Work Text:
The air was frigid and smelled of candle wax. Pale candles danced weakly with the shadows in a quadrille. The howling, harsh wind penetrated the cracks in the cavernous structure of the crypt and battered against the doors at the entrance. The floors and ceilings were greyish marbles. Arched columns supported the ancient vaults that spread across the old ceilings.
A cloak made of wolfskin, with wide, crisscrossing leather straps, covered Ned Stark's shoulders, protecting him in the winter. Bitter and solemn, Ned Stark gazed at the marble statue of his sister. He wept as he stared at it. He lit candles in her memory. Ned didn't like to pray in the family crypt, but he preferred to pray in Godswood.
He wept for what was not.
Ned's heart held many secrets. Secrets buried, in the tearful abyss of his mind. In the Tower of Joy, the world stopped.
The dusty air, the silent midwives, their worried and scarred looks on their faces as Ned stormed to the room, searching for his sister.
The smell of winter roses and blood painting the white sheets.
Promise me, Ned…
He promised her, and but his honor was not enough.
The Old Gods took many people away. Many lives were lost because of Lyanna's recklessness. Her father and Brandon were taken, and they were buried by fire and blood.
The social order of Westeros was broken, destabilized, and shaken by the Prince's eerie obsession and reckless ways. Along with the Heir to the Kingdom, Lyanna was also responsible for bringing harm to everyone involved and uninvolved.
But the hardest question was whether she loved the Prince.
Did the Prince love his sister?
What man abandons his family and disappears, taking a young woman along with him? Didn't the Prince think of his wife and children? Didn’t Lyanna think she would destroy a family? Didn’t she think she was going to insult their House and other Houses? Guards and knights, on both sides, in the Rebellion, left their families and homes to fight for a cause.
When Ned discovered that the Prince had abandoned his family and his obligations to the Kingdom as heir, to be with Lyanna, Ned couldn't believe it at first. Then, with the news of the rape of the Prince’s wife and the grotesque deaths of her and the Prince's children, Ned wept, wept for his Father, for his Mother, for Brandon, for Lyanna, for Benjen, for his Brandon’s fiancée, for Cat, for Robert, for Elia and her children, for the entire Seven Kingdoms, for the smallfolk, for the Targaryen Prince, for the Queen, for the the Mad King, and for himself.
In the past, Ned thought that if Lyanna had married Robert, she would be very happy and would end up loving him. Ned really believed this. He believed that Robert would change and Lyanna would accept Robert's love. Now, in the end, he concluded that she would have been unhappy and bitter as Robert’s wife.
Ned would also have been enraged in frostiness, if Cat had betrayed him, making him question the legitimacy of his heirs. But Ned came home with an infant on his arms, didn’t he?
Ned didn't listen to the pleas in his sister's voice when she said that love doesn't change a man. He should have listened to them.
Back then, he thought Lyanna was just being whiny, childish, and impulsive, a she-wolf of House Stark, a child of the North, with wolf-blood in her. However, she was right in her assertion, because Robert hadn't changed.
It was all a terrible tragedy. It never should have happened.
After leaving the Vale, Ned should have traveled farther north and remained there, serving Father and Brandon, patrolling the lands, and helping other Lesser Houses.
But father had other ideas: to go South. This was a mistake. A terrible mistake. They should never have gone down to the South. Father and Brandon died by fire, Lyanna died by blood, Jon was born in sadness, wound live in sadness, would serve in sadness, and would die sadness.
Lyanna should never have been betrothed to Robert. By not going South, she would never had met the Prince. By not going there, Father, Brandon and Lyanna would have been alive. Lyanna should have married in the North, and stayed there. Brandon would still be heir to house Stark, Cat would be Brandon’s wife, now this would make Ned sad….Cat was lovely, despite her irritation with Jon. It was better for her to think Jon was his bastard son. He would keep his promise to the dead.
Starks should have never gone South, for Starks belong in the North. Starks don’t survive in bad places.
Ned wept, thinking of his father, his brother, and Lyanna. He thought of Benjen, who was somewhere on the wall, doing his duty, to the world. He thought of Elia and her children, he thought of the House of Dragon, that had gone extinct. Robert should never had become King. Ned thought of Jon Arryn and his honor.
He thought of Cat, who gave birth to Sansa. Cat was his bright light that brought joy to his heart. She gave him children and put up with Jon.
He looked at his sister's statue for a while, then he looked at his father’s and brother’s statues, and he then left the crypt.
Outside the palace, as he walked alone to the courtroom, he glimpsed watching Rob and Jon playing together, as a nurse watched over them. Rob's laughter shrilled. Jon was quieter, but bubbly and bouncy as Rob. Sometimes, in a fleeting glance when the little boy turned his head, Ned would catch a glimpse of Lyanna in Jon, and Ned would tremble and shiver coldly, his grey eyes saddened. He went over to them, and picked the babies up. No babies, but children that were six year old.
Ned still doesn’t understand what really happened at the Tower of Joy, Lyanna never mentioned Rhaegar, not once, only Jon. If Lyanna had regretted her decisions, Ned would never know, because she is dead, buried forever.
Ned concluded, after all these years, no one for sure knows exactly what goes on most of the time. Ned still doesn’t know what really happened between Lyanna and the Prince.
Arthur Dayne, Lady Ashara Dayne, Princess Elia Martell, Prince Rhaegar, and Lyanna were dead….everyone were gone… Ned will never know truly what happened.
Sorrowful mysteries, dim memories of the dead, and veiled truths were all Ned had. He looked at his very much loved son, Rob, and at his dear nephew, and wept for them, and he loved them, and kissed them, thinking of what could have been, if Lyanna stayed in the North.