#My sisters was named Jenny and she had auburn red hair with brown eyes and cute little freckles from the 90's💕

[powersocial]

𝕀𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 '𝔸𝕕𝕠𝕡𝕥 𝕒 𝕊𝕚𝕞' 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕖, 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕠𝕡𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕥𝕠 𝕚𝕟𝕗𝕝𝕦𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕪 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕕𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕠𝕡 𝕓𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕠𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 "𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘".···•✦

❁ You cannot alter ethnicity, but you can make adjustments to them through realistic methods like weight changes and muscle development.

❁ Feel free to use the prompts provided below they are completely optional, or introduce this little baby to your sim family and see how your parenting helps little Summer develop in game! (oﾟvﾟ)ノ (the first prompt isn't really important for Cas but it can give you an idea on the baby's life & personality)

❁ This is my first ever challenge so I'm sorry if their are any inconsistency's! (pls be kind) Don't forget to tag me @powersocial so I can see and share your sims! If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them.

download:🍼𝕃𝕖𝕥'𝕤 𝔸𝕕𝕠𝕡𝕥!🍼(also available on the gallery, ID @seyvia)

✦•·················• 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬! •·················•✦

You could also put the list of prompts on a 'picker wheel' if you'd like! Have fun! ♪(^∇^*)

@ts4challengehub

[butterflies-dragons]

Lúthien and Sansa

Art credit: Lúthien by Aerankai and Sansa by denvertakespics

Recently I started reading about Beren and Lúthien and got really fascinated about how similar Lúthien and Sansa are.

Summary:

1. Beauty

2. Flowery names

3. From dusk to dawn

4. Little birds: nightingales

5. Big birds: eagles and falcons

6. Big cats and big dogs

7. Bat and wolf imagery

8. Singing and dancing

9. Other parallels

10. Beren and Lúthien as inspiration for Jon and Sansa

11. Bonus: from real life to fiction

1. Beauty

Ah, Lúthien! Ah, Lúthien,

more fair than any child of Men!

Oh, loveliest maid of Elvenesse,

what madness doth thee now possess?

Ah, lissom limbs and shadowy hair

and chaplet of white snowdrops there;

oh, starry diadem and bright

soft hands beneath the pale moonlight!

She left his arms and slipped away

just at the breaking of the day.

—Canto VI, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

It is told in the Lay of Leithian that Beren came stumbling into Doriath grey and bowed as with many years of woe, so great had been the torment of the road. But wandering in the summer in the woods of Neldoreth he came upon Luthien, daughter of Thingol and Melian, at a time of evening under moonrise, as she danced upon the unfading grass in the glades beside Esgalduin. Then all memory of his pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment; for Luthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Iluvatar. Blue was her raiment as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were grey as the starlit evening; her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such was her glory and her loveliness; and in her face was a shining light.

[...] The fame of the beauty of Luthien and the wonder of her song had long gone forth from Doriath.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Lúthien was an Elf maiden/half Maia of incomparable beauty and grace, with night-dark hair, sparkling grey eyes, luminous skin, and a clear heartbreakingly lovely voice that was said to cause winter to melt into spring.

Lúthien was said to be the fairest maiden to have ever lived (a description later shared also by Arwen).

Why, O king, I desire thy daughter Tinúviel, for she is the fairest and most sweet of all maidens I have seen or dreamed of.’

Then was there a silence in the hall, save that Dairon laughed, and all who heard were astounded, but Tinúviel cast down her eyes, and the king glancing at the wild and rugged aspect of Beren burst also into laughter, whereat Beren flushed for shame, and Tinúviel’s heart was sore for him. ‘Why! wed my Tinúviel fairest of the maidens of the world, and become a prince of the woodland Elves—’tis but a little boon for a stranger to ask,’ quoth Tinwelint.

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Lúthien inherited her beauty from her mother Melian:

Melian was a fay. In the gardens of [the Vala] Lórien she dwelt, and among all his fair folk none were there that surpassed her beauty, nor none more wise, nor none more skilled in magical and enchanting song.

—Beren and Lúthien, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa is a beautiful maiden as well, she inherited her beauty from her mother Catelyn Tully:

Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

"Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft . . . the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper."

—A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

About Sansa's beauty, as I said before in another post:

I think beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there are certain consensus and there are also certain conflicting reports about “beauty” in the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire. [...] On the other hand, we have characters like Catelyn Tully and Sansa Stark, mother and daughter, that are consensually considered beautiful. Zero conflicting reports. [...] Sansa Stark is called beautiful the most times in the entire series and by so many characters, friends and foes. There is no doubt about her beauty, and sadly that’s why her big lot of haters want for her to be disfigured so badly……….

As you can see, in a series of books full of unreliable narrators, Sansa's beauty is an absolute truth.

As I'm going to explain in the next section, Sansa's beauty is said to be "bewitching". Sansa is an "enchantress" thanks to her beauty.

Here a compilation of all the quotes about Sansa's beauty.

2. Flowery names

Lúthien was born in a forest under the stars, and niphredil first grew at the moment of her birth.

Niphredil was a small white flower that grew first at the moment of Lúthien's birth.

In one of his letters (Nº 312), Tolkien said that niphredil would be a delicate kin of a snowdrop.

The fact that a flower first grew at the moment of Lúthien's birth makes sense with the etymology of the name:

Lúthien is a Sindarin name meaning "Daughter of Flowers". The first element in the name is lúth ("blossom, inflorescence"). The second element is the feminine suffix -ien ("daughter").

In early writings, Doriathrin Luthien and Noldorin Lhūthien meant "enchantress", deriving from Primitive Quendian luktiēnē ("enchantress"; from root LUK "magic, enhantement").

And as it will be explained later, Lúthien wore fragrant flowers in her beautiful black hair.

Lúthien may have been derived from the Old English word Lufien, which means "love".

Sansa is also a flowery name:

The names Arya and Sansa are meant to represent the polar opposites of their characters, Arya being a hard sounding name, Sansa a softer more pretty name, etc.

—GRRM about The Stark Sisters’ Names

Arya, I say it ar-ya, two syllables, not three, not a-ri-a, like an operatic thing, but Arya, very sharp. I wanted something that was like a knife, that was sharp and hard sound, to be a contrast to the flowery Sansa.

—DAYS OF ICE AND FIRE Q&A (Nov. 13 2010)

Sansa is strongly linked with flowers as well (the rose of Winterfell legend, blue winter roses, the scent of flowers along the north bank of the Trident, Loras’s red rose, Myrcella’s garden, the Roadside Rose song, etc).

Sansa wore the red rose that Loras gave her in her hair.

Sansa has a lot of parallels with Jennys of Oldstones, a lady in a song famous for wearing flowers in her hair.

And about "magic", "enchantment" and "enchantress" we have these very telling quotes:

The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.

—A Clash of Kings - Jon III

"Do you require guarding?" Marillion said lightly. "I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. 'The Roadside Rose,' I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Bringing Harry here was the first step in our plan, but now we need to keep him, and only you can do that. He has a weakness for a pretty face, and whose face is prettier than yours? Charm him. Entrance him. Bewitch him."

[...] Ser Harrold looked confused. "Please. One dance."

Charm him. Entrance him. Bewitch him. "If you insist."

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

As you can see, Sansa's beauty is said to be "bewitching". Sansa, like Lúthien, is an "enchantress."

3. From dusk to dawn

Lúthien is also called Tinúviel:

Tinúviel: ‘Daughter of Twilight’ [...].

—List of names in the original texts, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Tinúviel literally means "Daughter of Twilight".

Beren first saw Lúthien dancing and singing in the twilight:

Now the lies of Melko ran among Beren’s folk so that they believed evil things of the secret Elves, yet now did he see Tinúviel dancing in the twilight, and Tinúviel was in a silver-pearly dress, and her bare white feet were twinkling among the hemlock-stems. Then Beren cared not whether she were Vala or Elf or child of Men and crept near to see; and he leant against a young elm that grew upon a mound so that he might look down into the little glade where she was dancing, for the enchantment made him faint.

[...] “By dawn and dusk he sought her, but ever more hopefully when the moon shone bright. At last one night he caught a sparkle afar off, and lo, there she was dancing alone on a little treeless knoll and Dairon was not there. ”

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

At length Beren fled south from the ever-closing circle of those that hunted him, and crossed the dreadful Mountains of Shadow, and came at last worn and haggard into Doriath. There in secret he won the love of Lúthien daughter of Thingol, and he named her Tinúviel, the nightingale, because of the beauty of her singing in the twilight beneath the trees; for she was the daughter of Melian.

—A passage extracted from the Quenta, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

While Lúthien is associated with the twilight and the moon; Sansa is associated with the dawn and the sun:

All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon’s breath surrounded the girls where they lay. “I dreamed of Bran,” Sansa had whispered to him. “I saw him smiling.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard V

One more step, she told herself, one more step. She had to keep moving. If she stopped, she would never start again, and dawn would find her still clinging to the cliff, frozen in fear. One more step, and one more step.

The ground took her by surprise. She stumbled and fell, her heart pounding. When she rolled onto her back and stared up at from where she had come, her head swam dizzily and her fingers clawed at the dirt. I did it. I did it, I didn't fall, I made the climb and now I'm going home.

[...] The eastern sky was vague with the first hint of dawn when Sansa finally saw a ghostly shape in the darkness ahead; a trading galley, her sails furled, moving slowly on a single bank of oars. As they drew closer, she saw the ship's figurehead, a merman with a golden crown blowing on a great seashell horn.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. 

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

More about Sansa and the dawn here.

4. Little birds: nightingales

Tinúviel is also a term to refer to the nightingale:

Tinúviel: [...] nightingale: name given to Lúthien by Beren.

—List of names in the original texts, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Tinúviel is a Sindarin poetic term, though not a literal name, for the 'Nightingale'. This name was first given to Lúthien of Doriath by Beren when he first saw her dancing in the forest.

Lúthien's mother, Melian, is strongly associated with nightingales:

Melian was a fay. In the gardens of [the Vala] Lórien she dwelt, and among all his fair folk none were there that surpassed her beauty, nor none more wise, nor none more skilled in magical and enchanting song. It is told that the Gods would leave their business and the birds of Valinor their mirth, that Valmar’s bells were silent, and the fountains ceased to flow, when at the mingling of the light Melian sang in the gardens of the God of Dreams. Nightingales went always with her, and their song she taught them. But she loved deep shadow, and strayed on long journeys into the Outer Lands [Middle-earth], and there filled the silence of the dawning world with her voice and the voices of her birds.

The nightingales of Melian Thingol heard and was enchanted and left his folk. Melian he found beneath the trees and was cast into a dream and a great slumber, so that his people sought him in vain.

—Beren and Lúthien, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

In an early version of the tale of Beren and Lúthien, she is called "little bird" by Tevildo:

Now gazing therethrough, for it was ajar, she saw the wide vaulted kitchens and the great fires that burnt there, and those that toiled always within, and the most were cats—but behold, there by a great fire stooped Beren, and he was grimed with labour, and Tinúviel sat and wept, but as yet dared nothing. Indeed even as she sat the harsh voice of Tevildo sounded suddenly within that chamber: ‘Nay, where then in Melko’s name has that mad Elf fled,’ and Tinúviel hearing shrank against the wall, but Tevildo caught sight of her where she was perched and cried: ‘Then the little bird sings not any more; come down or I must fetch thee, for behold, I will not encourage the Elves to seek audience of me in mockery.

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Tevildo was a big black cat, tiger size, considered the Prince of Cats:

Tevildo: The Prince of Cats, mightiest of all cats, ‘possessed of an evil spirit’; a close companion of Morgoth.

—List of names in the original texts, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

In contrast to Lúthien being called "little bird" by a big black cat, Sansa is also called "little bird" by a big man dubbed the Hound:

He was mocking her, she realized. "No one could withstand him," she managed at last, proud of herself. It was no lie.

Sandor Clegane stopped suddenly in the middle of a dark and empty field. She had no choice but to stop beside him. "Some septa trained you well. You're like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren't you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite."

"That's unkind." Sansa could feel her heart fluttering in her chest. "You're frightening me. I want to go now."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

As you can see, Lúthien and Sansa are called little birds by a big cat and a big dog respectively, but those beast-like creatures were antagonist figures to our heroines and the term little bird was no endearment but a way to mock and threat them.

We will come back to this cat versus dog issue later.

About Sansa and the nightingale, as I said before in another post:

She [Sansa] is also called “little bird” and a very special little bird, the one that makes the sweetest sounds, is the Nightingale.

The hours in ASOIAF have names. The hour of the Wolf is “the blackest part of the night”, and the hour of the Nightingale, comes after the hour of the Wolf. This means that the hour of the Wolf is exactly before the Dawn or the Hour of the Nightingale. Awesome right?

The song of the nightingale has been described as one of the most beautiful sounds in nature, inspiring songs, fairy tales, opera, books, and a great deal of poetry. And who is the character often described with the sweetest voice in ASOIAF? Yes that’s Sansa Stark, she sings beautifully with the sweetest voice.

So after the Long Night, the Dawn will come. The Starks will be there. Sansa will be there.

More about Sansa and the nightingale here.

Now, the association of Lúthien's mother, Melian, with nightingales:

Melian sang in the gardens of the God of Dreams. Nightingales went always with her, and their song she taught them.

—Beren and Lúthien, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Makes me think about the Children of the Forest and the Old Gods, that are also related with the Starks.

Melian is associated with songbirds, and it is said she taught nightingales how to sing and their music followed her paces. In Valinor, she dwelt in the gardens of Lórien tending its trees, and she was the most beautiful, wise and skilled in songs of enchantment of all the people of Irmo. However she journeyed often to Middle-earth for she loved the deep shadows of trees and forests.

Melian was a Maia. The Maiar were spirits that descended to earth and help to create the world, almost like angels, almost like gods.

The Children of the Forest are called singers, and after their death part of them remains on earth and lives longer inside birds:

Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales.

"The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us woh dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our songs ten thousand years."

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

"Someone else was in the raven," he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. "Some girl. I felt her."

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."

"Do all the birds have singers in them?"

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

As you can see, the Maiar sounds really similar to the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest. Particularly Luthien's mother, Melian, that is associated with trees (Old Gods, weirwoods) and nightingales (crows, ravens).

5. Big birds: eagles and falcons

Lúthien's father, Thingol, locked her up in a tree house, that is basically a bird's nest, since Lúthien is also called Tinúviel that means nightingale:

Now Tinwelint let build high up in that strange tree, as high as men could fashion their longest ladders to reach, a little house of wood, and it was above the first branches and was sweetly veiled in leaves. Now that house had three corners and three windows in each wall, and at each corner was one of the shafts of Hirilorn. There then did Tinwelint bid Tinúviel dwell until she would consent to be wise, and when she fared up the ladders of tall pine these were taken from beneath and no way had she to get down again.

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa, under the guise of Alayne Stone, is the prisoner of Petyr Baelish in the Eyrie, that literally means falcon's nest:

Alayne's apartments in the Maiden's Tower were larger and more lavish than the little bedchamber where she'd been kept when Lady Lysa was alive. She had a dressing room and a privy of her own now, and a balcony of carved white stone that looked off across the Vale. While Gretchel was tending to the fire, Alayne padded barefoot across the room and slipped outside. The stone was cold beneath her feet, and the wind was blowing fiercely, as it always did up here, but the view made her forget all that for half a heartbeat. Maiden's was the easternmost of the Eyrie's seven slender towers, so she had the Vale before her, its forests and rivers and fields all hazy in the morning light. The way the sun was hitting the mountains made them look like solid gold.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

Beren and Lúthien were rescued by great eagles:

Thus the quest of the Silmaril was like to have ended in ruin and despair; but in that hour above the wall of the valley three mighty birds appeared, flying northward with wings swifter than the wind.

Among all birds and beasts the wandering and need of Beren had been noised, and Huan himself had bidden all things watch, that they might bring him aid. High above the realm of Morgoth Thorondor and his vassals soared, and seeing now the madness of the Wolf and Beren’s fall came swiftly down, even as the powers of Angband were released from the toils of sleep. Then they lifted up Beren and Lúthien from the earth, and bore them aloft into the clouds . . .

(As they passed high over the lands) Lúthien wept, for she thought that Beren would surely die; he spoke no word, nor opened his eyes, and knew thereafter nothing of his flight. And at the last the eagles set them down upon the borders of Doriath; and they were come to that same dell whence Beren had stolen in despair and left Lúthien asleep.

There the eagles laid her at Beren’s side and returned to the peaks of Crissaegrim and their high eyries [...].

—The Quenta Silmarillion, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa expects for the Knights of the Vale (falcons) to help her to re-claim Winterfell:

Her eyes widened. "He is not Lady Waynwood's heir. He's Robert's heir. If Robert were to die . . ."

Petyr arched an eyebrow. "When Robert dies. Our poor brave Sweetrobin is such a sickly boy, it is only a matter of time. When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa . . . Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That's worth another kiss now, don't you think?"

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

Sansa also wishes to have falcon's wings:

A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

Unbeknownst to Sansa, another kind of wings are reserved for her. More about this subject later.

6. Big cats and big dogs

During her adventures in order to help Beren, Lúthien interacts with a big black cat named Tevildo, and with a big dog named Huan, a great wolfhound.

As was said before, Tevildo was a big black cat, tiger size, considered the Prince of Cats:

Tevildo The Prince of Cats, mightiest of all cats, ‘possessed of an evil spirit’; a close companion of Morgoth.

—List of names in the original texts, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Tevildo was an evil fay in the form of a great black cat with a collar of gold, which gave him much of his evil power. He was considered a prince of the servants of Melko and lived in a hilltop castle near Angamandi with other tiger-size cats. During the Quest for the Silmaril, Beren was captured by Melko and forced to work in Tevildo's kitchens. However, the cat was defeated by his archenemy Huan and Tinúviel, who forced him to give up his collar and reveal the spell which held the stones of his castle together. Melko learned Tevildo had lost his power and the cats reduced to normal size and exiled them.

