It wasn’t too long before Nerya’s predictions proved to be correct, and she was greeted by the sound of one of her many siblings coming from some other room. It was Robb’s voice as he was dissuading Theon from continuing any further in one of his many (likely fabricated) stories about some legendary Ironborn or another. Which, of course, meant there was plenty of lewd material to bulk up the basic premise of their life as a conquering invader. “...which is how he never knew she was his daughter!” The ward summarized.
“That’s an awful tale.” Robb scolded his friend without much heat as they turned the corner. He had a sparkle of amusement to his bright blue eyes but was doing his best to look as prim and proper as the Stark heir must. It wouldn’t do for him to be giggling like a child about something vulgar...even if it would have been funny if he hadn’t been the eldest son. Theon smirked beside him, clearly pleased with having gotten a rise out of his best friend, before he nodded over towards the girl.
Robb’s gaze followed the motion and his expression lit up at once upon seeing his sister at the fireplace. “Nerya!” He exclaimed, coming over to offer her a hug.
He adored his older half-sister in an entirely different way than he did his younger siblings; there had always been a sense of duty to them that he had taken very seriously from the moment that he could understand it. He protected them when he could, modeled the behavior they were meant to have, encouraged them when they were sad, and came between not just a few fights. With Nerya, things had always been different; she offered a rare sense of relief from some of his obligations. She had been the one to hold his hand while he learned to walk and kept stumbling, and the one to promise him that the grumpkins Old Nan told them about weren’t real.
Nerya had really been the responsible sibling in his life that kept the nightmares at bay, and one of the few adults (save for his father) who refused to let him get away with misdeeds simply because of his lineage. After all, she had really been the first born Stark. He had only been the first born son.
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