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Eddard Stark was no man’s poet, yet even he knew that Winterfell was at times especially full of magic.
The glass gardens bloomed beyond glass when they wished to, blue roses radiant as stars lodging in coiled ropes of emeralds. Shadows swam across grey stone, as if all of House Stark’s banners and guests and grooms and sentries were reveling underwater. When all congregated together in Winterfell castle, the beauty of the North shone like a frozen lake beneath a full moon.
Such nights were hot and smoky on the inside, crisply clear out. Magic was not always a warm wool, though. Winterfell knew darker spells as well. Ones which, when cast down his spine, made Ned stand straighter than a spear at his back would.
So one spiteful feast night came to be, wrapping itself tight around Eddard and trembling with violent promise.
Ned’s Father entered the Great Hall first, though all Ned saw of Lord Rickard was his height. He is thinner that I last saw, he thought in dismay, as he waited his turn. The man’s sparsity was further pronounced by the equally thin companion by his side: a young and plain maiden by the name of Donella Manderly. Might be she is here for my benefit, Ned thought. Might be she was for widower Lord Rickard.
Ned would’ve mulled on it further, but he was beside Brandon for the entrance into the feast, Brandon who cut a fine yet distracting presence. And both brothers were behind their sister Lyanna, who was paired with Lord Robert Baratheon. All the attention of the hall was on that couple. They were meant to be handsome together, this young stormlord and his betrothed.
Only Ned, it seemed, was not charmed.
Robert just towered so impossibly over Lyanna. He made her look like a child, really. He was bent down too, trying his mightiest to make her laugh. He only succeeds in making himself look the jester, Ned judged summarily.
Lyanna did not escape notice either. Even from behind Ned could see how her shoulders narrowed as if she were shackled to Robert rather than being escorted by him. She looked aloof at best, weak and silly at worst. Like some frightened child who needed saving.
Oh, Ned surely knew his thoughts were uncharitable. By the time the entire hall was sat and drinking merrily, eating heartily, Ned had been berating himself for nearly half an hour. What was wrong with him? Robert Baratheon was close to Ned as the breath in his lungs. Lyanna, Ned loved with a force that walked on four legs and had fangs.
So why could he not stop stealing looks at them? Looking, and hating what he saw?
As soon as politeness allowed, he excused himself from the high table to approach where Father and Brandon were having a lively discussion with the stretch of the Manderly’s present. Lady Donella disappeared in the crowd of her kinsmen, each jollier and taller and fatter than the last. Lord Rickard introduced Ned to the faces he was unfamiliar with— Brandon merely carried on telling his tale to some impressionable young knight deep in his cups.
“Our Eddard did play his role in making this match for our daughter,” Lord Rickard extolled to his audience. It had the shape of an offhand remark, though Ned suspected otherwise. The man was hardly one for effusive praise. Surely that meant there were prospects meant for Ned in the hall. The knowledge did nothing to endear him to the discussion.
“Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!” Ser Wyman laughed largely. Not unkindly. Ned smiled awkwardly. His lord father put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“A wise lad, my secondborn is. He saw the advantages and blessings which such an alliance would bring Winterfell before even I did. Might be I have grown old. The Gods are kind, though. I rest easy knowing that my son Brandon is capable of taking on what duties as I no longer have the strength for, and that his brother shall give him good counsel as well.”
Brandon laughed— it rang with camaraderie to most, but Ned could hear the hunter’s hidden rasp in it. “Indeed, Father. I trust Ned shall always be at the ready to remind me which beet farmer needs be congratulated on his nuptials. Or mayhaps to tell me how many wolf heads need be culled from the wolfswood in a season, so the pheasants can repopulate.”
“I shall,” Ned obliged. He looked Brandon in the eyes as he did.
With the barest by your leave offered to Father and their guests, Brandon clasped the back of Ned’s neck, leading him away from the table and towards the wine. Ned went along with it easily enough, though it would have changed little if he hadn’t. He could see that there was no respite for him in the company of his eldest brother, yet he’d missed Brandon all the same, and was in no eager rush to escape even Brandon’s petty cruelties.
After pouring for them both, Ned watched Brandon as he gave Robert and Lyanna on the dais a hard look. It was a thing better suited for the training yard than a future brother.