Later Tevildo's place in the narrative was replaced by that of the Necromancer, Thû (later renamed Sauron), in the later Legendarium. Thû (and later Sauron) was the "Lord of Werewolves", in contrast to Tevildo's position as "Prince of Cats"; the cat-versus-dog theme prominent in the "Tale of Tinúviel" was thus eliminated in later writings.

Here we can see an illustration of Luthien's encounter with Tevildo:

Art credit: “but Tevildo caught sight of her where she was perched” by Alan Lee for Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Don't you find this scene familiar? A beautiful lady encountering with a black cat while she is pressed against a wall?

When I read about Tevildo discovering Lúthien shrunk against the wall:

Now gazing therethrough, for it was ajar, she saw the wide vaulted kitchens and the great fires that burnt there, and those that toiled always within, and the most were cats—but behold, there by a great fire stooped Beren, and he was grimed with labour, and Tinúviel sat and wept, but as yet dared nothing. Indeed even as she sat the harsh voice of Tevildo sounded suddenly within that chamber: ‘Nay, where then in Melko’s name has that mad Elf fled,’ and Tinúviel hearing shrank against the wall, but Tevildo caught sight of her where she was perched and cried: ‘Then the little bird sings not any more; come down or I must fetch thee, for behold, I will not encourage the Elves to seek audience of me in mockery.

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

I immediately thought of Sansa's encounter with Balerion, that black tomcat of the Red Keep while she was pressed against a wall:

The noise receded as she moved deeper into the castle, never daring to look back for fear that Joffrey might be watching … or worse, following. The serpentine steps twisted ahead, striped by bars of flickering light from the narrow windows above. Sansa was panting by the time she reached the top. She ran down a shadowy colonnade and pressed herself against a wall to catch her breath. When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

And who was Balerion the black tomcat?

The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies’ cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel … all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. “That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child.”

—A Game of Thrones - Arya III

As you can see, Tevildo and Balerion sound very similar, both are black cats, both are called evil, both live in a castle, both are considered royals, Tevildo a prince, Balerion a king, and both found a beautiful lady pressed against a wall.

On the other hand, Lúthien befriends a great wolfhound named Huan.

Huan, the Hound of Valinor, was a great wolfhound, one of the hunting dogs of Oromë the Hunter.

Huan was given by Oromë to his friend Celegorm, one of the Sons of Fëanor and accompanied him on his huntings in the regions of Valinor. When the Ñoldor under Fëanor rebelled, Huan went with his master to Middle-earth.

Huan was with Celegorm and Curufin who were hunting when he smelled Lúthien and captured and brought the maid before Celegorm.

Celegorm captured Lúthien and plotted to marry her, thus forcing a bond of kinship with Lúthien's father, Thingol.

But Huan the hound was true of heart, and the love of Luthien had fallen upon him in the first hour of their meeting; and he grieved at her captivity. Therefore he came often to her chamber; and at night he lay before her door, for he felt that evil had come to Nargothrond. Luthien spoke often to Huan in her loneliness, telling of Beren, who was the friend of all birds and beasts that did not serve Morgoth; ad Huan understood all that was said. For he comprehended the speech of all things with voice; but it was permitted to him thrice only ere his death to speak with words. Now Huan devised a plan for the aid of Luthien; and coming at a time of night he brought her cloak, and for the first time he spoke, giving her counsel. Then he led her by secret ways out of Nargothrond, and they fled north together; and he humbled his pride and suffered her to ride upon him in the fashion of a steed, even as the Orcs did at times upon great wolves. Thus they made great speed, for Huan was swift and tireless.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

So, in a superficial layer, Huan could be paralleled with Sandor Clegane, dubbed the Hound, since Huan was Celegorm's hunting hound and the Hound was the sworn sword and later Kingsguard of Joffrey Baratheon.

Celegorm was dubbed the Fair, had fair hair and was a great huntsman, the same way Joffrey was blonde and comely, and loved hunting and killing.

Celegorm wanted to marry Lúthien while Joffrey was actually betrothed with Sansa.

There is also the fact that Huan helped Lúthien escape the imprisonment imposed by Celegorm, gave her back her magic cloak (made of her shadowy hair), and fled north together, that somehow reversely resembles Sandor Clegane's offer to Sansa to help her flee north the night of the battle of the Blackwater, offer that Sansa rejected. That same night after a sexual assault attempt, the Hound ripped his white kingsguard's cloak (stained by blood and fire) off and left it fell on the floor.

But in a deeper layer, Huan was to Lúthien the same way the direwolves are to the Stark children.

Indeed, Huan was a gift from a god, the same way the direwolves were a gift from the Old Gods to the Stark children.

Among the six direwolves, Ghost is the one that resembles Huan the most, not only because Huan, despite having grey fur, is often depicted as white, as you can see here:

Art credit: "Luthien and Huan" by Elena Kukanova

But because Huan, like Ghost, is mute.

Huan had been granted special powers by the Valar, he was as large as a small horse, immortal, tireless and sleepless, and was allowed to speak three times before he died. It was also prophesied that he could not be killed unless it was by the greatest wolf that ever lived; in this case a werewolf.

Huan, taking pity of Lúthien disobeyed his master Celegorm, helped her scape, joined Beren and Lúthien in their quest and adventures, turned against his master to protect Lúthien and ultimately died protecting Beren.

Huan used the three times he was allowed to speak to help Beren and Lúthien and say farewell to them.

In a similar way, despite being mute, Jon was the only one that "heard" Ghost in the summer snows when the Starks found the direwolves.

Now, in an early version of the tale of Beren and Lúthien, Tevildo the Prince of Cats clashed against Huan the great wolfhound. It was a battle between a cat and a dog, Tevildo and Huan were archenemies. But in later versions of the tale, Tevildo was replaced by Sauron, who clashed against Huan, after taking the form of a werewolf. Huan won that battle. But much later, Huan was mortally wounded by Carcharoth, the greatest, most powerful wolf to ever live, and Huan died according it was prophesied.

The clash and contrast between wolves and hounds is also present in the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire; but in this case, the direwolves are the heroes while the hounds are the antagonists (Bolton's bitches, the Hound, etc).

This wolves versus hounds theme is particularly depicted in Jon's and Sansa's chapters:

Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls. One of them, a black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a scent of the chicken. She stopped and edged under the bench to get a share. Jon watched the confrontation. The bitch growled low in her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent, and fixed the dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge. She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not move. He stood over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his fangs. The bitch tensed, barked again, then thought better of this fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last defiant snap to save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal.

Jon grinned and reached under the table to ruffle the shaggy white fur. The direwolf looked up at him, nipped gently at his hand, then went back to eating.

—A Game of Thrones - Jon I

Rattleshirt’s dogs greeted him with a chorus of snarls and growls and wild barking, as ever, but the direwolf paid them no mind. Six days ago, the largest hound had attacked him from behind as the wildlings camped for the night, but Ghost had turned and lunged, sending the dog fleeing with a bloody haunch. The rest of the pack maintained a healthy distance after that.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon I

"They’re dogs and he’s a wolf,” said Jon. “They know he’s not their kind.” No more than I am yours.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon I

It happened twice more that night, and again in the morning, when she woke to find him hard. The wildlings were stirring by then, and several could not help but notice what was going on beneath the pile of furs. Jarl told them to be quick about it, before he had to throw a pail of water over them. Like a pair of rutting dogs, Jon thought afterward. Was that what he’d become?

—A Storm of Swords - Jon III

Eddard Stark had left before dawn, Septa Mordane informed Sansa as they broke their fast. “The king sent for him. Another hunt, I do believe. There are still wild aurochs in these lands, I am told.”

“I’ve never seen an aurochs,” Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. The direwolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen.

Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. “A noble lady does not feed dogs at her table,” she said, breaking off another piece of comb and letting the honey drip down onto her bread.

“She’s not a dog, she’s a direwolf,” Sansa pointed out as Lady licked her fingers with a rough tongue. “Anyway, Father said we could keep them with us if we want.”

The septa was not appeased. “You’re a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you’re as willful as your sister Arya.” She scowled. “And where is Arya this morning?”

“She wasn’t hungry,” Sansa said, knowing full well that her sister had probably stolen down to the kitchen hours ago and wheedled a breakfast out of some cook’s boy.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. “I wish that you were Lady,” she said.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

The same way Lúthien bonded with Huan, I can see Sansa bonding with Ghost when she meets with Jon Snow and the mute direwolf again. Oh it would be so sweet...

7. Bat and wolf imagery

At some point during their adventures, Lúthien took the form of a giant bat while Beren took the form of a werewolf.

To transform into a giant bat, Lúthien used the coat of a female vampire servant of Sauron named Thuringwethil, as a cloak. The same way Beren transforms into a werewolf by using the coat of a werewolf named Draugluin as a cloak as well.

And then the giant bat rode upon the werewolf:

Long he [Huan] had pondered in his heart what counsel he could devise for the lightning of the peril of these two whom he loved. He turned aside therefore at Sauron's isle, as they ran northward again, and he took thence the ghastly wolf-hame of Draugluin, and the bat-fell of ThurIngwethil. She was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire's form to Angband; and her greatfingered wings were barbed at each joint's end with and iron claw. Clad in these dreadful garments Huan and Luthien ran through Taur-nu-Fuin, and all things fled before them.

Beren seeing their approach was dismayed; and he wondered, for he had heard the voice of Tinuviel, and he thought it now a phantom for his ensnaring. But they halted and cast aside their disguise, and Luthien ran towards him.

[...] By the counsel of Huan and the arts of Luthien he was arrayed now in the hame of Draugluin, and she in the winged fell of ThurIngwethil. Beren became in all things like a werewolf to look upon, save that in his eyes there shone a spirit grim indeed but clean; and horror was in his glance as he saw upon his flank a batlike creature clinging with creased wings. Then howling under the moon he leaped down the hill, and the bat wheeled and flittered above him.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Huan stayed with Lúthien, and hearing of their perplexity and the purpose Beren had still to go to Angband, he went and fetched them from the ruined halls of Thû a werewolf’s coat and a bat’s. Three times only did Huan speak with the tongue of Elves or Men. The first was when he came to Lúthien in Nargothrond. This was the second, when he devised the desperate counsel for their quest. So they rode North, till they could no longer go on horse in safety. Then they put on the garments as of wolf and bat, and Lúthien in guise of evil fay rode upon the werewolf.

—A further extract from the Quenta, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Now there he laid

before their feet, as dark as shade,

two grisly shapes that he had won

from that tall isle in Sirion:

a wolfhame huge—its savage fell

was long and matted, dark the spell

that drenched the dreadful coat and skin;

the werewolf cloak of Draugluin;

the other was a batlike garb

with mighty fingered wings, a barb

like iron nail at each joint’s end—

such wings as their dark cloud extend

against the moon, when in the sky

from Deadly Nightshade screeching fly

Thû’s messengers.

—The narrative in the Lay of Leithian to its termination, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Draugluin: Greatest of the werewolves of Thû (Sauron).

Thuringwethil: Name taken by Lúthien in bat-form before Morgoth.

—List of names in the original texts, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa is said to have taken the form of a wolf with big leather wings like a bat:

"The Imp, it's thought. Him and his little wife."

"What wife?"

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head."

That's stupid, Arya thought. Sansa only knows songs, not spells, and she'd never marry the Imp.

—A Storm of Swords - Arya XIII

Songs can be spells as well, Arya... Just ask Lúthien.

The image of a giant bat riding upon a werewolf sounds pretty similar to a wolf with big leather wings like a bat.

There is also the fact that GRRM has used "bat wings" as a reference to "dragon wings," and Sansa has a lot of bat/dragon wings imagery around her.

We will come back to this bat and wolf imagery issue later.

To finish this section, I leave you with this crossover fan-art where Lúthien, very impressed, asks Sansa about the rumor of her transformation into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat.

8. Singing and dancing

Before meeting Beren, Lúthien lived a peaceful life singing and dancing beautifully in the forest:

But Tinúviel’s joy was rather in the dance, and no names are set with hers for the beauty and subtlety of her twinkling feet.

Now it was the delight of Dairon and Tinúviel to fare away from the cavernous palace of Tinwelint their father and together spend long time amid the trees. There often would Dairon sit upon a tussock or a tree-root and make music while Tinúviel danced thereto, and when she danced to the playing of Dairon more lissom was she than Gwendeling, more magical than Tinfang Warble neath the moon, nor may any see such lilting save be it only in the rose gardens of Valinor where Nessa dances on the lawns of never-fading green.

[...] “Often and often she came there after and danced and sang to herself.”

[...] At length one day as she danced alone he stepped out more boldly and said to her: ‘Tinúviel, teach me to dance.’ ‘Who art thou?’ said she. ‘Beren. I am from across the Bitter Hills.’ ‘Then if thou wouldst dance, follow me,’ said the maiden, and she danced before Beren away, and away into the woods, nimbly and yet not so fast that he could not follow, and ever and anon she would look back and laugh at him stumbling after, saying ‘Dance, Beren, dance! as they dance beyond the Bitter Hills!’ In this way they came by winding paths to the abode of Tinwelint, and Tinúviel beckoned Beren beyond the stream, and he followed her wondering down into the cave and the deep halls of her home.”

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

As it will be explained later, Lúthien's singing and dancing are not only beautiful aesthetically, those skills were magic and worked as spells and enchantments as well.

Leaving out the actual singers, Sansa is the female character more connected with music, singing and dancing. She plays some instruments (high harp, bells), has a sweet singing voice and loves to dance:

Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet. Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly.

—A Storm of Swords - Arya IV

Winterfell, she might have said. I smell snow and smoke and pine needles. I smell the stables. I smell Hodor laughing, and Jon and Robb battling in the yard, and Sansa singing about some stupid lady fair. [...]

—A Feast for Crows - Arya II

“Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII

When the musicians began to play, she timidly laid her hand on Tyrion's and said, "My lord, should we lead the dance?"

[...] "Lady Sansa." Ser Garlan Tyrell stood beside the dais. "Would you honor me? If your lord consents?"

The Imp's mismatched eyes narrowed. "My lady can dance with whomever she pleases."

Perhaps she ought to have remained beside her husband, but she wanted to dance so badly . . .

[...] Smiling, she let the music take her, losing herself in the steps, in the sound of flute and pipes and harp, in the rhythm of the drum . . . and from time to time in Ser Garlan's arms, when the dance brought them together.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

"Lord Nestor will have no singers at the feast, only flutes and fiddles for the dancing." What would she do when the music began to play? It was a vexing question, to which her heart and head gave different answers. Sansa loved to dance, but Alayne...

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

"Would you honor me with this dance, my lady?"

"You're very kind," she said, as he led her to the floor.

He was her first partner of the evening, but far from the last. Just as Petyr had promised, the young knights flocked around her, vying for her favor.

[. . . ] When the dance was done she excused herself, and went back to her place to have a drink of wine.

And there he stood, Harry the Heir himself; tall, handsome, scowling. "Lady Alayne. May I partner you in this dance?"

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

As we will see in a next section, Sansa's singing already performed an act of magic/enchantment, she tamed a wild beast full of rage and lust.

9. Other parallels

9.1. Beautiful hair

Lúthien and Sansa have beautiful hair that is their signature feature:

[...] but dark as shadow was her hair [...]

—Canto I, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

[...] and the hair of Tinúviel which was dark and finer than the most delicate threads of twilight began suddenly to grow very fast indeed [...]

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She [Sansa] had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft . . . the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper."

—A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

"You will be the most beautiful woman in the hall tonight, as lovely as your lady mother at your age. I cannot seat you on the dais, but you'll have a place of honor above the salt and underneath a wall sconce. The fire will be shining in your hair, so everyone will see how fair of face you are.

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Lúthien wore fragrant flowers in her beautiful black hair:

[...] and from her hair the fragrance fell

of elvenflowers in elven-dell.

—Canto V, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

The perfume of her flower-twined hair [...]

—Canto IX, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

Behind closed doors

they sat, while Beren told his tale

of Doriath; and words him fail

recalling Lúthien dancing fair

with wild white roses in her hair [...]

—A second extract from The Lay of Leithian, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

This reminds me of Jenny of Oldstones, a lady in a song famous for wearing flowers in her hair:

"There's a song," he remembered. "'Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her hair.'"

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

As was mentioned previously in this post, Sansa is strongly linked with flowers as well (the rose of Winterfell legend, blue winter roses, the scent of flowers along the north bank of the Trident, Loras’s red rose, Myrcella’s garden, the Roadside Rose song, etc).

Sansa wore the red rose that Loras gave her in her hair.

Sansa has a lot of parallels with Jennys of Oldstones. You can read about it here:

WE’RE ALL JUST SONGS IN THE END. IF WE ARE LUCKY: JENNY OF OLDSTONES AND THE PRINCE OF DRAGONFLIES

THE BLACK PRINCE WITH THE WHITE GUARDIAN - Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, the Tourney at Ashford Meadow and the songs about Florian and Jonquil.

9.2. Radiant

Lúthien is often described as radiant:

[...] and there she dances all alone

upon a treeless knoll of stone!

Her mantle blue with jewels white

caught all the rays of frosted light.

She shone with cold and wintry flame,

as dancing down the hill she came,

and passed his watchful silent gaze,

a glimmer as of stars ablaze.

—Canto IV, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

[...] for Luthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Iluvatar. Blue was her raiment as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were grey as the starlit evening; her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such was her glory and her loveliness; and in her face was a shining light.

[...] But suddenly some power, descended from of old from divine race, possessed Luthien, and casting back her foul raiment she stood forth, small before the might of Carcharoth, but radiant and terrible.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa is described as radiant by Jon:

His half sisters escorted the royal princes. Arya was paired with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than hers. Sansa, two years older, drew the crown prince, Joffrey Baratheon. He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than either, to Jon's vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his sister's hair and his mother's deep green eyes. A thick tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but Jon did not like Joffrey's pouty lips or the bored, disdainful way he looked at Winterfell's Great Hall.

—A Game of Thrones - Jon I

The word “radiant” has romantic connotations, especially if you consider that GRRM’s love for medieval tourneys started with the movie Ivanhoe (1952), years before he even read the actual book by Sir Walter Scott. In the movie Liz Taylor played the role of the Jew girl Rebecca, and little George fell in love with her. When the author remembered his young infatuation, he referred to the actress as “radiant.”  Read more about it here.

