"Ah, she is clever after all," said Cersei, smirking.
"Wit is such a rare accomplice to beauty yet we
stand, alone, in a room crowded with only that."
Cersei lifted a thick strand of Eleonora's hair, ran it
through her fingers, and dropped it back o...
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The perfect companion never has fewer than four feet. —
"He's just a boy," she said quietly to her brother, Robb, as their horses climbed the hillside. "He's still far too young to–"
"Spare me, Eleonora. I was his age, younger even, when I saw my first," said Robb, turning his head to meet his lady sister's uneasy gaze, "as were you."
The cool morning hinted to the end of summer. A large group set forth at the break of dawn to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, nineteen men and one woman. It was the first time young Bran Stark had been told by his lord father that he was old enough to see the king's justice done.
The man cut down from the wall and dragged before them looked terrified and defeated as Lord Stark led his party to their destination. Robb and Jon sat tall and still on their horses. Eleonora rode closely between Robb and Bran as the little lord looked almost gleeful upon his pony, trying to seem older than seven, experienced and worldly. A faint wind blew through the holdfast gate. Over their heads flapped the banner of the Starks of Winterfell: a grey direwolf racing across an ice-white field.
Lord Eddard Stark sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his forty years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes that day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest.
Eleonora was four years her brother Robb's senior, twenty and wise beyond her years. She dawned long black hair that fell just above her waist in loose glossy waves and a small but formidable stature. She was undeniably beautiful, her icy blue eyes inherited from the Tullys of Riverrun, serving as one of her most striking features. Her crystal blue orbs had pierced the very souls of many others in her time. She was more of a second mother to a few of her younger siblings, but not to Robb – never to Robb. He was her best friend and her confidant. Robb Stark had always been her equal. When Lord Eddard Stark brought his bastard son home from war, shattering Lady Stark's heart, it was Eleonora and Robb who never allowed Jon Snow to feel anything less than a true blood brother. Their hearts would always beat as one.
Bran galloped innocently ahead on his steed, blissfully ignorant to the gruesome sight he was to behold. "I survived it. And for pity's sake, Nora, you're a girl and you fought your way to see your first long before I did."
"Because I was ready," she snapped, "and if I remember correctly, it was you –Robb– who released a scream only heard from the mouths of mating goats as soon as you saw our father grip his sword, your first witness to the king's justice."
Jon released a snort that he instantly tried to conceal as soon as his half-brother shot him a particularly nasty look. Eleonora smirked in a very satisfied manner to herself, dug her heels into her horse's side and galloped ahead of the men. Lord Stark eyed his daughter as she appeared as one upon her steed. She was a skilled horsewoman, wolf blood coursing through her veins. For a moment, just a moment, Lord Stark forgot he was watching his eldest daughter. He saw Lyanna and his brother Brandon. She looked so much like his sister had at that age, wild and untamed, handsome and protected by the frozen north.
