Chapter Text
Barbrey Dustin remembers when she opened the letter than would finally take her boy and send him straight in the den of the wolves. Lord Eddard Stark has let her have her boy for long enough. He wanted the boy to come and meet his family. At Winterfell he would be educated and receive a chance at a better life. All of these were things Barbrey knew. But none of that mattered. Just like he had taken her husband that bastard now wanted her son.
Her son Torrhen Snow. He May have born a bastard name but he was a Stark through and through. None could deny that with the eyes and hair and build and face that was Brandon through and through. He was as wild as his father too. Always running and riding and outside, the blood of the wolves ran through his veins. But Barbrey was the one who carried him and brought him into the world and loved him.
But this way a chance for her son to shine and to show the world, and that stupid insipid fish Catelyn Tully, who he was and what he was capable of. And so she sent her son off and prayed to the old gods to watch over him. But before she sent him she made him promise to never forget who he was. He was her son, the Starks were the enemy. And one day they would tremble before him.
Theta has been almost ten years ago. and now she was in Winterfell for the grand feast celebrating the eighteenth name day of Robb Stark, with his red hair and smile that was all his mother. The boy was broad of shoulder and clearly loved by alL including her son. He may have hid it in his letters but here in person Barbrey could clearly see that Torrhen cared for his younger cousin. Robb made Tor smile, well his lips turned at the corner which for her son was a clear indication of his amusement.
Her son had grown into a strong man with his broad shoulders and muscular build. A beard, though shorn short and clanly trimmed, decorated his face. A sword was at his side and the leathers he was clothed in were plain but well worn. Torrhen Snow may have been a bastard but in the years since his arrival but from his letters it was clear to see that her son was beloved by Eddard Stark. She may have hated the man but his clear affection for his nephew and the discomfort it gave Catelyn Tully made Barbrey cackle with glee.
her attention was torn from her son by the figure wrapped in a grey and green dress that made her long hair flame and her eyes dance. Sansa Stark was on the dance floor being swung around by Smalljon Umber. She was a beauty, it was clear for everyone to see. Her mother's creature through and through. And every interaction Sansa had with Tor was all tight smiles and subtle insults and a dance of fury and indignation. The two player it well and and everyone around paid no mind.
in his letters Tor described the girl as a she demon who tortured him and played her pretty games to cause him misery. He ranted and raved for pages about the little lady who lived to make his life miserable. It gave her pause and made something in her grow cold and fearful.
Sansa had finished her dance and was then approached by the Greyjoy ward. Reluctance was on her features as she took his hand and was led out onto the dance floor for a reel. His hand kept descending lower and even she, who hated the girl, felt a little pity. But out of no where her son came and cut into the dance.
And as a new one began, a slow song that seemed to go ken forever with bodies pressed close; a song for lovers and loves, Sansa Stark and Torrhen Snow moved so in sync it hurt her eyes to look at them. Third eyes were locked the entire time but they missed not a step. And once the song ended they were slow to part. their hands seemed to linger and for the rest of the night, even when he was talking to her, Barbrey saw her son's gaze on the eldest Stark girl.
She was losing him and he did not even seem to realize it. The days before she sent him away Barbrey sought out an old woman who the locals said could see the future in her fires and dice. She had asked when lay for her son in Winterfell. The old woman had looked and said that she would lose her son there. Not to death or to disease or war. No, she would lose him to fire And eyes as blues as the sea. Now she understood. Her son felt something for the girl even if he did not realize it or want to acknowledge it.
Barbrey Dustin hated the Starks. First they took her first love, then her husband, and now her son.
(Later on after the feast ends two figures will end up in the gods wood. The young woman with hair as red as fire is pressed up against the truck of a tree while a tall muscular man has all but trapped her against it with his hands on either side of her head and his body pressed against hers wherever possible. Her hands are in his short dark hair and they lips move together in a dance of tongues and moans. Breaths come short and passion and something. Else neither dares name drives and guides them. When they finally part his left hand comes and hovers by her cheek, while her own stay in the lower part of his hair. All know the kings son and Eddard's daughter are all but betrothed. They will close the gap between Houses Stark and Baratheon forevermore, as it should have been all those years ago. It is as good as done. yet here this night beneath the crying eyes of the weirwood Sansa Stark gives her heart to one Torrhen Snow. She gives him everything she can not afford to give him. And he gives her nothing he can give because he can give her nothing but a bastards name and his mothers hate. But in the night when she gasps out his name and he whispers her back something is solidified and everything changes. A choice will soon be made, to run free or to be chained South).