@riverrunbrynden continued from here [x]
Winter had come, and Robb was hundreds of miles from home, and from the looks of it, he would stay that way for years to come. He huddled over the stone desk, reading letter after letter, all requests to the crown for aid. It was times like these, he’d begun to regret not naming himself a hand of the king. The Kings of the North did not have hands, nor sworn Knights to guard them--could not, without the Faith of the Seven to “Knight” them--but here, trapped inside this castle that had begun to feel more like a prison than a luxury, Robb felt very far from the Old Gods, could feel the seven, real or not, breathing down his neck like a curse, seven ghosts squeezing the life out of his lungs, pushing on his chest harder and harder and harder until he could not breathe, until his heart collapsed under the pressure.
A Hand might have read these for him, might have made it so Robb’s eyes were not straining under the light coming in through the window to see even one more word when so many hours of it had made them blur into nothingness. He had his council, and he’d be wise to delegate some of this onto them, but it would have made little difference: he would not sleep all the same. He’d stopped worrying about such things as ‘sleep’ and ‘eating’ midway through the war, and victory had not changed that. Victory had given him more to worry about than less.
Robb heard the man come in and prayed it was not another tragedy. He could handle what already lay before him--perhaps: the starving in the city, the nearby villages out of food and supplies, the warring farmers, the upheaval of the church, the panic at the Wall--but no more. Let it not be more blood spilt, he thought. He had wiped so many houses from the map in these past few moons, seen the Lannister line dead at the end of his sword, the Freys and the Boltons--both of whom had once been his allies--had fought Stannis, a man he’d once admired. He had fought and fought and fought--and nearly died--for peace, and in this aftermath, the city hardly risen from the ashen war zone it had been a moon ago, Robb had yet to feel it: peace.
He looked up to meet his uncle’s wide eyes and stricken face. “Well?” he asked, bracing himself. Robb willed himself to be as cold and unfeeling as the snow outside, to harden his heart, to become unflinching. This man was the greatest example of it, one of the last true and great allies he had: a tough, unwavering force. Robb could do the same. He could learn. He had to. “What is it?”