“Your man is wondrously talkative, is he not?”
Ned blinked. He shook off a flush. “Robert wishes to leave a good and ample impression, I would think.” And he is nervous, Ned realized, noticing Robert’s hand make frenzied shapes in the air. A nigh-on unbelievable thought.
“Ample! That is a word for your stormling, yes. He is big and wide and gluttonous. No doubt in ten years he’ll be fat. Though perhaps my eyes deceive me, and it is only our slip of a sister who makes him seem so large.”
Ned was in no state to argue with Brandon, not even about if the sky was blue or black. That required a certain fortitude. Instead, he assured Brandon: “We are hosting a feast, not a wedding feast. Lyanna is no younger than you were when your own betrothal took place.”
“I have hardly forgotten, brother,” Brandon said darkly. “Wedding is my duty, as the elder son of Stark. I have always known. Yet it did take the taste out of play, at that age.”
“Lyanna does not have quite the same tastes in leisure as you, brother,” Ned replied— more coolly than intended. “Besides, you may play with her for some years yet.”
“Might I?” Brandon asked. Ned caught that he was being mocked, though he could not think of why. Perhaps Brandon had wished for one of his companions to wed Lyanna and be made a brother through marriage. Ethan, like as not. Brandon’s squire. Or Ser Elbert, heir to the Eyrie. For a moment Ned imagined it, and the portrait painted had its sweetness. Its bitterness, too.
Brandon was not done, however.
“You know, Eddard, I always thought you were horribly boring. Now I see you have the makings of a septon as well. A shame. We send you South to see the world and you wash up holy and sober.”
Robert says the same, though from him the words are fond. “I am as Northman as you, Brandon.”
“On the contrary. Do you know why?” Brandon waggled his eyebrows while leaning in close. “Because the Old Gods are a drunk man’s gods, stalwart Ned. Red-eyed, with a mouth that does not limit itself to making sense.” Brandon polished off his wine with an animal grace, blinking his glassy eyes and grinning sharply. “Let your eyes be red-rimmed when you find me next, my godless brother, or do not find me at all.”
Then Brandon was gone. Eddard was alone once more; with no distraction at hand, he could not resist the pull. The sight of Robert and Lyanna beside one another filled the whole horizon, Ned felt. It was so... odd. Usually when he was in a room with Robert, he found himself missing Lyanna. In a room with Lyanna, Ned wondered of Robert. By some luck he was sharing a feast table with them both for the first time, yet he felt hollow as he’d never been before.
As if the weights of missing them had not disappeared, but rather married one another.
On the dais, Robert told three tales about the Eyrie in a row— it seemed to give him confidence, spilling out these stories, mayhaps they grounded him in a familiar place, one where he stood at the pinnacle of squires and wards and young men. Lyanna listened politely. Ned watched her closely, searching for some signs. Lyanna was not much older than she’d been whence he saw her last, she was only a bit taller. Her eyes were as big in the set of her face as they’d seemed when she was a precocious babe. Not for the first time, Ned found himself wanting to kiss her on the forehead for being so sweet and good.
When Lya sought him, however, having no doubt felt the heat of his stare— this at the very moment that Robert’s gregarious laughter ballooned through the hall— shamefully, Ned found himself turning away.
He could hardly excuse himself again. Thankfully another solution presented itself; it was a feast, after all.
Food came to Ned and he partook richly, beyond his usual appetites. He tore into mutton chops glazed in honey and pepper, sucking the sauce off his fingers after each bite. There followed squash and onion pies with the flakiest of golden crusts, a gravy to go with that was buttery, delicious, he needed both ale and wine to wash it down before he could reach for the fatty duck stew spiced with ginger and clove. Leeks swam like rotted corpses in the thick brown.
Their guests had made tasty gifts as well. Casks of wine from the Eyrie, to toast with, along with cuisine that Winterfell itself could not net: whitefish and clams, lobsters and crabs (slathered in garlic, butter, lavender). There were oatcakes alongside all of that, heaped with spiced honey over blue-veined cheese.
It was a spread as tantalizing as a spread could be. Eddard ate and ate, tasting for mere moments before he swallowed and it was all gone again. He kept at it, though. Determined to fill himself so he did not suck the entire room into his dark and biting mood.
