Chapter Text
There was a feeling deeper than cold. A creeping numbness that gave way to nothingness. An abyss of nothingness that seeped life from Robb’s flesh and bones. Even the heat of his lifeblood leaked from his body, its dying warmth touched him not. A cold that was the absence of life's heat.
It was as if he was separated from life, his flesh, by a great thick sheet of ice, darkness taking him as he sank ever deeper under the cold waters so heavy they couldn’t be fought. Nothingness. Death.
Robb Stark, King of the North, did not fight, the crush of his failures, his loss too heavy to push against in these last final moments. Just a deep shard of agony in his soul as he spent his last moments pleading his mother would save him from grief and absence of hope, as she had once soothed fevers from his brow when he was a mewling babe.
And then darkness, cold, and weight had swallowed him. A stone sinking beneath a frozen ocean.
Nothing.
Time was ephemeral, meaningless if it existed at all. Only then, warmth. A gentle flicker of warmth like the light of a spring morning just giving that lightest heat, heralding a melt. The first softening of ice.
There was a comfort in nothingness and warmth that unfroze his heart icicle by icicle. His grief went from a sharpness so keen he longed for the numb, freezing ice of nothingness, to something settled. Memories, flickers of his lost family, a thing he found beautiful, comforting rather than painful.
Peace.
Robb wished for nothing more, and nothing less. Only that his dearly loved dead were allowed this comfort of life’s pain worn away by an endless embrace of ember warmed darkness. A part of him could almost call this nothingness love. Perhaps it was their gift to him, and his to them in turn.
Sometimes he fancied he heard snatches of voices in the darkness, even impressions of songs his mother had once sang to him as a babe. It was peaceful in his quiet grief. No longer ice, just the quiet snowfall that blanketed the fields the night after first falling.
He was content in death.
Even as the soft warmth turned to a flicker of flame that could nearly have been mistaken for heat, and the odd sensation of pressure became unignorable, inescapable he was too content in his grief, in his peace. At times he nearly thought he was made of flesh, flesh that could press out. But that was surely phantoms of a life only now permitted to be remembered. The security of his mother’s arms, the taste of his wife’s lips, the sweet sound of his brother’s and sister’s laughter. Here, in the darkness he was with them. Every press was a caress from those whom he had bled and died for, even as he had failed them.
An undeserved forgiveness that cleansed his soul.
And then ripples of crushing pressure. It shook him from the apathy of nothingness. It…hurt? Pain? He’d forgotten what pain felt like. But this was pain. Fighting against it was futile, if there was even anything to fight with. It was tight, and crushing.
Agony, it was nothing but crushing pain, before suddenly cold, and rough. A thousand jagged and horrible sensations he’d forgotten. He was paralyzed with the shock and confusion and discomfort of it all.
Live.
Robb’s eyes snapped open. His brother’s voice. No eternal sleep of death could erase Bran, his brother’s voice, from his memories.
He opened his mouth and tried to cry out his brother’s name. All that came was the screaming wails of a babe.
Robb understood little. His infant eyes were blurry, exhaustion quickly robbed him of his strength, and those towering giants about him that were his kin, hardly held long conversations in his hearing.
The indignities were nothing to the weak helplessness of it all.
But amongst the cursed realities of this situation, there was one guiding presence. The woman who fed him from her breast, who held him close humming songs of his youth, and cascading down around her were red locks of hair like fire. With what little strength he had, he curled his little fingers in her hair, so like his once mother’s.
At night, when the ever watchful septa who sat and embroidered in the room was absent, this new mother with red hair would whisper promises his father would claim him. She also whispered his name.
Rowlf Waters.
It was perhaps penance for his failures to Jon that he was a bastard here. A bastard with a father who had yet to claim him, and a mother with Tully red hair.
There had been no reappearance of Bran’s voice, nor glimpse.
Rowlf, as he was now, was unsure of the passage of time. There was little but hunger, exhaustion, and the warmth of this mother he knew not. Her touch was gentle, the songs were the songs of his mother, her voice a sweet tone with the familiar accent of the Riverlands. But even with what little he could see and understand, with every waking he began to realize this new mother was weaker, more faded.
With every waking he tried, harder and harder to stay awake longer. But even awake, he was helpless; his leadened tongue and his every muscle useless, there was nothing he could do. The songs grew weaker, the kisses pressed to his face sorrowful. Sweat began to bead her skin. Servants more frequent. A man who must be a maester there near always. The septa praying with this mother of his.
