Love passes, friendship disintegrates. And only blood ties are unbreakable forever.
In general, as you know, the leaders in wolf packs are the most cunning and intelligent representatives of the wolf pack, and it could be both male and female. This is, as some channel once claimed on a zombie-box, the essence of wolves in their very true form. And why couldn't it work that way for people, especially when they consider a huge winter wolf as their coat of arms?
Maybe it was like that once upon a time, you never know. But now the Starks are famous for their directness and following a certain honor, although their tales and legends have, rather, the cruelty and authority of this House.
Perhaps the problem is that honor and stupidity sometimes stand side by side, especially when there are no brains for something unrelated to military affairs. And it is quite possible, if we talk specifically about me, the fact is that I should never have gotten into this medieval nonsense so close to the body. The name of this body is - oh, yes, a stupid dad pun - and speaking of huge winter wolves, Eddard Stark. It is difficult to imagine the situation even closer to bullshit.
My pack is now standing in a row right in front of the open gates of my family castle, and I threw a large two-handed sword made of Valyrian steel on my shoulder, with a very reckless movement. It was familiar from re-enactments in which I participated in my reality, sometimes based on the already mentioned medieval nonsense.
The blade width was of a small palm.This sword is called quite poetically - the Ice.
I brought it into a state a little more suitable for unarmored fight by adding a leather winding at the guard. The blacksmith, one of those three craftsmen in Valyrian steel - I brought him in with the help of the lord of the former Wolf's Lair, the Manderly - and the castle smith of Winterfell, who now also began to understand this material a little, they created a miracle together with their apprentices. This huge claymore was significantly reforged. We agreed to leave the weight within four kilograms, I think, breaking armor, but not breaking my spine. The blade still lost a couple of finger phalanges of original width, but an additional small guard was added, separating the wrapped and not sharpened part of the blade, the widest in the entire sword, from the part that was supposed to chop heads and crush armor.
I proudly but privately called the addition wolf fangs, by analogy with the boar fangs from my reality, and the straight guard with the motto of the house on it was ruthlessly remade into a much more practical one — with two forged rings on both sides of the blade for improved grip. The grinning faces of direwolves were skillfully minted in these rings — it was still necessary to make it clear that the sword was still the same Stark Ice, and not a free interpretation of it without any identification marks. The rings were almost a prerequisite for me to use such a huge sword in a fight, because they were also an additional protection of the palms.
Also, the long sword hilt, almost as long as an elbow, served as a good lever in leaving large dents on armor made of not the worst steel — tested on an equipped mannequin. Well, also, the sword would certainly come in handy to create a good shake-up for anyone who meets with such an instrument of death in battle.
While I was lamenting to myself about spending money — both Eddard Stark and I have quite a common avarice, horsemen with familiar deer and lion standards rode into the gate. Then, Arya ran up to me with a smile and gave me a bouquet of wild golden roses tied with a scarlet ribbon, which I specially ordered through Lord Wyman Manderly's people, as well as many other things I needed directly to improve the conditions of both my life and the existence of other residents of the castle.
Eddard, before my arrival in his skull, lived as many others before him — after all, the North remembers, and this is its main drawback when it comes to changes. Starting with the simplest — after all, it would seem that the entire inner castle could be a huge greenhouse, but there are actually no big greenhouses here. There are flowers in pots for beauty in the wife's rooms — a reminder of the warm Riverrun, and there are no other greenhouses, but the winter garden, which has become slightly shabby over the long summer. This little garden covers only the kitchen expenses of the castle residents for vegetables and some fruits, but there is no special export or variety. Such a loss of potential!
My uncle in that world was engaged in the cultivation of oyster mushrooms, cucumbers and champignons and lived-never-grieved with a pretty good income, which means he had quite a good harvest for a modest private entepreneur. Therefore, I decided not to get political much, but to increase wealth and prepare for the Winter in the first place, spitting and forgetting for the time being the need to go to the King's Landing in the future.
