My Children’s Father Is Simply the Worst (VI)

"-. 273 AC .-"

Once they reached their destination, Rickard cajoled Brandon to go change. Made it a command when the boy said that he 'wasn't all that cold, honest.' Cold or not, Brandon was wet after the frost and snow melted on the walk over. He wasn't quite soaked, but it was close. Rickard himself had been feeling the bite before the natural Winterfell warmth seeped into him. And his proper winter clothing had shaken off most of the snow before that, instead of it getting everywhere. "I don't know or care what bestowed this grit against the cold on you. Now get going."

"It's just breathing and exposure," Brandon muttered, but went to his closet to change.

Rickard took the time to stoke and fuel the fire in the hearth. Fortunately, the servants had been diligent in keeping it so it didn't take long. He then lit a few candles and got acquainted with the place for what was practically the first time. Brandon's chambers could be mistaken for a Maester's. The desk was covered with papers small and big. There were stacks of sheets piled along the walls. All but one of those walls – the one with the window – were covered in bookshelves stuffed to bursting. Though most of them weren't even loaded with actual tomes, but spring and books one after another.

Rickard didn't go rifling through them. But he did move closer to the desk to see what Brandon had last been working on. There seemed to be a whole stack of drawings. That was what finally made him give in to the urge to pick through them. Once he brought them close to the candlelight, the quality surprised him. It wasn't exceptional but it was still fairly good. The variety surprised him more. Portraits, landscapes, tools, geometry, even shapeless forms with no seeming purpose. Then there was what appeared to be the newest project being worked on. It turned out to be a sketch of… a barrel mounted sideways on a cart? Except two of the wheels were mounted at the front and back of the barrel, rather than the cart itself.

"I guess now you know why I had to reverse-engineer paper…" Brandon said from behind. Awkwardly. "I went through so much that my allowance didn't cover it even after mother doubled it. Not on top of everything else. Then I kept running out, and no amount of coin was going to make ships any faster."

Rickard had already suspected as much. Even spread across years, Brandon's various enterprises were a bit too extensive for the typical Stark heir's allowance. They only seemed poised to expand too, perhaps beyond what even his more successful investments could cover. Within a reasonable time frame at least. The latest drawing kept pulling at him though. The barrel had some strange attachments, and a sifter underneath it all for some reason. At least that's what he guessed. The sketch seemed unfinished. Barely even half done really. Much of the large paper was entirely bare as well, as if waiting for something else to be added. Below was what Rickard assumed to be the name, but it was done in wholly unfamiliar characters. His heart sunk a little at the sight. Brandon should have regained his words, was that not true? Could he not write? But it couldn't be, could it? Not with the games his children played. Not if he taught them letters.

"… Father, I-"

"I was going to murder you." Rickard spoke the words calmly. Levelly. Because if he forced Brandon even now to bridge the void between them, it would mean his final, total failure as a father and as a man. "The last time I was here, long ago. It wasn't because I missed you. Wanted to hold you. Or because Lyarra was growing spent being the only one caring for you. Though all were true. No, it was so you could tragically drown in the bath."

Dead silence.

"You were weak. Broken. The fever had taken your senses and your words. All signs showed you to be a lackwit. And your moodswings promised a life cut short or, worse, one of long hardship as you grew in body but never developed in mind at all. I couldn't bear the thought of you leading that unlife."

The quiet stretched. Like the gravelike silence deep in the Crypt of Winterfell.

"I was going to murder you. Even as I saw you could still recognize me, I was going to murder you. As your face twisted with the effort to stay aware of your surroundings, I grew more certain that it would be a mercy. And as you tried and failed to walk to the bath on your own, I took it as more reason to strengthen my resolve. Then I lifted you. Placed you into the water. You were so light. It would have been so easy. I had your head in hand, my other on your chest ready to push you down… Then my hands touched the water." Rickard placed the papers back down on the desk. "The lye soap stung my palms. The gouges from where I'd clenched my fists so hard that my nails had torn my skin inside and out. Then you started cleaning the cuts, slowly and clumsily but so kind and careful and I just… I couldn't do it."

The winter winds batted and whistled outside, but even they seemed muted.

