Quiet as still water... (Introduction)
Days - months - it could have been years in those black cells. It could have been eons. It was just one of those endless lacks of light, punctuated by bad food and terrible smells, the movement of a body, the filth that never stopped, and oh, gods be good, the throbbing in his leg.
Dreaming and waking hours commingled in delirium. He was always in Winterfell, always with his little girls, his wife, his sons, and it was only a matter of turning the tide around, turning back time, and just saying, “Thank you, Robert, my brother, for the honor you did me. If you will have my service here in the North, take it, but leave to the Kingslayer the honor of being your hand.” It was just a matter of remaining where he belonged, with the wolves.
He’d thought on it, long and hard. He would take the Black. He would lie, to keep his daughter safe, his sweet, beautiful little girl. Maybe that would be enough to steal her away from that ill-advised betrothal to the inbred monster who sat on the throne.
And then it all happened so fast, Ned barely saw the cruel twist of fate coming. Ice, Ice herself coming down against his flesh over Sansa’s screams and tears. And then a glimpse, as his spirit floated over Baelor’s sept, of a Black Brother with ---- was it --- ? And all was done.
And now this. It hits him like a brick, the realization that his body isn’t --- well --- detached from his head anymore. He’s breathing.
He opens his eyes, and Ice is there, firmly planted in the ground, at his feet.
He stands, then, and looks at the wood surrounding him. It is not a weirwood, not a godswood, but at least it’s not King’s Landing. It’s not the sept. It’s not the murky streets of the capital. Convinced that he just passed on to the afterlife, Eddard Stark kneels, hands on the hilt of Ice, and prays.
May the gods of the wood forgive him all his failures… if they can hear him at all.
Mun: Presenting Lord Eddard Stark, formerly the Hand of King Robert Baratheon and Lord of Winterfell, from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. He is taken from the end of A Game of Thrones. Because we never have enough of father figures. *cough*
I hope I do him justice, no bad pun intended.
My will is so, so, so weak. I blame Pel and Lise for this. ^^