PART ONE-CHAPTER SEVEN

"We must accept severe disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
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"Fell? What do you mean, fell?"

As much as Rhea hated to accept this fact, she knew she couldn't avoid the inevitable. She was well aware of Brandon Stark's habit of climbing towers like they were trees, even the tallest of them all. On her first day, Maester Luwin assured her that it was a habit of his, and all his practice in the four years that this ten-year-old boy had been doing it had helped him become very much sure-footed. Not wanting to make a grab at the boy's freedom, something Rhea had very less of, she didn't say a thing.

Gods, how wrong a decision that had turned out.

"Myrcella please, calm down a little and tell me more, please. Crying isn't going to help at all." She said, sensing her sister's worry. She then did her best to calm her down. Tommen had joined the hug that she had been giving Myrcella in an attempt to calm himself down too-but in vain.
She then released her, and then looked at her with the utmost concentration that she had always had in abundance. "Bran was climbing a tower, and he fell." For a second, Rhea had felt like the whole realm had come crashing.

She felt sad and utterly helpless when she thought of his family. What a loving one they are, and how this news would break them. They had a lovely time at the dinner-feast, goofing around, but now Rhea knew that would feel like a lifetime ago. And then the kids-

Robb.

She couldn't waste her time here, she had to inform someone. The first person that came to her mind was Robb, but as unfortunate as the situation got, Robb and the rest of the hunting party hadn't come back yet. So she did the next thing- to go see him herself.

"All right, then. Come with me, and let's go see Bran." And the three siblings ran across the grounds, and when they came near the gates, which they had to pass, they saw the hunting party coming back. She was able to spot Lord Eddard and her father talking and laughing in high spirits, and of course, Robb and his companion Theon Greyjoy, both looking very much happy and laughing, oblivious to the fact that their kin had fallen from a very tower and is fighting a war for his life.

Oh, Gods.

They had spotted her, and when they came through, the tears had stopped, with Rhea looking for the least painful way to break the news. She had first locked eyes with Ned, and she couldn't look at him without giving something or the other away. Robb was looking at her too, and now, so was the rest of the group. She tried to form coherent words to speak, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Her father then, with his impatience, as usual, decided to break the ice. "Out with it, Rhea, what is it that's troubling you?"

She then, sensing the whole party's anticipation, realised she couldn't keep it any longer. "Bran fell." she said and turned to look at Ned and Robb, who immediately had become immensely sad, with no need to be explained as to how the fall happened, because they are used to watching the younger Stark son climb towers ever since he could walk. They both walked away, to see the Maester.

The party dispersed in hushed whispers and her father stayed back to be with his eldest daughter. "He's not going to die, is he?" she asked, and her father looked to her and said, "No, I don't think he will. These Starks are hard to kill." and smiled at her.

Rhea, being the practical one, thought there was no truth to that saying right now, but oh, how wrong had she been.

And how happy she'd be about how wrong she'd been for the first in her whole life.

***

The second she said the words about Bran, Robb couldn't figure out for the life of him, what to do with himself. He didn't know how to react, or how to respond to Rhea, who bought the news to him. He also noticed that he wasn't the only one with that problem, because his father couldn't figure it out too. So he did what he thought was best.

He walked away, with his father to see Bran.

He had never encouraged Bran's climbing habit, but he had never particularly discouraged him either. And Robb knew that if he had, his brother wouldn't be hurt now. And so it was all his fault.

He then found his family near Maester Luwin's chamber. The Maester himself was accompanied by a lot of the capital's finest maesters inside the chamber where they were treating his brother. Yet even that couldn't push away the fact that he knew that something was going to be bad about the result of all this.

Holding his mother's hand and with his sister Sansa leaning on his shoulder, both on the verge of tears, it was all Robb could do to not pull out all his hair and cry himself. The King had come by many times, but Rhea did not.

She's giving him his space.

The King had a lot of encouraging things to say, but all of it had completely vanished and faded when the Maesters finally came out of the chamber, where they had his brother.

