Winter is Coming (A Game Of Thrones Fan-Fic) (ON HOLD)

1. Winter Is Coming

Robb Stark, aged sixteen now, was led up through one of the Twins by one of Lord Frey's many children. From one of the archer's windows that they passed, a chilled wind swept inside making Robb shiver despite his heavy cloak and fur lined boots. Once they reached Lord Frey's sitting room, he found his Lady Mother and the Lord himself inside. Robb kissed his mother Catelyn on the cheek and then bowed slightly to Lord Frey. The Lord with his tiny eyes and weasel like face narrowed his eyes at the Stark boy.
"You know why we're here, Robb," his mother broke the silence. Robb sighed and nodded his head stiffly, "Lord Frey and myself have chosen five of his girls with which we think you will make a wonderful couple."
Growing ever more observant, Robb could notice how tired that sentence seemed to be coming forth from his mother. Lord Frey had to have been wearing her patience thin or else Catelyn Tully never would have sounded so tired. But Robb was tired of this too; it had been just a few months since the deal was struck and Robb and his army crossed over Lord Frey's bridge. But Lord Frey was eager to rid himself of a few of his own and was wary of the Starks.
"Well, let's see them then," Robb finally spoke. He thought this was a perfect waste of time he was short of. He understood that he should be out in the battlements or back in the halls of Winterfell planning the next attack with his father's bannermen and the lords who swore to fight against the Lannisters. Every moment here, choosing a bride, was a moment longer that his Lord Father, the honorable Eddard Stark, was rotting in King's Landing. Thoughts of his youngest sister, Arya, filled his mind. In his sister Sansa's letters she never once made mention of Robb's youngest sister. Gods keep her safe, Robb pleaded.
Four girls were brought into the room wearing their best dresses and batting their eyelashes at Robb. They were not all so bad as the young lord believed they would be- but they were not as beautiful as the girl he would have picked for himself would have been.
"Where is the fifth?" Lord Frey spat, "Insolent wench!"
Catelyn gave Robb a glance saying to choose quickly and this all would be done.
"I'm sure I don't know which girl to choose. They are all so lovely," Robb muttered the pleasantry.
"Don't mock me boy." Lord Frey's temper flared.
"Either of these girls I would be lucky to have as my bride," he made himself say in the voice of Robb-the-lord, "Mother, I trust you to choose well in my place. Lord Frey, I have to be going back to Winterfell- I look forward to marrying the daughter you send to me."
The lord nodded unhappily but excused Robb nonetheless. Once outside and taking up his grey mount, Robb spurred his horse back North. Several minutes later his Direwolf, Grey Wind, came racing out of the nearby forest and to his side. The horse underneath him only shook his head uncomfortably now as opposed to the first time Grey Wind ran next to him- during which Robb was nearly vaulted from his horse.
Robb made camp for the night when he was halfway to Winterfell. The familiar banners of his army shuddered in the cold night breeze and their fires were a warm welcome to Robb's frozen bones. The only one there that night who did not seem to mind the pre-winter chill was Grey Wind; but even that creature who made home in the snow did not seem to like this sudden cold.
Sitting outside that night with one of his men, Robb could not help but remember the words of his family- Winter is coming.