When, for the first time in three hundred years, there were Direwolves in Winterfell, not a single one of the Stark children slept easy for the entirety of that week. The first night, above all of the others, was the worst.

Sansa had been the first – her little she-wolf, Lady, had almost been thrown from the covers where the pup slept. Sansa had awoken screaming and thrashing – had retrieved the worried pup off the floor and launched herself at her door, scrabbling to open it. Robb and Jon had heard the noise and run full-tilt to their sister, and to their great shock she had only sobbed harder. Robb had demanded what was wrong, had tried to take her in to his arms as Jon searched her room, as the rest of the family ran in as well.

"I – don't – want – Robb!" Sansa had gasped out, voice raising into a howling crescendo. "I want – Jon! Jon won't leave me, he's the only one who won't leave me, you all go away!"

Bran she had flinched from, Robb she had swatted at, and Arya she had kept within her periphery at all times. Rickon had caused her to squall even louder, hold her wolf tighter. Her parents she could not bear to look at, and so she had flung herself into a stunned Jon's arms. No attempts at calming her worked, and only led to more screaming. The other children were eventually all kicked out; the Lord and Lady had tried to quiet their eldest daughter for only another five minutes, and Catelyn had tried to sway her away from Jon for another five again. In the end, Jon promised in his solemn way to guard Sansa all through the night, and not leave until she bid him to. Catelyn had tried to raise another fuss, but the shear relief on Sansa's face soon stalled her. Robb had lingered by the door though, and had declared that he and Grey Wind would keep watch in the corridor.

The peace lasted not half an hour before everyone was racing to Bran's room. He was curled up in his wardrobe under a blanket with his unnamed pup, clutching his practice sword and hiccupping.

"I fell!" was all anyone could get out of the boy. "I never fall! I – I didn't fall, I was pushed, I wasn't supposed to see." Intermittently, he would bemoan his fate to be Bran the Broken.

Rickon had waddled in scowling, crawled in to the cupboard and fallen asleep on his brother. This had gone a long way to calming Bran, and overall it was, if not better, then certainly easier to quiet Bran than it had been with Sansa.

(The girl was still clutching at Jon's sleeve, though occasionally she would lean against the Greyjoy boy, as well, when he appeared.)

Arya had tried to climb in with the two youngest brothers as everyone else had gone to leave the room. Catelyn, the last through the door, had barely latched the heavy wood when Rickon started snarling and wimpering in his sleep. Shaggydog, the most ill-tempted of the pups, whined at his master and pawed at the toddler; Rickon jerked up snapping his teeth dangerously close to the pup's ears, clawing at Bran and Arya and making demands in something that might generously be called a language. Maester Luwin named it the First Tongue, and attempted to administer Milk of the Poppy.

Rickon bit him.

It took even longer to calm the toddler than either of his older siblings. The children were all sent to their beds (or guard position, in the case of Robb and Jon), and perhaps an hour later, Catelyn had calmed her babe and put both him and Bran to bed for proper, their wolves flanking them.

Arya near woke the rest of the household (those few who hadn't yet heard the other three children, at least), having taken the old sword Robb had snuck her, and a dagger she had swiped from Jon's bed earlier that week, and used both to try and take out every door that bared the way between her own room and the front gate. She was howling a battle cry made up a string of names she had no business knowing as she went:

"Joffrey! Cersei! Ilyn Payne! Meryn Trant! The Mountain! Poliver! Rorge! Tywin Lannister! Walder Frey! The Red Woman! Beric Dondarran, Thoros of Myr and – the – fucking – Hound!"

Nymeria ran around her heals, yipping to the list. Arya was swearing bloody vengeance; said she'd kill them for what they'd done to the Starks, face wet but eyes dry for fury.

It had taken both her older brothers, Theon, and their father to subdue her and take the weaponry from her tiny, shaking hands. Though she had never properly been trained, she moved as though she had been, with a foreign form that Ned thought must be Essosi.

"Sweetling, what did they do?" He finally demanded, holding her tight by her skinny shoulders even as she pummelled his own with her fists.

"Joffrey is a liar!" Arya immediately snapped. "He's going to have Lady killed, and then him and his stupid mother and that Ser Ilyn will take your head and call you a traitor! Meryn Trant will kill Serio! The Mountain, and Poliver, and Rorge – they'll hurt us, and at Harrenhal they'll hurt other people, and they'll take my sword, and Tywin Lannister is a cunt!"

