#That for sometime at least Jon will be the King in the North and Lord of Winterfell

[catsteeth]

The Caged Bird and The Leashed Dog

Sandor Clegane x reader

+:✿ Chapter - 2 ✿:+ White Mare

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Summary: You are the daughter of Jon Arryn, you and your father travel to King's Landing with the intention of arranging a marriage for you. You catch a glimpse of The Hound during your first night in Kings Landing and it creates a mutual fascination even if he won't admit it. 

CW: slow burn, MDNI, angst, emotional unavailability, emotional vulnerability, The Hound being abrasive, alcohol consumption, mention of parent(s) death, mention of arranged marriage, mention of prostitution, mention of NSFW themes

Word Count: 3037

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Ever since that day in the stable you filled your days with reading, sewing, mindless activities to keep yourself busy. Anything to relieve your mind of the horrors of Kings Landing and your shameful thoughts of the giant who roamed the halls. Loras and you grew distant since you rejected his hand in marriage, in turn you spent your time with the Starks. It was hard at first to be without your only friend but you were determined to get your cousin out of this city. But it wasn’t hard when Sansa clung to you like a scared beaten dog. You were treated no better of course. But at least you knew how to handle such cruelty with a stepmother like Lysa. 

“Don’t let them see you cry,” You’d repeat holding her face “Don’t let it show. Don’t you see how much pleasure he derives from seeing you like this?” 

 Arya would teach you small things she learned during her sword training, and in all honesty it was the most fun you’d had in years. You found yourself becoming more and more invested in those little girls' well being. 

It seemed as soon as Nedd arrived in Kings Landing his time ended. 

That day seemed like a dream. You were summoned by Cersei to her Chambers.

“Has Lord Stark mentioned anything to you about the nature of your fathers death?” Cersei questioned you calmly as she poured wine into her gablet.  

“My fathers?” You asked genuinely confused, she nodded as she sipped her wine “No, your grace.”  

“Good. It would be cruel of him to spark paranoia in the mind of a grieving daughter.” She said as she paced the room with her goblet of wine in hand. 

“Paranoia?” If you weren’t before you would be now. 

Cersei interrupted you once more “Lord Stark will be arrested for treason today. Somewhat unrelated but it would seem that Lord Stark’s head is filled with paranoid thoughts.” 

You didn’t understand why your uncle was on trial for such a crime. You were just a girl to these men, they didn’t speak of such things with you, that is yet. “Little bird, you are a clever and strong girl. I know you are loyal, loyal to the Starks, they are your family. But it is important to be loyal to your allies just the same. Sometimes family will only drag us down, allies however can make us stronger.” Cersei not so subtly threatened you.

You nodded politely, as soon as you could leave you tried to find your little cousins. 

You found Arya by the stables. You noticed the men lying dead on the ground with the Stark girls baggage. You saw Arya holding her bloodied sword after pulling it out of the stable boy.

She was horrified, you approached her slowly and quietly.

“Arya” You spoke gently but that didn’t stop Arya from jumping and pointing needle at you. “Arya, you need to run.” You said softly, almost a whisper. 

She ran to you dropping needle, she wrapped her arms around you. You held her close but kneeled to her height. 

You held her face with both your hands and your eyes bore into hers. “Your family is not safe here. You are not safe here.” Your grasp on her head did not waver. “You have to find a way out, get to the city, find a way out of the city, get to the north.” 

“I can’t!” She began to whine as she cried 

“You can!” you stroked her hair trying to keep her attention “You killed those men?” 

“Just the stable boy” she cried softly

“You killed a man. That's more than most women will ever kill.” You pulled her face closer trying to make sure your words reached her  “Listen to me those men will come and they will kill you. Don’t trust anyone, never tell them your name, never tell them your house. Lie, and get good at it. Kill if you need to.” You said as you grabbed needle and put it in her hand, “Now go.” You say as you let go of her and she runs off. 

‘Good’ you thought as you watched her run away. As you watched you didn’t notice the tears that had fallen from your eyes. 

Soon enough you were summoned by Cersei to witness Nedd’s verdict. 

She didn’t anticipate what came next, and neither did you, watching the death of your uncle. 

You held Sansa through it. As she screamed and cried, you tried your best to conceal her eyes. 

Your eyes however dodged from your uncle to The Hound behind him. You hoped he would do something to stop it, but he didn’t 

And so, it happened. 

The second hand of the king died.

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He thought of it every night. 

The moment he touched you, your skin, the moment his rough hands caressed your throat. 

He rolled the thought over in his mind millions of times. Gods’, it tortured him to no end. He tried to bury himself in his duty, bury himself in any woman who looked the slightest bit like you on the Streets of Silk, even taking himself in his hand at the thought of your scent…. More than once.

The thought of you sparked resentment and anger in his chest. He was Kingsguard now, he had no use for a woman, had no use for these emotions he felt. 

He hated you for it. Hated you for the way he wanted to rip Loras’s head off anytime he saw you and him in the garden. Hated you for the way he thought of your eyes everytime he closed his eyes. Hated you for the way his mind would wonder at you at any turn even on duty. Hated you for the way his chest tightened anytime he caught even a glimpse of you around Kings Landing.  And he hated you for the way your eyes caught his. Each time it was like a deadlock, those eyes, they were a bow and arrow and they shot through him each time. 

He grumbled under his breath anytime you were near. Purposefully look away from you as if you didn’t exist. You pretended not to care, but you fought hard just to catch a single glimpse of his face. The burns that draped across the right side of his face like the sheer lace curtains you had in your room in the Eyrie that distort your view from the window. 

Neither of you had much time to think about these emotions during the following days. You were spending your time mothering Sana as she grieved her fathers death. The Hound was now King Joffrey’s personal bodyguard now that Robert was gone. A terrible task truly. 

Even worse one when your stubborn and rebellious tongue didn’t obey your better judgment around the new king. The Hound tried to convince himself he hated it, but it turned him on even if he didn’t want to admit it. He tried to keep you safe, as safe as he could. Whenever you shot an annoyed glance, a cleverly concealed insult Joffrey's way, the Hound would simply divert Joffrey’s attention to something else. But if you ever got on Joffrey's bad side he couldn’t do much, far be it from him to question a king. On Joffrey’s name day you tested his patience. Joffrey had you and his lady Sansa accompany his side during his Name Day celebration. However you felt a slight sting of joy knowing you’d be so close to him once again. But more so your stomach turned in on itself. Joffrey no doubt invited you for the explicit challenge of trying to elicit some kind of reaction from you in some way. This became clear once he continuously asked for your input on the celebratory fighting. You’d had a small fascination with combat at first. It was like a dance but with blood and swords. but soon you’d grow bored of it. 

As The Hound had beaten a man to a whimpering submissive pulp the fight was over. Joffrey clapped and cheered as The Hound removed his dog helmet.  

Still you were stunned by him. You wanted to hate him for not helping your uncle. You tried to hate him but in all honesty you knew he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He’d no real power, no real way of stopping it.

“Well struck, Dog!” Joffrey shouted, and snapped you out of your trance.

Joffrey turned to you and Sansa “Did you like that?” he asked, taunting you and her. 

“It was well struck, your Grace.” Sansa replied, stoic. 

“I just said that.” Joffrey said, his eyes narrowed, his tone deepened. 

Ser Meryn looked over in Sansa’s direction. You knew what that meant, 

“I found it boring.” You chimed in, your eyes just as narrow as his. 

“You did?” He asked with the same threatening tone 

“Mm” you nodded 

“And what man did your house bring to fight?” 

“Brought no man.” You shook your head 

The Hound returned to his station by the Kings side. He pretended not to listen but he was, intensely. 

“You brought no man to my name day tournament?” He questioned further, you knew he would have taunted you further. To state it was for lack of good men or perhaps your dead father’s power died with him, that your house was to die with it.

“Not one.” Your head whipped towards Joffrey, gaze sharpening. “Not one man wished to celebrate your name day it would seem.”

“Ser Meryn.” Joffrey commanded. 

You noticed the Hound's head tilt in your direction as Ser Meryn walked towards you and slapped you across your face, cutting your lip with the armor of his glove. As Ser Meryn walked away you turned your head back towards Joffrey. 

“You are a pretty girl, a little more plump than I would like, but still a pretty girl.” Joffrey said “You should be more agreeable in tone, or you might find you won't be so pretty.” He smiled as he threatened you. 

“Hm?” He waited for your response as you wiped the blood from your lip. 

As you looked up, “Do you wish for me to cry, your Grace?” you asked almost mocking. 

Joffrey began to dryly chuckle at your remark, probably about to order another hit for you as Ser Dontos Hollard stumbled onto the tournament drunkenly. The Hound cleared his throat, getting Joffrey to shift his attention towards him and not you. With his attention shifted you were safe once more.

Your eyes stayed on the Hound however. You knew what he had done for you, however subtle it was, you noticed. 

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You found yourself spending more and more time near your mare. The moon shined on her just right for her coat to shine almost like metal, and your candle light shined on her just perfectly for her to glow like the sun. Lika, she was the only thing left you had from your home. You’d begin to yearn for the times you’d be furious with your fathers decisions and his useless attempts at comforting you. Because at least if he’d seen you were struck the way you had been, he’d have taken you home. He’d have helped you. But for now, you had Lika. 

As you sat in front of Lika’s stable, you read some book you’d stolen from Tyrion at some point. It was hardly interesting, infact you’d almost fallen asleep but Lika nuzzled her snout into your neck and sniffed you deeply, jolting you awake before you smiled and wrapped your arm around her head. You began to stroke the side of her head as you heard a low and deep voice beckon from the entrance of the stables. 

“Fuck are you doin’ girl.” 

Your head snapped towards him, relief befell you once you saw it was him, the Hound.

You looked back towards your book, “Reading, or I was anyway.” You replied softly

“Read in your room,” He said gruffly as his large hand opened the doors to the stable wider. He was so tall he ducked into the doorway as he walked inside. 

“I’ll decide where I read.” you said defiant as always. 

With a dry chuckle he began to walk towards you, “Words like that are the reason you got that cut on your lip.” 

“You don’t have to remind me of it.” You thought to yourself how this is exactly how you must sound to Sansa.

“Fuck-” He hissed under his breathe “You don’t want my help? Suit yourself.” He huffed “But don’t scream for me when you need it.” 

“I won’t want it.” You say softly “Anyways, you can’t help me.-” You began as he cut you off

“I helped that Tyrell you love.” He said with venom in his voice and a softness in his gaze. 

You furrowed your brows, stood up and faced him head on “And I have thanked you for it.” 

“I know you helped that Stark girl escape.” He said matter of fact

You huffed “What do you want from me?” you asked pained

“I want you to stay away from me.” 

“You seem to forget you came to me.” 

“You should run from me, you should tell me to go.”

“I don’t run.”

“That’s the fucking problem with you, girl. If you’d any sense you’d think of yourself. Change that tone of yours. Change those eyes, the way you look at people… like you want to gut them.” 

“I do want to.” 

“Stubborn” he chuckled darkly “Stubborn will get you beaten.” 

“Why did you come for me?” 

“I saw the light-“

“No. If it were anyone else you’d’ve gone on your way by now.” 

“Fuck does it matter?” 

“Sandor-”

“Don’t call me that.”  He hissed

“Tell me,” You say, raising a hand to his scarred cheek. He flinched and backed away quickly. His scowl deepened. He moved away from you, he turned to face outside the stables. “You wrapped your hand round my throat, and you won't let me touch your cheek?” 

“It’s different, you’re not ruined.” He said whilst he stared into the nothingness outside the stable doors. 

“Am I not?” You asked, your words felt sharp. 

“No, no you are not.” His words felt gentler. 

“I’ve no one, I’ve only this cage I sit in.” 

“You’ve got someone,” He scoffed over his shoulder at me, my eyes looking up at him widening against my will. “You’ve got that Tyrell,” You huffed, “That stark child that follows you like a bloody shadow.” He looked back into the night, “I’ve got no one,” 

“You do,” You say without noticing how bold it was until he turned to you, “Or you would, if you’d let them.” 

“My brother.” he mumbled, his head hung low as he walked closer to you. “Pressed my cheek to the fire.” He finished, unwilling to give anything else. “I know you’ve heard the story, Baelish, that cocksucking rat, no doubt told you.” 

“Course he did.” You didn’t lie, you never could to him. “But I asked you.”

He smirked slightly, his head still slightly turned away from you not wanting you to see. 

Your hand rose to caress his cheek, you did it slowly. He flinched his head away slightly and in turn you pulled your hand back slightly. As his head came back, moving closer towards you. You moved your hand to his cheek once more, slowly. He grabbed your wrist before it could make contact with his face.  

“Look at me,” He hissed “I’m a killer, the things I’ve done-” He thought back on those things “You don’t want this girl.” His grip on your wrist did not loosen, as if he was genuinely trying to protect you. “You’ll wed some lord, you’ll have his sons, and you’ll be far and gone from this shit city.” 

“I don’t want to wed a lord.” Your eyes now are not so hateful but sad. 

“World, doesn’t give a fuck what you want.” His hand reached out, slightly cupped the back of your head, hardly touching. He ran his hand down the length of your hair. Once he reached the end of it he held a lock of it in his hand to examine the color in the candle light. His deep, rich brown eyes reached yours once more. He could swear yours sparkled in any light. 

“I’ll walk you to your chamber.” He said gruffly, peeling his eyes away with yours. He grabbed the book in your hand and walked towards the doors of the stables. 

You let out a staged huff as you followed him. 

As he led you through the halls you realized that you were doing just that, following him. He knew where your chambers were and knew how to get there swiftly. 

The thought lit a fire in your chest. 

As he arrived at your door he stopped, as you opened it you turned to look at him. 

“You stole this from the imp.” He grumbled as he held up the book you did in fact steal. 

Your eyes went from the book to him, “Are you going to report me to the Queen.” You said, you smiled slightly with your eyes. Testing him and his loyalties. He growled under his breath and walked off.

The way you tested his patience stirred something in him. 

He’d definitely be taking himself in his hand that night again.

Is love the death of duty.  Or is duty the death of love?

[rise-my-angel]

Heart of the Great Wolf

1 - Wolves of the Lone Stag

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader (slow burn), Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader

Length: 16.1k

Warnings: Slow Burn, Strained parent-child issues, mentions of minor character death, secret relationship, arranged marriage, injured/sick child mention, smut, p in v, slight dom/sub dynamics, loss of virginity

Notes: Reader is firstborn daughter of Stannis Baratheon, based off the show but will include direct book elements, slight canon divergence. First Chapter is really long due to set up, subsequent future chapters won't be quite such a massive read. Chapter Two Here.

Travelling along the Kingsroad was far longer and more tedious with this company. Normally you would spend only so much time on here from White Harbour, most of the journey done on sea. Yet now, there were far too many people and it’s leader insisting on treating the journey as it’s own adventure. By the time you reached Winterfell it would be a month on horseback and no one to entertain your morose demeanour. Though perhaps you had to consider that it wasn’t just the company of the others that was less then ideal.

You had the supposed misfortune of being the daughter to the less favoured of the three Baratheon brothers. Robert, King Robert to those in public company, was a more complicated man. A mix of a man who successfully kept the peace for over twenty years but also was as unhappy on the throne and was unafraid to show it. He did however, have enjoyment in wine, hunting, and did hold a jovial laughter that kept people around him.

Your other uncle, was much more agreeable. Renly was the youngest of them and was charismatic and well liked. He was naive, not really a man suited for leadership but he did the best with what he knew to do. Closer to your age, you often found yourself spending time with him and it was right now that you were annoyed he chose to stay back in Kings Landing. A month with the King, his own family and the entire royal brigade and not one of them knew how to get a smile from you.

That was a trait from your father no doubt. Stannis Baratheon was the middle child, and he was easily the most disliked. He was cold, distant, unemotional and seldom allowed laughter at his table. He took his job seriously, more seriously then the King did his sometimes. In his prime, he was a proven battle commander and he never lost that. Robert was a warrior and he was happiest as such, but Stannis had never stopped being a commander and whether it made him liked or not, it taught you to be who you were now.

A Lady of the House Baratheon, firstborn daughter to Stannis and heir of Dragonstone was your current position and you were taught to uphold that name. Often found with a flat expression, close to a scowl as you walked the capitol you found nothing to enjoy there. Not that Dragonstone was where you’d find happiness either. The only place that had never been your home was the one you felt it in.

You had turned eight when your father had begun sending you out. Brought up, he ensured you had a Lord’s education as well as what all girls were taught. If you were to take up the mantle after him, he wanted you to learn from those that would teach you to be like him. That was when he sent you to Winterfell for the first time. Not a friend of Lord Eddard of House Stark, but your father did respect him the most. Two men both stern with upholding honour and justice, always doing what is right and what is honourable rather then what they wanted.

You spent seven months in Winterfell, and it was the first time your mother and father hadn’t been there for your name day. At the time, it made you sad but you had long since gotten over it. Over more then a decade had passed since your first stay in the north and many name days had been spent there with no word from your family. Well, at least your parents. The only family member you spoke too and more fondly with then Renly, was your baby sister. Shireen Baratheon was not just the light of your life but your fathers too. Some used to say that you were the only one who could make Stannis smile but you were nothing compared to how he smiled at that little baby.

You were fine with her being the favourite, she was your favourite family member as well.

Not long after baby Shireen had beaten a bout of horrific illness, your father had been summoned to Kings Landing. The King telling him that he was of no use to the realm shut away on Dragonstone, and he was to come to the capitol and sit on the small council as Master of Ships. He had taken you with him, and thus your new home was the wretched city full of backstabbers and manipulators.

Back and forth you went from Kings Landing to Winterfell, each stay growing longer and each stay you grew closer to the Starks then you did anyone in the Red Keep. Lord Stark was the perfect example of a good leader, warden of the North and inspired nothing but loyalty amongst the northerners and made you as welcome as anyone in his home. You followed him around most days, learning from him, watching how he handled diplomacy and made his lessons your own.

It was that how you got to know his ward, Theon Greyjoy. A rambunctious lad who listened diligently in formality and was crass and brash outside of that. You knew he would hate Kings Landing but often found yourself at your fathers side wishing the smart ass was next to you, nudging you with his elbow every time you were too closed off for your own good. It was easy to forget that he was technically the Starks prisoner, he fit into their family, the north as well as you did.

Not quite a leader as you were being taught to be, but you were confident once he had the chance to prove himself, you’d expect great things from him. You’d gotten a raven from him while on the road, and in his usual style he spent some time making fun of you for having to be “shacked up with the lamest of the three”.

