For the Realm
Copyright© 2026 by Carlos Santiago
Chapter 16: Compromises for Winter
Fan Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 16: Compromises for Winter - Two years after Robert's Rebellion, three foreigners visit Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, during his breakfast and alter the course of history for the Seven Kingdoms.
Caution: This Fan Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Blackmail Coercion Consensual Reluctant Romantic Fan Fiction Farming Military Mystery War Alternate History Far Past Magic Cheating Wimp Husband RAAC Polygamy/Polyamory Cream Pie Big Breasts Politics Prostitution Revenge Royalty Slow Violence
The royal procession had been gone for some time before Lord Eddard Stark finally turned his horse toward Winterfell. He had to make sure that every person involved were reasonably far from him before he turned his back to them
Robert Baratheon was riding south toward King’s Landing. Tywin Lannister and Catelyn Stark had departed for the Twins where they would meet Walder Frey and settle the matter of Jon’s promised marriage to Walda Frey. Jaime Lannister had taken the western road toward Casterly Rock.
Only four riders remained upon the King’s Road.
Ned led, with Robb, Jon, and Theon following behind. The other Stark children were considered too young, and so Ned had left them in the care of Maester Luwin.
They had gone perhaps a mile when Robb’s horse suddenly slowed.
“Father.”
Ned looked toward his eldest son.
“What is it?”
Robb pointed toward the trees.
“There.”
They approached cautiously.
A stag lay dead in the brush; its antlers were stained dark with blood. Beside it was the corpse of a direwolf. This body was pierced through the chest by one of the stag’s antlers.
Jon dismounted.
“She was killed by the stag.”
Ned nodded grimly.
“Aye. That tends to occur when beasts battle near the road.”
Theon looked between the two corpses. He had the eyes of an archer, so he was not one to miss much.
“Strange. I’ve never heard of a direwolf this far south.”
Jon crouched beside the stag.
“Neither have I.”
He studied the wounds upon its body.
“The stag did not kill this creature alone.”
Robb frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Jon pointed toward the dead animal.
“Look at the marks.”
Theon’s expression changed.
“Those aren’t wolf tracks.”
“No,” Jon agreed. “Maybe ... Huh ... A mountain-lion ... This far north?
There were great tears across the stag’s flank, deeper and wider than those a common wolf could have made.
Ned stared at the carcasses.
“A direwolf this far south is strange enough, but a lion coming this far north is unlikely,” Ned found himself saying.
A faint whimper came from beneath the dead mother.
Robb dismounted at once.
“Pups.”
He moved carefully through the brush and found them huddled together beneath their mother’s body.
Five little creatures stared back at him.
Theon drew his sword.
“Best put them down.”
“They’re pups,” said Robb, turning toward Theon.
There was an insulted look about his complexion and disdain for the choices of his friend.
“They’ll die without their mother,” Theon replied. “Better a quick death than starvation.”
“There’s enough for each trueborn child of Lord Stark,” Jon said, stepping forward.
“Father?” Robb asked, turning to his father.
Ned looked from the pups to the direwolf upon the ground. The animal had been the sigil of House Stark for three thousand years. There was something almost unsettling about finding one here, so far from the Wall and the lands where such creatures were supposed to dwell.
Yet Ned could not deny what stood before him.
“Very well,” he said. “But each child is meant to care for them. If your siblings do not do their duty, they will be put out and put down.”
Robb grinned.
Theon sheathed his sword.
Jon remained behind for a moment, studying the litter. At the edge of the litter was a runt unlike any of them. Its fur was white as newly fallen snow while its eyes were dark, much like the former bastard.
“Hey! Ser Stark,” Theon teased. “Looks like you also get one!”
Jon reached down, ignoring Theon. The pup sniffed his hand while he presented a warm smile to comfort the animal.
“Come here.”
He lifted it carefully into his arms.
Robb laughed.
“You took the runt.”
Jon looked down at the little creature.
“A runt now doesn’t mean a runt forever, Robb.”
Ned smiled faintly.
“What will you call him?”
Jon considered the white pup for several heartbeats.
“Ghost.”
The little wolf stared up at him, and Jon carried this being home with him.
The carriage rolled steadily south upon the King’s Road. Catelyn sat across from Tywin, watching the landscape pass beyond the window.
There was a time when such a sitting would have been rife with formality, courtesies, and stiff addresses. For example, she would have been Catelyn Stark, formerly Catelyn Tully of Riverrun, who was only a Stark by marriage, and he would have been Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West.
However, with Jon’s warding at the Rock, certain barriers had fallen. This alteration allowed for formality to be set aside for forthright, casual discussion.
“Do you believe Jon is being sentimental?” Catelyn asked.
“I know Jon is sixteen,” Tywin replied simply. “I believe he has mistaken a childhood promise for an obligation of state, and by conflating the two, he leaves himself open to vulnerability.”
“To whom? He is keeping his word,” Catelyn countered. “That is what a true Stark should do.”
Tywin’s eyes shifted toward her in a flash of mild irritation mixed with a restrained anger.
“As we both know, Jon is no trueborn Stark.”
