POPPY | A Game Of Thrones

FIFTY-THREE

i love her, and that's
the beginning and the
end of everything.

HE EXPECTED AN ARGUMENT. For Hermione Tatham not to be angry at something he had done would simply be the most out of character thing for them both—it would almost be as if he had lost the ability to wield a sword—Though what Robb Stark hadn't expected was the dressing down he had received.

"What is your plan?" she had asked him with wild eyes and a heavy voice which crashed into him like waves beating the shore. What is your plan? What is your plan? What is your plan?

He wanted to tell her that he didn't know. That she was right about everything. When she had been taken from him he was no longer in the mindset of a king, but a man who had lost his wife. The determination to find her had turned into fear and then into mourning. Mourning that Jeyne was there to help heal.

The only problem was that these words couldn't find their way out of Robb's mouth. Nothing could.

The King in the North stood in front of his first wife speechless and silent watching her as she watched him. Ignorant of what to do or say next until she made the first move, gliding past him and pulling the door open. "You should go." There had been no hesitation in her voice. No sense of doubt and he hadn't fought to stay.

With exhaustion in her eyes and in his bones, Robb complied. Crossing the threshold out of her chamber room, he looked back to meet her darkened gaze for only a moment before the door shut in his face.

That's how he found himself in the Tully's Great Hall, leaned over a table covered in maps and wooden figurines of the Westeros strongholds. Despite every manoeuvre, every plan of action he tried to take either he didn't have enough men or Tywin wouldn't have the upper ground. After all, they were men of the north and this was southern territory they were fighting in.

Then what made it all, even more, finding a solution to his war was the fact that he couldn't get Hermione or Jeyne out of his mind. After all, it had been Jeyne to come to him (almost in tears) to tell him that she had told Hermione of their marriage. Polygamy despite not being outlawed went against everything his father had taught him since he was a child.

Maester Vyman of Riverrun hadn't known what to say when Robb told him about his situation after Hermione had returned. Deducing his problem down to the choice of the two women to keep as his wife. "You'll have to annul the marriage of one," he had told him simply before sending him off.

That was the difference, Robb noted. With Jeyne, he felt wanted, needed even and blame it on his ego, but Robb liked the feeling of always being needed by someone. Having them depend on him. Though with Hermione there was always a sense that she would be fine without him—she was stronger than he could ever be—and he loved her, Gods did he love her. It was something he never knew how to describe, but to say it was an overwhelming feeling that at times woke him up at the dead of night would be an understatement. However, what drew him closer to his decision of Jeyne was the feeling Robb always harboured that Hermione was never with him. Surely he'd felt her and touched her, but there was always a sense that she never belonged solely him despite how much he wanted her to be. Despite how much he craved her dangerously, she remained always just out of his reach.

Jeyne helped you through your most trying times, a piece of Robb objected. She healed your wounds and catered to your needs when you desperately needed somebody to.

So you want to choose someone because of vanity, a voice which took on the guise of Hermione interjected. Hermione's been there with you through every single moment of your life and has never failed to have your back. She wants you not because you're perfect but because she knows your imperfections and loves you along with them.

"Robb?"

The troubled king turned seeing his mother standing in the doorway, a halo of the morning lighting surrounding her. "Have you been up all night?" she's quick to cross the space between them. Her soft hands caressing his face. "How are you? How's Hermione?"

"So I guess you heard," he tried and failed to laugh off his discomfort.

Catelyn scoffed lightly, a smile playing on her lips. "The entire countryside heard you. I think your voices are still being carried across the Wall and the Narrow Sea."

Robb shook his head and looked back down to the maps. "Everything is so complicated mother. It feels like everything I do is wrong. That every choice I make isn't the right one, how am I supposed to lead people—How are people supposed to follow me when I can't even decide on who to stay married to much less a battle strategy to save my sisters!"

"You are your father's son," she sighed. "He was a good and honourable man who I'm afraid was also plagued with the insufferable habit of following his heart instead of his head at times."

"And look where that got him," Robb pointed. "I want to be better than father, to not be forced to make the same mistakes."

Catelyn nodded her head. "Then learn from his mistakes, do not solely abide by duty, but follow your heart as well. With battle... and with love. Chose the path that will make you a better person."

Robb let his mother's words melt into him fully and like a light, everything started to make sense again. "I'm more because of her," Robb whispered the edges of his lips curling as he quickly embraced his mother. Then with a short "thank you" Robb was gone. Taking the steps of the main staircase two at a time and moving down corridors he reached the chamber room door in minutes before knocking.