𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 | Riverrun

{ Eliza }

✧✦✧

𝕰liza and Robb stood in the same room, yet no words were exchanged between them. Talisa was still hovering like a persistent horsefly and Robb knew better than to say anything to risk her wrath. She was growing closer and closer to her breaking point.

"Pardon me, Your Grace," Roose Bolton broke the silence between them. "My Queen."

Eliza looked up, cocking an eyebrow at the man.

"Let me guess which one is good news," Robb muttered, at the three scrolls in Roose's hand. Eliza hummed.

"Word from Riverrun, Faymont and Winterfell." Eliza stood up, taking the Faymont scroll from Roose's hand and opening it swiftly. The letter was in Perseus' handwriting, signed by both Perseus and Cayden. Eliza sat down, before reading through it as Robb took the other two scrolls.

Eliza,

Bran and Rickon were not found at Winterfell but Roose's bastard son is unhinged. He was there before us and I am not sure whether he did something before we arrived. Do not trust them. We will keep an eye on the North whilst you are further in the south.

Sending our love,

Perseus and Cayden

"What does yours say?" Robb asked, looking up at Eliza.

"The usual." Eliza waited for Roose Bolton to step out, before handing the letter to her husband for him to read. "What do yours say?"

"Doom and gloom is all I ever hear." Robb replied, as Eliza read through the letters before sighing. 

"I see." She took a deep breath. "I shall tell my brother what Perseus and Cayden have sent, I presume you'll tell your mother."

"Aye." Robb's shoulders were slumped and Eliza took note as she watched him. The letter from Riverrun was morbid, telling of Robb's grandfather's death and asking for him to come to the funeral. It wasn't the best timing, what with the war, but she knew that they had to, that they needed to pay their respects.

"Robb..." She trailed off as the man looked up at her. Reaching down, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, feeling him lean slightly into her touch. "If you prefer, I will speak to your mother."

"It's better coming from me I feel." Robb squeezed her hand, smiling gently. "But thank you, Eliza, for the offer."

She hummed, before standing back up.

"What will we do? March to Riverrun?"

"I suppose. We'll gather the other lords, and begin the march...you do not agree." He trailed off, catching sight of Eliza's face and the way her lips had flicked down. "What do you think?"

"I think it is counterproductive to march our entire force away from King's Landing." Eliza finishing pulling on her cloak, ready to speak to Anceron. "We have come this far, I feel if we do not leave a force here to continue to push the Lannisters back towards King's Landing, then we will lose our position."

"Aye..." Robb waited for her to elaborate. "So, what would you do?"

"Leave the majority of our army here, Anceron can stay as well and lead them, he will be more than happy to. A smaller host travels to Riverrun, say us, some Bare guards and then another house of your choosing. We are a faster group, if we're all on horseback then we shall get there faster." Eliza explained, as Greywind stood up from his position by the fire, ready to abandon Robb and follow Eliza, "and get back faster."

"You're right. You can tell your brother, I'll deal with the other lords." He was still looking slightly dejected, before he stood up to follow her. Eliza looked up at him, before making a decision, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek once more.

She exited the room, Greywind trotting at her feet as she headed out and into the courtyard, finding her brother training with another soldier.

"Anceron." He paused, turning to smile at his sister.

"Liz, what can I do for you?" The other soldier bowed to her, before walking off as she turned to her brother. Holding out the scroll, she waited for him to read it, seeing him hum and nod. "That is nothing new. I could have told you that from the moment I met his father. I think he is a rat."

"That is what I said. Robb thinks it's an insult to rats." Anceron snorted at that, shaking his dark hair out as Eliza fought a grin, stroking Greywind's head. The wolf leant into her side. "Another letter came. Hoster Tully, Robb's grandfather is dead."

"We are to march? That is a poor idea."

"I have already told him that." Eliza placated her brother. "He wishes for you to stay here with the majority of our soldiers. We will take some Bare guards, some Stark guards, Lady Catelyn and another and then head to Riverrun. It should be a week round trip, I am sure that you can manage."

"If I cannot?"

"I told Robb that you can, so stop jesting." Eliza scolded her brother, who shook his head with a laugh.

