She and Ned had been married for five years and in those five years she had not been able to give her husband a single living son only three healthy daughters. Her womb seemed to reject any male heir. Her first miscarriage had been before the birth of their first daughter, Sansa. It happened very early in the pregnancy, not even a maester would have been able to tell if it was male. Her child had been nothing more than a sexless clot of blood that had slipped out of her in the night.
After Sansa the second was further along, her son no bigger than the size of her hand when the gods sought to bring him into the world far, far too soon. Her fourth pregnancy had gone to full term, but it was a girl she gave birth too, not a son.
“Would it be in poor taste to name her Branda, for your brother?” Shaena had asked Ned as she held her baby at her breast. The newborn girl had the most darling brown curls atop her head, a contrast to the pale golden hair Sansa had inherited from her. “If she had been a boy, I would have asked to name her Brandon,”
“Truly?” Ned’s voice was thick with emotion and surprise.
She nodded, giving him a smile. “It would mean so much if I could do at least this much to honor his memory,”
Ned silently nodded his approval then, lifting his chair and drawing it closer to her bedside. He stayed with her the rest of the night and into the morning, staring lovingly and adoringly at her and their daughter.
Branda was a lively but quiet babe, and she loved so very much to be in her fathers arms. Sansa was mesmerized by her little sister, at only two years old. She could tell the two would get along well when they were older.
Despite their efforts it was not for some years until she fell with child again. Not all were so fertile as Catelyn Lannister, who had already birthed three children without incident and was said to soon welcome a fifth to her pack of lions. Shaena could not help but feel envy at the ease in which Lady Catelyn had given her own husband three sons already. It made her question if their was some cosmic reason for her weaker womb, if the gods were testing her. If this was a further punishment for Rhaegar’s crimes, for her families sins. Or had she done something to offend the gods that she was not aware of that had earned their scorn. It haunted her thoughts over the years and she knew her good-father and the Northern lords were displeased with her inability to provide House Stark and the North with an adequate heir. But Shaena was a princess, she has traversed the capitals court since she was a child, she could withstand the looks and grumbles of some gruff, old men.
She and Ned were happy. They loved their daughters, they loved each other and were proving themselves each and every day to be capable leaders and providers for their people. Shaena had been the one to suggest the expansion of the glass gardens and had insisted on offering funding for it from her own personal allowance.
In 288 AC Shaena, Ned and their daughters attended her brother, Aegon’s, wedding to Celia Whent at Harrenhall. When they arrived back North, only then was it confirmed that Shaena was with child again. She thought for certain that this time she would have a boy.
But at seven months, she started to feel terrible cramping one morning, followed by some bleeding that only got worse. She was laid up in her bed, her skirts pushed up and the Maester was telling her to push. It wasn’t right, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Shaena screamed at him it was too soon, that he had to do something to stop it, to make sure her baby stayed in her womb because it was too soon. It was agony, pushing when all she wanted was to clench up, to keep her child in her belly. When her babe was taken from between her legs he was soundless and their was something around his neck. She caught a glimpse of his deathly pale body and she shrieked and struggled in her bed, demanding they give him to her. Eventually they conceded after the babe was cleaned and wrapped in a soft, woolen blanket that she immediately pulled apart so she could see the genitals. She heaved a breath, sounding like a dying animal as she clutched her baby to her.
“What happened!” she demanded after the maester came from the chamber door where her husband had been waiting on the otherside. His face was fallen as he watched Ned slowly enter the room, staring. He looked sick.
“Sometimes, the umbilical chord, the tubing inside you that gives the babe nutrients can become wrapped around the childs neck while in the womb. It’s nothing that you could have caused, princess, it just happens sometimes. It’s possible he’s been dead in your womb for days, perhaps weeks. Your body finally noticed and triggered contractions to purge your womb of the child,” his voice was white noise, a buzzing in her ears as she struggled to breath. Ned had a hand over his mouth, his face near as pale as their dead sons.
It was too much, it hurt too much. It was so much worse than the other times and she found herself letting out a wail. She sounded like a hysterical banshee, unable to temper her grief, but she could not bring herself to care. Her friend, Marilda, had been with her through the entire ordeal and when Ned made no sudden move to approach and comfort her it was Marilda who crawled into the bed beside her and held her as she cried over the body of her son.
