𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑽

꧁~~~Benget Stark~~~꧂
꧁~~~298 After Conquest~~~꧂

꧁The empty mantle above the empty hearth in the empty Great Hall of Winterfell bears heavily apon Benget. The mantle where the Dawn had been kept for several years before his father had given him the fine milkglass like blade has not seen use. Nothing rests upon it now except for dust and candles that are melted completely all the way to the bottom.

The cleaners and servants have yet to come and clean the hall. After Robert Baratheon's wild feast last night, the Great Hall is leveled to a mess worse than the stables Ben and Jon would have to clean for weeks it seemed whenever they skipped out on Maester Luwin's lessons or were causing some mischief around Wintertown or the likes.

But that empty mantle bears down on Benget like an unseen weight that he himself doesn't understand nor probably ever will. Seven Hells, he himself doesn't even know if he wants to try and understand. Benget is a Dayne and a Stark. A Stark father and a Dayne mother. A Stark father who had broken his marriage vows to his Dayne mother and married another, all for the sake of gaining some sort of alliance.

And maybe because of that, Ashara Dayne is dead. The fact that Ben never got to even meet his mother before is a weight that slowly crushes him in the most painful way possible. He and Jon never grew up with a mother. If either of them could consider Lady Catelyn their mother- which they cannot for the life of them- then the only experiences they have with mothers is abuse, loathing and resentment. The parts of a mother that should never be shown to her children.

Benget never felt like he really belonged here. He didn't feel like he belonged in Dorne when he was down there, either. Anywhere he had gone through the years. Dorne, the Riverlands, the Reach, Dorne, the Stormlands, any of those Kingdoms within the Seven Kingdoms and he did not feel like he belonged to any of them. No family connection to any of it.

The only true connections he feels in this world are with his brother- his twin brother whom he would give anything in keeping safe- and something else. Something he doesn't understand. Something that he feels is waiting for him.

"I remember how you used to sit in here every single night looking up at that mantle until you feel asleep sitting up."

Benget Stark does not move an inch as he sits on a bench to one of the low tables just before the high table in the Great Hall, his father approaching from the entrance off at the other end.

"You always said you dreamed of becoming the Sword of the Morning, just like your uncle."

"The one you killed."

Benget simply states as he does not connect his glowing violet eyes with the grey-blue and tired eyes of the Lord of Winterfell. Ned sighs heavily, moving to the table across from the one Benget is seated behind, taking a seat himself as he groans a little.

"I feel as though I've been getting older for the last sixteen years. My back is as broken as lance after several tilts."

"You've said something like that before many a time."

Benget still does not look to his father, his eyes fixated on the empty mantle gathering dust like the one in Starfall presumably is. An empty castle on the Torrentine River facing Summer Sea. That eerie emptiness has been around for a long time. And Ben figures that empty feeling feeling he draws from it will remain within himself for a very long time as well.