So it turns out that most of the time when you're sick of something, you just need a little break to rest your mind a little. When I first created this story, I had a lot of ideas to write about but I had gotten so sick of the story that I was scared if I continued it that it would begin to suck. But it turns out that all I needed was a little break to calm my head, turn to other projects, give myself some time to think clearly and now here I have been able to write out another small volume of Israel's fabulously horrible misadventures at Winterfell. Welcome back and enjoy.

-.-

I always wake up feeling nauseous. Breakfast delayed for two hours—sound familiar? Well...yeah. Waking up feeling too sick to eat breakfast is typically how my day usually starts, so I wouldn't notice if it happened on any given day for any particularly unusual reason. So a good few days after the Great Sept has been opened for business (or worship...whatever) I wake up and the truth is that I'm not feeling so hot. But because this is the usual case, I brush it off and start my day. Lady Brienne is waiting by my door faithfully. Gods, I fucking hate her haircut. Not the color...just the cut.

I'm not even sure what it is that I have to do today, but I feel the almost overpowering urge to dash back to my bed and hide under the furs. Of course this is a typical reaction to a northern morning. You try waking up at sunrise to go riding with the in laws and see how it shakes up your sleeping pattern and then we can talk.

"Septa Eleanor was hoping you'd meet with her today," Julia says to me. "About that old streamview property."

Right. The lady wants an orphanage. To tell the truth, I'm sort of glad people are still recruiting me for projects like these even now that reconstruction is over and done with. I like having something to do. I especially like having something to do if it's something that I'm good at doing anyways.

And Gods, does it shut people up. I've gotten grudging respectful glances and shuffles along and almost smiles from the worst of critics. They still don't like me—no denying that. But there's also no denying that they're beginning to see my sense. I've only heard 'Frey girl' whispered thirteen times this week. That's real improvement. Granted the Night of Which We Must Not Speak also had a hand in that. But still. Progress is progress.

When skipping breakfast is your usual routine, there's always something you've gotta do to get your brain into the groove of the day. For me, I replace the meal with some air. Not as in I go outside. The weather, dude. It's fucking cold here. I just stand by the door and inhale enough to clear my head but not enough to freeze my lungs because northern air can do that to you.

Now as I walk to the little door I like to take my morning inhale beside, I always get a whiff of food wafting towards me from the Great Hall. This is normal and it never does any serious damage to me. But not today. Today I hurry outside and to the side of the building and vomit up anything that I didn't vomit up last night after hearing the latest installment in Lord Bryndon's war story. Not much, really. Just water and lots of wine. You'd think that after maybe twelve hours I'd have digested that stuff already. Nope. For some odd reason it was still sitting there waiting to clear the exit.

"Madame?" Brienne asks cautiously as Mira holds my hair out of my face. Julia hands me a flask of water. I rinse my mouth out and spit, then wipe my lips and turn back to her.

"I'm alright," I say. "Perfectly alright."

"Her Grace gets queasy in the mornings," Julia tells her. "It's routine."

Though she and Mira are both looking at me funny because my morning queasiness has never made me puke before. They must be eating something with mutton in it over in the Great Hall. Only the scent of mutton can make me puke instantly. Like shooting a crossbow. Whatever's on the other end of that bow is going to die just as surely as mutton will make me fire a projectile stream of half digested food at whichever unlucky soul is nearby.

"Madame, you're looking awfully pale," Brienne says.

Which is typically the case with a person who's just vomited their last meal and possibly one of their kidneys.

"I assure you, I'm fine," I tell her.

I feel really, really close to dead. So Brienne gets to walk beside me instead of two or three feet behind me this morning as I make my way to the woods.

Phillip doesn't seem too active this morning, either. She trots at a sluggish pace that would normally annoy me, but what's weird is that my queasiness still hasn't worn off yet. Which is funny because on any normal day it would have been gone by now—or even faster considering that I'm outside and fresh air does wonders for queasiness no matter how much it feels like inhaling a blizzard.

The Mad Band of Misfits is acting funny, too. Demon and Silver have been moving along the stream with us for like an hour and neither of them have made an opening strike yet. It's unsettling. Usually trying to calm them down is how I get into character with the whole queen thing. Makes me wonder what they've been smoking.

"Good morning, Your Grace," Septa Eleanor smiles brightly at me.

Says who?

"It's wonderful to see you again, Septa," I take her hand and squeeze it involuntarily. Shit. Vertigo. I'm seeing green.

"My word, have you been taken ill?" Septa Eleanor asks as Brienne rushes forward to steady me.

I want nothing more than to bury my head in the ground and never resurface.

"I'm fine," I say. "I just got a whiff of mutton from the Great Hall and I'm afraid it does terrible things to my constitution."

"Strange," Septa Eleanor says. "As I understand it, they're breakfasting on lamb."

Literally who the hell cares? Both of them are wooly and make weird sounds that remind me of Father.

"Nevermind it now," I say, waving it off. "Now let's have a look at this parcel of land, shall we?"

Septa Eleanor is a talker. I know this the second I see her mouth. It's all in the wrinkles around the corners, see. They can give you a good clue how much of their time a person spends running their mouth. And this lady—oh, Gods. Divine secrets of mankind are etched into the little cracks and crinkles in her skin. I knew it the second I saw her that I was looking at one of the Gods' rarer creatures. My ears mutate into folded up envelopes in less than an hour. An entire step in evolution done right here in a single hour listening to this woman talk.

And what's worse is that today of all days when I'm freakishly queasy and bloated I'm hardly in the mood to be dealing with any of this crap. My bleeding is scheduled to start today. Explains why I feel like I got hit by a rampaging mother in law.

