Imagine toddler Robb being a bit confused when Cat can’t play and run with him like before. His eyes widening when she puts his hand on her growing tummy and he feels a kick. He runs around the castle, hollering and brandishing his wooden sword, but no one pays him any attention. They’re all too busy getting ready for the baby. He’s sad and frustrated and just wants things to go back to the way they were.
But then Sansa is born. And she’s all pink soft skin and sleepy yawns and the first time she opens her big blue eyes (Tully blue, just like his) is for the sound of his voice. The clarity of that moment runs through him like a bell being rung right inside his chest. He vows then and there to always protect and defend his baby sister.
Before that day, Robb believed the best things in the world to be were big and strong. Yet he is in awe of how small and vulnerable and undeniably perfect Sansa is all at once. It was Cat who taught Robb how to be loved, what it was to have family. But it is Sansa who teaches Robb that loving someone else is never a choice, that that crippling need to take care of another person can wash over you stronger than the bravest knight or the fiercest winter storm.
It is Sansa who first teaches Robb that duty is not just wielding a sword or screaming battle cries. More often it is stopping to wait for your baby sister at the edge of the trees while your friends run on without you. It is learning how to properly dress a scraped up knee or agreeing to tea parties, even if you’d rather be doing something else. It is burdening the truth on your own, so your younger siblings won’t be afraid. So, even though Robb was bigger and faster and older, it was Sansa who taught him what strength really was, from the very first day she was born.
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imagine-robb-stark: Imagine toddler Robb being a bit confused when Cat can’t play and run with him...
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