"For months I was certain I'd condemned you to a hellish caricature of living. I couldn't bear the sight or even the thought of what you were going through because of my weakness. I pushed you away. That was my second mistake. Cassel was the third. I decided there wouldn't be a fourth, so I cut you off entirely lest I just make it worse. Put you wholly in the care of your guardsman and your mother. Perhaps I was just deluding myself and that was the biggest mistake all along." Rickard sighed. "But then you just… seemed to thrive more and more the further we stayed apart." Even now it seemed that way. Although it may just be him overreacting to his failures again.

Brandon didn't say anything. It was almost as if he weren't in the room anymore at all.

"Well, now you know," Rickard said, at last turning to face his son again. "This thing between us. This is it."

Brandon was standing in the middle of the room, arm raised and finger pointed while gaping at him stupidly.

All at once it dawned on Rickard just what he'd done. And how. And when. He reached up to rub his face, grunting in irritation. At this situation. At himself. "I am sorry son, it seems I can't even stop myself from ruining the day of your greatest achievement." With a final sigh, the man let his hand drop back at his side. "I shouldn't have done this today." His other hand made an aborted move towards his son, but it too fell back. He turned to leave instead. "I'll let you rest. We'll talk more tomorrow."

"Don't you fucking dare!"

Rickard stopped and reached back abruptly. He barely made it in time to stop Brandon from falling face-first into his backside. His son had tried to stop him by his tunic only to be yanked forward instead. He was so light, even now.

The man turned to face him again. "Or we can talk more now. That's alright too."

"Like fuck this is alright!" Brandon pulled harshly out of his grip and stepped back, shaking with angry tension.

Rickard stood and watched as his son stomped to his desk, took his key from a drawer, stormed over to the door, locked it, then stomped over to the other end of the room and viciously threw the key into his closet space.

"Are you kidding me old man!?" Brandon howled as he whirled on him. Shrieked really. His voice hadn't broken yet. "You come and dump this on me now? I thought you might hate me. I thought something was wrong with me. I THOUGHT YOU THOUGHT I WAS A DEMON!"

"What!?" Rickard balked, aghast. "Never!"

"Now you tell me! Gods!" Brandon leaned against his bedside with a groan. "Here I thought I was the idiot. If today didn't work, I was ready to force a confrontation to see if I was wrong about you not being a stone's throw away from becoming a child-beater." What!? "At least then I'd know where you fell off the fence! But now you come here and just dump this on me? And you come out with it when I'm so exhausted and sleep deprived that I can't even give you the proper what for! This is bullshit! All this time I thought the world was keeping my dad away from me through some big hardship! But now it turns out you were just too busy being dramatic!?"

"Brandon-"

"Oh, this is just great!"

"Brandon-"

"You're just the worst."

"Bran-"

"I've been Baelished!"

He's been what now?

"Dammit, Dad!"

"Son-"

"I HOPED AT LEAST ONE OF US WOULD STILL HAVE SOMETHING RESEMBLING A MORAL HIGH GROUND!"

The walls should have shaken with the howl. And yes, this time it was a proper howl. Loud and mighty and dripping desperation. It sent Brandon grabbing at his throat in pain. It made Rickard want to scoop his son up as if he were still much younger than ten name days.

Brandon faltered. His anger seemed to drain as fast as it erupted. He dithered, then he climbed to sit on the edge of the bed, hunching on himself and looking miserable.

Rickard slowly pulled the chair from the desk and sat down, watching his son carefully. He waited for some time. Then some time more. Brandon made as if to say something a few times, but the words seemed stuck in his throat.

"So…" Rickard said, trying to help him over whatever obstacle it was. Not that he found it all that much easier to break this particular ice wall. In the end, he just latched onto what had recently stuck out most. "Baelished?"

"Ugh," Brandon grunted, falling back on the bed. "Don't even get me started on that one."

"Alright."

"Oh for-it means 'I'm screwed' okay?" The boy pushed his palms into his eyes in frustration. "Whenever I try to picture what House Stark's ultimate nemesis might be, it's always a small, skinny, green-eyed arsehole with a dark pointed beard who's constantly selling us out and then laughing at our stupidity. Laughing at us. Laughing at me."

