RUYAN
Robb had wanted Tyrion Lannister housed in the guest wing, away from the main keep. Ruyan had disagreed. Politely, persuasively. The same chamber he used last time had already been aired, she reminded him. The castle remembered its guests, even if its lord preferred not to.
Reluctantly, Robb conceded the point. "Then you'll host him," he said tightly. "I'll greet him in the hall, but I'll avoid him as much as I need to."
So she waited, seated beside her husband at the high table as the small party rode in through Winterfell's gates. She watched without expression as servants took the visitors' cloaks and guided them toward the great hall. When Tyrion entered, she felt the tension sharpen beside her — Robb's shoulders had stiffened. She placed a hand gently over his forearm, a light pressure, and left it there until he exhaled.
"Lord Tyrion," Robb said, his voice level, if a shade too crisp. "Winterfell is at your service."
Tyrion Lannister offered a small bow — deeper than expected, though with no less irony for it. "And what a service it is, my lord," he said. "Ice and stone and scowls, just as I remember. I feel right at home."
His gaze swept the hall once, calculating. "And Bran?" he asked. "Has he woken?"
Hodor entered, carrying Bran in his arms. Tyrion turned, his expression tightening briefly with something she could not yet name.
"It's true, then," he murmured. "Hello, Bran. Do you remember anything of what happened?"
Robb's jaw worked soundlessly. It was Ruyan who answered. "Loss of memory is not uncommon with head injury. With time, it may return."
Tyrion turned his head toward her. "Would your... charming companion be so kind as to kneel? My neck won't tolerate this angle much longer."
Ruyan gave a small nod to Hodor. The stableboy eased Bran down onto the bench beside the high table.
"Do you like to ride, Bran?" Tyrion asked.
"Yes," Bran said. Then, quieter: "I mean—I did like to."
"His legs will recover," Ruyan said before Robb could. "Our healing methods differ from Westerosi tradition."
"Then that is good news," Tyrion replied, and for the first time, the sharpness in his voice softened. He turned back to Bran. "I've brought something for you. Give this to your saddler — he'll know what to do."
Bran's fingers unrolled the scroll, his eyes widening as he scanned the drawing.
"Physician Leng said I might walk again someday," Bran said. "But this... I could ride even before that."
"And why would you help him?" Robb asked.
You Starks and your temper. She nudged his knee under the table.
Tyrion only smiled. "I have a soft spot for cripples, bastards, and broken things."
Before Robb could respond with the forced civility forming behind his clenched teeth, Ruyan cut in.
"Lord Tyrion," she said smoothly, "you've given Bran something he hasn't had since his fall — anticipation. Enjoy the hospitality of Winterfell."
She rose. Her expression remained composed as she walked down the dais steps toward him.
"Your previous quarters have been prepared," she said. "A bath will be drawn. I'll have someone bring you when the evening meal is ready."
She signaled to a servant without looking away. Another was sent toward the Night's Watch man — Yoren — with the same efficient gesture.
The Lannister dwarf offered her a smile — wry, appreciative. She returned nothing.
TYRION
Dinner was, by any reasonable standard, a penance worthy of the High Septon's approval. Dreadfully dull. No intrigue, no revelry, not a breath of wit with which to spar.
Robb Stark had his father's manner—carved from the same stone as Winterfell itself, no humor. The young wolf performed his duties as lord with mechanical precision: he ate, he nodded, he spoke when absolutely necessary, as though each word cost him a silver stag.
The Princess, by contrast, conversed the way a master swordsmith forges steel: precise movements, economical effort, not a single wasted stroke.
Gods be thanked for Theon Greyjoy, who filled the oppressive silence like a minstrel with an empty hat, desperate for coin. All swagger and inappropriate jests, the kind of strutting peacock who inevitably ended his nights with black eyes or bastards. Tiresome, yes, but at least he was trying.
"So," the Princess said at one point, her gaze resting lightly on him, "how was the Wall, Lord Tyrion? I recall it from a visit I made with my husband last year. We met with Lord Mormont, discussed plans for cultivating the Gift."