Right. The reasons your company headed to Winterfell. The King had one, you were being forced into another though. The news shocking you as Stannis told you of your new duty the night before you left was double. That he was leaving for Dragonstone and you were to return to Kings Landing with Lord Stark and serve as acting Master of Ships in his absence.

He wasn’t just dumping his responsibilities onto you with no explanation of his distant behaviour and secrecy, your father had also dumped a marriage onto you and told you that you were to marry and come back. As if he didn’t just dictate your entire life to be like his. “You will marry the Stark boy, and with or without him you are to return in my place.”

Trying to reason with him, “You’re expecting me to have, what? A night maybe two with my new husband and then leave for however long you decide?”

Not even the slightest change of expression, but there was a twinge of regret in his eyes that was soon covered up. “I didn’t decide this alone. My brother, our king, has decided it with no room for question. I’m sorry, but you’re a Baratheon. You’re my daughter. And sometimes our duty requires us to marry not for love, but for the good of the realm.”

You had spoken to your betrothed since the announcement, but had yet to see him in person. A major reason as to why you wished Renly had come with you. Have someone to ease your nerves on the months ride, instead you were entirely on your own lost in what you were losing.

After all, you received a raven from not just Robb after the announcement. And it was that second one, and the finality of it’s contents that shattered the still remaining rosy dreams you once felt as if you had a lifetime to indulge in. Who your betrothed was, wasn’t the upset in any way. It was the unavoidable conclusion of the love in your heart that simply wasn’t allowed to be.

As the party approached Winterfell, your heart begun to race.

The crisp cool air on your face that once relaxed you, only stoned it further into a solid expressionless pose. Reminding yourself that you weren’t just here as yourself, you were to represent your father and you wouldn’t do so by falling apart. You rode into the walls right up near the very front alongside your craven of a cousin. He represented the luxurious royal side of the family, and you the steadfast duty and justice.

The House guard stood all around the courtyard as well as many people who simply worked close by or wanted to just see the King. Riding into the main area, you refused to look. The Starks all stood with their closest men behind them but you looked nowhere but above the heads of everyone with a straight back atop of your horse.

The carriage which carried the Queen and the other two of her royal children filed in and revealed the King following suit. Your eyes forcing to stay nowhere but him, and it struck part of you that his deep scowl seemed to just be a trait that was shared amongst much of this family. As your party stayed atop their horses, you watched everyone near kneel down as Robert was assisted off his horse.

Watching him make a straight line towards the Starks, he stood in front of the kneeling Lord Stark beckoning him with his hand to stand. Everyone around them rising in toe as you watched the two old friends look stoically at one another. The quiet in the courtyard as everyone waited.

King Robert, it seemed, left posing the stoic formality of the Baratheons to you. Looking down at his friend’s frame and casually commenting, “You got fat.”

Two magnets, designed by the gods to be brought together your eyes met without any thought. His grey ones widened with a playful glint and a raise of the sides of his mouth as if to say, “He got fat?” You, broke just as easily. Quirking your eyebrows up slightly, trying and failing to cover a smirk as you flickered your eyes in gesture to the King, agreeing with his silence as you both instantly looked away from the other. Knowing neither would smother such a begging grin if you kept glancing at each other.

Robert greeting each member of the family, making polite chat with the Stark parents you climbed off your horse. Your head angled enough to see your cousin, Joffery, staring at the direction you just had with a smirk you would describe in private as slimy.

You weren’t the only one with a betrothal in mind for your King, but it was the other Stark which would suffer. Somehow whatever genes made the Baratheons so respected, had skipped Joffery in every single capacity. He was more Lannister then he was his father, and not even with the decency to be like the one lion which you could speak to without agitation.

You couldn’t say Sansa was the one you got along with the most, but watching the way the prince looked at her, you pitied what she couldn’t possibly know she was in store for.

“Take me to your crypt, I want to pay my respects.”

Cersei Lannister, the Queen, barley made an effort to toss any level of genuinity in her voice. “We’ve been riding for a month, my love. Surely the dead can wait.”

Her term of endearment sounding as fake to your Uncle as it did you, he ignored her and summoned Lord Stark anyways. The Queen glaring as they walked away, and directed it towards the youngest Stark daughter, Arya as she without any care of properness, asks where the “Imp” was. The Imp being the Queens younger brother, Tyrion.

Were you to be honest, as you unpacked some of your things from your horse you could only think of one place he would go. And he certainly would not find such a place inside the castle walls. Seeing the Queens twin brother, Ser Jaime of the Kingsguard to “go and find the little beast.” Holding another smirk back, you heard footsteps approaching.

Not the ones you normally would expect, he wouldn’t come to you here. Not now, not in front of the royal family, all these people, and certainly not after learning you’ve come here to marry. Instead, the voice that spoke behind you was the only other person you’d care to see, calling your name.

Robb Stark, Lord Eddard Stark’s eldest true born son stood tall behind you. His northern accent deep and thick, and drenched in a soothing warmth that always felt comforting yet unfitting of the cold he lived around. Turning to face him, you could still see the trailing remnants of the Queen and her children in the distance.

Play your part, your fathers voice told you. With a slight nod of your head and a smile you clearly amused Robb with such a proper curtsy. “My lord.”

A raise of his eyebrows, he had less care of hiding such a smirk. “Is that how we are playing it, my lady?”

You had to bite your tongue to keep from smiling, but still failed somewhat. Robbs smirk growing more playfully smug as he watched you lose your static composure. “I don’t know what you mean, my Lord. I am here with the royal company, we are nothing if not with our courtesies at all times.”

Dropping the act, Robb rolled his eyes and stepped closer. “Well if you’re people have a problem with it, they will just have to get over it.” Pulling you into a hug, you felt part of your racing heart and screaming nerves settle a bit.

You’ve known Robb since that first visit when you were eight. No matter what you were both being shoved into, he wasn’t anything near a stranger. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you to his chest as your face was snuggle tugged into the deep browns of his cloaks fur. Soft as anything, they helped sooth your heart more and he seemed to hold you for as long as it did his as well. His voice low in your ear this time, “We’ll talk in private.”

Pulling away with a deep inhale, you nodded. Face falling back into a stoic composure. It sometimes took you a little bit to drop the harsh demeanour you lived with once you got to Winterfell, but with this company in toe you felt bad that the Starks weren’t going to really get you in any relaxed form. Nodding at Robb you fell quiet, but he was happy to take up the mantle with enough volume for those around to be satisfied with. “Let me help bring your things up, my lady.”

In the corner of your eye as Robb slung the heavier of your bags over his shoulder and you insisting on carrying at least the lighter one, you caught sight of his mother. Lady Catelyn Stark, originally born to House Tully, was something of a complicated relationship for you. You admired her in countless ways, and you saw her more as a mother then you did your own for many years growing up. But there was no mistaking the slight rift that was caused by the only other member of the family you were closer too then her eldest son.

That one though, was nowhere to be seen. You both knew full well that such a meeting was going to have to happen in private, and you hoped you would find time to sneak away from the feast tonight to get it. You two had to talk, you needed to talk to him before you marry or your resolve might crumble.

She watched you and Robb politely walk through the court towards the main doors. Describing their home as a castle felt odd after living in both Dragonstone and Kings Landing. The Starks castle in Winterfell was home in your heart, not a fancy collection of stonework designed to impress. Robb had written that the news came as surprise to all of them, that Lady Catelyn had tried to protest saying that the King shouldn’t just force this on you.

Her husband had to remind her, that they married of duty and look where they are now. You hoped that your companionship with Robb’s brother had not soured her opinion of you being capable of being a good wife. Robb didn’t have your heart the way he did, but he would be the one to keep it from now on and you hoped Lady Catelyn wouldn’t hold it against you.

Falling in love with Robb was not the impossible, in fact he could make that quite easy.

Making small talk of the trip here as you and Robb passed a numerous amount of servers and maids scurrying about the halls, you were thankful for how well you knew him. That the tensity in his stature would only relax the second the door would shut and you both would drop this growing painful act.

Your room was in a corridor away from the main family, closer to where Theon stayed. Many times the main four of you would stay in either his or your room to drink, laugh and get into trouble all without the keen ears of the Stark parents. Your room in Winterfell was a place that you could stop being the daughter and first born heir of Lord Stannis Baratheon, and just be you.

The room had been freshly cleaned, new sheets draped on the bed frame as well as a cozy fur begging you to plop down onto it with a sigh and a nap to boot. Robb dropped your bag down by the window, holding his hand to take the one in your hands to join it. Turning to you, he watched as you let out a shaking sigh.

Your face dropping, finally free to shine in a tinge of shame and exhaustion as you sat down on the edge of the bed, your palms flat on your thighs. Opening your mouth to speak, he cut you off with a sharp edge. “Don’t apologize.” Your brows narrowed in question, but Robb paced over to lean against the wall across from you. His arms crossed casually in front of his chest as he looked into your eyes. “You were about to say sorry for all of this, and I don’t want to hear it.”

Head dropping, you bit your tongue more and nodded. Hands clasping together in a fidget before returning to rest flat on your thighs. His eyes shined blue, and out of the sunlight his hair looked far closer to a Stark brown then it did a Tully Red, if your heart didn’t weigh a thousand pounds you might have spent more time admiring him. “I just,” Sighing again you looked away, unable to cope with the unblinking seriousness in his eyes. “I only found out before you did. I don’t want you thinking I asked for this, or am trying to force you into this.”

Robbs sigh wasn’t defeated, but annoyed. You hadn’t the courage to look again yet. Your name slipping from his tongue with a seriousness. “No one here thinks that.” Glancing up at him, you felt your resolve slip even more. “No one.”

Not that Robb would have any reason to suspect it, but you were desperately hoping that one person in particular didn’t think that out of everyone. Robb took a few steps forward, hoping to beckon you to look up at him, but instead chose to sit down next to you. Enough space between you to not be intrusive. Your voice was small, quiet like a whisper and you knew this was not the words of a proud lady, but just a girl. “He hadn’t even brought up marriage in years. Not since..”

You faded off, both of you know what you were going to say but luckily Robb knew that reliving it would not make you feel any better. He leaned closer to you without breaking your personal space. “Your father has talked to you about marriage more then he has me, at least. In some ways you’re more prepared for this then I am.”

Laughing out, you didn’t turn to see the soft smile on his lips at the sound. “Oh I doubt that. You haven’t had the pleasure of meeting my parents. Between them, and being around the King and Queen’s marriage? It it weren’t for yours I’d assume every married couple is bitter and unloving to the point of near contempt.”

A breathy laugh leaving him, you were thankful once more that at least your husband to be was someone whom you didn’t have to hold you thoughts around. Robb leaned back on the bed, his palms outstretched to rest against the furs and look at you partially from the back and side. “We could get separate beds if it makes you feel better.”

Your eyes narrowed playfully at the mocking in his tone. Quick to turn around with the intention of snarking back he took you by surprise. Lurching forward to wrap his hands around your waist and drag you back with him, both of you laying now back against the bed as he respectfully moved his hands from you. His eyes shined with laughter however, and it loosened yours enough to laugh out loud.

Playful words sat at the tip of your tongue, but what came out was far from it. “It feels like he’s planning something,” turning to look at Robb’s profile against the light coming from the window. “My father. He and Lord Arryn have been doing something in secret, and he kept me away from it on purpose. Both of them seemed to be worried about something, and then...”

“Then he died.” Lord Jon Arryn, Hand of the King and a long time friend of both the King Robert and Lord Stark had passed from a fever that took him in one night.

You nodded. Glancing up to the ceiling as your hands rested along your stomach. “He was fine one day, and then he just...not even a day later was when my father called me to his office. Told me everything, about coming here, about your father, then just..ended the conversation with this.” Your eyes narrowed as you recalled the sternness of his rasp.

“You’re to marry the Stark boy then return here in my place. I won’t have any more questions on the matter.”

Robb was lost in thoughts of his own, tone light yet distant when he spoke up. “He wants my father to be Hand of the King. He hasn’t even been in Kings Landing since the war.”

You understood why. Not just the horrors inflicted on Lord Starks father and brother, but it was a den of vipers all wanting you to play a game that a man like him would want no part in. None of the Starks belonged there, too good for a disgusting place the capitol was. Sighing yourself, you shrugged. “He’ll hate being there as much as my father does, as much as I do. At least I’m the Kings niece I’m supposed to belong there.”

Robb turned onto his side and you followed suit. Your dress hardly made for proper warmth like his attire was, but the Queen insisted that you dress properly to impress your to be husband. As if the man in question hadn’t seen you covered in dirt, mud, bruises and knocked you into the dirt countless times over the years. You didn’t feel like yourself anywhere but here, and yet with the royals all here you still didn’t feel like yourself.

Just a plaything meant to look pretty and play the part. For once, you felt like a normal highborn lady you supposed. Born and bred to be a wife that's born to breed. You were looking at Robb, and yet you reminded yourself with a lurch of your heart to push back the other face in your mind.

Later you told yourself.

Robb’s voice was low, soft, and with an affection that at the very least, wasn’t unusual for him. “You haven’t belonged there in a long time.”

Your tone dropped quieter then his. “Where do I belong then?”

To his credit, it wasn’t with himself that he said. “Here. You belong here.”

By nightfall you still hadn’t seen him. You’d seen many of the others. Arya being the first, practically running past Robb into your room and leaping into a hug with zero sense of formality. You knelt down somewhat to meet her with a loud laugh. With a zillion questions about if you’re staying, did you know, does this make you her sister, you were blissfully reminded of the only other girl who held your heart like that.

Shireen wasn’t a trouble maker like Arya had a tendency to be, but they had a similar spirit. She felt as much like your sister as the one back on Dragonstone was by birth. Sansa had to call her away, annoyed as ever and with a fluster as she addressed you. The paintings of a crush all over her face from the blonde haired fowl faced cousin, and you wished it was any other boy Sansa was to be promised too.

Well, as Robin Arryn briefly popped into your mind you laughed to yourself. Maybe not any of other boy. Starling the handmaiden attending to your dress as you shook your head in apology. You could dress yourself easily for a normal night in the North, but alas the Queen insisted that you impress your husband to be. As if he wasn’t someone you had known for over a decade as one of your very closest friends.

You did however, stop them fervently as they reached for your hair. The Queen could dress and paint you up like a doll and you wouldn’t really fuss at the treatment, but you would rather cross the wall and throw yourself into a frozen lake before you’d let any of those southern up-dos go anywhere near your hair. If judging by the look you got from the Queen during the feast, she wasn’t pleased in any way, but then again she rarely was ever pleased by anything.

Sat next to Robb during the feast, you were thankful that he and the other guys at the table treated you like they always did. To a degree, it was a bit off putting by your much more distant attitude but judging by the glances you made to the Queen they gathered enough that you were more on guard. The hall was filled to the brim with people, ale, music and laughter.

Off in the distance you could see King Robert laughing with a group of men, and his hands happily exploring a woman who was most certainly not his wife. Most didn’t care, and the ones who did never would say anything. He was King he could do what he wanted. Lady Catelyn much to your sympathy was stuck up at the main table sat next to the Queen herself and struggling to find any conversation that didn’t make the woman utterly miserable.

“Out of all the Northerns, you get stuck with this one?” Theons voice rang out, a lightness in his eyes and ale in his veins. You leaned your elbow on the table and pointed at him with a playful raise of your eyebrows.

“At least this one’s pretty, Greyjoy.”

Laughter from all around the table, and even finally sneaking one from yourself. Theon would sometimes flirt with you, but never in a serious manner. It almost was a game. He would start with a flirtatious comment and it quickly spun into who could jokingly insult the other more after you deny him with a snarky remark first. “Aye, but you’d get some nice experience with me.”

Robb tossing a ripped piece of bread at him with a half hearted protest of his own experience, but you leaned back in your seat bringing your mug to your lips. “What experience is that, exactly? Paying women to pretend to moan for you isn’t exactly what I had in mind for my wedding night.”

Pushing it back down, if you joked about it you didn’t have to think about the reality. With no experience of your own, you weren’t immune to the whispers of girls and women of their nights with pain and blood. At least you would get one single thing right come time for that part of the wedding. You almost didn’t though, and the longer you kept trying to not think about it, the more you felt yourself looking for someone you knew wasn’t there.

You had to talk to him, but the first day in Winterfell was just far too busy for it thus far.

Opportunity luckily, arrived in the form of Arya being unable to behave. You and Robb had been joking and laughing about something when the sight of food flinging from another side of the room caught your eyes. The food in question splatting directly onto Sansa’s face as she yelled out indigently.

The quickness of Arya smiling and going back to pretend as if she didn’t do anything got a laugh out of you, but also drew the attention of Lady Catelyn. Gesturing to Robb over, his face fell more serious as he brushed a hand over your lower back as he stood up. Grabbing Arya around the sides and hoisting her up. “Time for bed.”

Glancing around the room, Lady Catelyns eyes elsewhere, as was the Queens. Lord Stark talking to who you recognized as his brother Benjen and now Robb gone you took the opportunity you really shouldn’t have. Standing up, you made your way slowly to the entrance, downing the last of the ale before slinking out unseen.

Or rather, unseen by all but the watchful eyes of a golden Lion.

Alone for once, you allowed yourself to be annoyed. The chill of the air hit you with a sting as you were entirely undressed for the cold of the night. Not even graced with a seat at a lower table, no he was put out here as if his existence was so offensive to anyone but her. His birth wasn’t his fault, and as much as you admired and liked her?

It never failed to chip away at something angering in you, how Lady Catelyn treated Jon Snow.

You heard his voice before you saw him, but it the second voice that took you by surprise. “Did I offend you? Sorry. You are the bastard, though.”

Lord Tyrion Lannister in your sights slowly walked up to Jon, who was faced away from you. There was a bluntness in his words but also a sympathy in his eyes. Leaning back against a stone wall, you watched in quiet.

“Lord Eddard Stark is my father.”

And yet, just as so many liked to remind him, Lord Tyrions words were those that many have said in response. “And Lady Stark is not your mother. Making you, a bastard.”

Watching him with narrowed eyes, you held back any defence in your blood. Likely he was the only Lannister which you didn’t entirely distrust towards him. Jon Snow had more then enough people ensuring him he would never be like his brothers and sisters.

Your arms crossed over your chest, and breathe visible in the cold you listened to the man tell him wear what he is like armour. Jon, however, did not seem to be in such a mood. His voice was low, a thick northern accent that came out more like an entrancing rasp then Robb’s warm soothing one. It also, was lined with that of a temper you knew the older Jon got, the more he struggled with. “What the hell do you know about being a bastard?”

Fingertips itching to reach out, but you stayed put. Listening to Lord Tyrion’s final comments before departing to whatever plans he had for the night. “All dwarves are bastards in their fathers eyes.”

