The Long Winter | Jaime Lannister X Stark OC | GOT/ASOIAF

Skagos

"Stop fighting, you great ugly aurochs of a woman!" Ross looked up sharply from tacking her horse as she heard the sounds of a commotion approaching their camp, the dulcet tones of Lem Lemoncloak snarling in frustration. "Here's your blasted Morganna, though she's no lady, just another bastard like the Bull here," 

"Fuck off, Lem," Gendry - who Ross was certain was another bastard son of Robert Baratheon - grumbled. 

Morganna had been sat round the remnants of last night's fire repairing a tear in her cloak, and looked up at the sound of her name. Ross stood some distance away, preparing her horse for the day's journey, and couldn't help but smile as she saw Brienne of Tarth being wrestled into the clearing by several members of the Brotherhood. 

Brienne only had eyes for Morganna and didn't notice her, sagging in relief to see the girl alive and apparently well.

"Lady Morganna," She stopped fighting, much to the relief of the bruised and sweating men escorting her; Notch was nursing a bloody nose, Harwin a black eye. "I was going round the village asking if anyone had seen you, and these men told me they had you here - I though you were being held hostage," She flushed slightly, seeing the damage she had caused to the men. "Sorry, sers,"

"None of us lot are sers," Harwin snorted. "We have a lord, though, and a lady,"

He gestured at Ross, and it was only then that Brienne noticed her. Big blue eyes grew impossibly wide and her mouth hung open slightly in shock. Many of the Brotherhood began to laugh. 

"Hello Brienne," Ross said, rather amused.

"My lady!" She exclaimed, seeming oblivious to the laughter around her. "But you're - "

"Dead?" She was already rather weary of people she knew looking at her like they'd seen a ghost. "Apparently not. Bolton's men couldn't detect a pulse if it was spraying them in the face from a severed artery,"

Once Brienne had gotten over her astonishment, and giddy relief, she swore up and down to stick with them whatever they chose to do next. 

Ross found herself unexpectedly glad of Brienne's company now she was here, particularly when she spoke of how she had faced a dozen men alone trying to protect Morganna. That is until they were around the fire that night and the young woman inquired after Ross' unborn child. The question brought up a whole lot of unpleasant memories that Ross had tried very hard not to think about. 

She had passed the baby about a week after Thoros and Beric found her in the woods, labour pains coming over her when they were within an hour's ride of an inn. She knew then that the child was dead, if the blood between her legs when she awoke from death hadn't been indicator enough.

The innkeep's wife had assisted her in private, and none of the Brotherhood had said a word on the matter after she emerged downstairs again hours later with a face of stone and a small bloody bundle to bury. The men seemed to have come to the unspoken conclusion that this was women's business, not their place to speak of, which she was grateful for.

Ross always knew it had been extremely unlikely that her unborn child had survived - considering that she had died, no matter for how brief a time - but she had mourned the loss regardless. This labour was still a painful and bloody affair; not so much as birthing a full-grown baby but a pregnancy of four or five months was sizeable enough. And the fact that she knew the child would not be alive at the end made it so much worse than her three previous births.

Thoros had speculated later that her pregnancy might have been the reason for her returning from the dead so remarkably unchanged. He said that perhaps the child was not yet dead when they had performed the ritual, and the life from it had gone into her; though that didn't explain the odd resistance then surge of magic he had felt whilst trying to resurrect her. Ross had had very little to say to that, hardly pleased with the knowledge that she may have leeched the life from her unborn baby.