A wet nurse began to feed him, the weak, feverish touch of Rowlf’s mother lessened. More and more he woke in the cradle.
Rowlf woke, held in strange hands. A man with red, bristly hair, dark circles under blue eyes. The man’s face was unsmiling, grim. He just looked down, his eyes boring into Rowlf.
He never saw the mother of this body again.
The septa, the wetnurse, and two servants that smelled of tallow and vinegar cared for him. And sometimes, that same grim, unmistakably Tully man would come. The man never said a word. His presence was rare.
It was perhaps callous, but the most grievous part of his days was the unrelenting boredom as sleep claimed him for fewer, and fewer hours. There was nothing to do but fumble weakly with pudgy limbs, and ponder this life.
And it was a life.
He was Rowlf Waters, the bastard son of a Tully woman and a father who had shown no interest. His limbs were made of flesh, blood, and bone. His lungs breathed in air. His stomach gurgled for milk and the soft boiled oats they had begun to feed him. But deeper, in the true depths of who he was, he was Robb Stark, failed King, failed son, failed husband, failed protector, failed man.
Humiliating or not, he was left to ponder, and to babble, to grope weakly with limbs that felt alien unto his person. Time was near as meaningless as before, only now he had small victories. The first real, true syllables of ‘ba-ba’, that were quickly followed by others. The first time he held his head up. Rolling over on his own. Beginning to crawl. The terrible aching itch of raw gums as teeth began to poke through.
His dreams took on texture, and memories of the life lived poorly. The life filled with pain, and so much beauty. He woke screaming for his family. His brothers and sisters. The ones he’d failed to save, and the ones he’d failed to protect. A horrible cold like dripping blood from wounds that did not mar his flesh haunted him at times.
The septa would hold him, singing the Mother’s hymns. Soft coos to sooth him.
Rowlf rarely wished to be calmed. But calm he would, no matter how terrible the phantoms brought back. But even dreams of blood and death lost quite their bite. What was under them was the fierce longing for his family. He’d died to reunite his pack, and he’d died last among them. Only Sansa and Jon had remained, both alone, both trapped in prisons.
What right did he have to resent a child’s body?
Days passed. More soft foods reduced to mush offered to him, the wet nurse's tits offered less. Till one day, she never returned again. The septa remained.
Rowlf managed to call her ‘Seppa’, his babe’s tongue unwilling to create the sharp sound of a ‘t’. Soon other small words came, the struggle to force his mouth to produce the sounds he wished worth each small victory.
And then one day a man who was not the grim Tully came to the room. A man who Robb knew not, and yet, knew enough about to understand a great deal. The new man had long silver hair, purple eyes, and wore finer fabrics than Rowlf, or Robb for that matter had ever seen on a man. Gold brocade over black and red silks and velvets, covered in the most intricate of embroidery.
This man, this Targaryen, was young. He could not have been much older than Eddard Stark had been when he first rode to war to overthrow the Targaryens. He was not grim. The Targaryen had an easy and warm smile. Pleased laughter as he looked at Rowlf declaring that clearly there had been no mistake.
Without a care, or a simple question to any, he swooped down, lifting Rowlf from his cradle and up into the air. His gregarious voice was warm. “Well, you are a fine lad. Certainly take after your father.” He had a twinkle in his eye.
Rowlf stared at him. This… was his father. Rowlf Waters had been cared for by so many servants not for his Tully mother, but for a Targaryen father then. This flesh’s mother had not lied, his father had claimed him.
The carriage travel with his strange and cheerful father was not… unpleasant. Unlike the adults from before this adventure, his father, Prince Viserys Targaryen, spoke to him in a stream of pleasant chatter meant to wile away the time.
Like all great houses, there were many Targaryens with the name Viserys in that house’s history. With every word however, Rowlf had begun to have a terrible suspicion. The trip was the most interesting experience of this young life. Truly, it was colorful.
Septa accompanied them alone from Riverrun. Beside Septa and himself, their party was some dozen servants, twenty household guards, six knights, a singular kingsguard in glorious and gleaming white, and Viserys. There was a clearly royal carriage, as well as two baggage carts drawn behind.
