[no amount of remembering the better things will make the bad ones go away]

[learned_to_die]

WHO: Eddard Stark
WHERE: The Stark Family Cabin
WHEN: August 15 and onward
OPEN TO: OTA; feel free to jump in at any point during his halluciations.
WARNINGS: None; will updated as needed

---

It had started with redness of the skin, first on Ned's hands. It spread like blood-red ink across the paper of his skin, up his arm towards his shoulder, down his back, around his torso. It made decades'-old battles scars scarlet and renewed, the pain of touch excruciating, as though the wounds had only just been made. And then, the heat. At first, he thought it a continued byproduct of the summer temperatures, but it was the absence of perspiration that had drawn his brows together in confusion and realization: he had gotten ill.

Half a fortnight later, having spent the majority of the time bed-ridden and unable to leave the confines of his room, the visions had started.

He’d first seen his siblings’ faces: Brandon, Benjen, Lyanna. He imagined Brandon’s death, simultaneously feeling the constriction of his airways as Brandon tried to rescue their father, and wakes to a coughing fit while gasping for air. Benjen he imagined in black, half-human and half-crow, taking to the skies and soaring back to The Wall. Lyanna, he had seen bloodied and ghostly pale, her trembling hands leaving crimson paintings against his skin with every touch, while the rage and pain and impending loss stormed within him.

Second, Robert’s face - glossy-eyed and slender, the way he’d been when they’d grown alongside each other under the care of Jon Arryn. He imagined them wandering the grounds of the Eyrie, practicing their fighting with one another, Robert daring him to draw closer and closer to the Moon Door. His half of these fabricated conversations are audible to anyone near enough - even through the closed door of his chambers. None of it makes any sense, especially out of context, though it’d be easy enough for someone familiar enough to surmise that Robert was on his mind.

Next, he’d seen visions of Catelyn at their wedding; the hatred and betrayal in her face when he’d revealed to her that he had returned from war with a dark-haired babe in tow, a newly born Robb still in her arms, which she clutched tighter to her breast; the way she’d peer up at him as they lay under their furs and in each other’s arms with only the soft glow of the fire as their audience; when he’d last seen her, outside of Littlefinger’s brothel in King’s Landing, the blue scarf wrapped over her fiery crown. He reaches for her, when he imagines her with him, hands and fingers fumbling in the air for a woman who no longer exists.

Then, he’d seen each of his children at varying stages of their lives, from birth to the last he’d seen of them: Robb at Winterfell, when Ned had left for King’s Landing; Sansa when he’d knelt at the steps of the Great Sept, silently praying for her rescue; Arya when he’d spotted her in the crowd, crouching by Baelor the Blessed, doing the only thing he could to keep her safe by signaling Yoren to take her into his custody; Bran, unconscious in his bed, unsure if he’d ever open his eyes again; Rickon in the yard at Winterfell, too young to understand the weight of the world and his father’s departure beyond a glaring absence; and, though not a child of his own creation, Jon at the crossroads to King’s Landing and The Wall, promising to tell him about his mother upon their next meeting. These memories are strong enough to make a weakened, unwell Ned weep, crying out for the family from which he’d been taken, his feverish mind no longer remembering he has four of them still with him, whether by fate or by the blessings of the Old Gods.

He floats in and out of consciousness, back and forth between the world of Westeros he’d left behind and the world of the village - his second chance - though he cannot seem to convince himself that the latter exists. He wonders if he’s returned to the Children of the Forest, to the Old Gods themselves, to the Weirwood back in the Godswood of Winterfell. All the while, the skin affected by the rash blisters and reddens, leaving smears of blood on the linens underneath - though, if there is one light in the darkness, the intensity of his hallucinations seems to negate the pain from the rash, and he seems blissfully unaware of the sores.

Comments

August 17th

[chosenbytheocean]

"How does a moment last forever
How can a story never die
It is love we must hold onto
Never easy, but we try

Sometimes our happiness is captured
Somehow our time and place stand still
Love lives on inside our hearts
And always will

Minutes turn to hours
Days to years, then gone
But when all else has been forgotten
Still our song lives on

Maybe some moments weren't so perfect
Maybe some memories not so sweet
But we have to know some bad times
For our lives are incomplete

Then when the shadows overtake us
Just when we feel all hope is gone
We'll hear our song, and know once more
Our love lives on"

Moana's voice faltered. She had heard that he was sick but hadn't been able to visit him until now. She was sitting in a spare chair with Itiiti curled beneath. The little piglet looked sad as he stared at the highest point of the bed that he could see.

She wished she knew what battles he was fighting or if there was a way that she could help but instead she saw helplessly next to him, her fingers tightly clapped around her blue shell necklace and the dormant stone that it protected. Her mother used to sing to her when she was little and Moana had inherited that lovely voice. "Ned?" She spoke his name, thinking that he had woken from his sleep. She listened to him speak to someone who wasn't in the room and continued her song in a soft voice, hoping to ease his dreams. She occasionally pressed a wet cloth to his forehead but she didn't know what use it would be.

"How does a moment last forever
How does our happiness endure
Through the darkest of our troubles
Love is beauty, love is pure

Love pays no mind to desolation
It flows like a river through the soul
Protects, perceives and perseveres
And makes us whole"

Moana leaned forward when Ned stirred again. Her voice quieted, listening to the steady exhale of her friend's breath. "When all else has been forgotten…" Her voice echoed softly. "Still our soul lives on."

'Please' She prayed silently to any god who would listen. 'Let everyone get better.'

[king_in_the_north]

Never has Robb seen his father weep. As a child, he never would have imagined it were even possible, but as an adult he now understands far too well the heavy mantle his father had carried for so many years. There must have been tears and moments of weakness, but Ned Stark was nothing if not careful, and when they happened, they must have been behind closed doors, hidden from his children and the people who relied so much upon his strength.

To see the man brought so low, delirious and sobbing, was enough to shake Robb to his core, and for a moment he could not move from his place in the doorway.

When his feet did manage stuttering steps forward, he realized quickly he had no idea what he might do, taking a knee at his father's bedside but his hand wavering and uncertain when it lifted to touch him. He hesitated, eyes wide, and then pressed a squeeze to his father's shoulder, some small attempt to soothe him.

"Father?"

August 15th

[thekittenqueen]

She had heard Ned was ill later in the afternoon, after she and wondered about his absence during her walk and as she tended the animals. The symptoms of his illness were the same as the others that seemed to be falling sick. The rash, the fever, the delirium. It was troubling, but a part of her had almost been expecting this. They had all been healthy for so long. Illness was destined to spread...and something always seemed to follow the quakes.

She gathered the herbs she knew could at least ease his discomfort and ventured into the Stark home, unconcerned with contagion. Seeing Ned in this state turned her stomach. He always seemed so strong and implacable. He wasn't a weak man, even in times of vulnerability. This was something she had never expected to see and it didn't rest easy in her mind.

Gently, she rubbed aloe onto his skin, bandaging his arms to keep them from scabbing further. A cloth was pressed to his brow, continually washed to try and lessen his fever. When he seemed able, she would have him drink something, gently allowing a bit of water to run across his fevered lips.

He seemed to stir, pulling himself out of his dreams, murmuring something about promises and Dorne. "Rest, my lord. Sleep."

[iron_beneath_beauty]

She could only imagine the sight that she had presented Ned in the Tower, bloodied and weakened by fever. Even after reconnecting with him in the village, she could sometimes see that look of fear and sadness in his eyes. Yet she never had imagined that their positions would be reversed or that she would have to witness her brother in such a weakened state. He had always been the strong one, during their mother's death and during all of the childhood pains.

She stayed close to his side, tending to him when others needed to rest or eat. Even while others were there, she stayed beside her brother. She slept on the floor, holding his hand as he slept and ate little, pushing away the food offered her. So long as Ned was ill, her focus rested on him entirely.

Her hand tightened around his, her head resting against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "Please Ned. Don't leave me alone."

[bit_fairytale]

Rory's the nurse, that's what Amy keeps telling herself, but at the same time, there's things that she can do to help that don't require medical knowledge. It's not like she and Ned are close or anything, but he's given her solace a few times and when she'd heard he'd felt ill, she'd brought some food, a bowl of water, and her stubbornness with her to tend to him.

It's not really like she can do much, but she can at least try and do something more than ineffectively linger around. Dabbing at his forehead with the cloth, she frowns as she stares at the blisters and the look of him. "What did you do to yourself?" she chides, a rhetorical question that demands no answer, but has to be said.

August 15

[tooktheblack]

Hearing that his lord father was ill was enough to deviate Jon from his normal patterns in the village and spend much of his time at his bedside, attending him as much as he could. He didn't know what he could do for him, honestly, but he bathed his forehead in cool cloths and held his hands when the nightmares became too much. He had no idea what this illness was or how his father had come to have it but all he could do now was tend to him and ease him through it.

"Father, what can I do for you? What do you think would help?"

It was a vain question, Jon knew, but he had to try. He had to do something.