Jon wasn’t heartless, nor stupid. Somewhere inside him, you knew he sympathized with the Lannister but being shut out of a feast in the cold, on top of what you knew was looming? Jon had little room left to care about simmering that temper.

Lord Tyrion caught your eye as he passed, a tilt of his head and question in his eye you simply looked flat and unblinking. He wouldn’t say anything, but that didn’t mean he didn’t store his curiosity about your sudden watchful appearance for later.

Slowly approaching, you called out only once the sound of doors closing behind you left the courtyard in silence from the muffled party behind you. “Think he’s dead yet?”

Spinning to face you at the sound of your voice, you hated how unable you were to quell your heart looking at him. Walking towards him, you saw Jon put the sword away entirely before circling around to meet you halfway. It took less then second for both of you to glance around, watch for the no eyes any could see before he closed the rest of the gap.

Scooping you up into his arms, almost spinning you in place as you both held the other tightly. “I missed you.” Your voice muffled in this luscious dark curls, he put you down gently on your feet. His hands on your upper arms still before glancing up. Changing his mind, he turned. Pulling you along with him with a hand on your lower back.

Jon was the only man who could silently drag you away into a dark corner in the dead of night and you wouldn’t question him in any way, shape or form. Neither of you said anything, but out of everyone Jon was the one person who you didn’t need it with. Both of you were always on the air of more quiet, and it was never more appreciated then alone with the other, never worried about having to fill the air with talking to be comfortable.

Once you had reached far enough away, Jon led you into a small building, mostly empty save for some storage and one lit lantern. Door closed, he turned to face you once more with silence. His eyes begging to say too much, but neither of you could handle it in that second. Once more you found the others arms. This time, the desperation was felt both ways.

Both of you letting your eyes shut, and your hands rest freely and yet far to intimate to be platonic as you stood together. It was minutes before he pulled back. One hand resting on your waist and the other back on your upper arm. He watched as your hands wrung together, afraid to touch him. You hated how gently he always said your name, forcing you to look up and meet his eyes.

One of you had to say something, and you ripped the bandage off first. “You’re really joining them?”

His nod was confident, and it broke your heart that much more. “The St-”

Shaking your head you felt your eyes sting, you hated feeling this way. “Don’t give me that.” Your fingers twitched wanting to reach out, and he caught the movement. “Don’t tell me what you think everyone else wants to hear.”

Was his response a diversion from the truth, or an answer you didn’t know for sure. “You’re marrying Robb.” Like no other, Jon could tell right away that you bit your tongue in anxiety. The hand on your arm moving up to gently trace over the side of your jaw until he felt you relax under the touch. “I’m not mad at you. Neither of you really had a say in it.”

Ever so slowly, you hesitantly left your hands drift forward until the very tips of your fingers rested against his stomach. Much like earlier with Robb, were you not wracked with too much in your head, you might have paused to enjoy the feeling of how sturdy and firm his muscles had grown. Instead you let your head hang, knowing he wanted you to look at him. “And you feel like The Night’s Watch is the only place you belong?”

Were you anyone else, Jon would have pulled away in frustration. But his time with you was limited, and his hands always ached to touch you when you were near. “It is now.” Head rising up to look at him, your brows narrowed. “You’ll marry him, go back to Kings Landing with my father and sisters, and leave me what? Here with the brother who gets the one thing that used to be mine, and his mother who hates me?”

Something rushed up, and an anger almost yelled out instead of reason. “Jon, I’m not trying to leave you behind.”

He sighed, jaw clenching as his hand on your waist held you a slight tighter. “No. You’re doing your duty, and I’m doing mine.”

For a while you both just stood there, looking at the other. In your heart, you felt stolen from, but your mind reasoned for the best. Just as the silence between you was too much, Jon slowly leaned in.

Your back pressed against the wall and he having moved to crowd you against it, his head dipping down enough as you exhaled shakily. The nerves in you, always managing to make him smirk. But just as you felt the others breath on your faces, a door in the distance opened. Music and laughter and the sounds of a group making drunken rackets paused Jons movement.

If it were any normal day, you’d just say not here.

But you and Jon knew better, in a few days, he would stand in the godswood and watch you marry his brother. And soon after that he would join a group that cut your love off from him for life. You couldn’t kiss now, and not ever again.

It didn’t stop either of you from seeing the other after the night was over. But with the royal company here, with you and Robb spending more time together, you only had time to see each other in the secrets of the dark. What made that much harder though, was how little suddenly anyone looked forward to a wedding.

Bran had climbed the walls and towers thousands of times with a firm grip. And yet, while climbing the one tower which no one use in decades, Bran somehow fell so far to the ground, no one yet knew if he would wake up.

And amongst all that, the Queen insisted, “We still have a wedding to put on.”

The entire family was on edge. Maester Luwin has monitored him closely, and Lady Catelyn even closer having not left his side. You didn’t blame her one bit. It was before anyone else was really awake when you went to go see her.

Slowly peeking in, asking if it was alright you come in for a moment and you were thrown back over ten years ago. Looking at your own mother, Selyse, and how broken and lost she was as Maester Cressen warned her to prepare herself for Shireen to be sent away for good.

Walking by her side, you sat gently on the bed beside Bran. It was cruel. Only a boy of ten, and with the softest, most adorable little face you’d ever seen and yet he lay in bed broken in too many ways. If he woke, he’d never walk again. You thought to yourself, maybe if you were to be a proper northern, you should start praying to the Old Gods. Because it certainly seemed like praying to the Seven had done nothing. It left your baby sister disfigured for life, and so far they seem to have left Bran a cripple should they even allow him to wake.

Laying on the other side was his yet unnamed Direwolf. Hardly more then puppies when you first arrived, you had been shocked to see how they had grown. Sitting asleep by his masters side though, you hoped he would bring little Bran any comfort.

Lady Catelyn was silent beside you, working away on something you hadn’t quite understood. You didn’t ask, you weren’t a mother and you didn’t want her to have to explain her grief to you. Your hand gently ran over Brans wrist, your thumb feeling his pulse weak but still beating if you pressed firm enough. “My sister had greyscale as a baby.”

You felt her look up at you, but your eyes were trained on the adorable boy soon to be your brother. “My father bought her a doll from a merchant, and next thing we knew it was spreading fast over the side of her face. She was just a baby she didn’t even understand what was happening to her, but we all did.”

You felt your eyes sting, but forced them back with a harsh swallow. “I’ve never heard my mother cry like that. She lost four boys in the womb, and yet that was the most I’ve ever seen her cry. And my father?” You stumbled. Voice coming out harsh, and cracked slightly from the pressure to appear steady. “People used to say the only thing that he would ever smile for is me, but they don’t understand. They didn’t see the desperation in his eyes, how far and hard he searched to bring people to Dragonstone just for a chance to save her life. And none of them saw the tears in his eyes when he was finally allowed to hold her again.”

Reaching up with your other hand you ran your hand over the side of Brans face, brushing some hair to the side. “I’m sorry. Me and Robb both tried telling them to put it off, but the Queen insisted that a wedding might do everyone some good.” She tried saying your name, but you interrupted her. “It’s okay if you don’t come. If I were a mother, I don’t think I’d leave him either.”

Looking back at her, there were tears in her eyes and a soft smile that broke your heart. Your relationship with her was always complicated, but in this moment, all you saw was what no one had given to your mother when it was Shireen.

Leaning over to her, you hugged her tightly. The pain in her heart evident in how both weak yet tightly she hugged back. Pressing a kiss to her forehead you spoke quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Passing by the busy servants and suspiciously watchful Queen you paid no mind to the preparations that were to be for you tomorrow. At first it had felt like you and Robb were to be wed for some unknown plot of your fathers, but now it felt like a distraction.

Don’t look at the broken boy in bed, look at the happy couple. For their own pain, you had to hand it to the three of them. Lord Stark, Robb, and Jon truly what Starks were made of. Strong willed, and keeping calm acting as a pillar for the much younger and more worried siblings. Arya clearly a big influence on her direwolf Nymeria, as the wolf was agitated and struggled to sit still the past days. On multiple occasions, you found the wolf almost trying to rile up her own siblings to varying success.

Her and little Rickons direwolf Shaggydog had the most energy. As if getting out their tension by chasing and play fighting. Sansa’s Lady was truly an apt name. Stuck by her side and was poise and put together, only getting in the way to provide any comfort to the redhead in what Sansa thought were moments no one was looking.

Grey Wind was as strong headed as Robb. Their mother gone, he had taken up the mantle of leader of the pack and seemed to be a calming presence for the others. Much like how Robb’s confidence in ensuring his siblings Bran would be alright, provided such comfort to them. The more time you spend with Robb during the day, the more used to Grey Wind you got.

He grew larger then the others, a gorgeous mix of greys and browns in his colour and the more comfortable with a new closeness which Robb grew with you over the past few days, the easier it was for Grey Wind to come to your side when not with his own master. Lord Stark had joked that they seemed to sense you were about to become a wolf yourself.

It was the final direwolf however that you enjoyed the most. Pure white with striking red eyes, Ghost was smaller then the rest but quick and silent. He made very little noise if ever, but was always aware of his surroundings. Keeping out of the way without sacrificing his watchful canine eyes from their view, and listened to his master better then any of them.

Jon and Ghost it seemed, were one in the same. From the same family, but not truly one of the pack as the others were. While the others followed their master like an animal companion, Ghost and Jon were almost like friends instead. Certainly he took Jons feelings around people seriously, considering that as you sat out in the godswood while the moon set itself up in the night sky, you were suddenly almost thrown off balance.

Looking down, the small white direwolf had leaped into your lap. Leaning up to give your cheek a lick before settling in. You scratched at his back, “I don’t know what you’re asking for, but I’m getting up in about ten seconds.”

“Maybe he just likes how soft you are.” Looking up, you utterly failed to fight back both the fluster in your eyes and the embarrassed smile that you tried to hide, turning away from him.

Jon’s curls looked more wild and free again, growing out quickly from the clean cut given before your arrival. The wilder look suited him better. His cloak around his shoulders had a bright closer to white fur around him that you knew first hand was warm and comforting. Coming to sit next to you, he reached over and ran his fingers over Ghosts ear, making him shake his head with a barley audible huff at being disturbed. You both laughed gently, were it not a wolf in your lap, a commoner would mistaken you both for that of a couple with their newborn.

You were to be married tomorrow, and in two days you and Jon would part ways for what could be life for all you knew. Two days, but tonight was your last. Tomorrow you would be Lady Stark, wife of Lord Robb Stark, and there was no room in that duty for another or fairness in your heart.

Leaning against his shoulder, you knew in the eyes of the old gods there was no judgment as you rested your head there. His arm coming to pull you into his side as he looked down to you, your own trained on Ghost.

More then once you and Jon had almost kissed, it would be too easy. To fall into it again. You didn’t fall into it the first time, it was just a bond that always existed. The last time you had ever kissed, was when you came close to giving him something else.

The opportunity was right there, and no one would have been there to stop you, but neither of you were people who could so easily push past the honour you were raised with. Deep down in his mind, Jon knew you could never just marry someone like him, not for who you were. He just didn’t expect to come to the finality of it all, only months after almost having you.

Not that he told it to you, but there was a smugness in Jon that said that at least if he had one thing over Robb, or two, was that he was your first kiss. Knew what your lips tasted like, and knew what a cruelly addicted sight your bare body looked like. Though, not if he asked you, you’d say that wasn’t a perk.

Reminding Jon that he was muscle and you weren’t. Only receiving a dark, undoubtedly lustful look as he muttered that your softness is exactly what he dreams about before kissing you, having pushed you back into the furs of his own bed.

A far off moment, sitting together now, cuddled with his cloak around you against the Weirwood tree for the last time. “We never had a chance did we?” Pulling back, Jon tried looking at you with a slight question in his narrowed brows, but you just continued to run your fingers gently over the slumbering Ghost. “I mean, being with you is easy. It’s always been easy, but being together?”

Resting his chin on the top of your head, he breathed in deeply. “No. No we never had a chance.”

The truth didn’t make it hurt any less. But you weren’t children anymore. You would marry Robb, return to Kings Landing and serve on the small council at the Hand of the Kings Side, in place of your own lord father and Jon would become a man of the Night’s Watch.

In what world did those two things have a chance at crossing over?

Turning your head, you rested further into his neck and his warmth was unyieldingly comforting. “You know right? Even if I don’t say it?”

Jon had enough, moving to pull your face up to look at him by your chin. “I know. And you do too.”

Your heart skipping a beat you smiled partially, “You know it’d be a whole lot easier not to kiss you if you weren’t so handsome.”

Smirking, Jon pulled you closer. Your back more pressed against his chest as he wrapped the edges of his cloak around your front, hiding the blissfully unaware Ghost from the cold air. “Oh I’m handsome, am I?”

Rolling your eyes, you relaxed in his touch. “I’m not blind, Snow. It’s an unfair thing about you Stark men, you, Robb and your father, all way too handsome for your own good.” You had always done that. Included Jon when referring to the Starks without question. It was something that only his youngest siblings would still do, and that's just because they weren’t yet mature enough to truly understand why he was treated different.

You were though. You knew why, but you and him were always the closest even before the messy feelings of early teenage hood started to take place, and since then you were only more steady in that belief. He was a Snow, but his blood a Stark. And no matter what he called himself, he would always have the blood and integrity of his father. “Should I be worried? Marrying my brother, and running off to Kings Landing with my apparently handsome father?”

Pinching your sides, you tried elbowing him but Jon was far stronger and held you still with a laugh, your voice high and defensive. “I didn’t mean- sorry next time I’ll call your family ugly, alright?” With a pause, it slipped out before you could stop it. “Jealousy another Stark trait I should be worried about?”

You could feel the smirk still plastered across Jons face in his voice at your ear, “When the girl looks like you, any man with half a brain would be jealous of letting you go.”

It was far later then you should’ve been awake, but peeling yourselves apart for the last time was too difficult. It was quiet for a while, nothing but the quiet hums of the woods to pass the silence. His voice rasped in your ear, a small shiver down your spine at its closeness. “Where’d we meet?” He chuckled at your blatant confused face. “If we had a chance, in another life where’d we meet?”

“Are we not still us?”

You enjoyed hearing him so light and casual, it felt like I’d been months long amount of days since you’d seen such casualness. “No, well I mean I’m still me and you’re still you. But we’re not highborns, no titles or duties. Just two people somewhere in the kingdom, where’d we meet?”

Eyes squinting in thought, you considered something that was the opposite of the horrible paranoia of Kings Landing, and far from the darkness of Dragonstone. “I hear Highgarden is beautiful in the summer.”

Jon nodded against your head, “Alright. So you’re a bar maid in Highgarden, and I-”

Laughing loudly you tried pulling away, “Excuse me, why am I a barmaid? Isn’t this a fantasy?”

With such a tone of seriousness you felt light at how easily it came to him, as if it was something he’s thought of before. “Yes, and if you’re a bar maid it means I have an excuse to pull this pretty little bar maid in Highgarden down onto my lap as she passes by.”

“That’s aggressive of you.”

“Maybe this particular bar maid makes me aggressive.”

Back and forth you went, what is job was, how you’d fall in love, if you stayed in Highgarden or travelled the realm elsewhere. How many kids you’d have to which you certainly had protests as to how easily Jon kept raising the number each time he mentioned it. By the time you had planned out a new life, it was late enough that you needed to go back.

You needed some sleep, and Jon wasn’t the only brother who you wanted to talk to before this was all over.

Ghost lept out of your lap and shook his fur out on the ground as you both watched him with a fond smile. Looking back at him, you held onto his wrists and he your waist. This time, neither moved in or even tempted the idea of a kiss.

Raising a hand to cup the side of your cheek, he ran a thumb over the soft skin. “Don’t look for me in the ceremony.” Before you had a chance to spiral, he leaned down to meet your eyes more level. “I’ll be there, but don’t look for me. You’re going to be Robb’s now, and I want you to be okay with accepting that.”

Nodding, he made you promise out loud. “I promise.”

He nodded once. “You’ll be each others tomorrow, and I’ll be at the wall. I want you two to be there for each other, no matter what. Besides, it’ll be easy.” You tilted your head. “Robb’s easy to fall in love with, and I think it’s impossible not to fall at least a little in love with you.”

The hug you shared wasn’t the last before you departed, but it was the last one just for you.

He sent you off first, not wanting you to linger with him on your mind. Jon needed you to be okay with being Robb’s, and he himself, needed to just get through these next few days. He had an entire life at the wall to grieve about you.

The handmaiden was quite mad at how you ignored her. Something about the Seven, not seeing the bride but you went towards Robbs anyways. You were to be married at the Weirwood under the eyes of the old gods, it didn’t matter what the Seven wanted anymore.

Not quite dressed up, Theon looked you up and down as he opened the door. “Didn’t think you were that much of a bore.” You pushed him out the way with a roll of your eyes, he laughed as he closed the door behind him. You were glad that the northerners weren’t so dramatic.

With his mother tucked away with Bran, he escaped what would’ve been her insistence of shaving and another trim. His facial hair growing thick and his curls much more Tully Red in the daylight. “I want to ask you a favour.”

Nodding once, he said anything. Taking a step to you as you sighed out shakily, hands ringing together, he said your name as he came into your space. Looking up at him, you sighed out again. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Taken back, his eyes narrowed in curiosity. “That’s not a favour.”

Somewhat flustered, you pulled away. Sitting down on his bed, unable suddenly to send away the thoughts of the very next time you’ll be in this room. “I- I don’t want you thinking I don’t want this, or you, but we didn’t plan this, or talk about it before it happened, and now we’re here and,”

Robb knelt down to your level, not yet touching you in your panic, but speaking slow and in a low, comforting tone until the edge fell from your lips. His steady energy slightly bringing you down a little bit as you tried again. “My parents are miserable together.” Your hands started to wring together in front of you, “They barley tolerate each other, I’ve never seen any love between them. And same with my Uncle. He and the Queen basically hate each other I’m shocked they could stand each other long enough to have three kids together.”

His brows narrowed as you put it all together. “Everyone I know whose married for duty, married because they had to...I think your parents are the only ones I know who ended up happy, who actually love each other.”

Robb leaned in slightly, “Are you worried you’ll never love-”

Shaking your head you felt the anxiety in your chest boil up like never before. “Robb, look at me. I’m Stannis Baratheons child, daughter of the supposed most miserable man in Westeros in the most loveless marriage, are you sure you’re okay with marrying me?”

