FIC: For many lives...(Rickon) for mihnn
Recipient: mihnn
Title: For many lives stand between me and home
Author: breve
Rating: T
Character: Rickon Stark
Word Count: 2086
Summary: Rickon is the Lord of Winterfell, but he does not feel like a Lord
For many lives stand between me and home:
And I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way;
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,--
Torment myself
--- King Henry VI, 3.3.2
Rickon has forgotten how to dream.
When night falls on this shrunken shell of his childhood, and his eyes close, he sees no misty images of a half-forgotten mother, does not feel the ghostly weight of a years-dead father's hand on his shoulder, is not haunted by the echoes of a long-missing sister's shouts. It has been long years since he has seen them in his dreams, these stranger-shaped voids burrowed deep inside his chest, and they have passed by and large from his memory. He does not mourn them when he sleeps, and that is its own blessing.
No. When his eyes close at night, he is wild again, and free, loosed from the chains of tradition and propriety and expectations, free to cast off this cursed mantle of Lord that he wears about his broad shoulders like a noose, ever threatening to slip up his neck and choke the life from him. In daylight, the phrases echo in his mind: his Lord father, his Lord brother, but not his Lord self, not Rickon, not ever.
When night falls, when sleep comes, he can run, run from it all.
The wind whips sharp and cool through his fur, and the clean smells of Spring are sharp and thick around him: new growth and thawing decay and throbbing life that pounds and invites chase and then rushes hot and rich over his tongue. Moonlight mutes the colors of the world around him, and a thousand night sounds fill the air as he feasts on his fresh kill.
When the morning comes, and the Shaggydog shoves his huge head into his chambers, Rickon slips the mantle back on and knots his fingers in the thick fur at the wolf's neck, finding his strength there. It would be easy, too easy, to slip from his own skin and back into the wolf, to leave the boy behind in this cage of stone and break free into the wilds of the North. But inconvenient truths that hide in the darkness come to light in the day, and Rickon may not be made of the stuff of Lords, but he is a Stark. And there is work to be done.
There is a maester who would teach him his letters and the heraldry of his sworn houses, and a master-at-arms who would teach him to wield a lance from horseback, and a castellan who chants endless lists of provisions and numbers, and a master mason and a master builder and a master of horse and Lord Manderly- and they all pull and tug and want and want, and Rickon has to send Shaggydog to the Godswood when combined frustration bursts out of wolf and boy in a violent rush and almost costs a man his arm.
They do not understand. Winterfell is broken around him, ancient ash still swept into the corners of the yard, outbuildings still unbuilt, masonry fallen to disrepair, full wings coated in dust and grime from disuse. Rickon Stark cannot sit in a musty tower and pore over letters and etchings while the marks of Greyjoy's treachery and the remnants of Bolton's atrocities still stain the castle of his fathers.
Rickon's hands are large and steady, but the wooden grip of the hammer is strange, an unfamiliar weight and balance he fears he wields too clumsily. Still, he cannot just watch these men (Winterfell men, his father's men, his brother's men) work while he does nothing. The tool fits in his hand differently than the bow to which he is accustomed, but he is here to raise these walls, not shoot them down. He grits his teeth and calms his wolf and learns that both of them can be tame when they needs must.
When night falls and he stumbles into his bed, exhausted, he closes his eyes and runs.
***
Rickon can breathe in the Godswood.
It is here that he feels the heavy press of obligation and stone the least. Here he can almost imagine there are no walls pinning him in, no duties holding him down, no foolish mistakes waiting to be made.
What he does not expect are the ghosts.
He sinks down beside the Heart Tree, with the damp cold ground beneath him and the warm dry dire wolf at his back, and his fingers work their way into the good earth, rasp over the rough exposed roots of the trees, slide over the smooth white bark of the weirwood. Under his fingers there is warmth, the best kind of warmth, and faded flashes of wholeness and home and memories not his own and the continual thrum in his heart of brother brother brother.
Rickon's eyes close, and he sees his mother's smile, warm and kind and strong, and feels the soft brush of her braid against his cheek as she leans to wrap her arms around him.
