Fatherhood in humans is a social invention.
Mead M. Male and Female. A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. Morrow. N. Y., 1949
There are things that you just don't expect, because you, such an idiot, didn't foresee it because of some sort of selective blindness. It was just so with Ned Stark, who perceived his life quite differently from me. There are things that you can prevent, which I did when I stopped any possible interaction of the twins, as it was shown in the story I know what that interaction brought to be. And there are things that happen according to a pattern set in advance by some sick tale, and whatever you do - it's destiny, which should lead to the fulfillment of another destiny.
Bran, this idiot kid, still fell from the tower.
But this event should be approached with all care, to reveal, so to speak, everything that has been happening since the beginning of time, or rather, more specifically, from the moment I was getting ready to sleep in our no longer shared bed, when Cat came to me, deciding to share her doubts, her information and her grievances. So I sent her to fog off, along with her incredibly unexpected wish, embodied right now in hysterical screeching, to send Jonny away. The rational, talented and "still waters run deep", yes, that Jonny, the probable legitimate son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, and she wanted him far away.
Besides, almost without restraining my joy, I promised not to interfere if she suddenly wanted to ride with Bran and Rickon first to the Riverlands in order to pay homage to her relatives, and then to her beloved purebred Andals in their nest, so that this sick bitch Lisa could hiccup herself all she like, preferably through the Moon Door, with all her pent-up jealousy.
These double standards of Catelyn are just pissing me off, really.
She'd rather positively and loudly remember Brandon, the Wild Wolf-Prick. Receive it and sign on it, Ned Stark, your wife eats the gray matter in your scull with a spoon when she wants to reproach you for disobeying her stupid standards. Stupid like herself, I might add, and therefore constantly turns to her twisted memory of a Wild Wolf, and it's twisted by time and not really knowing him at all. And when it comes to tolerating a quiet boy who has never wanted anything other than a normal relationship? The jealousy of the sky-high level immediately turns on, as if I gave any actual reason! And Brandon is, by the way, the same alternatively gifted one who strangled himself in moments of humiliation by the Mad King and whose idiocy is being emulated, presumably, by my penultimate son, but that's a completely different story...
All in all, Kat reminds me a little of Robert, but without whoring around, instead of it she has the Light of Seven for brains. May the Weirwood save Sansa from this scourge! And her sister! Dear to the purse and sometimes to the scrotum of Baelish, and yes, I'm hoping to be quite rude, Kat's sister Lisa. Ugh. It's true, there are people who spoil the names they wear! I had a good friend, whose name was Lisa, she went to the fencing club with me when we were kids. After I cast away my epee and started running around with the reenactors, shooting arrows and waving around some blunt two-handed weapons, we ended up communicating so rarely that friendship became a little strained, although it did not cease to exist despite everything. So, that Lisa was almost the best friend in my whole stupid life, because friendship was selfless and never ended with the eternal fear of all friends of different sexes - falling in love and all that goes with it. And now in this new wild world there is a woman with the same name, but with such a shitty personality that I even feel pity for Jon Arryn. Although this is rather some sort of male solidarity of those married to Tully, and not real pity. That one would be hard to find after I realized who I should be grateful to for the happy family life of Eddard Stark, and for this pig on the throne, with whom I need to be friends - no matter what if I value peace.
Although the boar has sensed the war and will probably put himself in order at least a little, which I will be incredibly glad for, because it is better he die nobly and bravely in a conflict, at least be useful, than just like that.
Robert, his entire royal party, and some of my vassals, who decided to join in, happily and soundly rode to see off the Lannister brothers. Those two were accompanied by my younger brother, Benjen, to inspect the Wall. The King was supposed to have a hunt on the way back, and I was supposed to leave the next day to join my royal friend on his hunt.
The friend confirmed his amity and understanding of the conditions set for him, after all. Although that southern nonsense of his in the style of "putting heads on spikes" still tried to break through when he forgot who was in front of him, and for what he was trying to threaten me.
