continued from @revixiism [x]
death consumed him. how could it not? when the only person he knew to be alive was dacey. his wife, his mother, his father, his siblings. gone. ripped from the world. ripped and there was no getting them back. betrayed by one he knew better than to trust in the first place, betrayed by another he loved. it all became too much some moments. when he would lie there in the middle of the night, almost near begging the old gods to do onto him what they seemed so determined to do until anyone named stark. nothing that were thoughts of one name king, rather one that was someone undeserving of the crown.
it was as if he didn’t know how to exist any longer, as if he was just moving through the motions because he needed to survive. he needed to be the symbol for the north, to prove that the starks always did endure. no matter how he wished desperately for otherwise. the others could not die in vain. he wouldn’t allow that, no matter fleeting thoughts he was all too certain both his parents would be ashamed of filled his mind. he failed on all accounts. no room to fail again.
only, some nights proved themselves to be far more difficult than others. the rain poured, the moon high, the howling in the distance. made him itch, desperate to claw himself free from it all. “i’m tired of being numb and desensitized. i’m tired of killing before i go on with life like nothing happened.” the words were nothing but a mere whisper, turning to look ahead at dacey. the one who proved to be the true warrior, the one who did not buckle, who kept them alive, who had all too easily became the one who meant everything in a world where everything else meant absolutely nothing.
Usually, the sound of rain was soothing to her. Now it just meant time they needed to sit and wait out the storm so they wouldn’t catch a fever in the cold. It meant mud they had to track through once the rain stopped. It meant wasting time they could spend moving north. It meant every single drop brought the Freys and Boltons closer to getting what they wanted. Those were the thoughts that made her sick with worry. Robb may have been the king, but he was also the man she’d come to depend far too much on since the slaughter. they were nearly two parts of one whole. They moved as one and so when he spoke she understood. She would have even without words.
Her hand moved without any conscious thought to take his hand. Small moments of comfort were not something they had time to allow each other, yet they had to remember they were human. After everything that happened, it would have been impossible to do it alone. “I know,” Dacey muttered softly. She was just as sick of it. Too much loss had plagued them both, but the burden was his to bear. While she had never envied his crown, she could see how it weighed him down. Had taking that burden from him been possible, Dacey would have done it. No one deserved to have such a weight holding them back.
“War is not fair. We’re not empty and mindless. We have to think of ourselves. It isn’t selfish,” she told him as her gaze moved away from him. Dacey watched the rain and fidgeted with a loose thread on her sleeve. Anything could serve as the distraction she needed and in that moment, it was such a minuscule thing. “Have you ever thought of just running away?” she asked, though she thought she knew the answer. Starks were too honorable for their own good. “Of giving up,” she added. “Surely the world thinks us dead. It would be easier to stay that way.” They’d nearly made it home. It would be a waste and people needed their King in the North. She knew that, but that didn’t stop her from wondering.
