"Of Snow, Sea, and Shadows: Book 1" One Woman Keep [GoT]

A King and a Thief

After our welcome supper was over, when Jon left with Bran big grins plastered across both their faces, when Lady Cat had excused herself from the evening, and when I had retired to me guests quarters; I was well and truly exhausted. Yet as I sat on my bed of pelts I hear my door click open and then shut.

“There is something about you Stark men, always intruding on a Lady’s privacy,”

“I think you and I can both agree that you aren’t a normal lady,” Robb says, crossing the room to sit at the foot of the bed.

“Touché. But I still value my privacy,” I go back to writing my log again. He watches me and out of the corner of my eye I see his face glowing in the light of a flickering candle.

“You’ve changed,” he remarks

“And you haven’t? The last time we saw each other you were but a pubescent boy and I was but a girl with too many responsibilities,” I reminisce

“I still remember, when I swore I would marry you. You laughed at me and said you were one with the Shadows,” he tells me a glint in his eye. I see at the mention of marriage, the flame behind them dims a little.

“I-,” I say, putting away by log now.

“There is nothing to be sorry for,” he looks away now, pained.

“Death is not a sorry thing, you loved her,”

“I did. But that was long ago,” he looks at me now, the only flame in his eyes now are merely the reflection of the candle flame.

“Why did you want Jon?” I ask, easily changing the subject

“For Bran. After the whole incident with Theon… He needed an older brother again,”

“And you aren’t?”

“One that isn’t running a kingdom,” we sit in silence again he looking at me and I looking at him.

“You’re lonely,” I state. He laughs

“Admittedly there has not been a lady in my life for sometime now,”

“Stop, I don’t want to hear of your… Nightly activities,” I say in feigned disgust

“Actually now that you mention it….” He smiles now, once again content. I throw my little book at him and he easily swats it out of the air.

“No wonder you aren’t getting womanly attention, you can’t just go around telling women of what you’ve done to others. Women are gentle creatures, but viciously jealous too,” I get up going to retrieve my book lying on the floor like a dead fly just whacked out of the air.

“Well,” he says reclining against the pillows “It worked last time,” I gag and he laughs once again. I throw my book to where some of my other belongings are and sit at his place on the foot of the bed.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits

“And I you,” I reply. He sits up, one leg folded in front of him, the other hanging off the side of the bed. With the light on his face, his rumpled tunic and tousled hair, he reminds me once again of the boy I had left all those years ago. Now a man takes my hands and looks at me in earnest.

“I’m glad you’ve returned,” he says, calloused thumbs tracing small circles on the back of my palm. As his takes my hands I see his eyes widen as he turns them over to reveal my scarred flesh.

“Trouble up North?” he says, still holding my hands

“Wildlings,” I say looking at the now pink scar. He traces his thumb along the cut, causing the skin to burn white then back to its irritated pink.

“When you said you may not come back, I didn’t believe you,” he says looking at me once again

“Then as the years passed, I realised what I could have lost,”

“As I said, you were but a boy and I was but a girl,” I smile reassuringly at him and take his hands in mine holding them the same way I used to when we sat together, a noble boy and a girl of the shadows, under the veil of fog in the Godswood.