I have always been particularly gifted in communication with people, really, which I now delved into, in order to transfer part of the problem of the Walkers on the shoulders of anyone around, honestly. With Robert, I cut straight to the truth of the matter for the sake of it, and did not let him forget about my plans in those moments when he was not doing what, in his particularly brilliant opinion, a king should do. Tha is, to fuck everything he liked, which usually has a vagina and set of limbs, and drink the best wine from my cellars. The last factor interested me insofar as, since I stopped drinking wine since my spontaneously formed blacksmith workshop in Wintertown solved the problem with a particularly affordable antiseptic - my uncle from the village will forever be in my memory as the source of most of the ideas related to the industry, and not familiar to Eddard Stark of the previous version.
In general, a moonshine distiller, of course, was not that wonderful of an achievement by the standards of your ordinary self-inserts or whatever, but I generally never was interested in knowledge of this kind. My monotonous and quite cultured urban life, as well as the almost complete absence of proclivities towards survival in the event of an apocalypse or nuclear war... Well, I simply wasn't interested in accumulating all the possible practical knowledge that is so, so necessary, especially in this miserable reality.
Actually, it was only thanks to some knowledge that I had, only because of my talkative uncle's kind heart, that we managed to start harvesting the simplest activated carbon from young birches and beeches, although it all started with my banal reluctance to stir wine with water every time I wanted a drink.
I got the children hooked on a carbon filter as well, and the whole household, and soon the whole town under the castle wall, because diarrhea and flatulence are a menace in any century and any universe. And with the northern diet of meat, variations of offal and pea pudding - both of these conditions are always somewhat close. Well, I generally recall the dry food - and the filter tablets, of necessity, stand heads above every other thing. Because you can find food, we're not in the central Sahara here after all, but we do need to not get poisoned. And it's a completely different story.
I was ready to think about anything, to reminisce of anybody, to try to experience any emotions, just to get away from one simple fact - my son, this idiot kid, Bran, could not escape his canon fate. And I couldn't figure out how to take it. I've definitely changed a lot of things already - so why didn't I change Bran's fate? I kept feeling that I'm in complete disarray, but I had to collect my thoughts and continue my game with the queen. It was his fall from the Tower that interrupted this game, after all.
Bran, an innocent boy - even if it is difficult for me to call him my son, despite vague memories, as if read in a book, and not lived - just an hour and a half ago he was lying on a wooden pavement, his direwolf was howling in alarm, someone from the household servants kept screaming for the Maester, and I looked down from the window. With an inner shudder, I would like to have known why, I felt Cersei's small and rather frozen palm, judging by the temperature of it, slip into mine and squeeze. It was unexpectedly strong and even painful, because my fingers were sluggish, and Cersei's, on the contrary, were too tense.
Then I turned to the Queen and simply lost control of my actions. Pushing Cersei out of my way, I rushed downstairs in order to control the Maester before some idiots under the guidance of a hysterical wife could've tried to lift Bran. If I was panicking, then she would lose all her wits, that's for sure. Besides, depending on where exactly his back is broken, it will be clear whether he'll be able to walk or not. I'd assumed for a long time that that whole canon bullshit with Brynden Rivers seemed extremely suspicious, and I definitely heard the clap of wings before Bran slipped.
After I left my wife and the Maester by Bran's bedside, having done everything I could, I decided, fuck the secrecy, and went to Cersei's chambers. We needed this talk, but when I finally got there, I already doubted my readiness, though I made my way to this part of Winterfell with full confidence in it.
"M'lord Stark? The queen's in her chambers, asked for a snack, and previously talked to 'er children," the guard said.
It was one of my guards, not a White Cloak, which seemed rather odd, and he addressed me with a respectful bow, while, as I liked, he quickly brought me up to date.
"Where's the White Cloak, Gage?" I asked quietly.
"Went off for training yard," he reported. "M'lady sent another White to guard her children, and I stayed, as our commander had arranged with Ser Barristan for cross-duty. M'lord..."
"Take a walk, Gage," I threw the silver to the lad and waited until he went far off, so I could hear his footsteps subsided.
For one stag, you could eat a good meal in an inn, yes, but my behavior like that was a sign that he needed to hang around, but at the same time ensure the privacy of the conversation. The location of her rooms was convenient enough for such a thing - there was only one passage that needed to be watched. I did prepare for several scenarios, and the one where I'd try to make of Cersei, of the Lannisters, the allies, was not so far from the possible options.
I only had thirty guys with a badge like Gage's, so it was easy to remember them all. I was not Alexander Macedon who, according to legend, remembered almost all of his soldiers - I was not up to this task at all, to be honest.
