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The south had no rain. Instead, the sky seemed to bear down tears.
Striking the hard snow around them, it seemed to puncture its way through the earth and seep into the minds of the people within the castle. How a place so filled with pure misery could reside so close to the North remained incomprehensible to Driysa. For all the mystery that came with her home, the most supernatural occurrence was how readily people seemed to bend to so many rules at once.
Winterfell had absorbed her into itself, giving her room and food with seemingly no want for anything in return. She'd been made one of them, washed raw and her hair sprayed with an unnatural flowery scent that made her hair itch. They said they made her healthier, gave her a broth she'd never seen before and forced her to drink. Looking at her reflection made her feel even more sickly than the day she developed shaking sickness.
When she was apart from Meera and Bran, she stuck to the shadows. Sneaking around the long halls of the castle, hoping the sturdy stone floors would collapse and sweep her away anytime a person noticed her and began speaking to her. They called her names she'd only heard as joking insults, yet they delivered them as though they were her actual name. She wanted to threaten them, tell them if they called her 'm'lady' they wouldn't be able to call anyone anything ever again. But as Sansa Stark had explained, it was what they had grown up knowing.
If only she were allowed to change them as much as they seemed to be able to change her.
She'd hoped to reunite with her eldest brothers when she found out the free folk had aligned themselves with Jon Snow. When she looked over the groups of free folk who came together for dinner, she couldn't even find the greying hair of her father or mother. Her home in the North truly was only a fragmented dream now.
At night time, she could never sleep, her bed was too soft for her. It felt more uncomfortable than dirt and rock. Instead, she would escape into Bran's room to talk under the silent promise of candlelight. She'd often torment herself through remembrance, remembering her family in the way people remembered places and things they hadn't seen in a while. But truth be told, she hadn't been loyal to her family for a long time. She couldn't even say she was loyal to herself. She was, and always would be, loyal to Bran Stark.
Being back to Winterfell had left Bran quieter than usual.
Their family seemed more fragmented than ever before. It seemed the curse of the South. She hardly saw Meera much anymore. She never left her room. Driysa had been forced to bring her food to her door, jumping from pleading to threatening to get Meera to do something. It may have been selfish of her to think, but she sometimes wished they could've stayed in that burnt down house they'd found in the North.