His mother stood first, and ran to the Maesters, and did her best to compose herself, as she asked about her most loved son. Robb knew she would have crashed poor Maester Luwin to the wall if she hadn't held back as graciously as a mother in her position could right now.

He just watched from the bench as all his siblings and his parents crowded around the Maesters, and then he noticed his mother's tears, followed by Sansa's shock.

He still did not make a move.

Sansa then walked toward him, and Robb knew with all certainty in the whole world that he didn't want to know what she was going to say.She just sat there right next to him, right on the verge of tears and Robb couldn't take it anymore. "Its okay to let it out, you know? It's just family here, you don't have to be ladylike for once."

And then she broke.

She buried her face into his chest and cried. Sansa was clearly trying to say something to him, something that Robb though would definitely have to do with his brother's state, but of course, Sansa's sobs had amplified her inability to deliver understandable words when she was sad, though Robb thought it had more to do with his sister's face buried in his chest.

He still didn't shed a tear.

Arya then came, to him, and sat on his other side of the bench. It was clear she didn't want to cry, but her eyes failed her as they were as glossy with tears as polished glass.With her tears threatening to fall, Arya opened her mouth and said, "The most dangerous time is tonight, they said. If Bran gets through this night, then..." She said and turned her head so Robb 

wouldn't see her tears.

However regaining composure very fast for a lady of her age, Arya turned to face him and said, "He won't be able to walk or move on his own. He'd be a cripple."

Rickon came into the passageway accompanied by Theon, and sat on the bench and started crying uncontrollably, and Robb didn't know what to do.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as his mother finally gathered the courage to see his brother and go into the chambers with his father holding her hand.

A very short while later, he heard his mother's sobs through the hallway, and then slowly a tear fell down his cheek.

***

She sat with her mother in the Queen's solar, with a huge fur cloak around her, her hair down, which made her feel warm.

But whether it was the climate or the seemingly never-ending sadness that took over everyone that she needed to shield herself from, was something she had yet to determine.

"He's not going to die, is he?" She asked.

Her mother seemed to be her normal self, the one with no emotion at all- the one where the Queen takes over Cersei Lannister's body.

"Even if the boy lives, he'd be a cripple. Give me a clean death any day." She says, as she sipped from her cup of sweetened lemon water, and shrugged.

The fact that her mother did not give a royal shit about a young innocent child fighting for his life, was infuriating Rhea more than she could handle.

"You're saying that given a choice, Bran should pick death rather than life?" With her annoyance on the brink of explosion.

"No, I'm saying the boy barely has a choice in the matter. If he dies, well... That is sad, he is a handsome little lad with good manners. But if he doesn't, he would die on the inside every day of his life, with the pity that people would bestow upon him."

Rhea knew it was true, but his family loved him and that would be more than enough. She didn't realise she said it out loud until she heard her mother say, "Sometimes, love just isn't enough."

"It always is." She said, her defiance taking a new turn.

"You know what's wrong with you, sweet child? You just can't see the bad in anyone."

That was very uncalled for.

"I'll admit, I didn't involve myself much in your upbringing, and that mostly had to do with Steffon, but Robert raised you. And I have to say, that is definitely the one excellent thing that drunk oaf may have done. Because he raised you well. So well enough that you can't even see the bad in anyone or anything for that matter."

She then came forward and put a hand to her daughter's cheek.

"Rhea, you are your father's daughter through and through. People in the Seven Kingdoms will want to get close to you only because you're Robert's child, and if you can't see through them, then you might be doomed."

These words definitely weren't what Rhea had in mind when she started the conversation. But she was very intent to listen nonetheless, all because of the care that she saw in her mother's eyes, something that didn't come out that often.

"What does any of this have to do with Brandon?" She asked.

"This might have nothing to do with Brandon, but the conversation that we just had drove me toward saying this. Never get your hopes up. People will fail you whenever they get the chance."

Rhea stood, and smiled at her mother, and kissed her on the cheek before letting herself out of the room to see Bran.

When she heard her mother call for her again, she turned and looked, only to find that the motherly kindness that her mother had vanished, just like always.

"Remember." She said.

Andthen Rhea walked out.

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