The badges made it possible to separate the guys, who'd achieved success in training, from other blockheads, and there simply could not be outsiders among the guards. There were none who didn't have, at the least, some level of gratitude to the House of Stark. Thanks to the good wages, the loyalties tested during training and the loyalty shown in return from the house Stark, the relative difficulty of recruiting my Guards was achieved. Some of them were bastards, some were the unwanted children of ordinary peasants and artisans - there was no chivalry in the North, but each of the Lords had squads and small armies. Social guarantees and patronage for families, both future and existing, for the Guards, consisting of ordinary people - this was something new.
I also promised giving a surname, literacy training, additional craftsmanship training and a small allotment at the end of ten years of service, which will remain in the family's ownership only if at least one child of the family continues the tradition of serving in the guard, and the family itself continues to live in the North. I was not an idiot to give people, in whom I had invested labor and gold, the opportunity to just leave for the south with the money earned, not tying them in any way to myself, my family and, most importantly, to this land. And I was just glad that even if I got hit on the head with a mace tomorrow and, at best, drooled away for the rest of my life, nothing would cut this initiative down.
My Maester has been actually mine, his guts and all, ever since I proved to him that it's precisely because of the lack of a competitive environment that we have been doing the same thing for centuries and developing at the speed of a pregnant turtle, to some extent even degrading instead. Previously, Valyrian steel could be bought in every major market, albeit at exorbitant prices, now there are only three blacksmiths for the whole of Westeros and Essos? And that's how it is with everything.
And I proved it to him not in the sense that I explained it fervently, by no means, I did graduate law school at some point and engaged in businesses, so I drew some graphs and let Luwin figure out my reasoning for himself. The man was not an idiot, because he realized that there is a real need for people with knowledge more than there are full-fledged Maesters, or at least people who know at least one part of knowledge at the required level. And if the ossified traditions of the Oldtown's Citadel do not allow admitting women or any men who would like to start a family in the future, or even allow a school like the one I set up for my Guards, on principle, then I basically cannot and should not have any of these problems.
I'm just not from here.
Behind me, there was a past in another world, where I saw women who were quite prosperous, and independent of having a husband, and men who could reach the heights of science, while having families, passing at least some of their brains to the next generation. And at the time of my death, the idea of a woman who completely obeys her husband and does not leave the house, as is customary here - although in fact everything isn't as unequivocal as it seems. That stuff seemed much more absurd to me, than the idea of a woman who decided to devote her life to her favorite craft, which I often saw both in recent history and in person. My friend Lisa, for example, became an excellent surgeon, she did.
For me, a resident of XXI century Russia, a female medical doctor is not some kind of nonsense, but reality in at least five out of ten cases. And the female teacher? It's not even funny how topsy-turvy everything seemed here, compared to my past world! I can't imagine how all these self-inserts from some fanfiction that I read before my own, well, self insert of sorts, suddenly could calmly discard all this obvious adequacy and common sense when they happened to become part of this moronic system that ate itself and did not allow anything to develop. This is, if you omit all those stories, where a woman or a bastard, or, moreover, an unknown peasant-merchant-mercenary, gain trust of some lord. And that lord suddenly starts to trust huge amounts of money to those characters, would not try to take for themselves the slightest result, did not beat them up for the slightest insolence. It was - and it was scary - a completely natural thing here. They did not even try to create the veil of illegality in such behavior.
The only thing, to be honest, that I was glad about this whole shit I found myself in - even if I thought that it would be preferable not to wake up in this body at all - is, in fact, this body. Eddard Stark, one step below the King, the Warden of the North, capable of making other kingdoms, individually or all of them combined, shit themselves, if the battle is fought on our territory? I can change a lot, or at least try, and I can, which is much more likely, just overestimate my power at some point, and all at once, personally for myself, fuck it all up, yeah.
But everything that I have already established here, invented together with Luwin or the blacksmiths - my thing was just the organization and the ideas - all this had already been thought up before me, I simply served as a transmitter that such a thing was possible. Ideas, no matter how fragile and weightless they are, as long as they are only in our brains and hearts, the second they touch reality - they change lives and show results - they become harder to uproot, harder to forget their benefits.
