┏━ tribulation.
( SCENE 7 ) ━┛

BLIND in her tears, Ismene passed trees without going in any particular direction. Even as she ran, she felt the endless and rolling pit within her heart deepen with every sob that slipped passed her lips. Behind her, Fenrir loped loyally after her, fast enough to keep up. His golden eyes watched her with a sense of sadness as if he were a person who understood.

The darkest news reached the northern forces, changing the course of the war indefinitely. Her father was executed under the order of the bastard King Joffrey, something the girl could have seen coming but never did. With such a swift and defining execution, the time left if war was almost impossible to measure. Sansa had informed them in the hastily written letter that had been received from Kingslanding that sounded more like the queen's words than Ismene's soft spoken sister.

She was utterly heartbroken, as expected, knowing she would never see her father again nor would her sons ever meet their grandfather. Over and over again, she was reminded that she would never embrace him again, breath in his earthy and calming musk that Darik had inherited, nor hear his hearty laugh. That was all gone, whisked away into oblivion at the command of a boy king who had no business running a country. Because of Joffrey, Ismene would never see her father again; for that, she would eternally despise the Lannisters. 

Just as she saw Darik, she was already running into his arms. One of the few places she truly felt safe was in her twins arms, yet it didn't feel the same. She could tell how feeble he was, having experienced his own bout of sobbing just before Ismene had run off into the forest. As she gripped to him with such disparity, Ismene realized that her family would never live forever as her naive mind could have never imagined a world without them.

The two stood together until their sobs quieted and their tears dried as stains on their now cold cheeks. Her head lied on his chest, eyes staring off as his face was buried in her dark hair. They sank to the ground, their hands gripping each others as they faced the reality of their fathers death. For a long time, they sat there together, not soul daring to bother them.

"I'll kill them all ," Darik utters, his voice shaky with anger and pain as he gripped her hand tighter. "Every one of them. I will kill them all and I will get our sisters back, I will put this family back together no matter what it takes." He draws in a shaky breath as their eyes meet, grey into brown. "I promise you, Ismene, our family will be whole again."

In the distance, Fenrir and Luna sat side by side, letting out a chorus of mournful sobs.

❆

THE war council was called that evening, where Ismene and Lukas sat together. Word of the victory at Riverrun had spread to the fugitive lords of the Trident, drawing them back. Karyl Vance came in, a lord now, his father dead beneath the Golden Tooth. Ser Marq Piper was with him, and they brought a Darry, Ser Raymun's son, a lad no older than Ismene's brother Bran. Lord Jonos Bracken arrived from the ruins of Stone Hedge, glowering and blustering.

The northern lords sat opposite of the Starks. They were fewer. The Greatjon sat with Theon Greyjoy. Galbart Glover and Lady Mormont were to the right of Catelyn. Lord Rickard Karstark, gaunt and hollow-eyed in his grief, took his seat like a man in a nightmare, his long beard uncombed and unwashed. He had left two sons dead in the Whispering Wood, and there was no word of the third, his eldest, who had led the Karstark spears against Tywin Lannister on the Green Fork.

The arguing raged on late into the night, lord's fighting over what was best after such a tragic hit had been taken on the north. Each lord had a right to speak, and speak they did...and shout, and curse, and reason, and cajole, and jest, and bargain, and slam their fists, and threaten. Amid it all, Ismene wished she could stand on the table and scream at them all for acting like such blubbering idiots while they were needing to act against such a critical hit.

Roose Bolton had re-formed the battered remnants of their other host at the mouth of the causeway. Ser Helman Tallhart and Walder Frey still held the Twins. Lord Tywin's army had crossed the Trident, and was making for Harrenhal. And there were two kings in the realm. Two kings, and no agreement.

Ismene, wanting to be front and center for battle discussion, knew Darik's bannermen wanted to march on Harrenhal at once, to meet Lord Tywin and end Lannister power for all time. Young, hot-tempered Marq Piper urged a strike west at Casterly Rock instead. Still others counseled patience. Riverrun sat athwart the Lannister supply lines, Jason Mallister pointed out; let them bide their time, denying Lord Tywin fresh levies and provisions while they strengthened their defenses and rested their weary troops. Lord Jonos Bracken rose to insist they ought pledge their fealty to King Renly, and move south to join their might to his.