And he feels a large hand ruffle his hair, and his vision tilts up, up, to his father standing beside him in the practice yard, his gentle bearded face framed with the fluttering fur of his long winter cloak.
And then the memories come faster, and he sees Sansa and Arya tumble, laughing, onto the white ground, snowballs falling from their open hands
and Jon's straight back as he draws back a bow
and Maester Luwin counting arrowheads
and Uncle Benjen throwing back his head to laugh
and a pile of pups nestled into the stiff side of a dire wolf
and Ser Rodrik brushing aside his lunge with a practice sword
and snowflakes melting in Robb's hair.
And the images spin and quicken until his head and his heart feel like to burst and all he can see are flashes of color, and the hints of voices almost lost and forgotten grow softer and softer, until at last his vision clears and slows and focuses, and he sees a boy somewhere in a godswood, pressing his forehead to white bark as silent tears slide down to splash against the gnarled roots and damp earth.
Shaggydog whines into the quiet, as soft a sound as his great heavy head and chest can make. Rickon moves his hand to ruffle the wolf's ears and feels no sense of loss in his fingertips.
When he has caught his breath and calmed his heart, he looks up and lets the fading sunlight cast patterns across his wet face. "Thank you," he whispers into the hallowed quiet, and the blood-red leaves rustle softly over his auburn head.
***
Rickon never learned to rule.
It was Robb who was to rule the North when their Lord father left them, and Robb who was trained in the governance of men. Robb knew his men, knew their Houses and their names, knew how to talk to them, how to treat them, how to rule them. Rickon knows nothing.
In his scant months at Winterfell, Rickon has never felt the inadequacy quite so keenly as he feels it now, with a hall full of bannermen seated before him. He perches on the edge of the chair (his father's chair, Robb's chair, the chair, but not his chair) and grips the lip of it to hold himself steady under the rush of their collective breath, the pressing weight of their eyes. Words and names roll over him like water (I dreamt that the sea came to Winterfell, he hears, far away and long ago, but this is not the sea; the sea he has known, the sea he can understand, predict), and his gaze flicks over the faces and forms before him, watching, wary, missing little.
Wyman Manderly fills the seat to his left, and leans to whisper information of note as the men leave their seats one by one and approach to pay him homage. "Gawen Glover, Lord of Deepwood Motte," he says quietly of a young man Rickon's own age who edges past Shaggydog's hulking form with care. When the young man retreats, his words spoken and received, Rickon feels a shaggy ear quirk in distain and hides a smile on his own face as the dire wolf gives an absent growl to make the young man jump.
A few moments later, a stout, towering figure stomps onto the dais and tosses a haunch of meat to Shaggydog. Rickon's jaw flexes unbidden as the dire wolf rips through charred flesh and crunches down on thick bone.
"Edwyle Umber, the Crowfoot's eldest great-son. Heir to the Last Hearth," Manderly whispers, and Rickon nods his head and says his scant words when Umber declares him his liege lord.
In truth, their names mean little to Rickon and their words mean less, but the look in a man's eyes, the smell of him, that is something else entirely. And there are smells beyond count in the Great Hall tonight, as men from across the stretching expanse of the North filter in to drink and feast and swear their fealty once more to a son of Stark. They are good men gathered here tonight, all. Loyal men, and true. He knows this, instinctively, as surely as he knows the direction of the wind. And all the optimism of Spring is pouring from their toasts, their shouts, their raucous laughter, but Rickon cannot share it. He is an outsider here, if only he can see it. Rickon never learned to rule, and he can sit in this chair that is not his in this keep that is not his and hear words from men that are not his, but that will not make him a Lord.
Before him, young Umber dips his shaggy head and lets a mumbled "Your Grace" fall from his lips by way of parting, and Rickon is suddenly standing, with his hands slammed flat on the high table. It takes mere seconds for the men to fall silent, and soon the only sound to be heard is the long, low growl that breaks from the Shaggydog's throat as he rises to pace silently along the length of the dais. The dire wolf is not shielding him -Rickon will not, need not, be shielded - but the men shrink back from the beast just the same.
