#northern!reader

Despite you being nine moons gone with a child, your husband, the king, had very little issue leaving with an entourage of his most favored cronies on a hunting trip in the Kingswood. You didn't even protest when he announced the trip to you. You simply went back to your reading. A few months earlier, you would have raged at his callousness, but you are too tired now. You didn't know if it was from the pregnancy or maybe you were finally numb to Robert's poor treatment.

You simply told him to behave sensibly and turned back to your reading. When he set out a day later, you watched him leave from the balcony of your chambers. Many ladies gathered in the courtyard to send off their husbands in the king's hunting entourage. You made the excuse of being much too heavy with the child to make it in a timely manner.

You watched the group of men atop their horses ride away, your husband at the head.

"Your Grace, I'm sure everything will be alright," one of your ladies' maids said.

She means to be comforting, but her words fill you with bitter contempt.

"I am not the only woman with a thoughtless boar for a husband, and I won't be the last," you say, watching the riding party disappear outside the Red Keep's walls.

The maid said nothing and began gathering the soiled sheets from your bed; they were tainted by sweat and Robert's seed. Your coupling the prior night had been angry, tinged with a foreign tenderness that Robert had only developed when your pregnancy had started to show.

You figured Robert's surrogate father and Hand, Jon Arryn, would keep you company. This was both a good and a bad thing, in your opinion. You were fond of the man himself, but not of his wife, Lysa Tully. It was a struggle to get along with the woman despite trying to be kind to her.

You tried to tell yourself that this was just like any other time. Robert was away and left you by yourself for days on end. But you knew deep down that you would give birth alone. The King had barely been gone a day when your labors began.

You spent nearly a full day in the birthing bed, writhing with agony, without a word from the hunting party or Robert. You cried nearly the entire time. You cried for home, for your mother, for your father, and mostly for your first love, Alyn, who had died fighting during Robert's Rebellion. Then, at dusk on the third day of his absence, your child was born.

"It's a boy, Your Grace," Grand Maester Pycelle said, holding the newborn child aloft after he had slipped free from the birth canal.

The squalling infant is quickly cleaned by some septas before being swaddled and brought back to you.

The boy is small and red-faced, and he entered the world howling furiously. He only stops wailing when he is put on your chest. You find yourself smiling when you gently cradle his small head of damp black curls as his Baratheon blue eyes stare up at you. Look at your little boy and feel that spark of happiness in your chest that you hadn't felt since you received news of Alyn's death.

"His name shall be Alaric," you tell the Maester without looking away from your baby.

You knew Robert wanted to name his first son, Stefan, after his father, and he would most likely throw a fit because of it. But he forfeited his vote in the matter when he decided to run around the Kingswood rather than be there for the birth of his heir.

_____________

A day after you gave birth, the hunting party arrived back at the Red Keep. Robert found that you had not come to greet him, just as you could not be bothered by seeing him off either.

He stormed into the castle, rather annoyed at this perceived abandonment. He entered your chambers without bothering to knock and found you sleeping in bed.

Right as Robert is going to start yelling, you turn in your sleep, and it becomes obvious to him that you are no longer with the child. A pang of fear echoes through him until he hears a soft coo and finds a child beside your bed in a cradle. The baby had a head of black curls and blue eyes and was rather large. The child had wiggled out of his swaddle while you slept soundly and was waving his small fists about.

"Hello," Robert says. He's utterly captivated by the little life that he played a part in creating.

He reaches a large hand out to the child and softly pets the head of black curls. The child gurgles contently at the touch of its father.

"His name is Alaric," you said, breaking the king's trance.

"I should have been here," Robert says.

The man had the decency to look ashamed of himself. You nearly tell him it's okay, but you know it's far from okay for a father to miss the birth of his first trueborn child.

"Moving forward, things will need to change," you reply and sit up.

Robert finally looks you in the eye. He seems hesitant about your remark.

"I cannot live a life where my husband and I are constantly at each other's throats. I don't want our son to be raised by parents who can't stand each other," you say.

