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Chapter four 𓃦 For better or for worse.
Maester Kennet instructed the Lord Stark too try to reason with his wife to remain in bed rather than travel to King's Landing to see her father through his sickness. If she wasn't feeling so feverish, Daenys would've argued back. If she could, she'd take Meraxes and fly back to what she once called home. But the young princess – barely one and eight – contracted sickness once again. She was bed ridden for the next couple of days.
She named her children Daella and Jon. Twins born at the Hour of the Wolf; Jon was the elder of the two for a minute. Cregan was the first one to hold the babes before they were pressed against Daenys' chest. And though she hoped to feel peace and happiness when she finally heard her babe's cries, she couldn't feel anything else but hopelessness, anxiety and terror. She cried for hours. First, Cregan – as the rest – believed it was of joy, that she finally had the babies she so wished for. Until, the hours of the night turned in the early morning and she still felt the same emotions as before.
The crib was placed near the bed. Daenys laid on her side, her fingers gently tracing the chubby cheeks of Daella who laid closer to her mother's bed than Jon. Even when she thought of naming her Rhaenys, one look at the babe and she knew she was nothing but Daella. Sweet, innocent Daella.
There were tears that dried on her red cheeks, eyes swollen from crying. The doors opened quietly, only announced by the creak. She didn't look up to know it was Robb slowly moving towards the crib. His knees almost hit the wooden edge of it as he whispered, "how are you?"
She smiled tiredly not looking from where her fingers traced Daella's cheeks, "not sure."
Robb nodded, not saying anything. He quietly moved pass the crib to sit on the edge of the bed. Like an instinct, Daenys opened her arm and he slid closer to her. She wrapped the arm over the boy, his eyes watching the twins sleeping peacefully, unaware of the troubles their mother is experiencing, "are you scared?"
She nodded in the back of his head, "always."
"I'm sorry," he mumbled back.
"Do not be," she pressed a kiss on the back of his head, "it is not your fault."
"Neither is yours," Robb replied without missing a beat, "it is – it is in your brain. I read about it in some books. Maesters wrote it in Citadel. That sometimes you just feel that way. It is a weird thing the brains do, I think."
Daenys only hummed in response, closing her eyes. She thought she was betraying her own flesh and blood that rested peacefully near her when she thought of Robb – of how much of her own child he was to her before she even had a chance to experience pregnancy for the first time. The bastard son of the North was only a few years younger than her, around the same age as her brother Daeron was. She didn't know why she felt protective of Robb. If it was because, until now, she couldn't bare her own children. Maybe because he reminded her of her sweet brother that was send to Old Town to be with their Hightower side of the family. Or if it was because she saw herself in Robb – the anxiety, stress, self-harm in the form of picking skin and biting nails until they bleed. Maybe if was a mixture of it all and the loneliness she experienced years prior when she came to Winterfell for the first time. Though sweet and patient, Cregan didn't know much about the passions Daenys held. She never blamed it as he was raised to be the Warden of the North, not a scholar in Citadel. Robb, on the other hand, was nothing like his half-brothers. While they were born for battles, Robb was born to study. So, within her loneliness, she discovered Robb – a boy who knew more of her Faith, of her history, of her bond with hundred-year-old dragon. She remembers like it was yesterday – bright and wide eyes watching her when she explained her history with Meraxes. How, for decades, she didn't bond with no other rider. Anyone that came close to her would be harmed or they would run away. Until Daenys rushed after her twin in the dragon pit. She was sure the dragon would burn her alive when she pulled Aemond behind herself, as if to shield him from the rage of the dragon and her fire, but she only lowered her head and bumped the twins with her snout. Daenys would smile then before the guilt overwhelmed her – her sweet twin brother witness yet another one of his family bond with a dragon while he had none.
