "I am the Lord Paramount, you are my wife."

Lyarra rolled her eyes and turned away from him. "If it helps you sleep. You can be whatever you want darling."

...

The years couldn't have gone by faster, Brandon had passed his sixth name day, Lyanna her fourth, Arianne and Eddard their second and Lyarra was soon to be expecting. When she would sit by the fire in the tea room, Lyanna would poke her stomach for as long as her mother allowed her and pull away in disgust when the growing babe kicked back. As if to say, leave me alone.

"Lyanna, go play with your sister," Lyarra told her, fed up with her daughter's poking.

Lyanna turned to her younger sister, who had just begun to walk and then turned back to her mother. "She's boring! I want to play outside with Brandon!"

"In the mud? You don't want that. Why don't you help your brother and sister learn how to walk properly?" Lyarra asked her, putting down her needlework and watching as Ned tried his hardest to walk without the aid of his milkmaid.

Ever so stubborn Lyanna huffed, rolled her eyes and sat down on the rug beneath her feet. "No."

Lyarra tutted and continued her needlework. She felt a sharp pain in her stomach and indicated for the maid to fetch the Maester. It was much too early for both her and Maester Walys' liking for her to feel so pained, so she was bedridden for the rest of her pregnancy.

When Rickard would ask the Maester exactly what was wrong with his wife, he would simply respond by saying, "just a trickster of a babe is all, he likes to move around and it causes her pain."

Rickard would then look back at his sleeping wife and sigh, perhaps four children were enough. He was the one who pushed for another child, hoping for another boy for Eddard to play with. Brandon wasn't exactly the known type to share nor care about playing games, even at his young age.

Just a sennight afterward, Lyarra would give birth to their last son and child, Benjen Stark. She had one chance to wish her husband farewell, thanking him for a sweet life and reminding him to take care of their children.

Rickard wanted to beg her to stay, but what kind of goodbye would that be? So instead he held her hand and watched as she turned as pale as snow.

The inhabitants of Winterfell were sure that they had never seen Rickard Stark weep as he did when the bell of death was rung. The duty of Lady of Winterfell fell upon no one, Rickard forbade any talk of remarriage. He had three sons now and two daughters; he did not need another wife to give birth to more sons and cause rivalry in the household. They had all learned better after Aegon of course.

Besides Lilia, though young as she was, was a perfect mother, and came with no burdens towards Rickard and raised his children.

When he was two and ten Eddard was sent to be a ward at the Vale of Arryn. Brandon had already committed to a wardship and had left at the same time as Eddard when he was four and ten. His father chose to bring him home two years later, when he was six and ten, earlier than expected, believing Lord Dustin's son, William Dustin to be a bad influence on Brandon. Leaving the now four and ten Eddard to be fostered further with Jon Arryn and his companion Robert Baratheon.

It was exactly Brandon's nature that caused his father to bring him back. Lord Dustin knew he was hot and hard-headed, having lived in Winterfell with little constraints or rules. But when he wrote to his father that he had fallen in love with a lady of the North, Lady Barbrey Ryswell, Rickard had no choice but to bring him back.

Benjen, by then was still two and ten and wanted to be sent to the Wall, Rickard told him to wait two years and if he had still wanted to be fostered there then he would send him. Of course, he would try his hardest to sway him however, no Lord wanted their son of a good breed to waste away at the Wall, no matter how much the men of the black were praised.

And Lyanna, his Lyanna, was as wild as a wolf; he accepted that he had no hold on his daughter; no one did. He did not mind in fact, he quite enjoyed her adventurous tastes, and wondered how she had managed to earn the respect of her Septa as a refined young lady and still have time for her boyish ways.

In place of her half-sister, Arianne attended all her sewing, singing, painting, writing, dressmaking, etiquette, and walking lessons. She was the perfect woman in Rickard's eyes. She reminded him of her mother, graceful, alluring, and though he hated to think of her that way- capturing. She did not enjoy Lyanna's game, preferring to stay in the castle walls. While all of his children had gained the typical Stark looks, jet black hair and grey eyes, Arianne had light brown locks and deep purple eyes.