There it was. The first true hint of insecurity that you’ve allowed yourself to be honest with since you had been told of this arrangement. Two out of three Baratheon Lords were in miserable marriages, and when you looked at Robb, you hated the idea that you were forcing him into just another of that cycle.

The girl in you wanted to cry at losing one love, and the woman in you hated yourself for possibly dragging another into something he’d come to hate. You’ve known Robb for as long as you’ve known Jon, and you watched him grow into the man he is now. Both of you could do great things together according to Lord Stark, but what if you were too much like your father to ever inspire love?

Robb stood up, sitting down next to you as he turned his body close. Your name falling easily from his lips. “You’re not your father. No- look at me. You are not him, you’re not any of them. I’ve known you since you were eight. You’re stubborn, and strong willed and always willing to do what duty asks but that isn’t all of you. I’ve also seen you laugh, get into trouble with me more times then I can count, you care about my little sisters and my brothers like their yours too. My father already sees you like your his own, and despite everything, I know my mother does too.”

Running a hand over your hair, he watched tension in your shoulders deflate ever so slightly. “I’m not worried about marrying you, because I know what I’m getting myself into. And no one can tell me to be happy about it, but I am anyways.”

Gently you raised your hand, enough to slightly lay over the arm Robb had flat on the bed, your thumb finding this pulse, unlike little Brans, his was steady and strong. “You shouldn’t be. You get told your marrying me, and then the day after I get dragged back to Kings Landing with half your family for who knows how long.”

Your heart raced, as Robb twisted his arm, holding your wrist the same way you were his. An easy, charming, boyish smile on his lips. “And we’ll have the rest of our lives to make up for it.”

Deep in your mind, you wished Robb would make this harder. You wished he wasn’t so easy to be charmed by, but you knew him too well to trick yourself into thinking he wasn’t being genuine or honest. “So about that favour...”

Narrowing his eyes, there was a flush in your cheeks that you hated was making him smirk. “What about it?”

You sheepishly tried pulling away, but he yanked you closed by is hold on your wrist. Looking down anywhere but his face you felt like a little girl again, only that time you didn’t have to be the one to ask for it, Jon kissed you before you knew what was happening.

Robb though? Oh Robb knew exactly what you were trying to ask, but was almost sadistically enjoying the process of making you say it out loud to him. You flushed more at what other implications this potential side of him would bring. “I, okay I’m not some innocent flower.”

He raised his eyebrows and you smiled indigently, “I mean, I’m still- I haven’t- shut up.” Robb was flat out laughing at that point but let you fail at getting this out with composure. “I know you’ve been with women before, physically..”

“Does that bother you?”

Shaking your head no, it was no lie. You may have to get used to the idea of being married to him, but again, you weren’t blind. You had eyes, you knew exactly what women saw in Robb Stark. “What I’m trying to say, I’ve kissed someone before but not you.”

Much more serious, Robb clearly did know what you were asking, but watched with his gorgeous comforting blue eyes intensely as you whispered. “I don’t want our first kiss to be in front of all of them.” His family, the royals, all those you didn’t know, the old gods, and even Jon. A first kiss in front of him felt too personal, to intimate.

Moving close, you felt his breathe on your skin. “Do you want me to kiss you? Here?”

The room slipped away though, Robb’s voice was so warm and so was he. The hand on your wrist moved to rest at your waist while the other hand slid to the back of your neck, holding you firmly. His lips would brush against yours if either spoke, but he waited for a single nod before kissing you.

His kiss was different. Soft, but coaxing. Like he knew what was holding you back, and just let you fall into it on your own. It was simple and gentle at first, but as soon as you let out a tiny sigh, something in Robb slipped for a moment. Kissing you again, harder this time. His hands tighter and his kiss a little deeper.

Leaning into his front, your hand found the back of his neck and into his curls, and your other against his chest as if they always knew what to do. It wasn’t until you let out what might just have been a small moan, Robb close to pulling you into his lap did he pull away. Pressing a kiss to your forehead and running his hand once more over your hair.

“Can you live with that? For the rest of your life?”

Robb smiled softly at the very new venerability in you. Pressing one more kiss to your cheek, he knew you didn’t mean only having a kiss. But was he happy with such a kiss was your question. “Wait until tonight, I’ll tell what about you I’ve been fantasizing about living with.”

The grin on Robbs face as he pulled away wasn’t the charming boyish one earlier. No, this one was far more that of who he was really, a wolf. A wolf who looked you up and down and made you realize that Robb Stark just might not be as dashing and honourable as he’s led you to believe.

A thought that should’ve made you nervous, but as you walked back to your room, ready to let the girls doll you up and argue about not touching your hair, you started to think that maybe that wolfish grin, actually excited you.

Just when you thought you were going to die of a heart attack, your to be lord father gave you a reason to have a whole new panic. The ceremony was more fancy then any of you involved wanted, not the Starks nor you, but your own father insisted on marrying you off with the royals in toe.

He wasn’t here. Your mother neither. Both of them, Lady Catelyn and Selyse were either sickly or caring for the sick and weren’t here, but Ned Stark was. He was here, and your own father wasn’t. Stannis was not a consistently comforting father, but part of you felt hurt that he wasn’t here to see his oldest daughter, his own heir, marry for the first time.

Instead, the man who had seen you raised half your life here, the one who would be your father by marriage once this was done was the one who approached you. Looking out into the distant woods as you clearly struggled to hold your nerves back. “I didn’t think this was the thing that’d worry you so much.”

Spinning around, Lord Stark reached out to steady you with a chuckle. “I’m sorry, I just...this is a lot..was it this nerve wracking when you married Catelyn?”

Not pushing you towards the woods, he stood beside you an arm around your shoulder as he rubbed your upper arm gently. “Terrifying. I’d rather face a thousand armed men then get married in front of all those people. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted someone as delightful as the Queen at mine either.” You huffed a single laugh out and swallowed the rest. “And I know I certainly wouldn’t want the person I love watch me marry someone else.”

Blood in your veins froze, your heart stopped and nothing but nausea flowed up your lungs. “I-”

He wasn’t even angry, or disappointed. He chuckled with a fondness. “I’ve seen you spend half your life here, sweet girl. Watched you grow up alongside my own sons, and I’ve watched Jon be in love with you since the first day you ever arrived.” If you cried, you’d mess up the annoying amount of makeup they insisted on, but you felt a sob in your chest. “You made him happy, and he made you happy. For a time, a long time I thought that was enough. But I also know for a fact that Jon never saw marrying you as an option. He always was painfully aware of who you were.”

You felt the stinging, and you stood still in his hold. Forcing deep breaths to push away the panic.

“There’s a good number of things I regret about how I raised him. It doesn’t feel good knowing that he’s always felt inferior to Robb and now the woman he loves is marrying him too. If I could do it again, would I even be better. Force Roberts hand harder, be more honest with Cat, let him just be a Stark and there’d be nothing in his way for you. But I didn’t do that, nor do I know if I ever should’ve.”

Looking down, your arms crossed over your chest. “I don’t want you to assume I’m just thinking of Jon while I’m with Robb, it’s not that. I’ve known Robb for just as long, and we’ve always been just as close, save for, you know.” His hand was soothing like a true fathers comfort running up and down what he could reach of your arm.

“Here’s whats going to happen. I’m going to walk you out there to my son, you’ll kneel together before the Weirwood and pray and when you rise you’ll be a Stark. Part of you will always be a Baratheon, but you’ll also be our family now. And no matter what, wolves always protect those in their pack. I’m not going to assume the worst of you, because I know you better then that. You and Robb will be good for each other, and just because losing Jon hurts doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re not willing to love Robb.”

Looking up at him you frustratingly wipe at the tears, and he pulled you into a hug. One that you hadn’t felt in a very long time. It had been too long since you felt the hug, the love of a real father. Muttering into your hair, you could feel the same smirk that you could always sense on both brothers. “Besides, I can tell you for certain, having one night with your spouse before being dragged halfway across the country will do wonders for your heart.”

You laughed a lot at that one. Pulling away he looked you over, gently wiping away the rest of the tears on your cheeks. “Come on, sweet girl. You have a wolf waiting for you.”

If you were being honest, it was a blur. There were so many people, and most of them you’d never want present at your wedding in any lifetime. The golden hair of the Lannisters mocked you, the bored and judgmental sneer of your cousin annoyed you, and the silent watching of an Uncle who you barley knew anymore, but you were thankful that this wasn’t in a sept.

The crowd silent, no words spoken by anyone except you and Robb. He looked tall and fierce, curls shining more red in the peeking sun through the leaves, eyes bright and blue like the sea as he looked at nothing and no one but you. The fur around his shoulders making him look large like the wolf he was said to be, and soon it too would be yours.

Whatever small words you exchanged, you heard none of it but the blood in your veins. Thankful when Robb took your hand and knelt down with you, facing away from the crowd. The Seven was what you were raised to pray too, but you were a wolf now. And the wolves answered to the Old Gods.

A fate you were perhaps always meant to have, feeling much more heard in your silence of the Weirwood then you ever did in a sept. Eyes open, looking up the carved face at the same time, the crowd was silent, Robb grabbing both your hands to stand as he kept your eyes.

Draping the very fur he wore over your shoulders, he gently pulled you in with two fingers under your chin. This kiss was far softer and fairer then the one you shared in private, but this was also all your anxiety could handle. And Robb knew it.

Were it a more jovial occasion, it was tradition for a northern groom to carry the bride to the feast but Lord Stark had the sense to give you two a moment alone and King Robert was more then happy to direct the crowd to where the wine and food sat.

Your heart racing, Robb gently held your waist with his forehead pressed to yours. Eyes both shut as your hands rested on his chest. You left tomorrow, so all you had was now and tonight.

It’s what he demanded of you, and what he wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that it hurt Jon Snow a great deal to watch you marry his brother, and not once did he ever see the transfixing beauty in your eyes.

You didn’t look at him once, and Jon couldn’t get to the wall fast enough.

Truth be told, the first big laugh you had was at the sheer idea of your father here. Meals with him, there was no laughter or rambunctious behaviour. Just silence, diplomacy, and the mind numbing dings and clogs of Patchface. No joy in a meal under Stannis’s watch, except for the fool himself. Patchface there who was only lucky enough to be in a job, because gods help her, for whatever reason the fool made Shireen laugh.

You couldn’t imagine your father here. The drinking, the laughter, the never ending line of food, talk, and fun. Truth be told, you and Robb spent little time there. You glanced nervously at him more then once, and in your bubble of privacy he would rest a hand on your thigh firmly and a whisper in your ear to at least eat something.

Arya tried many times to come and talk to you, but Sansa yelled at her each time. Telling her to leave the two of you alone, the three of you girls would be in Kings Landing together anyways.

King Robert, on now one too many drinks made an innocuous comment about beds, or sex, or something vaguely incoherent and you and Robb looked to the other. You wide eyed and nervous, but there was something in his that settled it. Leaning to your ear, his voice felt like a rumble. “Normally I’m for tradition, but I’ll be damned if I let this lot see any of you like that.”

One of the men in the crowd had seen you like that, but with the way Robb looked at you, for once, Jon hadn’t crossed your mind. Too much nerves, too much wine, and a fat load of worry about being in a mans bed proper for the first time.

By the time the crowd noticed, Ned just chuckled at Roberts comments about the bride and groom slipping away before a gods honest tradition. “I told Cat I wasn’t going to let their be a bedding ceremony because I didn’t want to hurt someone on our wedding night.” Shrugging one shoulder, he grinned almost proud. “Glad to know my son’s the same.”

The worries of what was to come, ended up being broken slightly by the fact that as soon as Robb opened his door, Grey wind was sat in the middle of the bed. Large body splayed out like it was already bed time. Rising his head up at the sound of the door, you ended up bursting into laughter at Robb having to tell him twice to go.

Shutting it behind the growing direwolf, Robb shook his head something snarky on his tongue that died as he looked to you. Draped in his furs, furs that made you look far smaller and the gentle almost innocent look as you stepped around his room. You’d been in here countless times, slept in here countless times, but never like this.

Trying desperately to hold back your nerves, you looked out the open window focusing on steadying your heart. But the warmth of Robb enveloped your back as he reached over you, closing the windows and sealing you both alone. The crackling of a fire almost enough to hide the shaky breathe as Robb gently ran his hands down your arms.

Resting both on your waist, Robb wrapped one around your stomach, pulling you into his chest. He didn’t let you ruminate on the worry, dipping his head to level his mouth with your ear. “If you don’t want this, I need you to tell me.” Freezing in his arms, he spoke almost quieter but it raged so close to your ear. “We don’t have to do anything, but you need to be honest with me about it.”

You felt light on your feet. You’ve never heard this tone from Robb before, never so intimate in your ear and the deep rumblings of his voice felt as if something strong inside was being held back. The act itself scared you, it always had. But another part of you wondered if you should be fearful of the young wolf behind you, or if that fear excited you.

The arm around your stomach rose up, tilting your head to turn slightly to the side, enough that part of him was within your sight as he murmured your name. “I know you’ve never done this before, is it just that, that scares you or is it me?”

Shaking your head fervently, you startled him. “No, no it’s not you. It’s just- I should know what to expect by now but,” Taking a deep breathe you shut your eyes. “The girls in Kings Landing all talk about men and their first time like it’s painful, violent.”

Robb chuckled deeply, vibrating through his chest into your back and down between your legs. It was a dark laugh, and you felt overwhelmed at how little you really considered what he might be like. “It’s only painful if the man is a worthless, brute who thinks getting off is better then getting their lady off.”

Was your chest heaving with you hard you felt yourself breathing, your eyebrows raised and lips slightly parted you felt more waves between your legs and having it all be because of Robb was more then enough to leave you speechless. Reading your body like a book, Robb leaned down more, brushing his lips against your neck. Grinning at the sigh you unknowingly let out.

Turning slightly more you could see him a bit better. “Will it hurt?”

Smiling like a predator, he pulled you closer to him. “Only if you want it to.” Laughing at your breathless expression, asking why some women would want it to hurt. He moved a hand to your hip and pressed his lips closer to your jaw. “Don’t worry. If you want it, we’ll get there. Tonight’s not about that though.”

Suddenly pulling away he yanked his cloak enough that it slipped from your shoulders and pooled onto the ground. Turning you in his arms, Robb gripped the sides of your dress tightly in his fists before pulling it up and off you. The fact that you let him do that, not telling him how little you had on underneath might have been a dangerous idea.

Usually such a dress was worn with layers underneath, and yet, all that remained on you was that which covered your most lower regions. Your softness, plush skin, and tits all on display. Holding your hips, Robb closed his eyes breathing deep for a moment. “For a girl whose never done this before, this is awfully naughty of you.”

Indeed was the charming boy no longer here, but a man, a wolf looking at his mate like prey.

Swallowing the pounding in your heart, you reached up to Robb, slowly pulling layers up and off of him for yourself. His hands were much more confident then yours were currently, but he stood still watching and letting you undress him at your own pace.

Staring was impolite, and yet Robb didn’t mind as you looked at his chest now totally free. Just as your fingers reached for his pants he snatched your hands. Raising them in the air as you gasped in surprise.

“This is about you. Lay down for me.”

Watching you with dark eyes, you couldn’t ignore how intensely he looked you up and down as you lay back on the top of his bed. Your palms bracing you up before being tossed back down as Robb suddenly climbed up the bed and over top of you. A hand on each side of your head as he leaned down to press a soft kiss to your lips. “Do you trust me?”

Without even considering it, you answered the raw truth. “Always.”

One hand reached up, grabbing your jaw roughly as he pulled your lips back to his. This time he kissed you nothing like before. His kiss was rough, demanding and deep. Guiding your every move and commanding that you obey. He tugged your hip with his other hand up to press into his own and as you gasped, he slipped his tongue into your mouth.

Lightheaded, you surrendered to his touch. As if all will of your own bled out onto the bed leaving nothing but Robb to command you as he pleases, and yet the idea didn’t scare you the way it was described by others. Your hands reached up and grasped his waist, a small sound leaving your mouth into his.

Switching between tasting you with his tongue and biting at your lips it, Robb let go of your jaw and ran it behind your head and grasped your hair tightly. Pressing his body down firmly, his hips naturally rutted into yours. He smirked as you gasped.

The rougher he kissed you, the more your hands moved on their own. Reaching behind his neck and wrapping around it to sink into his hair he ground his hips into you harder. A gentle moan leaving you, Robb left your lips, running the same ferocity down your neck. His lips and teeth no doubt leaving marks that a proper lady should be ashamed of.

He didn’t quite stop, kissing down your neck more until he reached your breasts. Grinning at how hard you were breathing, he stopped that right in it’s tracks as his hands cupped your chest. A needy cry left your lips, turning to a longer moan as Robb ran this thumbs over your nipples. Just as one hand grasped one, did he lower his mouth to bite at the other.

Pleasure shooting through you, your back arched into his body and limbs felt like they seized from the pleasure. His teeth switching between a gentle nibble and a harsher bite just to pull a gasp from you, he played you like an instrument. Getting every sound from your pretty lips that made his cock that much harder.

Pulling away, he hovered over you looking down at the almost in awe expression. You weren’t used to such a side to this man, and he seemed to reveal in your innocence over it. Leaning back more, you followed the sight of his dark eyes, parted lips and down his chest to where he hands slowly pulled at his pants.

Swallowing hard, he tilted your head up his a hand firmly at your jaw. “Keep your eyes on me.” Not letting you look down as he stripped himself bare. “Good girl, keep them on me and only me.” Slowly moving down the bed he pulled your hips to, grabbing your underwear and pulling them down.

The coolness of outside did nothing to take away how warm and wet you were between your legs, and Robb forced you to stay on his face. Making you look at his eyes, greedily pushing your knees apart and expression turning dark as he stared at you. A slightly whimper leaving you, he leaned back over you, one hand running over your thigh, first on the outside, then inside, and slowly upwards.

Just as he reached you, Robb bit at your bottom lip. Using the chance to slip his tongue inside you just as he ran his hand over you. Cupping you entirely and already he smirked into the kiss at how soaked you were. Lips brushing yours as he pulled back enough to speak, his fingers gently running back and forth across your soaked slit. “Good girls don’t get this wet, do they?”

Shaking your head no, all you could do was hear his voice. Eye slipping closed as your legs shook and a coil within you twisted at such an easy touch. Robb continued. “No, good girls are sweet and innocent. This doesn’t feel very innocent to me.” Two fingers now soaked danced up and ran across your clit.

Jumping at the shock of pleasure, you grasped him by the shoulders with a whine. “It’s all for you-”

Stammering the words out as Robb now rubbed tight circles against your clit. Your muscles tensing and his own hips refusing to let you close them you had to just take it. His other fingers still soaking up whatever you drenched him with. “I know it is. You ready for me to open you up? Make you cum before you take me?”

