Old Road

"All the books I read say that plants need sunlight to live. This cavern has never been touched by sunlight and yet it is full of life. There are all kinds of trees and flowers, more alive and splendid than any plant on the surface. Could it be that the silver stone has the same properties as the sun? Silver Sun Stone, Triple S." Robb chuckles a bit.

He's been walking through the woods for hours and didn't see anything unusual.

He walked for almost two hours without finding any sign of human life, what he did see were various insects and small animals. By the third hour he found what must once have been a rock-paved road, weeds growing around it almost hiding it.

Robb followed the road.

He walked under the tall trees with black bark and white leaves, and in them grew some kind of fruit with skin gray like ash. The only sounds he could hear were the rustle of leaves and the occasional buzzing of insects, it made Robb feel a kind of peace he had never experienced before.

"I never realized before how much I appreciate peace and quiet," Robb smirks. In the short six years of his life he had never been truly alone, there was always someone around him. Even the short hours he spent hiding on rooftops or in the branches of some tree could not be considered moments of true solitude. He could always see the people of Winterfell going about their day from the rooftops, or he could hear them from the Godswood.

The only place he experiences such solitude and silence is the Wolf's Den, but since Jon spends a lot of time there...

"It's not that I hate the company or the noise," the heir muses. "It's just that it is nice to be left alone with my thoughts for a little while."

This tranquility awakens something inside him, he feels his hands tingle and regrets not having brought paper to write.

"Why should inspiration hit me just when I have nothing to jot down my ideas?" Robb sighs annoyed and continues walking.

"Grrr!" The boy startles at the sudden growl and looks around him. He doesn't see any animals.

"Oh!" The heir blushes with embarrassment as he realizes it was his stomach. "When was the last time I ate?" He wonders. He thinks it must have been almost a day ago. He ate quite well at dinner the night he started his adventure but he's not sure how much time has passed since then. It must have taken him a couple of hours to get to the cavern and many more he spent sleeping.

He looks around for food and remembers the strange gray fruits. The redhead climbs a tree and takes two of those strange fruits, they were as big as a peach and its skin had the same texture as an apple. Robb breaks one in half, brings it to his mouth and sniffs it, the smell is sweetish. Its color inside is very similar to pear and is quite soft. Robb licks one of his fingers that were wet with the fruit juice.

His eyes light up with delight.

"It's sweet and tastes great!"

He takes a tentative bite of the fruit, chews, and swallows.

"It tastes great, it's sweet and juicy, like well-ripened pears."

The heir eats the two fruits and goes back up the tree for more, after filling his stomach with five of those fruits he continues walking.

"Ash fruit? Sweet Ash? Asweet? Swash? How did the men of old decide on the names of things?"

***

"This road has no end," Robb complained. "But I need to rest. It's time for lunch."

Robb climbed another of the black bark trees whose name he decided would be Ashtree and the fruit Ash fruit, the names are temporary until he comes up with something better. After collecting four fruits, he climbed down the tree.

He sat on the edge of the road, on the soft green grass, looking ahead: past the trees and where the old road leads. He looked around it still with his eyes shining with excitement and curiosity, for this was land that no one had walked on in thousands of years. Of that he was sure.

"This must have been the home of someone, some intelligent being since this road is very well done." Robb was silent for a moment and looked along the path, as if he had never seen it before (as if he hadn't been following it for half a day).

"The stones are common, and the style in which they are laid is nothing out of the ordinary. I've seen roads like this all over the North." Robb takes a stick and digs among some rocks.

"You dig a hole in the ground and then fill it with several layers with the last being solid slabs, that is how you build a road. Men, this road was built by men. Men inhabited this place at some point. There is no book about a great cavern under Winterfell. If people knew of its existence, they would have written dozens of books about it. So the existence of this place must have been forgotten thousands of years ago." Robb is thoughtful.

"Men, they have to be human. No other sentient race inhabited Westeros. Well, there were the Children of the Forest but they didn't build roads, so legends say they considered building things that alter the landscape sacrilege, worse than a sin. They loved nature and did not want to alter it, they wanted to live as one with it."

Robb sighed, his mind filled with questions, questions with no answer. Who could answer all his questions? Who could tell who built this road? Or how did the Children of the Forest live? Did they really exist or are they products of the myths and legends of men? If they really existed, what were they like? Did they have pale skin like a man or green like leaves? How were their eyes? Or their hair?

So many questions and no answers.

