Catelyn & Arya, first steps.

“Little Brandon was late to start walking as well,” Old Nan said to Catelyn, as they watched Arya crawl, making her way from her mother to the door, then back again, before beginning the cycle anew. “But once he did, he was almost as swift as the fastest horse in the stable,” Old Nan chuckled. “It was all I could do to keep up with him.”

It was all Catelyn could do to keep up with Arya now. She wanted to explore every dark corners and every darkened rooms in the castle, it seemed, and was determined to do it on her own two feet. Or on both hands and both feet, to be more precise. Walking, and running, she could be almost as swift as the fastest horse in the stable.

The thought filled Catelyn with pride, mingled with terror.

No matter how tightly I hold her, I cannot keep her still, I cannot keep her in my embrace forever.

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ned + cat and 8 a lie

For the prompt: Ned/Catelyn, a lie.

He trained himself to think of it as a secret, rather than a lie. It was a secret which required a lie for its maintenance, but the lie was not told for its own sake. The lie was the means to an end, not an end in and of itself. The lie was a treacherous tool he was forced to employ to protect a life.

The lie came easily to his lips, when he brought his sister’s babe home to Winterfell. At times, he had not even needed to proclaim Jon as his bastard with his own tongue. In certain eyes, the very fact that Jon shared a name with Ned’s beloved foster father was enough to confirm his identity. It also helped that Jon had the Stark look, of course. Ned shuddered to think what additional lies he would have had to invent, to explain the presence of a babe with purple eyes and silver hair.

The lie did not come as easily to his lips, when the lady wife he had wed and left behind at Riverrun finally arrived in Winterfell. And yet he lied nonetheless, lied to her within moments of her arrival with the voice and the face of a stranger she had not yet learned to decipher.

Would Catelyn see it the same way, as a secret rather than a lie, should she ever learn the truth? She would be deeply hurt; Ned had no doubt of that. Deeply hurt at what she would perceive as his lack of trust in her, at his lack of faith in her ability to keep the secret alongside him. But lack of trust and faith was never the issue. Even before love had grown between them, he knew enough of her worth to invest his trust and his faith in her.

A secret was a lonely thing. Ned had always known that. He had prepared himself for that. The greatest temptation to tell Catelyn the truth did not come from his lonely nights. He was only ever truly tempted when he saw how deeply his lie had wounded her. He resisted the temptation each time, silently asking her forgiveness for a lie he could never confess.

He would always remain unreconciled, torn between the lie he had to tell and the effect it was having on the one and only woman he had ever loved. Perhaps that was his saving grace in the end. Though, he wondered, what good would that do Catelyn? His internal doubts, his unvoiced, undeclared remorse, would that provide any consolation to her at all? Could it make up for the lie that had poisoned the foundation of their marriage, and perhaps even tainted their love?

He could not say. He yearned to ask her, but he knew he never could.

Can you write catelyn and edmure 23 or 40?

||A SONG OF SIBLINGS||

For the prompt: Catelyn Tully & Edmure Tully, mourning

“He whispered your name,” his sister had replied, and Edmure had been grateful for the lie, a lie kindly told for his sake. In the immediate aftermath of his father’s death, he wanted – no, needed – to believe that Lord Hoster had called out for him at the end. Cat had given him that lie – no, that gift, that precious gift – knowing that he needed it, needed it more than the truth at the time.

Cat would have been screaming her son’s name at the end. Robb’s name. She had watched him die, the young man who had been the babe she proudly cradled in her arms at Riverrun as she asked her skeptical brother, “Would you like to hold your nephew?” Her face had opened up like a flower in bloom when Edmure’s “He’s so ugly!” pronouncement about the babe was followed by two sets of grins, on the uncle’s face and the nephew’s face both.

Did you look for me at the end? Tell me true, Cat. Did you blame me for not saving your boy?

Did he really wish for the truth? Could he live with the truth? There was no Cat to tell him a kindly lie when he needed it, no Cat to tell him the hard truth even when he resented it, no Cat … no Cat … no Cat … not anymore, not ever.

He could not mourn his sister, he despaired. He did not deserve to mourn her, he thought.

Catelyn/Stannis, Regency Era AU (um this is dumb but it's the only thing that I could think of, lol)

No it’s not dumb at all I love it

Catelyn/Stannis

The ball was for Lysa, to find a husband for Lysa Tully and not her older sister Catelyn who had buried one husband and one fiancé already in her young life, and who had to endure the whispers of – “She’s cursed, that’s what she is, those poor Stark boys never had a chance!” – never mind that Brandon Stark had died as a result of a reckless duel, and Eddard Stark had died honorably serving his country in the army, and neither of those things could be said to be Catelyn’s fault at all. So when Stannis Baratheon asked Catelyn Stark for the honor of dancing with her (not that he had put it quite like that, for it was well-known in London society that the second Baratheon brother was very deficient in manners and courtesies, unlike his two highly-eligible brothers Robert and Renly; Robert’s eligibility guaranteed by the land and title he had inherited as the eldest son, and Renly’s eligibility fortified by his exquisite charm and flattery), faces were turned and tongues started wagging, wondering if this meant that another poor soul would soon depart to meet his Maker. “Well, I suppose Lord Tully’s eldest daughter is still a catch, even with her careless habit of losing husbands and fiancés, and it is not as if Stannis Baratheon could expect a brilliant match any time soon, the poor dear, so grim and unsociable isn’’t he, so unlike his brothers and his dear departed Papa,” a society matron was heard speculating with the ladies around her. 

stannis/catelyn + vampire the masquerade AU

It’s more a generic vampire AU, sorry about that!

||Send me a ship + AU setting and I will write you a 5-sentence drabble||

Stannis/Catelyn, vampire AU

He was the one who taught her that decapitation was the best method; that a stake through the heart only worked to immobilize the undead, not destroy them.  

