Godswood

"That's not fair!" Robb yells at the top of his lungs, his brother sulking beside him. "We also want to go!"

"Robb..." says Ned tiredly. "We've already talked about this many times, you're not going south with me."

"But-"

"But nothing. This is not a game son, I will go to war. I will go to fulfill my oaths." he tries to explain for the umpteenth time to his children, who are eager to accompany him south. "When you are men-"

"We already are men" the redhead shouts, Jon nods next to him. "We have been training for almost a year, Ser Rodrik says that he has never seen more talented warriors than Jon and I!"

Ned sighs and rubs his temples.

"Enough Robb!" says his mother, scolding him. "Listen to your father."

**

Robb had to stay in Winterfell with Jon, the girls, and his mother, who is pregnant again. Robb didn't understand why his father seemed so grumpy or why he wouldn't let them join him. Going to war, facing evildoers and defending kingdoms seemed to him the most exciting thing a man could do!

He had been dying of impatience for days, wanting to go south with his father, dreaming of epic battles. But his dreams were crushed, Robb sighed and sulked.

"It's not fair," he muttered under his breath, kicking a rock he saw on the ground.

"Ay!" Robb quickly hides behind a cart, he didn't mean for the stone to hit Ser Rodrik!

"Who was it?!" The old knight begins to shout.

Robb backs off and runs, if the old man catches him he'll tear off his ears!

Robb arrived at the Godswood, it was a dark and primitive place, three acres of ancient trees that had not been touched in thousands of years, while the castle rose around him. It smelled of damp earth and grass, Robb loved that smell.

It was a forest of stout sentinel trees, towering oaks, and tamarinds as old as the kingdom itself. Here the thick black trunks were close together, and the twisted branches weaved a dense roof, while the misshapen roots intertwined under the earth. Silence and shadows prevailed, it was a quiet place where you rarely found another person.

Robb loved walking among the trees and imagining hundreds of generations of Starks walking those same paths, from Brandon the Builder to Torrhen the Last King of Winter, they all walked among these trees, praying before the same Heart tree.

What he liked most about this forest is that there he could do whatever he wanted, there was no one to scold him away or tell him what to do. His mother rarely dared set foot on this side of Winterfell, for some reason she is afraid of the forest. Something that Robb finds quite stupid but for which he is very grateful, Robb loves her mother but finds her quite annoying.

It especially annoys him how she treats his little brother, Jon is his best friend! Anyone who messes with him will deal with him, including his mother. In addition, his father told him that it is the older brother's job to take care of the little ones. And Robb is a great big brother!

Another thing that bothers him about his mother is the stupid ideas he tries to put into Sansa's head. Stupid things like women should be submissive and obedient, or that she shouldn't play with Jon because he's a bastard. Robb tries with all his might to combat these ideas, he tells Sansa stories about great women like Princess Nymeria, Visenya Targaryen or queen Alysanne. He also tells her that no matter the color, whether white or gray, a wolf is a wolf; so Jon is their brother and they should treat him as such. That's what his uncle Ben taught him.

It seems that his efforts were rewarded because Sansa is beginning to ignore their mother's words and she continues to play with Jon. Robb has seen her draw with Jon many times, something they both love.

Robb comes to a great tree with wood as white as bone, with dark red leaves that dangle like a thousand bloody hands. Carved into the trunk was a face, with long, melancholy features, and eyes reddened with dried sap, strangely attentive. They say that this tree is more than 20,000 years old! Robb read in a book that the Children of the Forest carved a face into this tree thousands of years before his ancestors came to the continent.

Robb loves to think that this is the oldest tree in the world, that it has seen the world born and grow around it. Even at his age, he knows that can't be true, but there is no doubt that this tree is older than House Stark.

Next to the tree there is a pond with water as dark as night. Robb likes to swim there and try to dive to find the bottom, something he never managed. Robb asked his father and the maester how deep the pond is and they did not know the answer so one day he took a very long rope and tied a stone with one end and threw it into the water to see how deep the pond is. The rope sank completely without hitting the bottom! And that the rope was longer than the walls of Winterfell!

His parents forbade him to dive in the pond but Robb ignored his order, secretly he usually comes to the forest to swim in the pond. He likes to imagine that he will find great treasures at the bottom.

Robb strips off his clothes and jumps into the water, takes a deep breath and dives. He dives close to the wall, so he can propel himself to the surface when he runs out of air. Normally Robb usually brings a rope to tie one end to a root and the other to his waist to be able to ascend to the surface faster by pulling it. But today, being angry with his father, he forgot to pick up his rope from his hiding place. So that's why he's diving close to the wall.

After approaching his limit he starts to ascend, but then a glow catches his eye and Robb goes even lower. After going down about three meters he sees a tunnel in the wall of the pond, Robb sees that the walls of the tunnel have a silvery sheen. He wants to go investigate but the burning in his lungs forces him to go back to the surface.

Robb swims with all his might but he only sees darkness.

He swims for what seems like hours and the surface is still out of his reach, his lungs burning as if someone has set them on fire. His head aches and he feels his vision blur. Everything begins to turn and the forces abandon him completely, he stops swimming and his body begins to sink.

There is only darkness surrounding him, Robb closes his eyes letting the current carry him away, his last coherent thought is:

`Current?`