9.3. Skinchanging

As was explained previously, Lúthien had the ability of shapeshifting. She turned into a giant bat by wearing a female vampire's coat as a cloak and helped Beren to turn into a werewolf by wearing a werewolf's coat as a cloak as well. Then the bat rode upon the werewolf.

This image of a giant bat riding upon a werewolf is very similar to the image of Sansa turning into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat.

Sansa is a skinchanger as well.

Acording to GRRM, all the Stark children are wargs or skinchangers:

“I don’t think this is necessarily a ‘Stark’ ability, though all the children have it to one extent or another. They also realize it to one extent or another”. [Source]

Q: Are all the Stark children wargs/skin changers with their wolves? A: To a greater or lesser degree, yes, but the amount of control varies widely. [Source]

Oh, George said all the Stark children of this generation were full Wargs. I thought they were like one shot Wargs and were only bonded to their wolves but no they can warg into just about anything. Bran is just the only one working on it. [Source]

All of the Stark children were blessed with a direwolf and the ability to change skins with those magical creatures. The direwolves were sent by the old gods to protect and guide the Stark children. The direwolves are not only protectors and guides for the Stark children, they are also one with them.

Since Lady died, Sansa lost the opportunity to form a deeper bond with her wolf and to further develop and recognize her skinchanger abilities.

But I believe that Lady’s soul still remains in the world, and that’s why Bran calls and counts Sansa’s wolf as “Lady’s Shade.”

So it is possible that part of Lady still remains inside of Sansa, and that’s why Sansa always dreams with Lady (wolf dreams). Only Jon stopped dreaming with Ghost for a time, coincidentally, when they were separated by the Wall.

Most of Sansa’s dreams with Lady are about both of them running in a godswood (Lady’s bones are buried near Winterfell’s godswood), and although Sansa doesn’t remember much of her dreams, she always whispers and/or wakes up with Lady’s name on her lips. Even after her nightmares, she thinks of her Lady.

Some readers have speculated about Sansa and her link with other animals, and the possibility of Sansa changing skins with them, like the black tomcat of the Red Keep, the old blind dog of the Fingers, and even the blue falcon that she observed flying above the Eyrie.

During her encounter with the black tomcat of the Red Keep, Sansa “almost jumped out her skin.” This is a very interesting wording that almost sounds like skinchanging:

The serpentine steps twisted ahead, striped by bars of flickering light from the narrow windows above. Sansa was panting by the time she reached the top. She ran down a shadowy colonnade and pressed herself against a wall to catch her breath. When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

“Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you”, maybe, that’s why after approaching Sansa willingly, the black tomcat “spit at her and leapt away”. This scene happens when Sansa was coming to the godswood to meet with Dontos for the first time. After Sansa arrives, she immediately thinks of Lady.

Sansa bonds with the old blind dog of the Fingers fast and easily. The dog is affectionate, tries to defend Sansa from Marillion’s attack, and is next to her after the nightmares of past sexual abuse by the Hound and Tyrion, provoked by the singer’s attack:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends. […] “Alayne.” Her aunt’s singer stood over her. “Sweet Alayne. I am Marillion. I saw you come in from the rain. The night is chill and wet. Let me warm you.” The old dog raised his head and growled, but the singer gave him a cuff and sent him slinking off, whimpering. […] “I’ll have a song from you,” he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. “I wish that you were Lady,” she said.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

And once again trapped in a tower, Sansa wishes she has wings:

A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

As you can see, Sansa warging abilities are hidden so deep in the text, they only shyly appear in the middle of George’s prose as little pieces of poetry:

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.

Now tell me, what is that if not skinchanging?

And talking about birds, Sansa has already changed her skin with some birds, she was a talking little bird of the Summer Islands (repeating the right things to survive), then a mockingbird (as Petyr Baelish daughter), and she’s about to become a falcon (if she marries Harry).

And since cloaks could also be considered another skin, Sansa has already changed various cloaks. She was cloaked by a Lannister, then by her new father Petyr Baelish, and is about to be cloaked again by an Arryn.

But Sansa is a wolf, no matter how many skins she wears, she will always be a wolf.

And while Sansa wishes she had feathery wings, unbeknownst to her, she became part of the popular folklore when the smallfolk began to imagine her as a witchy kingslayer that later vanished in a puff of brimstone or changed into a “wolf with big leather wings like a bat” and flew away:

“I forgot, you’ve been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head.”

—A Storm of Swords - Arya XIII

“The dwarf’s wife did the murder with him,” swore an archer in Lord Rowan’s livery. “Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws.”

—A Storm of Swords - Jaime VII

In the same book and with a very similar wording, Jon dreams of a ghastly direwolf wandering around the Crypts of Winterfell:

The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. “Ygritte?” he whispered. “Forgive me. Please.” But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his her golden eyes shining sadly through the dark . .

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

My personal theory is that the ghastly direwolf is Lady, because, among other reasons, this wouldn’t be the first time that Jon confused Ygritte with another redhead.

These legends of Sansa the witch, the unnatural warg, the beastling, the skinchanger, the winged wolf that flew away from a tower window or vanished in a puff of brimstone, are at the same level of the legends about Bloodraven warging into a one-eyed dog and turning into a mist from a century ago:

How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? the riddle ran. A thousand eyes, and one. Some claimed the King’s Hand was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, put on the likeness of a one-eyed dog, even turn into a mist. Packs of gaunt gray wolves hunted down his foes, men said, and carrion crows spied for him and whispered secrets in his ear. Most of the tales were only tales, Dunk did not doubt, but no one could doubt that Bloodraven had informers everywhere.

—The Mystery Knight

If Sansa or Lady’s Shade have really changed skins with the old blind dog of the Fingers, that would be almost the same as Bloodraven warging or shapechanging into a one-eyed dog. By the way, the old blind dog’s master’s name was Bryen, a name way too similar to Brynden (Bloodraven’s name)…

But back again to the “wolf with big leather wings like a bat.” This interesting image reminds me of dragons instead of bats, and I think that was precisely George’s intention, he was subtly referring to dragon wings:

[…] “They say the child was …” […] “Monstrous,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. […] “Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat.

—A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

In the center of the Plaza of Pride stood a red brick fountain whose waters smelled of brimstone, and in the center of the fountain a monstrous harpy made of hammered bronze. Twenty feet tall she reared. She had a woman’s face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion’s curled and venomous tail.

—A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

Tyrion scarce touched his food, Sansa noticed, though he drank several cups of the wine. For herself, she tried a little of the Dornish eggs, but the peppers burned her mouth. Otherwise she only nibbled at the fruit and fish and honeycakes. Every time Joffrey looked at her, her tummy got so fluttery that she felt as though she'd swallowed a bat.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

So, this fascinating image of a “wolf with big leather wings like a bat” could be foreshadowing of Sansa wearing a Targaryen cloak in the future. Or at least having the support and protection of someone related to dragons.

9.4. Hades and Persephone imagery

Beren and Lúthien have a heavy Hades and Persephone imagery around them.

Lúthien could melt winter into spring with the magic of her voice and song.

During their adventures, Beren was severely wounded many times, and while Lúthien had healing abilities, one time he was nearly dead and other time he actually died.

After losing his hand, Beren recovers only after a long period of unconsciousness, and it was said that when he woke the spring came again.

Later, when Beren actually died, Lúthien descended to the lands of death and winter came over the lands of her father. Then, after gaining Beren's life again, she came back to earth and ended the winter with the touch of her hands.

These quotes exempt me from further explanation:

The wind of winter winds his horn;

the misty veil is rent and torn.

The wind dies; the starry choirs

leap in the silent sky to fires

whose light comes bitter-cold and sheer

through domes of frozen crystal clear.

A sparkle through the darkling trees,

a piercing glint of light he sees,

and there she dances all alone

upon a treeless knoll of stone!

Her mantle blue with jewels white

caught all the rays of frosted light.

She shone with cold and wintry flame,

as dancing down the hill she came,

and passed his watchful silent gaze,

a glimmer as of stars ablaze.

And snowdrops sprang beneath her feet,

and one bird, sudden, late and sweet,

shrilled as she wayward passed along.

A frozen brook to bubbling song

awoke and laughed; but Beren stood

still bound enchanted in the wood.

Her starlight faded and the night

closed o'er the snowdrops glimmering white.

Thereafter on a hillock green

he saw far off the elven-sheen

of shining limb and jewel bright

often and oft on moonlit night;

and Daeron's pipe awoke once more,

and soft she sang as once before.

Then nigh he stole beneath the trees,

and heartache mingled with hearts-ease.

A night there was when winter died;

then all alone she sang and cried

and danced until the dawn of spring, [...]

—Canto IV, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

And he saw her afar as leaves in the winds of autumn, and in winter as a star upon a hill, but a chain was upon his limbs. There came a time near dawn on the eve of spring, and Luthien danced upon a green hill; and suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Luthien released the behind the walls of the world; and the song of Luthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet had passed. Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinuviel; and the woods echoed the name. Then she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking.

[...] Now Beren and Luthien Tinuviel went free again and together walked through the woods renewing for a time their joy; and though winter came it hurt them not, for flowers lingered where Luthien went, and the birds sang beneath the snow clad hills.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

There the eagles laid her at Beren’s side and returned to the peaks of Crissaegrim and their high eyries; but Huan came to her, and together they tended Beren, even as before when she healed him of the wound that Curufin gave to him. But this wound was fell and poisonous. Long Beren lay, and his spirit wandered upon the dark borders of death, knowing ever an anguish that pursued him from dream to dream. Then suddenly, when her hope was almost spent, he woke again, and looked up, seeing leaves against the sky; and he heard beneath the leaves singing soft and slow beside him LúthienTinúviel. And it was spring again.

Thereafter Beren was named Erchamion, which is the One-handed; and suffering was graven in his face. But at last he was drawn back to life by the love of Lúthien, and he rose, and together they walked in the woods once more.

—The Quenta Silmarillion, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

For the spirit of Beren at her bidding tarried in the halls of Mandos, unwilling to leave the world, until Lúthien came to say her last farewell upon the dim shores of the Outer Sea, whence Men that die set out never to return. But the spirit of Lúthien fell down into darkness, and at the last it fled, and her body lay like a flower that is suddenly cut off and lies for a while unwithered on the grass.

Then a winter, as it were the hoar age of mortal Men, fell upon Thingol. But Lúthien came to the halls of Mandos, where are the appointed places of the Eldalië, beyond the mansions of the West upon the confines of the world. There those that wait sit in the shadow of their thought. But her beauty was more than their beauty, and her sorrow deeper than their sorrows; and she knelt before Mandos and sang to him.

The song of Lúthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and listening the Valar are grieved. For Lúthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Ilúvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon the stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since. Therefore he summoned Beren, and even as Lúthien had spoken in the hour of his death they met again beyond the Western Sea. But Mandos had no power to withhold the spirits of Men that were dead within the confines of the world after their time of waiting; nor could he change the fates of the Children of Ilúvatar. He went therefore to Manwë, Lord of the Valar, who governed the world under the hand of Ilúvatar; and Manwë sought counsel in his inmost thought, where the will of Ilúvatar was revealed. These were the choices that he gave to Lúthien. Because of her labours and her sorrow, she could be released from Mandos, and go to Valimar, there to dwell until the world's end among the Valar, forgetting all griefs that her life had known. Thither Beren could not come. For it was not permitted to the Valar to withhold Death from him, which is the gift of Ilúvatar to Men. But the other choice was this: that she might return to Middle-earth, and take with her Beren, there to dwell again, but without certitude of life or joy. Then she would become mortal, and subject to a second death, even as he; and ere long she would leave the world for ever, and her beauty become only a memory in song. This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world. So it was that alone of the Eldalië she has died indeed, and left the world long ago. Yet in her choice the Two Kindreds have been joined; and she is the forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, though all the world is changed, the likeness of Lúthien the beloved, whom they have lost.

—The Lost Cantos, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

It is said that Beren and Lúthien returned to the northern lands of Middle-earth, and dwelt together for a time as living man and woman; and they took up again their mortal form in Doriath. Those that saw them were both glad and fearful; and Lúthien went to Menegroth and healed the winter of Thingol with the touch of her hand. But Melian looked in her eyes and read the doom that was written there, and turned away; for she knew that a parting beyond the end of the world had come between them, and no grief of loss has been heavier than the grief of Melian the Maia in that hour. Then Beren and Lúthien went forth alone, fearing neither thirst nor hunger; and they passed beyond the River Gelion into Ossiriand, and dwelt there in Tol Galen the green isle, in the midst of Adurant, until all tidings of them ceased. The Eldar afterwards called that country Dor Firn-i-Guinar, the Land of the Dead that Live; and there was born Dior Aranel the beautiful, who was after known as Dior Eluchíl, which is Thingol's Heir. No mortal man spoke ever again with Beren son of Barahir; and none saw Beren or Lúthien leave the world, or marked where at last their bodies lay.

—Epilogue, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

Jon and Sansa have Hades and Persephone imagery around them as well.

Jon as Hades:

Despite being born in Dorne, Jon is a son of Winterfell.

In the Prologue of A Game of Thrones we can read that Waymar Royce, Jon's stand in, died at the hands of the Others, in an eriily similar way that Jon would die four books later at the hands of his brothers of the Night's Watch (foreshadowing of Jon's death Nº 1).

Jon played to be a Ghost at the Crypts of Winterfell (foreshadowing of Jon's death Nº 2).

Jon named his mute albino direwolf Ghost (foreshadowing of Jon's death Nº 3).

And in A Dance with Dragons, Jon actually died.

One of Jon's killers was Bowen Marsh dubbed the Old Pomegranate.

We can read the words "a dream of spring" in one of Jon's chapters (A Storm of Swords - Jon V).

Sansa as Persephone:

Persephone and Sansa are renowned beauties.

Sansa was born during winter, she is the Winterfell's daughter.

Sansa is heavily linked with the dawn and the sun (Battle for the Dawn to defeat the Long Night/Long Winter).

An important theme in Sansa's arc is rebuilding, which is connected with rebuild a life after the Long Night/Long Winter. A dream of spring.

GRRM has linked Sansa to the warmer seasons (spring and summer) through her favorite dessert, lemon cakes.

Sansa is deeply associated with flowers, thus with spring.

Sansa rejected the pomegranate from Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish.

Jon's death is foreshadowed (hidden daggers) in one of Sansa's chapters (A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI).

Sansa sensed Jon's death: "A ghost wolf, big as mountains." (A Feast for Crows - Alayne II).

Lady, part of Sansa, already died and is buried at Winterfell.

Read more about it here:

Some thoughts on Sansa and Jon, by Tze

The Pomegranate Imagery - Jonsa, ASOS.

Sansa as Persephone

The King and Queen in the North vs. the King and Queen of the Underworld

9.5. Daeron the minstrel

There often would Dairon sit upon a tussock or a tree-root and make music while Tinúviel danced thereto, and when she danced to the playing of Dairon more lissom was she than Gwendeling, more magical than Tinfang Warble neath the moon, nor may any see such lilting save be it only in the rose gardens of Valinor where Nessa dances on the lawns of never-fading green.

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

Daeron is mentioned as one of the greatest minstrels of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and only Maglor son of Fëanor is said to come close to his skill. Also in the Lay of Leithian there is named one called Tinfang Gelion who is counted among the three great minstrels, along with Maglor and Daeron.

Daeron loved Lúthien, but she did not love him. Nevertheless they were good friends, and Lúthien would often dance to his music. After Daeron found out about Lúthien's love for the mortal Beren, he betrayed them both to Thingol. When Lúthien later sought his help in assisting captive Beren, Daeron again betrayed her to Thingol, though this time in love and fear for her rather than jealousy.

Thereafter often she came to him, and they went in secret through the woods together from spring to summer; and no others of the Children of Iluvatar have had joy so great, though the time was brief. But Daeron the minstrel also loved Luthien, and he espied her meetings with Beren, and betrayed them to Thingol. Then the King was filled with anger, for Luthien he loved above all things, setting her above all the princes of the Elves; whereas mortal Men he did not even take into his service. Therefore he spoke in grief and amazement to Luthien; but she would reveal nothing, until he swore an oath to her that he would neither slay Beren nor imprison him.

[...] In the time when Sauron cast Beren into the pit a weight of horror came upon Luthien's heart; and going to Melian for counsel she learned that Beren lay in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth without hope of rescue. Then Luthien, perceiving that no help would come from any other on earth, resolved to fly from Doriath and come herself to him; but she sought the aid of Daeron, and he betrayed her purpose because he would not deprive Luthien of the lights of heaven, lest she fail and fade, and yet would restrain her, he caused a house to be built from which she should not escape.

[...] Upon Doriath evil days had fallen. Grief and silence had come upon all its people when Luthien was lost. Long they had sought for her in vain. And it is told that in that time Daeron the minstrel of Thingol strayed from the land, and was seen no more. He it was that made music for the dance and song of Luthien, before Beren came to Doriath; and he had loved her, and set all his thought of her in his music. He became the greatest of all the minstrels of the Elves east of the Sea, named even before Maglor son of Feanor. But seeking for Luthien in despair he wandered upon strange paths, and passing over the mountains he came into the East of Middle-earth, where for many ages he made lament beside dark waters for Luthien, daughter of Thingol, most beautiful of all living things.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Daeron reminds me of Marillion, the singer that tried to seduce and rape Sansa.

Marillion witnessed Lysa's attempt to murder Sansa and did nothing but keep singing and playing his harp. Marillion's passion for Sansa/Alayne was unrequited, similar to Daeron's unrequite love for Lúthien.

9.6. Foes

During the events of the Quest for the Silmaril, Lúthien defeated mighty foes, among them were:

Sauron: Lúthien flung her cloak over Sauron's face, and he was struck by the blinding enchantment of weariness. Huan used the opportunity to take Sauron by the throat. Sauron tried to escape by shape shifting, but Huan held him down. Lúthien then demanded Sauron to yield the mastery of the tower to her, less Huan should destroy his mortal form. Sauron yielded, and fled the scene. Lúthien, having received mastery of the tower, laid waste to the fortress with her magic. The walls were destroyed and the prisons were broken. Lúthien found Beren and healed him.

