and so the young wolf fell in love with the wild rose.
THE FLOWERS OF WINTERFELL
BOOK ONE OF THREE
[ synopsis inside! ]
multi-povs & canon divergent
...
ACT ONE — CHAPTER THREE The Things We Do For Love ✧*:･ﾟ
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Winterfell, 298 AC
Lavinia Tyrell
Winterfell's godswood was as magnificent as the stories said. Not in the way the godswood at Highgarden was beautiful with its bright greenery, drooping flowers, and the delicate intricacy of the Three Singers in the midst of it all. The godswood at Winterfell had a more primal beauty to it. The trees were dense and thick around the centre of the clearing, casting a dark shadow over the brush underneath. Instead of the vibrant colours and exotic plants they had in Highgarden, all that grew here were stubborn sentinel trees, mighty oaks, and ironwoods at least as old as the Seven Kingdoms themselves. And the air smelt of moist earth and decay.
Unlike the Seven, the gods that roamed here had no names. And no faces, except the ones which had been carved into the weirwood trees of old, thousands of years before the first Andals had even stepped foot on Westeros soil.
It was Winterfell's weirwood tree that Lavinia stood before now. An ancient tree, located in the centre of the godswood's grove, brooding over a small pool of black water that rested at its base. Its bark was as white as bone and its leaves the dark blood-red that Lavinia had spotted peering over the castle walls from the king's camp a week before. The face that had been carved into the centre of it was long and melancholy, and bled with red sap — a stark contrast to the bleeding smiles cut into the weirwoods at Highgarden and another reminder that the North was a much more solemn place than Lavinia was used too.
"My father calls it the heart tree," a familiar voice called out gently from behind Lavinia and she smiled as she turned around to face her betrothed.
Her reply caught in her throat, however, as a great big ball of grey fur came bounding suddenly towards her. Lavinia knew immediately what it was and so did not scream as the direwolf pinned her down. But it did not stop her body seizing up as the huge creature licked at her face.
She had known that Robb Stark possessed a direwolf — it had caused quite a stir amongst the king's party when they had learnt that Lord Eddard had gifted all the Stark children one, even his bastard — but she had yet to see one of the creatures in her time at the castle. Princess Myrcella had a rather unfortunate encounter with Arya Stark's direwolf, Nymeria, the first morning of their stay and the wolves had been kept under tight lock and key since.
Besides, Lavinia had been so preoccupied with helping Ser Davis and the rest of the Tyrell men that had come north with her settle into the castle, that she had not spent much time with anyone outside her household except at the dinners Lord Stark and his family held each night. Today was the first day she had finally worked up the courage to explore her new home. She had come to the godswood first, determined to acquaint herself with the gods of her future good-family in her effort to learn more about the North and its people.