"Renly is not the king," Darik scolds him, sounding much like their father did when he could discipline them as children. Ismene would do anything to get him back. 

"You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord," Lord Glover says. "He put your father to death."

"That makes him evil," Lukas replies. "I do not know that it makes Renly king. Joffrey is still Robert's eldest trueborn son, so the throne is rightfully his by all the laws of the realm. Were he to die, and I mean to see that he does, he has a younger brother. Tommen is next in line after Joffrey."

"Tommen is no less a Lannister," Aubrey snaps, knowing full well the rumors of incest had to be true. Ismene had to agree, for if they were true born, Robert and Cersei's children would have heads of dark hair like their father. Not heads of a golden mane like the lions they truly are.

"As you say," says Darik, troubled. "Yet if neither one is king, still, how could it be Lord Renly? He's Robert's younger brother. Robb can't be Lord of Winterfell before me, and Renly can't be king before Lord Stannis."

Lord Henrik nods in agreement. "Lord Stannis has the better claim."

"Renly is crowned," says Marq Piper. "Highgarden and Storm's End support his claim, and the Dornishmen will not be laggardly. If Winterfell and Riverrun add their strength to his, he will have five of the seven great houses behind him. Six, if the Arryns bestir themselves! Six against the Rock! My lords, within the year, we will have all their heads on pikes, the queen and the boy king, Lord Tywin, the Imp, the Kingslayer, Ser Kevan, all of them! That is what we shall win if we join with King Renly. What does Lord Stannis have against that, that we should cast it all aside?"

"The right," says Henrik stubbornly.

"So you mean us to declare for Stannis?" asks Lukas from Ismene side. "If the boy king is simply an incestuous bastard, then Darik could be seen as the supporter of another Usurper. Renly has the true claim to the throne after his brother, after all."

"I don't know," Darik admits, eyes on the Estemore heir. "I prayed to know what to do, but the gods did not answer. The Lannisters killed my father for a traitor, and we know that was a lie, but if Joffrey is the lawful king and we fight against him, we will be traitors."

"My lord father would urge caution," Ser Stevron says, with the weaselly smile of a Frey. "Wait, let these two kings play their game of thrones. When they are done fighting, we can bend our knees to the victor, or oppose him, as we choose. With Renly arming, likely Lord Tywin would welcome a truce...and the safe return of his son. Noble lords, allow me to go to him at Harrenhal and arrange good terms and ransoms..."

A roar of outrage drowned out his voice. "Craven!" the Greatjon thundered.

"Begging for a truce will make us seem weak," declared Lord Henrik.

"Ransoms be damned, we must not give up the Kingslayer," shouted Rickard Karstark.

"Why not a peace?" Catelyn asks, her voice breaking through the shouts. Ismeme can only pity the innocence her mother held. She wished herself that peace was an option, but it wasn't. Not with the burning rage she felt inside that only made her want to enact revenge.

"Mother, they murdered my lord father, your husband," Darik says grimly. He unsheaths his sword and lays it on the table before him, the bright steel on the rough wood. "This is the only peace I have for Lannisters."

The Greatjon bellowed his approval, and other men added their voices, shouting and drawing swords and pounding their fists on the table. Catelyn waited until they had quieted.

"My lords," she says then, "Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think I love him any less than you?" Her voice almost broke with her grief, but Catelyn took a long breath and steadied herself. "Darik, if that sword could bring him back, I should never let you sheathe it until Ned stood at my side once more...but he is gone, and hundred Whispering Woods will not change that. Ned is gone, and Daryn Hornwood, and Lord Karstark's valiant sons, and many other good men besides, and none of them will return to us. Must we have more deaths still?"

"You are a woman, my lady," the Greatjon rumbles in his deep voice. "Women do not understand these things."

Aubrey looked to him, offended, her eyes as sharp as her tongue and arrowtips. "Care with your words, my lord. Lady Ismene and I are present for a reason."