You look at your son in his cradle and can't help but smile at him.

"What are we to do about it?" Robert asks, still skeptical.

"We shall dine together three times a week, and I would like to share our chambers. In the North, it is custom that a husband and wife share bedchambers, and I believe it will bring us closer," you said.

Robert looks at your face; your eyes are shining with optimism. You truly were willing to learn how to love him. Why couldn't he grant you this one thing?

"Okay," he said.

You're silent for a moment, somewhat shocked that Robert didn't try to put up any sort of fight. Not knowing what else to say, you nod quickly.

You change the subject smoothly: "Would you like to hold your son?"

Today was the first night that you would share a bedchamber with Robert. You didn't know why you felt so nervous about it. You had shared a bed frequently after your marriage, but he had always gone back to his own chambers after the fact.

The first time that it happened on your wedding night, you were shocked. You couldn't help but cry yourself to sleep. The next day, one of your new ladies-in-waiting explained that southern nobles didn't share bedchambers as often as northern nobles. This made you want to weep once again.

Sure, your notions of love and happy endings had been shattered by Alyn's death, but you tried to be optimistic going into your marriage with Robert. Both of you had loved and lost; maybe you could find some common ground. Only for Robert to leave as soon as he completed his marital duty.

After Alaric's birth, you hoped to turn a new leaf in your relationship. Not only for his sake, but for your sake. You could not live with a careless husband in a castle where you knew no one and had no true allies.

You sat at your vanity, preparing yourself for bed. Unlike most ladies, you did not need a whole retinue of ladies' maids in order to dress and undress. Alaric is already settled into his cradle and is already asleep.

You finish taking apart the elaborate southern hairstyle that one of your maids painstakingly crafted for the day. Once your hair is in waves down your back, you make your way over to your son's cradle by your bedside. You sit by Alaric, who dozed off to sleep while you were getting ready.

"I hope you can see the Rills and the rest of the North one day, my son," you whisper to your sleeping baby.

"If you wish for our son to meet your family, it could be arranged," Robert said. His silent appearance makes you jump.

You turn to him, and he stands at the foot of your bed. He is wearing a doublet free of creases and stains.

"You haven't been drinking," you said, puzzled.

"No, Jon said women don't appreciate sleeping beside a lump of drunken flesh," Robert says, almost shyly.

The same shyness seems to have infected you. "Alaric has already fallen asleep."

"Umm, well, I guess we can go to sleep now then," Robert said, not moving from his spot.

"Maester Pycelle said we cannot lay together for another two weeks," you tell him, and you stand from the bed.

"I know, I ask about you and the boy's health twice a week," Robert admitted, inching closer to your bed.

"Oh," you say awkwardly.

You slip off your robe and pad over to the vanity. Robert can't help but watch. You leave the robe on the vanity chair and blow out the candles sitting on the vanity. The room feels intimate in the low light of the remaining candles. You return to bed, crawl under the covers, and begin making yourself comfortable.

Robert strips down to his small clothes and climbs in next to you. Both of you stare at the ceiling in silence; neither has any idea what to say to each other.

"I would like Alaric to see the Rills and the rest of the North when he is older," you tell Robert, hoping to cut through the tension.

"I'm sure Ned would put us up while we visit," Robert says. It's meant to be a joke.

You're silent for a moment before letting out a soft huff of laughter. Robert feels a flicker of shame when he realizes that this is the first time he has heard you laugh.

You let out a small yawn. "Good night, husband."

He feels you brush against him when you shift to lie on your side, your back facing him. In the soft glow of the remaining candlelight, Robert can't help but admire the curve of your hip underneath the blanket. He had already taken note of how your breasts had swelled before you gave birth. He wanted so desperately to discover and memorize any part of your body that had changed when you gave him a child. Unfortunately for the king, he had no choice but to wait another half a moon before bedding you again.

Little did Robert know that you were nursing your own feelings of lust and disappointment. There was nothing you could do, though, except burrow deep in the covers and try to ignore the curdling lust in the pit of your belly.