Benjen, in their early youth, would call her a witch until she beat him bloody forcing him to apologise almost every day, as he begged her to spare him. But Arianne absolutely adored the boy. He would tell her tales of how he wanted to be a Knight for the Kingsguard or join the Nightswatch, and Arianne bravely played his dummy either portraying a Wilding or an enemy of the crown.

It was all rather amusing to Lyanna who looked up to the girl. Although the girl was younger, she was jealous of her sister and admired her beauty. How easily she outshone her at the feasts her father held, and how all the Lords of the North would flock to her just to gaze upon the beautiful bastard of Winterfell one last time before their fathers or wives dragged them away. She saw the way her brothers present: Brandon, and Benjen looked up to her. She saw the way Ned cried into her open arms when he left for the Vale.

Ned never cried to Lyanna, not once. She was jealous. Lyanna had the name and the lands that came with it, but she did not have the power to fight her way to the top with the charm and wit of her intellectual self. Though she had to admit, her half-sister tended to be of a hazed mind when decisions of true importance arose, choosing to act like a child and make a joke of it all. Lyanna concluded quite early on she'd rather have half the beauty and double the mind rather than half the mind and double to beauty.

And as for Arianne, she was as folly as a flower in winter. She would work with the breeze. Her handmaiden, Lilia, whom she had known all her life, would tell her of all the adventures they got up to when she was just a babe on her journey home from Dorne. She planned to tell her of her mother one night after Arianne had called her mother one too many times but held back fearing that it was not her place and not the right time. Arianne, as every Dornish woman was taught, taught her the true meaning of love.

"What is love?" Arianne would ask her on her three and tenth name day. There had been a great feast held in her honour by her father, who rejected all claims that a bastard was a being that was to be shunned. Arianne went to Lilia and told her of a boy had whispered to Arianne that he had fallen in love with her. His eyes had followed her the whole night and refused to leave her at all. When she ate, he watched her, when she drank he watched her, and when she chose her winner to have the first dance with her, he told her of his jealousy that the lowly Howland Reed was chosen and not he.

Roose Bolton. A mythical looking boy, proud and elegant, followed her around the dining hall the entire night. Arianne could not help but laugh reminding Roose that she was lowly herself and she chose Howland because he was a close friend of hers. A lie, naturally, as she had never met the young Reed until that night, but his company she did enjoy. He was light-hearted and did not wish to talk about gore and boring things that the lords of the North did.

They discussed tales of Aegon's conquest, of the warriors who rode Dragon's into battle and burnt cities to the floor. Roose, however, would frequently visit with his father until three years later, when he was married and his only ability to converse with Arianne were during feasts, and usually their conversations consisted of the weather.

"Love is not what these Northerner's would tell you it is my sweet butterfly." Lilia prodded. "It is when you look at a man, or a woman, whatever your choice, and feel a burning fire in your stomach aching to feel their touch all over your body. Love is when you look at someone and feel a passion you have never felt before, itching at your heart, your mind, willing you to follow him or her around gain his or her attention somehow someway. Make a fool of yourself if need be."

"It sounds hurtful," Arianne, laughed.

"It is the most painful thing one can go through," Lilia smiled back.

And so that very night on her name day, Arianne knew what love was, but she had no one to love. She did not feel that fire burn with anyone she had stumbled across. However, she did feel love for her family, especially for her father who had taken such care of her and who would gaze her with such adoration that one would think he was hypnotized.

The maester, Walys at the time, did think as much, however. He thought no good of the girl, he personally wanted to have her thrown out the moment she was brought into the castle as a babe. Some called him the grey rat, whispering his sweet songs into Rickard's ears. He was the one who planted the idea of marrying Brandon and Lyanna to Catelyn Tully of Riverrun and Robert Baratheon of Stormsend, respectively.

Both horrible matches. Both Southern matches. It was best if Northerners married Northerners, but Rickard would hear none of it from either his counsel or the young Maester Luwin who was practicing to take over from Walys (as many feared he would succumb to his old age). Walys, also the one who planted the idea into Rickard's head to march South and ask the King for more land to build a greater wall. The King instead sent Rickard a patch of dirt. The plea for more land was never brought up again. Never again.

Unbeknownst to Rickard, a certain bastard harboured in his own home would bring his house to its knees. The same house that preached honour would be left barren because of it. Honour would bind him to a secret that protected the life of one and put the lives of many at the hands of the gods.