You’d say yes to pretty much anything Robb asked of you right now. Nodding, you leaned up to kiss him, making him smile into your lips as he slipped two soaked fingers deep inside to his knuckles. You gasped so loudly, were the windows not closed no doubt the outside world would’ve heard you. Sinking them deep in one go, you writhed in his touch.

Robb slowly slid them out and back, the wetness between you making the sound obscene, but it was the only music Robb could stand to hear. He never picked up the pace, but he did, right as you tensed in his touch? Stopped rubbing at your clit, and slit a third finger down to sink inside you with the others.

You cried his name and he kissed down your neck as he slowly pumped them inside of you. Clenching around his fingers he bit your skin harder trying to force his cock to shut up. Screaming at him like a howling wolf to just take you already.

Pulling back from your lips he looked you in the eye, feeling you clench around him as your sounds grew higher. Something burned hot inside of you as the other twisted and turned so tightly. One free hand, Robb ran over your lips, and something sweet inside you, pressed a gentle kiss to his fingers as he did so.

In return? He ran his thumb roughly over your clit as pumped his fingers slow and deep into you as you came around them. You moaned his name, but muffled it as Robb gently sunk two fingers into your mouth at the same time. One hand grasped his wrist, and yet even as you came something inside you obeyed like you were a submitting prey.

Robb almost snarled at how well you sucked on his fingers, and how he wished you two had more time then tonight. He couldn’t stop the thought of how beautiful you would look on your knees before him, obediently sucking on his cock with his hand guiding you up and down his length tight in your hair.

Pulling out of you Robb pulled your body up to press against his bare one and kissed you full of tongue and a greedy desperation. A desperation you yearned for back. It was a strained rasp of your own in his ear that had him shudder. “Please, Robb. Please fuck me.”

It didn’t even occur to you to try and be sweet or innocent about it. You could feel his cock pressing against you between your still shaking legs and you felt lightheaded at how thick it felt against you. Kissing your ear, he murmured much more gentle, “Are you sure?” As you nodded he bit your earlobe and hissed into it. “Out loud.”

Nodding again, your hands wrapped around his neck as you kissed him. “I’m sure, I want you.”

Kneeling up on the bed, Robb ran his hand gently down the side of your body. His dark eyes soft for just a little while longer, as you felt something in your chest at him. Pulling your hips more up into his lap you think you understood why he kept his eyes on you.

His chest led down to coarse, rough hair surrounding a long, thick cock that you wondered if it would even fully fit in your hand. Your chest heaved as you stared, and he slipped into a deeper tone. “It’s not polite to stare.”

Slipping a hand behind your head, Robb kept you looking down, watching as he ran the tip of his cock over your entrance, up brushing against your clit and back down. Barley sliding in each time until you begged his name once more. This time Robb watched your eyes, as he kept your head looking down to watch him slide his cock inside you.

He was thick, and the stretch itself stung in a way that made you gasp but not a pain that you had feared from it. No, the deeper he sunk the more you soaked his cock. Only halfway in, Robb tugged your hair to look up at him before he in a much more punishing thrust, bottomed out.

His face snarled at how tight, how warm and soaking wet you cunt was and he pulled you right back into an equally as rough kiss. He didn’t go fast, but part of him reasoned to go more gentle, and yet?

Your cries, your begs of his name as each slow, rough fuck had your arching your back into his body all the more. Each pound of his cock inside of you slapped loudly in a way that had him grip your hips so tight, you could already feel the bruises.

Sweat built up on both your bodies and you ran your hand through his own increasingly damp curls, scratching his scalp with your nails that had him fuck into you harder each time. For all his talk, little thoughts came to his mind as Robb fucked you.

Like something of an animal took over and all he could think of was how much he wanted to fuck you more, harder, faster, fill you until his cum spilled out of you and then fill you more. You cried out, nails scratching down his back without even realizing you were doing so, but muffling each sound as you bit into the meat of his shoulder. Robb, fucked you harder and struggled to stay slow.

You clenched tightly, enough that he had to pound into your cunt roughly just to sink as deep as he could inside and pulling away enough he could see tears at the side of your eyes but you rather then begging for mercy, begged for more as you kissed him.

His hands held your knees, pushing as wide as possible as Robb lost composure. Fucking you faster and just as one hand moved to rub at your clit you came around him. Robb leaving your other knee to press his hand against your mouth at how little you could contain your cries.

Fucking into you once, twice, five more times he pushed inside as deep as he could sink and filled you with him. His cum warm and thick, it felt like there was so much more of it then a normal man would have but you let Robb pull you into another kiss, this one rough and sloppy as he filled you with his cum as his tongue did your mouth.

Never leaving, his hands eventually turned soothing, his kiss softer and his voice not commanding but assuring. Telling you how good you did, how perfect you were. Holding you in his arms and him yours, it was just the two of you in that moment and nothing more.

It was only when you started to laugh, did Robb laugh. Yanking you into his chest as he flopped onto his back with you on top of him. Kissing you gently as he ran a hand over your hair. “Aye, a man could get used to this.”

He should’ve let you rest, but he took you once more that night. This time, far less able to hold back how fast and greedy he wanted to be about fucking you. The only downside, was how exhausted the night made you.

Slipping into a deep sleep, that only meant morning would come quicker. And too quick it did.

That morning, you both stayed in bed as long as you could. Robbs back against the wall and you against his chest, far less worried about the lack of clothes either of you still had. “You were born for this, Robb. It’s not in you to fail.”

Kissing the side of your head, things were feeling a bit easier, a bit more normal between you even in such an intimate manner. “Everyone says that right up until they fail.”

Rolling your eyes, you turned. Leaving his grasp to gently face him, your body in his lap. Hands on his chest, your eyes often trailed over him. He didn’t question your gaze, you had to get used to him as much as he was getting used to you. It was still new, no matter how much a decade and a half of friendship had formed the foundation.

No joke was in your face though. “I’m serious, Robb. Even if you don’t believe in yourself?” Shrugging one shoulder you smiled softly, “I’m your wife now, so I’ll just do all the believing for you.”

Squeezing your hip, he rolled his own eyes. “And let you do all the work? We’re a team, remember?”

Saying goodbye to Robb however, was easier then what waited for you outside.

Packing up your hose, you heard the two of them in the distance. “My mother?”

“She was very kind.” You tensed slightly, hoping no one noticed but you very much doubted kind was the genuine word Jon should be using. He didn’t deserve her ire, not now, not ever.

“Next time I see you, you’ll be all in black.”

“It was always my colour.”

Your eyes closed, trying to tune their goodbye out. You had no right to invade their privacy.

Part of you hoped he would ignore you. You wouldn’t have to handle this and you could ignore it, but Jon knew you way better then that. You’d hate yourself if you left it at this. Reaching over you, Jon pulled part of your things up and secured it without even saying a word. Looking up, he was closer then you thought.

Looking at each other, the responsible thing would be to nod, shake hands, say a cordial goodbye. But Jon stood with his bright eyes, a grey so deep they looked black at times and you wanted to cry. You felt pathetic for being hardly able to hold back such a display of emotions, but the love that Jon had looked at you with for so many years was as strong as it always was.

You had no doubt that you looked just the same.

Jon pulled you into a hug, one too tight and too emotional for the company around and yet neither of you cared. Neither of you knew if this would be the last time, and both of you resented the world for forcing that as a possibility. His hand held you to him from the back of your head as you sunk your face partway into his neck and the other into the fur around him. “I miss you.”

“I miss you.”

Already, even in the others arms, the grieving already begun. Pulling back, you held at his shoulders and he shamelessly cupped the side of your cheeks. “Think I could get to the wall before they catch me, if I kiss you now?”

You burst into a laugh, one bordering too close on a cry. But you tilted your head. “Now or never, Snow.”

The kiss was pressed to your cheek, slow and unrushed before hugging you once more. For too many years you and Jon ignored the inevitability of having to separate like this, and it sat deep and uncomfortable in your stomach to do so. Like leaving the other behind would be a mistake in the long run, but you couldn’t understand why your soul screamed at you to not make it. You knelt down, kissing Ghost on the forehead as he licked at your cheek, whispering to him. “Protect him, no matter what you hear me? Next time I see him, you better make sure he’s as healthy as you are now.”

Seeing the other Starks approaching, you two looked at the other one last time so close you could feel the other. You took off with the company as they all headed out to the Kingsroad, giving enough space for Lord Stark to speak to his son alone before they too parted ways.

You couldn’t hear what they talked about, but you knew Jon Snow better then anyone to guess. As his father turned to leave, you and Jon looked from the distance at the other once more. You said nothing and neither did he. His life was up north now, and yours is both by Lord Stark’s side and your future with your husband. A future you wanted, and one Jon didn’t want to get in the way of. But as you both rode off in opposite directions, that sinking feeling in your gut just screamed louder, the further away you both got.

Neither of you having any idea, what horrors would bring you two back to one another.

[brittababbles]

House of the Dragon S2e1: blow by blow reaction on second watch

Spoilers beyond this point

1. I love the tapestry opening. Very reminiscent of GoT’s maps.

1a. Matt Smith gets top billing, huh? Interesting choice.

2. Ah Winterfell, and the Wall. And a nice thick northern accent doing voiceover. Is it weird that I can smell Winterfell? I’ve missed this place.

3. :( sweet Jace seems to be having a nice time in the North. Enjoy while you can, sweet boy. Though he’s got to be freezing at the Wall.

4. What does it keep out? Don’t worry about it, Jace. It doesn’t matter right now. That’s a different series entirely.

5. Jace looks hauntingly like Jon Snow when he’s standing on the wall and I Don’t Like It

6. Rhaenys not taking Daemon’s shit makes my soul less unhappy. She’s all “hey daemon remember how you let my daughter die? This is like that.”

7. In fairness, Daemon isn’t wrong.

8. “Would that you were the king” gods be good, Rhaenys. We’d all be dead

9. I have nothing to add about Rhaenyra in the Stormlands. The entirety of it is just beautiful and sorrowful.

9. Why are we still talking about the Stepstones? That was soooo last season, Corlys.

10. Who is this burly handsome fellow chatting with Corlys? He’s delightful. Dragging bodies out of the sea! Wowweee 😍

11. Dude if you can see her from that far out, that dragon is Vhagar. Chill.

12. Aegon seems to at least like his children. And Helaena, at least on some level.

13. “The rats” oh my sweet girl.

14. So. How long have you and Cole been doing this, Alicient? More than once? Is he your whore, perhaps?

15. But also why do you have to stop? You’re a widow. You can do what you want.

16. CHEESE?!

16a. And Cheese’s dog, whom I adore.

17. Aegon is… so bad at this being king thing. Just so bad at it and it’s weirdly endearing. Also little Jaehaerys? So sweet. Poor thing.

18. I love how nobody likes Tyland Lannister. I don’t like Tyland Lannister.

19. Aemond!

19a. Does Aemond straighten his hair or is it just like that?

20. I forgot about Otto Hightower. And Larys Strong. I am happier having forgotten them and shall continue to do so.

21. Larys knows you been fucking the lord commander, Alicent. And he’s spying on you. And he’s still the creepiest guy in a series that casually accepts incest as the norm.

22. Syrax is my second, maybe third favorite of the dragons and I have missed her.

23. Rhaenyra my Queen. My gods this was tragic. Daemon is right: she shouldn’t have done this alone. I’m glad at least Syrax is with her

24. “Aegon the Magnanimous” wh wh what 😂

25. You’re so bad at this Aegon. But I guess at least you’re earnest about it. Aegon the Frat Boy is too on point, I suppose.

26. You know, I don’t like Otto, but honestly. Bless his heart for herding his grandson through King-hood is painful to watch.

27. In retrospect, the odd shots of the castle make sense. This whole episode foreshadows the end of it with these weird, creeping shots of the Red Keep, particularly in the halls and through the railways.

28. I see that nobody in Aemond’s family understands him at all. Except maybe Daemon.

29. Oh that’s not someone knocking on the door. That’s the drums of the soundtrack. Heh.

30. Baby goats!

31. Mysyria is… not my favorite. But she does have a thorough understanding of Daemon that Rhaenyra seems to sometimes lack.

32. Whoa. Damn, Daemon. Easy now. Don’t break the table.

33. Syrax is back! Hi Syrax!

34. Aw, that Targaryen forehead touch.

35. “I want Aemond Targaryen” I feel like that’s a common feeling toward him, for better or worse, Rhaenyra. Just based on fanfic results alone.

36. Daemon I know where this plan ends and I don’t like it.

37. Jace! Mama Rhaenyra! Oh Jace is trying so hard to be brave for his Queen.

38. I’ve seen a lot of people raving against this sequence in the Sept but I really liked it. Alicent did not mean for Luke to die and I do think she still cares for Rhaenyra. Her childhood friend lost a son, and to pray for peace for a dead child is not something that should be shamed. Also on a cinematography level, the candlelight vs the pyre flames was gorgeous.

39. Little Joffrey is breaking my heart.

40. I spent a solid ten seconds trying to work out why Aemond was screwing around in Blackwater Bay because I assumed he had taken over the Cloak of Crime. But no! It’s Daemon! Again!

41. Ehhhh Blood and Cheese and I just don’t like it. Cheese is just gross.

42. Interesting departure. Daemon orders Aemond’s death.

43. Speaking of whom. Aemond is… odd. He isn’t wrong, but he overestimates himself. But then he’s not entirely wrong. His mother’s fondness for Rhaenyra could be seen as a weakness. Though he certainly is playing his own hand here.

44. Ah the “cunning spider” line from Cole that is just a hilarious projection.

45. Does Aemond not have to get up when Otto walks in the room?

46. No Otto. Vhagar is the greatest single power in the realm. Aemond is but a fly on her back.

47. Cheese’s dog looks so much like my dog and I am so upset about it.

48. So… y’all are just going to waltz across the throne room and nobody will notice? That’s… fine?

49. Loyal as a hound, eh?

50. I hold with Aegon the Frat Boy as his title.

51 Uh, you go up the stairs to get upstairs, Blood. That’s how upstairs usually works.

52. DON’T KICK THE DOG!!! 😫😫😫

53. So… Daemon told them that if they can’t find Aemond they should just… improvise? Any male’s head will do? That’s not what Rhaenyra said at all.

54. Why are they just wandering around the castle unchecked? This just doesn’t make sense

55. I really wanted to see a bit more from Helaena here. Some pleading, some begging, some bargaining, maybe. I know she’s probably shutting down emotionally, and Phia’s face shows terror - and guilt - very well. But this whole scene is just so odd. But, I do think there is something genuine about this performance

56. “They killed the boy” she’s in shock. This part didn’t feel at all out of place for the Helaena we’ve seen on screen.

57. And that’s it. What a strange episode.

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #68: GOT, but make it bastards and broken things

Sometimes I have terrible fic ideas. Sometimes terrible fic ideas have me - such as this one, which crawled into my head the other day and has yet to let go. Mainly: what if Game of Thrones leaned into the cripples, bastards, and broken things motif?

Or: What if Tyrion Lannister and f!Jon Snow formed a marriage of convenience?

Aka: The Red Queen Fic

Just imagine it:

Everything happens as per canon, with two exceptions: 1) Lyanna Stark dies giving birth to a daughter whose "beauty matured as she grew older, and its was said that she was more beautiful at age seventy than at age seventeen" [x], who Ned named Rowena after Jon Arryn's second wife; and 2) The Greyjoy Rebellion takes place immediately before Robert heads north.

Things go slightly differently in the Greyjoy Rebellion. Everyone is a little older, reflexes are a little slower, and everyone has been on peacetime footing for just that much longer. Tywin Lannister dies in the fighting, with the Lord Paramountcy of the Westerlands falling to Tyrion. Theon Greyjoy dies alongside his brothers; his sister becomes Ned's ward instead.

Meanwhile, Jon Arryn has died of apparent old age back in King's Landing, so Robert choses to ride from war in the west straight to Winterfell, so Ned can wrap up a few things before being dragged back to the capitol as Hand. Tyrion is dragged along.

While there, Tyrion encounters awkward, angular, but strangely charismatic Rowena Snow in the library. They do not expect to hit it off, but they do, finding a genuine friendship and understanding in each other. It is not love, but it is enough.

As Lord Paramount of the Westerlands, Tyrion needs a bride - and he was already turned down by most of the eligible families of rank while he was still heir. So rather than trod a well-known path, he proposes marriage to Rowena, who is at least tolerable and believed to be the bastard of Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne.

Rowena, realizing it's the best offer she'll ever get, agrees, and eventually convinces Ned to do so as well. After all, there's nothing a Lannister protects more fiercely than another lion.

Canon continues apace. Ned loses his head, war is declared, and Cersei can make very few open moves against her sister-in-law - who is, after all, a Lannister now - or Sansa - a hostage, yes, but under Rowena's protection. The latter still isn't having a good time, but at least she's not being beaten in open court. (Eventually Rowena does manage to get Sansa married off to Willas Tyrell, securing the Reach and her sister's safety.)

The Red Wedding happens, though it is planned entirely by the Freys and Cersei herself, who thinks Tyrion is too weak to do what must be done. No one is pleased.

The Purple Wedding happens. Tyrion and Rowena manage to avoid suspicion by missing the event entirely, the latter being confined to childbed as she labored with their first child, Joanna - though Cersei still tries to point fingers at them anyway. Few believe her.

Cersei's actions grow wilder while Tommen is king... to the point where Rowena and Tyrion realize if they don't act soon riots and revolts will act for them. So they stage a palace coup.

Tyrion, in addition to being Hand of the King, is Regent after the coup. He sits in the small council in the first of these roles and has Rowena sit in his place for the second. They manage to stabilize most of mainland Westeros - Tyrion strengthens ties with Dorne, despite the suspicious death of his niece; Rowena heads to the Vale, replaces Lysa Arryn and Littlefinger with Bronze Yohn, and sends Robert Arryn to be fostered with Sansa and Willas; forces loyal to Tyrion liberate Edmure Tully from the Twins and install him back in Riverrun - but the North and Iron Islands are still a mess when winter descends.

Margery dies of a winter sickness. Tommen goes mad with grief. He kills himself soon after... and Tyrion, his regent, is left as King of Westeros.

It should be a recipe for more revolts and uprisings - after all, it was bad enough a dwarf married to a bastard was Regent, let alone Hand of the King - but Westeros is tired of war. It's now the middle of the longest winter ever recorded, and rather than hoard food Tyrion does his best to distribute it evenly throughout the country. He makes concessions. He rules, allows widows and heiresses and young children to keep control of family estates, fills empty castles with good men rather than cronies, and generally acts like a decent king. It's a nice change of pace for a country so familiar with Targaryen drama.