“My daughter … keep her safe, even from her own father, if need be … promise me, Cat,” he had asked of her then.

Do your duty, his eyes were begging her now.

She remembered the man he once was, wept for the boy she once loved, and did her duty.

Like Stannis, Catelyn has always done her duty.

stannis/catelyn, modern/legal AU, he's a lawyer and she's his client (I SUCK I'M SORRY)

Stannis/Catelyn, three-sentence fic

He told her that a civil suit might be a waste of time and money, that not every case is OJ Simpson where you can be found not guilty in criminal court but then judged to be guilty in civil proceeding, that Tywin Lannister would not hesitate to use his money and influence for the second time to ensure that his son would never be held responsible for Ned Stark’s murder, not even in civil court.

“You’ve changed, Stannis,” Catelyn said, her tone wavering between disappointment and anger, “the old you would never have been concerned about Tywin Lannister and what he could do, you would only care that justice is done.”

I am not as certain as you are how justice would be served in this case, and your husband was not the saint that you think he is, nor am I as convinced of Tyrion Lannister’s guilt as you are, he thought of telling her, but he was her lawyer and she his client, and the days when they could speak openly and honestly with each other was long gone, since the day she chose Ned Stark over him. 

Cat and Lysa, 19 or 37

||A SONG OF SIBLINGS||

For the prompt: Catelyn Tully & Lysa Tully, comfort

The fog appeared so suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed like. One moment, Catelyn and Lysa were chatting and giggling about Lord Jason Mallister, and the next, they had lost sight of the rest of the riding party.

“Where are they, Cat? Father, Petyr, Edmure … all our knights and men-at-arms, where have they gone?”

Catelyn could not see further than a foot forward. She saw no sign of the others. Only trees, and more trees, their branches swaying to and fro, looking eerily like grasping hands.

Lysa’s imagination took full flight, mingling with her dread. “Did the fog get them? Is this some sort of evil trickery by a woods witch? Have they been abducted and taken to the witch’s realm?”

The feast welcoming them to Seagard had featured a performance by a troupe of mummers, a performance heavy on spells and incantations recited by make-believe woods witches and sorceresses of various incarnations. A mummer’s farce it literally was, and yet, so haunting and unforgettable had the performance been that afterwards, Lysa (and Catelyn too, truth to tell) had a hard time falling asleep in the guest chamber that had been especially prepared to honor Lord Tully’s daughters.    

“Hush, Lysa, there is no witchery or sorcery here,” said Catelyn, trying to sound bolder and more certain than she was actually feeling. “Father and everyone else got through before the fog began to rise, I am certain. We … we are a bit behind, that is all.”

This only seemed to increase her sister’s apprehension. Lysa’s voice rose, anxiously, “Then they do not know where we are? We are lost, you mean? Tell me true, are we lost, Cat?”

“We are not lost. We are only delayed. We will catch up with them, after the fog has cleared.”

“What if it never clears? What if we are trapped here, forever?”

“That will not happen!” Catelyn insisted. “I will call for help.”

But her voice, even when she shouted as loudly as she could, sounded so weak and tiny, as if the fog had greedily swallowed it whole.  

Catelyn shook her head vigorously. No, she must not let wild imaginings get the better of her. The fog was not a living creature. It was merely a natural phenomenon, like the rain, or a rainbow.

A rainbow had never made Lysa cry, though. “No one will help us,” she sobbed. “No one will come for us. They are gone, all gone.”

“They will come back for us. We only have to be brave, for a little while, just a little while,” Catelyn said, in an attempt to console her sister.

Lysa stared at Catelyn, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “You … you are afraid too, Cat,” she said, half-dazed, as if the realization had shaken her to the core. Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Lysa added, “You are just as scared as I am.”

Catelyn dared not say a word, in case the wrong word would induce fresh burst of tears from her sister. That was when Lysa began to sing. It was a song their mother had sung to serenade them to sleep, when they were little girls, a song about the many daughters of the river. Lysa remembered all the names, it turned out, even the ones Catelyn had forgotten. And her singing voice had more of the tone and timber of their lady mother’s voice. Their father often said that Catelyn resembled their mother in looks, in the cheekbones and in the set of her jaw, but it was Lysa whose voice was closest to Lady Minisa’s. Catelyn found herself comforted by this, and by the song Lysa was singing, with her eyes closed and her brows furrowed in concentration.

Mother, help us find our way home, Catelyn silently prayed.