The Winter Beast and River Beauty

Chapter Ten / To paradise with pleasure haunted

A/N: Thank you so much everyone who has followed this story!

The wolves, my love will come
Taking us home where dust once was a man.
Is there life before a death?
Do we long too much and never let in?

After searching half of Riverrun he finds Cat in a study, curled up in a chair and reading a letter. The scene is so familiar that for a single moment he can forget they are no longer just passing an evening.

Her mother's study, Ned remembers, from one of their nights. It is the reason she was attracted to the study in Winterfell. Catelyn looks up when he stands in the doorway.

"May we speak, my lady?"

Her eyes are glassy in the firelight, which casts golden shadows across her hair. "But not of the babe, I assume?"

Ned ducks inside and feels the heat of the hearth. There is another chair on the other side of the fireplace. Perhaps he is grasping at shadows, but he settles on the carpet in front of her, legs crossed, the fire at his back. Cat looks down at him, hair molten and skin burnished. She keeps her feelings tucked away and he hates he can no longer sense them.

"I do not understand," she says softly.

Why do those words both abash and aggrieve him so?

He finds his tongue, reminded of when words could barely form in his lupine mouth. At least then his clumsiness had an excuse.

"I did not think I would return like this." He looks up when she stiffens.

Anger. Ned does not need wolf ears to feel her sadness take a serrated edge. Her jaw tightens. He gives a small nod; she must know she can speak her mind as she always has.

"I missed you. So much." Her voice is low and rough. "I worried you were dead. Gods, I thought if you just returned, I would love you. I wanted to break your curse, after you saved my family. Instead—" Her voice cracks, leaving all sharp edges. "Why in hell did you not even name her or say she carried your bastard? I thought you left to find your sister. You lied. I thought I knew…" Cat's eyes close. When they open, they are glassier than before, though Ned thinks they are tears of rage more than sorrow. When he does not break his stare, she chokes out the rest. "Where is the one I thought I knew?"

He wants to spill the truth at her feet. He almost does. But it clings too tight. She met a coward, the beast who should have run south instead of north. Now she believes she also met a man who would abandon his lover and unborn son to hide in Winterfell.

"Cat, I am sorry. I left to find my sister...she is dead." Her eyes soften, just the slightest, but what he says next makes them hard as glass. "I was wounded and it delayed my return." He is no good at spinning false stories, and his pride hisses at the thought. "I will never know another when I am your husband, I swear to you."

"Before you start swearing, stop lying to me." Her voice is brittle like thin ice. "There is something you are not telling me, not just the babe's mother."

Ned takes her hand. She lets him, though her eyes are narrowed. "I am sorry. All I can ask is that you trust me."

He knows the moment he speaks he has erred. She draws her hand back, just as her gaze drifts somewhere he cannot see.

"I did, once." Her voice has flattened again, her anger and sorrow chained away. "I will marry you, bear your children, care for your home. Do not speak of trust."

They wed three days later. Catelyn is beautiful, in a dress of blue that brightens her striking eyes. The godswood is cold but she gives no notice. After they marry again in the sept he promises her he will build one in Winterfell, which she accepts with a nod and a ghost of a smile.

His wife, whatever her wounds, is not cruel. Only by existing, her eyes blank and her smile stiff, does she fan his guilt.

In hours they are wedded and bedded. Stories speak of the magic of a wedding night, of blushing brides and nervous princes, who emerge smiling from the bedchamber to bawdy japes and cheers. Stories scarce speak of duty. Ned knows there was more affection that day in the glass garden when he licked her hand, and more warmth in their bed that night he warmed her feet at the roadside inn. But they respect their duty.

Soon enough he leaves for King's Landing. Clad in armor, leading his father's army—his army—Ned thinks less of the future. He thinks of King's Landing and the Mad King. His men in grim cheer speak of slaying the rabid dragon and how it could hardly be called fair sport. For the first time in a long while, Ned thinks of justice.

He also thinks of his promise. He made a marriage vow of honesty to his lady wife, one he has already slighted. If there is one person he would tell his secret it would be her. Not now, but in a year or so when the soldiers have returned to their farms. Surely Lyanna could not fault him for that.

Days from King's Landing, a messenger gallops up on a huffing mare. His young face is flushed with more than cold.

"Lord Robert's forces defeated Prince Rhaegar's at the Trident!" he gasps out. But his voice goes somber. "The crown prince is dead."

Your last most storied moment, Robert. Ned has not tried to send word about Lyanna. Robert believes himself saving his ladylove, and will fight like a hero of legend. Fighting to avenge his dead betrothed may turn him into something else entirely.