"Arya!" Catelyn reprimanded sharply. However, her younger daughter was on a roll.

"Walder Frey is going to kill you and Robb!" She shrieked. "And then he sews Grey Wind's head on to Robb's shoulders, I saw it, it's true! Thoros and Beric and the Red woman all take my friends away! And the Hound –!" Here she drew in a deep breath, and hissed out, "He killed my friend, but he kept me safe when he didn't have to, and he trained me, but he said he shoulda taken a song from Sansa, and I don't – I mean justice –!"

Jon and Robb took a green-tinged Sansa back to her room, and a pale Catelyn collected the two little boys. Theon had decided to go back to his bed – in fact, the Ironborn had covered his head with his pillow and tried his best to block out the remaining sounds. He would eventually move himself to the godswood in the very early hours of the morning, and would sleep there until midday.

It took Ned over an hour before he could convince Arya to go back up to her room, another half-hour to relinquish the sword, and a half-hours argument lead him to let her keep the dagger out of exhaustion of their fighting.

He did not make it back to his room.

Robb had been nodding on his feet as Ned had passed him, and apparently given in to his fatigue – inside Sansa's room, Jon must have done the same. Of all the children's cries that night, the screams of the oldest boys would forever haunt Ned's nightmares. He found them collapsed and shaking against each other at the base of Sansa's bed, the girl holding them both tightly and shaking too, wolf pups licking the tears from their cheeks.

Ned threw himself down by both his boys, demanding what had happened.

Haunted eyes, Tully blue and Stark grey, looked up at him. Robb declared he would never marry, or ever attend a wedding. Jon whispered that he would never, ever, never join the Night's Watch. When Catelyn slammed in to the room, she froze, her face a mask of terror.

"What is going on?" She demanded. "Is it these wolves, that have you children in such states?"

"No," Bran's voice came from behind them. Everyone turned to see him with his red, red curls a tumbled mess, Rickon drooping on his hip and an off light in his blue eyes. "And yes. They've awoken everything, can't you see, Mother? We are wargs and greenseers, and our direwolves have raised our First Men blood. The Old Gods have given us a warning, and we need to pay attention."

"Brandon!" His mother began to scold.

"I was the Three Eyed Raven." He answered, spooked. "Robb and Jon were both named King. Sansa was Wardeness of the North. Arya was…"

"I was gone, for a long time," The youngest daughter said from over Bran's shoulder. "And when I came back, I finished my List, and served as Sansa's guard."

"Nonsense!" Both parents exclaimed.

"Petyr Baelish is short and slim," Sansa begins. "He has sharp features, and dark hair threaded with grey - he wears his beard small and pointed. He has a cat's eyes that look like they're laughing, but when he laughs, his eyes do not. His breath smells like mint. He has a mockingbird as his personal crest, and he put a babe in Aunt Lysa's belly, and said mother's name when he did it."

"Sansa!" Catelyn exclaimed. "You have no business saying such things!"

"I have no business knowing such things, Mother, and yet they are in my head!" Sansa snapped back. "I have no business knowing that when a person dies, their bowels give out. I have no business knowing what it is to have my moonblood, or the marriage bed and all its horrors, or what it's like to be the last Wolf left. And yet they are all here, Mother, and I can't get them out!"

"Sansa, that was only a dream, sweetling!" Cat tried.

Sansa's blue eyes became like ice, her back straight as steel and her voice as sharp as glass. She turned from Cat to Ned, and spat out, "Jon isn't your bastard, he's Aunt Lyanna's trueborn son. Tell me, Father, how could I know such a thing if I didn't have these other memories in my head?"

Ned stumbled backwards, eyes wide and face stark-white. Catelyn froze, her features twisting from shock to horror to anger.

"What?" Croaked the boys.

"Weren't you that far yet?" Sansa asked Jon gently. "Sorry, brother."

"I'm sorry too, Sansa!" Bran exclaimed. "For what I said to you in the godswood, when I first came back. It was the Raven, but I shouldn't have let him say something like that."

Catelyn had finally forced herself to move, eyeing her husband and whispering, "Your sister's?"

