Note: Happy new year everyone! Including new readers and those fifty something of you who continued to follow and of course, the reviewers. All of you who continue to read this story long after it was last updated. So, it is a new year, new season, new chapter. Season 6 has given me plenty of inspiration to keep writing, so I hope you'll continue to enjoy!

She was a tangled mess of gold, red, and white. Slouched pathetically in her chair, her cheeks beet red and swollen from endless tears. Her matte of hair covered her face like some lustrous bandana. The woman's dress was ripped and frayed in multiple places, the handiwork of the little stubs that were her fingernails. Cersei Lannister had experienced what loss truly was. No, not when your serving girl accidentally drops your chamberpot, but when the most important person in your life has left you.

"That fucking boy did it," Cersei sobbed, "he crippled Jaime!" Her voice leaked through the castle walls like a miasma.

Bran entered, following closely behind his father. Cersei glanced at the boy with a venomous glance before hiding her red face in her knees again. She had moved her chair far away from the massive table that dominated the room.

Robert sat belly bulbous, elbows resting against the wooden table, and fingers rubbing away a nasty headache. 'The boy's here, Cersei,' he said in a whisper, 'let's here what he has to say.' He lacked his jolly lisp. There was reward in the struggles of men, he knew. Who doesn't love gossip, no matter how petty? There was nothing of the sort in the crimes of a child.

Eddard led his son to the seat straight across from Cersei. To prove his innocence, a man must speak slowly, speak clearly, and speak directly to the man or woman who accuses him, Ned had said to Bran. Bran agreed; but as of right now, Cersei Lannister was no woman. She was a vicious fury of emotions - completely immune to any form of reason. A raging flame that only grew bigger with the presence of the Stark boy.

Ned took his seat next to Bran. "Go ahead and say what you think happened, Bran.'

It was worse than any story Old Nan had told him, or Robb had teased him with. Forget the Others, the White Walkers. When Bran likened the Queen of Lannister to a flame, he meant it. Bran shivered, but he sat in his dinner chair as still as ice. The look on her face made him want to tear up. It was ferocious, it was human. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before in a another person, much less the most powerful woman in the Seven Kingdoms.

Bran opened his mouth to speak, but came out with a mere whimper. Call it the audible gathering of thoughts. Perhaps even the faint whisper of boys' lungs desperate for breath. No one would buy it, not even his understanding father. It did not take the Lord of Winterfell to know that the boy was petrified.

Robert looked at him glazed as a rotten lemon cake. His eyes were lidded, half mast. Yet they demanded answers all the same. And if there was one thing Bran learned in his time before the King's arrival, it was that you never ignore the beckon of a Lord's call. Even if they weren't so vocal in their approach.

Bran opened with a rather sullen, "I didn't do it."

Robert's eyes seemed to have shut their own coffin. He continued to rub his temples. Bran sensed his father shuffle in his seat. For all the subtle actions in the room, it remained silent.

"I don't know how he fell off the tower," Bran continued.

Cersei withdrew from the safety of her kneecaps. Her cheeks were Lannister red. She was prepared to live up to her family's words. No lion is too proud to strike the pups.

"It's all rather easy, isn't it?" Cersei snapped. "It's all rather easy to sit there, in your high chair, in your own hall, sucking the teats of your own father, just so that you may find your footing in too hot of water."

A pause. A moment of silence. Bran took it, he cherished it. The boy needed every second he could take in order to comprehend all that the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms had to say.

"It's all rather easy, isn't it?" she repeated. She looked ready to rise and pounce. To take the kill, and turn the lion of Lannister all the more red.

"For fucks sake, Cersei," Robert said, banging his fist against the table. "If you're going to threaten the boy, you've got to make sure he understands the damn thing first."

Bran looked to his father. Lord Eddard Stark looked forward, watching every aspect of the King and Queen. Bran mimicked him, stoney face and all.

But Eddard would talk. "We can't bring Jaime back," he said. "We can't unbreak him. His mind, nor his bones. No amount of milk of the poppy will ease his pain. But you must remember, my Queen, that -"

Cersei snorted. Her fingers gripped the rests of the chair. "The honest Eddard Stark never saw his son's actions as they happened," she said. "It is hard to be credible, when you believe the words of a child over the facts of the Queen of the-"

"He never said he believed the poor boy," Robert groaned.

"I demand an honest trial for my son," Eddard said firmly. "A woman's hysteria is often prone to fabrication."

"You can say the same of a child, Stark!" Cersei cried. "What say you to the victim? To the man pissing away your Maester's storeroom? What would Jaime say, if only he could speak?"

Eddard looked to his son. Bran's heart raced. Not even the calm exterior of his father could calm him. Eddard Stark fought the boy's battles in every manner possible, even today, in this cold stone hall. Robert, the wedge between them all, his words. He never said he believed the poor boy. Those words were what scared Bran the most. The thought that his father would stop and support the Lannisters. But he would never support the words of a Lion, especially if they were lies. Would he?

"This argument is as stagnant as an old whore's cunt," Robert said finally. "The boy threw him off the tower, the boy didn't. You can't execute a child, Cersei, and curing your brother of his ailments is no easier. The damn things are set in stone. I'd best not let you two rip the realm into pieces over your squabble." He reached for his wine glass. Was it empty? Or was it full of wine clearer than water? Bran did not know, but the man reached all the same, and drank deeply as soon as the glass touched his lips.

"I'd like to know what business the Queen and her brother had in a broken tower," Eddard said.

"There's an idea," Robert said, past through deep drags of what Bran could only assume was wine.

Cersei snorted.

Bran wasn't sure he wanted to know. But he did. The Lannister twins were

(fucking)

wrestling. That was that. Like King Robert said, these things were set in stone.

"You have an answer for us, Cersei?" Robert asked.

She looked at them all venomously. Her tears had dried, but that had not given her any respite. Eddard stared. Bran mimicked him all the same, even though deep in his head, he knew. Knew that-

"Lord Eddard, it's Arya."

Maester Luwin took the door at full force and stumbled into the hall. His patchy hair was slick with what looked like either sweat or rain.

"Arya, my lord," he gulped.

"What is it?" Eddard said suddenly.

"She's been injured," Luwin said. His hands were red and shaking. The cream robes Bran knew had been stained a deep crimson colour.

Eddard jumped from his seat and grabbed for Bran. "Forgive me, Robert," he breathed. And without another glance at the table, he took off with Maester Luwin, Bran in tow like some fleshy doll.

"Is that it, then?" Cersei cried. "You'll drop the matter? For a maester's call?"

Eddard ignored her. The door from which Luwin came was drawing close. Bran stumbled with his footing as he struggled to keep pace with his father. Lannister red dissapeared, but a new tone had taken its place. Bran thought of Arya. It seemed only yesterday had he last seen her. Perhaps he had. If so, then why was she so distant? Like a stranger you only see in your dreams. A face so familiar, marred by the smudge of time. As they trudged through the grey walls of Winterfell, he thought of Arya, her memory, and of course, her blood. Bran hated the idea, but he had to agree: He'd rather Stark red than Lannister red.