The following day another messenger arrives, this one a messenger of the Tullys. He bears paper instead of words. Ned reads the two messages on horseback, the red stallion's gait smooth and steady.

Tywin Lannister has declared against Aerys and will reach King's Landing in days. The throne may have a new claimant. – Hoster Tully, Lord Paramount of the Riverlands

His goodfather does not offer his thoughts on a Lannister vying for the throne. Perhaps, with his two alliances, he does not care. The second missive makes his heart jump, and the stallion tosses its head in irritation.

Lord husband – I am with child.

Ned expected a siege. Instead, King's Landing sprawls with its gates flung wide. The char burns his eyes and he wonders if Aerys has turned on his own city, before he sees the golden lions, hazy in the smoke. Lord Tywin outpaced Lord Tully's messenger.

Barking orders to his men, he takes a regiment and canters for the Red Keep. The only resistance they meet is a corps of ragged guards who offer paltry warnings before bolting for their own horses.

Though Ned hardly cares about the Iron Throne, he will hold it for Robert. But first he will capture the king, secure his family, and if necessary face down the rest of the Kingsguard.

When he walks the stallion into the throne room, Howland at his right and the Greatjon at his left, his thoughts scatter like ash.

The Mad King sprawls before the dais, crown beside him in a pool of blood. Soldiers fan around the throne. Lannisters, he guesses, for they merely seem prepared to fight, not sworn to fight. The throne is an ugly thing of spikes and blades. A young man sits on it, red sword across his thighs. Even in the Vale he has heard of the youngest knight of the Kingsguard, Jaime Lannister.

He levels his sword, realizing now why Tywin raced to King's Landing.

"You killed your king."

The Lannister's eyes narrow at the same time he smiles. "Well, he is no one's king anymore." There is something bitter and odd about his smile, but Ned is too appalled to care. The boy knows it, for he cocks his head. "Is it true you have a tail?"

"The throne is Robert Baratheon's. If you mean to declare—" he snarls before Jaime cuts him off with a casual wave.

"Have no fear, Stark. I was only keeping it warm for our friend Robert. It's not a very comfortable seat, I'm afraid."

Ned is about to say more when a woman's scream echoes into the throne room. He expects many screams before the sun sets, but the Lannisters look up too. The boy-knight ascertains the direction and lets out a curse. A grave murmur warbles between several captains, one Ned can longer hear from this distance.

"Secure the princess!" he orders the Greatjon and a quarter of his men, who quickly dismount. The Umber is no fool and leaves in the direction of the cry.

But he will not leave the throne in the hands of the oathbreaker and his father. The oathbreaker who slit the Mad King's throat.

The war is over, Ned realizes. Death still catches up, skirmishes are still being fought, but his father and brother's murderer is dead. He feels nothing but suspicion and anger.

Ned will feel little else over the next week. His feelings will grow but rarely wane, reaching their peak when Tywin Lannister presents two broken corpses to Robert, and his closest friend does nothing. They remain when the body of Rhaegar's defiled wife is dragged into the light and her murderer goes unpunished, and when the Lannister boy retains his white cloak while his sister is betrothed to the new king.

The horrors make him realize the sorcerer's beast was not a singular creation. Ned thought it an abomination of nature, but that is not entirely correct. The sorcerer merely sculpted a beast based on men, not on wolves or shadowcats.

His anger cracks once, when Robert has his arms around him and says he brought Lyanna justice, that now they can rescue her like heroes in a song. What song? Ned wonders, before he tries to tell Robert there is no song, only a dirge.

When Robert shatters the three closest chairs and swears he will thank the Clegane monster for ending the Prince's family, Ned leaves, knowing now with unshakable certainty no one can learn his nephew's parentage.

He and Robert will reconcile, he knows this. They have shared too much, been together too long for their friendship to shatter. But not today. Whatever resentment Cat bears him, he will accept it all if he never has to step foot in King's Landing again.

When he returns to Riverrun the Northern army is ready for a feast, after he so abruptly called for them to leave King's Landing. There is no intention of a long stay, but he will not force Catelyn to continue to Winterfell with him, not when she carries their son or daughter.

He sees her in the courtyard with the rest of her household when the army draws near. There will be feasts, dancing, toasts to the victorious heroes living and dead. Ned was not told he could leave King's Landing, but when questioned by Howland, he only said Robert was not yet coronated.

"I am glad my lord husband has returned unharmed."

She said this when they first arrived. Now in his chamber she says it again, voice measured. He has said almost nothing, too many things to say, and what he most wants to say is the one thing he cannot.

