✓ | 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒇'𝒔 𝑩𝒂𝒏𝒆 (R.STARK 1/3)

Chapter Thirty Five::My King

A/N: Sorry this ones short but it's got all the feels :)

Once the meeting had come to a close, and Raina had discovered she'd paid little attention throughout the whole ordeal, she escaped the tent quickly, her legs walking forward without command, in any direction. All she had managed to comprehend was Robb's first words. He wouldn't marry the Frey girl. He was mad, insane, and yet Raina could not help but feel entirely relieved at this announcement. She loved Robb, and hoped his decision was an outcome of his requited feelings, though she naturally contradicted herself, and assumed otherwise. There had to be more to this than just Robb was in love. It couldn't just be that. She wouldn't understand it if it were. Robb couldn't throw away this war, this promise, just because of her.

"Ray!" She'd heard the King shout as she'd stomped through the camp, he was obviously trying to disguise her identity in front of men that were still unknown to who she truly was; however, as soon as they broke free of the tents, the name changed. "Raina please," Robb pleaded, sounding closer than Raina had thought him to be, yet he made no effort to physically prevent her from walking. "Are you mad?" She shouted, not as loud as she'd hoped, though that was probably for the best. Robb looked entirely stunned, once she turned around to face him, his expression fell as he gazed imploringly at her. "You can't do this Robb. You can't throw this away." Raina exclaimed, phased and flustered by Robb's decisions. But before she could continue her rant, Robb's hand was on her waist, his other securely against her cheek as he pushed her back, against a nearby tree, and captured her lips with his own. It was enough to calm her down, that was for sure, yet she was still utterly dazed by his previous words.

She didn't object, she couldn't, not to Robb. The handsome, brave, amazing Young Wolf, that had every other King trembling in their boots. The handsome, brave and amazing Young Stark, whom she had known since she was young, and had loved almost as long. If love at first sight had ever existed, their relationship was a prime example.

When the King pulled out, his eyes failed to leave Raina's gaze, forever locked on hers, the upmost concern riddling his longing look until she finally spoke; this time quieter than before. "What changed your mind?" Her timid voice pierced the silence, that had only been challenged by the audible breaths. "You," Robb whispered, his voice quaint, yet bold enough for Raina to hear clearly. "You can't do this, Robb. You're chucking away a promise made to Lord Walder because of me. That's madness." Raina argued, though there was no anger or desperation in her tone anymore, and her words were only for the pair to hear. "I don't want you to pay for this later, not when you are so close to winning this war. And I don't want it to be on my behalf." Robb's expression, despite Raina's persistence, did little to sway his decision, instead he merely looked at her, taking in all that he had failed to recognise in the past year. "I can't let you throw, all that you've done, away. Not for me!" The two fell quiet, the only sounds to be heard were that of the leaves about, rustling against one another, and that of the wind that fled through them, breaking them free of the branches constraining them.

"I've just got you back," Robb said faintly, his gaze still remaining on Raina as he managed his words. "I have gone many years, missing your company, forcing myself to think of anything but you; yet every time I closed my eyes, there you were, or every time I was alone, or upset, or angered, or just nostalgic, you haunted me, like a plague, always there, but not truly at my side. When I let go of my mind, you were the first and only thing it would come to, even when I forced myself not to, it was like an instinct, to picture you, to imagine life with you still here; it was surely going to drive me mad, and I tried so hard not to get consumed by the heartbreak, but it never worked. Nothing did. You surely can't imagine how hard it was, to act like there wasn't a part of me missing this entire time, to act as though my heart had not been cut in two with your departure, and go on with life, somehow finding ways to cope with your not being here. I've needed you in my life, since the day you left, like you were my means of survival, slowly being torn away from my grasp. I don't know how I failed to see it, to see you, before now. It was like I knew you were there, but couldn't quite place it at the same time. I suppose I struggled to differentiate between what was real, and what was a mere figment of my imagination, there to try and ease the pain. There was something about you, something about Ray, that felt familiar, comforting and warm, yet I was incapable of resolving why. Until now. After everything that we've both endured, I'm not letting a simple Frey stand in the way of what I've gone so long without. I love you, Raina, let me do what I have wanted to do my entire life; be with you. I will arrange a replacement deal with Lord Frey, I will fight him as well if I must, but not even all the Seven Kingdoms turning against us will take you away from me again."

Robb's overwhelming words caught Raina off guard, to the point in which she felt her breath hitch in her throat, preventing her response. The only decent reply that could be given, however, was that of her lips against his, which she enacted immediately, still attempting to comprehend all that the man she loved had said moments ago. Their mouths moved in synch for that moment, their embrace being tightened with every second that passed, the pair attempting to get as close to the other as they could manage. It was only when Raina leaned away, in order to breathe, that she was able to state what she had meant to say before their passion took over. "I know how it feels, to go so long, imagining and fantasising about what could have been, forced to live without you in my life..." She breathed, the air from her lungs escaping in deep sighs, and being recaptured in short, inhales of breath between her words. "I spent a year trying to make up for the pain it caused, in both of us, because I never want to have to go that long without you again."