Since I got here a decent amount of time ago and even managed to celebrate my thirtieth birthday — I still count the days to somehow keep the memory of the past world in order - I have already managed a lot in preparation for the long winter ahead. It was always warm in Winterfell because of the pipes that sent heat from underground sources throughout the castle, and that's why, having at least some ingenuity and a vital desire to test the ability of this castle to become somewhat more autonomous in case of the end of food supplies, I began to equip the basements inside and build one, you could say, summer-like greenhouse to pamper myself with things like those roses.
I liked gardening, you see.
With winter, they will surely wither, like any fertile fields south of Winterfell. Mushrooms needed slightly different conditions — coolness and hydroponics, but I wasn't ready to share the production technology with everyone just yet because of my innate hamster, now multiplied by two.
So, greenhouses.
Thus Arya brought me a bouquet that had just been picked, golden roses had already bloomed there, though yesterday the buds were still closed. They're waiting for the southern guests, weren't they, huh? For me, the color of roses and the very desire to give them to Her was rather a slightly sarcastic reference to "yellow is the color of parting", because I was going to give the bouquet to the most unloved Lannister for her ego, Queen Cersei, and I'd be glad to see this woman only, figuratively speaking, in a crypt and with a sword in hands. That is, in a coffin and white slippers by Westeros.
And I honestly ordered them thinking about the queen, who's just about to appear in the gate with the children, apparently, as it was according to the book canon, following Robert and his entourage. Because in this reality there was that stupid cart-a-la-house, about which Theon Greyjoy reported to me with a laugh in his eyes. I assigned him to my scouts for the practice of commanding small detachments.
This little bugger just loves when nasty things happen to people, and I gave him a good opportunity to seek such nasty things on a regular basis. A little more experience — and I will let him out on his own, since I have almost everything ready for this. Meanwhile, the strangers have already spread out in front of me, leaving horse shit and dirt on the good old pavements made of log slices knocked down with each other — there is a forest nearby, and even while I cherish my inner toad, just like Ned, preparing the treasury for Winter, but winter snow porridge and general medieval shit does not suit my sensitivities.
Robert got off his horse with loud noises, and I smiled broadly, probably leaving my eyes cold, and gave Ice to Greyjoy. The kid was standing right behind my shoulder. Then I gave the flowers to Sansa so as not to crush the bouquet on the king's belly. I opened my arms, still smiling, and hugged a smelly stocky, albeit strong, stranger.
The man towered over me by about half a head and was much stronger in width and thickness. That last thing - I was incredibly happy about.
This wine-skin-man doused me with fumes and perfumes, to which I barely held Lord Stark's ordinary icy muzzle and continued the greeting more formally. While we were grovelling or whatever that was, I was thinking of life and waiting for the queen to appear with the children. Then I took the flowers from my daughter, at which everyone of the king's retinue looked strangely, as if unaware of their purpose. Mine, of course, have already got used to the frostbitten in the head Paramount Lord, but this does not mean that they have shared the thoughts that are probably present in their heads with the Southerners.
My thoughts were sad.
Firstly, the Song of Ice and Fire is interesting only to read or watch, but not to participate. Moreover, for a person with a fairly peaceful professional training. A lawyer in Russia is more of a diploma than a real vocation, and my modest business went more successful than many others who started at the same time, precisely because of the law school behind me. Those were not bad for the thirty years I turned recently, here in Westeros. But those were unlikely to help here, in a world that is much more cruel in its manifestations, and where the power of laws is a relative concept, and the law of the locals would be called custom-based and extremely chaotic.
Secondly, although this world is not hospitable on principle, but it would be possible to live quite calmly, after all everyone dies. Of course, if it weren't for the presence of five plus one offsprings, who were set up to be problems by the previous owner of the body. And if it weren't for this freaking mother hen poking her nose into all my affairs, Catelyn, with whom I woke up in the bed when I got here. And then got woozy from her morning prayer that "his seed would take root in me" or something like that. Kat was only a little embarrassed by my odd look. But I was hurt by her behavior afterward, when I started to perceive my situation a little more adequately, ceasing to experience it only inside my mind as something impossible-because-that's-totally-impossible. It suddenly seemed to me that it was too easy to get found out right away for any intelligent person, which I thought I am, as arrogant as that was.
