The Cold Within
"Winter does not ask for permission before it settles in. It simply arrives, and the world must learn to endure it."
Too bloody hot, it was.
Stone walls or not, the air in this southern keep clung to her skin like wet wool, and it weren't right. Not for a North-born woman who'd known snow in her cradle and slept beneath furs thicker than a man's pride. The air just sat, still and stifling, and the fire in her bones—which ought to've eased after sunset—only burned hotter with each hour.
Alisa Stark lay back on the bed, her shift sticking to her skin, and felt sweat prickle her brow. She'd thrown off the coverlet hours ago, but still she burned. Couldn't rightly tell if it were the heat or the anger settin' her aflame.
They didn't belong here. Not truly.
The tourney had come and gone, full of noise and silk and lords strutting like puffed-up cocks. Voices too soft, eyes too sly. Southern ladies with their painted faces and practiced grins—smiles that didn't reach their eyes. Alisa saw right through it. Hadn't met a one she trusted.
Starks. From the North. Savage folk, they whispered. Stiff-necked, hard-eyed, gods-forsaken tree worshippers. Backward folk who slept with wolves and called it kinship.
Yet they'd bowed to her. Called her "my lady" like they weren't just sneerin' over their cups.
She sat up, slowly, holding to the edge of the bed till the spin in her head eased off. The healers had offered her some bitterroot or gods-know-what southern remedy. She'd sent 'em off with a glare. What would they know of Northern bones?
Alisa crossed the room barefoot, the stone floor warm beneath her. No chill, not even in the shade. She went to the window hopin' for a breeze, but the air outside hung just as thick. Down below, torches flared, casting shadows on the courtyard stones. The feast was still goin'—laughter, music, goblets raised.
She hadn't gone. Couldn't stomach it.
Her head ached somethin' fierce, and her belly was turned. Nothing down here sat right with her. The food was too soft, too rich. Even the bread was light as air. She missed oatcakes and root stew, the hearty stuff that stayed with a person.
She turned from the window and eased herself onto the bed again with a grunt. Her eyes drifted to the hearth. Cold, as it ought to be, and yet her body was burnin' all the same.
The door creaked open.
Rickon stepped in, tugging loose the ties of his doublet, face flushed from drink or heat—or both. He looked tired, but not the kind that sleep could fix.
"Yer back," she muttered.
"Aye." He sat down in the chair by the hearth. "Feast's still goin'. I'd had my fill."
She squinted at him. "How many cups?"
"Not near enough to dull the prattle."
She gave a wry smirk. "The King say his piece?"
Rickon leaned back with a grunt. "Aye. Said Daemon's to wed Lady Rhea Royce of Runestone. Ceremony come next moon."
Alisa raised a brow. "Daemon? Thought he'd sooner marry his dragon."
Rickon gave a short laugh. "Might be a kinder match."
The silence that followed was heavy.
"We're not stayin' for it," she said after a moment.
"No," Rickon agreed. "Told Viserys as much. Alaric's grown restless, and the heat's doin' neither of you any good."
She glared at him, half-hearted. "You think I'm weak?"
"I know you ain't," he said, his voice softening. "But even stone wears under heat long enough."
He rose and crossed to her, his hand brushing her cheek. She leaned into it.
"I hate the way they look at us," she said low. "Like we're beasts in a cage. Northern curiosities with dirt under our nails."
Rickon knelt before her, eyes steady. "They've no eyes for truth, these Southrons. Don't know what it means to fight for warmth, to bleed for kin."
She looked past him. "They've dragons, gold, silk. What've we got but snow and old gods?"
Rickon was quiet a spell. "Alaric's changin'," he said finally. "I see it. Boy watches like a hawk now. Listens too close. Too much for one so small."
Alisa nodded. "He used to ask questions, nose in everything. Now he just... listens. Like he's waitin'."
Rickon continued "even at the tourney he was sizing up knights like cattle at market. And he's…cold. Distant"
Alisa's chest tightened, her mother instincts awakening with sharp clarity. She looked towards the window, where the moonlight pooled on the sill. "leave him be for tonight. We're all tired. The south is not kind to any of us."
Rickon stood and moved back to the window. "This place has teeth behind its smiles. Alaric sees it clearer than most."
Another silence. Then Rickon said, "We leave in three days. I'll have the horses ready. We'll be home by first frost."
Alisa nodded, a weight in her chest. She watched her husband turn his back to the city, and for the first time in days, she let herself breathe.
They left King's Landing quiet as snowfall. No fanfare, no farewells. Just hooves on hard-packed earth and the wind tryin' to remember how to breathe again.
Every mile north felt like a balm. Trees started to look proper. Air cooled, just a touch. Still, Alaric rode silent beside her. Wrapped in his cloak, jaw set, eyes ever-watchin'.
Three days out, with the land golden and wild, she looked over at him.
"You've gone all quiet, wolf pup."
He didn't look up. "Don't feel like talkin'."
She smirked. "Never stopped you before."
He turned, and his eyes met hers—those grey Stark eyes, cold and steady. "They don't see us, Mother. Not truly. They see furs and old gods and names they think don't matter."
"Aye," she said. "Let 'em. Their seein' don't change what we are."
"They called us savages."
She took a breath, steady and sure, "You're not wrong. But it doesn't matter what they think. Let them laugh behind their silks. We won't be seeing them again."
He looked forward again. "You might forget. But I won't."
She was quiet at that. There was a sharpness in his voice she didn't much like. Not anger, but... resolve. Too grown for four nameday old.
She reached out and brushed a hand against his arm. "Folk like that, they rot from the inside. Don't let their words take root in you."
Alaric said nothing for a long moment. Then he turned to her, voice low and certain. "They think us snow-blooded savages, barely more than beasts. That we're simple folk—too dull for their court games, too cold to matter. They laughed behind their goblets, called us backward. Called you—my mother—less."
His jaw clenched, and his small hands tightened around the reins.
"But the North remembers. Always. And I will remember. Not for anger. Not for pride. But so one day, when the South kneels, they'll know it wasn't dragons or gold that brought them to their knees."
He looked up then—just a glance—and his eyes held the steel of winter.
"It was the cold they scorned. It will be the silence they ignored. That's what will bury them."
Her breath caught, just a little.
The wind picked up then, cold and real. Northern wind.
Alisa Stark looked to the hills rising in the distance, the land turnin' harder, the trees taller. And she wondered, as the wolf pup rode beside her, if maybe the snow in his bones was thicker than even she'd known.
He wouldn't forget.
And may the gods help the man who gave him reason not to.