Speaking of, she's been floating on cloud nine for the past few days. She's wrapped up in her bouncing baby boy Rickon. He's like the cutest thing ever, this kid. Really. Where did she go wrong with Robb? How come I get the ginger genetic whoopsie while some lucky girl out there gets to marry this little bundle of joy in a few short years? People adore this kid. I'm not complaining. Every second that people spend doting on him is a second that they spend leaving me alone. And oh, boy—do these people dote on this little prince. I don't blame them. He's a gorgeous child. Cutest thing since people started painting portraits of lambs wearing knit sweaters.

I'm finally released from Septa Eleanor's clutches at around high noon. I'm still ready to vomit on something, but there's nothing left to vomit. It's only when I get into the castle and I've regained the feeling in my fingers that I get hungry. Like really hungry. Like eating the entire Northern kingdom is suddenly a good idea. I should probably head to the Great Hall. They'll be expecting me in there by now. I've never put off breakfast this long. I turn back in the direction of the food, but I'm thrown off by green again.

Fucking vertigo. I knew those morning rides would curse me. Now I'm coming down with a fever. Fevers and periods do not mix well. I've had them both at once before, okay? Bad combo—very very bad.

And then it gets worse. Just as I've paused by the wall, gripping the sides of my head as Brienne and the girls steady me, I smell it. Wood smoke.

When you see as much of your husband after dusk as I see of mine, then you can understandably not want to see a single hair on his ginger head during the daylight hours. Wood smoke to me is now an alarm. I don't care how much progress we've made. In exchange for access to my ass every night, you're required to mind your distance every day.

"Israel, are you alright?" Robb asks, taking my hand and pulling me clsoer to get a good look at my face.

"Coming down with something, I'm afraid," I say.

You know, now that I think on it, it might be possible that the side effects from the wolfblossom seeds I've been slow poisoning Robb with might have been transferred to me. Huh. Talk about making your own bed. Now I've gone and poisoned myself. But...hang on a minute—the sun is coming up.

If I'm sick in bed, then Robb can't fuck me. How long can I milk this? A week? Two? No—too drastic. They'll think I'm dying. So...four days? Ha! Four days is more than I could ever have asked for.

"You're sickly pale," he says. "You ought to return to the chambers."

"I could never!" I say, my hand on my chest as if appalled by the very idea. Yes I fucking could. Take me back to bed now before I pass out in your pasty ginger arms. Which—by the way—is the last place I'd like to pass out. I'd much prefer Lady Brienne's arms or the corner by the fireplace or maybe in a rubbish ditch. Whichever one of those is good.

"Not another word, my dear," Robb says, taking my hand. "Back to bed with you."

Yes. Fucking yes.

Except Robb doesn't leave it at that. He sees fit to accompany me back to our chambers. Um...whoa there, buster. Don't you have...kingly things to get back to?

"Leave us," Robb says to the girls. Julia and Mira curtsey to us before leaving the room, closing the door behind them.

Oh, come on. Surely the threat of an approaching fever would mean that midday sex is out of the question?

"There's something you and I need to discuss," he says slowly. "And I know you prefer truth over style...somewhere under there...so I'll just make this blunt. Ramsay Snow and his men have clashed swords with Ser Lanagan and the team at the borderland."

"Really?" That was quick. "How did it go?" Don't care in the slightest.

"Bittersweet," Robb says. "Snow was put in chains and is on his way to Ironrath with the remainder of our men. Many of them are dead, even more wounded."

"How unfortunate," I say. Don't care. Glad to see you're the one telling me, though.

"With the men arriving at Ironrath for treatment, many of the soldiers who are still there are being moved to Winterfell. And..with them..." Robb sighs. "Is Lady Maegyr."

Ah, the punchline.

"She's coming with most of the healing staff from Ironrath to train other healers here in Winterfell," Robb goes on, and I swear he's getting slower and slower with every word he says. "With all the wounded needing treatment at Ironrath, they're short on healers."

"I see," I say carefully.

Hang on a minute. If Robb is climbing off of Talisa then maybe he'll leave me alone. It could work. And I won't have to risk getting caught poisoning him twice a week. Hello, sunrise!

But because this is the slightest tad annoying, I pretend to look sternly put out and head into the bathroom. I need aromatherapy. Now. I light a candle and drip oil onto the boiler and take a seat by the window, checking my fabric.

Um...no blood. But why? Today's supposed to be the day. Wait...yesterday was. Yeah. Yesterday. So...why no blood? I've got everything else. Cramps. Nausea. The Gods even gave me a fever. My chest feels raw and my head hurts like fuck. Hello, womanhood? You're a little overdue and I kinda need you to come along now so I don't have to sleep with my gingersnap husband and—

"Israel," Robb comes into the room. "We're still...are you...alright...with this? With her being here? I know you might be worried, but I promise you we can make this work. I can make this work. I know you're running a fever and you don't want to think about this right now. But I want you to know...you can trust me."

Hang on, gingersnap. Your girlfriend is the least of my problems right now. I'm too busy counting the days since my last bleeding. The math is right. I'm never wrong with numbers. And this is kinda weird because when it comes to probables, I've always been a queen.

Three possible explanations that I have before me:

1) My body is reacting strangely to the sudden change in atmosphere and has decided to wait until several months after my arrival to show these changes.

2) I'm going to die of a fever so heinous that it's made my body run dry in preparation for the grave.

3) I'm pregnant.

The possibilities range in likelihood from 'no way' to 'no fucking way'. See? None of them are even accurate. Which is why I've always preferred to deal in absolutes.

Robb is still looking at me, waiting for a response. Well, here's your response. I turn to face him and flash my most dazzling smile.

"Look," I say, and then I throw up.