Well, any intelligent person in such a situation should just shut up and assess the situation for a while, deal with the new memories that appeared out of nowhere, replacing those memories of mine that led here, to this reality.
I was assessing everything that happened to Edward from some kind of bird's height, or something. He was a terrible hypocrite, he was afraid to really get his hands dirty, although he did not disdain the work of the executioner, and did not allow someone to do such a nasty thing for him. That's honor, ugh, sure. He was somehow nothing special, this Eddard - not too ambitious - ambitions are brought up in children, they do not form on their own; at the same time, he was not too stupid, but still sometimes it seemed that he lived in some kind of world adjacent to this reality, where people are divided into honest and dishonest, and not the way this division of people was formed while I viewed his memories, into players and pieces.
Take the memories of the Civil War, the Uprising of the Usurper in some narrow circles, to which Ned himself did not belong, of course, but had all, so to speak, the makings for. Jon Snow is Rhaegar's son with Lyanna would install me in those circles for sure, if I wanted.
Robert and Ned under the wing of John Arryn?
While Arryns and Tully losing influence due to the strengthening of royal power and at the same time the rising of the Lannisters, Tyrells and Martells above the rest of the High Houses. King Targaryen was going crazy with paranoia, but at the same time there is a reasonable and most likely future king - Prince Rhaegar, to whom Arryn won't ever be needed as the fucking Hand, because he was of his own mind?
Bravo, Lord of the Vale and Guardian of the East, great game of Thrones!
Who informed Brandon Stark, the older brother of my body, that Lyanna was kidnapped?
Eddard knew that, but I didn't.
Baelish, fuck him, Petyr, was a direct vassal of Arryn at that moment. And to Petyr the death of a man who should marry his beloved would be like sweet jam. Which was exactly why the eldest of the Stark children of that generation was traveling to Riverrun at the time of the "abduction", and not to King's Landing.
And one more fact in the piggy bank of my guesses - under whom did Bailish achieve so much and not quite legal?
Under the fucking Hand Arryn!
Why was the alliance with the Starks so badly needed, their misinformation about the abduction and all of it in general?
That's because Robert Baratheon and his brothers were almost nothing and nobody at that time for the whole of Westeros - a couple of vassal houses ready to fight for them, plus - excellent in quality, but small in quantity reinforcements from Dornish Marches, whose lords have been vassals of the house of Baratheon since the times when they were Durrandons. It's not even funny - you could win one battle, but not the whole war for the Iron Throne. And when the first house that confronts you in the war is a house from your own region, the Grandison house, by the way, it means something's wrong here.
And something really didn't feel right.
The house founded allegedly by the half-brother of Aegon the Conqueror himself - and this is an obvious fiction in order to justify Robert's ancestral rights to the Targaryen throne for the common people - claims the throne, using a beautiful maiden from the house of guardians of the North, the Starks, as a reason for rebellion.
Of course, everything was more prosaic in fact - the aunt of the Mad King was the mother of Steffon Baratheon, which gave the Baratheon brothers the right to the throne, the minimal one, so to speak. But it still gave it, especially for those who still needed Targaryen blood to acknowledge the Iron Throne rule over the Seven Kingdoms.
At the same time, honest and misinformed Starks, who would hardly agree to betray the crown to which both they and their ancestors swore, are used as the driving slap in the face for the North. And the North could give all Southerners, each southern region individually and in various combinations, quite a light from a soldering iron, as my uncle used to say, the one who grew all sorts of things in his garden. And Ned Stark is Baratheon's best friend and the ward of the Lord of the Vale.
The only thing, by the way, that I haven't figured out yet is which of the lords of the North helped Tully and Arryn in their plot against the Targaryens. Such a rapid transfer of information from Harrenhal to the North - and my brother - as I have already learned when looked through the library of Maester Winterfell and, thank the Old Gods, it has a systematic filing of documents for that period - received a report while still in the North.