Carcharoth: Suddenly some power, descended from divine race, possessed Lúthien, and casting back her raiment she stood forth, radiant and terrible. Lifting up her hand she commanded Carcharoth to sleep and he was felled, as if lightning had struck him.

Morgoth: Lúthien was undaunted by Morgoth and she offered to dance and sing for him in the manner of a minstrel. He beheld her with lust, of which came a secret desire to do some unspeakable evil to Lúthien. Morgoth accepted for this reason, but Lúthien sang a song of such enchantment and blinding power that all his court fell into a deep sleep and all the fires faded. The Silmarils in the crown on Morgoth's head suddenly blazed with a radiance of white flame and the burden of his crown and of the jewels bowed down his head, laden with a weight of care and fear that even the will of Morgoth could not bear. Then Lúthien, catching up her winged robe, sprang into the air and by casting her cloak before his eyes she set upon him a dark dream. Morgoth was cast down in slumber.

Mandos: Eventually Carcharoth was discovered by Thingol's warriors, and the wolf was attacked. Thingol was nearly slain, but Beren saved him and was mortally wounded. Huan then fought with Carcharoth and slew him, with both dying. The Silmaril was cut from Carcharoth's burned flesh, and Beren presented it at last to Thingol before he died. Thingol then held Beren with respect, but Lúthien commanded Beren to wait for her in the Undying Lands. Lúthien passed away in grief, and her spirit came to the Halls of Mandos. There she sang a song of such woe and lamentation, that even Mandos himself was moved to pity. He summoned Beren's spirit, and the two were reunited. Then he went to Manwë, who sought counsel from Eru and so the will of Ilúvatar was revealed. Thus, Lúthien was faced with a choice; to remain in Valinor and its eternal bliss, or for her and Beren to return to Middle-earth as mortals, after which they would die a second death. Lúthien chose the latter, and she and Beren returned to Doriath.

As you can see Lúthien defeated mighty evil enemies, including the death. Lúthien did all those deeds with her magic enchantments, singing and dancing, skills that can be compared with Sansa's kindness, mercifulness, courtesy and knowledge next to her sweet voice and dancing.

Sansa was also prophesied by the Ghost of High Heart to be involved in the death of the cruel King Joffrey Baratheon (that already happened), and in the slain of a savage giant in a castle made of snow, that is probably Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. Another candidates are Tyrion Lannister and Gregor Clegane.

There is also the prophecy of Maggy the Frog, that involves Sansa in the downfall of Cersie Lannister.

And finally, we have to count Sansa's song of mercy (the Mother's Hymn), that placated the rage and lust of Sandor Clegane during the night of the Battle of the Blackwater and prevented the Hound's assault, as parallel with Luthien enchanting Morgoth into slumber, that prevented his evil assault: "He beheld her with lust, of which came a secret desire to do some unspeakable evil to Lúthien."

10. Beren and Lúthien as inspiration for Jon and Sansa

Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien. Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs concerning the world of old. Here follows their tale and what remains of the Lay.

—Prologue, The Lay of Leithian - J.R.R. Tolkien

Lúthien's love of the mortal Beren, for whom she was prepared to risk everything, including her life, was legendary and lamented forever in song and story.

Lúthien's romance with Beren was one of the great stories of the Elder Days that were told for many ages after she lived, and it was said that her bloodline will never extinguish.

The union of Beren and Lúthien was the first between a mortal Man and an Elven maid.

Lúthien's romance with Beren is mirrored by the later romance between Aragorn and Arwen Evenstar.

According to legend, Lúthien's line would never be broken as long as the world lasted.

As you can see, the tale of Beren and Lúthien is a song that can be compared to the songs about Florian and Jonquil.

Sansa is the character that loves songs the most, particularly the songs about Florian and Jonquil, that are her very favorites.

I have speculated/theorized before that Jon Snow is the best candidate to be the Florian to Sansa's Jonquil.

And as other excellent meta writers have pointed out already, Jon Snow is the best candidate to be the Beren to Sansa's Lúthien.

So here I'm going to show you my take on the matter.

Singing

As I recently found out, we have this beautiful parallel between Beren and Lúthien & Jon and Sansa:

“Often and often she came there after and danced and sang to herself.”

—The Tale of Tinúviel, Beren and Lúthien (2017) - J.R.R. Tolkien

“Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII

As you can see, a man observing a girl singing is an old and obvious romantic trope, especially used in fairy tales. Here a graphic example.

Dancing

Alys Karstark’ wedding, organized by Jon Snow, happened in a very similar way to Sansa’s dream wedding:

”It was not supposed to be this way. She had dreamed of her wedding a thousand times, and always she had pictured how her betrothed would stand behind her tall and strong, sweep the cloak of his protection over her shoulders, and tenderly kiss her cheek as he leaned forward to fasten the clasp”.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

“The Magnar all but ripped the maiden’s cloak from Alys’s shoulders, but when he fastened her bride’s cloak about her he was almost tender. As he leaned down to kiss her cheek, their breath mingled”.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon X.

During Sansa's wedding she didn't dance with her husband. Her first dance as a married woman was with Ser Garland Tyrell, a knight that shares important parallels with Jon Snow.

Jon and Garlan are good with swords (better than Robb and Loras). Both Jon and Garlan like to train with more than one sparring partner to be better prepared to battle. Both Jon and Garlan have ghost imagery around them. While Jon was killed and got a direwolf from the old gods that he called Ghost, Garlan won the Battle of the Blackwater fighting under the guise of Renly’s Ghost.

During Alys's wedding Jon Snow rejected her offer to dance by telling her she must dance with her husband.

“You could dance with me, you know. It would be only courteous. You danced with me anon.”

“Anon?” teased Jon.

“When we were children.” She tore off a bit of bread and threw it at him. “As you know well.”

“My lady should dance with her husband.”

—Jon, A Dance With Dragons

Despite rejecting dancing with her, Jon Snow kept in mind Aly's wrong phrasing: "You danced with me anon."

Later he had the following thought:

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

While snowflakes falling reminds Jon of dancing, snowflakes falling reminds Sansa of lover's kisses:

Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

I suppose that kisses, like loving, is another form of dance.

Bat and wolf imagery

We also have the bat and wolf imagery around Beren and Lúthien. These lovers, husband and wife, turned into a giant bat and a werewolf, an image that reminds me of Sansa turning into "a wolf with big leather wings like a bat."

Indeed, after Sansa ran away from King’s Landing the day King Joffrey Baratheon was killed, the rumors about her participation in the murder started. Among the smallfolk runs the tale that after killing the king, Sansa morphed into “a wolf with big leather wings like a bat”  and flew away.

As was previously explained, GRRM has intentionally connected bat wings with dragon wings. So, this fascinating image of Sansa as “a wolf with big leather wings like a bat” could represent Sansa (a wolf) wearing a Targaryen cloak (dragon wings). Or at least having the support and protection of someone related to dragons (that is, Jon Snow).

This image alludes to the protection of a marriage, since when a groom “cloaks” his bride, it is said that he takes her under his protection.

Hades and Persephone imagery

We also have the Hades and Persephone imagery around Beren and Lúthien.

Lúthien could melt winter into spring with the magic of her voice and song.

Thanks to Lúthien's love and cares, the moment Beren woke up from a long period of unconsciousness after losing his hand, spring returned again.

When Beren died, Lúthien descended to the lands of death and gained Beren's life back. Then Lúthien came back to earth and ended the winter with the touch of her hand.

And as was explained before, Jon and Sansa have Hades and Persephone imagery around them as well. See above.

This is yet one more legendary couple who shares parallels with Jon and Sansa.

And since Lúthien's singing was the weapon that gained Beren's life back, this could be foreshadowing of Sansa's singing having an important role in Jon's arc during or after his resurrection.

It is vastly speculated that Jon will come back to life beast-like since he would inhabit ​inside Ghost for a while, thus Sansa's singing could be instrumental for taming Jon's beast-like form or to make him gaining back his memory.

Beauty and the Beast imagery

Lúthien's renowned beauty was extensively discussed already. Now let's see the beast allusions related to Beren:

Thereafter for four years more Beren wandered still upon Dorthonion, a solitary outlaw; but he became the friend of birds and beasts, and they aided him, and did not betray him, and from that time forth he ate no flesh nor slew any living thing that was not in the service of Morgoth.

[...] But she vanished from his sight; and he became dumb, as one that is bound under a spell, and he strayed long in the woods, wild and wary as a beast, seeking for her. In his heart he called her Tinuviel, that signifies Nightingale, daughter of twilight, in the Grey-elven tongue, for he knew no other name for her. And he saw her afar as leaves in the winds of autumn, and in winter as a star upon a hill, but a chain was upon his limbs.

[...] Beneath the Shadowy Mountains they came upon a company of Orcs, and slew them all in their camp by night; and they took their gear and their weapons. By the arts of Felagund their own forms and faces were changed into the likeness of Orcs; and thus disguised they came far upon their northward road, and ventured into the western pass, between Ered Wethrin and the highlands of Taur-nu-Fuin.

[...] By the counsel of Huan and the arts of Luthien he was arrayed now in the hame of Draugluin, and she in the winged fell of ThurIngwethil. Beren became in all things like a werewolf to look upon, save that in his eyes there shone a spirit grim indeed but clean; and horror was in his glance as he saw upon his flank a batlike creature clinging with creased wings. Then howling under the moon he leaped down the hill, and the bat wheeled and flittered above him.

[...] As a dead beast Beren lay upon the ground; but Luthien touching him with her hand aroused him, and he cast aside the wolf-hame. Then he drew forth the knife Angrist; and from the iron claws that held it he cut a Silmaril.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Beren also formed a strong bond with Huan, the great wolfhound, a magical creature gifted by a god. This bond resembles somehow the bond between Jon and Ghost.

Beren stood beside Thingol, and suddenly they were aware that Huan had left their side. Then a great baying awoke in the thicket; for Huan becoming impatient and desiring to look upon this wolf had gone in alone to dislodge him. But Carcharoth avoided him, and bursting form the thorns leaped suddenly upon Thingol. Swiftly Beren strode before him with a spear, but Carcharoth swept it aside and felled him, biting at his breast. In that moment Huan leaped from the thicket upon the back of the Wolf, and they fell together fighting bitterly; and no battle of wolf and hound has been like to it, for in the baying of Huan was heard the voice of the horns of Orome and the wrath of the Valar, but in the howls of Carcharoth was the hate of Morgoth and malice crueller than teeth of steel; and the rocks were rent by their clamour and fell from on high and choked the falls of Esgalduin. There they fought to the death; but Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren, seeing that he was sorely hurt. Huan in that hour slew Carcharoth; but there in the woven woods of Doriath his own doom long spoken was fulfilled, and he was wounded mortally, and the venom of Morgoth entered into him. Then he came, and falling beside Beren spoke for the third time with words; and he bade Beren farewell before he died. Beren spoke not, but laid his hand upon the head of the hound, and so they parted.

—Chapter 19, The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

Sansa's beauty is also renowned and was discussed above (Here a compilation of all the quotes about Sansa's beauty).

Sansa and Jon are also both wargs/skinchangers, but while Lady was the smallest, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting of the litter; Ghost is the biggest of the litter and is often described as a savage beast.

Now let's see the beast allusions related to Jon and Ghost:

Ser Alliser Thorne shattered the silence. “The turncloak graces us with his presence at last.”

Lord Janos was red-faced and quivering. “The beast,” he gasped. “Look! The beast that tore the life from Halfhand. A warg walks among us, brothers. A WARG! This … this creature is not fit to lead us! This beastling is not fit to live!”

Ghost bared his teeth, but Jon put a hand on his head. “My lord,” he said, “will you tell me what’s happened here?”

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

“Then you had best be on your way, boy.” Slynt laughed, dribbling porridge down his chest. “Greyguard’s a good place for the likes of you, I’m thinking. Well away from decent godly folk. The mark of the beast is on you, bastard.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon II

Dolorous Edd took hold of Slynt by one arm, Iron Emmett by the other. Together they hauled him from the bench. “No,” Lord Janos protested, flecks of porridge spraying from his lips. “No, unhand me. He’s just a boy, a bastard. His father was a traitor. The mark of the beast is on him, that wolf of his … Let go of me! You will rue the day you laid hands on Janos Slynt. I have friends in King’s Landing. I warn you—” He was still protesting as they half-marched, half-dragged him up the steps.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon II

My friend @really-sad-devil-guy wrote a series of metas about Sansa and the Beauty and the Beast trope. This series is unfinished at the moment but you can read the parts already posted here:

Sansa’s “Beauty and the Beast” Arc, Part 1

Sansa’s “Beauty and the Beast” Arc, Part 2

Sansa’s “Beauty and the Beast” Arc, Part 3

Sansa’s “Beauty and the Beast” Arc, Part 4

Sansa’s “Beauty and the Beast” Arc, Part 5

You can also read the posts I wrote about this subject here:

In the original fairy tale ‘La Belle et la Bête’ by Madame de Villeneuve, Beauty and Beast/Prince are cousins 

Some fanon/made up things that certain shippers claim to be canon about their ship & the Beauty and the Beast Trope

There is a version of Beauty and the Beast where the Beast is a white wolf 

Endless lineage

As was mentioned before, the union of Beren and Lúthien was the first between a mortal Man and an Elven maid.

According to legend, Lúthien’s bloodline would never be broken as long as the world lasted.

Lúthien’s romance with Beren is mirrored by the later romance between Aragorn and Arwen Evenstar.

Aragorn and Arwen were first cousins many times removed and both descend of Beren and Lúthien.

In the case of Jon and Sansa, both are deeply connected to the continuity of the Stark bloodline.

I extensively wrote about Jon and Sansa and their connections to Winterfell in this post: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my. Among these connections, here are the most noteworthy:

“The snow fell and the castle rose”

GRRM has directly associated Jon Snow and Sansa’s snow castle.

Jon and Sansa share the dream of rebuilding Winterfell, their ancestral home and seat of House Stark. This shared dream is beautifully represented by Sansa building a scale model of Winterfell out of “snow”.

What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There’s no one to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand. I could build a snow knight instead, she thought. Or even…

[…] The snow fell and the castle rose. Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall. It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. She found twigs and fallen branches beneath the snow and broke off the ends to make the trees for the godswood. For the gravestones in the lichyard she used bits of bark. Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care. The castle was all that mattered. Some things were hard to remember, but most came back to her easily, as if she had been there only yesterday. The Library Tower, with the steep stonework stair twisting about its exterior. The gatehouse, two huge bulwarks, the arched gate between them, crenellations all along the top…

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

“Drink this.” Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his brothers’ laughter. The faces above him began to blur and fade. They can’t be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell … grey granite, oak and iron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones … how could Winterfell be gone?

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

There is also the fact that Jon is heavily associated with “snow” while Sansa is heavily associated with “stone.”

Winterfell is a grey “stone” castle that is cloaked by white “snow,” like a perfect marriage.

Jon and the Wall represent the “shield that guards the realms of men.” Sansa feels stronger within the “walls” of Winterfell.

All of these images allude to the protection of a marriage, since when a groom “cloaks” his bride, it is said that he takes her under his protection.

“The blood of Winterfell”

Among all the Stark children, Jon and Sansa are the only ones that are called, or call themselves, “the blood of Winterfell.”

Jon’s throat was raw. He looked at them all helplessly. “She yielded herself to me.” “Then you must do what needs be done,” Qhorin Halfhand said. “You are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night’s Watch.”

—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

“What if Lord Nestor values honor more than profit?” Petyr put his arm around her. “What if it is truth he wants, and justice for his murdered lady?” He smiled. “I know Lord Nestor, sweetling. Do you imagine I’d ever let him harm my daughter?” I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

This phrasing “the blood of Winterfell” implies blood lineage of House Stark, and Jon and Sansa both dream of having children that would bear the names of their siblings: Robb, Bran, Rickon and Arya.

Willas would be Lord of Highgarden and she would be his lady. She pictured the two of them sitting together in a garden with puppies in their laps, or listening to a singer strum upon a lute while they floated down the Mander on a pleasure barge. If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa’s dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister’s son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly’s boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We’d find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance’s son and Craster’s would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

This is connected with the motif of rebuilding Winterfell, Jon and Sansa not only can rebuild the castle but the Stark family.

“Children of the Mountain”

Among all the Stark children, Jon and Sansa are the only ones that are called "children of the mountain".

Soon they were high enough so that looking down was best not considered. There was nothing below but yawning blackness, nothing above but moon and stars. “The mountain is your mother,” Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. “Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won’t drop you.” Jon had made a joke of it, saying how he’d always wondered who his mother was, but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. It did not seem nearly so amusing now. One step and then another, he thought, clinging tight.

—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

“You’re mistaken. I never fall.” Mya’s hair had tumbled across her cheek, hiding one eye. “Almost, I said. I saw you. Weren’t you afraid? “Mya shook her head. “I remember a man throwing me in the air when I was very little. He stands as tall as the sky, and he throws me up so high it feels as though I’m flying. We’re both laughing, laughing so much that I can hardly catch a breath, and finally I laugh so hard I wet myself, but that only makes him laugh the louder. I was never afraid when he was throwing me. I knew that he would always be there to catch me.” She pushed her hair back. “Then one day he wasn’t. Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain’s daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won’t fall.” She put her hand on a jagged spur of rock, and got to her feet. “Best finish. We have a long way yet to go, and I can smell a storm.”

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

Coincidentally in reference to two snowy mountains, the Frostfangs beyond the Wall and the mountains at the Eyrie.

The word Winterfell could mean “wintry mountain(s)” A snowy mountain is basically “stone” covered by “snow”, like a perfect marriage.

This is connected with the motif of rebuilding Winterfell and the Stark family.