Catelyn tilts her head, perhaps curious despite herself. Ned sits on the carpet, leaning back on his hands, away from the fire. His lady wife stands before him.

"Was King's Landing so terrible?"

Before he knows what he is saying, he is rambling like he never has before except to Robert on his most drunken of nights. Of Princess Elia, her children, the Clegane, and the knight Robert now calls the Kingslayer. His foster sib looked like the Warrior when he sauntered into the throne room. Even with a limp, an arm in a sling, and bony cheeks from the siege at Storm's End. To hear his men tell it, he broke his am in his own fury when he swung at Rhaegar. Robert had laughed and told him a different account. Ned knows the truth was far less glorious, just as he knows the truth will never see light. How much more heroic it is to break an arm in battle-fever than from a horse shattering its foreleg at the riverbank.

Catelyn steps closer at he gutters his mind, her features soft in the firelight. At some point he realizes his arms are around her waist, his cheek against her stomach.

"Please come with me," he murmurs. "Come home with me." He wants nothing more than to return to the North, but not alone.

"Did I say I would not?" She asks in curiosity, almost alarm.

Her hand rests on his shoulder, perhaps to steady herself. She says little else but she does not push him away. It is enough.

Winterfell is now populated by guards and servants, but the North is wide and every place looks more desolate than it should. Ned is still glad to have ridden through the gates a moon-turn ago and found his home not burned to the ground.

Some of his household is new, most of it is not. They have trickled back, those who hear there is once more a Stark in Winterfell, the Stark who killed the Mad King's red sorcerer. He has learned why they fled. The robed man came for Benjen and tore through any who defended him.

Catelyn affords him courtesy, an ear to listen, but she only laughs when she sees the servant Sarra again. His wife hates that he brought Jon north too. The boy stays with his nursemaid, a woman from Riverrun, Wylla's replacement when she returned to Dorne. The bastard boy will grow up with their children. Cat had told him in no uncertain terms Jon may be their child's brother but she is not his mother. It pains him some days, irritates him others, but Ned cannot ask more of her than that.

There comes a morning a moon-turn after their arrival that Ned can no longer avoid. He must look through Winterfell's crypts and find a place for his family. No one has entered them in years, Ned least of all. As a beast he had dark dreams of the statues' eyes following him through the catacombs, aghast at the desecration.

It is when he stands before a mirror, pulling on a doublet, that he realizes he would do anything not to go there alone. Alone with the statues, the stone wolves, and another reminder his family is more dead than alive. His irrational nerves end in Catelyn accompanying him.

Snow crunches underfoot when they walk to the crypts. The sun is high and clear, the air thin and quiet. Pleasant, for the North. Cat's arm is linked with his but she feels as far away as Riverrun. If he speaks she will return with a small, dutiful smile etched into her words. For now, they go in silence. Her belly is larger now, making her fatigued some moments and desperate for exercise at others.

At least she is warm in her cloak, one of her wedding gifts. The tailor called the color bistre. All Ned knows is it looks better when against her hair.

The stone and wooden doors grind open when he hauls on them. Ned can smell unfrozen earth and dusty stone. The sun cannot follow them down the narrow stairs but he has brought a torch for the lamps along the walls.

Something stirs.

He stops so suddenly Catelyn glances over. She brushes his gloved fingers, likely wondering if grief has frozen him.

It has not. But he senses someone else in the crypt, shuffling in the darkness. Ned raises his torch a dozen golden orbs gleam back. He pulls Cat closer, though she has seen the glow and knows he has no sword.

The beast would have charged either knowing his foe from smell or not caring whether it was a ghost or thief. But that would mean the beast had dared enter the crypt at all.

Two of the lights dart forward and Ned tightens his grip on the torch.

The she-wolf only regards him with wary dispassion, teeth flashing a warning, her black nose breathing deep. Of course it is her, the canny creature who now keeps her pack warm in his family's crypt.

Catelyn does not move apart from a heartbeat he can feel beating along his arm pressed against her chest. Perhaps she realizes it is one of the wolves that chased her through his gates.

The she-wolf blinks in recognition. Slowly Ned passes the torch to Cat and frees his other arm. Wondering if he might get his hand bitten off, he kneels and extends his knuckles. She draws back, ears flicking, lips almost curling. But her nose twitches and her eyes are sharp. Sometimes, he wishes he could still sense people from a single breath.

She closes the distance, nudges his hand with her muzzle, and slinks back to the gloom. He wonders if he might have joined them here, had the Tully maid not run through his gates.

