𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 ━━ robb stark

𝐢𝐢𝐢. a dragon in the house of wolves

❝ when i was a child, i'd sit for hours staring into open flames. ❞

            ━━━━ "𝐕𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐘," 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐁 Stark echoed through her mind as she walked behind him, the boy leading her to the castle of Winterfell, Robb using his larger hand to encase Vhaehrys' together firmly, making sure she didn't escape like the last two times. "I told my parents about you last night," he says, making the Targaryen's heart race a million miles an hour. Why had he told them? "They ordered me to get you at the break of dawn. I knew you were going to be in the brothel; you said multiple times before, and now here we are, me leading you to my parents."

"Why did you tell them about me?" She asked him, talking to him in a low, threatening whisper. "I told you to not say shit about me, yet here we are, me being taken in as a prisoner for your parents, and I'm sure your father is going to behead me for my father's crimes."

Robb just shrugged, not giving her an answer to her question. "He might not. He seemed. . . interested in you, and my father isn't the type of man that kills an innocent person for something their father did. That's Robert Baratheon." Vhaehrys rolls her violet eyes, taking a deep breath, her heart beating a million miles per hour as they get closer to the castle of Winterfell. Her belly was nauseous, her knees unsteady, her feet drawing her involuntarily to her end. A tear escapes her eye but she is quick to wipe it off on her shoulder, not wanting to seem weak against her captors, the Targaryen regaining her composure, standing up straighter and raising her chin. She will not seem weak. She was a dragon, she was going to be a dragon. Robb looked back at her, raising his eyebrows at her. "Are you alright?"

The glower Vhaehrys gives him shuts him down, the Stark looking at his feet, abashed. He shouldn't have told his parents about Vhary, he understood that now; she only wanted to lay low for the rest of her life, to live it amongst the others as an equal, not a high-born. "I'm sorry," he tells her, bowing his head. "Sorry for what?"

"For making you see my parents against your will. I know you wanted nothing more than to stay here for a night and go back to whatever you were doing, and I dragged you into something that would most likely escalate to a mess. I'm terribly sorry."

Vhaehrys said nothing, instead, she opted for bowing her head and hiding her blush. Despite wanting to detest the boy, he was reeking with confidence, charm, and love; something that was hard to find nowadays. He was also very handsome; sky blue eyes that held the world in them, auburn hair that was the perfect shade of red-brown, pale skin that almost looked like freshly fallen snow, though Vhaehrys only saw portraits of it from the books she read, and his lips were bright pink as if he had recently ceased chewing them. Vhaehrys didn't think she was beautiful at all; her pale skin always flushed when she was tired or when it was too hot out, her pale hair seemed like someone had poured molten silver on her head, and her violet eyes didn't seem natural, though it was considered normal for her family; all of her features were.

Robb leads her into the castle, maids muttering low to each other about the state the Targaryen was in. Weren't the Targaryens supposed to be the richest family in the Seven Kingdoms? Despite having had her family diminished, she surely would have had some wealth that her mother gave her before she passed. They also heard stories about how the Targaryens carried themselves with confidence and poise, how they wore red and black for their house colors, dragon sigils on their clothing, yet here was one of them, guided in by Robb Stark, her back hunched over and wearing burlap and some other material they can't name, her eyes looking defeated. This wasn't the people they've heard so much about, she was just an excuse for who they were.

Robb signaled for two guards to open the door to the Great Hall, the men looping their fingers through the metalwork and pulling it open, staring at the Targaryen with wide eyes. This was the woman they heard about the previous night. Vhaehrys glared at all of them, and they looked away and realized something: the dragon's daughter is a dragon still, and she would burn everyone there to the ground, into ashes, if she could. Lord and Lady Stark sat at the large table, Catelyn watching her warily while Ned looked at her with astonishment. She looked so much like Rhaegar. They had the same shade of violet eyes, the same straight nose, and. . . everything looked the same. It was as if he were watching through his little sister's eyes, living a life inside her feminine body.

"You must be Vhaehrys Targaryen, one of King Aerys' last children."

"And you must be Lord Stark, the man who sided against him. . . and killed my brother, Rhaegar."

A true Targaryen. He gives a solemn nod, closing his dark eyes for a second, taking a deep breath before continuing. "Yes, I did and you must realize why. He was going to burn the Seven Kingdoms to the ground. And as for Rhaegar, it was our king Robert Baratheon who killed them. I merely watched as his hammer pounded against his chest and as the men fighting for us scrambled to get the rubies that were knocked free from his armor."

"He trusted you," Vhaehrys recounts from one of her readings. "I found one of his journals in one of the forests of Westeros. Apparently, he didn't trust anyone at the Red Keep well enough to actually keep his written thoughts there. He wrote about how once his child with Lyanna Stark is born, he wanted you to take them under your wing and protect them. He talked about how did not kidnap Lyanna and rape her. In fact, she fell in love with him and married him willingly. Or do you not remember that? I don't expect you to as you simply watched as he was murdered." Gods, it was as if talking to an angry Rhaegar as well. Ned wasn't proud of some of his choices, he had to admit, and not doing anything to stop Robert from killing the Mad King's son was one of them. A child should grow up with a parent, not an uncle; only the parent can teach them the things they learned as a child. "The ties between Houses Stark and Targaryen are strained, I know -"

"Perhaps you haven't heard, My Lord, House Targaryen is gone. With only three surviving members, I don't think it can even count as a noble house anymore. Oh, of course, you heard, you were there the entire fucking time my family was turned into nothing but stories."

"Let me propose my idea," Ned said softly. "As you are the oldest between your sister and yourself, you would marry my oldest son, Robb." Vhaehrys' hauntingly violet eyes widen and her head turns towards an equally shocked Robb. "What?" the Stark boy asks his father. "But we haven't met properly yet, Father."

"Robb Stark, this is Vhaehrys Targaryen, Vhaehrys, meet Robb," Ned gestures between the both of them. "There. You've met." He gets up and straightens the skirt of his outfit before walking down the small flight of steps, announcing to the room, "The wedding will commence in a moon's time. Take this time to begin planning."