LIONS AND WOLVES | Robb Stark

01. The Long Road 𓃬

JOANNA HAD BEEN RIDING FOR SO LONG THAT SHE WAS STARTING TO GET SORE, but she knew that stopping would lose her valuable time. The goldcloaks would be looking for her, no doubt scouring the woods beyond King's Landing for the runaway princess, so she needed to keep moving. The further from the city that she got, the easier she would be able to breathe.

Stealing out of the city had been relatively easy. Joanna had grown up sneaking out of the palace to explore the streets even though she knew of the dangers. She'd always been particularly reckless and she thanked the Gods that she had been able to memorise the route from the Red Keep to the Mud Gate.

For days, she had been heading North. She had left King's Landing the same day Ned Stark was executed and could not escape the haunting image of his head hitting the cobbles or the screams of Sansa Stark as she watched her father die. Grief weighed heavy in Joanna's chest and her heart ached for the losses she'd sustained. First her father and then Ned.

She kept going because she had no other choice. She stood between her brother and the Iron Throne now, on the word of a dying king. On his deathbed, Robert Baratheon had signed a decree that his daughter was to inherit the throne and thus become Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. A signed document was legally binding and although there hadn't been a queen in Westeros for decades, this was a dying man's final demand.

In the wake of Robert's passing, Ned had shown the council the note and Cersei Lannister had been the one to snatch it from his hands, laugh at the absurdity of the decree and then rip the paper to pieces. But tearing up the paper did not make it disappear. The council had heard their King's final order and had planned to coronate Joanna as Queen despite Cersei's outrage.

Knowing what she knew about Jon Arryn's death and, to some extent, her father's, Joanna knew that it was only a matter of time before she met the same fate. So, in an attempt to preserve her own life, she fled.

Now she kept to a river running North because the King's Road was no longer an option. She followed the water and kept to herself, rarely stopping even to rest. She had little with her in terms of provisions, only a saddlebag with some food she'd stolen from the kitchens on her way out of the Keep and the jewellery she had been wearing that day. She figured that she could always trade the jewellery for a place to stay or food, but she would cross that bridge when she got there.

Over the dress she wore, Joanna had donned the set of armour that her uncle had the smith make for her. A gaudy golden breastplate with the Lannister lion emblazoned on the front was hidden beneath the cloak she had pulled tight around her body. It was ridiculous and arrogant, but Joanna figured that if it prevented her insides from becoming outsides, then she would accept the protection.

When the initial panic and overwhelming adrenaline had worn off slightly, Joanna started to question whether this was the right idea. They were at war and the Seven Kingdoms had not been facing down this much political unrest since the days of Robert's Rebellion. Riding headlong into the den of the wolves probably wasn't the smartest idea she could have come up with, but she was on a time-crunch.

She hoped that whatever friendship she had with Robb would still stand, because the two of them had known one another since they were children. When the King visited Winterfell, Joanna would always find herself straying away with the Stark children and their wards, disobeying the rules and grubbying her clothes simply because it was fun.

The further North she rode, the colder the weather got. Her cloak was not made for the northern climate and did little to keep out the chill that was settling in her bones. She had her hood pulled over her head, desperately trying to maintain some sort of warmth and partly to conceal her identity. The trouble with having royal blood was that everybody knew who you were and anonymity was not an option.