… Where was he even supposed to start? And come to think of it, hadn't he come across something like that in the Book of Names?

The awkward silence returned.

"Son-"

"Executing Rodrik was justified." Brandon cut him off, because this also seemed the day to find out the many ways in which they were alike.

For a moment, Rickard Stark couldn't comprehend what he'd just heard. "What did you just say?"

"Rodrik was full of shit!" Brandon snarled, jumping back off the bed and pacing around like a caged animal. His anger returned even faster than it'd doused. Then the whole story came spilling out. "'I've been assigned to serve you, Little Lord. I'm your faithful guardian, Young Lord. You've had another episode, Little Wolf. You're giving me the runaround, Wild Wolf. My Lord, you didn't really think I didn't see this coming with how often you mutter and mumble and growl sinisterly without realising who else is in the room, did you?' He knew where I was the entire time! When I tried to sneak out – ha! – he was right there waiting for me. He'd seen it coming weeks ahead! But instead of keeping me out of trouble – like you ordered him to – he decided to bet everything on my grand 'plan' instead! He disobeyed you. He covered for me. The only reason he even went around 'looking' for me was because I ordered him, and even then he only used it as cover for me instead of him like I meant it to! Made sure to always be looking in the wrong place! And then he had the nerve to keep it all to himself all the way to the chopping block! Even though I also ordered him in advance not to! So much for vaunted knightly honor. So much for justice! What do they matter? What does he matter? As if I had any honor or sense to speak of that could outweigh even a thousandth of all that! What does an eternity of nothingness matter when you've up and decided that your scatter-brained, inconsiderate, rambling lackwit of a charge is Bran the Builder Reborn?"

Aren't you? But the thought was buried under another. It turned out that even at his own son's expense he could experience vindication, Rickard thought emptily.

"And the servants, sheep-brained morons all of them, bought hook line and sinker into my 'master' plan! Because why the fuck should anyone spend three fucking seconds wondering how the fuck I supposedly evaded my personal guard and Winterfell's whole guard force? Never mind that I was five fucking years old. Nevermind that I did it for half a day. Nevermind that I was still insane! And how in all the hells that don't exist did nobody think to ask why Cassel didn't just get a few dogs to sniff me out if he was really so desperate to find me!?"

Well. It seemed that great minds weren't the only ones that could think alike. Though Rickard could easily admit he hadn't bothered looking this much into it at the time. He knew the man and his competence so he did not need to pick at any finer details when he decided he had been deliberately derelict rather than neglectful. And neglect would have demanded censure regardless, at the very least. This even counting Rickard's already plentiful personal history of bad decisions, such that he had less trouble believing that people could lapse into such incompetence. By comparison, Lyarra did pick at the finer details. Then she decided Cassel had acted maliciously precisely because he did not get one of the kennel master's dogs to sniff Brandon out. Also, he didn't get someone else or even notify Rickard to help find him, which said further bad things.

His wife had been very… definitive in the short time leading up to the sentence. Had she not talked about it with Brandon at all?

"But that doesn't matter, does it?" Brandon said, oblivious to his thoughts. The boy had his back to him now. Like he couldn't face him. His voice cracked as he spoke, spent and... and almost tearful. "I knew. But didn't say anything."

No, this he would not abide. "You were insensate for over a day."

"And I didn't say anything even after that!" Brandon whirled on him, shaking with anger. At him. At his protector. At the ending. At himself. "I didn't snuff the rumors. And then I went and basically threw mud in your face by apologising to Martyn in public with you right there. I usurped your authority. After I lied. I betrayed you."

Rickard beheld his son, then slowly cradled his brow and sighed. "You were a hurt child, lashing out in hopes that others would hurt as well."

"No, you of all people don't get make excuses for me!" The boy said tightly. "I had no place. I had no right. I didn't even have justification. I was angry. It wasn't even you I was most angry at, but I was angry and you were the only target left and I wanted revenge."

Sitting there and beholding his angry, shaking, grief-stricken son, Lord Rickard of House Stark wondered how, exactly, Brandon thought any of this was going to make him think less than the world of him after everything that happened since.