If we survive - we, humanity, we, Westeros, we, the North - then these ideas will still germinate, find a way to come to light. I explained their benefits with ease, to all my children, to every guardsman, to everyone who was ready to listen and hear. I did not reveal to everyone the oh so terrible secrets of chemistry, any mechanical devices, no, I just thought it necessary to make them learn that knowledge is power, and if you try hard, you can achieve a lot. And the boss, that is, the lord, must try to create conditions for it. I understood this as a resident of a world in which lived side by side - the insane regimes, more similar to the local Middle Ages in their essense and levels of piety, and countries that have been moving progress and advancing reason over the past centuries. And having these opportunities, I couldn't help but try.
Swinging a sword, fighting enemies directly, as canon Ned liked, creating unnecessary problems for himself, by paying attention to the illegitimacy of Cersei's children, and not to the fact that Littlefinger simply got his hands on all the important cash flows of King's Landing at the least and many parts South of the Neck, at the most. And yes, interfering in such shit does promise about the same scale of the problem, it is true, but at least the necessity of getting into it is understandable. And to replace one particularly gifted idiot, young enough and still inclined to at least some kind of suggestion, with another particularly gifted idiot, who has recently joined a religion that burns people as a sacrifice to their god? Yes, I will choose the illegitimate Joffrey, or Cersei, who is fond of pushing ahead instead of a good strategy, unable to understand that faith should not be armed at least judging by the mistakes of the past, or finally, Daenerys, whose roof threaten to leak, really, with all her dragons. But not Stannis, who was canonically burning people out of practicality, including his daughter if we remember the series, and killing his own brother for the sake of the power.
The ideas were priceless in a sense, and changed people's lives in many ways - and I saw in practice that the change wasn't for the worse.
So why exactly did this event - the Bran's flight - went as intended?
I was afraid of the answer.
"This day..." I said softly, right from the threshold and then closed the door behind me.
The Queen got up from the table, putting down her quill and thin parchment, and turned to me.
I used to think that she was a sociopath to some extent, many of the fans diagnosed her as a narcissistic personality, and of course I didn't think of her in the best way, even though she was attractive. She squeezed my hand in the tower, and after thinking a little while, as I walked to this side of Winterfell, I assumed manipulation.
It was also quite likely that she was not yet that callous scum who'd gone off the rails, but was simply Tywin's daughter, who was both not as well studied, because she was a girl, and not loved enough, because that's Tywin we're talking about, and somewhat misunderstood, if we talk about the character of both the series and the books. Women in this world, of the kind that wash up every day, anyway, seem a tad bit mad somewhat, is all. So even if I let it grow to create the effect that she controls me and to calm her down, then there is only one danger - she will tell someone, after all, she drinks alcohol and does not always completely control what she says or does, if we recall the canon events. But at the least I could work with this lady - I gave free rein to my admiration, and she thought she could bag me, if anything, but at the same time I saw, no, rather felt the mutual interest. With this approach, there is a good chance that when I have to - and I will have to - spend some time in King's Landing, she will be able to help me tame her own son. But still, it all rests on my taming her, yes.
I know that her priority is protecting her children and taking revenge on Robert, and I don't give a damn if it's her bastard or Lyanna Stark's son is sitting on the Iron Throne, but the fact is, that in order to put my Jonny there, I'd have to shed a lot of blood, and in order for the throne to go to a sadistic juvenile delinquent, we'd just have to wait. And if I just don't twitch too much, then Cersei won't decide to kill Robert to preserve the life and power of herself and her children, and Joffrey won't become king this early.
Many people loved to accuse this woman of her son's sadistic tendencies - which is strange enough, because Tommen grew up to be an absolutely normal, albeit follower, chubby. But I, in turn, recalled Robert's favorite stories and entertainment, his jokes about heads on spikes and constant bragging about murders and fucking. I also remembered that often the inability to show empathy is a protective reaction of our brains to pain caused to us or to those whom we feel this empathy. Of course, for such a deviation, which Joffrey showed in canon, it is probable that something specifically went wrong genetically, it seems to me, but Ramsay's example showed that even such an immoral freak in the making, if you at least try to straighten him up and at the same time give an alternative route, will go down a different path. So, until I figure out for myself what is really going on with this novice sadist, I will not take any radical steps.
This incident with Bran unsettled me not only by the fact that my son was injured, no, before that I proved to myself that I could change something. And for the first time in all the months I've been here, something got really fucked up.
"Lord Stark, to what do I owe your visit?"