You can read more about this subject (Beren and Lúthien as inspiration for Jon and Sansa) in this series of metas written by @fedonciadale back in 2018:

Tolkien and GRRM - The tale of Beren and Luthien and the allusions to Jonsa - part 1 - the meeting

Tolkien and GRRM - The tale of Beren and Luthien and the allusions to Jonsa - part 2 - Beren’s oath and first failure

Tolkien and GRRM - The tale of Beren and Luthien and the allusions to Jonsa - part 3 - Beren’s and Luthien’s get the Silmaril

Tolkien and GRRM - Aragorn and Arwen

11. Bonus: from real life to fiction

Lúthien was largely inspired from Edith Bratt (Tolkien's wife) and when she died, Tolkien asked his son Christopher to include Lúthien in her gravestone, as he considered her "my Lúthien."

In on of his letters (Nº 340), Tolkien said: "I never called Edith 'Lúthien' – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief pan of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos."

In the movie Tolkien (2019) the film recreates this scene, as you can see in this gifset.

In the same way, I believe that GRRM took inspiration from his wife Parris McBride, certain real life events and traits, and gave those to two of his heroines, Brienne and Sansa.

When Martin and McBride met, at a convention in Nashville in 1975, she told him that one of his stories, “A Song for Lya,” had made her cry. The gathering was in the free-spirited mode of the times—in an autobiographical essay, Martin notes that, when this conversation took place, they were both naked. (He does not elaborate.) He was, however, engaged to someone else. McBride went to work for a travelling circus for a while. By the time he moved to Santa Fe, in 1979, she was waiting tables in Portland, Oregon. They’d kept in touch, and after his marriage broke up they began what McBride calls a “fannish romance,” meeting at conventions and exchanging letters. In 1981, he persuaded her to move to New Mexico.

The New Yorker - April 11, 2011 Issue

And about they both being naked when they met, he later elaborates:

I met Parris for the first time at the 1975 Kublakhan in Nashville. A bunch of us were having a party in the women’s sauna and she walked in. I came to immediate attention.

Parris | George R.R. Martin

This naked encounter is compared by fans to this Jaime and Brienne passage:

She jerked to her feet as if he’d struck her, sending a wash of hot water across the tub. Jaime caught a glimpse of the thick blonde bush at the juncture of her thighs as she climbed out. She was much hairier than his sister. Absurdly, he felt his cock stir beneath the bathwater. Now I know I have been too long away from Cersei. He averted his eyes, troubled by his body’s response.

—A Storm of Swords - Jaime V

We can even draw some parallels between Beren and Lúthien and Jaime and Brienne.

Like Lúthien, Brienne dances, but she dances with her sword. While Jaime, like Beren, lost a hand.

The possibility that GRRM may have used his wife Parris McBride as inspiration for Brienne and Sansa, makes a lot of sense if we consider that, according to GRRM himself, Brienne is Sansa with a sword.

But it is the mention of Parris crying while reading “A Song for Lya”, a bittersweet ending story with a radiant auburn haired beauty, what reminds me very much of Sansa.

Sansa is fond of sweet and sad songs, of bittersweet tales and stories, and she is often moved to tears by their sadness and beauty:

Sansa listened raptly while the king’s high harper sang songs of chivalry [...]

—A Clash of Kings - Bran III

Later, while Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the “Dance of the Dragons,” [...]

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

For those who remained, a singer was brought forth to fill the hall with the sweet music of the high harp. He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother’s queen, of Nymeria’s ten thousand ships. They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. Several of the women began to weep, and Sansa felt her own eyes growing moist.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VI

Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born.”

“Why would she do that?” said Arya, startled.

[…] "Why did she jump in the sea, though?"

"Her heart was broken."

Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid. She couldn't say that to Ned, though, not about his own aunt. "Did someone break it?"

—A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

Sansa is often moved to tears at the presence of beauty, as Jon's fond memories of her tell us:

The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.

—A Clash of Kings - Jon III

So, in a similar way that Edith inspired Lúthien, I believe Parris inspired Brienne and Sansa.

It is evident that his first encounter with Parris deeply impacted GRRM, so much that he took certain real life events and certain traits of his wife and gave those to two of the heroines of his magnum opus. Particularly Sansa, since she is a main character and the princess of the story, that shares parallels with powerful women from History and with important characters of classic fantasy sagas, like Tolkien's Lúthien in this case.

There you have it. Sansa is the Lúthien figure in the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire.

I'm sure there are more parallels between Lúthien and Sansa, I'm not an expert in the LOTR books, the only book I read so far is the one I used to write this post: Beren and Lúthien (2017), so maybe I will be revisiting this post in the future with more findings.

[itsyourchoice-hp]

Year 1: The Sorting Ceremony

Author's Note: I thought I would explain a bit about the structure and format of this story. The most important years of the story are years 5-7, but I wanted to give some background on characters, relationships, etc. and a lot of what happens in the later years is built on years 1-4. Hopefully you can enjoy this type of formatting! It's new for me, but I am very excited to share this story with you. Of course, I do not own anything except for the character Cath. The rest belongs to the wonderful mind of J.K. Rowling. Reads and reviews are much appreciated! *** “Cathryn! You are not to use magic outside of Hogwarts, you know that,” Narcissa scolded her daughter, who had grabbed her wand out of the nearly packed trunk and was about to wave it around. She held out her hand to Cathryn who sighed in defeat and gave her the wand. Narcissa brushed Cathryn’s thick auburn hair behind her ears. “Are you excited to attend Hogwarts, my darling?” She nodded eagerly, grinning. “I can’t wait!” she replied. As soon as she said it, she felt a knot in her stomach form. “Er, Mum, I’m actually a bit nervous.” “Why is that?” Mum replied, folding the last of Cathryn’s clothes into her trunk. “Well… what if I don’t make any friends?” she said, fiddling with the hem of her blouse. “Don’t be silly, Cathryn. I know you’ll make plenty of friends. Besides, you have Draco,” she assured her. “And you know that Augustina Rookwood is only a year above you, too. Oh, and that Weasley girl, oh what’s her name… Jenny? She’s going into her first year as well.” “I suppose,” Cathryn said. “Mother,” came Draco’s voice from the hallway. He appeared at the doorway of Cathryn’s bedroom, already dressed in his Hogwarts robes, a green and silver Slytherin tie displayed proudly with his school uniform. Despite being only a year apart, Cathryn and Draco looked nothing alike. Draco had blonde hair that was practically white, and a pointed face that always carried a proud look. Cathryn on the other hand, had dark auburn hair and wore glasses, often paired with a mischievous smile. “What is it, Draco?” Mum asked. “Are we going to leave soon? I’m sure my friends are already at Kings Cross. And I want to get a seat with all of them on the train,” he said. “Have you finished packing yet?” she asked him, straightening his tie and smiling at him proudly “Of course,” he replied. “Then we’ll leave in five minutes. I’ll go get your father,” she said, standing up. Before she left, she turned back to Cathryn. “Have we got everything?” Cathryn took one more look at the supplies list that had come with her Hogwarts acceptance letter and then nodded. “Everything,” she said.   ***   “Don’t worry, you’ll love it at Hogwarts, Cath,” Draco assured her as they arrived on Platform nine and three quarters at King’s Cross station. “You can sit with me on the train, if you like.” Cathryn smiled up at Draco, trunk in hand. “Thanks,” she said. The first whistle blew on the great scarlet train that was about to take them to Hogwarts. Cathryn and Draco turned to say goodbye to their parents. Her father knelt down in front of her with a proud look on his face. “Will you promise to write your mother and I?” he asked. Her father was not usually so soft, but Cathryn knew he always was around her. She smiled and nodded. “I promise,” she replied. He hugged her. “Good girl,” he said. “Slytherin will be gaining a wonderful witch this year.” Cathryn overheard her father saying something to Draco along the lines of, “Now Draco, do try to… branch out a bit. It would benefit to make friends with people in your own house.” Cathryn’s mother hugged her next. “You’ll have a wonderful time, Cathryn, I know it. There’s nothing to be nervous about. And if you forgot anything at home, we’ll send it right over.” “Thanks, Mum. Don’t worry too much about me,” Cathryn replied. Her mother laughed. “Come on,” said Draco, starting towards the train. They waved one last time at their parents before stepping onto the Hogwarts Express. Cathryn could feel excitement and nerves bubbling inside her as they made their way down the crowded hallway. Draco looked into every compartment until he found his friends. Immediately, they broke out into excited chatter. Cathryn slipped quietly into the compartment with him, looking around at everybody. There was a tall, lanky boy with bright red hair and a face splashed with freckles, holding a rather ugly pet rat in one hand and a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans in the other. Across from him was a girl who looked the same age (who Draco sat beside), who had thick brown hair and large front teeth, a stack of school books beside her. Closest to Cath was another boy with unruly black hair, bright green eyes and round glasses. One look at the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead told Cathryn that it was the famous Harry Potter, who had defeated a dark wizard when he was only a baby. Draco had come home from his first year of Hogwarts bragging about how he had become friends with  ‘The’ Harry Potter.  He had mentioned his two other friends, saying that “one was quite poor and the other is a Muggle Born, but they’re really alright besides that.” Cathryn remembered how Mum had kept looking nervously at Cath while he was talking, and how Father had a disapproving look on his face and had quickly changed the subject. “Everyone, this is my little sister,” Draco said, gesturing to Cath, who was still standing stupidly at the compartment door. “Cathryn, This is Harry Potter,” (Harry smiled at her), “Ron Weasley,” (Ron said hello with a mouthful of Every Flavour Beans) “and Hermione Granger,” (Hermione held out her hand for a formal handshake and said pleasure to meet you). “Hi,” Cathryn replied to all of them, sitting beside Draco. Hermione turned to Cathryn and said, “So, do you think you’ll be in Slytherin, too? It’s a great house, from what Draco says. But Gryffindor is really great too. That’s what house Harry, Ron and I are in. Slytherins and Gryffindors have never really gotten along - that’s what it says in Hogwarts: A History, anyways. Some people find it’s rather strange that we get on with each other. Oh, by the way, Ron’s got a sister named Ginny who’s going into your year. Where is-“ “Hermione, you’re scaring her,” said Ron, rolling his eyes at Hermione. Cathryn fought back a laugh as Hermione scowled at him. “She’s a walking encyclopedia, you’ll get used to it,” Draco said with a sneer. “I’m also probably the only one out of the four of us who’s done our summer homework,” Hermione said, with her nose in the air proudly as if she had just won an argument. The others said nothing at this, though they all looked like they had just remembered about the summer homework. “Snape’s going to have our heads for not doing that Potions essay,” Ron said glumly, finishing the last of his Every Flavour Beans. He made a face. “Ugh, Earthworm!” “Who’s Snape?” Cathryn asked, wondering if a Snape was a sort of scaled creature that prowled the halls of Hogwarts. “He’s the Potions professor at Hogwarts,” Harry replied with a tone that suggested he didn’t much like Snape. “He’s also the head of Slytherin House,” Draco added. “He’s really not all that bad.” “You mean, he’s not all that bad to Slytherins,” Ron replied. “He hates Gryffindors. Actually… he hates pretty much every other house.” Hermione went on to talk about the other heads of the houses at Hogwarts, and while everyone else looked incredibly bored, Cathryn clung on to her every word, feeling her excitement towards starting the new school year grow and grow. At last, the Hogwarts Express screeched to a halt and everyone began to filed their way out of the train and into the crisp September air outside. A giant man, well over two feet taller than the students, waved his arms, calling “Firs’ years over here!” over and over. Nervous looking first year students, who barely even reached his waist, shuffled through the crowd. “See you after the ceremony, Cath,” said Draco, waving at her over his shoulder. “Good luck!” Harry said to her, smiling. Cathryn waved back at them before they disappeared with the older students. The first year students she stood with didn’t say much at all with each other. Some of them looked frightened, others just craning their necks and looking into the distance to see if they could spot the castle. “Alright, everyone here?” the giant man said, beaming down at everyone. Nobody said anything in reply. “Right then. Me name’s Rubeus Hagrid. I’m the gamekeeper at Hogwarts. Now, we best get goin’ - don’t want ter miss the Sorting Ceremony! Everybody, follow me.” The first years followed Hagrid down a path and all the way to the edge of a huge lake. Perhaps it was because the sky was growing dark, but the lake looked inky black. A fleet of small boats rested on the shores. “No more than three to a boat! Everybody in,” said Hagrid, stepping in to one of them. Nobody dared to make the first move. Cathryn looked around, and then sighed. They’re just boats, she thought to herself. It would be quite a scene if they arrived late to their own Sorting Ceremony, anyways. A girl with bright red hair and freckles stepped into a boat with her, as well as a boy with curly brown hair and a very pointy nose that made him look like a fairy. “I’m Ginny Weasley,” the redhead girl said nervously as they waited for everyone else to climb into their boats. “Oh, are you Ron’s sister?” Cathryn asked. Ginny nodded. “I’m Cathryn Malfoy. My brother is Draco.” “I’m Dan Hadfield,” said the boy. Before anyone could say another word, Hagrid pointed a bright pink umbrella across the lake and the boats shot off the shore much faster than anyone expected. Hogwarts was finally coming into view, and Cathryn couldn’t help but smile as lake water sprayed lightly on them and the warm glow of the lights from the windows of the castle drew closer. Cold and hungry, the First Years were lead through the massive front doors and were greeted by a woman wearing black dress robes and a pointed hat. She had a stern face and carried a rolled up piece of parchment one hand. “Welcome, first years,” she said. “I’m Professor McGonagall. We will shortly begin the Sorting Ceremony, in which you will be sorted into your houses. First, you will line up in front of the door behind me. When I call your name, you will walk onto the stage and sit on the stool. I will place the Sorting Hat on your head, and then you will join your house table. Are there any questions?” Once again, everybody was silent. “Good,” she said curtly. She began to quickly organize everyone into a neat queue by last name and then walked through the door she had pointed out. As Professor McGonagall called out the first name, Cathryn began to feel nervous about the Sorting Ceremony. She had never given much thought to what house she would be in, since her whole family were Slytherins, but what if she was sorted somewhere else? What would her parents say if she were sorted into Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff? What would Draco say? She froze in fear as she heard, “Malfoy, Cathryn!” being called from the Great Hall.

[bee-kathony]

The Oath | Ch. 17 “History” 

a/n: thank you all for liking, reblogging and commenting on the last chapter! thank you so much @lcbeauchampoftarth for being my beta and for all the questions she kindly answered! hope you enjoy this chapter, let me know what you think will happen! xx

Arc I | Ch. 16

December 7th, 2019

Ned Gowan’s office was located in old town Edinburgh near where Claire worked at the hospital. Jenny had sent Jamie his details yesterday, and thankfully, Ned had time to meet with them today. Jenny had also agreed to stay with Madeline for the day while they figured out what to do next.

Claire clocked out for her lunch break, wrapping her new tartan scarf that Jamie had bought her for her birthday around her neck. The air was crisp, with that cold bite that comes with winter in Scotland. Jamie was meeting her at Ned’s office and he had just pulled up when Claire crossed the street.

“Hello my love,” Claire smiled and stood on her toes to kiss him as he closed the car door. “It’s been too long since I’ve last kissed you.”

“Ye mean four hours?” Jamie chuckled and then kissed her again, his lips lingering after. “Any time at all is too long, Sassenach.”

“I suppose we’d better get in there, I only have 40 minutes left of my lunch break,” Claire sighed and took his hand, both walking towards the entrance of the building. Inside, it was nicely decorated — smaller than she thought, but at least the place wasn’t falling apart.

“Ned Gowan is your family’s lawyer?” Claire asked as Jamie checked in with the receptionist.

“Aye,” he nodded. “He helped my parents when my Mam’s side of the family was furious with their marriage.” Jamie led her over to a small couch in the corner while they waited. “My Mam and Da ran away together, ye ken, and got marrit. My uncles Dougal and Colum — both passed away, bless their souls, well… they didna like my Da, especially because he was a Fraser.”

“Well what’s wrong with being a Fraser?” Claire asked, rather intrigued. “Is there something I should know before I marry you, Jamie?” She poked him lightly in the ribs.

“Fraser’s are verra stubborn,” he laughed. “But ye already knew as much.” A glint of mischief shined in his eyes and Claire could imagine a troublesome young Jamie, refusing to eat his vegetables or take a bath. “Nah, there’s nothin’ wrong wi’ bein’ a Fraser, Sassenach. Tis just that for hundreds of years there was a distrust between Clan MacKenzie, which is my Mam’s family, and the Frasers.”

Claire loved listening to Jamie tell stories, especially about his past. She found that whenever he talked, she was almost enchanted — he was a natural born storyteller and she hung on every word.

“So ye can imagine my uncles’ displeasure when they find out that their lovely sister, Ellen, has run away wi’ a Fraser! ‘Black Brian’ they called him, for his silky jet black hair.” He raised his brows, touching his own auburn locks. “It sounds a bit old fashioned, clan rivalries and such, but the MacKenzies are nothin’ if no loyal to their history.”

“What did they try and do? Your parents ran away and got married, surely they didn’t have any other option but to accept it,” Claire said.

“Ahh,” Jamie grinned. “That’s where Ned comes in. Colum tried to track down my Mam and Da, but they’d gone into hiding after the marriage. It was Dougal that found them eventually, back in Broch Mordha, already starting to make a home for themselves. He’d brought Ned wi’ him to try and persuade my parents to annul the marriage. Or perhaps try and prove the marriage was false,” Jamie recalled.

“But when Dougal walked inside and saw my Mam, nearly five months pregnant, there was no’ much to be done. My father presented him wi’ their marriage certificate, and Ned confirmed twas legitimate.” He chuckled then, remembering something as if he’d actually been present and not just a thought in his parents’ minds. “My Da said that Dougal just looked at Ned and called him a bastard, saying that he was supposed to be on the MacKenzie side of things!”

“Ned wouldn’t lie, you mean? He wouldn’t try and force your parents to separate?” Claire ran her fingers slowly over Jamie’s palm, smoothing them over the lines of his hand.

“No, he wouldna. He said he could never break apart true love,” Jamie smiled down at her. “He’s a bit of a romantic. Ever since then, he’s helped our family wi’ small legal matters. Twas very helpful wi’ the whisky business and what kind of permits we needed and such.”

Claire took a deep breath, absorbing all of this new information. “Well, I’m very much looking forward to meeting this infamous Ned.”

