✓ | 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝑾𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝑻𝒐 𝑹𝒖𝒍𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 (R.STARK 2/3)

Chapter Twenty Five::In the Woods

"How--" Raina stumbled off of the log, eyes wide and mouth hanging low as she stared in utter disbelief at the person crouching nearby. She couldn't believe it - it wasn't possible. Or at least she hadn't thought it to be a few seconds prior to now. Yet it was all happening, every dragging second after another, whether Raina believed it or not. "Good to see you too," The voice sounded surreal, and Raina wondered how possible it was that she'd hit her head, on the march into the forest, and this was all a dream - the face, the voice; he was a dream. It wouldn't have been the first time she'd imagined this, if that were the case, but this wasn't how she would've dreamed it to happen. "I--" she couldn't formulate words, all she did was gaze endlessly until it made sense in her mind - which was taking some time. "You--" again, no sense came from her words only fragmented pieces of a sentence that was taking a while to formulate. She didn't know why she couldn't speak, perhaps it was the shock, she was unbelievably happy, and knew what she needed, wanted, and had planned to say, if this moment we're to arise, yet now that he was here she was utterly speechless. For the meanwhile, anyway. Some moments passed before any comprehendible, ordered, words came out.

"You're alive!" She practically screamed, eyes widening as realisation sunk in slowly - increasing in speed the longer she spent gawking. "You're alive..." She repeated softly, eyes still set on the face now smiling in front of her.

Then she launched at him, wrapped her arms over his broad shoulders and hugged him as tight as she could, never wanting to ever, ever, let him go again. She heard a faint laugh echo from over her shoulder, where his head now rested affectionately while her limbs entangled themselves around him, and her stomach did flips at the sound of his rough chuckle. By the gods she'd missed him. "You came..." He smiled, Raina could feel his face contort against the side of her neck as he held her closer to him, his hot breath condensing against her revealed skin. And she loved every exhale like it were the last. "Of course I did! I should've never left in the first place and I had to come and warn you but I--" she cut dead, leaning away to stare into his deep blue eyes, they looked scarred but no different to normal - he'd been through a lot yet the crystals remained the same. "It doesn't matter." He stated bluntly, stopping her rambling by placing a calloused hand upon her flushed cheeks. She was still suffering from disbelief, but the warmth of his skin against her own helped bring her to enlightenment about the whole ordeal. He was real. He was here. He was alive.

"Robb-" he kissed her, cutting off whatever she'd intended on saying - and to be honest with his lips on hers she didn't care that she'd forgotten her words instantly, all that she truly thought of was the man before her, who's lips had never been better.

When both parted for air, their eyes locked again, and everything around them fell still. Nothing moved, or made a sound, nothing mattered at all. It was merely the two of them, gazing at one another like they were afraid to even blink - in case it would mean the other would disappear in the split second consumed by blackness. "How are you here? I watched you--" Raina closed her eyes, reliving the moment silently and trying extremely hard to block it from her mind. "I was hurt - badly. And it felt as though, perhaps, I had well and truly bitten the dust. Yet when dawn came, I awoke to find j had been moved - I could see Finn searching frantically the scarred battlements surrounding the Twins but I hadn't the strength to call for him, so I simply lay there. When I next awoke, I had much more ability to move and so I began to walk, North I suppose it must have been, but I just continued walking." Robb looked traumatised in that moment, as he recalled all that he had lived through, as though for a moment the flash of pain had returned to his aching limbs to remind him of the time once passed, but then it was clouded by affection once more, and all he could do was stare endlessly at Raina.

She would have spoken more on the matter, or instead held him close to ensure him that she'd never let him go, but that idea was soon replaced with the thoughts of another familiar face, appearing from the treeline. "He's been here for a while," Raina smiled softly, watching the Direwolf pad closer. "There's another one too - I couldn't be sure which one it was, though, Greywind is the only one I've ever met." Robb crouched forward, his hand ruffling the soft fur of the wolf now nuzzling his lower leg, and a smile spreading wide across his red-shaded chin. "Nymeria was set free, Ghost is with Jon and--" "--and the other two are roaming the North." Raina smiled too, watching the familiar twinkle of admiration in Robb's eyes as he gazed through blue crystals at her. If she'd ever doubted the relationship between them, even after Robb had finally learnt of her true identity, that had all been obliterated with a single glance from the King, one that had Raina's stomach doing all sorts of flips and tricks, and had caused a whole swarm of butterflies free in her gut. The look he gave, the light in his eyes, the warm gaze, that lingered on the Glover for longer than it probably should have, and the general comforting tranquility that came with Robb's close presence. Something had been uneasy in Raina's life for several weeks now; it hadn't been the disturbing setting, or the Boltons for that matter, or even being so far away from family and friends - it had all been because of Robb. She'd thought he'd been dead all this time, and it had shattered her heart into the soulless oblivion that now lay where the organ should've resided, and in a few mere seconds it had been revived and replaced with a fully flushed and beating heart that had never felt so real and unbelievably good before. All because of him, her love, her King; her Robb.

"How have you been, Raina?" Robb asked quietly, settling back onto the log beside her, his hand gently pressed against her knee in a soothing manner. But it wasn't particularly settling given what he'd just asked her - she couldn't very well lie, as she'd have no reason to be in Winterfell if it weren't for her real reason, but then if she told Robb that, he's raid the castle in that very second just to keep Raina free of marrying a Bolton. "Why are you here?" Robb persisted, his eyebrows knitting curiously together as his stare intensified; he knew something was seriously wrong, but Raina didn't want to have to be the one to deliver such poor news. "Ramsay Snow..." Raina muttered, knowing too well Robb would understand what she meant immediately. "You can't!" He yelled very loudly, with a strong northern accent piercing his command in a way that would've Coke across as attractive, had his shouting not been as equally intimidating as alluring. "That fucking bastard! You cannot marry him, Raina, I won't allow you to be doomed to such a life-" Raina kissed him again, passionately this time, just savouring every taste and feel of his lips against hers while it lasted. She hated seeing him upset, or distressed, because he was unable to help her - she wanted to make him feel better, less guilty for what were, in reality, her father's actions. "It's alright, Robb, I don't intend on doing anything. My father has arranged this whole betrothal since I returned from the Twins, but my brothers would sooner hang themselves than watch me wed that beast." Raina mumbled, forehead resting safely against Robb's as she spoke softly. He sighed, but kissed his gently, and quickly, knowing that there was nothing he could do. "The Boltons cannot know you are alive. If they do they'll kill you - you are the rightful Warden of the North, and heir to Winterfell; as far as they know you're dead, dealt with, it needs to stay that way while you gain your strength, and enough men to take back your home, alright? No storming the castle, defending my honour, or something silly like that," Raina chuckled, placing a hand against his stubbled cheek, and looking into the sea of dark blue that haunted his irises. The pair of eyes that she'd dreamt about every night for almost a month since the Twins. "Alright, no storming the castle - but I'll have you know I'm not just Warden of the North. I'm the fucking King."