"No," Rickon says to Umber, and this one word seems to spread and grow until the walls swell with it. He looks out across the hall, at the hundreds of faces upturned to him, and takes a breath. "I am Rickon of House Stark," he tells them. "Son of Eddard. Brother of Robb. Lord of Winterfell." For the first time, the words do not stick in his throat. "My Lords," he adds in, remembering the courtesy belatedly, "When my brother took a crown, he paid for it with his life. He paid for it with my mother's life. And your fathers' lives, and your sons. We here, we survivors of his war, of the Night's War, of the Dragons' War, we cannot pay such a price again." He looks at Umber and shakes his head, fingertips turning white on the table. "Do not call me a Grace," he tells the man. "I do not want to be your king. Let the Southron lords scurry and scrape about the throne. You are a Northman. I am your Lord. It is enough."
Rickon sits, blood pounding through his head, and tucks shaking hands beneath the table to hide them, while on the dais before him, Shaggydog lowers himself to his haunches, silent. Manderly lets out a startled sort of chuckle beside him, and Rickon supposes it is not unwarranted; he has not said so many words together since he arrived home. He raises his eyes to Umber then, who still stands before him, and sees the beginnings of a smile on the man's face.
"Well then, my Lord," Umber says. "Let me say again for all to hear that Edwyle of House Umber stands loyal to his Lord of House Stark." He stomps a massive foot on the floor and bellows, "Winterfell!"
"Winterfell," a hundred voices echo back, and "WINTERFELL," more and louder than before.
Rickon sinks back into the chair and listens with four ears as the cheers rise around him. He hopes that he has done well.
For Father, he thinks. For Mother. And Jon, Robb, Sansa, Arya, and Bran. For Ghost, Grey Wind, Lady, Nymeria, Summer. He fits his fingers into the worn grooves in the arms of the chair and draws a deep breath.
Rickon is the Stark in Winterfell. He will be brave.
Title: For many lives stand between me and home
Author: breve
Rating: T
Character: Rickon Stark
Word Count: 2086
Summary: Rickon is the Lord of Winterfell, but he does not feel like a Lord
For many lives stand between me and home:
And I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way;
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,--
Torment myself
--- King Henry VI, 3.3.2
Rickon has forgotten how to dream.
When night falls on this shrunken shell of his childhood, and his eyes close, he sees no misty images of a half-forgotten mother, does not feel the ghostly weight of a years-dead father's hand on his shoulder, is not haunted by the echoes of a long-missing sister's shouts. It has been long years since he has seen them in his dreams, these stranger-shaped voids burrowed deep inside his chest, and they have passed by and large from his memory. He does not mourn them when he sleeps, and that is its own blessing.
No. When his eyes close at night, he is wild again, and free, loosed from the chains of tradition and propriety and expectations, free to cast off this cursed mantle of Lord that he wears about his broad shoulders like a noose, ever threatening to slip up his neck and choke the life from him. In daylight, the phrases echo in his mind: his Lord father, his Lord brother, but not his Lord self, not Rickon, not ever.
When night falls, when sleep comes, he can run, run from it all.
The wind whips sharp and cool through his fur, and the clean smells of Spring are sharp and thick around him: new growth and thawing decay and throbbing life that pounds and invites chase and then rushes hot and rich over his tongue. Moonlight mutes the colors of the world around him, and a thousand night sounds fill the air as he feasts on his fresh kill.
When the morning comes, and the Shaggydog shoves his huge head into his chambers, Rickon slips the mantle back on and knots his fingers in the thick fur at the wolf's neck, finding his strength there. It would be easy, too easy, to slip from his own skin and back into the wolf, to leave the boy behind in this cage of stone and break free into the wilds of the North. But inconvenient truths that hide in the darkness come to light in the day, and Rickon may not be made of the stuff of Lords, but he is a Stark. And there is work to be done.