Cersei came closer, and I stopped thinking and, apparently, staring somewhere over her shoulder. Her tone became strangely uneasy, I didn't quite understand why.
She added, "Eddard?"
Cersei frowned - I looked into her green eyes and decided, nevertheless, to let my emotions run rampant. To show her weakness. Yes, everything I felt was genuine, but that didn't mean that my decision to let go of control wasn't conscious.
"We have to finish this," I muttered, as if I could hear my own voice from the side.
She nodded curtly and waved her hand towards the broad armchairs near the fireplace, which was already lit and chirping loudly.
I sat down, cupped my hands near my face, leaned elbows on my knees, and exhaled. It turned out somehow convulsively, I didn't even expect it from myself. She was about to sit in another armchair, but something seemed to stop her.
I stared ahead with a clouded gaze for some reason, and she, unexpectedly for me, changed the direction of her movement and hugged me so that I rested my forehead against her wide belt decorated with jewels and gilding. It was secured under the chest and looked like some more practical alternative to a corset. Her knees, wrapped in a couple of layers of a maroon dress, bumped against mine as she held me tighter by the back of my head. As if I was a little child she wanted to comfort. I stopped squeezing my hands in front of my face and, barely keeping up appearnces, grabbed the side folds of her dress, pulled her towards me in response. At one point, I even felt the pain of the patterns on her waist jewelry digging into my cheek and forehead.
"Yes, Lord Stark."
I felt her fingers in my hair - it was the first touch of a woman to whom I felt at least the slightest attraction and did not feel disgust at the same time, for the first time in several moons. So, I swallowed and tried not to think that all this somehow didn't seem like I was in control of the situation.
She continued.
"This is too important a question for me to leave unresolved. But..."
"I forbade him. Damn wolf's blood," I thought for some reason, and decided to say it out loud, I didn't quite understand why.
"Jamie and I..." she began awkwardly, and I tried not to tense up at the mere mention of his name, so she continued more firmly. "Jamie and I also ran and climbed everywhere, Casterly Rock is three times higher than the Hightower, and it is higher than your ice Wall, so..."
I let out a chuckle.
"So it's not about wolf blood, you mean?" I lifted my face and looked at the woman looking down at me, literally.
"Few people took care of me in this fashion, Lady Cersei, I'm the one who takes care of everyone here, so thank you for... compassion. This brought me temporary relief."
She hmmed and stepped back. Her fingers brushed the edge of my ear - not by accident, I was sure - and made me twitch subtly. She noticed, of course.
"You are the Warden of the North, Lord Stark, do you perceive your position as caring for everyone? Didn't you go on all those campaigns with my husband and was raised by the same man as him? Where did such ideas about governance come from?"
"Winter is coming," the Stark generations before Ned said correctly, when you don't know what to say, go back to the motto and say it, you'll pass for the smart one.
This confused the queen and her smirk faded. Her bewilderment could literally be felt in the air - this woman was able to arrogantly raise her eyebrows so that everything was immediately clear.
"We warn about Winter and follow her coming."
I let go of the queen's dress, and she only just noticed that I kept holding on to her. Well, I managed not to trample on each and every bound of decency.
"That's our motto for our enemies, my queen," I continued, and she grinned at me, once again. "For us, this is a warning so that we do not forget about the Long Night and stay ready for it. The unity of the North couldn't have been achieved in any other way than caring for the subjects and cultivating their loyalty to my house. Our loyalty is an advantage that should not be abused, my Queen."
I held her gaze with mine, and she lost her smile again, realizing that I was dead serious.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, Eddard."
She finally switched to names, which was good - this woman seemed to get hints like a giraffe that climbed Casterly Rock, yeah. And the fact that she stated, she wasn't sure, means that she quite clearly understood everything, but she only needs confirmation of her thoughts from me.
"I will need your help, because if we're being honest, I have no one to count on in the Red Keep," I clarified and added. "I propose an alliance. As soon as Robert gets over this itch that I should help him rule and generally be near him in the capital, in whatever capacity, I will propose to resign. That way your father will have the opportunity to become the Hand of the King. And the Lannisters will be happy, and I'll be left alone, and will be able to start preparing more closely for the Long Winter. I wasn't lying about the Night Watch's data on White Walkers. That would be the most moronic lie possible, my queen."
