Chapter Text
Joanna never thought the northern air would agree with her, yet she found breeze wafting through the carriage to be the most refreshing air she had ever breathed.
The movement of the carriage rattling her head was the only thing keeping her awake. Her eyes danced across the frosted ground, it was a pretty sight. The rolling hills had a glistening hue she had never seen before. The sparkling waters of land ebbed and waved until stone walls crested the horizon.
“It is good you are so taken with The North, sister. It will be your home soon enough” Joffery’s voice was like stepping on glass - painful and annoying.
Joanna lazily rolled her eyes to glare at her brother. Joffery’s knees were invading her leg room and she could feel where his boot pulled on her skirts. Words played on Joanna’s mind, but her eyes found her mother before the words could fine her tongue. Cersei was watching from the corner of her eye. Joanna swallowed the lump in her throat and turned back to the window.
Joffery scoffed at this, of course.
“Perhaps the cold will ease that temper of yours” Joffery snided in victory, slouching lower.
His foot found hers, applying just enough pressure to start to hurt.
Joanna did not swallow the lump of words caught in her throat. She did not look to her mother, yet the thought of her mother’s wrath was the forefront of her mind.
“Perhaps you should take the winter air, brother” Joanna pulled her foot and skirts free of Joffery’s boot with a thud.
Joffery’s face reddened, she could see him begin to shake as he rears his mouth to speak.
“That is enough, this carriage is too small for you to start fights, Joanna” Cersei interrupts.
Joanna’s eyes flicker between her mother and brother. They held mirrored scowls etched onto similarly chiseled faces. They eyed her in different ways though.
Joffery was angry, he was always an angry little boy. An angry boy who loved to quarrel with his elder sister, you could see the pleasure he took from it in his eyes.
Cersei’s eyes held no fondness. Joanna hated spending too much time alone with her mother because Cersei’s eyes eventually set on her. Those, hot, green eyes would burn over Joanna. She could feel herself being picked apart.
Joanna could imagine her mother bitterly ripping each strand of golden hair out of her head - it was the only feature they shared.
“I’m sorry, mother” Joanna’s heart feels like an anvil, “I have grown restless on our journey and I let my temper take over me, it was my fault”.
Cersei’s eyes brighten, they always did.
“Your sister is right, we must be near the end of this godforsaken journey” Cersei turns to Joffery, “you should take the air and ride alongside your father”.
Joffery’s face switches quickly, eyes piercing, jaw taught. He does not fight, he cannot. Cersei has the procession halted before he can.
Joanna’s mind wanders as the procession comes to a slow halt, that she should feel some vindication in her mother’s dismissal of Joffery. She cannot find it in herself to feel such things.
Once Joffery, begrudgingly, left the carriage there is a palpable weight gone. Joanna has room to stretch her stiff legs. Tommen begins to blabber with Myrcella. Cersei goes back to glowering at the air rather than Joanna.
The jolt of the procession starting was jarring. Tommen was caught off guard, half way to standing up, it sends him stumbling.
“Sit Tommen, I will have no more fooling about” Cersei scolds.
“I only wish to sit with Joanna, mother” Tommen pouts, “Joffery took my spot, I can see Winterfell on that side of the carriage”.
Cersei huffs, but Myrcella joining in sends her eye twitching.
“I want to see!” Myrcella and Tommen begin to fight each other to make it to the seat across from Joanna.
Joanna watches her mother rub her brow.
“Here” Joanna slides over, making room for Myrcella to sit by the window.
Myrcella happily rushes over, Tommen following after her. They each had a window with a view of Winterfell.
They are happy and fall back into a low chittering, peace settled within the carriage once more.
Cersei’s eyes did not reflect such peace. Her eyes were hot again, hot and locked onto Joanna.
Joanna cannot meet them, it is a fire she could not bare.
“When you do wed Robb Stark, I am sure you will be prepared to tend to his free spirited children” Cersei says with a pointed smile.
Joanna’s chest tightens, knowing it was the will of the Gods she was not being left behind in Winterfell.
A bride is only worth the children they can produce and she had spilled no blood to prove her ability to do so.
The Maesters had done every test they could to understand why. The tests never uncovered anything new, it was always the same diagnosis. That Joanna was a healthy girl, that her blood would come and it was merely a delay caused by her sickly youth.
She was a princess it was her duty to be married off. She never thought it would feel so conflicting. She was glad to be going home after their time in Winterfell.
Yet, something pulled at her, a curiosity or a fear, she could not tell.
What of she liked Winterfell?
What if she wanted to stay?
What if she didn’t want to go back home?
She couldn’t imagine being away from her family, but dreamed of Robb Stark incessantly since hearing of their betrothal.
Now that Winterfell was a tangible castle for her eyes to behold, she wished she had never left home.