During many hours of their travel, Viserys rode out with the men, laughing as stories and wine were passed between them.
Rowlf was kept within the carriage. This did not stop him from pressing his nose against the delicate lattice of the carriage, desperately staring out at the passing lands he’d once been King of.
Time truly mattered as they traveled as well. For once the passing of each day was clear, and interesting. The countryside, free from war, was beautiful. Birds and creatures flitted about, men and trade along the roads. Trees standing tall, great fields of crops, brush and flowers.
Ten days into their journey, Septa brought him into Viserys’ tent.
The tent was sumptuous with its silks and furs, a great brazier of fire to warm the gentle chill of the summer night. Perfume of some foreign spice clung heavy and sweet in the air, mixing with the sumptuous dinner that had been eaten by the Targaryen prince. A greater number of beeswax candles than all of Eddard Stark’s personal chambers would see in three turns of the moon.
“Ah, Septa, please.” Viserys waved for the woman who had dropped into a curtsy while holding Rowlf in her arms. “Tell me, does the boy travel well? I must admit I had expected more tears and wails to come from the carriage over the course of our days.”
“Young Master Rowlf is a well behaved boy, your royal Highness. Some nights he certainly reminds us the blood of the dragon runs in his veins with his cries, or if he is left in soiled underclothes long.” There was a touch of something almost akin to humor in Septa’s voice as she raised them from her curtsy.
Viserys laughed. “Does he now? Good lad. No trouble with the travel, good Sister?”
Shaking her head, Septa held Rowlf so that he could blink curiously at this princely father of his. “No your Highness, your son has been quite pleased to press his nose against the lattice and look out upon the world.”
A curious look turned to the boy. “Has he? Well, a good sign he has taken to this journey so well.”
“Yes, your highness.” Septa replied.
“No, need of toys? Our scout reports a trade caravan is a half day’s ride ahead of our party.” Viserys was clearly simply a happily generous man.
Septa shook her head. “No, your Highness. Lord Tully ordered if his youngest sister was so foolish as to bring a natural child into this world, the boy should not be coddled, for the life of a natural son is not one for a coddled child.”
It was the first it dawned on Rowlf that he’d had no toys. Or rather, that it was odd that he had been provided no such things. It told him who this body’s mother had been. A sister of Grover Tully.
Once, as a boy, Robb Stark had listened as his mother told him the history of her family, fascinated. The man had had many sons, and many daughters, as well as siblings not quite as well remembered, though Grover’s understanding of a woman’s value was well recorded. House Tully had always been weak, many of their direct vassals held greater wealth, greater land, greater armies.
A Targaryen prince had dishonored Rowlf’s mother. And house Tully had swallowed whatever gesture of reparation had been made, and named it enough. Their power was too dependent upon the dragons for more. Not in this era. Not when control of the Riverlands alone was too precarious to have looked far beyond their borders for larger and more powerful allies.
It was a true sign of love for the woman that bore him, as well as importance of his father that so many servants had been allotted to his care. That Rowlf’s uncle had not had him drowned or cast out as a shame upon his family. An insult. Rather he’d protected him, and meant to raise him for the hard life ahead. A kindness in its harshness.
Viserys did not see it as such, though he showed only surprise, not outrage. “He will learn soon. As my daughter has too many to remember them all.”
“If I may be impertinent, your royal Highness?” Septa asked in a voice sweeter than most she used.
“You may, Sister.” He waved at the woman.
“Surely it would be unseemly for an illegitimate child to be held so close to your trueborn daughter, Highness.”
Viserys laughed, lifting a golden goblet of wine. “The blood of the dragon is strong in the princess, and with my wife pregnant again, it is only right she have a playmate. No doubt your charge’s dragon blood will see him in my daughter’s good graces.”
That was… the oddest explanation for keeping a bastard child in the family household Rowlf had heard in this or his previous life. Even if he’d heard none in this life. He was going to be given to Rhaenyra Targaryen in the same manner silly noble girls were often given ponies. It was… something?
Rowlf spent several glorious hours sat in front of his father in the saddle the next day. And fell asleep clutching a child sized wooden sword. The hum of excitement faded, leaving him to a dreamless sleep.
In Robb Stark’s life, to his utter shameful failure writ in the blood of his men, kingdom, and family, he had never made it to the Red Keep. Rowlf arrived in the city in a protective carriage, and gagged at the smell. The stench of so many people crushed in together was foul, even with a rising sea wind as the carriage moved higher in the city, the worst of the stench fading.