Ned looked to his youngest brother Ben (who was mounting a valiant effort not to fall asleep at the table) as Robert told the story of when so many hooting boys had made a pulpy mess in Lord Arryn’s Morning Hall. Ned remembered that day well: when the fun was done, they’d been made to clean all the sticky orange viscera up on their hands and knees. Even him, who hadn’t touched so much as a strip of bacon yet. Somehow, Robert managed to make that a game too.
It was an amusing story, though for some reason Ned felt embarrassed to hear it in company. He wished Robert hadn’t told it. Lyanna was smiling, Ned saw from the corner of his eye.
“You would never be so ungracious, my lady.”
Her smile faded. “By that, I believe you mean my brother Eddard would never do so. Not myself, my lord.”
“Him either!” Robert agreed; Ned did not argue, too chagrined to offer any witty conversation. “That does remind me, sweet lady…”
Robert rummaged around behind him before procuring yet another gift for Lyanna: a single orange. Brought from the Vale as a courting gesture no doubt. Idly, Ned thought that it was as perfect as an orange could be. He wondered as well if he hadn’t seen Robert’s hand tremble the slightest bit, when placing it before Lyanna.
“Have you had one before, Lady Lyanna? Winterfell is close to neither grove nor sea. I thought, nay, wished to share this sweetness with you.”
Ned could hear Jon’s coaching in Robert’s words— as well as he could hear his lord father’s in Lyanna’s reply.
“I thank you greatly, my lord. The oranges I have known have been shriveled and hard. Not like what Lord Eddard described in his letters to me, from the Eyrie.” Ned blanched, realizing. Damn it all! he cursed silently. He’d promised Lyanna he’d bring her one, hadn’t he?
I did not do this, he wanted to tell her with his eyes... whether from guilt, or encouragement. This is a gift from Robert alone, him who thinks of you while your useless brother wallows, and forgets, and gripes.
“Will you open it for me, please?” she asked politely. “I will watch and learn.”
Robert gallantly obliged, slicing off the tops with his knife before peeling away the outer scarlet to reveal a heady fragrance. The pith he took off too, still holding his knife in his paw as he did, and Ned watched as he pricked himself thoughtlessly. Robert was careful not to stain the fruit’s flesh with his blood, no, that he sucked into his mouth without much care, Ned’s tongue suddenly the slightest bit dry.
Only when Lyanna placed a wet slice of orange upon Ned’s plate did he blink out of his stupor. She was smiling at him when he turned sharply towards her— but it was a small smile, and sad.
“You will enjoy it with me, I hope,” she said quietly. She distributed it among the others as well: Ben and Father, who had come to roost by then. She even called a certain boy up, giving him to take back to Old Nan. He cradled the two bits as if they were fragile gold, until Lord Rickard said go on, Hodor and the gangly youth scampered away.
“Is his name not Walder?” Ned asked, frowning. The sweetness had given way to tartness.
“It is. But he always says Hodor, so we all call him Hodor,” Ben said. Lyanna was busy sucking down what slices of orange were left to her. Robert was winking at Ned by then; he thought it was all going swimmingly. Ned forced a weak smile for his friend.
For Lyanna, he struggled to summon even that. Perhaps Brandon was right, Ned mused, mired in guilt and misery. He drank the rest of his wine and studiously looked ahead.
Eddard Stark found his sister in the glass gardens, a single candle lit beside her. That was enough, what with all the glass cracking the light into so many crystals. All winking like a hundred eyes.
The silks of Lyanna’s blue skirts and sleeves pooled around her. Her hair was loose from its braid.
He’d had time to recoup. They’d both been something of the fish out of water at the feast. Really, how was Lyanna meant to display any joy or satisfaction with her match, when she was accustomed to her elder brothers poking fun at every single boy she spoke to? Aye, that was the underlying issue, not Ned’s… strange feelings, which he himself could not understand.
Ultimately, it would do no good for Ned’s cherished sister to go to bed believing he was upset with her.
She was not interested in the reconciliation he had planned, however.
“For the life of me I cannot understand how you are such fast friends with him.”
Ned’s confidence faltered. “Lyanna…”
“Only my impression, brother,” she said quickly, turning back to her painted cards or whatever was laid out before her. Ned knew Lyanna came here because she liked being surrounded by the smell of her beloved winter roses while she went at her play. It was odd, having seen her dwarfed by the man who would be her husband, to think of Lyanna playing as children did.
