Jester's Privilege

"Eddard!" Ned dropped the little raven as the door banged open, his wife bustling into the room in an anxious flurry of wool skirts and balled fists. Her eyes, green as the grassy hills, were wide and wild under angry brows. "I went to go talk to you, and instead of you or, hells, no one being in our room, what do I find? Your bandaged cousin asleep in our bed."

"Well you've found me now." He replied flippantly as he went to pick up the raven he'd dropped. Gwenys growled and grabbed his arm, yanking him back from the war table.

"Why is Brynden in our bed?" She demanded, her grip on him tightening so her nails bit into the quilting of his gambeson.

"The Brackens fucking stabbed him, Gwen!" Ned threw his free arm out to show it was all so obvious if she'd just think a moment.

"Could he not rest in the maester's chambers? Or some room in Lady Melissa's apartments? Or, fuck, just not our fucking marriage bed?! Ned, I—that's—and what position did you put each other in where he got stabbed, anyway?!" Gwen pushed him away now, not that he moved much from it, and started pacing. She could wear trenches in the floors if left to her own devices long enough.

"Gwen." He reached for her, but she batted his hand away and changed the direction of her walking to keep him away. Ned scowled and crossed his arms, petulantly refusing to look at her. If she didn't want what he wanted to give her, he wasn't going to force her. Let Gwenys wear a rut into the floor then, and she can climb out of it without his help!

She gestured wildly as she paced, enough so she would have whacked him in the face if he'd gotten any closer and tried to comfort her again. "There has been peace for two years, and you can't go picking fights with the Brackens just because you're bored! You can't live with a sword in your hand, I won't let you!"

Ned's lip curled, expression souring even more as his dark brown gaze snapped onto his pacing wife. Bored?! Raventree Hall might be dull as tombs, but he had better reasons to pick fights than that! Brynden might be annoying when he started running his mouth about 'Shiera this' or 'Shiera that,' unnatural to want to fuck that sea-witch he was sister to, but giving him a clout on the ear for it wasn't anyone's place but Ned's own. And that's all Ned did, that horse-dragon-bastard had bruised his ribs and split his lip. Gwen was being more ridiculous than ever—presuming to boss him around on things she barely understood. It was probably her trifling self-importance that got her sent home from Oldtown more than her fit of madness that had done it!

"I was not bored!" Ned shot back, "that whoreson Aegor beat my cousin bloody and delayed his homecoming from King's Landing! It is not picking fights if we are getting revenge, and you cannot make me do or not anything!"

Gwen's turn was sharp, cutting herself short to start pacing away from him again so he glared at the back of her head instead of her face. "You wanted an excuse to start fighting them again because you are a child who cannot abide stillness! You're selfish and stubborn and stupid and if you won't listen to me then—then I will go back to Harrenhal and raise our child there with my brother's help because he will listen!"

Ned was stunned into silence, arms falling to his sides to hang there limply. Her insults to him couldn't stand, of course, but that was for later. Because… because surely he hadn't heard her right. He grabbed her wrist, and she barely tried to pull herself free.

"Gwen?" His voice was small and confused and sounded every bit as childish as she accused him of being. Gwenys only fidgeted, shuffling in place as she hung her head. Ned pulled her close, easy and gentle instead of as swift and angry as a part of him wanted to be. "Gwenys?" He lifted her chin as he tried again to get her to respond, but she looked away from him. Her lower lip trembled.

"What's wrong now?"

"I wasn't supposed to say that," she mumbled.

Ned stared at her flatly. "No matter how much you want to punish me, there's some things you can't keep hidden from me forever."

"Yes I can!" Her voice was too thick and warbly for her to snap at him like she no doubt meant to. "You don't deserve to know!"

Ned rolled his eyes as he sighed through his nose. He released her chin and laid his hand on the side of her neck, a soft touch, comforting. Gwen was cagey and skittish as a deer, temperamental, high strung, overall difficult really, but she was his.

"Gwenys, our son isn't just yours. I want to be involved, and I'll hunt you down. Didn't I tell you that when you tried ot scare me off?"

"What happens when you get bored, Ned? What happens when the babe is crying and won't calm down? What happens when you'd rather look after a grown man that wants to fuck his sister?!"

Ned wrinkled his nose. "Well firstly, Brynden isn't my son. I know Kermit will need me more."

Gwen blinked slowly. "Kermit?"

"Our son! I've always wanted a son named Kermit." Ser Kermit Tully had been a valiant and storied soldier, feared by those on the other end of his sword, admired by everyone else. Especially by Ned. They'd been his favorite stories as a boy, even when his lady-mother insisted he was too young to hear about war.

"What if we have a girl?" The question was pointed, a desperate bid at finding some thread to pull and unravel him to find every flaw. Gwen liked other people being at fault, she liked being completely justified in closing herself off. Ned liked proving people wrong.

"Well I'll still take her hunting, I'll just bring you along too. And I suppose she won't be named 'Kermit.' Although I haven't thought about girls' names, so I am open to suggestions."

+Bonus: Valarr + Rowan, since I couldn’t fit them into the main set.