Tyrion arched a brow. "A fine plan. I saw the results myself — fields tilled, farmers housed. Not bad for half a year's effort. Most things in the North take twice as long."
She inclined her head slightly. "My husband convinced House Umber and House Karstark to send men. The yields this autumn were modest, but promising."
"Castle Black's still a crumbling shell," Tyrion noted. "Even with the fields, they lack men. Too few for the Wall, too few for the watch."
Robb spoke then, a short nod. "We've considered stationing Northern soldiers there — not to range, just to guard. They'd train under Watch discipline, in harsher conditions."
"A sensible idea," Tyrion said. "Give them something to do besides marry Frey girls."
The Princess's mouth twitched — the barest flicker of something approaching amusement — but she said only, "There is strength in building purpose alongside duty."
They touched on other things. Travel. Trade. A festival in White Harbor Tyrion pretended to have heard of.
Then the Princess set her cup down with a delicate clink. "Recently, I've been studying Valyrian steel," she said, as if it were embroidery. "It's rare, but not unknowable."
Tyrion leaned in, intrigued for the first time. "My father would weep tears of molten gold if he could find enough to forge another family blade. He's offered a king's ransom for anything resembling a replacement."
"Perhaps not a sword," she said thoughtfully. "Those are difficult to come by. But a dagger, say... Would that satisfy your father?"
He smiled. "My lord father enjoys symbols. A sword declares legacy. A dagger suggests caution." He sipped his wine. "Still, it's better than nothing — if the craftsmanship holds."
"In Yi Ti," she replied smoothly, "we have celestial steel. Rarer than Valyrian. Forged through a different art. Lighter, colder. It sings differently when struck."
Tyrion tilted his head, watching her. "And do you sing, Princess?"
She looked at him, expression untouched. "Only when it's necessary."
He laughed, the sound echoing faintly across the quiet hall. Whatever else she was, this imperial bride had teeth behind the courtesy.
Dinner ended with pleasantries, wine, and little warmth. The Princess excused herself first, offering a polite nod to each guest before rising. Robb followed a beat later, a brief farewell and little else.
He stayed two days more in Winterfell, as courtesy demanded. Long enough to warm his toes near Northern hearths and decide once again that he didn't much like snow.
Robb Stark remained as expressive as granite. Polite, dutiful—but more often gone than not. Tyrion caught him slipping out of the hall at odd hours, always with some steward or task waiting. He might've called it rudeness, if not for the Princess, who stepped into every gap as if by instinct.
At dinner, she had been graceful. In practice, she was relentless. A question here, a correction there, a quiet word to a bannerman before Robb could even notice the offense. It wasn't deference. It was preservation — of Robb's image, of the castle's calm, of whatever order she believed still mattered in the North.
On his final evening, Tyrion dined with the children—half for sport, half for the amusement that comes only from wine and unfiltered youth. Rickon hurled a turnip at a serving girl with deadly accuracy, and not a single person blinked. Even dour-faced Bran sat at the table, brow furrowed in concentration over the saddle schematic Tyrion had provided, his fingers tracing each line with reverence.
"You'll write to me," he told Bran as they stood in the yard the following morning, frost crunching beneath their feet. "Let me know how it performs. I'll expect a full report—speeds achieved, turning radius, the works."
Bran nodded, a rare smile transforming his solemn face. "I will. Thank you again, Lord Tyrion."
Tyrion patted his shoulder. "You may just be my favorite Stark. Don't tell the others—they'll be devastated."
Robb and Ruyan stood beside their horses, both cloaked against the wind. The Lord of Winterfell offered a nod. "Safe travels, my lord."
Tyrion returned it with a courteous bow, suppressing the urge to say something irreverent. Best not to test the young wolf when his teeth were still sheathed.
The Princess stepped forward. "You are always welcome at Winterfell, Lord Tyrion. May your journey home be swift."
"Princess," he replied with a smile, "you're a diplomat's dream. I do hope your husband appreciates the work you do."
Her smile didn't falter. "I believe he does."
He mounted his horse. The wind was rising.