It was more odd to think of her not at play.
“You have a right to that,” Ned said softly. “Robert and I are no more different than any other two brothers, bound by affection if not blood.”
Lyanna made a noise which could’ve been a laugh. “Brothers. Lord Eddard Baratheon.”
“Don’t act the child,” Ned snapped before he could think better of it.
“Apologies. Lyanna Baratheon.”
“Lady Lyanna Baratheon,” Ned corrected, still warm beneath the collar. “A fine name. You will be the mistress of Storm’s End, where your word will reign with all the strength of a thunderclap.”
“Not my word. My lordly lord husband’s.”
What was Ned meant to say to that? Did she not see that things were the way they were, that one must make the best of them? Eddard had been sent from Winterfell at the tender age of eight, he’d hardly been asked. Had he ever complained of his duty? No. He’d suffered in a silence that was only filled when Robert Baratheon came roaring into his life like the West Wind.
“You cannot be the little lady of Winterfell forever, Lya,” Ned said tiredly. His knees creaked when he bent— a fitting ache, considering the past hours.
“No? Why not?”
“You shall marry one day, sister, as is your duty and rite. There is sadness in the leaving behind, as there is in all changes between the seasons of life, yet it must be met bravely. You must not…” breaking off, Ned breathed out in exasperation. “I wonder. Whether it is the southron marriage that so dismays you, or the groom.”
“Is there a difference?”
“There is all the difference. You do not go forth to meet a monster, Lya. There are worse men by far. Men who would not care for you as Robert already does—”
“He cares for you.”
“Not in the way I speak of, Lyanna!” Ned said; harsher, perhaps, than he had ever spoken to her before. “There are lords and husbands who are indifferent, cruel or repulsive, and some are all three. Robert is none. He courts you as best as he knows how to, and for this he receives your ire?”
“I have given him no ire,” Lyanna said with some offense.
“You act as if you wish to,” Ned pressed. “The way you stand and speak, like you are determined to find him odious.”
She gathered her painted cards into a stack then, setting them aside. Her eyes were burning against the dark, her lips pressed tight. Ned knew he was upsetting her, he hated that he was lecturing her, but surely she knew that it came from a place of love and wanting the best for her—
“Has it struck you, Ned, that the odor is not one man’s alone?”
For a moment Ned was speechless.
“Whom do you mean? Brandon? Or… me?”
Lyanna did not respond. There was only the tiny suck of her breath, as if she was holding back a sob. A wind left him. It would have hurt less if she’d stabbed him, truly.
Ned’s voice broke when he said, “all I’ve done has been for you, Lyanna. I know I am far, yet I— I think of you. Often. Of your curiosity and charm. How every horse you cross paths with falls at your feet.” Oh, he got half of a smile for that. It filled him with a rare earnestness, his words soft and shining. “You have it in you to be a great success, sweet sister. Beyond even Brandon. I know it. Think what you wish of me, Lya, but do not doubt my love for you. Never doubt that.”
“I do not doubt it,” she said, in the smallest voice.
“Then you must see I brought Lord Robert’s suit to Father with every thought to your happiness,” Ned insisted. “He enjoys much of which you do. He is generous and loving of life, he, he—”
“He will never keep to one bed.”
Words died in his mouth. Bed? What did Lyanna know of bed? Ned stared at her, feeling clumsy, until she sighed and spoke again. “I hear he has already gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.”
“Who told you that?”
“Not you, brother. You did not tell me.” Beneath her glare, he shrunk in shame. “I do not know which is worse. That mine own Ned sought to hide this from me because he thought it did not matter… or that he hid it because he knows it does.”
“I hide nothing,” Ned protested. “The child is a girl. She has berries for cheeks and her eyes are blue as sapphire. That’s all true, but it’s been done. Whatever foolish mistakes he has made, when you are wed he… he will love you. You, Lyanna. Mayhaps you cannot appreciate such a sentiment yet, you’d be blameless enough in that, but it is more than most people have.”
He should have stopped there honestly; having started, however, Ned found he could not. With every word his voice grew from a small whisper, blooming into it’s truth.