He must have taken too long marvelling. "Dad…" Brandon's voice was even more stricken now, if that was possible. "Dad, please say something."

"Will you just lash out at me again like you did just now?"

The boy looked sincerely ashamed. "I don't know," he said miserably. "I'm… I…" He struggled with something, unable or unwilling to say whatever it- "I don't know what I am."

Strong and brave and too precocious by half, Rickard wanted to say. Blameless, he wanted to say. You don't get the same blame. You're a child. Who expects good judgment from a child? But he doubted that absolution was what Brandon was looking for. A dark part of Rickard wondered if it was bravery or if the brainstorm just broke something in him, but he promptly beat it down. He also decided not to poke the latest wound revealed. There was another that needed to be drained first. One he happened to share. "Was it worth it?"

Brandon looked thrown. "What?"

"The Godswood. The mushrooms. The Heart Tree." Even now he could barely prevent his rancor from seeping into his tone. Bot for Brandon, he would manage it. "Whatever you went there for. Did it do what it was supposed to?"

"… Yes-no-I don't know!" The boy trembled in place before starting to pace restlessly again. "I was depressed – soul-weary. The ps- magic mushrooms were supposed to help with that – they did! – but the headaches kept coming back. I've had better success with bloody passionflowers. And what am I even supposed to say about the Heart Tree now? That the only reason I even went there was to see it glow? Congratulations, oh Brandon of House Stark! You've accomplished your grand plan and a good man died for it. Welcome to Westeros. Have a nice life!"

"Oh son," Rickard said sadly, finally unable to hold back this one, all-important question. "What did the Gods do to you?"

Shockingly, Brandon snorted. "The Gods didn't do shit. It's my fault for being a lunk. Three whole years of living and it took seeing the bloody face on the tree to finally realise where I was. Bran the lunk, thick as a castle wall and slow as an aurochs-"

His boy stopped talking abruptly, but even so it was all Rickard could do not to feel adrift at the sudden, off-handed dismissal of his greatest source of spite and misery. It was all he could do not to be blown away by the bizarre and incomprehensible implications of that outburst. He forced them down eventually. Down with everything else when Brandon continued failing to finish what he was about to say. "Son?" Rickard stood from the seat and stepped closer, reaching out tentatively. "Brandon?"

The boy didn't seem to hear him, even as he slowly raised his clenched fists and visibly coiled with tension.

Alarmed, the man quickly stepped in front of him, only to be faced with a sight that, quite frankly, scared the hells out of him. Brandon was tense, his eyes squinted fixed on nothing, and his thinned lips were twisting into a grimace of… of pain almost, as if he were waging some internal war with ghosts or visions. Oh Gods, what even was happening? What more could the Gods inflict on his boy now? "Brandon!" Rickard shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders.

The boy snapped out of whatever it was, looked almost shocked to see him, then a look of sheer terror stole over his face. He gasped, lurched back from his grasp, smacked into the bed hard enough to almost fall of his feet, then lunged wildly across the room, all but crawling the last few steps to the closet and the cloak that was still piled on the ground at the foot of the door. Small hands dug and pulled at it until they found a pocket, from which they pulled a… a…

"This is a…," Brandon said with a rattling breath, falling to his knees and hunching over it like… like he'd done earlier that evening after the trebuchet fiasco, Rickard recalled faintly. "A toothbrush!" Rickard felt horror curl in his belly when Brandon said that made-up word as if he'd almost forgotten it. "This is a toothbrush. There were none like it. I made it. I will make more of it. But this one is mine. Its length is one and half the spans of a full grown man's hand. Its body is made of ox bone. The ox bone was sanded. Then it was burn-finished. Its head is made with horsetail. There are eight and twenty tufts. Each bestowed fifty hairs. A total of four and ten hundred bristles exactly." As he spoke, Brandon brushed faintly trembling fingertips over each part he named.

Rickard moved to stand over him and reached forward, but did not dare touch him. Brandon's eyes were open but unseeing, for all the attention he paid him. Which was none of it.

