Only A Northern Song ~ Game of Thrones / Willas Tyrell ~

Chapter Ninety Two: Truth At Last

They ended up in his office, though Willas couldn't remember sitting down behind his desk, nor did he notice who else joined him.

There was the two northmen, that was a given and they were impossible to ignore considering how out of place they seemed in the gilded keep dressed in their worn and tired armour. His brother - his last remaining brother - had followed him from the tent loyally, and had instantly moved to stand behind him without Willas having to ask. Oberyn had followed too, though Willas had only asked him to so he was out of the way of the bannermen's wrath, and given how his mother eyed him uneasily the moment he entered the office, the Dornish prince shrugged and took a seat outside the office. Why his mother was there he didn't know, and if he could've gotten his thoughts straight he would have asked her to leave, but he couldn't manage the words, and so she took a seat on one of the chairs by the empty hearth that was just to the side of the desk.

He didn't have the words for his mother, but he certainly managed to find them when Leonette entered carrying Uther. If he noticed his father's instant opposition to his presence, Uther didn't care, beaming at him and calling his name, fidgeting for Leonette to put him down, and once his feet were on the floor he was sprinting to Willas' side. Instinct made him lift the boy onto his lap, despite how wrong it felt to have him there, frustration and fear pricking underneath his skin. Not even the great brown direwolf who stalked into the room and curled up at his feet could settle his discomfort, not wanting his son to have any part in any sort of discussion, not if it was about war or the north. He was too little, too innocent, too hurt already. That was when he caught the two northerners staring at his son, wide-eyed.

"What?" Willas demanded protectively, unable to help the glare he wore.

"Apologies, my lord," one of them, the one he thought was the Master of Horse's son bowed his head. "It's just..."

"He's the image of his mother... and her lord father too," the second one explained, and again Willas was sure he had seen him in Winterfell too - was it Cayn, one of the guards, the one he'd seen comforting his wife after Bran fell from the tower? "We didn't mean no offence, my Lord."

Both men had left Winterfell before Uther had been born, he could hardly blame them for staring. It was not as if they could do anything to hurt any of them, not with Honour staring back at them, though her tail kept thumping onto the floor loudly as she watched them. He wondered if she remembered them, if she recognised them from being a pup, or if she just sensed that they were from home. Even so, even knowing he was protected physically, Willas turned to Leonette with a frown as she sat down next to his mother.

"Can't you take him away? He doesn't need to be here for this," Willas asked, hoping his mother or sister would sense how desperate he felt. If they did, they didn't acknowledge it, both of them shaking their heads. "Please."

"He's their prince, he should be here," Leonette said firmly with a shrug. "Besides, I want to hear what they have to say."

"As do I," his mother said, though looked at him apologetically before she turned her focus onto the two northerners. "You said you were part of Lord Eddard's guard who went south?"

"We were, my lady," Cayn nodded, and it was obvious that he was trying not to be caught staring at Uther again.

"Then how in Seven Hells did you survive?" it was Loras who asked the question they were all thinking, and Willas wondered if the vague guilt in his voice had anything to do with Renly and himself fleeing before it all kicked off in the capital.

"Lord Stark had sent us away before... well, before it all happened," Harwin explained, and his hesitance to say what had happened was obvious when Willas remembered his wife naming those who had been killed during the sacking of the Stark party; Harwin's father was among them. "He sent us to accompany Lord Beric Dondarion on a journey north to fulfil the King's justice to the Mountain after he attacked villages in the Riverlands. We were meant to return to the capital once it was dealt with, except-"