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

Chapter One Hundred and Two: The Queen and the Hand

The crypts felt colder than usual, and Eddmina couldn't ever remember the air feeling so thin down there to the point she was struggling to breathe.

There had to be a new draught, or perhaps it was to do with the fact it had snowed that morning. It had to be the weather, because there was no other explanation behind how tight her chest felt, or why she couldn't stop shivering even though her maids had given her an extra thick cloak that morning. The lack of warmth was probably why she felt so lightheaded, why she was anxious enough for her fingers to fiddle with one and other despite her right hand being encased in a glove. She had already picked at the nails on her left hand bad enough to bleed, and she could feel pins and needles running up her arms and in her feet, making her unsure if she could even remain upright. She had to though, because there were too many people down in the crypts that morning for her to faint. Perhaps that was another reason for her to feel so suffocated, the volume of people down in the tunnel far more than there ever should be. erhaps the burning feeling of people looking at her was why she felt so dizzy.

There was no other reason as to why she couldn't function during the funeral of her father and two brothers.

There was no septon, no prayers, no songs. Prayers had taken place in the godswood with the coffins containing the bodies resting on the shoulders of the strongest men they had, before they made their journey down to the crypts. Eddmina had wanted to carry her brother's coffin herself - it was not particularly heavy, not since it was only bones that remained of the man that had grown with her - but she let the honour pass to someone else without argument, knowing she would barely be able to make it down the stairs without falling. Besides, she had Greywind to look after, the wolf listelessly circling around her and howling sadly, and she had Lyarra wrapped to her chest too. There were too many people looking at her, and two lives that needed her more than her brother's bones.

The bodies - or what remained of them - had been placed in tombs, though there had been much discussion about where the tombs would be. Sansa had wanted them to all stay together, Arya had disagreed with her just for the sake of irritating her, but Eddmina was head of the family, and so they went with her decision of placing their father with his brother and sister. It was where she had seen him knelt so often, after all, so it had felt only right. His stone statue stood next to theirs, the carving of his face far more aged than theirs. Further down the tunnel, Robb's tomb was marked with another stone statue, one that was vastly different to their father's and more like their much older Stark ancestors from before the conquest, because while their father stood, Robb was sat on a stone throne. His sword had been returned from the Twins alongside his bones, and it was Eddmina's job to lay it across his lap, hoping that the bannermen in attendance did not see how her hands shook, or how she could barely look at the carving of his face. It was not custom for anyone except for kings or lords to recieve statues, but their father had broken protocol for his siblings, and so Eddmina did the same, hence a smaller statue stood just to the right of Robb's throne marking Rickon's tomb. Seeing how small it was compared to every other statue in the crypt was what made Eddmina lose balance at last.

A firm hand from behind kept her upright. Her mother hadn't wanted anyone to go down with them, wanted it to be just Starks, but she was glad she had told her to be quiet, especially when it came to Loras. It was his hand on her shoulder that stopped her falling, and it remained there despite her knowing some may see it as her being weak. A hand on her shoulder was nothing compared to what she wanted to do, how she so desperately wanted to fall to her knees and weep, to sit at the foot of Robb's statue and never leave.

She had been dreaming of him a great deal. Her regular dreams featured screaming, murder, betrayal, and the awful tearing pain of Ramsay's flaying, but on the nights she did give in to the maester's suggestion of dreamwine or other medications, she would simply see Robb, sat in front of his tomb. He wouldn't say anything, no matter how much she screamed at him to speak, he would merely look at her blankly, before he got to his feet and walked off down the tunnel. She would try to run after him, but that was always when she woke up. She wasn't sure if she preferred her nightmares to that.