"Today is the three hundred five and fiftieth day of its existence," Brandon said, less shakily now. Somehow. "It has been used seven hundred and ten times. Twelve hairs from the top left-most tuft have fallen in that time. Along with three from the third left tuft. Four from the bottom right. Two from the right middle. And…" Brandon looked at the fingers on his other hand. "One from the bottom right. The bristles lost now number eight and twenty. The total bristles now stands at thirteen hundred two and seventy." Brandon then abruptly took a long breath deep from the bottom of his belly that filled him all the way to the top of his throat, before he suddenly released it. Or part of it. Then he pulled air inward again, deep and harsh like he'd been drowning and just come up for air. Then again. And again and again thirty different times before he exhaled one more time and stopped breathing entirely. For over a hundred heartbeats and ten, he didn't breathe at all. Or move. Or do anything else.

Rickard counted them. The heartbeats. They pounded in his chest and his throat and his temples with all the weight of terror he'd never felt for anyone else save his parents just before sickness took them. Please, Gods, don't take his son as well!

Brandon abruptly pulled a deep breath and kept it for five and ten beats before releasing it. Then the frightening, unnatural… thing repeated itself a second time. Thirty times plus one exhale longer than all of them combined. As he did, the boy let himself sink to his back on the floor and lay still and silent and eyes closed and didn't breathe for twice as long as the first time when he was done. And on the third, he breathed in and out right where he lay thirty times spread over almost quarter of an hour. Then he just… lay there. Loose and motionless for so long that Rickard literally thought he'd breathed his last.

"Son!" The man seized his shoulders and shook him, panicked and distraught. Brandon snapped his eyes open and stared at him. Then his face sank with dismay. At everything. Nothing. Himself. Some terrible failure. Rickard recognised it because it looked exactly the same on himself. "Son, what-?"

Brandon lurched to his feet suddenly. He swayed. Rickard almost didn't react fast enough to steady him, such was his distress. The boy then staggered vaguely towards his desk, almost knocked over the lit candlestick if not for Rickard grabbing it, and then rifled through papers and tools and drawers for… something even he didn't seem to know. Eventually, the boy stopped at one of the smaller paper leafs with the vague beginnings of a sketch or other drawn on it. Set it down. Then he just… stood there staring at it. The fire from the candle and the hearth cast sinister lines and shades around his eyes.

Rickard realised with all-new mounting alarm that Brandon still hadn't taken a breath since the last time.

"… Shit," Brandon whispered.

"… Son, please," Rickard pled outright. "I don't understand."

"Shit…" The boy whispered shakily, a dark terrible secret looming in the shadowy silence of the room. "Dad, I…" Brandon finally, finally took a slow, unsteady breath that seemed to go on forever and a day. "This is… should be a…" His face scrunched again with that horrifying mix of distress and a man fighting to catch some unseen ghost in the dark. "A blast furnace." A what? "But I barely remember the outline." Remember? From where? What has that Maester been letting him read!? And Brandon's voice was growing so unsteady and miserable! "And this second part, I… When I started I could barely remember what it was supposed to look like. But by the end of it I couldn't even remember what it's called! I still don't. Fuck, before I saw it just now I didn't even remember drawing this. I'd forgotten it was even a thing."

… Good Gods, had his son just told him he was losing sense like an old dotard!? No, it couldn't be true. "Brandon, what are you saying?"

"… I'm regressing."

The words rung like a heavy funeral dirge. The deep, brass bell of a dark, terrible truth spoken aloud for the first time.

"Dad, look," Brandon turned pleading eyes on him. As if he'd done something wrong. As if he'd done anything wrong. "I know I'm not making sense-but I can fix this! I know how. I know I can-!"

"What do you need?"

The boy looked as if he'd just been blown out to sea in a thunderstorm.

"Brandon," Rickard laid his hands on his son's shoulders and gazed with all the intensity of a man who'd just been promised an end to every last one of his hardships at once. "Tell me what you need."

"Wh… Just like that!?"

"Yes."

The boy gaped just as stupidly as the first time, but twice as astounded. And also the ugliest bit infuriated. "You… After all this time-"

"No tangents, son!" Rickard barked before the boy could lapse into another episode of whatever it was that was… that was eating at his wits even now. "Whatever this is, it's hurting you. Stop thinking about it. Please, just stop. Just tell me what you need."