The city was loud as well. Unfortunate maloder or not, Rowlf couldn’t help smushing his nose against the lattice and staring at all the world's busy life around them. The color and variety of the city was staggering. If his legs were not weak and pudgy he’d have longed to run through the chaos. Unfortunately, he would be swiftly trampled should he attempt the few faltering steps he was capable of in the tumultuous streets. Likely deserve it as well for the act.
Arriving in the Red Keep was a rush of action that swept him off like cork in a river. This new father Viserys left in a rush, most everyone in the party having some clear task at hand. Rowlf was carried by Septa as they were met by some two women in servant’s garb, but the livery of House Targaryen upon them.
The entrance they were brought through was hardly the grand one Viserys had taken. Rather a poorly lit, narrow, and winding hall.
Rowlf truly lost the course of their path quickly. His mind did wander upon seeing new and interesting things in a most distressing manner at times in this body. But then they came out into a washing room.
As a babe there was little dignity. Cries when the impulse to relieve himself were cold comfort. At least Septa rarely failed to see him cleaned shortly after such humiliation. It did not leave him unstartled as he was stripped, placed in a basin of tepid water, and then liberally lathered in soap that smelled of frankincense.
There was no soft touch as the lather was removed from his body by a deluge of water from a separate bowl being poured over his head.
A regular child of his age would most likely have protested such treatment. Rowlf found himself confusedly blinking as he was then lifted, and dried, before clean linens were provided so that he could be dressed.
For a bastard, they were fine clothes of linen with good wool outer garments in Tully blue. Nothing fine, or ornamental, but perfectly practical and unmistakably of good quality. Rowlf was certainly more comfortable in such garb than he would have been in any princely fabrics.
His hair was brushed, clothing adjusted till he met some standard the terrifying woman in the cream wimple seeing to this procedure had set. Then he was firmly lifted, and carried without any warning or cajoling.
Once more on the move, though a shorter path this time, he was carried with no more care than required, until they reached ornate halls and doors. No warning, or announcement that his life was utterly changing were given.
Doors were simply opened, and he was carted into a royal nursery. The rooms were full of color, though cream and pale blue velvet wall hanging and curtains ensured it held a brightness that the Targaryen colors could not overwhelm. The room was three times the size of the nursery that Robb Stark had spent his toddling years in beside Jon.
Sitting on a plush carpet of a rosey pink, was Viserys, fresh clothing on his handsome frame, a delighted smile as he sat holding a wooden dragon for the inspection of the girl child before him. Rhaenyra Targaryen.
In all the bustle and oddness, it hadn’t quite struck Rowlf till this exact second what to expect. He should have. But he hadn’t.
Rhaenyra was a child of near a year as best he could tell. There was an otherworldly air to her. She was a child. That pillar of history, a Queen who would fail as grievously as he had failed as a King. But none of that grief or pain weighed her down. She was a child. All bright and joyful happiness as her purple eyes looked curiously at the intrusion on her time with her father.
An adorably serious expression on a sweet face.
She was his blood.
Rowlf barely noticed as he was carried closer at an indication from Viserys. His eyes never left the little girl who the sight of felt as if it was cracking something in his heart open. The perfect ladylike appearance even so young that it had likely been wrangled, but even so heartbreakingly familiar. The glint in her eye that was familiar in the same yet different ways.
He’d bled, lost, and died to reach a sister in the Red Keep.
“There’s someone I would like you to meet, darling. This is your half brother Rowlf. I thought you may like him as a friend to play with.” Viserys introduced as Rowlf was set carefully on the plush rug the two royals were upon.
Rowlf blinked, staring wide eyed at this girl. Sister. He had a sister. A sister trapped in a capital and role that would bring her and her children’s deaths. Sister who house Stark had sworn to and owed their loyalty to. House Tully as well. She was just a little girl.
She was not struck dumb at the sight of him. Instead she scooted on her rear a bit closer till one pudgy hand could reach out and pat the top of his head with a surprising force for how tiny they were. “Wowlf.”
Sister.
For the first time since he’s opened new eyes on this side of death, Rowlf smiled. “Sisser.”
He still couldn’t pronounce ‘t’s.
It was perfect anyways.