Not a minute later, the man himself walked out into the lobby.

“Dear Jamie!” He embraced Jamie, a good foot shorter than him, his head barely reaching Jamie’s chest. “How have you been, lad? Been a long time…”

“Too long, Ned,” Jamie smiled, patting the man’s shoulder, and then turned to Claire. “I’d like ye to meet my fiancé, Claire Beauchamp.”

Bowing his head slightly, Ned reached for her hand, kissing it softly. “Tis a pleasure to meet you, Claire Beauchamp. I’ve known the Frasers for many years, yer in good company!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she smiled. Ned Gowan was a short man with grey hair and round glasses perched on his nose. She trusted him immediately, hoping that he would be able to help them with the matter at hand.

“Let’s go into my office, shall we?” He turned back and welcomed them into his office with tall floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, a fireplace on the wall opposite them, and a large mahogany desk in the center of the room.

“Now,” Ned said, sitting down in a brown leather chair behind his desk. “Jamie didna tell me just exactly what ye needed my advice on. Marriage advice?” Claire saw him glance at their clasped hands where Claire’s engagement ring rested on her finger.

“No,” Jamie squeezed her hand. “We’re settled on that front, wi’ luck the weddin’ will be in the summer.”

Claire smiled at him and then let go of his hand to reach into her bag, pulling out the envelope with the paternity test in it. “We’ve come to ask about a delicate matter… one involving our child.”

“A child?” Ned looked surprised, but kept his expression in check. “Let me see how I can help, lass.”

“Our daughter, Madeline… well, she has two possible fathers. Jamie, of course, and then my ex, Frank Randall. We only just got the results of the paternity test yesterday,” Claire said as she slid the paper across his desk. “It says that Frank is her father, but we just know it can’t be possible.”

“She has hair as red as mine,” Jamie smiled and pulled out his phone, pressing the side button to show a picture of the three of them on his lockscreen.

“I dare say.” Ned moved his glasses on his nose and leaned in. “She’s the spittin’ image of ye, Jamie.”

“Which is exactly why we think that Frank has somehow messed with the results, or maybe the lab made a mistake.” Claire twisted her hands in her lap, her stomach in knots.

Ned glanced at the results, reading over all the information carefully. Jamie’s fingers tapped nervously against his thighs, waiting to hear what actions they should take.

“Well, my first bit of advice would be to find another lab and have only Jamie take a paternity test.” Ned slid the paper back to Claire and she put it back in her bag. “That will tell you for certain whether or not the results have been tampered with.”

“And if the results say that Jamie is Madeline’s father?”

“Then ye come back to see me and we’ll figure out the next move. Legal action would be required on either this Hawkins Laboratory or on your ex, Mr. Randall. But I don’t want to put anything into motion before we know the results from Jamie’s solo test.”

“Of course,” Jamie nodded, grabbing Claire’s hand again. “We should be able to get that done sometime this week. I dinna want to take this to court, but if it means proving that Madeline is in fact my daughter, so be it.”

The three of them rose, nothing further left to discuss. “Thank ye, Ned. It means a lot that ye would be the one to help us wi’ this.” Jamie shook his hand tightly and Claire laughed a little when she saw Ned flexing his hand after.

“Tis not a problem, Jamie. I’ll always help a Fraser in their time of need,” he smiled, and then they all said goodbye. Once Claire and Jamie returned to the street, she took a deep breath and leaned her head against his chest.

“That went well. As well as could be expected,” she said.

“Ye ken that I love Madeline,” Jamie looked down at her. “No matter if she is Randall’s blood and no’ mine… I love her wi’ all my heart, Sassenach. No test result can ever take that away.” He met her lips, kissing her slowly.

“I know that, Jamie. I also know how much it would mean to you if she was your blood, stubborn Fraser and all,” she grinned. “I feel good about this. Once we get the test done and get the results, I’ll feel even better.”

“Aye.” He rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “So will I. I’ll research a few labs when I get back to the office and let ye know what I find when I get home.”

“Sounds good,” Claire kissed him again. “I’ll see you at home tonight, then.”

Jamie climbed into his car to head back to work while Claire made the short walk back to the hospital, where a store-bought salad was waiting for her in the fridge.

++++++

As she walked into the hospital, Claire walked past the front desk, smiling at her friend Liesel. She waved her over, holding up a note.

“While you were out, a gentleman called for you, said he used to be a patient of yours,” the woman said and handed her a sticky note with a number to call on it.

“Did he give a name?” Claire asked, wondering why any patient of hers would call.

“No, but he was British. He said that he had a question about some kind of operation you helped perform,” Liesel shrugged. “Sounded a bit weird, but I told him I’d give you the message.”

“Hmm, well thank you, Liesel. I’ll call him later.” Claire shoved the note into her purse and walked down the hall and into the staff lounge. With only ten minutes remaining of her lunch break, Claire scarfed down her salad and reminded herself to call this mysterious patient on her way home from work.

The only thing standing in her way from going home to Jamie and Madeline was a simple cholecystectomy — a gallbladder removal. In surgery, Claire’s mind was blank, only focusing on the task before her. There was no Frank or paternity tests or potential lawsuits. Only the patient before her and the scalpel in her hand.

Two and a half hours later, Claire was changing from her scrubs to her blue jeans and white t-shirt. The next time she would have to go into work would be after the holidays thanks to her new baby keeping her occupied.

As Claire started her car, she remembered she needed to call back that patient that Liesel had mentioned. Surely, it would be just a simple call she could handle while driving home. Claire pulled out her phone and retrieved the sticky note from her bag, punching in the numbers. It rang four times before someone picked up on the other end.

“Hello, this is Dr. Beauchamp, I’m returning a call that was left for me at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.”

“Claire,” uttered from a voice that chilled her to the core. A voice she hadn’t been expecting to hear on the other end.

“Frank.”

Her knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. Thankfully she hadn’t started driving yet, or she might have just run off the road at the sound of his voice. “Why are you leaving messages for me at my work?”

“I didn’t have many options now did I, Claire? I knew you wouldn’t answer if I were to call your phone, so the hospital was the only option,” he said.

“What is this about?” She already knew what this was about, but was hoping he had called to chat about something else.

“I received a rather interesting letter in the mail yesterday from Hawkins Laboratory. I assume that you did as well…”

“Yes, what of it?”

“The results were stated very clearly, Claire,” Frank sighed on the other end, as if he was annoyed. “I am that child’s father. I don’t want to take this to court, I’m hoping we can resolve the matter of custody between ourselves.”

“Custody?!” Claire snapped. “You’ve lost your mind if you think I would ever let you get any kind of custody, full or joint, of my daughter.”

“I have rights as her father and you know it,” Frank replied. “You can go and play house all you want with that Scottish bastard, but at the end of the day, it’s not quite as picturesque as you’d like it to be.”

“Shut your damn mouth, Frank,” Claire rolled her eyes. “I don’t want you to call me ever again, especially not at work. The next time I’ll speak to you will be with a lawyer present, now goodbye!”

Claire hung up and tossed her phone down onto the passenger seat. Her heart had started racing dangerously the moment he said her name, sending a chill down her spine. Her worst fears were all coming true and it seemed there was nothing she could do.

Closing her eyes, Claire punched the steering wheel and let out a scream — a sound she didn’t even know she had in her.

When she opened her eyes, she noticed that two people standing on the sidewalk near the car were staring at her and she waved her hand at them. “Sorry,” she softly muttered, and they kept walking, probably wondering who this crazy woman was.

“Christ, Beauchamp, keep it together.” She took a deep breath and put the car in drive.

++++++

Jamie was in the kitchen, Madeline swaddled to his chest in her sling, while he made dinner. Claire simply stood in the doorway when she got home, watching the two of them. It filled her heart with contentment to see them both, knowing that they were all hers. Jamie caught her eye and grinned, softly singing off-tune to Madeline.

“What’s on the menu, Chef Jamie?”

“Burgers!” He flipped a patty. “And I ken I shouldna have Mads so close to the stove in case the grease pops up, but she was cryin’ in her crib and the meat was about to burn…” he reasoned with her.

“It’s alright, she seems to be enjoying her sous chef duties,” Claire laughed and kissed her daughter on the head. As Jamie finished making their dinner, Claire unraveled her scarf from around her neck, shedding her winter layers on their bed. She would have to tell Jamie that Frank called, and he would rightfully, be furious.

Thankfully, Claire was still partially on maternity leave — giving her plenty of time now with Madeline. Also, this meant she could give all her attention to dealing with the paternity results.

Claire changed into comfier clothes, sliding one of Jamie’s old sweatshirts over her head before joining him back in the kitchen. He was just sliding their burgers onto plates as she took a seat at the table. Madeline was still strapped to his chest with no signs of wanting to leave, though she would need to be fed soon.

“How was the rest of yer day, Sassenach?”

Claire picked up a knife to slice her burger in half and then sighed. “Frank called me,” she spat out and then held up her finger in front of Jamie before he could respond. “He called me at work and posed as a former patient because he knew I wouldn’t answer my phone for him.”

“What does he want?” Jamie asked, his burger in midair.

“What do you think he wants?” Claire’s eyes landed on Madeline. “He got the results in the mail yesterday, same as us. He wants her… at least, he wants joint custody.”

“Joint— No. No, Sassenach. He wasna there for ye during the entire pregnancy, he cheated on ye and now all of a sudden he wants some kind of claim on her?” Jamie scoffed and took a huge bite of his burger, the juices dripping down his hand.

“Thanks for reminding me of all that,” Claire raised her brows and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said with a mouthful of food and swallowed. “Claire, I’m sorry, I—“

“I know what you meant,” she reassured him,  one side of Claire’s mouth turned up in understanding. “But… if he is her father then he has the right to ask for custody. Of course, this is where we will need Ned’s advice. Oh! Also, did you find another lab to take the test?”

Jamie wiped his mouth with a napkin, “Aye. I did, I meant to tell ye when ye walked in, but now’s a good time as any. It’s called Edinburgh DNA Centre and it’s only a short distance from where I work.”

“Great,” Claire nodded, mentally checking that off her list. “We’ll need to do that as soon as possible. I’m sure Frank will want to move forward with any kind of custody agreements.”

Jamie made a grumbling noise, rolling his eyes. “I wish that bastard would just leave us alone.”

“Trust me,” Claire said. “I would be happy to never see his smug bloody face again.”

They finished their meal, and Claire took Madeline from Jamie to feed her. She was hungry and latched on quickly, her greedy little hands tugging on Claire’s curls.

“I’m thinking about calling Hawkins Lab,” she said softly, peering down at Madeline.

“Why?” Jamie said from the kitchen as he cleaned up the dishes. “They surely wouldn’t tell ye if they’d tampered wi’ the results.”

“I just want to know who handled our files is all,” she shrugged. “I also have a weird feeling about the name Hawkins… it sounds strangely familiar.”

“How so, Sassenach?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I swear I’ve heard that name mentioned to me several times though,” she said. “I’ll do that tomorrow probably.”

“I won’t stop ye, a nighean,” Jamie said, and then a few minutes later he joined her on the couch, sliding his arm around her shoulder. “I’ll call the DNA Centre tomorrow, book an appointment. It doesna feel like only yesterday we got the results.”

“I know,” Claire cupped Madeline’s head. “I just hope this is all resolved before Madeline’s first Christmas.”

“Me too, Sassenach.” Jamie kissed her temple. “Let’s just pray for a Christmas miracle then, aye?”

“Aye,” Claire grinned and leaned her head against his shoulder and they both watched their daughter, small and precious, their reason for living and for fighting to get the truth.

Chapter 18: I Promise To...

[kkruml]

I don’t even know your name Chapter 9

@outlanderedandoverhere has given us our Claire!

@smoakingwaffles This was the hardest chapter for me to write, thanks for helping me through it.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 2.5 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

AO3

Previously

“Come lass, let’s get ye inside,” he sighed in resignation. “It’s late and yer no fit to drive tonight. We’ve plenty of spare rooms for such occasions.” He held his hand out to her and she took it, swaying as her foot caught the leg of the stool and she stumbled into his chest.

“Well this is familiar,” she said as a fit of laughter escaped her. Her arms were around his waist and her head was nestled into his chest before he could blink, feeling her smile against him.

“As ye say, Sassenach,” he said as one hand cupped her head, holding it close and the other trailed down her back and pressed her firmly close to him, his cheek leaning against her curls.

They stood there, unmoving, drinking in each other’s warmth and the pulsing beat of their hearts matched each other’s and for a few moments they were one.

Claire

Small streams of light flickered against my eyelids and I pressed them closer together, trying to push away the sensation of morning. My fingers contracted slightly, searching for something familiar in my surroundings. My left hand felt a warm pulse under it, resting on something coarse and solid. I moved my hand slightly and felt a jawline form, and as a low hum vibrated against my cheek as I felt myself press closer to a firm figure. Arms around me held me close.

Jamie.

I risked opening my eyes slightly and saw red stubble lining his cheek from jawline to cheekbone, with the curve of his lips set in a small smile.

Flashes of the night danced before my eyes- two whisky glasses on the bar, my cheek against his chest- my arms around his waist. Our fingers linked as he led me through the courtyard.  I closed my eyes as I remembered pausing at the steps to the house- one step above him, taking his face in my hands and his arms locked around me. My eyes opened slowly again and I took in the rest of his form. His hair was tussled and a few curls fell just at his eyes. He was wearing the same shirt from last night and I felt the seam of his jeans against my leg. I let out a small sigh of relief- I was still in my clothes as well.

Taking stock of the rest of my surroundings, my head shifted to see a simple wooden table next to me, with a small lamp and framed photo, somewhat aged by time and faded by the sun. Blue eyes and Viking cheekbones were framed by dark brown hair- his mother, perhaps? A dresser lined the adjacent wall, lined with a few photos of his family and a little wooden carving of some kind. There were nicks in the wood that showed its age but also gave it character; it belonged in this well-loved home. A few shelves above it held emptied and old whisky bottles of various sizes and colors.

My sweater was draped over the arm of a chair in the corner with what looked like my keys and phone, next to a wide-paned window overlooking the courtyard, framed by linen curtains. The room was simple, clean, and looked like Jamie.  

I reluctantly untangled my legs from his and slowly shifted as not to wake him. He murmured something softly and his eyebrows pressed together but did not wake. My feet gently touched the floor and found a plush rug, I let my feet revel in the soft sensation before I carefully stood up, bracing the bed slightly. I took one last moment to take in his face and I smiled to myself.

Oh Beauchamp, you’re in deep.

I stepped softly over to the chair for my things and as I grabbed my sweater, a trace of auburn material caught my eye. My fingers reached for the fabric, my vision blurring slightly as I felt tears threaten. Neat rows of knitted wool turned over in my hand as I searched for a familiar marking- my fingers tracing the familiar “CEB.”

He had my scarf. This whole time.

I held it close to my chest, smiling as I remembered the many hours practicing the stitches, working and reworking various sections until perfect. One of the few possessions I had always kept with me and once I lost it, had thought this was lost to me forever.  I wrapped it around my neck, smelling the faint scent of oak and honey- Jamie had worn this scarf or at the very least kept it close to him. I crept over to the bed, risking one soft kiss on his cheek before turning to the door, needing to splash some water on my face and assess myself in a mirror.

My feet stepped carefully on the cold, well-worn wood flooring. I was halfway down the hallway when I heard voices in a nearby room, low but intent.

“It’s no right, that’s all I’m saying.” I paused, hearing Jenny’s voice.

“Ye dinna ken what happened last night, might be nothin’,” Ian’s voice countered.

“Ye saw them together and ken as well as I do- somethin’ happened.”

“Aye, like moths to a flame. But still, Janet, it’s no yer place.”

“Jamie’s got no business bringin’ a lass here while he’s still got one in the city.”

Ian’s voice answered but I couldn’t hear him- my thoughts circled around the last words Jenny said- there is someone else.

My heart was pounding in my ears. What had been a flutter in my chest was now a piercing pain that shot down to my fingertips, now tingling and numb. I looked back in the direction of Jamie’s room- a sweet sanctuary just moments ago but now my heart burned at the thought of taking another step. In one swift moment, a wave swept my world away and it crashed upon the rocks of a distant shoreline. Fragmented pieces of every touch and look lay broken as I closed my eyes and tried for a breath.  

I couldn’t find air. This feeling in the pit of my stomach- this was all too familiar.

I thought he would be different.

I thought there was something between us, something unusual. I felt it when he touched me, when his eyes met mine.

You’re a fucking fool, Beauchamp.

I staggered back slightly as my hip caught the corner of a small table, knocking over a picture frame. My hands found the wall as I looked to my right and saw a staircase.

I need to get out of here.

Jamie

His arms were empty. He opened his eyes slowly, his hand searching the space next to him. It was still warm, and he could still smell a trace of lavender.

Claire.

He closed his eyes again, let out a lazy yawn, and felt a smile spread across his lips as images of last night formed in his mind. His hand guiding hers into the house and up the stairs towards the spare room; the sound of her tired yet giddy voice as she asked to see his instead. The tingling of his lips as she rose to kiss them softly. The feel of her form between his arms as he held her tight as she slept. It had taken every fiber in his being not to take her then and there, instead he had pulled her closer and kissed her forehead as her eyes closed and she drifted into oblivion.

He heard a sound in the hallway, a small thud and then footsteps down the stairs. He rose and with three steps he looked out the window, his heart dropped in his chest as he caught sight of her as she reached the archway. Her face turned towards the house -

A Dhia, she was crying.

By the time he made it down the stairs and through the courtyard she was gone. He stared down the road for a few moments before he could force himself to look away. Trudging up the steps, Jenny was standing at the mule post, waiting with a hand on her hip.

“What happened? What did ye say to her?” Jamie’s eyes were level and fixed on his sister, voice controlled.

“It’s no polite to be lingerin’ about listenin’ in on two people-“

“DAMNIT. JANET. What did ye say?” His voice slipped, anger palpable.

Jenny put her other hand on her hip and squared her shoulders. “Oh so it’s my fault then, aye? The lass runs into the table, breaks a frame, about splinters the door slammin’ it shut behind her. But it’s my fault, brother?”