Eventually word comes spilling out of the war-torn North about the Others. Rowena, being the fighter of the new royal couple, leads a force north and eventually defeats them, less through individual martial prowess than decent leadership and fresh troops

When Dany arrives after winter is over to stake her claim, few wish to join her. She harries Westeros from the Stepstones for a few years, but when she dies under suspicious circumstances - probably an assassination, but she had so many enemies at that point no one can say which got to her - her dragons take up residence on Dragonstone of their own accord, seemingly giving their allegiance to the new dynasty.

Bonuses include: 1) Later historians endlessly debating whether or not Tyrion was the bastard son of the Mad King. The evidence should be circumstantial but convincing and include his children's appearance. A few will try claiming Rowena was the daughter of a dragonseed - maybe even Rhaegar himself - but are less well received; 2) Rowena gaining her moniker Red Queen from her habit of wearing primarily Lannister Red after her marriage - and for occasionally becoming drenched in the blood of her enemies, as when removing Littlefinger from power in the Eyrie; 3) Tyrion and Rowena's marriage being one primarily of friendship. It should take at least a year - possibly closer to three - for them to feel genuine romantic love for each other. It should, however, be the ideal medieval noble marriage, filled with fondness and respect, even from the beginning; and 4) Cersei fading away into obscurity. She's never outright harmed or neglected or even strictly imprisoned, she merely retires to a strict motherhouse from which escape is unlikely if not impossible and fades from history. Her name, for all it is connected for four kings by blood and marriage, is largely forgotten by even those familiar with the time period in favor of Robert's first love, Lyanna, and Tyrion's reserved but unendlessly capable queen, Rowena.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you do anything with it.

Other Jon Snow Headcanons: Aelor the Accursed | Aegon the Adopted | Aegon the Undying | Aegon the Unyielding | Aemon the Adventurous | Baelor the Brave | Bastard of Winterfell | Daemon the Destroyer | Daena the Dreamer | Daeron the Desired | Dyanna the Defiant | Elia the Magnificent | Jon the Fair | Jon Whitefyre | King of the Ashes | Lady Arryn | Lady Baratheon | Lady Lannister | Lady Stark | Lord of the Dance | Prince Consort | Prince of Summerhall | Queen Mother | Queen of Nightingales | Red Queen | Rhaegar the Righteous | River Queen | Shiera Snowbird | Visneya the Victorious

More Terrible Fic Ideas

[justadram]

It's great to see the story being continued and the chapter was great!

Seeing the conversation between Theon and Sansa, and him proclaiming his love for her. If Dany and Jon would have not arrived, would Ned have agreed to marry Sansa to Theon? He would have been the Lord of the Iron Islands, but considering the history between the North and the Iron Islands, and Theon's personality before the conquest, it seems doubtful that Ned would have agreed to the marriage.

The ending of the chapter was also great and surprising. I didn't expect Theon to do that. Why did Theon kill Dany? Was it something that he talked and planned with Ned, before they left the North or was it something that he planned and decided on his own?

I'm very curious and eager to see the next chapters and to see what the fallout will be. Will the Dothraki and Unsullied blame Jon and Sansa for planning that with Theon? I'm also very curious to see how the people of King's Landing will react and if they might start a riot.

Have a nice day!

Maybe Ned would have agreed. Ned could have treated Theon like a prisoner, but he didn't. Canonically, this is like nourishing a viper in the bosom of Winterfell. If he realized the risk, he chose that course anyway. Either because Theon was a child or he hoped to make a more reasonable and friendly heir out of the future lord of the Iron Islands.

Or Ned is just a bad judge sometimes. Cat's a bad judge too. She spends years worrying Jon is the viper being raised to steal her son's inheritance when it's Theon. Ugh. Sorry, the Theon and Jon parallels get me.

In this fic, I think it's safe to say Ned might have been persuaded to accept a marriage between Theon and Sansa. Especially if she wanted it. Sansa's older and her parents are more respectful of her wishes because of that. It's not a terrible match on paper, so if she said but daddy, I love him, I think he would have okayed it begrudgingly. After being like really? him?

The crux of the issue is Sansa doesn't think of Theon that way. And if she ever could have been persuaded to think of him that way, the possibility pretty much died when he kissed her best friend. And as Theon is going to his death, I think he knows and wants to confess the worst thing he ever did was kiss the friend when he wanted Sansa. That was doing Jeyne dirty and betraying his love for Sansa if it was real. But that was the old Theon. Careless at the very least. Indulgent of his fleeting wants without thought for the consequences.

Theon has seen the writing on the wall. He knows Sansa is not safe while Dany lives. So Dany's got to go. There are probably a dozen reasons why he decides he has to be the one to do it and do it alone, including, his desire to be a hero, to act honorably, to be someone the Starks would claim as their own. He swore privately to Ned to keep her safe, he's along solely for that reason. But they didn't plot together. This is just Theon's final notion of how best to keep her safe. It's his last service to House Stark.

Theon's not thinking about the potential fallout.

[bluebellhairpin]

Please use this as an excuse to ramble and talk about your got oc and Sannem!

An excuse to talk about Sandor and my selfship oc? You don't have to tell me twice! (BEWARE. I DIDN'T HOLD BACK LOL)

They're both actually so special to me, but I haven't given myself a chance to really think about them. I do know that their relationship doesn't change the plot a whole lot - however because all my oc's are female I like having them do something to further the plot. I just haven't decided what exactly that is for her yet.

Well I do know one thing, but I'll talk about it later. What I'm mostly trying to get at is I know more fixed lore about the oc than the relationship she has with Sandor. A lot of it is still up in the air lol.

Over the course of her life she gets four nicknames. They progress from The Mouse -> The Thousand Times Bitten -> The Bitch -> The Untouched. (Link are to other post's I've made about why she's called that, and at what point she gets them. BUT THIS IS GOING TO GO WAAAAY MORE INTO THAT.)

I think I mentioned it in the description for The Mouse, but if she was in the show we'd first meet her at Winterfell. She runs errands, and her manner is likened to a field mouse. She knows the Starks, and probably would be around the crowd feasting when King Robert Baratheon visits. I can imagine her catching Sandor sometime then, and perhaps also on the road again a bit later - something clicks and they're friendly enough for acquaintances.

I can imagine her turning into an envoy for Robb during the War of Five Kings. She knows all the routes everywhere, especially in the North and around the Vale, and knows how to keep hidden - whether it be in crowds or empty spaces. It would be this envoy work that leads her to the house of Ramsay Snow. She's caught there, unable to leave. Eventually Ramsay chooses to hunt her, and she almost makes it out of the woods when his hounds get her. She bares her back to the dogs. When the others find her, they leave her there, saying that if she survives the night on her own, she'd be The Thousand Times Bitten.

She does survive, or at least that's what's told since the next morning she wasn't where they left her. Really she was picked up by a farmer and his wife who were coming home late. They nurse her back to full health over the next few weeks, however she cannot stand hounds anymore.

Eventually she leaves. She refuses to be a burden to the family anymore, intent to meet up with Catelyn and Robb Stark. Really though she wanders for a while instead. Eventually she meets Sandor again, and sees Arya. Right as they meet, Arya said that her mother and brother both died the night before, and seeing as she has nowhere else to go, she joins them both. The trio get along well, but during this time is when she starts being called The Bitch. Time with Ramsay has caused what once was sweet to turn bitter, and while before she might have laughed off curse actions and comments she becomes more violent, lacking in self preservation. This and her fondness for Sandor, and his fondness for her, garners her a new name.

She travels with Sandor and Arya until they all meet Brienne of Tarth. She gets lost among the fight. She finds Arya walking towards the road and asks what happened to Sandor. Arya replies that he's dead (at least to her), and she believes it. She's unable to bring herself to go see for herself and instead makes her way back North to the Wall. She meets Jon Snow, who is Lord Commander of the Watch, and uses that time to be taught how to fight properly.

She offers to join Jon on the trip to Hardhome, but he denies saying that she isn't experienced enough, and won't risk her life there. She spends all that time training more, to prove she could've gone. During this time she discovers a fondness for using two blades which are slightly smaller then swords. These become her weapons of choice.

When Jon dies at Castle Black, she is one of the people drawn outside by Ghost's howls. After he's brought back to life, she chooses to join him in leaving as the Wall was never a place for a woman. This plan is foiled when Sansa Stark shows up. In the days the follow, a letter comes from Ramsay goading them to fight him for Winterfell. She is eager to join in, having sworn to see Ramsay die for what he'd done to her, and now to Sansa - and threatened to do again.

She fights at the Battle of the Bastards, and lives without a scratch on her. The training from the Watch paid off. She rises that day as The Untouched - a name garnered from her days at Castle Black, since the moment training moved from pretend swords to real ones, no one could land a blow on her - and now a name solidifying her into a battle legend.

Staying true to her promise, she watches as Sansa sets Ramsay's hounds on himself. Sansa walks away, but she stays. She promised she'd see him die - really she wanted to do it herself, to feel his blood warm her hands, but watching the life leave him was really the only thing she wanted to do before she died. Now her life was no longer in service to herself. Now she was ready to serve someone else again.

Lo and behold, once again there is now a King in the North.

AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE SO FARRRRRRR <3 (I could write more, since I have seen a few more seasons since I decided on all this, but this post is getting loooooooong. So if you've lasted this long I'm giving you a nice cup of tea and/or hot chocolate and kissing ur forehead THANK YOU SO MUCH I LOVE YOU <3333)

[juuls]

Juulna’s 2021 Multi-Fandom Fanfiction Rec List - Part Six

(Yes, I realize this is a year late, but this year's been a bit nuts. I still hope you enjoy these fics anyway!)

Based only on what I’ve read with my own eyes this year!

Follow me on my journey into what, at times, was…

…actually rather calming! Perhaps you can find some comfort and entertainment, fluff and angst and romance and friendship, smut and a distinct lack of it, space adventures and fantasy and modern adventures, serial killers and good guys, redemption and reconciliation and learning to become someone completely different — there is so much here I read that stuck with me over the past year, and the 2021 Fanfic Reading Challenge ( @fanfic-reading-challenge ) allowed me a new way to keep track of all of my favourites. So props to that event! Definitely participating again (considering I run the event, yeah, that's probably a given lol, but full disclosure).

Without further ado, here were my 2021 fic favourites!

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six

Fandom: GoT/AsoIaF

Jaime/Sansa/Oberyn/Ellaria:

Names in the Snow by OperaPhantom

“It’s a punishment,” most whispered. “Punishment from the Old Gods for betraying them for the Seven.”