As they rode out through the gates, Tyrion glanced back once — at the gray stone towers, the wolf banners, the watching silence. Something about it all still felt... off.
But then, it was the North. Everything felt off in the North.
By the time they passed beyond the last of Winterfell's outer lands, he'd stopped thinking about it.
There were bigger puzzles to worry about than quiet wives and moody boys.
And besides, the snow had already begun to fall.
The days that followed blurred into routine. The roads were abysmal, his arse ached from too many hours in the saddle, and the less said about northern weather, the better—but Yoren had proven unexpectedly tolerable company. The black brother was no conversationalist, but he possessed a blunt, foul-tempered charm that Tyrion found refreshing after days of carefully measured pleasantries at Winterfell.
After two grueling weeks on the Kingsroad, they finally reached the Inn at the Crossroads. The building slouched against the evening sky like a weary drunk, its windows glowing with firelight that promised moderate warmth, if not exceptional hospitality. Still, after fourteen days of sleeping beneath stars and pissing behind bushes, its weathered walls looked positively palatial.
Tyrion was halfway through his second cup, contemplating whether a third would improve the establishment or merely highlight its deficiencies, when he saw her.
Lady Catelyn Stark.
Head bowed, cloak drawn tight despite the hearth's heat, her eyes sweeping the room too quickly, too often.
He slid from his bench and approached her table, wine cup still in hand. No reason to abandon perfectly adequate alcohol, after all, even in pursuit of social niceties.
"Lady Stark," he said smoothly, offering his most disarming smile. "What an unexpected pleasure. I'm sorry to have missed you at Winterfell."
She turned slowly. Her eyes met his—Tully blue, cold as mountain frost, hard as river stones.
"Lord Tyrion."
Just that. Just his name, pressed flat between her lips like something distasteful to be expelled.
Something tightened in his chest—a warning bell, faint but insistent. The same crawling sensation he'd felt at Winterfell, that persistent, nagging certainty that something was wrong.
"Your son was recovering well when I left Winterfell," he offered, attempting to bridge whatever strange gap had opened before him. "The design for his saddle proved promising. With luck, he'll—"
But Lady Stark had already turned away from him, her attention shifting to the room at large. She rose to her feet, drawing herself up with the rigid dignity of her house.
"Many of you here know me," she called, her voice carrying easily over the murmur of conversation and clink of cups. "I am Catelyn Tully, daughter of Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun."
Her hand swept in a precise arc toward armed men scattered throughout the inn—knights by their bearing, sellswords by their weathered faces, their banners faded but recognizable to anyone with a passing knowledge of the Riverlands. Tyrion's wine suddenly tasted sour on his tongue.
"Ser Karyl Vance, who rode with my father during Robert's Rebellion." She nodded toward a lean man with a hard face. "Ser Wylis Wode, who served my uncle in the battle of the Trident." Another nod, another grim face swimming into focus from the common room's shadows. "And you, Ser Mark Piper—I believe you owe my house a debt still unpaid."
They looked up one by one, like men waking from some shared dream. Hands found sword hilts. Cloaks shifted subtly to reveal mail and steel beneath.
Tyrion's mouth went dry, the wine cup suddenly forgotten in his grasp.
"This man," she said, her finger leveled at him with the unwavering certainty of an executioner's axe, "conspired to murder my son, Brandon Stark — a boy of ten — as he slept in his bed."
Her voice hardened, ringing with cold command.
"In the name of King Robert, and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him — and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king's justice."
Swords scraped free of their scabbards. Chairs screeched back across rough-hewn floorboards. The room's warmth evaporated in an instant, replaced by the cold clarity of imminent violence.
Tyrion Lannister, who prided himself on always having a quip ready, found his legendary wit had abandoned him entirely. For the first time in longer than he could remember, blind panic fluttered in his chest—the primal terror of a small creature surrounded by larger predators, all teeth and steel and deadly intent.
His heart lurched against his ribs like a trapped animal, his palms suddenly damp with sweat, his throat constricting as if invisible hands were already tightening around it.
This is madness.