***

The shadows of the trees danced to a song that no man could hear. Robb watches the shadows move and then he raises his head to the top of the trees, he watches the branches move and another question remains unanswered.

"Where does the wind come from in this cavern?"

Ignoring the unanswered question, the boy kept walking. The stone sky never changes, either day or night the silver stone shines with the same splendor as the sun. So Robb can't tell if it's day or night, he doesn't know when it's time to sleep or when it's time to get up. He can only follow the needs of his body, which are not good guides as Robb has a tendency to forget to eat or sleep when his head is too focused on something.

***

Eddard Stark has been away from home for several moons, Lord Stark couldn't wait to have his children in his arms again; to listen about their adventures and play with them. He is eager to meet his youngest child, the last letter Cait sended said that she could go into labor at any moment. Which is why he rushed his men and didn't stop for anything but to eat or sleep, Ned Stark wants to be there when his youngest child is born.

He was there when his other four children were born and he will be there when this child is born.

`Brandon or Lyarra,` he thinks with an eager smile. They had already decided on names for the baby shortly after Arya was born, when they discussed having more children. Honoring his older brother or his mother seems like the right thing to do. Half of his children have names in honor of people he loves and admires a lot.

Robb for his best friend Robert Baratheon, the greatest warrior Ned has ever known. Although it seems that this indomitable warrior is losing his edge, much to Ned's disappointment. Lord Stark couldn't help but notice how in the last six years Robert gained several stones, his armor was a bit too small for him and his gut grew quite a bit. Robert is still a formidable warrior but he pales in comparison to the young Stag who single-handedly took on the last dragon and won.

Jon was named after his adoptive father, Jon Arryn, the most honorable man Ned had ever known. Ned was eight or nine years old, he can't remember anymore, when he was sent to the Eyrie. He was just a child and he was scared and sad, he didn't want to be separated from his home; of his siblings and of his father. His mother, Lady Lyarra, had just died not a year ago and the boy was still mourning her. He remembers when he disembarked from that ship in Gulltown, Lord Arryn was waiting for him accompanied by a teenager with blond hair and an aquiline nose, Elbert Arryn.

They were both kind and understanding, they talked a lot with little Ned telling him stories about the Eyrie and the Vale. They didn't take offense when the shy boy barely answered them with a word or two, they were patient and slowly gained the Stark's trust. By the time they got to the Bloody Gate, Ned already considered Elbert a friend and Jon almost an uncle.

As they climbed the narrow paths to the Eyrie Ned made the mistake of looking down, he saw the drop of hundreds of meters and it scared the hell out of him. The boy hit his mule by mistake and tha animal almost knocked him off his back. Jon jumped off his mule and grabbed the boy in his arms while Elbert calmed the mule down. That day the two Arryns earned his full trust.

Ned still remembers the wonder he felt when he saw for the first time the castle in the sky, with its seven dagger-like towers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high they tower above the clouds.

During the ten years he spent in the Vale, Jon was more of a father to him than Rickard Stark, his Lord Father barely wrote him a letter every few moons. It was Jon who taught him to be a good man. That's why when he had the baby in his arms he decided to name him Jon, not only in the hope that one day the child will become a good and honest man like his namesake but also to remind himself what honor means.

`Many men say they value their honor more than their lives but for a few coins or a fancy title they would kill even the most innocent of beings.` That is why Ned holds knights in such low esteem, even though he was raised in the cradle of chivalry of the Known World. After the war, Ned lost faith in many things, beginning with chivalry and ending with the faith he had in his best friend, ironically it was Lyanna (her death) who fixed the bridge between them.

Those scenes are still vivid in his mind, the damned Lannisters placing the bloodied bodies wrapped in red capes in front of Robert. His expression that day, his words,-

Ned shakes his head and stops thinking about it.

"At least Jon stayed true."

"You said something, my lord?"

"Nothing Jory. I was thinking about our home."

"Aye, another day on the road and we'll arrive at Winterfell."

"Another day." Ned rides, with his children in mind.

They have hardly gone a few miles when they see a group of horsemen galloping towards them.

Ned sees his own banner and recognizes them as Stark guards.

"Halt!" Ned shouts with his commander's voice, one of the many things that Jon taught him is how to raise his voice to be heard by his soldiers in the middle of the battle.

"Lord Stark! Thank the Gods we finally found you!" Desmond, one of his best guards looks at him with a grim expression.

Ned felt his stomach drop, he knew that whatever Desmond has to say is not good news.

"What happened?"

"It's Robb, my lord."