Your father was a nobleman in the North and had a close friendship with Lord Eddard himself, meaning you spent a lot of time around his children. You were a year junior to the eldest Stark child but even though you were close in age to Robb, you were far from friends. Even from a young age you did your best to compete at everything with each other and cause trouble for the other and it only grew as Jon and Theon got involved and you felt like you needed to show the heir to the Winterfell throne his place in the world.

It felt like you needed to make yourself seem better than him and you were willing to do everything in your power to push him down a notch. No matter how hard you tried to hurt him, you only managed to hurt yourself more especially when you had to fight the thoughts of actually liking the person you had made an enemy out of. You would never admit that you liked Robb, you struggled to even deem him as a friend in public and maybe that was why you had to try to overtly fight anything he stood for.

For one of the rare occasions, you had experienced a physical fight. You were used to watching Robb, Theon and Jon spar in the courtyard whilst you were regularly pushed to the side but every once in a while, you got a chance to train with them. As a woman you weren't expected to learn to fight, and they certainly didn't support you fighting with them when you usually beat them.

Even though the winter festival was only in a couple of days, you four cared far more to practice fighting than consider the traditions that were needed to be followed in the following days. You cared little for the bitter Northern winter, focusing only on fighting the best you could and proving yourself. You sparred with Robb whilst the other two partnered up. It didn't take you long to knock Robb off of his feet and it only inflated your ego when it came to fighting, little did you know that it was because he was distracted by his interest in you.

"I let you win," Robb stated as the two of you headed over to return the swords to where they belonged so that they didn't end up damaged or hurting someone they were not meant to.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Stark," you frowned. "You know that I kicked your arse fair and square."

"I am a far better fighter than any of you, especially you," he said through gritted teeth.

"You're just bitter that you were beat by a girl."

You hung your sword up with a loud clang as you turned back to glare at him and take a step closer, so there was barely room between the two of you. Your jaw was firmly clenched as your nostrils flared letting out your visible breath in the cold. The cold around you failed to get through your coats although it wasn't needed due to the heat of anger building within you.

The two of you stared at each other, the gap between you barely enough for the thick fur coats your both wore to sit. Your attention of the other didn't falter until you noticed the laughter coming from behind you. You both peered over to see Theon and Jon laughing, trying their best to keep it contained but that was clearly not successful.

"What?" Robb frowned at his brother and friend.

Theon pointed to above your heads, forcing you both to look up. Your stomach sunk as you saw the sprig of leaves above you. You knew that there was mistletoe hung all around Winterfell but you didn't realise that you had both ended up stood beneath some.

"No way," you stated even though deep down you would have been quite glad to have been forced into this situation.

"You've got to," Jon smirked as a few other people from the courtyard stopped to watch what was going on.

The two of you tried to continue to argue but Theon and Jon started a chant that quickly built steam with the others in the courtyard leaving you both fuming and realising no matter what you wanted to do, the mistletoe had sealed your fate.

You turned back to Robb whose cheeks were now flushed and her looked far more nervous than angry, which you were sure was similar to how you were looking too. Not wanting to step down in front of others, Robb moved to place a palm to your cheek, pulling you closer as he leaned in.

As you got close enough that your lips almost touched her whispered to you. "I'm sorry."

Your lips connected sending a spark deep within you, letting you know that you were never going to be able to turn back, not just because many people had seen the kiss.

~*~

Written by Charlotte,.