“Robert is strong and forgiving. Uplifting really, he knows how to make you laugh so much you forget all your nerves until you are doing everything you swore you never could. Robert holds grudges no more than he gives quarter in a duel. He loves harder than a dog…” the garlic bitterness from earlier came on viciously, making him sweat; he had no one to thank but himself for swinging the damn door open. “Whatever you may think of him, sister, he did not look away from you the entire night. If you had only looked back, truly looked, you might now know how it feels when his attention is on you in full. For him to look you in the eyes like somehow, in the whole wide world, he cares for naught but you!”
By then, Ned needed to wipe the slick wet half-dripping from his mouth. It was everywhere. He was wet all over.
Lyanna only stared. Her eyes were wide as two moons.
“Nothing means more to me than for you to be loved, Lyanna,” he said sincerely; trying, perhaps, to fill the awful silence.
She stepped closer haltingly, her hands low and wringing. Nervous? Truly, that was not like her…
“Love is sweet, my dearest Ned,” Lyanna said, smiling sadly... pitifully. His ten-and-three year old sister. She’d always been wiser than her age, he could see that even now, in her grave eyes. “But it cannot change a man’s nature.”
Gods be damned. Gods be fiddled, buggered, roasted, burnt. Is there anything she does not see? He turned away, feeling ludicrously as if he would weep should he let her look at him any longer. When she silently gathered her things to go… a sick relief washed over him. Ned knew he hadn't accomplished anything he’d come to, but he could not think of a single thing to say which might stall, or fix it— nor did he have the faith in himself to try.
As she was leaving, she turned back once.
“It might have been me he looked upon this night, brother. But it was not me he was thinking of when he plucked the most perfect orange he could find, and thought I would surely love it.”
Eddard Stark sat in the cradle roots of the Heart Tree, the godswood which had soothed Starks for centuries… and for the first time in his life, could find no prayer in him.
The crucible which had crushed him all evening was boiling, boiling with something which was not quite loneliness so much as it was a black iron sea inside him. What was wrong with him? What disease was this which festered thicker than velvet in him— and why had it chosen to rear its ugly face on this night?
Cradled by the root-limbs of his red-eyed Gods, Ned lamented how utterly exposed his conversation with Lyanna had left him. His two worlds colliding had not given him the satisfaction he’d hoped for. It had flayed him alive instead, exposing rotten bits he hadn’t known lived in him. Ned had never thought of himself as a jealous devil of a man, but it could not be denied any longer.
Perhaps I am not a man who is meant to be happy. Caught in the singular moment in which he lived, Ned found a measure of comfort in that reckoning.
“Lyanna and Robert’s happiness is worth its weight in gold to me,” he tried to tell the Heart Tree. Red leaves rustled: neither a condemnation nor a caress. It was a half-truth and even the bleeding tree knew it. “When I brought his suit, I thought it would please Lyanna. He is a better man than she realizes. A man, yes, nonetheless. She will understand that one day. They will embrace and smile at one another, accepting everything, and hold between them a black-haired babe of Lyanna’s body. Mayhaps I shall ward it for a time. I should like that.”
Again, the leaves whistled once before stilling.
Ned hung his head in his hands, having only succeeded in hurting himself.
His voice broke as he begged, “do not abandon me, you Old Gods. You have made of me this… this secondmost thing. Find some use for me, then. Please. Allow me to serve my family with love in my heart, and… and let Robert and I remain close as brothers, whatever comes—”
“I heard my name!” a familiar foghorn boomed. It filled the godswood for the barest moment with light.
It brought with it Robert Baratheon: rakishly dishevelled, but all the bits present nonetheless. Ned stared as his bosom friend casts his eyes around the godswood, coming back grinning. “A hair above Jon’s gravel pit, I say. Wouldn’t you know, I thought I’d find you here.”
“You looked for me?” Ned managed.
“Ah, you only go on and on about this garden. You were not abed, that much I was certain of.” The weight of Ned’s quiet wonder didn’t daunt Robert, of course. He only frowned playfully, “well, do not give me that look. I do keep an eye on your Stark, lest you melt away from me. So. Winterfell! Your home, beneath my feet at last. And if here we do not have the prodigal hot spring!”
Ned tore his treacherous eyes away. “No. That’s just the black pool. It’s cold. Warm at best.”