The wolves would not attack him—he thinks—but Ned will not keep his wife here. He came to survey the crypt but he knows his family's bones will not be here until spring. If the bones must wait while the stonemason works, so be it.

"How could they move that door?" she asks once he has shut the crypt.

Ned snorts despite himself. "There are hidden entries, beyond the walls. I could not find them now but she can."

Cat's eyes darken. "When our babe comes…"

"It will be warmer. They will have moved on. If not, I will see to it."

She nods and turns her attention to readjusting her scarf. She does not notice his small smile. Seeing the wolf makes him remember. It already seems longer than half a year. Despite the smothering confines of the crypt, he feels freer this moment than when he ran through the Wolfswood each night.

They are returning to the castle when her pace falters and her breath grows louder.

"My lady?"

She shakes her head, holding back pants. She has stopped walking. "I am just tired. Sometimes…it comes on…suddenly."

Ned remembers this from when his mother carried Benjen. His youngest brother. It was half a moon ago he discovered word Benjen was alive. He could not escape his curse so easily—bound to the Wall by an oath, not magic. His brother's letter spoke of a red-robed wizard who cut his way through guards and dragged the boy from his bed. He abandoned him at the Wall, and whatever he said convinced his brother that to go south again would end in an agonized death. Thus his brother took the Black, said his words, and became a ranger. Upon hearing of the sorcerer's death he gulped down a wineskin and walked south. He did not die.

The winter roads are next to impassable near the Wall but Benjen writes the Lord Commander will let him come for his niece or nephew's birth. From what little he knows of the sorcerer, Ned suspects there was no true curse, only enough smoke and tricks to terrify a child. Another failing Ned feels guilty for. It was too easy to think his brother dead.

Cat's weight is heavy on his arm. His wife is strong, silk over steel, but the babe takes its due. Wordlessly he scoops her into his arms and continues to the castle. She yelps in surprise, but her arm quickly settles around his back and she offers her thanks.

The study is closer than her chambers and almost as warm. Cat gives no contrary request. Nudging the door with his foot, he carries her in and settles her on the wide chair the way he has seen her lie—her legs over one arm, her back cushioned against the other.

"Is she a friend?"

Catelyn has not looked this unguarded since he first left Riverrun. He eyes her in confusion, until realizing she refers to the wolf.

"Closer to amiable apathy."

She tilts her head, curious at what he does not say. Perhaps she senses it before he does. The fire is hardly more than smoldering but its warmth fills the room. Catelyn has unfastened her cloak and draped it like a blanket. Too warm, Ned tosses his own into the empty chair. Her eyes are softer as they look into the hearth.

He does not ignore her looks of confusion—the wary, lost shadow over her face when the North bewilders her. That will ease in time, he thinks, remembering how foreign the Vale was to him as a child. His household likes her more than Arryn's liked him. The wounds he has caused run deeper.

"Catelyn." She glances up, fingers weaving a small braid in her hair. "The she-wolf did more for her pack than I for mine. I hid here like a craven whelp. Hiding in a tomb, too shamed to leave." He kneels before her, their eyes almost level. This is the only truth he can give her. "You made me remember who I had to be. You made me more than a creature."

Her face has gone blank. Not blank, he hopes, inward. She had to know. Distrust me, resent me for a dozen other slights, but not this. Lyanna's feverish affection may have played into a madman's sorcery, but Ned would have never gone south if Catelyn had not compelled him. She saved his life. Years from now, if any entered the ruins of Winterfell, they would only find a beast that had made a den of its own sepulcher. If she had not found him first.

Always at odds with her growing belly, Cat shifts toward him. He does not realize why until she kisses his forehead. She draws back, a hand cupping his cheek. Her eyes glisten in the soft light.

"I thought I could love you. I still do." Her voice is soft, not quite grave. She touches her belly. "The babe will have a good father."

"A better mother."

There are unassuaged hurts between them, pains he can do nothing to mend. Perhaps in time. Not so long ago he was pierced chest to tail, bleeding rivers down a staircase. Now there is only a scar. Perhaps he and the beast are not so far apart. He bears a score of other scars too, one where the stag clipped him, another where the shadowcat clawed him. Prices of foolishness. They only remind him of pain; they do not hurt now they have scarred over. A wound taken for love, for his sister's dying wish? A pain worth bearing. If the beast could stagger to Lyanna's bedside, he can raise his nephew and children, honor his wife, and find a place where their wounds can heal. Let the beast rest in the crypt, where it is happier sleeping among the wolves.

The End.