The Wolves and The StagsIn honour of the resurgence of my GoT obsession (brought to you by my housem

The Wolves and The Stags

In honour of the resurgence of my GoT obsession (brought to you by my housemates marathoning Game of Thrones) I felt the urge to do a little character design for every main player in a minor fic idea I had for GoT/asoiaf (as one does).

The premise is nothing groundbreaking: in the years shortly before Robert’s Rebellion, when Ned is off to the Eyrie to be fostered alongside Robert Baratheon, Lord Steffon Baratheon has his spare packaged and posted to Winterfell to be fostered by the Starks.

The eldest daughter of Lord Rickard—one Joanna Stark (named to honour Lord Tywin Lannister and his wife)—is a fast friend to the brooding Stannis (so they can suffer from eldest daughter syndrome together). The smallest of the Stark children, in the absence of their older brothers, designate Stannis the ‘honourary replacement’. (However, this still doesn’t stop Lyanna from cutting holes in the pockets of every set of trousers Stannis owns when he yells at her for trailing snow through his corner of Maester Walys’ turret… Joanna isn’t impressed with her little sister either, not when she’s the one who winds up stitching up every crudely cut pocket by the hearth that night).

When the direwolf corpse is found with a fresh litter of pups still trying to suckle, each of Lord Rickard Stark’s children receive a pup… and whilst Brandon ribs that it doesn’t bode well they’d found the direwolf impaled on the antlers of a mangled stag, the last remaining pup goes to Lord Stark’s ward, a stag of Storm’s End.

Honestly, I’m too lazy to write it, but I want to see how this scenario would affect events as they play out. Give Lyanna an older sister who’s her foil in many ways, give Ned another sister to love, and send the awkward and unloved Stannis Baratheon to Winterfell where its inevitable the Starks will envelop him into their own.