𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚎𝚜 ➪ 𝚐𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜

𝚒. 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎

Sara was going to stab the septa with her needle.

As always Sansa was the recipient of Septa Mordane's praise, Sara received minor nods and words of encouragement and Arya received only a grunt in acknowledgement of her rather poor work. As the Septa droned on about the different threads and how best to use them, Sara turned to her disgruntled youngest sister with a smirk.

"Want to sneak off and find the boys?" she asked, a conspirator's grin on her lips. Arya replied with a frantic nod of her head, and so the two gently placed down their needlework, lifted up the hems of their dresses and slipped out of the lesson.

They slowly wandered down to the middle of the courtyard where Jon and Robb were trying to teach Bran to shoot a bow. Sara crept forward until she was next to Robb who greeted her with a dip of his head and a small smile. She sent a matching grin back to her twin, and whacked him on the shoulder when he let out a laugh as Bran missed the target.

Resting her head on his shoulder she grinned. "Stop it", she warned. "You were worse than him at that age, or have you forgotten how you nearly shot Maester Luwin?"

"I'd say I was rather good then if I nearly hit him, a tiny bit closer and we wouldn't have had to suffer through all of those lessons." Robb countered with a curl of his lips.

Sara shook her head in exasperation.

Bran nocked his bow and tried again, however this arrow went even wider and flew over the castle wall.

Jon let out a bark of laughter and even little Rickon joined in with a peal of giggles from where he was seated on a wooden beam.

"And which one of you was a marksman at ten?", came a voice from above. Sara spun around to see her mother and father looking down and watching them. "Keep practising Bran. Go on", Eddard encouraged.

Bran gave a determined nod and looked to the target, drawing the string of his bow.

"Don't think too much Bran", Jon warned.

"Relax your bow arm", Robb chimed in.

Suddenly another arrow flew past and sunk straight into the target. The Stark siblings whirled round in shock to see Arya holding a still quivering bow. She let out a satisfied smile, a curtsey, and a yelp, all in quick succession, the last one due to the fact that Bran threw down his own bow and started to chase her.

Robb, Jon and Sara let out a fit of laughter as they watched Arya get away. She was always faster than Bran. Ned and Catelyn also smiled as they watched two of their children run through the courtyard, nearly knocking over a servant in the process.

The three oldest Stark children began to return the arrows, with help from Rickon, when Rodrick Cassel, one of their father's closest advisers, approached them and told them to saddle their horses as there was a deserter from the Night's Watch.

Sara internally flinched, and she voiced her protests when they were told to ready a horse for Bran too.

"He's only ten!", she exclaimed.

Robb soothed her with a gentle squeeze to the arm, he was always able to calm her with the lightest of touches and the softest of words.

Having readied their horses, Robb, Sara, Jon and Ned were joined by Rodrick, Bran, a group of stark guards and Theon Greyjoy, the ward of Winterfell, which in Sara's opinion was another, fancier word for prisoner.

▪︎¤▪︎

They reached their destination and dismounted as two guards brought forward the deserter. He explained to Ned why he left, rambling about White Walkers which Sara took no notice of. In her eyes they were ghost stories that Old Nan told to scare the Stark children into doing what they were told.

The deserter was made to kneel with his head over a log as Ned unsheathed the Valyrian Steel greatsword of House Stark, Ice.

"Don't look away", she heard from behind her. Jon talking to Bran. "Father'll know if you do".

Sara inhaled sharply but didn't flinch as Ned took the deserter's head off in a single, clean sweep.

"You did well", she heard Jon mention to Bran before she walked away.

▪︎¤▪︎

On their way back to Winterfell, the party halted when they came upon a dead stag.

"Mountain Lion?", asked Theon, referring to what had killed it.

"There are no Mountain Lions in these woods", Ned replied gravely.

The group of Starks decided to investigate further and followed a path through the woods where they came across what seemed to be some type of large wolf, dead from the deer antler lodged in it's side. They knelt down next to it to get a closer look, and then Sara noticed the pups, burrowing into it's side, whining for their mother.

"It's a freak", Theon exclaimed in disgust.

"It's a direwolf", Ned corrected.

"There are no direwolves south of The Wall", Robb said, even as his sister glanced to him in worry.

"Now there are six", Jon replied. "Do you want to hold it?", he asked, directing his question to Bran.

Bran took the pup into his arms and asked, "Where will they go? Their mother's dead!".

"Better a quick death, they won't last long without their mother", Ned decreed.

Theon immediately pulled out a blade and marched to Bran. "Right", he said, "Give it here".

"No", Bran cried as it was ripped from his arms.

Sara took a step forward. "Theon", she hissed. "Stop!"

"Put away your blade", Robb added.

"I take orders from your father not you", the Greyjoy boy sneered to the twins.

Bran pleaded with Ned who was resolute until Jon spoke.

"Lord Stark, there are six pups, one for each of the Stark children. The direwolf is the sigil of your house. You were meant to have them."

"You will train them yourselves, you will feed them yourselves, and if they die, you will bury them yourselves", said Ned.

As Theon, Bran and Robb began to carry the pups up to the horses, Sara moved so she was next to Jon.

"What about you?", she asked in a low tone.

"I'm not a Stark", he replied roughly.

She looked at him in indignation and muttered, "Yes you are, you're my brother", before turning and leaving.

As Jon moved to follow he heard a small sound and bent down to pick up a small albino pup.

"Ah, the runt of the litter, that one's yours Snow", said Theon mockingly.

Sara just gave the boy a smug grin, as if to say, "See", before continuing on to the horses and back to Winterfell.