"Just like that?" Brandon said in disbelief. "You're just going to believe me?"

He hadn't even said what he was supposed to believe! "Son, you've just set half a dozen new traditions, you're teaching sense to Lyanna and you can make thing fly. I firmly believe you can do anything."

Brandon looked at him with eyes suddenly glassy, as if… Rickard didn't even know how to- "That... that is just bullshit!" Brandon railed at… he didn't even know anymore. Neither of them seemed to. "I'm a dumbass. Demented at ten namedays, completely certifiable - my judgment isn't worth shit! Y-you expect me to think you'll just buy whatever I'm peddling before I even say it!? You-you…" Brandon's voice cracked worse than all the other times combined and his eyes welled with tears. Of pain and anger and grief and frustration. "Fuck you, Dad, you bastard!"

"Oh Brandon…"

Brandon choked back a sob and glared at him with moist eyes. Some bitter, foul, cursing reply was on the tip of his tongue, he could see it clear as day. He braced himself to receive it. It would be the least he- "You couldn't have done this years ago!?"

"Oh you fool-begotten boy…" Rickard fell to his knees and pulled him close. Embraced him. Enveloped his son in his arms like he well should have done years ago. He thought Brandon would lash out at him. Struggle against him. Spit and curse and claw and Gods only knew what else. But he didn't. His son just collapsed and sagged into him completely, breaking into the most painful, most wretched, most frightened, bitter tears Rickard had ever witnessed in his entire life. The man held his son even tighter, one hand pulling his head against his heart and the other arm secure around the rest of him. The boy grabbed at his tunic. Gripped it tight. Rickard rested his chin on top of his head then. Breathed his son's scent in. His son's hair was strong, abundant and dark like his, but smooth as silk and smelling of apple cider. Even at his most woeful, his son gave out that same, fastidious industriousness that had the whole fair muttering and whispering by the end, about Brandon the Bright in whom were wonder-making wolf kings born again.

Foolish notions spawned by dreams of even more foolish peasants, but if it was Brandon, he'd allow them. After all, when it came to his boy, Rickard could finally admit he wasn't much different from them.

Rickard Stark held his son until he cried himself out. Then he stayed where he was and just held him some more. The candles all burned low. The fire in the hearth blazed and crackled and ate itself up until it too was almost gone. Like so much time. So much time gone like ash and dust in the wind.

When Brandon had spent every last of his sobs, sniffs and whimpers, Rickard climbed to his feet with him still in his arms and walked to the bed. Set him down. Carefully. As tenderly as he could. "Wait here." He headed for the closet, paused mid-way and turned back around. "I'm not leaving." Then he retrieved the key and went to open the door.

As he'd hoped, Martyn was on the other side, standing guard.

Rickard ignored the man's failed attempt to hide his concern – and other emotions – and called for some food, fresh nightwear for himself and more wood for the fire. Conveniently, the man already had the latter ready. Rickard allowed him to bring it in. He also accepted the tray of food Cassel also conveniently had at the ready before sending him on his way. Rickard used the time to Cassel's return to see to his son's feeding, though in truth Brandon didn't put up any resistance. Once Rickard was assured he could feed himself, he watched him from the corner of his eye while he stoked the dying embers in the hearth. For all that he'd cried himself nearly sick to the stomach, the boy ate every last bite and didn't leave out even one drop of the warm milk besides. Wiped the plate clean with some bread core even. The man made a mental note to inquire as to whether Brandon was eating enough. He didn't seem underfed but he should also have hit his growth spurt by now. When Cassel came back with his change of clothes, Rickard somehow still expected Brandon to make a fuss once he realized what he was planning. He really was a fool, Rickard thought, upon seeing the light come back inside his son. But then, why would Brandon care that he had every right to resent him and raise every last bother?

He was a little boy who wanted his father.

