Chapter Text
WINTERFELL, 281 AC
The door to the nursery creaked open but Catelyn did not turn to look at her husband.
Nine months.
Nine months at war and he’d returned with another woman’s son. A son who looked more like him than the one she now bore at her breast, a son who looked more like Catelyn’s daughter sleeping sweetly in the crib beside her. A son Ned’s honor demanded he raise as his own. Which meant sharing the room she’d so carefully picked out with a dark-haired grey-eyed boy that never cried.
Her boy always cried. Another stark reminder of the difference between the two boys. Another reminder of her own failure. The boy unlatched himself and Catelyn covered herself to maintain a sense of modesty. Not that there was much modesty left between them. He’d seen all of her on their wedding night, refusing a bedding ceremony so only he would get to look upon her.
Catelyn thought it romantic then.
Now she wondered if perhaps he’d merely been prolonging the inevitable. Perhaps his bastard’s mother had been hidden among the servants and whores of Riverrun, and he simply didn’t want Catelyn to see.
“How are the little ones?” Ned asked, voice low enough so as not to wake their children.
“Sleeping,” Catelyn said shortly, hugging her cloak tighter. She had still not gotten used to the chill of Winterfell.
Refusing to face him, Cat placed her son next to his sister, the two children linking hands as they nodded off. A small smile graced her face at the sight. They were her children. Two tiny bodies she’d grown inside herself, struggling and muscling through it with all the grace the Tully women were gifted with. She’d been terrified in the birthing bed, wishing Ned was with her to talk her through it.
He was good at that. He’d done it on their wedding night enough times to make her feel less like a blushing bride and more like a northern wife, one who was experienced in all the ways she was not.
Catelyn had hoped her promise of more nights to come would be enough to keep Ned from wandering. She’d hoped her letters detailing how she’d missed her moonblood and her certainty that it was a son would keep his eye focused on her, rather than the whorehouses Robert Baratheon was dragging him into.
She was wrong.
Instead, she’d been shaking and screaming in Riverrun as midwives and maesters huddled around her, discussing how the head was positioned and just how many babies she was carrying. And Cat stared up at the canopy with tears in her eyes as she imagined her mother in the exact same position moments before the Maester cut into her, delivering two tiny stillborn babes and leaving Minisa Whent to bleed out in the exact same bed Cat was in.
Twins.
Brothers.
Catelyn was almost an older sister again.
She pushed. She screamed. She dug her nails so deep into the Maester’s hand it bled, and when the first child popped out, a sense of relief washed over her.
“It is a girl, my lady.”
Relief turned to dread in an instant.
A girl? No, it had to be a son. It must be a son. Ned needed a son to secure his position as Lord of Winterfell, to secure her position–
Pain, sharp and biting distracted her from that thought, and soon, Robb followed in his sister’s footsteps, screaming almost as loudly as his mother.
Robb.
Ned had suggested the name in his letters. A good strong name, he’d said. For a good strong boy.
And what of the girl? She’d written back. Perhaps after your sister, or brother.
She’d received no response.
And so the girl had remained nameless, giggling and cooing while her brother cried and screamed and cried. Robb was a handful, and Catelyn was grateful to her Uncle Brynden for taking care of the girl in those moments. He often led her around the godswood, or the battlements of Riverrun, explaining how they would protect themselves in a siege.
“She likes it when I tell her stories,” Brynden explained one day with a shrug. “Her favorite is of Oscar Tully and Black Aly.”
The girl giggled as he poked her fattening stomach.
She smiled.
That had been Cat’s favorite too. “It seems your stories have not changed Uncle.”
“Aye, but you have, Cat.” Brynden paused, glanced at the bundle of red hair in her arms and brought a kiss to her forehead, “He’ll return safe and sound, I promise you.”
And Ned had.
True to his word, he’d returned to her without so much as a scratch.
Catelyn’s eyes darted towards the crib in the corner, the wetnurse lifting the bastard boy into her arms for feeding. How that woman knew exactly when the boy was hungry she would never know. It made Cat’s stomach churn, white hot rage boiling through her veins. Jon. He’d been called. That was the worst offense.
Robb was named after a king who whored and drank and sired enough bastards to fill every spot on his small council, while the bastard was named after the man who raised her husband.
Sometimes Cat wondered if the Seven hated her.
There were no Septs in Winterfell, so she couldn’t even pray to them for forgiveness if she wanted to.
Something heavy landed on her shoulder. She didn’t need to look to know it was Ned. She recognized him from touch alone.
“Cat, I–”
“Did you love her?”
Silence stood between them.
