#ofthewhitehands

   Marriage was always supposed to be a woman or girl’s burden. How many nights had he tried calming Cersei’s fears over who her father might sell her off too?

And now here it was- he had been the one tied off to one of the Starks. A girl with hair as dark as his own was fair- and he hadn’t even said a word to her since the damnable ceremony that had roped them together. 

Even now riding with her to their new home it felt as though they were daring each other to break the silence. 

for every ‘@’ sent (anon or not) I WILL mention and post some positivity about a fellow tumblr user

“JON—!!”

Robb squinted at the woman as she was led into the great hall of Winterfell. He had heard stories of his aunt long ago, and there was no mistaking the resemblance--she looked so like his father and like the statue Robb had seen of her a thousand times over--but Ned had reported her dead. Now, Ned was buried in the crypt beside where she was supposed to lay, as was Robb’s mother. He was a king, and a king with nothing: the war won, but his siblings still missing, his family all taken from him, and that was where he was meant to be as well: in the ground. He had survived what they were now calling “The Red Wedding,” but at too great a cost. 

And it seemed he was not the only ghost that would haunt these halls. 

Her arm extends quietly in response, to tired and too sore to make any more effort to bring him closer to her.

                                  The babe slept soundly beside in the cot, cooing lightly in sleep.

“As good a father as I’ll be a mother,” she murmured, catching his hand and pulling him into an embrace.

He smelled life grass and  hides fresh from the furrier. He smelled like a summer’s day had all but melted into a warm hearth.

                 He smelt like home and she was eager to keep him.

“ We shall do our best, won’t we? You’ll be better at it than I, I’m certain.  They will love you and hang onto your ankles. Wait by the door for you to come when night fears arise. You’ll be the favorite- in my experience fathers often are.

                                                     You’ll be as wonderful as gold.”

He turned to look down at her and slipped back into her arms. He had duties to attend too. But what were they compared to Lyanna’s outstretched hands? 

His own arms tightened around her as he attempted to drown in the black ink of her hair. “Maybe in your experience but not in mine.” His mother’s memory was still locked away in some box somewhere- too precious and delicate to be fished out but so much better than the cold father who remained.