Like someone else I can think of, Robert japed, only him laughing. “Well, we are brave men. Shall we dip ourselves in to mark our splendid occasion? I am just drunk enough to freeze my balls off.”
Ned’s laugh rang duller than old iron. “No, Robert. Not tonight.”
“One of these days you shall live a little. Until then I shrug my shoulders at you, Eddard. Shrug them, I say!” He was leaning against the oak nearest to Ned— perhaps needing the balance. Heat wafted off his body. “Tonight was a great success I believe. So why do you look so bloody dour, man?”
Ned warred with himself. He did not dare to be forthright. He’d swallow knives before he endangered the betrothal with a slip of his rotten tongue. Guilty he might be of envy, guilty and wretched, he could hardly swallow without meeting a mouthful of vinegar… yet there was somewhere inside him what his lord father had named wisdom. Ned groped for it, grinding himself on its stone strength nearly to breaking.
Robert noticed little and less. He was too damned pleased to wait for something as useless as an answer.
“What a wonder your Lyanna is, Eddard,” he gushed— beneath the thick black beard of a man was the mouth of a boy in love. “She will only grow more beautiful, won’t she? And did you see her face when she ate my orange? Gods be damned, Ned, her eyes went so bright! Like it was a thing she’d never even imagined before. I swear to you, Ned, I do, I will never grow tired of watching her make such a face. I shall fill Storm’s End with so many novelties we damn well won’t be able to find one another for all the nonsenses in our path. Ah, she’ll be a fine Lady Baratheon… though her heart will always be Stark, I wager.”
“Lyanna is accustomed to being the mistress of her castle,” Ned mumbled, desultory even to his own ears.
“As luck has it, I have one of those,” Robert japed. He thunked down onto his arse. “I have found her then. The woman of my life. Is that not the maddest thing?”
Mad, Ned repeated. Robert remained in a trance. “She is small and quick. Like a squirrel. But she is shy and innocent, as well. I can see that. Her eyes have these little stars in them, they’re how you see her true feelings I am sure. You just look into her eyes. And her smile. It’s rare, isn’t it? I know it. I will change all that. She will grow laugh lines because of me. Far and wide they will wonder how marriage made such a quiet little thing so wild.”
“Enough, Robert,” Ned said weakly.
“Oh don’t be such a bore, Eddard. Even you must see that your sister is unfairly charming.”
He did. “I always have.”
“Good. Good,” Robert said, nodding. He was looking to Ned now— miserable, plodding Ned whose strength was a puddle around him. “She will fill our home with adorable terrors, and they will bring life back into Storm’s End. Laughter! All of them will have good Northern names too, won’t they?” Robert nudged Ned them, as if sharing a secret. “Mayhaps one of them will even be called Eddard. She seems to love you well.”
She might do it, too. Lyanna was sweet enough for that. And she’d tell this Eddard Baratheon about how she once climbed into the bed of the brother he was named for. After some awful dream, Mother had died and Lyanna was forever escaping Nan; she, curled beside her brother who stayed up all night watching her, making sure she didn’t so much as frown. Her brother who trotted her pony about the bailey on her nameday, all three of them wearing flowers in their manes, brother and little sister and horse alike. She might.
Even after his miserable showing tonight.
“Would you like that?” Ned asked.
Robert waited not a moment before responding; his eyes had hooked onto Ned’s, so neither of them could look away. “Aye,” he said sincerely. “I would like it.”
“Then I would be honored.”
For some reason, however, that response did not seem to please Robert. His lips pursed into a line. “Good. Good. This is what I have ever wanted, Ned. You know it, do you not? That I want to… be a good man. A husband, a lord. Lyanna will have the very best of me.”
“You have always been generous.”
“Well, what’s the use of having if you cannot share it with your love?” Robert asked. Quite gracelessly he went onto his feet and Ned followed mindlessly, for that was how it was between them. He’d follow Robert most anywhere. He had. And now Robert had followed Eddard all the way to Winterfell.
Robert’s restiveness was palpable by then, confusing Ned out of his wallowing. The leaves were dancing above them, flapping like tongues from dry open mouths— yet the only notice Ned took of the breeze was in how it ruffled through Robert’s dark hair, annoying him enough that he ran a frustrated hand through it.
