>>FROM:@AEGONNER

[northerndragon]

Tell me about your gods.

If you don't have that kind of faith, then tell me what else you believe in. There must be something.

And if not that, tell me what you think of when you know a battle is coming.

Comments

[northerndragon]

Come to my capsule.

[He pauses, grasps Robb's forearm, and shakes it, then jerks his head in the direction they'll be walking in.]

I'm twenty-four now. I don't know how long you've been here, but look out for the crows. They're one of the commanders, all of them together.

The wedding. It was part of a deal to make Roose Bolton Warden of the North. They made his bastard -- Ramsay -- a Bolton and married Sansa to him... a Stark, to solidify his rule. Ramsay was very cruel to her and she escaped him and made her way to me at Castle Black. I was Lord Commander of the Watch. And then, near as I know, Ramsay killed Roose.

[kingofbadlifechoices]

[Capsule, what kind of word is that anyway? Just call it 'chambers' or 'room'. Robb pulls a bit of a face while Jon pulls his arm.]

I just arrived. I have not aged much. As you can see.

[He follows Jon and notices how heavy his head feels. It is a lot of information to take and there is only one conclusion he can make because of it.

He does not exist in Jon's world anymore... His siblings are undoing the mistakes he made.]

And I am dead... The arrows will kill me. [Like he already expected. There was no way he could escape the Twins.] Is it not?

[northerndragon]

[He can see it, but still, still, when Robb asks that question, Jon is surprised. It goes through him like a spear, and he realizes that because he's lived the longest of any of them, it's his fate to have to deliver bad tidings again and again.

The face he turns to his brother is haunted, regretful, and his hand rises to cup Robb's shoulder. His voice is softer, more reluctant: he pushes the words out.]

Aye, the arrows, or someone's knife.

It was Bolton and Frey and Tywin Lannister -- it must have been, because of what Bolton got from it.

But it may be that there's a time when it never happened. It's only what I know, what I remember. You're married... what's your wife's name?

[kingofbadlifechoices]

[Robb is not sure if the mention of his dead shocks him. Every lackwit could figure out that he would not make it out of the Twins alive, yet something turns cold inside of him. He thinks of all the things he wanted, the plans he had made, the promises he made.]

What did lord Bolton got from my death? [Robb asks it with a voice that lacks any sort of emotion.] The North? [Then he snorts.] As if the North would obey a bloody traitor.

[Finally he frowns, gazing at Jon when he speaks about times where things might not have happened.]

What does that have to do with the name of my wife?

[northerndragon]

The North. Winterfell. They obeyed him well enough when his bastard was flaying anyone who didn't. Karstark and Umber fought for the Boltons; Glover and Cerwyn and Manderly wouldn't fight at all.

[Now they're both frowning, and Jon searches his mind for a way to explain the answer to Robb's next question.]

I had heard that you'd married a foreign girl named Talisa, and that she'd died, but there's another girl who says she's your wife. Jeyne.