There is a maester who would teach him his letters and the heraldry of his sworn houses, and a master-at-arms who would teach him to wield a lance from horseback, and a castellan who chants endless lists of provisions and numbers, and a master mason and a master builder and a master of horse and Lord Manderly- and they all pull and tug and want and want, and Rickon has to send Shaggydog to the Godswood when combined frustration bursts out of wolf and boy in a violent rush and almost costs a man his arm.
They do not understand. Winterfell is broken around him, ancient ash still swept into the corners of the yard, outbuildings still unbuilt, masonry fallen to disrepair, full wings coated in dust and grime from disuse. Rickon Stark cannot sit in a musty tower and pore over letters and etchings while the marks of Greyjoy's treachery and the remnants of Bolton's atrocities still stain the castle of his fathers.
Rickon's hands are large and steady, but the wooden grip of the hammer is strange, an unfamiliar weight and balance he fears he wields too clumsily. Still, he cannot just watch these men (Winterfell men, his father's men, his brother's men) work while he does nothing. The tool fits in his hand differently than the bow to which he is accustomed, but he is here to raise these walls, not shoot them down. He grits his teeth and calms his wolf and learns that both of them can be tame when they needs must.
When night falls and he stumbles into his bed, exhausted, he closes his eyes and runs.
***
Rickon can breathe in the Godswood.
It is here that he feels the heavy press of obligation and stone the least. Here he can almost imagine there are no walls pinning him in, no duties holding him down, no foolish mistakes waiting to be made.
What he does not expect are the ghosts.
He sinks down beside the Heart Tree, with the damp cold ground beneath him and the warm dry dire wolf at his back, and his fingers work their way into the good earth, rasp over the rough exposed roots of the trees, slide over the smooth white bark of the weirwood. Under his fingers there is warmth, the best kind of warmth, and faded flashes of wholeness and home and memories not his own and the continual thrum in his heart of brother brother brother.
Rickon's eyes close, and he sees his mother's smile, warm and kind and strong, and feels the soft brush of her braid against his cheek as she leans to wrap her arms around him.
And he feels a large hand ruffle his hair, and his vision tilts up, up, to his father standing beside him in the practice yard, his gentle bearded face framed with the fluttering fur of his long winter cloak.
And then the memories come faster, and he sees Sansa and Arya tumble, laughing, onto the white ground, snowballs falling from their open hands
and Jon's straight back as he draws back a bow
and Maester Luwin counting arrowheads
and Uncle Benjen throwing back his head to laugh
and a pile of pups nestled into the stiff side of a dire wolf
and Ser Rodrik brushing aside his lunge with a practice sword
and snowflakes melting in Robb's hair.
And the images spin and quicken until his head and his heart feel like to burst and all he can see are flashes of color, and the hints of voices almost lost and forgotten grow softer and softer, until at last his vision clears and slows and focuses, and he sees a boy somewhere in a godswood, pressing his forehead to white bark as silent tears slide down to splash against the gnarled roots and damp earth.
Shaggydog whines into the quiet, as soft a sound as his great heavy head and chest can make. Rickon moves his hand to ruffle the wolf's ears and feels no sense of loss in his fingertips.
When he has caught his breath and calmed his heart, he looks up and lets the fading sunlight cast patterns across his wet face. "Thank you," he whispers into the hallowed quiet, and the blood-red leaves rustle softly over his auburn head.
***
Rickon never learned to rule.
It was Robb who was to rule the North when their Lord father left them, and Robb who was trained in the governance of men. Robb knew his men, knew their Houses and their names, knew how to talk to them, how to treat them, how to rule them. Rickon knows nothing.
In his scant months at Winterfell, Rickon has never felt the inadequacy quite so keenly as he feels it now, with a hall full of bannermen seated before him. He perches on the edge of the chair (his father's chair, Robb's chair, the chair, but not his chair) and grips the lip of it to hold himself steady under the rush of their collective breath, the pressing weight of their eyes. Words and names roll over him like water (I dreamt that the sea came to Winterfell, he hears, far away and long ago, but this is not the sea; the sea he has known, the sea he can understand, predict), and his gaze flicks over the faces and forms before him, watching, wary, missing little.