"Her last breath was spent begging Father to protect Jon," Bran added. "I saw it. And I saw your fight with the Kingsguard, Father. Why did you lie about how you won?"

Ned collapsed on to a nearby stool, burying his face in his shaking hands.

"All these years," Cat whispered. "All these years, you let me think that you had dishonoured me, and never once you thought to trust me with the truth? Was anything else a lie?!"

"Don't be stupid, Mother," Sansa scolded, an adult woman's tone coming from the body of a thirteen-year-old girl. "Our ignorance was our protection. Do you honestly think that Robert Baratheon would let any of us live if he suspected that Rhaegar's blood still flowed? Not even the love he bares Father would have saved us from his fury."

Jon's face was distraught. "I'm not yours?" He begged of Ned.

"You are still our brother!" The girls' snarled, both as equally vicious in their protectiveness.

"I'll leave," Jon said, voice barely more than a breath. "I won't be responsible for anyone getting in trouble."

"You will do no such thing," Sansa said primly.

"The lone wolf dies," Arya growled. "The pack survives. I was the lone wolf for a really long time, and I only survived through luck."

Robb grabbed a tight hold of Jon's elbow, and dragged the other boy back against his side. "Foolish little brother," He grumbled, hands shaking but grip tight. "You are not going anywhere."

He looked at the girls, to his parents. "None of us are. We're going to stay in Winterfell, where it's safe."

"What of the Night's King?" Bran asked. "The Long Night, and War for the Dawn? We can't win if we are shut away up here - we need allies."

"I will not be married off - !" Sansa began violently.

"You won't have to be," Arya cut in quickly. "Just be betrothed, and send the idiot off to War. It'll work out."

"And what of you?" Her sister bit back. "You will run off to join the fighting, and leave me behind, just as before!"

"You can be Robb's Hand," Arya said flippantly. "Or maybe his Master of Whispers?"

"Not Mistress?" Sansa asked wryly, hackles dropping, eyes considering.

"No," Arya grinned back. "It'll throw the scent off, this way."

"Jon," Sansa turns back to their dark brother. "Will you go beyond the Wall and treat with the Free Folk for us? If we offer them land in the North to settle until this business is over in exchange for fighting men, that will give us something of an advantage – no one will be expecting that!"

Jon makes a strangled noise.

"We can increase our exports," Arya pipes. Everyone bar Sansa looks at her in shock. "Essos doesn't have pine or heavy oak as we do. We can conduct trade in exchange for supplies for the Winter. Your wife was from Essos, wasn't she, Robb?"

"Volantis," He mumbled back, staring at this strange new version of his wild little sister. "Her name was Talisa Maegyr."

"Really? She was fit for a King then! I'll kill Walder Frey a second time if he says anything about it!"

"A second time?" Robb demanded.

Their mother's voice was but a whisper when she asked, "Kill?"

Arya's smile was a terrible thing, and had no place on the face of an eleven-year-old girl. "I snuck in to his castle wearing one of the faces I had taken in Braavos. I killed Black Walder and Lame Luthor, and I cooked them in a pie. I fed it to old Walder, and then I told him who I was, and that the North remembered. I stole his face, and killed every Frey who ever meant a damn with poisoned wine. I avenged the Red Wedding."

"Arya…?" Whispered Ned, staring at his little girl.

"They offered Guest Right to the Northern Host, and then they murdered everyone at a Wedding," Arya hissed. "You were already dead – I watched from Baelor's statue. They killed Mother, and they killed Robb, and they killed his wife and babe. I was there. The Hound was going to ransom me back to them, and we got there in time to see Grey Wind die." The pup yipped at his name, but Arya kept talking. "I saw them parade Robb's body around, with Grey Wind's head sewn on. I killed the man who did that, too, with a dagger I stole from the Hound."

Catelyn made a choking noise, and the children all looked green or pale or stricken. Ned looked as though he wanted to lose his stomach over the floor.

"That will do." Sansa said some-what calmly. "You had a good point about the wood, though. Bran, fetch me a map?" Still with Rickon on his hip, Bran dug around through Sansa's desk until he could hand her what she had asked for. "The woods of the North are vast. If we cut down only trees of a certain size and from certain areas, we shall be able to retain much of the original size, and still turn a profit. If we use sleds to take the felled trees to White Harbour, we can then use ships to take the material to Braavos, and then to Pentos and Volantis once we have a good credit with northern Essos."

