Barbara fingered the soft cotton edges of her dress, warily eyeing the Lannister bench box. It was diagonal from the the Stark's; each House had a personal box imbued in between the tournament benches, respective distances away from one another. The Stark's, Lannister's, and Arryn's had been placed diagonal from one another. If one were to draw straight lines from each of their boxes to the others, they would have found that the three Houses formed a triangle that split the oval structure of the tournament barricades. The benches themselves were an oval barrier to the dirt pit below, filled with knights, young and old, handsome and not so handsome. The Stark box was surrounded by a flurry of white banners, silver wolves running across the crowd in packs of soft silk, flapping leisurely in the wind, and giving Barbara what she thought to be nostalgia. Essos wasn't home. In fact, it was quite far from home. But the fresh, cool, morning, coupled with the crisp banners that cracked and whipped in the wind so easily was giving Barbara what she was sure was homesickness.
The stiff Houses surrounding her did little to ease her anxiety. Instead, she found herself with a morbid fascination for the Lannisters. Every so often, her eyes would wander to them, drawing lines in the contours of their faces, painting familiar pictures from these strangers' features. She would always catch herself and avert her gaze before one of them could acknowledge her stares. Especially before Raith Lannister could catch her with his charming, but somehow chilling, gaze. Cersei was less cordial. She'd been staring at them, unperturbed, for minutes now. It wasn't their good looks that had caught the girls' attention, though for the most part they agreed they were good looking. It was the familiarity of those handsome jawlines and pretty faces. For all Barbara's life, she'd thought of herself as a Stark, through and through. Even with her sister's name. They'd always been Starks. But here, confronted by blood, she knew now she was not just a Stark. Lannister blood flowed in her, as surely as Stark blood. It was different, knowing you had Lannister blood in you. Different from knowing you had Tully, or Baratheon blood. It was sinister, a cruel joke of nature.
Barbara stirred as Cersei tugged urgently on her sister's sleeve, "Look, look, look who it is." The red headed Stark turned her gaze down at the pit below; surly enough, there was Richard parading around on a sleek, fleet-footed mare, not his own. Oh, he was handsome. His black hair was an inky short sheen on his head, and his face was strong, handsome, and happy. Perpetually so, but he was a shining man for a knight. He wasn't participating though. That Barbara knew, and reveled in. She couldn't bare the thought of her favorite knight being hurt, even in just the smallest. Richard was a prodigy of his own, the youngest of the knights, but so skilled with just his bare hands you would have thought he was the captain. He was going to be her father's Ward.
Richard was down there 'preparing' Derek for the tournament. He was swinging Derek's silver and white lance around, poking his friend mockingly in the chest. Derek was handsome too, but not as beautiful as Richard. Even little Robin agreed Richard was a sight to see. Just then, Richard caught Barbara's eye, and flashed her the most beautiful smile she'd ever seen. She looked away, red faced. He'd took her innocence last year, and she'd breathed relief upon finding she hadn't been pregnant. But still, she kept with the man, meeting him often. He was a species of his own. Her sisters' knew, but no one else. And she knew her sisters would never tell.
She could see her father stiffen from her peripheral vision. He'd caught them peering at each other. Ian, her grandfather, and Lord of the House, saw as well. He laughed his grizzly, familiar, laugh and chided his son, "Come now Erin? Can't a man watch a beautiful woman?"
Lyssa Stark smiled a genuine but faint smile, but Erin grumbled and turned to talk with his brother.
"Get off of me you oaf!" Robin was squealing now, punching Jason's auburn hair with her small fists. He was holding her in a rib crushing hug. He was the best brother Barbara could have imagined the siblings to have. Caring, playful, loving...if there was anyone the House should have fallen to in times of peace, it should have been Jason. But Barbara had the prickling feeling that peace was not looming over Westeros's head. Instead, a man like her cousin, like Jared, seems an appropriate leader. There was a man that even Barbara shied away from when the time came.
"Quiet, now," Lyssa Stark scolded, and the noise from the Stark box silenced itself, all except for Rick who was wining about not being able to see over Cersei's golden head and loudly threatening to push his sister off the benches if she didn't move when the tournament started. The tournament itself was still being set up. Knights were prepping themselves, get excited over the approaching competition the way only men can. Barbara's parents were talking in hushed voices, of politics and family.
Barbara would have tuned in, but Robin started entertaining them with a description of each family, eloquently put into her words. She was a sly child, and refrained from pointing, speaking so that only her siblings could hear and know what she was talking about.
Now that Barbara was observing the other Houses, she wondered curiously what they thought of the Starks and their five rambunctious children. Six, if you counted Simon Snow, who was nowhere to be seen, and probably off with some whore in some dingy hitchhiker tent. She wondered which Houses were planning to marry their children to what other Houses. Were they like the Starks, who had fallen into a heated argument about giving the girls away? Erin stubbornly refused, but his father and his father's council were staunch opponents.
Barbara reclined in her seat, trying to avoid Richard's gaze, and cataloging each of the families briefly, all except the Lannisters who she avoided. House Arryn and its family of brothers. The Tyrells and their leading Lady. Martell, with its family of generations, much like the Starks'.
And she wondered curiously if the Starks had any friends among these people.