Rickard went in and out of the closet to change. Then he went around putting out the candles and climbed into bed next to Brandon, who'd scooted back and was watching uncertainly. He laid on his side facing the lad, one arm out over the pillows while he held the covers up with the other. Brandon slowly but unhesitatingly accepted the invitation, crawling into the warmth and resting his temple in the crook of Rickard's elbow. The man settled the covers over the both of them and laid his hand on the side of his son's face, stroking it gently chin to temple. "Tell me what you need, my son. Tell me what you need and I'll give it to you. Tell me what you want and I'll see what I can do about that too. Tell me what you wish for and I'll know what lengths I have to go."

It was the height of hypocrisy for him of all people to say that, but his son seemed to draw strength from it.

Brandon was in his shadow now, yet his grey eyes glinted all the more brightly because of that. "I wish…" He was going to answer in reverse then? That was fine too. "I wish I could have had this all this time." Rickard's heart clenched, but it was an old pain. "I want you to make it up to me." It twinged again, but this was something to which he'd already resolved himself. "Just tonight won't be enough, you know. You owe me, Dad. Seven years you owe me. I want my seven years."

"Alright."

"I won't make it easy," Brandon said thickly, looking down at his chin. "I won't. Not anymore. I have standards. I want a father who's strong. I want you to be brave. I want you to talk to me. Fit me me into your company as much as humanly possible. In fact, I want it to the point where me and the others start competing for your attention."

"You'll have it." As if any of that could ever be any hardship at all.

"And I want your promise that you'll grant me one request when I ask."

Rickard blinked slowly at the boy who no longer felt up to meeting his scrutiny. "And what request is that?"

"I don't have one now. Even if I did, I wouldn't want you to just do it. I'm ten. My judgment's worth jack shit."

"But worth enough to humor my young son's attempt at extortion?"

"Er… yes?"

Gods, it was like his son wanted him to burst from pride in him with every word that came out of his mouth. He was thinking so far ahead already! That being said… "I make no blind promises. But I will give the request its due consideration when you make it."

Brandon glanced at him. Only briefly though. "It's more than I expected you'd say."

"The honor is entirely yours, I'm sure," Rickard said dryly, masking his true feelings with practiced difficulty. "Now tell me what you need."

"A bag of weirwood seeds, a bag of inner shavings from roots of a weirwood tree, and a week out in the middle of nowhere."

Lord Rickard of House Stark wondered if he was going mad all of a sudden. He could have sworn he just heard his son – who'd just a short while ago dismissed off-hand all of his father's beliefs that the Gods had been tormenting him for whatever reason – claim that his cure and salvation lied with those same Gods.

Brandon was completely oblivious to his father's religious crisis. "No one else should know. Especially not Walys," he all but growled the last name. "I don't trust him. I couldn't even tell you why."

Rickard Stark stared at his strange, preposterous, incredible, exasperating son.

"… I really do sound crazy, don't I?" Brandon said miserably. "Why shouldn't it take a bit of blasphemy?"

"That's it?" Rickard stared at Brandon, who blinked up at him all taken aback at his incredulity. "No weird mushrooms? No special books? Potions? Some year-long research at the Citadel? You don't need me to send someone buying exotic goods from the Summer Isles or looking for obscure lore in Asshai? Anything?" The Rose would probably do it too if he asked them when the goal was something like this, even if it wasn't exactly part of the big one.

"…No?" Brandon was looking at him funnily. "Maybe another sack of passionflower seeds? I've been running out."

"What even are those-you said they help with headaches? Doesn't the Maester have something for that?"

"I don't trust him," Brandon muttered sullenly. Again. "He's shady. And they're no good anyway. They make me feel tired all the time or make my head feel like it's stuffed with wool. At least passionflower lets me see things, even if mushrooms are better."

"… Alright," Rickard sighed eventually, pulling Brandon closer and tucking him under his chin. "Alright. We'll see what we can do. Tomorrow."

"…Tomorrow."

They both quieted, and Rickard felt like there was finally peace, real peace, between them two.

"Dad?"

And his son called him Dad the more on edge he was. He tucked him closer. "Yes, son. I'm here."

"There's something else."

"Yes?"

"That warehouse. The one with the mold, you know the one?"

"Yes."

"In case this doesn't work-"

"It will."

"No, Dad, listen," Brandon outright pled, shaky and fearful. "This is important. That mold – the spores, it's been contaminated but it's the one. It killed all the others, it has to be. We need it. A lot of it. And an alchemist, even if I fix myself I might not remember how to process it but we have to. No matter how many steps, no matter how long it takes, we have to."