A few others disagreed. “A gift from the Old Gods to the eldest Stark daughter,” they said. “Or a gift to the North.”

~~~~~~ Sansa Stark receives the Gods' Gift, the mark that identifies her soulmate, only to find out it's what no one, not even herself, expected it to be. But sometimes, surprises can be sweet.

For the February 2021 Pack Prompt of "unexpected".

Jaimsa:

I'm not a princess (this ain't a fairytale) by K_R_Closson

After Joffrey beheads Ned Stark, and his engagement to Sansa is broken, he decides to host a tournament, with the prize being Sansa's hand in marriage. When Jaime Lannister shows up at the last minute to win it, she's afraid she'll be stuck in King's Landing until Joffrey's cruelty does her in. But Jaime made a promise and, one way or another, Lannisters always pay their debts.

Joberyn:

Bequeathed from Pale Estates by Author376

In a Westeros where Soulmates are bound and Marked by the Gods to bind Houses together and pay blood debts, Lyarra Snow and Oberyn Martell are about to get a shock...

Jonsa

and no net ensnares me by thimbleful

Since Jon left, Sansa has struggled to keep things together and she longs for his return. However, when he does return things only become worse. Jon learns about his parentage and doesn't know how to make sense of anything, how to fix the inevitable mess the reveal will create, or how to protect the people he loves. But at least, after all these years, the pack is finally back together. Then, one day, Sansa disappears. Post season 7 fic.

His Winter Queen by @tm-writes-blog

A rewrite of the show's last seasons and how Jon and Sansa forged a true ruling block to challenge the Dragon Queen and defeat the Night King.

There will still be major character deaths, but some very different choices greatly impact the story.

we are buried in broken dreams by Anonymous

Prompt: Sansa and Jon sleeping together before he goes to Dragonstone and when he comes back he finds out she is pregnant.

A full on s8 fix-it fic at this point.

Like winter we are cruel by @ferrame

Winter has come to Winterfell, Jon expects a war north of the Wall, and Littlefinger is brewing one inside the very castle.

you are my sun, my moon (and all of my stars) by Goodforthesoul

When the white wolf came, the Lord of Winterfell had no choice but to give him his eldest daughter. Eddard Stark had grown up on legends of wolves, on the stories of bargains made by the First Men, on the knowledge of the price that he and his family might one day be forced to pay.  His father had explained the reason their house had taken a wolf as its heraldry and “Winter is Coming” as its motto, a reminder of a promise to honor, a recognition of a debt owed that would need, one day, to be paid. Ned had breathed a sigh of relief when his sister’s twentieth winter arrived and the beast had not. And he had watched the dawn sky for the first signs of the snow that would mark that his daughter, too, might also be spared, might escape the fate that had been handed down by their ancestors. But no man could be so lucky. 

Sansa, too, had been born with the North in her blood, had been raised on the stories of white wolves, had lived her life with the knowledge that one might come for her.

if you try to break me, you will bleed by @dialux

It had been a slash across her chest from a White Walker’s sword that finally ended her life. Sansa’d landed in a puddle of her own blood, and she’d died quickly, quietly.

And then she’d awoken with a gasp, trembling, in a bed that had burned under Theon’s betrayal.

The pursuit of non-bath time happiness by Queenofthebees

After Jon refuses Gendry's ask for Arya's hand, citing the fact Sansa was not yet betrothed, Rickon observes and, with the help of Shaggydog, Ghost and Arya, comes up with a plan to have Jon realise he should court Sansa himself. And if it were to result in Jon being less strict about bath times, that was totally coincidental!

The She-Wolves of Winterfell by @vixleonard

The pack survived. So has the Stark habit of keeping secrets.

Jonsaery:

and in the night, you'll hear me calling by @lesbiancerseilannister

When you met your soulmate, touched them for the first time, you would see everything in all its colorful glory.

Jonsanerys:

Brave, Gentle, Strong by @jonsainthenorth

The Night King is defeated, the battle is ended, the dead heroes are burned, but the song is not yet done.

Now, Dany must grapple with the news of her newfound family and the possibility for the Targaryen line to continue beyond her. . . and beyond her brother’s son. She offer Sansa an impossible choice, one that will destroy the Lady of Winterfell's independence but grant her heart's desire and protect the North in perpetuity. Jon is caught between the two halves of himself, between two Queens, Targaryen and Stark, Fire and Ice, Dragon and Direwolf, honor and dishonor...

Sanberyn, Brandon Stark/Catelyn, minor Rhaelyanna, Jon/Cersei:

The Road to Victory by writing_as_tracey

Too late in preparing for the Night King and the Long Night, the last stand at Winterfell is close to falling. Bran takes desperate measures to ensure victory, and Jon, Sansa, and Arya pay the price for it in a time unfamiliar to them, on the cusp of another war. [GoT, time-travel fix it]

Sanberynia:

A Winter in Braavos by Silberias

Sansa escapes to Braavos with the Dornish.

Desert Winds Rather Than Mountain Air by Silberias

Catelyn Stark leaves King's Landing telling even her old friend Petyr Baelish that she is taking her daughters back to Winterfell. Instead she takes them, without telling Ned, to Dorne because if anyone will believe a tale of Lannister treachery it will be the Martells of Dorne.

She realizes, as she reaches the gates of Sunspear, that she is really no better than her father was all those years ago.

Clinging To The Wild Things That Raised Us by TheSweetestThing

If the Martells demanded the traitor Sansa Stark’s hand in marriage in return for peace throughout the Seven Kingdoms, then so be it.

For Fear Tonight Is All by Silberias

Tyrion knew, as he gazed up at the dark skinned Martell man that this was perhaps his only chance to spirit Sansa out of King's Landing and away from his father's greedy fingers. Tywin Lannister would have married the girl himself if he felt he could have gotten away with it, and so Tyrion knew his own marriage was no protection to Ned Stark's daughter whatsoever.

"Invite her, demand her, steal her--whatever you choose, Prince Oberyn, choose it soon. Else my lady wife shall break into more pieces than the stars."

a sad tale's best for winter by @branwyn-says

Oberyn and Ellaria visit the finest brothel in Oldtown. One of its most alluring attraction is the harpist, a girl with dyed brown hair.

She's still a maid, the brothel-keep assures them.

in this expected country they know my name by @lesspopped

At the wedding feast, Oberyn and Ellaria are approached by the Master of Whisperers, who begs they indulge him with a discussion of clothing — specifically, Lady Sansa Stark's. Very fine, they all agree...but what a shame, Ellaria tuts, she has lost an amethyst from her hairnet.

So when Joffrey begins to cough, they follow her, and find her in the godswood.

I See The Stars In Your Eyes by @themistressmaster

She feared that she was just like her aunt, a wreath of winter roses bestowed upon her at a tourney.

Sanberynia/Jon:

Dornish Customs by @framboise-fics

Sansa escapes from the Eyrie to Castle Black after being accused of the death of her late husband Harrold Hardyng, arriving just after Jon has been resurrected. The two of them decide to flee South together and after journeying for many moons, they arrive in Sunspear and find sanctuary with Prince Oberyn and his paramour Ellaria Sand.

But neither of them have escaped from their pasts unscathed, and during the sweltering days and long sultry nights of Dorne, tensions boil over in unexpected ways.

Sansa deserves a good man guarding her, an honourable man, and she has put her trust in Jon, who is not an honourable man at all. Perhaps he came back wrong, he thinks sometimes, perhaps this sickness is something the red priestess gave him.

Stansa:

Half of Winter by @manic-intent

Stannis Baratheon has survived wars, sieges, pitched battles and skirmishes and worse, but nothing has made him feel as lost and out of place and unnerved as this very moment.

The little pink infant in the crib sleeps peacefully, wrapped in furs, and her wrists are innocently blank. For an irrational moment, Stannis envies her, then he straightens up and turns away. Winterfell is warm, somehow - some sort of piped system, apparently - and his gloves are tucked into his belt, baring the pale silver script on the underside of his right wrist: Sansa Stark.

Wolf's Blood by @manic-intent

"Ser Davos tells me that my brother Robb has done something rash," Sansa cuts in hurriedly, before Stannis rebukes Davos. "Is that true? He has broken his word to the Freys?"

"Aye, and Lord Walder will not so easily forgive that," Stannis looks over to the Twins where they are marked on the huge table that forms the centerpiece of the Chamber, and behind him, sleek and voluptuous in her sheer red dress, Melisandre smiles with her full, crimson mouth. "Your brother is a gifted commander, but he is still a very young boy. Still," Stannis adds, with a lift of a shoulder, "Older men than he have sundered far more over women. I should know - I was part of the last war that broke out over a woman. Your aunt."

Queen of the Seven Kingdoms by @sarahtheblack

Ned doesn't go to Cersei with a warning. He goes to Dragonstone.

[forgaeven1]

it- it ain't always that someone takes whatever he's got to say with the level o'... of calmness, he could say.

no, usually, whenever gendry speaks the way he does, which he's sure isn't delivered fancily or anythin', just some bastard shootin' off the first thought that fleets his mind, people would either responded back in disdain. in arya's case, she would've ... she would've called him stupid. not meanly, or maybe not as meanly as other people would've meant it. no, with her, he knows it's almost purposeful; he knows it's their way of keepin' each other in check. he'd called her stupid too, for rushin' in too quick sometimes, for not always mindin' the fact she's a girl in a world where men would hurt little girls like her. especially those whose father was eddard stark.

this m'lady is playful; the kind of playful, gendry imagines, maybe he would've known more of had he been friendlier growing up. had he been more interested in making friends, in maintainin' them. it doesn't go over his head that they might be the same age, or at the very least, that their ages aren't far apart from each other. he couldn't remember spendin' time with someone who could be his peers without the tension of execution hangin' about like some ghosts, without any impendin' war over his head. her response makes her crack a small grin o' his head, which gendry redirects t' the floor of the snow-caked forest.

❛ yeah. ❜ he laughs a little, choked and short, though s' a laugh nevertheless. ❛ why not. not like we 'aven't seen worse comin' from the richmen, we did. ❜

and anyway, hadn't jaime feckin' lannister's hand made out of gold ? so really, the notion of it isn't too far off, he reckons. which gendry thinks is mad, anyways. like, fuck, the fucker probably deserves it, but t' give a former knight some useless heavy hand ? could it 'ven hold a sword ? gendry isn't sure. he didn't care enough to ask before, nor care enough t' have a discussion about it. there was no time, then. no interest. tha' was before the war o' the dead, though. s' startling, rememberin' all over again that he's not another corpse right now, ready for burnin'.

❛ well - you're a lady, aren't ya' ? and yer' da's a lord ? you've got land n' everything, i assume ? ❜ he doesn't know much about the houses, if he's honest. the boys and girls o' fleabottom, they don't learn this growin' up. they learn to scrap by, to find their strengths by fallin' mercy to the adults on their streets. gendry himself only knows the big houses : starks and lannister and tyrell and the like. but the vassals under 'em... that's trickier. he's lucky enough not to 'ave his tongue removed by the way he treated nearly everyone the same.

gods, his temper. davos said once it's so alike robert, the damn fat king.

❛ then yer' a highborn, no ma'er what people call ye'. ❜

the south, the lady speaks. right. they've got to do that. when yer under a banner, you follow your lord liege, ain't it. gendry had sworn himself to jon, to the north really, when he arrived here, but it all seems - pointless now. jon snow's besotted with the foreign dragon queen, and gendry trusts her as much as he trusts any o' the baratheons, had they still live - which isn't much at all. he can't imagine goin' 'ven if jon asks, or arya does. why should he ? he'd done his fight, hadn't he ? and, anyways, he didn't want the throne. other folks could spill blood for it, though. he's seen the devastation, and gendry doesn't think it's worth that much.

although —

❛ isn't- isn't yer da' alive ? then, shouldn't they send only men ? ❜ he asks aloud, confusion marring his questions, as he takes the damp cloth into his own two palms, sighing in relief at the warmth of it.

GENDRY’S OUTBURST MAKES HER GRIN. It’s absurd and rude and Meera quashes it before it can get too big. Not that she delights in his anger. She’s just surprised, is all, at his intensity. All this trouble to make a fire, when really she just had to ask him about home. Meera watches him speak in rapt fascination. After the blandness of the caverns, after the blankness in Bran’s eyes, she’s forgotten what it’s like to witness passion.

She leans in, sheltering close to this new kind of fire. It’s nice.

“Thousands?” Meera repeats. The warmth of the flames seeps into her voice, her smile. She ignores the direction his words were going before he trailed off and spins her own a completely different way. “How could someone even use all that gold? Smelt it down into a golden anvil, maybe?” There’s a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. “Or a golden frog-spear? There’s some fish that like the glint of shiny things, you know. Makes them curious. Easier to catch.” A pause; for a moment she seems like she’s genuinely considering this. “Not unlike us, I suppose.”

Meera’s gaze drops to Gendry’s hands, and she thinks she begins to understand. They’re still ash-black from the battle. No wonder it won’t leave him. He’s brought it all the way out to the pond. She reaches under her furs to pull out some of the bandage scraps she got from the healers. For when it’s time to change her dressings, they’d said. This is more important.

She reaches out to press the cloth into perfect, untouched snow. The cold bites at her fingers; she wrinkles her nose. When it’s drenched through and through, she picks it up, gives it a slight shake, then holds it next to the fire. Cradles it, really. Not close enough to burn out the wet, but enough to soak up the ice.

“Greywater Watch,” she says at last. The browns of her eyes begin to melt. “It’s a castle. Nothing so grand as Winterfell, but it’s home. You’re very kind, you know, to call House Reed highborn.” She flips the cloth so the fire can warm the other side. “Most anyone else would say mudmen.” A glance down at her attire. “I suppose I can’t blame them.”

Meera frowns, thinking.

“I — I’d like to go home.” Bran doesn’t need her anymore, it’s true. But. “House Reed is sworn to the Starks. And the Starks are marching south.” She gives Gendry a rueful sort of smile and tries not to think of her bruises. She is a hunter, not a soldier. The battle for the living had been close. If she goes south, she isn’t hopeful she will come back. “Maybe it won’t come to that. King’s Landing will see the dragons and surrender, I’m sure. They have to.” An undercurrent of terror snaps at her throat. Her eyes go distant for a moment. Then she refocuses.

“Here.” Meera tosses another log on the fire, then worms her way around to sit next to Gendry. Out of habit she reaches for his hands, but then she remembers he’s not Hodor, or Bran, or Jojen during a fit. An awkward moment passes; she tries to figure out what to do with herself. She settles for extending the damp cloth instead. “To clean off the dead, if you’d like. Don’t worry. It’s warm.”

[aemontargaryen-bloodraven]

The Song O' the Winter Rose

Lord Brandon sent the members of the Night's Watch looking for them beyond the Wall, but they never found Bael or the girl. The Stark line was on the verge of extinction, when one day the girl was back in her room, holding in her arms an infant: they had actually never left Winterfell, staying hidden in the crypts. Bael's bastard with Brandon's daughter became the new Lord Stark.

A Storm of Swords

By law, she comes after Sansa . . . your own sister, trueborn . . ."

". . . and dead. No one has seen or heard of Arya since they cut Father's head off. Why do you lie to yourself? Arya's gone, the same as Bran and Rickon, and they'll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had hoped you would support my choice." - Catelyn V

Just like Bael's bastard with Brandon's daughter became the new Lord Stark, Rhaegar's bastard <as of what we know and can say so far> with Rickard's daughter will become the next King in the North, Jon Stark.

[a-libra-writes]

OH SPEAKING OF BOBBY B WOULD YOU EVER WRITE HCS FOR BEING LIKE HIS DAUGHTER/LIKE JOFF’S TWIN OR SMTH AND ROBERT ACTUALLY LIKING YOU

-🐚🌌

i miss my dad so i guess thats why im doing these specific requests LOL

So, imagine the first child between Cersei and Robert. The one that survived a sickly cradle, against all odds. The one with hair that was unmistakably black, not gold. The one Cersei couldn't stand the moment every time she laid eyes on her in the crib, because of all her negative and hurt feelings toward Robert. This is back when she was still a teenager, and her fantasies about the brave Baratheon that toppled the Mad King turned to smoke and mirrors.

Needless to say... over the years, she'd take out a lot of her frustration on this kid.

Robert likes that the child laughs and runs and smiles. He's far too indulgent, allowing her to sit on his knee during tourneys even if Cersei finds them too violent. He has extravagant gifts for her, anywhere from expensive dolls made of silk or a whole pony. He'd even take her on hunting expeditions - even if his Kingsguard protested - showing her how to use a bow and boarspear, even if she's far, far too young and small to handle such weapons.

When Joffrey is born, Robert struggles to bond with him the same way. Joff doesn't laugh easily like his daughter did, instead he cries and screams all the time. Cersei protectively keeps him away, claiming Robert distresses the boy. In truth, she prefers Joff right away, because he's a boy, and a son of Jaime besides ... ... and deep down, she's always been hurt how her daughter seems to prefer Robert.

The more the girl grows up to be like him, the more Robert prefers her. If she's outgoing and laughs easily, he'd much rather spend time with her than a fussy Joffrey. If she's active and healthy, he'll want to teach her how to ride. He'd allow lessons with swords and spears if she begged enough, though Cersei would absolutely forbid it.

As the child gets older, she'd begin to notice her father breaking promises. Sometimes he smells too much like drink, and he loses his temper and yells at her mother. Her mother yells at him, yells at her. She can't seem to get her mother's favor, no matter how nicely she dresses or speaks.

Her grandfather Tywin is cold, distant and scary, and she knows her father dislikes him, so she hates coming to Casterly Rock. Uncle Jaime is strangely distant too, but at least Uncle Tyrion is kind and plays with her. He gives her books and encourages her to read to Myrcella and Tommen, and look after them. Uncle Stannis is a bit strict, but once he showed her all the ships on the harbor, and she always remembered that. Uncle Renly was almost as funny as her father, and always smelled better.

To Cersei, Robert's favor to their first child is beyond irksome. He should be favoring his first son, his heir! He's a little indulgent with Myrcella, and doesn't think too much about Tommen. She'll begin to criticize and pick at her eldest daughter, trying to cut down on traits that are too much like her father.

She'll quickly think of marriage, not caring that her daughter hasn't even had her first moonblood yet, not remembering how panicked and angry she was at her own father's plans to marry her quickly. She doesn't want Ned's oldest marrying her daughter, as much as Robert wants that match. In her anger, she almost wants to punish her husband and oldest daughter for having the gall to be so similar. She wants a match that will upset them.

If the girl was more tomboyish and fond of fighting, she'd win the argument to learn swords. It would be a huge wedge between Cersei and Robert, one of their big fights, but she'd learn. And she'd be good at it. If she was more ladylike and interested in the court, she'd begin to find her father's mistakes and cover for them at too young of an age. Lord Arryn would try to shield her from it, but, well ...

No matter what, by the time she's thirteen or fourteen, her idyllic image of her heroic, strong father would begin to tarnish. She'd see the drinking, the whores, the expensive feasts, the explosive fights with her mother. She'd notice the cruel tendencies in Joffrey, and would try to shield Myrcella and Tommen from not just him, but the rumors surrounding their father. She'd want them to stay sweet and good. She tried with Joffrey, but he never liked her. He was clearly Cersei's favorite, while she was clearly Robert's, and that meant they were tools during their parent's arguments.

She'd have no end of handmaidens from various wealthy kingslander families, and the loyal Kingsguard that were fond of her, and whatever pets she desired. She might still feel lonely in the Red Keep, and escape to the vast gardens to hide from her parent's fighting over who she'll marry. The feasts and parties were fun, but sometimes too tiring, and it seemed every knight and lord's son wanted to fight in her honor or be the first to dance with her.

And she'd start to notice that Lord Arryn and Uncle Stannis were asking her odd questions, or observing her as she played with her youngest siblings. She didn't hear them muttering about her black hair or loud laugh.

She'd have a lot on her plate, and a lot of pressure to work under. When Jon Arryn died and her father announced they were going North, a place she'd never been, to meet a man she'd heard so many stories about but never met... Well, it was an exciting adventure and a distraction. She even got to take her youngest siblings, and her father would let her ride with him if the road was safe. He even bought her a new, fine horse for the long journey.

He always told her war stories, but when he talked about these, he finally seemed happy. His blue eyes twinkled as he talked about the mischief he got up to in the Eyrie with his best friend Ned, who was more brother than his own brothers. He'd tell her about Winterfell, and how she might be the Lady of it someday.

"It only seems right to join our houses," Her father was saying. He didn't bother wearing the crown on this ride, and he was dressed in comfort instead of style. "It's what I've always wanted, but... I'll make sure that son of his is deserving of my girl. You're the Princess of the Seven Kingdoms! We'll have to have a talk with this wolf-boy of Ned's. We'll see if he's up to your standards."

Robert laughed, and it was hard not to smile. He meant it, she knew. He really did want what was best, and he'd been delaying marrying her away to whoever asked. She had cautious optimism when it came to her father's promises, but for now... it was a beautiful day, and they were having a nice ride.

[agentrouka-blog]

Considering how Jeyne is termed as Sansa's best friend, why do you think the thought of asking about Jeyne's whereabouts to Littlefinger doesn't cross her mind? She doesn't need to ask but even the mere thought never ignites inside her. She does know that Littlefinger told he would find a place for her and looking at Sansa knows how dangerous this man is, what might have happened to Jeyne never crosses her mind.

(Short boring answer: AFFC is the book before ADWD and it would spoil the reveal of Jeyne's identity.)

Long, in-universe answer:

I'm pretty sure that GRRM is saving up that connection for a later point.

We should not forget that unlike the show, Sansa's contact with Littlefinger in King's Landing is extremely limited. He's a dude who talked to her maybe twice before Ned dies, he's present when the small council makes her write the letters, where she witnesses him and Cersei agreeing to "find a place" for her "not in the city" before she is distracted by the revelation of Ned's treason and their pressure on her to write letters.

Their next contact is when she boards the ship after Joffrey's death, and she is already entirely in his power.

There is a very important and, I think, telling little line in AGOT, Sansa VI when Joffrey shows her the heads of her father and his household on the battlements.

The king pointed to one and said, “That’s your septa there,” but Sansa could not even have told that it was a woman. The jaw had rotted off her face, and birds had eaten one ear and most of a cheek.

Sansa had wondered what had happened to Septa Mordane, although she supposed she had known all along. “Why did you kill her?” she asked. “She was god-sworn …”

“She was a traitor.” Joffrey looked pouty; somehow she was upsetting him. (AGOT, Sansa VI)

At this point, it's entirely reasonable for Sansa to suspect that Jeyne is dead, as well. Her thoughts of her friend in the meantime, support this theory.

Perhaps it was one of the Redwyne twins, or bold Ser Balon Swann . . . or even Beric Dondarrion, the young lord her friend Jeyne Poole had loved, with his red-gold hair and the spray of stars on his black cloak. (ACOK, Sansa II)

