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

The Black Dinner

Ramsay was in a good mood. Aileen knew then that something terrible had happened. Of course, she wasn't expecting it to be something terrible that concerned her.

The news of Robb's death fell from his hateful lips with relish. Aileen thought he must be playing a cruel joke, at first, but no, he wasn't that good of an actor, and he was enjoying this far too much for it to not be true. She did not have time to consider her own grief, before Lady Catelyn was screaming. It was a cry of pure grief, haunting. Her aunt started to tear at her face with her fingers, then her nails, leaving deep gouges in her skin that ran red with blood, and Aileen and Edrick were rushing to restrain the despairing woman, Edrick shouting for guards as he blinked back tears from his own eyes.

Since arriving at the Dreadfort, Catelyn had been traumatised from her humiliating and rough treatment at the hands of the Greyjoys, and seeing the heads of her two youngest sons on spikes. Though she barely ate, barely spoke, and seemed a ghost of the woman she had once been, there had been some small improvement under the care of Aileen and Carys, her maid. This, however, had truly broken her.

Catelyn slipped from the chair onto her knees, still fighting them, gut-wrenching sobs wracking her body, inconsolable. Both the twins were trying to keep her from harming herself further, the guards from outside hurrying inside to help, as Ramsay watched and laughed.

"Whose side are you on, you sick bastard?" Edrick snarled, along with a good number of worse curses. "The blasted Lannisters who killed him?"

Aileen knew there would be trouble the moment the word 'bastard' left her brother's lips. Ramsay's eyes narrowed in spite, but to her surprise, he did not immediately try to disembowl Edrick. It was too much to hope that he had grown mindful enough of the guards not to bother.

"Your whore mother is dead too!" Ramsay used the words like a weapon, fingers twitching as though visualising them around Edrick's throat. "Got what's coming to her, the stone-faced bitch,"

And Aileen knew then that the Lannisters had not murdered Robb. They had not killed her mother either.

Edrick went very quiet. The anger that seemed almost a permanent part of him these days fell back to reveal a lost boy who just wanted his mother to come home. And now she never would.

"You're lying," He said. "You're lying about all of this. Why do we even bother listening to the shit that comes out that ugly mouth of yours?"

They all knew he did not believe his own words, only confirmed by the silence of the guards.

"How?" Aileen had heard herself ask, her voice far off.

"Our father found out about her dirty little secret," Ramsay leered. "She fled in the night from the shame of it, taking her and the Kingslayer's bastard girl with her, and bandits got them. Left them for the crows at the side of the road,"

A glance at the nearest guard, who confirmed it with a grim nod.

Aileen laughed, derisive, her hands beginning to shake as she pointed at Ramsay. "It really is shit that comes from your mouth. He killed her. Father killed her," She looked wildly around the room. "He was always going to betray the Starks - you all stopped me telling anyone he ordered Ramsay to burn Winterfell,"

"What?" Edrick looked up sharply at that, his anger returning in the blink of an eye.

"Some things are better left unsaid, milady," The guard said, a note of apology in his voice.

"No, it all makes sense," Aileen continued, not caring that she sounded hysterical, nor that tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "Bran and Rickon are dead. Robb is dead. Sansa will be Lady of Winterfell, and I bet they'll marry her to Edrick! Mother must have found out about what he'd done, that's why she's dead too!"