"I can deal with Braavos for us," Arya says firmly. She taps the corner of her eye, and drags her fingers back to her temple, tapping again. "I remember all of my Braavosi, and most of my Bastard Valyrian. I can help!"

"I'd rather keep our family as close as I can," Sansa says regretfully. "But, I may yet take you up on that. Father, send a raven to Jon – wait, no, he's already dead – Mother, send a letter to Aunt Lysaasking about fostering Sweetrobin – say how much Father enjoyed fostering with her husband, say how much you miss your family, stir good memories, and we can have Sweetrobin safely away from those monsters in King's Landing. And maybe Mother, send a raven to Uncle Brynden about having Bran page under him."

"I don't want to page under anyone!" Bran exclaimed.

"It will only be for a little bit, and it will keep you safe from the Lannisters, for a time. Please, Bran. Jon, Robb – I need you both to train more extensively under Father and Ser Rodrik. Jon, stop losing on purpose, it's stupid."

Jon made a strangled noise in his throat. Robb choked.

"Rickon, I'll need you to study more too. I know you don't like the letters or numbers, but we're going to need you to be the Stark in Winterfell for a time. Can you do that for me? I'll teach you something special afterwards."

"I can sew my own stitches," Rickon growls at her suspiciously. "Osha taught me how to make my own clothes. Even if they're not as pretty as the things you can sew, I know how."

"And you are a cleverer man for it, little brother," Sansa tells him solemnly. "But that is not what I wish to teach you. Actually, I'll show you first, and then I shall lead you to Maester Luwin and Father's teachings. How does that sound?"

"You let me die before," Rickon tells her. "You and Jon. Ramsay said. I saw you."

"Ramsay was a liar, and nowhere near as clever as you, little brother. And we failed you then, it's true, but we're going to make it up to you now, ok?"

Sansa offers her hand, and after a calculating silence, Rickon grasps her forearm in the Free Folk fashion, and shakes once.

Extracting herself from between the two oldest boys, Sansa looks around imperiously, meeting everyone's eyes. "We all best try and get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning. Lady, to me. We will all share tonight." She declares, still wearing her own version of Father's Lord's face.

Dismissed by a girl of only ten and three, Ned and Catelyn left for their chambers, whilst the children stayed behind.

"And what of you, sweet sister?" Robb finally whispers, once they are all cuddled together in her bed, the wolves in their own pile on the floor. "If we boys are training in arms and politics, and Arya trains in tongues and trade, what are you to do? What are you going to teach Rickon?"

"The only thing left. Secrets and lies, of course."

"You're a terrible liar."

"No, I just let everyone think that I was. A lady isn't supposed to lie, so I pretend that I cannot. I do make quite the actress though, and an excellent spy. Arya, would you teach everyone your Game of Faces? I fear we may have need of it soon."

"You want to teach me how to find secrets?" Rickon demands, disgusted.

"From me, spies and politics. From Arya, martial combat and lies. From Bran, archery and magic. From Jon, swordsmanship. From Robb, warfare. From Mother, cunning, and from Father, honour. Mix all of this together, and you will be the best of us, little brother, I swear it. Tomorrow, I am going to the Wintertown brothel, and – "

"You are not!" Robb and Jon exclaimed.

"I am," Sansa says calmly. "And neither of you can stop me. You are not yet mine King, nor mine Lord, and so cannot tell me what to do. I am going to take one or two of the most promising whores under my service, and I am going to send them to Kings Landing and start my own network."

"What are you to call your brothel?" Arya askes curiously.

"I'm still thinking of something subtly Northern. I had thought of the Sisters Red and Black, for you and I, but… we shall see."

"Ladybug House?" Arya offered. "Those are red and black, and we don't have them here. I saw them all the time in the Riverlands though!"

"I like it," Sansa hummed. "But Ladybug is their name in the Crownlands and Stormlands. Ladybird is their name in the Riverlands, and I rather like that better."

"You two are far too calm about all of this." Robb grumbles.

"You're just mad that I'm to take away one of your favourite bedfriends," Sansa scolds back. "Go to sleep. We'll talk more in the morning."