And then all the older and unrelated to Arryn and his ambitions, Starks died at the hands of the King. And horrifically he was somewhat in his rights to execute them for treason, albeit too imaginative. He executed the people who wanted to kill his son who'd quite officially married Lyanna - I don't know if Aerys knew about it or didn't. Still, Elia Martell was left in the Red Castle by him as a hostage, and not as the wife of the prince and the mother of little Targaryens, which seems to imply his awareness that if suddenly Elia gotten to her relatives or at least contacted them, informing them of the real state of affairs, then Dorn would've exploded like a green alchemical compound known to all Game of Thrones fans.
It should be noted at the same time that the Dornish would not have abandoned their own in trouble, even if they had to be with the Tyrells on the same side, would have supported the Crown, although no less strong houses gathered on the other side. The Starks and their bannermen, the Arryns and the lords of the Vale, the Tully and their vassals? This was power. But the Starks wouldn't be there if... If what exactly? I just feel - there is a considerable discrepancy lurking. And this is not conspiracy. As the same uncle used to say - "My cucumber smells trouble." It's funny, it was, but it's a truth and what a truth that is!
By the way, who and when said that Ned Stark loved Catelyn at all? He was a faithful and good husband, regularly delivered sperm to her uterus and flexed her vaginal muscles, but nothing else.
No, Eddard didn't love Catelyn the way I understood the word "love".
There was no romance, beautiful words and actions. There was a marriage out of necessity, and the younger brother came to replace the older brother. At least that's why I couldn't stand John Arryn in advance, because
it was his decision to keep the engagement.
Yes, I understand - it's such a time here that other contracts besides marriage are somewhat a lottery, and marriage is also not the most relish in terms of mutual assistance and support. But this does not change my personal attitude, which came with me from another reality and the twenty-first century of our era.
Catelyn, by the way, for some reason was not a virgin on their first night, and I do not know why she never thought that her husband keeps a bastard in the castle for this very reason - this one could have thought of it, because she constantly says shit out of spite, turning it so and so to get her way.
From the very beginning, without even noticing it, as if, when she reminded to Eddard in the best traditions of Tully about family, duty and honor, she always said something resembling "your older brother would." And it washed away all the crumbs of understanding that I could give her now, kinda being her husband. To be honest, I don't really care about virginity even, because I'm not from here - anything happens. She's just not whom I chose and that's it.
I was thinking too hard it seems. The Queen has already passed through the gate - by the way, no, it's not some small gate, it's just their carriage the size of a double-decker bus, except that it's not coloured much.
I met her gaze.
It seems that the royal couple decided not to give up trying to break Lord Stark's icy muzzle, figuratively speaking, of course.
I've never touched that damn Catelyn in all my time here in Winterfell, I've never even thought about turning the memories that already existed in my brain into reality. Although no, I'm lying, I thought of sex - but up to that point, Kat managed to get me very annoyed.
Eddard, for example, could not stand the completely happy and relatively pleased with life of the oathbreaker Jaime Lannister and his whole family, he seemed to chew a lemon every time the figure of the illustrous knight and his equally illustrous sister crept into his thoughts. For me, it was mostly gray.
Of course, Eddard did give a damn about Catelyn. A bit more than I gave a damn about the Lannister White Cloak. It honestly seemed that for him she was mostly the mother of his children, who should be somewhat listened to, but not a full-fledged person with her stupid flaws and wrongness. And it seems to me right now, when I look the queen in the eyes, that there after all no man who would not want to fuck Cersei Lannister, because such a bold look, sassy on the inside, but framed by emerald ice, and the smooth movements of a graceful laid-back cat is extremely sexy.
I handed the queen a bouquet of golden roses and loudly, again giving out a wide smile, said, still looking into her eyes.
"You Southerners seem to have brought the south to us! Roses bloomed for the first time in my greenhouse this morning! I give them to you as a sign of my admiration and homage, my queen!"
