Chapter Text
Sandor came into the Godswood with three kids in tow grumbling to himself. The Septa had caught up to him to give him three tiny coats and food for them. He was still trying to understand how the woman suddenly was fast enough to follow him across a castle.
Jaime saw him coming and laughed. "I didn't know you were a nursemaid."
Sandor dropped everything on him with a glare, "You think you're funny?"
"Actually, yes, I think I am." Jaime gave him a satisfied grin, putting the coats and basket next to him.
Meanwhile, Sandor ranted about the old Septa that was supposed to take care of the children and had found a way to make it his role.
“I think she doesn’t like us much.” Rosy cheeked Theon said as he put little Arya down from his back to sit on a log.
“And why would that be?” Thoros asked him.
Theon pointed with his little hands to his siblings and himself. “Arya bites and spits, Robb kicks and she has heard Robb and me calling her hag after she pester us for misbehaving. She calls us brats when no one else is hearing.”
Arya wobbled around before sitting herself on top of the pile of coats next to Jaime, rambling nonsense that they couldn't understand while twirling a twig in her chubby little hands.
“If you even think about biting me or spitting me, I will kill your ugly cat.” Jaime warned her. He would be making them a favour. It was a monstrous thing, too big to be a cat, red eyes, an abhorrent mood and hissed at anyone that deemed to walk by it as if everyone was trying to attack it. Arya stopped her movement altogether to stare back at him before cackling and continuing with her musing.
Robb made a wide berth around the group avoiding Jaime and sat next to Theon on a cut down log looking at all of them with curiosity. He had a little carved toy that their mother had given him that morning. It was only a little soldier like the ones they had at their rooms, yet he had refused to let go of it the entire day because it had the house sigil of their mother’s family painted on it. He proudly showed it to Jorah and Tormund beaming as they told him they wished they had a toy like that when they were small.
“At least that old hag gave me enough food for all of us.” Sandor rummaged around the basket taking bread and cheese out of it. He started munching as the rest passed the basket between them to take food for themselves.
Jaime took a lemon cake and handed it to Arya to stop her incomprehensible chatering. She started eating it with a smile forgetting her mutterings. “Since when two year olds speak this much?” He complained to his brother.
Sandor shrugged. “I would rather this than her silence.” He changed to voice to sound more somber. “That would mean she’s planning to murder you.”
“I would like to think that I’m safe from a little infant girl.” Jaime answered arrogantly.
“For now.” Beric half whispered to himself.
The library in Winterfell had grown exponentially in size. It had transformed into a single turret with about five floors filled with rows upon rows of books and parchments. From the ground floor where the tables were anyone could see the people walking above searching for knowledge.
Sometimes they were secluded in the library looking for old books that were interesting. It was more a game than actual interest that consisted in taking one book that was written after their deaths and comparing it with the ones the others had. The person who had the most peculiar tome won the game.
Theon walked around the staircase looking around, he could barely read so he played the game but he could only see the volumes at his height, it wasn’t much. Tormund had scouted him to help him to win since he didn’t feel like kneeling to see the tomes on the lower shelves. And having a little child who could do it for him was all the advantage he needed.
Jaime was the first to find one that satisfied him, so he sat down on one of the tables to wait for the others. Slowly the others started going down the stairs as well. All of them with one odd thing they had found in the place. The last ones they waited for were Tormund and Jorah.
As the others chatted about, the two Mormonts were having trouble finding something that was extraordinary or from after their previous lives.
“Did you find anything?” Tor screamed across floors to his brother.
Jorah looked down from the very top of the turret. “Not yet.”
“Hurry up, we are going to miss supper.” Someone from below warned them both. Probably Sandor, Jorah thought to himself.
He kept searching, touching the back of the tomes as he read them, taking the ones without a title to see what they were about, peering down at the ones that looked weird enough on the outside to be so on the inside. In the end, he found a book about the farmer rising of The Riverlands. It ended because all of the farmers had gone to a feast to negotiate with their lords and accidentally ingested the casket of wine that they were going to use to poison the lords along with them.
The only survivors of the rising in the noble houses were the descendants that were not allowed to go to the feast and the few people that had refused wine because they prefered mead instead. Jorah huffed a laugh at it. The man responsible for it appeared to be drunk even before the banquet and was asleep as the others drank the poison during the night. He woke from the feast to be one of the few alive. The man was beheaded for treason. That seemed a sad way to end up in a book.
Content with his finding, Jorah went down the stairs to see Tormund arguing with small Theon about the books they had in their hands.
“Are you truly using Theon to help you? That’s cheating, Tor.” He laughed at his brother as he passed by them.
“Not if no one finds out.” Tormund wickedly smiled.
In the end, Jorah won because the story was one that Thoros and Beric remembered their mother, a riverlander and great great great granddaughter of one of the survivors, used to tell them. There was even a song about it that they couldn’t quite remember.
As they left the library, Theon turned to Tor and criticized before leaving. “You should have used my book.”
“I swear Greyjoy was more likeable the last time.” Tormund grouched to his brother.
Jorah understood exactly what he meant. “He can be a bit haughty at times.”
“Only a bit?” Tormund huffed before leaving as well.
“Why are we here?” Robb asked suddenly one day. The clearness of his speech made them aware that the Young Wolf was the one talking instead of the wild four year old boy they knew.
He seemed to have moments of clarity in which he remembered who he was before and moments of complete oblivion where he would forget having another life at all but the remains of it were still circling around his mind. They could tell because he would grow sullen on those moments, he would get angry at Theon for anything, even when playing and would leave after screaming at him for some small mistake, he also had changes in the way he talked and walked.
The only constant he had was his mistrust for Jaime Giantsbane, because he knew that Arya referred to him as Jaime Lannisters and on the days he was oblivious there was something in the back of his mind that told him to never trust a Lannister. It wasn’t something that Jaime enjoyed much, yet there was nothing he could do.
“You mean in the Godswood?” Beric eyed him from the place he was sitting.
Robb glanced at him. “No. I mean here, now. Why are we here again?”
“Why do you think we would be here again?” Thoros asked him across the circle they were sitting in.
“I don’t know. To do something we didn’t do before?” He asked at all of them.
“In a way, yes.” Thoros said back.
“And do you know what it is?” He looked at the Mormonts.
Both of them grew uncomfortable. The group hadn’t talked yet about what they were going to do when Robb started asking questions about their purpose in this life.
“Yes, but it is not something you should be worrying yourself with right now.” Jorah told him.
“When do I have to worry, then?”
“We will tell you when. Alright?” Jorah put his hand on the top of his head in comfort like he did with Joel sometimes.
“Alright.” Robb answered before sauntering to play with Theon and their wooden swords.
The older boys talked about ways to breach the subject to him in small amounts so they wouldn’t scare the infant but in the correct way for him to interpret what they needed him to know. Though, if they could wait until he was older it would be best. Maybe he would get distracted like most children his age and forget, they all hoped. But they knew that the Young Wolf was not someone who would wait for them to be ready. So they would look for books that might talk about The Long Night in the Winterfell library and start from the information they could collect there.