The Long Winter | Jaime Lannister X Stark OC | GOT/ASOIAF

The Things We Do For Love

A month. One long, dreary, unbearable month that had felt like a year, locked in his rooms with guards outside. 

Normally Edrick never spent any time in his room, unless it was to sleep. He spent his mornings training in the yard, a few hours in the afternoon with the Maester and the rest of the time doing whatever he liked about the castle and Wintertown with his cousins and Theon Greyjoy. 

Being stuck inside all the time made him feel like a caged animal. He was quite probably going mad being confined within the same four walls, all day and all night, for over four weeks. 

After the initial scolding from his mother, she had tried to ease his punishment as best she could, understanding why he did it but berating his recklessness. Having told the queen she had switched his hands, she had had Aileen bring him his training sword to practice with inside, and let him have visitors if they were discrete, which was better than nothing. But there was little she could do about letting him out. 

Today, however, the castle was mostly deserted. Everyone had gone hunting; the king and his men, Uncle Ned and his men, Loreon the king's bastard, Ren, Robb, Theon, Jon, maybe even Bran, and possibly his mother. It seemed like all the men in Winterfell were gone, meaning there were fewer people with the chance of catching him. 

Edrick had put on the roughspun tunic and breeches of a stable boy and slipped out of the window, climbing down the thick creeper that sprawled up the wall to the ground; he had done this several times, ages ago, just to prove he could, but not being as good a climber as Bran had fallen and fractured his wrist. He hadn't tried it since, until now.

Enjoying the fresh air for a moment, Edrick quickly ducked into a doorway and kept to the shadows as he snuck around, for the most part staying out of sight if he kept his head down, not that there were many people around to see him. He smeared some dirt on his face and rubbed straw in his hair just to make sure. No one would look twice at a grubby stable-boy. 

Now, where to go now? The downside to everyone being gone was that there was no one to keep him company. He would go and find Aileen if he could, but she and Morganna would be trapped with the other ladies in dull embroidery sessions. 

Sansa would give him the cold shoulder for attacking her precious prince, if she didn't turn him in to her mother; she had been the only one of his siblings and cousins who hadn't visited him in the last month (even Theon had come twice, and Ren had brought his friend Loreon a few times). 

Arya would be impossible to find as ever, and she was probably with the other ladies too; her and Morganna had both complained that his fight had made everyone so much stricter, though his sister had stopped complaining after a while and instead started babbling about her new friend the princess. 

So Edrick was alone. That was fine. At least he was out of that hateful little room. 

He ran to the godswood - gods, it felt incredible to run - as that was the only place where he would be able to practice in secret, out of earshot. None of the southerners dared go in there.

 However as Edrick moved deeper and deeper into the trees, much to his annoyance he heard the faint murmur of conversation through the undergrowth. Cursing under his breath, he was about to turn around and find somewhere else to go - the First Keep, perhaps, no one would be there - but then he recognised one of the voices.

"I don't like this," His mother was saying. Edrick froze; she might actually cane his hands if she caught him out here where he could be seen. "Ned's place is here, not King's Landing. I'd even rather you were the Hand," Her tone was sarcastic. "Think of the honour,"