She was a little dumbfounded - this surprise flashed in her eyes - accepted the bouquet and allowed to kiss her ring, for which I had to kneel right on the wooden flooring. I liked this Cersei so far. She was lively and beautiful, there was intelligence in her eyes, albeit with bitchy sparkles, and I knew that she loved her children no less than Catelyn, only the latter's mind showed in flashes, and she did not approve of my innovations, which my practical part did not like. Yes, it was with her criticism of my innovations that she finally made me sick of her antics, yes!
Although Eddard Stark was radically different from me in this - Catelyn's opinion on many issues suited him quite well. And he saw the bitchy essence of Cersei from the first and it seems the only thorough look at the wedding of his friend, but he was never attracted by the constant achievement, the search for keys to support, love and soul, which you constantly do when you start dating a girl like this, not to mention start a family life.
I have met a similar one in my life - we broke up when I did not help either by word or deed in the most difficult moments of her life, when her father died and her mother fell ill. I was in another country, we were already seriously thinking about the possibility of marriage by that time, but I didn't rush to her as soon as I found out about what had happened, no.
It seemed to me "it's okay, we're adults," and then I was, let me remember, twenty-five years old, if not less.
This adult expressed sympathy only a week after the funeral and for some reason believed that if he doesn't bother the person experiencing a terrible loss, then perhaps everything would somehow work itself out. I was a moron, quite. Although there's nothing you can do, and I generally remembered it for another reason.
It all boils down to what is that dear Queen Cersei needs in the relationship? Cersei needed at least someone charismatically equal to her and at the same time a tough person who could calm her angry outbursts and ask for opinions on important issues, and not the drunkard into whom dear King Robert became, who does not value either family or the honor of his wife. And Gods forbid me to consider myself the right man for Cersei Lannister! It's like field hockey - something perversive, it seems.
Although she's quite... salivating, yes, I found the word.
But back to the question of getting his hands dirty by Eddard Stark.
Quite recently, there was the very day when Lord Eddard Stark in the book and in the movie, in the name of King Robert Baratheon and so on and so forth, executed a deserter from the Watch. The guy should have been sentenced to death by law, but I'm not Eddard Stark.
That's why the kid is now clean, washed and desperately drunk waiting for an audience with the powers of this world for a detailed and thorough retelling of everything he told me about the horror that happened to their patrol beyond the Wall. The truthfulness will have to be confirmed by my younger brother - and even if he does not believe it himself yet, I have already given such an order under the guise of the fact that we need to restore the Watch, but there is no money, and they will be if we convince the Southerners so that they finally shit themselves in their gardens, fields and warm castles.
Well, I also left the direwolves to the kids almost without objections. By the way, I have long evaluated Theon's behavior and still made sure that I correctly decided to send him to adventure somewhere else, not in Winterfell, and I will fulfill these plans in the near future.
From every such memory, where I had to execute and kill, at first I was drawn to vomit on all three sides, but I understood that this was a reality in which I'd have to somehow sit my ass in warmer place, and this despite the fact that the Starks are the kings of Winter, the kings of the North, and it's kind of inconvenient for me to escape to Essos just like that. By the way, not at all my reasons are the reasons are of an honest and good person, no - those would be something like "you can't do this to the Stark family."
No, I was driven by other motives. Winter is really close, and we don't have any dragons under control and are not expecting to. Of course, no adequate person from my world who watched the series will send them over the Wall, but to give a whooping on this side, with enough strategic planing, the dragons would be quite enough. And as you know, when the snow falls and white winds blow, a lone wolf dies, but the pack survives - a saying that all Starks have known at all times, and therefore survived.
And now I'm the fucking leader of this pack. No matter how funny it may be, especially in light of the fact that I'd be quite the questionable leader, these people are doomed without me. Maybe not even to death, this is normal here. Many of them will probably die regardless of my actions, or even with my direct help. For example, Jamie's face asks for a brick, oddly enough - he really annoys with his ostentatious perfection. It's about people in principle. I do not know what kind of magic-shmagic everything should end, but the invasion of the living dead is just around the corner. It is only beyond the Wall north of my castle.