“Janet,” he started, calming his voice just enough to register in his sister’s face. “What did she hear ye say?”

Jenny stood still, unmoving. Her head was cocked to the side slightly and her eyes were set on Jamie’s face.

“Jenny. Please.” He finally exhaled, letting out the breath he’d been holding in.

She blinked twice more and then sighed, “It’s no right for ye to have a lass here while ye still wrapped up with another one in the city.”

“ARE YE DAFT, WOMAN!?” His anger was back, spiking so quickly his vision flickered and his heart was beating fiercely in his ears. “I’m no with any other lass and ye ken it!”

“Yer gonna stand there and lie to my face, brother?”

“Three months ago ye practically forced me out with a lass- I gave it one date. Dinna ever speak to her again.”

“Why didn’t ye tell me, brother? For the last six months ye ha’ been movin’ about like a ghost in yer own life. Ye needed something to make ye whole again.”

“I didna wanna speak of it, Jenny. I spent six months trying to find her… she was the ghost, ye ken.  Finally kent who she was and now she’s gone again, thinkin-” he couldn’t finish the thought. Claire, his Claire, had left thinking he was a rutting bastard.

“I...” Jenny started, her voice low and unusually soft, “I-I’m sorry, brother. Truly. Didna mean to take yer happiness from ye.”

He could count the number of times he heard those words from his sister’s lips- she did not make amends easily and rarely admitted defeat.  His shoulders sagged as he nodded his head and opened his arms enough for Jenny to step into them.

His thoughts were scattered but slowly came into focus as he conjured up her face in his mind- he needed to find Claire.

At least this time, he knew where to look.

[insomniac-arrest]

It is too bad I am but a Cat, and you are the Sun

genre: urban fantasy, witches/familiars, original wlw

words: 7k

Summary: A cursed witch familiar falls in love with the next door neighbor gardener girl 

warning: for injury

You get up at around seven every day, I know it’s around seven because I often see you lift your head, blink at your phone a couple times and press the grey square on the screen. Sometimes you do that twice. Or three times. Or four.

You’re usually at least upright by 7:30 and threading your fingers through your hair, messing it up and contemplating the thick knots that had formed overnight.

You go to take one long shower with steam wafting up through the crack in the door. I am honestly concerned about how long your showers are, how hot they could possibly be? The steam sticks to the ceiling and amusement spreads throughout my chest.

You start to hurry around eight, you’re outside by then, always. Like there’s a timer in your head that brings you out with the sun. It’s eight and you are outside on the terrace with rows of tomato plants and snap peas and mint leafs on either side.

I’ve never seen you grow anything but herbs and vegetables, but maybe that’s because of space or preference or some bad experience with a daisy. Either way, I see you frantically preen and anguish over every leaf and clump of dry soil.

This is my favorite part of the morning, where you get out your little hose and water bottle and go from plant to plant, delicately sprinkling water overhead, smiling and touching the soft skin. I imagine it’s soft, I haven’t touched anything like that in some time.

Not like you would.

You tie your auburn hair back to tend your favorite one: the watermelon. I’ve never seen it actually flower and create the nascent bulb for the fruit, but I think you have faith. You whisper to it and pump your hand in the air, like a cheer or chant.

I think you are patient and kind, people who like plants have that look about them. Maybe it’s just my wishful thinking, but my chest tightens every time you talk to your watermelon.

You run back inside after that and grab a protein bar and thermos, filled to the brim with two earl grey tea bags. I wish you would eat more than protein bars for breakfast, you spend so much time growing vegetables after all.

You slip on the same comfortable white shoes every day and dash out your apartment like you couldn’t be bothered.

Then, then I look up back at your little garden and twitch my tail, I wish you would come back. I wish the world turned a little slower.

----------

Your sister comes every Thursday, I don’t think you like your sister, she frets. She grabs your hair and points at split ends, she opens the fridge and points out all the empty spots.

She’s older than you, she has a broad look about her, like she was carrying something on her shoulders we couldn’t see. She frowns at you and picks up pieces of paper to show you the lines, sometimes they’re just numbers.

She has one frazzled ponytail on the nape of her neck and a collection of red shirts that all look the same, and she frets.

You sometimes roll your eyes and say something she doesn’t like, you argue, sometimes you sit down in front of the TV and watch some show that makes your body rock with laughter. You like your sister, you always carefully wrap up leftover food for her and kiss her cheek before she leaves.

She likes you too, she brings you seeds and little watering cans with frogs and polka dots on them, I’ve never seen you use one more than once but you always clap your hands and squeal. I sat there for hours after the first time you beamed like that.

She kisses your forehead before she leaves.

Once she brought you watering can with a cat on it, God I hoped, just a moment, a brief painful moment, that you liked cats. It’s something I dismiss quickly, like the temptation to swerve into oncoming traffic or scream off a tall building.

-----

You have asthma, it made me fluff up all along my spine the first time. I saw you outside your own building, sprinting through the rain with your eyes wild. The wind was whipping over the city with angry fingers and howling breath, and yes, your potted plants had blown over.

You almost slip, sprinting through the downpour as you reach for the overhang on the apartment building next to yours. And then reach for a small white device, you shake it and inhale.

My eyes go wide, I wish I hadn’t seen it, I really wish I hadn’t.

You inhaled deeply and hold your chest as you wheeze in and out, I want to be down there, or a thousand miles away.

-------

You like silly TV shows that seem to make you laugh and you go to bed at ten every night, which is too bad because that’s when I am the most awake. You own a flute that you never seem to pick up and several different coats with various holes in them.

I don’t know how you get so many holes in all your coats, even the new ones, I’m not sure you know either.

You have several calendars around your apartment, you mark things down on a huge one in the corner, the one with horses on it that you drew a little stick figure on the top of during a party.

You have a smattering of freckles over softly brown skin and thick auburn hair that seems to get away from you in every way. Your nose is slightly crooked but I can’t imagine you're bothered by it. You once had friends over and spent the party with your nose taped back like a pug dog, you never stopped laughing.

I don’t know what they call you, I hope it’s something nice, I hope it’s something warm.

--------

I never thought I would meet you, I wasn’t supposed to. Technically, like any other creature after all this time, I was supposed to be dead.

Instead, I was curled up in the corner of a dusty brown room with my ears pressed back. I feel the pressure of the room change before I hear her.

A crackle sizzles through the room that ruffles my back hairs and makes my whiskers twitch. A flash comes from the corner and a figure steps out.

“Nevermore!” I turn my head languidly. A woman in a heavy dark robe and a crooked mouth stares me down. She was young, only seventeen, but her hands were gnarled and pale, like they were losing blood every moment.

She kept her chin tucked down and her yellow eyes flashed in the dark, “Tibetan juniper.”

I get up and stretch, arching my long back and feeling my tail curl up behind me, I yawn. Jules taps her staff on the floor, “if we had time to catch flies with our mouths I’d hire a net, get.” She swats at me and I turn around in circles before glancing over my shoulder, Jules was forgetting about me quickly. Turning back to the ring in the middle of the room and mumbling to herself. I turn around in a circle a disappear into the nearest shadow.

Tibetan wind soon rakes across my back and I blink into a brilliant white winter. I start walking.

You were out buying groceries, I know this because it was Sunday and you always come home with stuffed brown bags on Sunday. I think about that as I trundle through the snow banks and toward blue fruit on a shaking branch.

----------

She named me Nevermore, like the poem. Like I was just an extension of one long dead poem that you could steal the words from and feel vindicated. Like I was just her cat- and she thought I should have a silly name.

I’ve forgotten my birth, I forgot a lot of things. First colors and then thumbs and then the feel of cloth against my skin.

Jules didn’t take my voice, so that was at least something. But only a little something in a long line of nothing.

I stood by Jules side, stoically, the devil’s pet to the devil’s maid. And I forgot.

I was in the alley next to our when it happened the first time. Jules was out at work as I prowled the alleyway back and forth. The rats down here had more fight in them, but there were more of them anyway.

I hadn’t eaten that day so I was keeping my eyes wide and belly low to the ground, I hear the chitter of rodents behind the dumpster and I tread my feat lightly across the flattened boxes.

My muscles are tensing, haunches lowering, my shoulders ripple.

BANG

I jump and so do the rodents, I hear them scramble away in every which direction before I turn to check on the sound that ruined my moment. My eyes go wide when I see that it’s you, you were holding a phone to your ear and swaying back and forth as you made it into the dank alley.

I back up toward the wall with my hair fluffed up, I didn’t like the odds of this.

“No Jerry,” I hear her murmuring, “we can’t wait for the order tomorrow, Ms. Jenny wants it today. I know, I know, but you have to find a way around it, she’ll have my ass... Please?” I could have rolled my eyes, just threaten him.

She walks down my way and I see her short pink dress with the satin sheen and pearls around her throat, I don’t know what kind of party this could be. It didn’t matter, I turn around in a circle, readying myself to jump again.

My heart was already pulsing painfully from being this close, no one could know. What would Jules do?

I take the first step and then I hear a sniff.

“Oh God,” I turn around, there you are. Pushing your thick hair back and dabbing at the corner of your eye, you had hung up and were now hunched over in the alley.

You dial a number and I see your fingers shake as you lift the speaker up, “hey Camy, hope the twins are doing good. I just… yeah. Sorry, I know you hate that.” Your voice wavers and there is that painful pulse in my chest again. “I’m just, so stressed right now. The deal is almost falling through and miss Jenny is… yeah. Just, call me back.” I take a step forward, I don’t know what I’m looking for but I see you. All of you, tall and sleek and not through a window pane. You stand with your back to me and I want something that tastes orange and secret inside of me.

You hang up slowly and turn around without thinking, I freeze slightly. “Oh.” She breathes and blinks a couple times. I should shadow jump, right then and there, I should leave.

She puts her hand out, “what are you doing out here, kitty?” She looks both ways and I lay my ears down flat. “It’s going to rain, you should get home.” Her hand looks soft as it reaches for me, why was she so naive? I take a step back but we are inches apart. She is still reaching out, she cocks her head to the side, “do you have a home around here? You’re awfully pretty.” I should have disguised myself as a ratty stray, it didn’t matter, she was staring at me. I unwind slowly and glance back and forth.

I flick my tail, once, twice, an energy floods through me and I meet eyes with her, luck. I try to push the charm through my veins, luck.

I was a little rusty at spells by myself, Jules needed me more as a vessel or conduit than a spellcaster myself, but I still had it in me. I’m sorry.

I think the word as I push the fizzling, spitting energy through my skin and your hand touches behind my ear, “you’re a nice kitty, aren’t you?” Your brow folds in, “have I seen you around before?” Your hand strokes my head and I indulge, I nuzzle my head down into your palm and you laugh. “You’re sweet.” The charm courses from me into her, luck. It was the least I could give to you.

You laugh again and pets my long body until my hairs are flat, “you know what you’re doing.” She scratches my chin for a long moment before sighing, “I should get back in.”

Your phone begins to ring and I have a feeling the deal is about to go through. “Well,” she turns away but I’m already turning around in a circle, “Kitty, I think-”

I am whisked away back into the depth of my own shrouded home and the red red circle in the middle of the floor, the blood Jules was gathering was still drying. I run to the corner and try to look at the window to see you return that night.

------------

I crossed the Patch family when I was only nineteen, by now I was much older than that and yet not old enough at all. I was only nineteen and I wanted to take down the most prestigious witch family in town.

I thought they were twisted, too powerful for their own good and hoarding all the artifacts for themselves. I was young and arrogant, though I did further than anyone thought I would.

Then I fell into one of their transfiguration circles, it was over as quick as it started. I forgot the feeling of clothing against skin, what colors looked like, how sugar tasted. I remembered my dark jet black whiskered face more than my human one.

I served Georgia Patch first, then Alyssa, and now the youngest Patch, Jules.

Jules didn’t talk to her aging mother now but I figure one day I would serve her daughter too. Jules was curious in the way youngest daughters usually are, how they sometimes try to prove themselves to something wasn’t there.

Her hands were turning more clawed by the day, I felt the rush of sickly green magic surge through the loft daily, the smell of blood filled the small room and I saw the bags under her eyes turn into dark pools.

“Revive them,” she was muttering, stirring, sprinkling things in with one stiff handful after the next. “Revive.” She went back to muttering tongues as I placed my head down. Most people had some percent of witch left in them (I’m 2%! Well, I’m descended from the Wicker family, my mom side had a great great grandma, so on). But Jules wanted something more, forgotten magic, words that no one remembered any more, lost, stolen.

Rooms that smelled like blood and mold, I would have rolled my eyes if I could still do that. I yawn and watch her sprinkle something mossy down into a brew.

“Nevermore,” she grunts at me, “go make yourself useful if you’re just going to lounge there.” Jules curls her lips and I can see her pointy sharpened teeth again, it sends a pang of annoyance through my system.

I knead the pillow under me languidly before standing up. Jules eyes me, “I don’t need you distracting me,” she waves her hands in the air, “get.” I take a step back and turn into the nearest shadow, away from the bubbling cauldron and her fruitless journey to nowhere.

I’m on the street in a heartbeat, I shiver in the chilly breeze as the day edges into night. At the time, I thought it would be a regular evening, I run down Pearl street and make it to Broadway.

I think about trapping a pigeon in a magic circle to eat later, but I start to see people come out of houses with colorful wings and a mask with cartoonishly large eyes. I step backward, kids were yelling and running around with soft bags and pillowcases.

Their cries make my ears sit flat on my head and I turn around to go find my way home. I didn’t need all these people stepping on me or running over my tail. I start darting home, I wasn’t looking where I was going. It was thoughtless, maybe that’s what got me.

The invisible walls went up before I saw the white lettering on the ground, the glowing words, the witches circle on the sidewalk. I rush over the lines and into a hard surface.

“Rawr!” I yowl as I run into the see-through barrier and hear a cry of laughter.

“Did you get one? Damn dude,” I hear chatter and footsteps coming up behind me, I whip around with a slight snarl.

“She’s so big!”

“Rrrr!” I rumble at my enemies as I look up at them.

“Get the stick dude, the stick.” I fluff up as I take in a group of five eleven-year olds looking down at me. They all had masks on and dark clothes, one was holding a piece of cheap enchanted chalk, I bare my teeth, I didn’t like this.

“I can’t believe that worked,” the bigger one said with a smile, I couldn’t believe it either.

“Is she a real familiar?” The other one took a crooked stick and poked into the circle, I jump back from the prod.

“It got caught in the circle, didn’t it?” One of them replies back factually.

I hiss gently as they approach, snapping my tail back and forth dangerously, one of them holds a bottle up, “what happens when we spray her with this ya think?” I could see his white teeth spread out with glowing brilliance, he was holding a squirt bottle and a black poker stick. I hiss again.

The holy water comes down on my head in a stinging cloud, I run around in circles to avoid it but it hits the tips of my ears and shoulders anyway. I recoil from the harsh touch and scrunch my face up in a growl.

I hear a chorus of laughter, “she’s freaking the fuck out!”

They spritz another time and this time I jump backward, clawing at the air and ducking away from the spray.

“Make her stay still!” One of them calls, “I want to see if she catches fire from this stuff.” They do another couple clouds of holy water and I yowl loudly.

“Get her foot!”

“Stick her down.”

I dart away from the black fire poker stick stabbed at my foot, I dart left and then right. I dance around the persistent strikes until I feel a sharp smokey pain shoot through my right foot.

The biggest boy hoots, “Got her!”

“Rrrorw!” I yell, my heart racing and fear spiking through my system. Of all things, this is not how I wanted to go.

“Hey!” I feel myself freeze, so did the boys. “What the hell are you kids doing?” “Shit,” one of them pulled his mask down further. I decided right then that I hated Halloween.

“You heard me, what do you have there?” “Roooorow!” I make a loud call for someone, anyone though I already recognized the voice. Some part of me was in denial, you wouldn’t, we couldn’t. But I was right in front of your apartment.

“Is that a cat?” I hear clicking hurried footsteps, “what are you monsters-” “Hit it!” The kids throw their hands up, dropping the chalk and scattering in opposite directions.

“Oh my God,” your eyes are large, brown as sturdy oak trees and a whole entire field waiting to burst into wildflowers. I quickly go to lick my bleeding paw and hopefully duck away into the night, but your soft hand is reaching down. “What have they done to you, kitty?”

Your eyes are so tender, soft like pillows and satin sheets. I let you gently stroke my head, you click your tongue and scowl. “Nasty brutes.” You delicately hold my gaze and reach out, taking my foot in hand, I try and flinch away. “It’s alright now.” I know, I think back. I know.

“Hurting cats on halloween, what ingrates.” She takes something from her pocket. “Do you need a vet kitty?” She asks as she dabs at the shallow wound on my foot, soaking up the little bit of blood there.

I don’t say anything, I don’t know what I would say. You are kind in the way that people who love springtime and gift baskets are kind, I already knew that.

My heart is in my throat and you take out water and pour it over the little cut before patting it dry, inspecting it, holding my paw up. At some point I imagine it’s like holding hands, but that was sillier than the whole of anything else.

I look up at you, you smile down. “You’re that cat I saw before, the good luck one.” She presses her face down. “Don’t you have a home?” I twist slightly and she rubs her across my back, “poor thing.” I knew I’d have to leave, Jules was only happy with me being gone so long. “Kitty,” she croons and I can’t help but step forward and press myself up against her ankle. She laughs, “you’re a friendly thing.” She tries to pet me again, “I’ll make sure those boys are reported, why don’t you let me-” I go running down the street, no shadow step, nothing. My heart was still jack-hammering in my chest, I couldn’t do, I couldn’t keep indulging.

I run until I make it home and let you sit on the street with just the memory of a hurt stray cat.

-----------

I watch you the next day, carefully, hesitantly. You get up around seven, you take a terribly long shower. You tend your numerous plants on the terrace.

“What are you looking at this time Nevermore?” I turn to Jules slowly, she was looking out across the cityscape too, but in a bored monotone. Her face was more chalky than usual, her expression fixed and heavy. She had failed again last night to summon The Forgotten Words, or do much of anything it seemed.