"I shall offer my consolations to your husband when I next see him, but of course, we shall do that. I'll prepare a host for you specially." Anceron squeezed her hand. "Harrenhal and the army will be safe in my hands."

"I would say do not destroy it but there's not much left to destroy."

✧✦✧

Eliza's horse was dancing beneath her, fiery and excitable as Eliza pulled him to a stop. He stamped his foot, snorting and whinnying.

"How you have control over him, I still do not know." Eliza looked up, soothing her horse's neck as she glanced at Lady Catelyn. "It surprised me the first time I met you, and it still surprises me now."

"I am a Bare. We are taught not to fear our horses. He does not scare me, and I do not control him. It is a bond." Eliza explained, before jumping down and allowing her horse to follow her over to where Lady Catelyn was making a charm that Eliza had seen once before. "You made that for Bran."

"Aye, I did." Catelyn nodded, looking up as she watched the large bay lean his head across Eliza's torso, searching for something in her pockets. Eliza pulled an apple out, handing it over as her horse chomped away and grew quiet. It was at that moment Greywind made an appearance, panting and leaning into Eliza's side. "He's taken a shine to you. You're a proper Stark now."

"Do you need any help?" Eliza questioned, a Bare soldier appearing to take her horse to get water and food and have his legs checked for injuries.

"No, a mother makes one for her children to protect them. Only a mother can make them." Catelyn replied, before looking up. "Maybe you can make one soon, but not for the moment."

Eliza, in truth, had not thought about children. She knew that she had to have some, for Robb to have an heir, but when the war started, it had been the last thing on her mind. She was also worried about having a child born into a loveless marriage. Whilst it was true that Robb was growing on Eliza, she was not sure whether raising a child at this moment would be beneficial. Her parents had been truly in love, from what little Eliza could remember of them at least, and she wished for her children to know that and to grow up with parents who could show them what true love looked like.

It was why she had been reluctant to be in an arranged marriage in the first place.

"You are thinking of children..." Catelyn watched her, tilting her head as Eliza hummed. 

"I do not think it is wise to have them now, not during war."

"I had Robb during a war, well a year before it." Catelyn revealed. "I had his sister during the war."

"Lyra?" Eliza knew that the Stark daughters were a sore point for Catelyn. Lyra and Sansa, the elder two, were both trapped in King's Landing with Lyra set to marry the king that they were fighting against whilst Arya had been missing since her father's execution a year earlier. "I did not know that. Robb did not mention it."

"No, he was too young to remember. They had their terrible twos together, grew up together. They were inseparable." Catelyn chuckled. "Them and Jon."

"Jon is the one at the Wall, he's become a member of the Night's Watch." Eliza made a mental note of it all, trying to work out where all of Robb's siblings were. Her own siblings were much more easy to locate with Anceron being in Harrenhal and her other three brothers still at Faymont.

"I made one of these for him, many years ago. He came down with the pox and Maester Luwin said if he made it through the night, he'd live but it would be a very long night." Catelyn explained. "So, I sat with him all through the darkness, listened to his ragged little breaths, his coughing, his whimpering."

Eliza's family had been lucky to never get the pox, somehow missing it over the years.

"When my husband brought him home from the war, I couldn't bear to look at him. I didn't want to see those brown stranger's eyes staring up at me. So, I prayed to the gods, take him away. Make him die and he got the pox and I knew, I was the worst woman who ever lived. A murderer." Catelyn explained, as Eliza watched her with dark eyes. Who was she to judge the woman? She did not have children of her own, so she could not understand the emotions that came with it. "I'd condemned this poor, innocent child to a horrible death all because I was jealous of his mother. A woman he didn't even know. So I prayed to all seven gods, let the boy live. Let him live and I'll love him. I'll be a mother to him. I'll beg my husband to give him a true name, to call him Stark and be done with it, to make him one of us."

"And he lived." Eliza hummed, knowing that the man had survived. 

"And he lived. And I couldn't keep my promise." Catelyn shook her head. "And everything that's happened since then, all this horror that's come to my family it's all because I couldn't love a motherless child. I doomed you to be in an unlucky family."

Hiya,

So, Robb and Eliza are kind of doing better, Catelyn wants them to have kids and Eliza's like nah, also, Greywind just loves Eliza only and no one else which I think is super funny, anyhow.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx