Jon Arryn watched very carefully as King Robert held the tiny Duncan Stark to his chest, trying to interest the clearly too intelligent babe with a piece of ribbon his wife or daughter must have granted him. Duncan Stark was utterly uninterested, his dark purple eyes following the ribbon for a few moments at a time before seeking his Lady Mother for reassurance.
Duncan Stark's looks were extraordinary. Arthur Dayne himself, when he had first showed up with his squire/nephew with his pale blond hair and dark blue eyes, had attested to how it had been generations since a Dayne had last displayed both the pale hair and the purple eyes.
According to Ned Dayne, their whole line was more than pleased with the little boy's appearance for all that they had had next to nothing to do with Jon Stark's upbringing. Still, Jon Arryn could not find it within himself to blame them. A daughter of their House had been dishonoured. Of course they would distance themselves from the shame. Who would not?
Only Arthur Dayne, it seemed, and Ned Stark, of course, who Jon had always thought had a tendency towards taking the principles of honour taught to him in the Eyrie just a bit too far. But then how could Jon have known that the Quiet little Wolf of Winterfell had come with an honour code already present and all Jon had done was make it more rigid? Working with Rickard Stark directly, he could not help but think, might have been easier, no matter how much he loved his foster son.
Little baby Duncan began to fuss, and Robert, thankfully, did not really have a choice other than to hand him over to his mother, who still looked so young it hurt Jon's old heart. The slight swell of her belly, indicating a new babe, made him feel both reassured for the choices he and Robert and made and painfully guilty because, Gods, was the girl even six-and-ten yet? And there was her second babe, already visible for all to see. They were the ones who had doomed her to it, he reminded himself. He and Robert had japed about wolf pups and how the Roses would be at peace. Neither one of them, Jon could not help but think, had considered the very real little girl pulled into their schemes. And then the next moment, she drew level with a young man Jon knew must be Jon Stark of Dragonstone, if only for the way
he resembled both Ned and Brandon Stark. He had grown so much since Jon had last seen him he could scarce recognise him. The young Lord wrapped an arm around her and kissed her temple, and Jon Arryn found himself relaxing. Perhaps they had not doomed two children to eternal unhappiness after all, even if they had forced them to grow up before their time.
A few moments later, he found himself wondering what he and Robert had started when the Sand Snakes of Dorne took it upon themselves to guard the honour of Jon Stark when he refused, as any good Northman would, to do it himself. Had they made some kind of gross miscalculation? Had they let Ned go far enough to lose his loyalty and see him act through his children? Or was this all down to the Tyrell-Martell marriage that had been the talk of the realm for more than a year now?
Then he forgot his suspicions, turning them towards the golden-haired heir to the Throne. Never had a Baratheon looked like that, and, unlike with Duncan Stark whose colouring could at least be explained, if only through the inexplicable ways the Blood of the First Men reacted to the very distant other strain of Blood of the First Men and mixed with the Andals, unseen for centuries now. Jon Arryn was not one to discount history on a whim.
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