"You are the gentle sex," Lord Karstark agrees, with the lines of grief fresh on his face. "A man has a need for vengeance."

"I may be weaker, without the strength of a man," Ismene growls, gaining the surprised looks from the other lord's as they'd never seen the woman act in such a way. "But I will do whatever it takes to avenge my father, even if it means lifting a sword myself." She could feel the burning rage inside.

Some of the lord's nodded in approval at the former Stark's bold words. "Lady Ismene appears to be as bold as the men," Henrik speaks up. "Perhaps she would be more useful in battle than those who wish to flee."

"Give me Cersei Lannister, Lord Karstark, and you would see how gentle a woman can be," Catelyn replies, agreeing with her step-daughter.

"Perhaps I do not understand tactics and strategy as my daughter and Lady Aubrey might," Catelyn continues, "but I understand futility. We went to war when Lannister armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falsely accused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord's freedom. Well, the one is done, and the other forever beyond our reach. I will mourn for Ned until the end of my days, but I must think of the living. I want my daughters back, and the queen holds them still. If I must trade our four Lannisters for their two Starks, I will call that a bargain and thank the gods."

Catelyn turned to face Darik. "I want you safe, Darik, ruling at Winterfell from your father's seat. I want you to live your life, to kiss and wed a woman and father your own sons and daughters." She looks across the way to her daughter. "I want you my dear, to return to Lakewell and not have to fear the death of your husband as he fights in battle. I want you both to raise your sons. I want to write an end to this. I want to go home, my lords, and weep for my husband."

Everything was quiet when Catelyn finished speaking. Ismene thinks she will be unable to return home until she's rid the known world of the Lannisters.

"Peace," says Aubrey, seeming to taste the word on her tongue for a moment. "Peace is sweet, my lady...but on what terms? It is no good hammering your sword into a plowshare if you must forge it again on the morrow."

"What did Torrhen and my Eddard die for, if I am to return to Karhold with nothing but their bones?" asks Rickard Karstark.

"Aye," agrees Lord Bracken. "Gregor Clegane laid waste to my fields, slaughtered my smallfolk, and left Stone Hedge a smoking ruin. Am I now to bend the knee to the ones who sent him? What have we fought for, if we are to put all back as it was before?"

Lukas nods in agreement, much to Catelyn's surprise and dismay. "And if we do make peace with King Joffrey, are we not then traitors to King Renly? What if the stag should prevail against the lion, where would that leave us?"

"Whatever you may decide for yourselves, I shall never call a Lannister my king," declares Marq Piper. It only makes Ismene smirk as she agrees.

"Nor I!" yells the little Darry boy. "I never will!"

The shouting began and Ismene want to join along. Every fiber of her being told her to pick up a sword alongside Darik and kill every enemy soldier she could. She thought of battle as her only chance of enacting her revenge.

"My lords!" Henrik Estemore shouted, his voice booming and quieting the others. It surprises both Ismene and Lukas. "Here is what I say to these two kings!" He spat.
"Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dragonstone? What do they know of the Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others take the Lannisters too, I've had a bellyful of them."

Henrik reached to his hip and drew his greatsword. "Why shouldn't we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!" He pointed at Darik with his blade that glistened underneath the moon and stars. "There sits the only king I mean to bow my knee to, m'lords," he thundered. "The King in the North!"

And he knelt, and laid his sword at Darik's feet.

"I'll have peace on those terms," Lord Karstark says. "They can keep their red castle and their iron chair as well." He eased his longsword from its scabbard. "The King in the North!" he says, kneeling beside the fox.

Ismene watched as her blonde haired friend made her way to Darik's side. "From this day until my last, you have my sword and my arrows, my king," she declares, then knelt down beside her uncle and laid her sword at his feet. Ismene wished she had a weapon to lie down as well as she would hesitate a moment.

Soon, the lord's began pulling their weapons out, lying them to the ground and kneeling. They all bowed to Darik, who seemed utterly in awe at how men twice his age were bending the knee to him. They uttered a saying none of them had ever truly declared in their life times, not since the Conquest of Aegon I.

Darik was now the King in the North.