The words were quiet, yet true, which earned a hardening expression in reply from Catelyn.
“He is a legitimized son of Eddard Stark,” she said.
They both knew the truth, and there was a time when Catelyn might have struggled with the deception. In moments such as these though, she had no difficulty maintaining the façade because the falsehood of Jon’s parenthood had been bolstered (little by little) like a wall of rock and stone.
“A legitimized bastard he may be,” Tywin said by way of both concession and counter. “Nevertheless, the distinction matters, Catelyn. All he had will be earned, not given, so every choice he makes must be the right one.”
“How so?” Catelyn asked.
Both curiosity at the answer and displeasure of being lectured to mingled in her inquiry. This could not be helped. Tywin was a being who believed himself better than almost everyone in the Seven Kingdoms. Given his wealth and maintained social standing, there was diminutive doubt as to his importance.
“Like a dance at a banquet or wedding, when eyes are on him, he must not make a single misstep, or else others will pounce on him, Lady Catelyn. Moreover, like a melee for a knight, the consequences to his decisions could be fatal.
Catelyn knew these arguments, for they were ones referring to the fact that Jon was not Ned’s trueborn son, but rather a Targaryen. She could not counter those too vocally or else she would give away Jon’s secret, and that was also Lyanna’s confidence that Cat needed to worry about. Ned’s sister had given her life for Jon, so Cat could not do the late Stark a disservice by betraying Jon.
“He is following his moral compass,” she pointed out. “Whatever his birth, Jon is a Northerner, so their sense of right and wrong must be appeased, and you know that as well, Lord Tywin. If he gave Walda his word, then he means to honor it.”
Tywin considered her point before replying.
“While you may be right,” he said, offering her a lifted hand in compromise. “The problem lies in he is open to attack, and in this particular circumstance, he will be at the mercy of Lord Walder Frey.”
Cat did not have an answer for this. Moreover, Tywin let out a long sigh from the recesses of his soul.
“The only benefit to this complicated situation is that Lord Frey’s granddaughter is worth her weight in silver and gold.”
Catelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“That is an unkind way to describe a young woman.”
“It is not, however, an inaccurate description of her dowry,” he said. “In this way, we might be able to dress up his slavish devotion to his integrity as him playing the game as it were.”
“Lord Tywin—”
Though Cat’s tone was affronted, she did not get to finish what she might have said, for Tywin raised one hand.
“My apologies.”
Catelyn blinked.
Tywin rarely apologized.
“I meant only that it is a practical match,” he continued. “The girl is of noble birth, and Jon appears genuinely content with the arrangement. I consider us to be fortunate in that regard.”
His gaze returned to the window.
“Jon will spend the next several months working himself into exhaustion. Two settlements, winter preparations, construction, trade, and administration ... He will have little time for anything else. I believe a future bride—let alone a bride from the Twins—to be a distraction.”
Catelyn frowned.
“You do not know. She might be good for him.”
“Have you ever known Lord Frey to allow for any of his children to be exceptional? Or better ... for his offspring to be anything more than his shadow?”
“No,” Cat conceded weakly.
“The best we can hope for is that she is malleable,” Tywin said like a blunt hammer. “Jon and the North might be able to mold her into something useful if she survives the next winter.”
Cat did not like how Tywin presented these facts nor the hope for the girl’s future. This was not how she wanted her life to be. She was also from the South. To the Northerners, southern lords were seen as soft and pampered, but Cat had shown that to be untrue due to her quality.
In that same way, she hoped this Walda could produce a similar outcome.
However, considering all of his words, this posed a new question in her mind.
“And what happens between this particular autumn and spring?”
“He will be productive,” Tywin said offhandedly.
“That was not what I meant.”
Tywin’s mouth twitched.
“How then do you mean, Lady Stark?”
The reply and forced formality told Cat that she was invading some private secret, and Catelyn’s expression became suspicious.
“Lord Tywin...”
“He is a boy,” Tywin said plainly.
That answer also proved to be insufficient and proving to be irritating to her. She gave him a stern look, and Tywin allowed sigh. This exhalation was one of discomfort, not secrecy.
“As you know, he is a young man,” Tywin said slowly. “Eventually, Jon may decide to sow his oats.”
Catelyn’s face reddened at the comment. If there was a person to have a conversation of such private matters, Tywin Lannister was not the partner she had hoped to speak with.
“Jon would never do such a thing!”
“Perhaps,” Tywin said, trying to encourage her to lower her voice.
“You cannot possibly suggest—”
“I have heard the Greyjoy boy has already found the local brothel,” Tywin returned. “Many a child of southern nobility has been known to father a few bastards.”
Catelyn’s expression turned from outrage to disgust.
“And that is acceptable?”
“No, and I did not say it was,” Tywin said. “Nevertheless, I accept it as part of our reality. I want him to be productive, and then loyal to the girl in question should she prove to be a match as a woman grown to him.”
“Women are expected to preserve their maidenhead while men are permitted to visit brothels whenever they wish.”
Tywin did not do her the disservice of being dismissive or shrug away her concerns. Rather, he gave her the brutal candor he was famous.