I looked into Cersei's face and caught her odd slyness and mirth.
"I thought it was about something else..." She reached out her hand and playfully, quite definitely ceasing to care about any decency, touched my cheek, scratching the stubble with her nails.
I felt my ears turn red, like I was some kind of teenager - that's what the lack of sex does, to people who are used to it every day, wow. Oh, Kat, couldn't she have ended up with brains, could she? Yes, it is clear that I took the place of her husband, and not she took the place of my wife, but I cannot rape myself or her. If divorces were possible here, and the dissolution of our marriage would not have entailed economic sanctions and a partial collapse of trade routes through the Riverlands, then I would have divorced as soon as I got here.
That's the thing, I can't pretend to be that way - I barely stopped twitching at my wife's touch, and that's because it would arouse suspicion if I allowed myself to pull away from her every time. I don't like the touch of strangers on me, can do nothing, it's an odd quirk if anything.
But I saw this woman for the first time the other day. Yes, she looks somewhat like a blonde Gillian Anderson of thirty years old, yes, she is shapely, with full breasts and unusual eyes, but any move in her direction will be an illustration of a violation of the ancient rule - Do Not Fuck Fire.
The problem is that during all this time, my disgust and unwillingness to accidentally make a bastard did not allow me to have any fun at all. The only woman of my age here, with preference for clean body, was Kat, but having sex with someone else's wife, when she thinks I'm her husband and I don't remember a good part of Eddard's own life, and even more so emotions, somehow stinks... with something not so good.
And Cersei was too much, just too much, for my body and my mind to easily ignore her. I wanted to succumb to temptation, but - Do Not Fuck Fire, yeah.
She didn't wait for my reaction, except for inhaling and swallowing - yes, my mouth watered, yes, Cersei was to blame, there was no one to judge except Cersei herself, and she clearly didn't mind.
"What happened after you left the tower?" She decided to change the subject, but she didn't take her hand off my face, continuing to test her theory.
"I had to check on the Maester before Bran was taken away. If he had broken his spine above the waist, it would have been much more difficult and could have ended in complete paralysis. If the lower back is injured, that would be better news. That is, the son may be able to walk. We moved him with all precautions, and therefore the likelihood of complications due to possible negligence is much less. Could you please..."
"Yes?" she said innocently and immediately decided to scratch under my chin, making me shudder and heavily look at her.
"Don't start something you don't want to finish, Cersei," I muttered and continued the previous thought. "Please help me with the letters to the Citadel. If the Queen asks, they will respond faster. These... used, for a couple of centuries without proper cleaning, old chamber pots respond to me as if they are doing me a favor. I'm too dumb, apparently, to have scientific conversation. I won't even ask Robert, he'd rather offer to finish the kid off than save, I know him..."
"Why do you think, I won't support him in this endeavor?"
She reached my shirt collar with her palm and hooked one of her fingers under it, after that sliding down and lightly pressing between my collarbones with a knuckle.
The motion was curiously sexy when combined with her bitten lower lip and half-closed green eyes.
I couldn't resist and smoothly stood up from the chair, so as not to scare her off, and not to accidentally bump into a fragile - compared to me - woman, right in front of a roaring fireplace.
Do Not Fuck Fire, right?
I stood very close, almost nose to nose, but she's still much shorter than me. There was no smell of unwashed body or dirty clothes in my nostrils, her teeth were obviously brushed and her skin was clean, she smelled of honey and herbal hair products, the smell of winter rose tickled my nose with subtlety - the North has been producing oils with it for centuries, so it was probably there when she took a bath. Cersei's breath was a little alcoholic, but not to the point of disgusting me - breathing the same air with her was not hard and did not upset the mood.
I bent down to her ear, first surrounding the playful - completely inappropriate in view of the tragedy happening to Bran, playful - Queen with a circle of my hands and slightly pulled her to me, thereby I clamped one of her hands between us. The other hand laid on my belt.
"Imagine that this is your Tommen, and then ask yourself why I think you won't support your husband in this," I said this in Cersei's ear in a very calm tone, and did not let her pull away even when my action made her flinch.
I don't know from what, fear or arousal, but I think that the first option is much more likely, because my actions did not coincide at all with the tone of my voice, quite serious and gloomy.
I continued.
"Of course, the father is not the mother, but I love my children. After all, when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."