Wyman Manderly fills the seat to his left, and leans to whisper information of note as the men leave their seats one by one and approach to pay him homage. "Gawen Glover, Lord of Deepwood Motte," he says quietly of a young man Rickon's own age who edges past Shaggydog's hulking form with care. When the young man retreats, his words spoken and received, Rickon feels a shaggy ear quirk in distain and hides a smile on his own face as the dire wolf gives an absent growl to make the young man jump.
A few moments later, a stout, towering figure stomps onto the dais and tosses a haunch of meat to Shaggydog. Rickon's jaw flexes unbidden as the dire wolf rips through charred flesh and crunches down on thick bone.
"Edwyle Umber, the Crowfoot's eldest great-son. Heir to the Last Hearth," Manderly whispers, and Rickon nods his head and says his scant words when Umber declares him his liege lord.
In truth, their names mean little to Rickon and their words mean less, but the look in a man's eyes, the smell of him, that is something else entirely. And there are smells beyond count in the Great Hall tonight, as men from across the stretching expanse of the North filter in to drink and feast and swear their fealty once more to a son of Stark. They are good men gathered here tonight, all. Loyal men, and true. He knows this, instinctively, as surely as he knows the direction of the wind. And all the optimism of Spring is pouring from their toasts, their shouts, their raucous laughter, but Rickon cannot share it. He is an outsider here, if only he can see it. Rickon never learned to rule, and he can sit in this chair that is not his in this keep that is not his and hear words from men that are not his, but that will not make him a Lord.
Before him, young Umber dips his shaggy head and lets a mumbled "Your Grace" fall from his lips by way of parting, and Rickon is suddenly standing, with his hands slammed flat on the high table. It takes mere seconds for the men to fall silent, and soon the only sound to be heard is the long, low growl that breaks from the Shaggydog's throat as he rises to pace silently along the length of the dais. The dire wolf is not shielding him -Rickon will not, need not, be shielded - but the men shrink back from the beast just the same.
"No," Rickon says to Umber, and this one word seems to spread and grow until the walls swell with it. He looks out across the hall, at the hundreds of faces upturned to him, and takes a breath. "I am Rickon of House Stark," he tells them. "Son of Eddard. Brother of Robb. Lord of Winterfell." For the first time, the words do not stick in his throat. "My Lords," he adds in, remembering the courtesy belatedly, "When my brother took a crown, he paid for it with his life. He paid for it with my mother's life. And your fathers' lives, and your sons. We here, we survivors of his war, of the Night's War, of the Dragons' War, we cannot pay such a price again." He looks at Umber and shakes his head, fingertips turning white on the table. "Do not call me a Grace," he tells the man. "I do not want to be your king. Let the Southron lords scurry and scrape about the throne. You are a Northman. I am your Lord. It is enough."
Rickon sits, blood pounding through his head, and tucks shaking hands beneath the table to hide them, while on the dais before him, Shaggydog lowers himself to his haunches, silent. Manderly lets out a startled sort of chuckle beside him, and Rickon supposes it is not unwarranted; he has not said so many words together since he arrived home. He raises his eyes to Umber then, who still stands before him, and sees the beginnings of a smile on the man's face.
"Well then, my Lord," Umber says. "Let me say again for all to hear that Edwyle of House Umber stands loyal to his Lord of House Stark." He stomps a massive foot on the floor and bellows, "Winterfell!"
"Winterfell," a hundred voices echo back, and "WINTERFELL," more and louder than before.
Rickon sinks back into the chair and listens with four ears as the cheers rise around him. He hopes that he has done well.
For Father, he thinks. For Mother. And Jon, Robb, Sansa, Arya, and Bran. For Ghost, Grey Wind, Lady, Nymeria, Summer. He fits his fingers into the worn grooves in the arms of the chair and draws a deep breath.
Rickon is the Stark in Winterfell. He will be brave.