A WINTER ROSE ⊳ g. of thrones [1]

CHAPTER THREE | Stags and Lions

TWO MOONS PASSED and soon Brandon Stark watched in awe as he saw the king and his whole company just down the road. He tiptoed across the roof of Winterfell, before hopping from stone to stone across the castles walls.

Ellena watched him from below in the courtyard, a smug grin on her face as she shook her head. "Gods, don't but they grow fast," she heard her mother comment from behind, looking to the two direwolves that sat beside her. They too, were watching the young Stark hike the walls, a strange and terrifying talent of his.

"Ellena, why are you just — Brandon!" She cried out in frustration, as the boy held onto stones that stuck out of the surface of the wall. "I saw the king!" He exclaimed as he climbed down. "He's got hundreds of people!" His older sister stifled laughter, but Catelyn Stark fumed by her side. "How many times have I told you, 'no climbing'?"

A look of fury had washed upon his mother's face, while a quick glance to Ellena told him that she was particularly amused at the stunt he had pulled.

"But he's coming right now. Down our road!" Bran retorted, jumping down from the rafters to stand in front of them. Lady Stark sighed, bending down to look her second youngest more closely in the eye. "I want you to promise me. No more climbing." She raised a brow at him, and Ellena watched his downfall.

Bran looked down at his shoes, sighing softly. He slowly looked back up to meet the intense Tully-blue eyes of his mother, as he "promised" her he would stop climbing. "Do you know what?" Her mother said with a raised brow. Oh, was he in for it..

Catelyn Tully knew all of her children like the back of her hand. All of them were convinced if something were to ever happen to her that would cause her to lose memory, she would still be able to tell their faults, even without a memory of them. "What?" Brandon replied, a glint of excitement in his eyes. "You always look at your feet before you lie." He smirked, before running to go find their father to tell him of the king's arrival.

Catelyn turned to her eldest daughter, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I assume you've bathed?" With a nod of her head, her mother responded with a content smile. "Good, all your brothers are getting ready as well. Go get dressed, hurry up now. Oh, and do make sure Arya is actually getting dressed, not off doing gods knows what."

Ellena hurried up to her room, and there her handmaiden, Deliah, was waiting. The two didn't say anything, they didn't talk much to one another, really. Deliah had resented Ellena for as long as she could remember, and she couldn't say she didn't quite care much for the girl either. All she ever spoke of was how incredibly handsome Robb was, or how "even that bastard Jon Snow could probably get it good". It annoyed her to all the Seven Hell's ends, and so the girls had a silent agreement to simply not speak.

Deliah picked up the dress that was laid out on her bed for her. It was a dark mix of blue and green velvet, embroidered with the sigil of her house on her breast. As annoyed with Sansa as she often was these days, Ellena felt a sense of pride when making the dress. Her sister had awed it for days after she finished it, and even went so far as to try and copy the pattern of the direwolf during her practice with the septa.