A MAN WAS SENT to send word of the deserter, his brown mare's hooves pounding the ground below it, racing as fast he could towards the castle, which was covered in fog yet still visible, in the distance. He had, at least, fifteen more minutes until he reached it if his horse didn't stop for a drink or food.
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BRAN LET THE ARROW fly,and instead of hitting the bullseye as he intended it to, it struck the barrel next to it, Robb and Jon standing next to him as it did, and he hits the ground with the end of the bow, dejected that it was his eleventh arrow and none of them stuck the hay; the servants that walked around doing their business learned to not walk behind it or they'll get hurt by the arrowheads. Catelyn and Ned Stark watched all three, the mother of the heirs hating that the bastard boy was even near her two trueborns, hating at the way Jon just easily placed his hands on Bran's shoulders and leaned in to talk lowly into his ear. "Go on," he says. "Father's watching." The two look back up at them. "And your mother." The air is pregnant with tension, and as Ned's bastard, his tension was with Catelyn while Bran's was with the arrows that did not do his bidding. Maybe he wasn't cut out for battle or wars: maybe he was just meant to read, play with Rickon and Arya, and perhaps become a Maester, though he did not want to do the latter.
He sends them a small, tense smile before notching another arrow into the serving of the bowstring, pulling it back to aim it at the target.
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"FINE WORK AS ALWAYS," Septa Mordane kneeled on the ground beside Sansa, praising her for her needlework like every time. She was proud of the direwolf she had stitched up, but her proudest work was that of Vhaehrys' bridal cloak; the colors complimented her pale features perfectly. Well done."
"Thank you."
"I love the details you managed to get in these corners," Mordane circles her finger along a certain point of the stitching, making Sansa look closer, Arya looking at her older sister with jealousy. Sansa was always getting the praise from their Septa, always getting told about how she was a true, proper lady and how she did everything so neatly that even some of the more experienced needleworkers struggled to do it, and Arya was jealous of her for it; she wanted praise, but not of the art kind. She wanted praise for her ability to run fast, to be herself, and be the wolf she was, but all she got was a lot of, "Arya, that's men's work, come back here and finish your work!" She tugged on the needle, turning her gaze back to her wool, hearing the male laughter and the arrows sticking to weird places, yearning to be out there with them.
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OUTSIDE, BRAN TRIES AND misses again, seeing the arrow fly into the trees beyond the small wall, making his older brothers laugh, Rickon giggling from his place on the saddle. "And which one of you was a marksman at seven?" Ned calls out from his post, his children looking up at him, smiles wiped off their faces as they saw his serious one. "Keep practicing, Bran. Go on."
"Don't think too much, Bran," Jon tells him, trying to make his aim a little better with words of young wisdom. When he learned how to shoot, he found out that if he didn't have anything on his mind, it made him shoot better because the nagging voices weren't there to taunt him. "Relax your bow arm," Robb instructed, seeing the one flaw of his little sibling's stance once he had the arrow pulled back on the string. Just as he was about to let the twine go, another arrow flew past his ear and struck the messy black circle painted onto the cloth, and he lets out a gasp before turning around, seeing Arya holding up a bow proudly, bowing in mockery. The young boy runs after his sister, the older Stark, and bastard laughing as they run off, "Quick, Bran, faster!"
Rodrick Cassel and Theon Greyjoy approached Ned and Catelyn on the balcony, "Lord Stark, My Lady. A guardsman just rode in from the hills. They've captured a deserter from the Night's Watch." Ned visibly grimaces, bowing his head. If a man has enough balls to desert the Watch, something truly terrifying must have happened to him. "Get the lads to saddle their horses." Theon departs from the group, nodding as he did.
The laws are very clear: those sworn brothers of the Night's Watch who desert the ancient order will be executed. While it bothers him to have to carry out the sentence, he understands his duty and will always uphold it. "Do you have to?" his wife asks him, blue eyes wide as her tall husband turns back to her. "He swore an oath, Cat."
"The law is law, My Lady," Rodrick adds, Catelyn closing her eyes for a second, looking away as Ned faces Rodrick. "Tell Bran he's coming too." Ned also wants his son to witness his first execution, the reason being that someday one or more of them will become the lords of Winterfell, and they have to learn the protocol for various situations that present themselves. Catelyn disagrees with his decision, fearing that Bran is too young to witness an execution, but Ned believes he's finally old enough to witness and understand these grim matters, and all knew that, though Catelyn did not want to hear any of it. Rodrick nods and departs. "Ned, seven is too young to see such things."
"He won't be a boy forever. And Winter is Coming." The all grand motto of House Stark that serves as a warning for the lords of the North to always be prepared for winter, which can devastate their lands, and the Tully turned Stark feels shivers down her spine. Rickon hands Jon a few arrows, the boy running back to get more Robb got from the high places he couldn't reach, Catelyn turns around, and the first thing she sees is Jon's haunting sullen face. That boy. . . she couldn't put her finger on it completely, but he had an air of melancholy to him, much like how many said Rhaegar did. When he felt her eyes on him, he stopped his ministrations, glancing up to see her looking down at him. He looked so much like Ned, she noticed, and she hated him for it.
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THE STARK HEIR WAS brushing his wife's hair softly as she slept, happy that she was getting enough sleep for once in seven months, making sure he did not wake her, pressing his lips to her brow bone. "I'm riding South with my father. There's been a deserter to the Night's Watch, and as Lord of the North, Father has to swing the sword," he whispers softly to her and sees an arm move beneath the bedsheets, watching it as it slowly crawled towards the bulge in the bedding and securely wrapped around it. "Be careful," he heard Vhary whisper faintly back, and he smiles, leaning forward to catch her lips in a searing kiss, feeling them press back against his on an intuition.
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THE CHARACTERS TAKE THE AGE FROM THEIR BOOK COUNTERPARTS, BY THE WAY, SO THIS MAKES ARYA 9, BRAN 7, SANSA 11 WHILE RICKON STILL TAKES THE SHOW'S GIVEN AGE, 6.
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