“What is the use of loving, Ned, if you cannot love someone?” he asked suddenly, some feeling come on him as quick as the storms his castle was famous for did. No response came; looking quite lost, Robert spread his arms wide, opening the question to the Gods themselves. “If you cannot hold them? If you cannot kiss their brow and, and cup their cheek in your hand before that? If you cannot adore them with your whole self, then… why?”
What was love, without her acts? Ned knew that he did not know the answer. I don’t know, he could have said— he and Robert had sworn they could speak to each other about anything. That they could say anything, even what they could tell no other. Especially what they could tell no other. They’d sworn so in Jon’s godswood...
Yet even while they were saying it, Ned was thinking about how the Eyrie lacked a Heart Tree, the red eyes which sealed all pacts in blood. Did their vow mean nothing, then? If it was so, then Ned was dumb as a donkey carrying a useless burden. For it had meant a great deal to him.
Indeed, the memory converged so perfectly with the present moment that Ned was hard pressed to separate one from another… they’d been face to face then too. Hands clasped, breathing together. Robert’s eyes blue as the sea, boring down, making Ned feel as though he were drowning.
It had been the most erotic experience of Ned’s maiden life. It still was.
When Robert’s large hand cupped Ned by the neck to tilt his face up, the surprise and the warmth stirred in him a reaction that, good as it always felt, was awful to have. It sank down from his chest. Perked up from his body.
“Careful,” Ned warned, warbling now, unsure who he was speaking to.
Robert moved not an inch, though his expression was unsteady. “The second chastisement you have given me. I have not forgotten. And do not think you will be forgotten either. My lady Lyanna and I shall only have a family if you are in it, Eddard. We will be as close as any two men can be, when what is meant to be comes to pass.”
How much can one man take? Ned despaired. His whole body ached to hear all this from Robert’s plush mouth… he ached in a way that was shameful, alarming, if he was not careful Robert would take one step closer and feel Ned’s ache for himself. Feel how it tented beneath his tunic. How his cock hung like a man from a noose.
Which was why Ned jolted at the moment that Robert did step forth— he seized, cold sweat pouring from him, terrified of seeing realization dawn on his closest, dearest friend’s face.
And then he stilled. Was was that? he wondered wildly. Had he felt…?
Has it struck you, Ned, that the odor is not one man’s alone?
Robert was yet cradling Eddard’s skull. There was a storm in Ned’s mind, barreling through an otherwise quiet godswood. It was no use closing his eyes; hope had gotten hold of him. Ned wanted to cup his erection and hide it behind his hands, apologize profusely. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for his perversity, hide his face in Robert’s strong thigh as he prostrated before the Gods and this man they’d fashioned, setting him before Ned as if daring him to deny him, defy them.
But is it my nature alone? If what Ned had felt brush against him was true… if that stuttered whine had been shared indeed... Oh, Gods, Ned groaned, succumbing to madness. He would beg Robert’s mercy with his words. With the whole of his mouth. He would let slack his jaw and, and if Robert only unlaced his breeches then Ned would certainly find the prayer which had eluded him this night. It would fill his jaw and throat, smelling of musk and seed—
The mere thought felt better than any of those scant times when Ned, as a boy, had squirreled himself away in the deep godswood dark to touch himself.
Let us go in the pool, Ned nearly said, from his mouth so wet with want. He wanted with the sort of animal hunger that drove the wolf out from the wood. Let us take off all our clothes and love each other, better than brothers, better than words.
He did not, though. He could never.
“Robert,” he whimpered instead. His eyes must have said the rest. Robert caressed his face once— then, he patted him awkwardly and withdrew. Space opened between them; it may as well have been the earth splitting open.
“Ned...” he said; there was a weight in the word that Ned did not understand. All around him his heart lay smashed to pieces, like a hammer had been at it.
Surely Ned would know death when it came. It could only feel like this. It could only be a black pool with no bottom. Death would come for him with red eyes, Ned understood in that endless and absolute moment.
Eddard Stark would die for Robert Baratheon perhaps, but it would be a Northman’s death all the same. A lonely one fit for a beast. The cold breath of the Gods seizing him by the spine; one last howl erupting from him before silence became his bones, his heart turned to heavy stone.