LADY JEYNE ◦ROBB STARK

LADY JEYNE, ix. passing fancy

       "I'm only trying to get Jeyne to spend some time with Robb," The child droned petulantly. "It's the whole reason the Redwynes are even here."

"I thought the two of you had grown closer." Jon prodded, brows furrowed out of curiosity as she avoided his gaze. "One truthful conversation between us does not mean are set and ready to be wed." Jeyne muttered unhappily, drumming her fingers against her arm. Since the fateful night in the crypts where it was Robb that had comforted her, she was drawn to him like he was the dry land in a sea of tidal waves rushing towards her. Even in the library their chatter was unreserved at best but the more days that passed without them talking much, the more Jeyne longed to speak to him and so the more she dreaded it too.

"No one is sending you there to be a bride, it is only for some fun."

      Sulking slightly, the girl with honey yellow and rosy pink flowers in her crown-like braid handed her arm to her second closest companion in Winterfell. "You are of unsound mind if you think I will go over there without you and Arya." Jeyne scoffed when Jon had stared at her cloth-textiled sleeve in confusion.

         Before the raven-haired boy could even take her arm in his, Arya squealed in excitement as she clasped her hands around Jeyne's waist excitedly. Of course, leading her directly to where Denys and Theon directed Bran at the same time Maegelle dawdled about the very heir Jeyne was being coerced to charm. Does she not tire, lingering by something she can never have?

       "Has Lady Jeyne come to join us?" Came the taunting words of the Greyjoy who appeared to thrive from the delight that accompanied picking on a girl of only ten and three.

"Shut up Theon." Arya and Maegelle snapped simultaneously at the ironborn, him only throwing his hands up in a feigned innocence with an excruciatingly irritating smirk playing on his shrivelled lips.

         Robb had snapped his head around so fast at the mention of the flower-born girl, grinning in transports of delight at the sight of her joining them. "Jeyne." Her name sounded so sweet on his lips, like the letters had been honeyed in the glacè of candies. Without even realising it, the Stark boy had shrugged Maegelle away from him in his astonishment of Jeyne's presence amongst them.

         "Have you come to join us in shooting arrows, little sister?" Denys quipped at her, smiling broadly.

        Jeyne shook her head cordially, twiddling her thumbs and picking at her fingernails under the observance of irises of blue, grey and brown pigments. "It was Arya that wanted to come," She said softly, "She insisted I join her."

      Sharing a warm smile with the younger girl, Jeyne ambled closer to her brother while Arya followed in suit of Jon who approached the defeated Bran. Robb had cleared his throat and turned his gaze back to his brothers when he saw that Jeyne would not even look to him. "You have to do this," Jon encouraged him Bran in a hushed tone, patting him on the shoulder. "Especially now that there's a pretty girl watching you."

He ruffled Arya's hair lovingly as if it was her he was speaking off but as his besotted eyes fell to Jeyne far off by the wooden fences beside Denys, Arya did not think she was the pretty girl Jon was quite talking about.

Rowdy laughter rushed through the air, Jon's the most gratifying to Jeyne because for once it seemed his shoulders were rid of the weight of the world, as the Starks and Denys were hunched over in laughter after Bran missed the target entirely. Maegelle tittered too, although at least, she placed a hand over her mouth as to not be to mocking of the boy.