Within it, something dark festered and took root. Sharp fragments of ice pierced her heart.
“I did, yes.”
It cracked.
A tear trailed down the curve of her cheek.
Catelyn turned her gaze back towards her children, towards the beautiful baby girl and handsome baby boy she’d carried. Both of them a picture of the man and woman who made them. It made Cat’s heart skip a beat when she first noticed the differences. Robb looked like her, while the girl looked like Ned. It was a good thing, she’d told herself. He will be satisfied with a child who looks like him, even if it is not his heir.
Again, she was wrong.
“Have you named her yet?” Ned asked, leaning down with a soft smile, his finger caught in the girl’s grasp. Catelyn wiped the offending tear away with the pads of her fingers.
“I was thinking a family name. Like Arya for your grandmother, or Lyanna for your sister.”
Ned went rigid.
Catelyn shrank under the weight of his disapproval. Her father suggested the idea. As a way to honor the woman he lost. Even in the small moments they’d had before he left for war, Catelyn could see how important Ned’s sister was to him.
And then she’d watched as he brought her bones home in a chest and had his soldiers bury her in the crypts.
“No, not Lyanna,” Ned’s tone was sharp and short, and now he was the one who refused to look at her. “I don’t mind Arya, only…” He paused, and slowly, those grey eyes Catelyn had spent nine months dreaming about rose up to meet hers. They weren’t cold, hard stone like they’d been on her wedding night, but rather soft like a lamb’s fleece. “I want to honor you as well. Minisa, perhaps? Or another riverlander name.”
Catelyn blinked.
She wasn’t quite sure what to say. Something soft fluttered behind the stone walls of her heart. There he was again. The honorable Eddard Stark. Perhaps the wedding night wasn’t a ruse after all.
“They are both Tully and Stark,” Ned continued, “I would not ask them to discard their mother’s heritage so easily.”
Her heart caught in her throat.
It was growing rather difficult to be mad at him. The door creaked, and Cat’s eye was drawn to the abandoned crib once again, the bastard boy sleeping soundly as the wetnurse disappeared. Rage coiled itself in her stomach once more.
“That is very thoughtful of you, my lord.” Catelyn spoke shortly and politely, causing Ned to wrinkle his brow and frown. Good. Moving from Robb, Catelyn turned her gaze toward her daughter. A glad child who never seemed to cry except when needed, and was almost always slapping her baby brother for doing so needlessly.
Her lips tugged upward as her daughter’s grey eyes fluttered open, a smile bursting across her chubby cheeks. The same cheeks she once had, according to her uncle.
“How about Alysanne?” Catelyn choked out.
Alysanne. After the Good Queen who flew north.
After Alysanne Blackwood, who married a Stark and gave him four hale and healthy daughters. Black Aly, who was said to be fierce and fearless.
After her mother’s sister, who held her tightly as Catelyn wept into her shoulders the day she returned to the mud.
It was a good name. A strong name. One she could hope her child could live up to, rather than despair.
“Alysanne.” Ned spoke calmly, and he turned his gaze back to the little girl cooing and sucking on his finger, squirming at his touch. “A fine choice.”
Catelyn sighed in relief.
Robb and Alysanne Stark. The twin wolves of Winterfell.
She wondered if her mother would be proud of her.
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
Alysanne was dreaming again.
Terrible, horrible dreams filled with blood and swords and crossbows and the howling of wolves. Some nights, she dreamt she was a wolf, tasting the flesh of men and women in her mouth while the pack howled alongside her.
Those nights were the worst of all.
When she woke, she would tip-toe down the long halls of Winterfell to Robb’s rooms, trying to forget the taste of blood pooling behind her teeth. He would scoot over to make room for her, and they’d lay side by side like they used to do as children. His breath against her nose and her hands wrapped in his. Father and mother always admonished them when they found them wrapped in one another, but never forbade it.
At three and ten, Alysanne knew better than to tell anyone about her dreams, but Robb wasn’t anyone. He was her brother, her protector, and her secret-keeper. He hadn’t told mother about her falling into the pool of the godswood, and she hadn’t told father about Robb’s trip into Winter Town with Theon. They took care of each other.
“Like Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys,” He promised in the godswood when they were only ten years old, taking a knee like the knights of the south and laying down his training sword, “I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be, I swear it, by the old gods and the new.”
Alysanne had giggled at that and repeated the words she’d heard father and mother utter a thousand times before. “And I vow you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor. I swear it, by the old gods and the new.”
As if they could hear them, a harsh wind blew through the godswood, the tree bleeding red sap as Alysanne took Robb’s training sword and repeated the vows back to him.
They were each other’s sworn swords.
