𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕹𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖍 𝕭𝖊𝖑𝖔𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗

𝕾𝖎𝖝

𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐎𝐍

The boy twisted his hand impatiently, causing Bran – who was the one holding it – to look at him sideway.

"Rickon, it's going to happen in just a couple of minutes, okay? Don't stress and, most importantly, stand still. Father would not want you to look untaming in front of his Lords" Bran told him.

Rickon mumbled some angry words as an answer, but still settled more calmly. He kept his hand in Bran's though – that way, if he were to move again, the boy would notice and tell him.

Just so to have something to fill his mind with in those unbearable minutes of wait, he decided to look through Bran's words: actually understanding what he was being told was not the way Rickon usually dealt with stuff.

A head nod or a sly smile to him were more than enough to make his interlocutors happy, because they made it look like he was actually following their words – which was partially wrong: he was listening, that was not faked, but his mind simply didn't want to know what those words it heard meant.

'Words are wind' was a saying Old Nan, his story-teller (Bran had taken a liking to calling her 'their entertainer', but Rickon didn't like it; it was too long a name and he wasn't even sure he knew exactly what it meant), and the little boy couldn't agree more: he'd much sooner be out running and playing with Shaggydog, his black and wild direwolf, than be sitting in Maester Luwin's chambers with Bran, learning about history and astronomy and geometry.

Although being wind, – and therefore close to useless – in any case, words were the only thing the boy could hope to entertain himself with while waiting, so he was more than willing to do that – it would be better than doing nothing, and that way he would also give Bran a much easier time. He needn't worry about me – I can just as many things as him and even more.

"Don't stress and, most importantly, stand still", had said Bran. And: "Father would not want you to look untaming in front of his Lords".

But neither of those things sat right with Rickon: for a start, his father was not there – nor would he, because he had been killed in King's Landing and now the Lord of Winterfell was his eldest brother, who had yet again gone south. So it had fallen on Bran to act a Lord, though Rickon knew well he wasn't: the elder was only four years older than he was (he had done the calculation), so it basically meant they were of age.

In second place, then, Rickon didn't see what was wrong in being untaming: people whose actions he could predict bored him to death, and those whom he could command even more.

They don't even have the energy to oppose me he'd think, tsking. They are weak.

"They are servants. They are doing but what they are asked to", would've replied Maester Luwin, he knew, but that didn't change a thing.

Everyone could fight if they wanted to, and those who couldn't were weak. He saw no other possible explanation.

He looked back at Bran, who was sitting next to him: his brother was crippled, so he could not stand on his feet as Rickon could. Because of that, Bran had been seated in a very majestic chair, made of wood but painted white, carefully carved to resemble their House's Banner (a grey direwolf).