"Son-"

"Dad, it can kill the plague!" Brandon hissed and brought a hand to his forehead, but for all the pain on his face he looked victorious in that one moment. "It can kill almost any sickness." Then he sagged and closed his eyes, sad and wistful. "It would have saved grandma and grandpa."

Rickard Stark's mind went blank. He didn't know for how long. The fire crackled in the heart to their back. The windowpane glinted in the firelight. Light danced and scattered amidst shadows along the wall. Still his thoughts remained jumbled. Rudderless. Completely.

"…Dad?"

"…We'll start tomorrow," Rickard finally said, savagely crushing every last inkling and feeling that claim had conjured up. "Tomorrow."

"Alright…" the boy said uncertainly, realising perhaps some of what his words may have done. But for all that, he still reached up. Tentatively. Curled his small, uncallused fingers in his father's beard like he used to, so long ago before life had turned crooked and terrible. "Is this alright?"

"It is, son." Rickard said, finally wrapping his son in a full embrace. He curled his fingers through Brandon's hair. "It's alright now. Whatever isn't I'll make alright. And if I can't, we'll learn and plot and ride and fight until it is."

"It sounds like a dream," Brandon said drowsily. "I don't know shit about riding though." Rickard's heart skipped a beat. "Or bows. Or swords. Or anything like that really. So there's that."

Rickard blinked incredulously. "Excuse you?

"… You're not going to disown me, are you?"

"Brandon." He forced his son to face him because… this was… "My son? Sub-par in any of the lordly disciplines? My son? Impossible. Who's been teaching you?"

"No one."

Rickard wasn't sure what he'd just heard. "Excuse me?"

"I told mother I didn't want to learn any of it. She's never been able to deny me anything."

"Son, what…" Rickard Stark felt a thick lump of dismay lodge in his throat. "Why would you ever do such a thing?"

"… Because I want to learn that from you."

It was all the man could do not to crush the boy in his arms, such was the strength of the reaction he had to contain. It felt like madness, sadness and happiness all in one. Like grief knocking on the door seeking to drag them back.

He really should have expected this, bitter and sweet and as much dreadful as peaceful outcome. His father had once told him it's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. But he never said how hard it would be to repair broken children. He'd never taught him how to deal with the guilt and shame from being the broken man either. Let alone the sort that needed his own broken child to come fix him before he could finally do his damn job and fix him when he needed to.

Rickard Stark stayed awake long after his son fell asleep. Holding him. Watching him. Listening to him breathe. Pondering idly the many ways in which he and his son were the same. Like how Brandon was every bit as dramatic as he claimed he was. Why else would he fret over the smallest things and misread the big ones? The mold would be simple enough. It could just grow in a cellar instead of the surface where everything froze so solidly. Brandon probably hadn't found anyone willing to indulge him. Cellars were few and private. No one had room to spare in their only means of keeping perishables and thawing food once Winter came around.

Plague and mold absurdities aside, none of his other so-called challenges were all that complicated either. Time out in the wilderness? Easy to set up even before he provided so many new potential solutions for getting around. Passionflower? The Ryswells had a daughter enamored with them. They probably had a cartload of seeds to spare. He'd send a raven in the morning. As for the so-called blasphemy issue, that was actually the easiest. Come morning or the day after, they'll just rope Benjen into leading them on a treasure hunt. Shouldn't be hard to make him think it was all his idea. If the digging just happened to chop off some roots and no one realized their true nature until the very end, well, that couldn't be helped. All that dirt, you see. And the shade is always so deep under unbroken canopies. The Gods surely wouldn't mind if it meant a child's smile, and Benjen was ever so charming without even trying.

Of course it may strain belief after the third time it happens, but blasphemy? Ha! Even if the guards or smallfolk muttered, let them. It was the gods that did this, they may as well suffer the consequences. Maybe even Brandon, broken as he was, understood enough to know who was to blame for what he'd been reduced to. Even if he denied it before both gods and men.

The light of man soared through the sky outside deep through the night.

It felt like an omen.