Now and for always.
Except tonight, she was not going to visit Robb.
The long stone halls of Winterfell loomed large before her, footsteps echoing off the stone walls like a ghost. Winterfell did not scare her like it did Sansa. She was made from it, comfortable in its endless silence and labyrinthian hallways. They swallowed her whole, and sometimes she thought if she wandered far enough she would disappear entirely.
Tonight, however, she knew exactly where she was going.
Alysanne rocked nervously on the balls of her feet, nightgown tickling her ankles. She stood up on her tip-toes and knocked on the heavy wooden door.
Jon opened it with a frown, wiping sleep from his eyes.
“What in the seven hells are you doing?” He asked, sounding just like their father when he was angry.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Alysanne said as she pushed past him into his room. Jon simply huffed and shook his head. He said nothing as she plopped herself on his bed, taking in his room with wide grey eyes. It was smaller than hers and Robb’s, and neater too. Everything was tucked away out of sight, with no sign other than the bed that anyone lived there at all. Robb always had his training swords and gambesons and lessons scattered about on the floor, while Alysanne’s drawings and dresses and embroidery were often hanging from walls and shelves and bedposts.
Jon’s was sparse and clean and quiet.
His weight sank against the bed as he turned to face her, an expectant look on his face. Unlike Robb, she never knew what Jon was thinking, but he always seemed to know what was in her mind before she did. He knew a lot about everyone and everything, and kept it to himself.
Alysanne brought her gaze to her hands as she picked at her nailbeds, “I was dreaming again,” she said.
Jon stiffened next to her.
While Robb listened, Jon believed, which made all the difference. “What was it this time?”
Alysanne ripped the skin from her finger and a face almost identical to hers stared in expectation, waiting for an answer. While she held the high cheekbones and fair skin of her mother, her coloring was all Stark. It had been strange, growing up and seeing the face of her brother morph into one so like and unlike hers at the same time, while Jon and her grew closer and closer in appearance.
A few lords had even mistaken him for Robb.
Alysanne had laughed.
Her mother had not.
“I saw a man with a wolf head,” she confessed, “He was at a table, but there was no food, just bones.”
Jon frowned. Alysanne gulped and continued, “He opened his mouth and crows came out, three-eyed and feasting on the bones. When they did, their bodies split in two, guts pouring out onto the table. But that wasn’t all.” Jon arched his brow. Alysanne tore her skin with her teeth, blood pooling in the wells and crevices. “In the gape of his mouth, I saw…” She gulped, “I saw…”
“What is it?” Jon asked, his hand grasping tight to hers. He felt cold. Like the wall. “What did you see, Aly?”
She turned to face him, fear stuck in her throat. “I saw death, Jon. Bright and blue-eyed and cold. I think I saw…” A shiver erupted down her back, despite the roar of the fire in Jon’s rooms. It was still summer, but the boy ran cold, and preferred the heat to everything else. Her eyes widened, and for a moment she almost thought she sounded mad. “I think I saw the Others.”
Warmth engulfed her, tears staining Jon’s nightshirt as he pulled her close to his chest, the bed creaking as they laid back against the thin cotton dressings.
“It was just a nightmare,” He reassured, although he sounded as convincing as a black brother whose head was on the block, “That’s all it was.”
“I’m scared, Jon,” Alysanne’s voice shook.
“I know, but I’m here Aly,” Jon assured, pulling her closer, “I’ll always be here.”
“You swear?”
“By the old gods and the new.”
She shivered at his words, and for a moment it was as if winter came, but it was just the drafty walls of Winterfell, howling like the wolves of her nightmares, snuffing the fireplace out without so much as a word.
Jon’s hand found her hair and brushed it back, chin curling around her forehead as she gripped tight to his shoulder.
He smelled like pine cones and leather and snow.
Just like Robb.
Just like Father.
They laid like that for gods knows how long, just the two of them until the door creaked open.
Robb wiped the sleep from his face, torchlight turning his hair copper as he pushed his way in.
“She dreaming again?”
Jon nodded.
Robb sighed and closed the door behind him, “Come on, move over.”
Alysanne felt her weight shift as Jon scooted closer to the wall. Robb flanked her other side, wrapping his arms tightly around both of them until all she could hear was their breathing.
Mother and Father found the three of them in the early hours of the morning.
“Let them sleep,” Ned whispered fondly.
Catelyn sighed and shook her head, but closed the door quietly so as not to wake them.
Ned smiled.
Robb’s arm was wrapped around Alysanne’s waist and Jon’s fingers clutched her hands tight against his chest.
Alysanne slept safely between them, and had no more dreams.