She hums, “do you think it will take something more?” She mutters, her hand rakes across my fur, her nails digging into my back. “What do you think?” She glances at me, her eyebrow raising, “Would you like to sacrifice yourself for the greater Patch family?” I give her a blank look, my eyes focusing on her with intent, her mouth twitches up after a long moment. She laughs and turns away, “like you could offer anything.” She shakes her head and goes lumbering off back to her open book, “parsley, monkey brains, spoiled milk…” I keep my eyes outside and you get off to work around nine.

--

It happened again the night before the full moon, Jules was getting more ideas. I know this by the fact her heavy footsteps were thumping down the hallway in ones and twos, she was in a hurry and the mumbling was increasing.

“Parsley, spoiled milk, seeds, why didn’t I think of seeds?” She bursts through the door and addresses me sharply, “Nevermore!”

I look up gradually and she points at me, “do you see the woman across the way?” Oh no.

I don’t make a move, keeping myself perfectly still, Jules wasn’t looking at me. “She has a mark.” Jules points to her thinning wrist, “a gold star on her wrist.” Oh fuck.

A gold star, a luck charm, if I could speak I would quickly tell her that the neighbor must just have some witch in her or a relative’s small charm.

“That’s it,” Jules perches by the window, “we’ve been getting our plants from all these common fools,” she taps on the glass, “we need a witches garden.” I relax slightly, head bowing down and looking away, “I can felt the fortuna charm from here.” Jules mouth spreads out into a sharp wide smile, she tugs on my tail. “Go get the tomatoes and mint from her garden.” I sigh internally, I brought this on myself.

-----

I started stealing regularly from the neighbors garden.

It didn’t feel good, I knew how hard she worked on each plumy leaf, spending Saturdays digging through fertilizer and turning dirt over and over. My stomach turned each time, but something else in me swelled.

This is where she stood, this is where she tredded, where she stroked the heads of the snap peas and loved each and every green sprout. Plus, I finally got to come to her watermelon plants. I place a luck charm on them too, pushing a bright yellow light into their thin veins with a strong intent gaze. Let them grow, let Jules never know.

It was hard to wake up in the morning and see you tutt and fret over the missing sage leaves and the places where tomatoes used to be. But there wasn’t anything I could do, just get closer.

I never meant to meet you again, that night next to your apartment was enough, when you dabbed my paw and cradled my head. Your soft voice and kind words stuck with me in the endless nights of chanting words and pots bubbling over with God knows what.

Jules said she felt like she was getting closer, her hair was starting to fall out and I heard her leaving voice messages with hushed spitting whispers on her phone. I suspected it was to her mother.

It didn’t matter, I tried to spend less time in the loft and more time anywhere else. I wasn’t getting much sleep, but I always figured cat’s needed far too much sleep anyway.

It was one of those creasing cool nights in January after a long sleepless day when I met you again. I gently landed on the terrace across from us, placing my paws down as I exited the shadow of a sagebrush.

I surveyed what was left of the plants I hadn’t taken from. Jules needed more basil brewed in lambs blood, I was told to at the very least get the basil.

I walk in between the bean poles and various troughs of soil and sprouts, it was barely ever winter in Milton Southern California, but she wasn’t growing as many plants as before. My heart sinks at the thought.

I pad over to the glass door and the mini-greenhouse she created for picky plants and ones that needed moisture. The basil was right outside.

I lower my head as I approach, stepping lightly as I plan to tear off several more leaves and disappear without a sound.

“Ah-ha!” I jump and almost turn myself into a ragged image of red horns and sparking flames, scaring whatever dare challenge me. Instead, I see a cheery woman in beige. “So it’s you!”

I lower myself to the ground and narrow my eyes, it was you. Just as round-cheeked and freckly as the first time, you were beaming. Then your expression distilled into something more curious.

She cocked her head to the side, “kitty?” I turn on my heels, ready to leap away, but I feel a pair of hands wrap around my sides, fingers grasping my belly and lifting my paws off the ground. I squirm and consider flicking my tail and turning her inside out. I don’t, she lifts me to her chest and holds gently.

“Are you just hungry? Is that why you’re eating my plants,” You stroke my head, “you seemed so friendly. Maybe you are a stray afterall.” You held me close and turns toward the door. “How about a proper meal.” My heart throbs like a drumbeat playing an army down to a battlefield, I couldn’t just let myself be dragged into a home. But I could see the door approaching and my own claws retracting, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t hurt you.

You close the door behind us and I smell spices and a fresh ink scent from the computer in the corner. She was printing something as she left the TV in front flashing. The sound was off but she had a large cup of earl grey tea and a pair of rubber gloves next to it.

You had been waiting for me.

I squirm in her arms as it all became too much, “mmmmrrr.” I growl at her softly and she places me down.

“Grumpy,” she huffs, “you really do need to eat.” Apparently I had been too kind to you the first time, you looked at me fondly and fluff my hair as I feel the thick carpet under my paws and warm air around me. Jules had kept the loft at a tepid freezing point for days now.

You jog across the room and reach high up into one of the cupboards. I follow in a little sluggish zig-zag.

I look up curiously, you are cracking open something and my ears perk up as I smell pungant tuna fish. My belly rumbles and the temptation overwhelms me, I pad over to the kitchen with my claws almost-out. I knew what was happening.

She places down the can of tuna and my heart swells a little bit and I put my head down to sniff the dish before starting to lap up the little fish.

“There you go,” she says lowly, “I can’t believe you’re the one terrorizing my garden.” She shakes her head, scratching me behind the ear as I eat. I rumble in the back of my throat, but not in a bad way.

“You’re a sweet girl, aren’t you?” She opens another tuna can for me and I always knew you were kind, perhaps too kind.

She washes up the dishes and starts humming to herself, “what about Little Black Shadow? Or Honey. Fausta? That means lucky, you seem lucky, all those deals went through at once after I met you.” I wonder why, I think to myself and don’t react.

“Fausta or Lucky, maybe Fortuna,” she laughs out loud, “you do love tuna.” She was putting on another pot of tea as I watched her, I hope she isn’t lonely, she is talking to me right then and there. I prepare myself to circle the nearest shadow.

She’s reaching down, “you seem very clean though, do you really not have a home?”  I stare at her blankly and she breaks into a smile and draws me closer, “my sister says I can’t have cats, that it will make my asthma worse somehow.” She snorts and tries to pick me up, I resist, but only a little.

She bundles me up and hugs me to her as we walk over to her couch. I can’t help it, I let her sit down with me on your lap and turn the volume on the TV up. I curl up, covering my feet with my tail and looking up at her.

She pets me and bends her head down.

“You can wait with me,” she whispers, “everyone else is with my mother right now, I couldn’t make it.” She sighs, “she should be okay. She should.” She turns up the volume again and I assume she’s waiting, and not just for me. I let you pet me, cooing sometimes and pressing your nose into my fur.

I don’t mind, I don’t mind a lot of things as I sit safe and dry in your arms. I knew what was happening.

I find the rumbling spreading my chest to my whole body, I purr as we both start to drift off on your wide couch, a movie called the Goonies plays in front of us on repeat.

I wish a wish so harsh and large that feels like it might rip me apart or lift me into the next hemisphere. It clings to my heart like a hangnail and I curl up tighter in your lap.

I push more luck from my small pool of magic into you, let your business thrive, let your mother recover. Let the world shine for you.

----------

I woke up in the morning with a full belly and warm ears, I had a sweet dream about my childhood, I was holding the string for the morning wash and dancing around with it in circles. I wanted to be a dancer at that point, and a hero, and everything else in between.

I blink open my cat eyes, away from the colors of the dream and back to your arms around my body and muted tones of the real world.

“There you are,” you were wiping at your eyes, “I didn’t want to wake you.” She hadn’t moved since dawn appeared it seemed like.

My internal clock tells me it’s around seven thirty, I give myself another minute of her warmth before I hop off delicately, she laughs.

“No more eating my plants little lady,” she tisks and straightens up with a crack from her back. “Or else I’ll have to feed you and cuddle you each night then.” God yes.

I turn around.

“Say,” she was still nudging me, poking at me with her foot as  I stood on the ground. “How would you feel about staying somewhere dry and safe each night? If it’s a yes just s-” Nevermore, I flinch as a voice splits through my head, get back here.

I hear nothing after that, you are picking up the phone. “Yes, this is Marissa,” I give you one long forlorn look, “how is she doing?” Pause, “that’s great!”

That fills me with something indescribable, I turn into the nearest shadow and disappear into the dank, rancid loft across the street from her.

Jules bares her sharpened teeth when I return, “I saw you.” She narrows her eyes and I consider hissing at her. She just starts muttering to herself and shaking her head, “stupid cat.” For once I agree with her.

-----

It happened one midnight, spring was starting with a tentative little foot in the door and I was tired. You had gone away to your families for christmas and I almost felt empty with that. Jules was gnashing her teeth and hadn’t left her single room loft in weeks. She hadn’t showered in weeks either, even if I mildly tried to hint at her she should.

I gave up rather easily, I was the Patch’s involuntary servant, not their nanny.

Jules was murmuring, I was looking out the window. The spring was coming, you were outside, digging and replanting large pots, there was soil smudged across your nose and I want the world.

Your mom had made a full recovery from her heart attack and you had been planting more and more since then.

“That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it?” I don’t make a move as Jules address me, coming up from behind and hovering. I turn a bored look in her direction, she rakes a hand down my side as if to pet me.

I try to convey that there wasn’t anything she could technically do to me, I could disappear at any moment I wanted to.

She glances at me instead, her lips spreading open, “good job Nevermore.” I want to groan at my own name, but her praise gets my attention.

She was staring out the window with crescent moon eyes, my blood runs cold. “Something is different.” She mutters hoarsely, “I can see it all over her. Gold, shining, that star on her wrist.” She gives a wild smile. “Lucky blood. It will be perfect for the circle.” My eyes go wide, I want to scream it, I want to choke her. No.

“Rrrrrrrrrrawr,” I growl and lift myself onto my feet, raising my haunches dangerously. She just frowns at me, “RRROW!” I growl again and send a wave of hot, burning magic in her direction.

“Shut up Nevermore,” she lifts her finger and I go flying across the room, “finally. Finally. I will bring back the words to humanity. They’ll sing my praise from coast to coast. Fortune really will be with us,” her eyes glow yellow, “thank you.”

I shake, I knew I did this to you, I did this. “Magic is stronger with love, isn’t it Nevermore?” She snorts, “white magic at least.”

I could tell she wasn’t impressed by White Powers. And then she was gone.

----

My paws were stuck to the floorboards, magically glued there by my mistress. I don’t know why she would do this, but my stomach had dropped and I felt sick. I had spent the last ten minutes calling at the top of my lungs, singing to the high heavens for someone to do something.

Nothing, nothing happened.

I had to do something, fear courses through me like fiery jet fuel, it stings and every nerve in my body is on fire. I try again, surging power through my paws, white magic that burned the bottom of my feet.

I send another shimmer of yellow light, luck, that pulsed and cut deep as I rip my feet off the floorboards. It stings but I resist the sticking magic keeping me there.

I tear out of the corner of the room with my entire form shaking, time, time, time was not with me. I’m counting down minutes as I sprint to the nearest shadow.

I careen into it and plant my feet as I feel cool tiles slide against my pads, “rrow!”

I scream and see the precinct turn their heads to me, I flick my tail and send the nearest pile of papers careening to the floor with a wave of power. “Mrrrow!” I try again.

“A witch!” Someone next me yells and I see people reaching for their guns.

I lay my ears down and bare my teeth, trying to convey something I couldn’t say.

“Step aside, step aside,” I see a woman in a long dark blue robe standing in front of me, she’s stoic and tall with glassy sharp eyes, the police station warlock. She had a giant bird of prey on her shoulder.

I call out to the falcon and the bird flaps its enormous wings, I try to articulate something to it in harsh whispers, an ancient tongue that I felt like I was just discovering.

The warlock turns her head slightly to listen and I don’t have time for this. I flick my tail again and send more papers flying, I turn toward the door, trying to get them to follow, to listen.

The warlock turns her head slowly, time is everywhere. She lifts her hand, “follow that familiar.”

I shoot out of the building with my nose pointed toward the smell of them, time, time, time. I could see the knife in Jules Patch’s hand. I could see the circle she was drawing.

The police officer’s feet pound after me, “slow down!”

“Is she allowed to do this?” “Someone is in trouble,” the warlock was catching up and I can only point toward the apartment.

I’m not sure how long it takes to get there, it feels like forever, but I know it wasn’t over yet. “Mrrrr!” I take the steps two at a time, I could feel my lungs throb in my chest, limbs starting to howl and breathe coming in sharp hurried bursts, I sprint.

“The MUS is off the charts! It’s picking up major black magic.” “Get your taser out,” The warlock picked up her staff and sent a ball of white light careening through the air, I watch it pass me with a crackle. It explodes the apartment door on front of it before sending a blinding white light into the room like a bomb. The Light Saturation clears the dark magic before the officers enter.

It was a precaution but I wanted them to be faster, I force myself through the light and to you, to your frightened shaking form. Your neck is bleeding, eyes wide and unblinking, mouth open.

You were alive, I could have collapsed on the spot, Jules was curled up on herself, retracting from the burst of blinding light that must have sucked from her dark spell.

“Pigs!” She shouts from the ground, “fucking fools.” Jules reaches for her staff next to her and I force a yellow pulse out of my paws and toward the wooden stick, it flies out of her reach.

Her caustic grating gaze falls on me, her mouth foaming, “traitor!” She shrieks, “betrayer!”

I kick the staff farther away and the police come bursting into the room next, “freeze!” Their tasers are up, hot on Jules crawling, twisting form.

“You’re holding back the future!” She shrieks, the sparks fly as the magic ball sends shocks through the witches thin body, she dances in midair like a marionette on jump rope strings.

A pang of pity, regret, courses through me as she spasms in the dank heavy air, makes me reel back for a moment, did I do the right thing? She was barely eighteen. And then I look at you. Your eyes are wide, brown as sturdy oaks and open fields before they sprout wildflowers.

“You,” you gasped at me, having most likely put two and two together. She trembles, “You’re hers.”

In some other world this isn’t it, we dabble into forgotten magic and my claws arc into fingertips. My arms stretch and fur sprouts into hair, I reach for you and hold your beautiful head as we cry about all the things that are lost.

We would embrace on the terrace the wind would blow through our hair, just as the watermelon begins to flower and all of time slows down, for just a moment.

Someone ushers me into a small dark cage.

“Edith Wentworth,” an authoritative voice reads out as they hold up a magic transcription, “you are under arrest for aiding and abiding a witch practicing black magic. You have the right to remain silent.”

They had found me, as they should. You stand up, teetering and uneasy, holding your neck and eyes unfocusing.

I go willingly into the cramped space and remember that no one knew how to reverse a complete animal transformation. You are holding back tears, the luck charm shines on your wrist vividly and firmly, I exhale. Jules was incapacitated on the floor, the blood circle was smeared and forgotten, the witches brew was simmering down.

You were whole and breathing and beautiful.

I go into the cage and watch the terrace outside as we leave, it becomes smaller and smaller as they carry me out, this isn’t the other story.

For it is too bad that I am but a cat, and you are the sun.

[alayne-stonecoldfox]

She had been born a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south, on the Red Fork of the Trident. The godswood there was a garden, bright and airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows across tinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicy with the scent of flowers.

Littlefinger. Her brother Edmure had given him that name, long ago at Riverrun. His family's modest holdings were on the smallest of the Fingers, and Petyr had been slight and short for his age.

Petyr had been a small boy, and he had grown into a small man, an inch or two shorter than Catelyn, slender and quick, with the sharp features she remembered and the same laughing grey-green eyes. He had a little pointed chin beard now, and threads of silver in his dark hair, though he was still shy of thirty. They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. Even as a child, he had always loved his silver.

As Catelyn held her, she remembered the slender, high-breasted girl who'd waited beside her that day in the sept at Riverrun. How lovely and full of hope she had been. All that remained of her sister's beauty was the great fall of thick auburn hair that cascaded to her waist.

The southern rain was soft and warm. Catelyn liked the feel of it on her face, gentle as a mother's kisses. It took her back to her childhood, to long grey days at Riverrun. She remembered the godswood, drooping branches heavy with moisture, and the sound of her brother's laughter as he chased her through piles of damp leaves. She remembered making mud pies with Lysa, the weight of them, the mud slick and brown between her fingers. They had served them to Littlefinger, giggling, and he'd eaten so much mud he was sick for a week. How young they all had been.

Her father had taught her to ride amongst these trees, and that was the elm that Edmure had fallen from when he broke his arm, and over there, beneath that bower, she and Lysa had played at kissing with Petyr. She had not thought of that in years. How young they all had been—she no older than Sansa, Lysa younger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager.

There was always mint growing in the godswood, and Petyr had liked to chew it. He had been such a bold little boy, always in trouble.

She had played at being Jenny that day, had even wound flowers in her hair. And Petyr had pretended to be her Prince of Dragonflies. Catelyn could not have been more than twelve, Petyr just a boy.

"This was my father's solar," said Tully. "He ruled the riverlands from here, wisely and well. He liked to sit beside that window. The light was good there, and whenever he looked up from his work he could see the river. When his eyes were tired he would have Cat read to him. Littlefinger and I built a castle out of wooden blocks once, there beside the door.

Nonetheless, during all those years of Catelyn's girlhood, it had been Brynden the Blackfish to whom Lord Hoster's children had run with their tears and their tales, when Father was too busy and Mother too ill. Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure … and yes, even Petyr Baelish, their father's ward … he had listened to them all patiently, as he listened now, laughing at their triumphs and sympathizing with their childish misfortunes.

"Last night I dreamed of that time Lysa and I got lost while riding back from Seagard. Do you remember? That strange fog came up and we fell behind the rest of the party. Everything was grey, and I could not see a foot past the nose of my horse. We lost the road. The branches of the trees were like long skinny arms reaching out to grab us as we passed. Lysa started to cry, and when I shouted the fog seemed to swallow the sound. But Petyr knew where we were, and he rode back and found us . . ."

-Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure and Petyr’s childhood at Riverrun