The loss was unbearable to endure. It was as if a string had been cut and she was left free falling through what seemed like never ending feelings of regret, self-blame and failure.She could not remember when the Maester took her son from her, though she did remember clawing at him, refusing to give her cold bodied child up without a fight. That was when Ned must have stepped in to hold her back in the bed. Nothing around her mattered as she raged and mourned.
When her exhaustion caught up to her the room was empty but her and Ned. He laid in the bed behind her, holding her close and she could feel something wet on her neck. She didn’t even consider at the time that Ned was crying with her. Of course he would be mourning the loss of their son as much as she but at the time she was just so completely absorbed in her own pain.
After the premature birth of their son Shaena locked herself in her rooms, refusing to eat with her husband and his father in the Great Hall, breaking her fast and having her super brought to her room where she would pick at her food. She didn’t see her daughters, even when little Sansa had somehow toddled herself to her chamber door, little fists knocking and asking for her to come out and play with her and Branda. Her ladies tried to coax her back into her daily activities once the Maester gave his approval for her to start moving around again, but she could not find the will to go about them. Her Good Father loudly reprimanded her behavior after she had surpassed the appropriate amount of time women were apparently allowed in the face of such a loss. It fell on deaf ears. Ned tried to comfort her but she was inconsolable, wasting away, hiding out from the judgment of the North. She knew they must be blaming her, cursing her Targaryen blood maybe.
She wished her good mother was still alive. Lyarra had always been surprisingly welcoming toward Shaena when she first came North. But the Stranger had sought to take Lady Stark when she caught pestilence of the throat two years prior. She might have understood better, would have had some womanly empathy to offer her. But instead she had been surrounded by only resentful and judgmental men who did not understand the pressures and pain of conception and birth. Men who only saw her as a means to breed heirs. Otherwise what point was there to her marriage if she could not give her husband and his family what they needed to continue on? It filled her with doubt and it ate at her everyday.
After a fortnight, her dear friend Prudence traveled from her home of Karhold where she lived with her husband to visit her and comfort her beside Marilda as only a fellow woman could. Though it did not make everything better, Prudence too had her share of miscarriages and knew the loss of a child. She gave Shaena the courage to compose herself and move forward. She could not avoid her husband much longer and with her good mother having passed she was the acting Lady of Winterfell.
She had to try again, she had a duty. So she forced herself to smile, she left her rooms, visited her daughters, tended to the keep and people and visited her husbands chambers again. It wasn’t the same as before though. Her heart wasn't in their coupling anymore. There was a distance between them that neither knew how to bridge. It wasn’t Ned, it was her, she knew it. She just could not shake off her fears that she would never be able to give her husband, the husband she loved very much, the son he deserved and desired.
Her Ned, her wonderful, gentle, loving, quiet Ned who had from the moment of their marriage had never judged her for what her brother had done, never looked at her with any regrets, any resentment. He loved her, he trully loved her and it almost made it worst that he wasn’t angry with her.
The year of the Greyjoy rebellion, she gave birth to their third daughter, Arya. Even as a baby Arya was always causing a fuss, always moving, and was the quickest of her sisters to stand and walk. She loved it when Shaena would hold her by the window and let her look out the glass or take her out into the courtyard.She took up so much energy that it sometimes helped Shaena to peek out of the dark mass of clouds that had seemed to constantly suffocate Shaena since the end of her pregnancy before Arya.
Even as a baby it was clear that Arya took after her father completely in looks. Her face longer, hair darker and her eyes gray just like Neds. Sansa had her own indigo blue and Branda had a more blue grey, but Arya’s eyes were so grey they were almost black. When Ned returned from the war, and she saw his face light up when he saw the babe in her arms that looked so much like him she could only imagine that he thought Arya was someone else, the son they both wanted so terribly but were constantly denied.
The apology was written all across her face when he came close enough to see it, his own eyes only briefly glinting with regret before he smiled for her and took her in his arms. “It’s alright, my love. Thank you for such a wonderful homecoming gift,”
He then kissed the top of his new daughters head before asking for her name.
“Arya, yes, I think that fits her very well.” he said, tapping his daughters nose before leaning down to greet his two oldest. Sansa managed to curtsy already for him, her Septa grinning proud behind him. Branda was hiding behind her sister, nervously looking at him. It had been a year since she last saw her father and she was still very young that after so long he might seem like a stranger to her. But the war was over now, Ned was home and his daughters could get to know him again. They would be a family and she and Ned could try again for a son once more.