"Had loved". Sansa at least subconsciously considers the idea that Jeyne might be dead.

She missed Septa Mordane, and even more Jeyne Poole, her truest friend. The septa had lost her head with the rest, for the crime of serving House Stark. Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. (ACOK, Sansa II)

She is no longer in a position to ask about her friend Jeyne, but she knows, dead or alive, it's not good. The connection to Littlefinger is already silent, buried in the chaos of the recent traumatic events.

During the Battle:

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin, for all the brave knights and soldiers who would die today, and for the children and the wives who would mourn them, and finally, toward the end, she even sang for Tyrion the Imp and for the Hound.

Jeyne is strewn in between the living and dead, an uncertainty.

Sansa doesn't have any contact with Littlefinger, and she doesn't consider him in any positive way in the intervening months. If anything, he is a potential enemy.

Besides, the lords of the Trident were sworn to Riverrun and House Tully, and to the King in the North; they would never accept Littlefinger as their liege. Unless they are made to. Unless my brother and my uncle and my grandfather are all cast down and killed. The thought made Sansa anxious, but she told herself she was being silly. Robb has beaten them every time. He'll beat Lord Baelish too, if he must. (ACOK, Sansa VIII)

There is no thought of Jeyne in ASOS, even in the company of Margaery Tyrell. Curious, to say the least, but I chalk it down to suppressing her own grief. Arya features more, likely because Margaery straight away introduced herself as a "sister".

Doubtlessly, GRRM also wanted to create more of a shock when we find out the identity of the fake "Arya Stark", since he doesn't name her until ADWD.

That's Sansa's little friend, the steward's girl. Jeyne, that was her name. Jeyne Poole. (ADWD, Reek II)

Sansa's suppression of her grief likely contributes to her reluctance to make the connection once she is in Littlefinger's power herself.

Two sailors were waiting by the rail to help her onto the deck. Sansa was trembling. "She's cold," she heard someone say. He took off his cloak and put it around her shoulders. "There, is that better, my lady? Rest easy, the worst is past and done."

She knew the voice. But he's in the Vale, she thought. Ser Lothor Brune stood beside him with a torch.

"Lord Petyr," Dontos called from the boat. "I must needs row back, before they think to look for me." (ASOS, Sansa V)

The next we hear of Jeyne is when Sansa comes down from the Eyrie, months later.

Despite herself, Alayne found herself warming to the older girl. She had not had a friend to gossip with since poor Jeyne Poole. (AFFC, Alayne II)

Poor Jeyne Poole. Again, Sansa operates on the assumption that something bad happened to Jeyne, but she is suppressing the connection to Littlefinger. Does she even remember? Sansa doesn't spend much time dwelling on Lysa's murder either, or Dontos', much more recent events. She tries to differentiate between "Littlefinger" and "Petyr" to protect herself, mentally.

Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. (AFFC, Sansa I)

It's very similar to Jon trying to make Ygritte exist in two contradictory versions. The "nice" one, and the one that murders innocent people in cold blood. A mental defense mechanism against his own helplessness and trauma.

I suspect when she is no longer dependent on Littlefinger, she will be able to sort through facts and events more clearly. Right now, she doesn't even know about the Bolton wedding yet, and that Arya is supposedly alive and in the North.

For just a little while, as she ran, she forget who she was, and where, and found herself remembering bright cold days at Winterfell, when she would race through Winterfell with her friend Jeyne Poole, with Arya running after them trying to keep up. (TWOW, Alayne)

GRRM is taking care to subtly reintroduce Jeyne Poole to Sansa's arc in AFFC, leading up to her plot in ADWD, but he mentions her again in the sample chapter, connected to Arya and Winterfell - two things that define Jeyne's plot.

GRRM is utterly setting up a confrontation about this between Sansa and Littlefinger. Jeyne is essentially a crown witness to his cruelty. Theon freed her from Ramsay. It's up to Sansa (and probably Arya) to get justice for her.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ASOS: Jaime IV (Chapter 31)

His hand burned.

Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch they'd used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in the flames, the fingers he no longer had.

This instantly made me think of someone. I won't say more.

+.+.+

Sometimes, unbidden, old prayers bubbled from his lips, prayers he learned as a child and never thought of since, prayers he had first prayed with Cersei kneeling beside him in the sept at Casterly Rock. Sometimes he even wept, until he heard the Mummers laughing. Then he made his eyes go dry and his heart go dead, and prayed for his fever to burn away his tears. Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed at him.

Guys, stop laughing, it's not funny. Where's your humanity? Monsters, all of you.

+.+.+

His hand was always between them. Urswyck had hung it about his neck on a cord, so it dangled down against his chest, slapping Brienne's breasts as Jaime slipped in and out of consciousness.

Including it for those who have speculated it's Jaime who will be Hand of the King.

+.+.+

"That's horse piss you're drinking, Kingslayer," Rorge told him. Jaime was so thirsty he drank it anyway, but afterward he retched it all back up. They made Brienne wash the vomit out of his beard, just as they made her clean him up when he soiled himself in the saddle.

Brienne is too good for this world.

+.+.+

Let them kill me, he thought, so long as I die fighting, a blade in hand.

If he must perish, let it be with a sword in his hand, fighting his father's killers. - Jon IX, AGOT

x

Theon wondered if he might be allowed to fight. Then at least he might die a man's death, sword in hand. - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

Jon died without a sword in his hand.

+.+.+

The moon was a graceful crescent, and it seemed as though he had never seen so many stars. The King's Crown was at the zenith, and he could see the Stallion rearing, and there the Swan. The Moonmaid, shy as ever, was half-hidden behind a pine tree.

Joffrey, maybe Robb? Daenerys? Arya? Sansa? I don't know.

+.+.+

Craven, Jaime thought, as Brienne fought to stifle her moans. Can it be? They took my sword hand. Was that all I was, a sword hand? Gods be good, is it true?

Yes.

+.+.+

The wench had the right of it. He could not die. Cersei was waiting for him. She would have need of him. And Tyrion, his little brother, who loved him for a lie.

We've covered this already, but I'll say it again. Tyrion believes Jaime paid Tysha to have sex with him. I fail to understand why Jaime thinks Tyrion loves him for that.

+.+.+

Live, he told himself harshly, when the mush was like to gag him, live for Cersei, live for Tyrion. Live for vengeance. A Lannister always pays his debts.

Lots of people living for the wrong reasons in this story.

+.+.+

Brienne was always bound beside him. She lay there in her bonds like a big dead cow, saying not a word. The wench has built a fortress inside herself. They will rape her soon enough, but behind her walls they cannot touch her.

That seemed to anger him. "You hide behind courtesy as if it were a castle wall." - Sansa III, ASOS

x

Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. - Tyrion VIII, ASOS

+.+.+

Shagwell suggested that they should both go first, and take her front and rear. Zollo and Rorge liked that notion, only then they began to fight about who would get the front and who the rear.

They will leave her a cripple too, but inside, where it does not show. "Wench," he whispered as Zollo and Rorge were cursing one another, "let them have the meat, and you go far away. It will be over quicker, and they'll get less pleasure from it."

[...]

"Let them do it, and go away inside." That was what he'd done, when the Starks had died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son Brandon strangled himself trying to save him.

This is even more depressing when you realize Jon's and Sansa's storylines surround this chapter.

+.+.+

Jaime chuckled. "There's a funny fool. I have a riddle for you, Shagwell. Why do you care if she screams? Oh, wait, I know." He shouted, "SAPPHIRES," as loudly as he could.

[...]

"Thee hath to be a maid, you foolth! Thee'th worth a bag of thapphireth!" And from then on, every night Hoat put guards on them, to protect them from his own.

Two nights passed in silence before the wench finally found the courage to whisper, "Jaime? Why did you shout out?"

"Why did I shout 'sapphires,' you mean? Use your wits, wench. Would this lot have cared if I shouted 'rape'?"

We give credit when it's due. Well done, Kingslayer.

+.+.+

"A good thing for you I'm such a liar. An honorable man would have told the truth about the Sapphire Isle."

He has such a warped idea of what honour is.

+.+.+

"The Boltons skin their enemies." Jaime remembered that much about the northman. Tyrion would have known all there was to know about the Lord of the Dreadfort, but Tyrion was a thousand leagues away, with Cersei.

We've got brothers wishing for what the other one has in back-to-back chapters.

Tyrion IV ->

Yes, and I want to be tall as Jaime and as strong as Ser Gregor the Mountain too, for all the bloody good it does.

+.+.+

I cannot die while Cersei lives, he told himself. We will die together as we were born together.

I believe you.

+.+.+

A bitter smile touched Jaime's lips as they crossed that torn ground. Someone had dug a privy trench in the very spot where he'd once knelt before the king to say his vows.

✨ metaphors ✨

+.+.+

"The banners," Brienne observed. "Flayed man and twin towers, see. King Robb's sworn men. There, above the gatehouse, grey on white. They fly the direwolf."

Jaime twisted his head upward for a look. "That's your bloody wolf, true enough," he granted her. "And those are heads to either side of it."

Bloody wolf. :(

+.+.+

"You have my condolences."

"For what, ser?" Ser Danwell Frey asked.

"Your brother's son, Ser Cleos," said Jaime. "He was with us until outlaws filled him full of arrows. Urswyck and this lot took his goods and left him for the wolves."

I was there, that was you.

"He'll cool soon enough. I want his horse and his clothes. I'm weary of rags and fleas."

"He was your cousin." The wench was shocked.

"Was," Jaime agreed. "Have no fear, I am amply provisioned in cousins. I'll have his sword as well. - Jaime III, ASOS

+.+.+

Ser Aenys spit at her feet. "That's for your oaths. We trusted the word of Robb Stark, and he repaid our faith with betrayal."

Now this is interesting. Jaime twisted to see how Brienne might take the accusation, but the wench was as singleminded as a mule with a bit between his teeth. "I know of no betrayal."

[...]

"Ransom him back to Riverrun," urged Ser Danwell.

"Casterly Rock has more gold," one brother objected.

"Kill him!" said another. "His head for Ned Stark's!"

Roose's helper Freys don't appear to know what's going down yet.

+.+.+

Shagwell the Fool somersaulted to the foot of the steps in his grey and pink motley and began to sing. "There once was a lion who danced with a bear, oh my, oh my . . ."

Okay, Patchface.

Jaime will indeed dance with a bear. Hell, Tyrion will too.

+.+.+

"Escort Ser Jaime to Qyburn. And unbind this woman's hands." As the rope between Brienne's wrists was slashed in two, he said, "Pray forgive us, my lady. In such troubled times it is hard to know friend from foe."

+.+.+

"They took my sword," Brienne said, "my armor . . ."

There goes Renly's sword, and hopefully Brienne's desire for revenge.

+.+.+

You will want milk of the poppy—"

"No." Jaime dare not let himself be put to sleep; he might be short an arm when he woke, no matter what the man said.

[...]

He screamed again when Qyburn poured boiling wine over what remained of his stump. Despite all his vows and all his fears, he lost consciousness for a time.

"Let them do it, and go away inside." That was what he'd done

+.+.+

Qyburn did not look a monster, Jaime thought. He was spare and soft-spoken, with warm brown eyes. "How does a maester come to ride with the Brave Companions?"

It's often the quiet ones.

+.+.+

"Lord Stannis was caught between your father and the fire. It's said the Imp set the river itself aflame."

Jaime saw green flames reaching up into the sky higher than the tallest towers, as burning men screamed in the streets. I have dreamed this dream before. It was almost funny, but there was no one to share the joke.

Hmmm.

Maybe next time someone else will be with you, and you can share that laugh.

+.+.+

"Open your eye." Qyburn soaked a cloth in warm water and dabbed at the crust of dried blood. The eyelid was swollen, but Jaime found he could force it open halfway.

I forgot both Jaime and Jon hurt their eyes in the first half of this book. The parallels never stop.

+.+.+

Come back on the morrow and I'll put a leech on your eye to drain the bad blood."

"A leech. Lovely."

"Lord Bolton is very fond of leeches," Qyburn said primly.

"Yes," said Jaime. "He would be."

Boo. Ominous.

Final thoughts:

The word stump is used 45 times in Jaime's chapters, and every single time it's going to pull me out of the story.

-> return to menu <-

[aerltarg]

Jon Snow Month 2022

Day 6: Familial relationships

Jon Snow + Stark brothers

He missed his true brothers: little Rickon, bright eyes shining as he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant companion; Bran, stubborn and curious, always wanting to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing. (Jon III. AGOT)

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night's Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. [...] (Jon XIII, ADWD)

Noye drew him closer. “You've heard these tidings of your brother?”

“Last night.” Conwy and his charges had brought the news north with them, and the talk in the common room had been of little else. Jon was still not certain how he felt about it. Robb a king? The brother he'd played with, fought with, shared his first cup of wine with? But not mother's milk, no. So now Robb will sip summerwine from jeweled goblets, while I'm kneeling beside some stream sucking snowmelt from cupped hands. “Robb will make a good king,” he said loyally. (Jon I, ACOK)

“[...] I was walking the wall around the yard when I came on you and your brother Robb. It had snowed the night before, and the two of you had built a great mountain above the gate and were waiting for someone likely to pass underneath.”

“I remember,” said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes... “You swore not to tell.”

“And kept my vow. That one, at least.”

“We dumped the snow on Fat Tom. He was Father's slowest guardsman.” Tom had chased them around the yard afterward, until all three were red as autumn apples. (Jon I, ASOS)

[...] His father had always said that in battle a captain's lungs were as important as his sword arm. “It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard,” Lord Eddard told his sons, so Robb and he used to climb the towers of Winterfell to shout at each other across the yard. (Jon VII, ASOS)

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. “I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, “Well, I'm Florian the Fool.” Or Robb would say, “I'm the Young Dragon,” and Jon would reply, “I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne.” (Jon XII, ASOS)

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. (Jon XII, ASOS)

Part of him wanted only to flee, but he knew that if he did he might never see Bran again. He took a nervous step into the room. “Please,” he said.

[...]

“Bran,” he said, “I'm sorry I didn't come before. I was afraid.” He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. Jon no longer cared. “Don't die, Bran. Please. We're all waiting for you to wake up. Me and Robb and the girls, everyone…” (Jon II, AGOT)

He looked at the words, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Bran was going to live. “My brother is going to live,” he told Mormont. The Lord Commander shook his head, gathered up a fistful of corn, and whistled. The raven flew to his shoulder, crying, “Live! Live!”

Jon ran down the stairs, a smile on his face and Robb's letter in his hand. “My brother is going to live,” he told the guards. They exchanged a look. He ran back to the common hall, where he found Tyrion Lannister just finishing his meal. He grabbed the little man under the arms, hoisted him up in the air, and spun him around in a circle. “Bran is going to live!” he whooped. Lannister looked startled. Jon put him down and thrust the paper into his hands. “Here, read it,” he said. (Jon III, AGOT)

Up they went, and up, and up, black shadows creeping across the moonlit wall of rock. Anyone down on the floor of the pass could have seen them easily, but the mountain hid them from the view of the wildlings by their fire. They were close now, though. Jon could sense it. Even so, he did not think of the foes who were waiting for him, all unknowing, but of his brother at Winterfell. Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of his courage. (Jon VI, ACOK)

“It be a mercy to kill them,” Hullen said.

Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold ad starvation.”

“No!” He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.

[...]

“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”

“What of it, Jon?”

“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

Bran saw his father's face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own. (Bran I, AGOT)

“I plan to stop at Winterfell on the way south. If there is any message that you would like me to deliver…”

“Tell Robb that I’m going to command the Night’s Watch and keep him safe, so he might as well take up needlework with the girls and have Mikken melt down his sword for horseshoes.”

“Your brother is bigger than me,” Tyrion said with a laugh. “I decline to deliver any message that might get me killed.”

“Rickon will ask when I’m coming home. Try to explain where I’ve gone, if you can. Tell him he can have all my things while I’m away, he’ll like that.”

People seemed to be asking a great deal of him today, Tyrion Lannister thought. “You could put all this in a letter, you know.”

“Rickon can’t read yet. Bran…” He stopped suddenly. “I don’t know what message to send to Bran. Help him, Tyrion.”

“What help could I give him? I am no maester, to ease his pain. I have no spells to give him back his legs.”

“You gave me help when I needed it,” Jon Snow said.

“I gave you nothing,” Tyrion said. “Words.”

“Then give your words to Bran too.”

“You’re asking a lame man to teach a cripple how to dance,” Tyrion said. “However sincere the lesson, the result is likely to be grotesque. Still, I know what it is to love a brother, Lord Snow. I will give Bran whatever small help is in my power.” (Tyrion III, AGOT)

“Will I truly be able to ride?” Bran asked. He wanted to believe them, but he was afraid. Perhaps it was just another lie. The crow had promised him that he could fly.

“You will,” the dwarf told him. “And I swear to you, boy, on horseback you will be as tall as any of them.”

Robb Stark seemed puzzled. “Is this some trap, Lannister? What’s Bran to you? Why should you want to help him?”

“Your brother Jon asked it of me. And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.” Tyrion Lannister placed a hand over his heart and grinned. (Bran IV, AGOT)

“Are they ever coming back?” Bran asked him.

“Yes,” Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. “Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn't that surprise her, to see you ahorse?” Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother's smile. “And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure.”

“An adventure,” Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb's face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together. (Bran IV, AGOT)

“Bran?” Robb asked. “What's wrong?”

Bran shook his head. “I was just remembering,” he said. “Jory brought us here once, to fish for trout. You and me and Jon. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Robb said, his voice quiet and sad.

“I didn't catch anything,” Bran said, “but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will we ever see Jon again?”

“We saw Uncle Benjen when the king came to visit,” Robb pointed out. “Jon will visit too, you'll see.” (Bran V, AGOT)

Ser Rodrik decreed that they would share Jon Snow's old bedchamber, since Jon was in the Night's Watch and never coming back. Bran hated that; it made him feel as if the Freys were trying to steal Jon's place. (Bran I, ACOK)

“Then let Lord Hornwood's bastard be the heir,” Bran said, thinking of his half brother Jon. (Bran II, ACOK)

“Mother.” There was a sharpness in Robb's tone. “You forget. My father had four sons.” (Catelyn V, ASOS)

“But my father was a friend of the Night's Watch, and my uncle is First Ranger. He might know where the three-eyed crow lives. And Jon's at Castle Black too.” Bran had been hoping to see Jon again, and their uncle too. (Bran III, ASOS)

[...] Bran was terrified that Summer was off dying in the darkness. Please, you old gods, he prayed, you took Winterfell, and my father, and my legs, please don't take Summer too. And watch over Jon Snow too, and make the wildlings go away. (Bran IV, ASOS)

[fandomficsnstuff]

Little Dragon - Part 5

Summary: You were a child slave of Meereen, when one day a silver haired woman sets you free. Though your master isn’t too keen on letting you go, and Daenerys took personal action to see you freed and taken care of.

(Warnings: A few time jumps here and there, other than that I don’t think so)

High Valyrian is in cursive

You sat bored, staring out over your balcony. Daenerys had forbidden you from attending the fighting pits, which she had reopened, she didn’t want you to witness all the violence and the blood. But you were bored, you had already had your lessons today, your lessons included reading and writing so you didn’t want to read or write now. You watched the city of Meereen, dazed and daydreaming about a day more fun, when suddenly you heard the Unsullied outside your door, and you ran to it. It meant that Daenerys was back. You ran to the throne room, ready to greet her with a hug, when you suddenly stopped. Your (H/C) hair that had been flowing behind you as you ran came to a sudden stop, your chest slightly heaving as you saw who stood at the steps to the throne beside a dwarf, who you didn’t know. And when he looked at you you glanced at Daenerys, who gave a very light, and subtle, shake of her head. You looked down before running up the steps to her, hugging her as she hugged you back, her eyes never left the dwarf and exiled man. You retreated from the hug, turning around to look at the two men, Jorah giving you a faint, sad smile, which you returned.

“Princess, you’ve grown so much, you’ve-”

“You will not speak to her” Daenerys cut him off coldly, and you took it as your cue to step back, standing at her right side by the throne. She glanced at you, silently asking you if you were sure that you wanted to stay, but you merely nodded lightly, making her think for a moment before looking back to Jorah and the dwarf. You listened in on the conversation, apparently the dwarf was Tyrion Lannister, one of the houses from Westeros. You knew Jorah was of house Mormont, but you hadn't met anyone else from Westeros besides Daenerys, Jorah and Ser Barristan, so you were intrigued.

After a while, Jorah was banished again, but still alive, thanks to Tyrion, who glanced at you next “forgive me but who is the child? As far as I know, you have no children, Your Grace” Tyrion eyed you with great interest, Daenerys considering for a moment before looking to you “it’s alright, Little Dragon, introduce yourself” she whispered to you, making you nod and step forward, your hands in front of you “My name is (Y/N)” you glanced back at Daenerys who gave you a kind, reassuring smile and gave a tiny nod, you looked back to Tyrion at this assurance “(Y/N) Targaryen, adopted daughter of Daenerys Stormborn, of house Targaryen, pleased to meet you, uh-” you glanced at Daenerys, whispering something to her, making her smile and whisper something back. You gave a nod then looked back to Tyrion “My Lord” you finished. Daenerys beamed with pride as she heard you speak the common tongue so well now, a proud smile on her lips as she watched you step back in your place at her right side.

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

Once again you had been forbidden to go to the fighting pits, for the same reason as before, Daenerys wanted you to be a child for as long as possible. Tyrion had become Hand of the Queen, something you had read about before, and from what you gathered, it’s a second form of ruler, though of course answering to the King or Queen firstly.

You were playing with a stuffed toy dragon that Daenerys had made for you for your twelfth name day, something you were very thankful for. You were trying your best to follow what your teacher said, but could only focus on the stuffed dragon in your hands. You flinched when your teacher gently shook you, scolding you for not paying attention, making you read out loud from a Westerosi book, one about all of the Kings of the North, before Aegon conquered Westeros.

“Rickard Stark, also known as the Laughing Wolf, son of Jon, who defeated the Marsh King and extended the Stark kingdom to include the Neck” you read out loud, doing your best to not glare at your teacher, who very well knew that you didn’t want this lesson to continue. “How long-” your teacher stopped you, gave you a knowing look and you rolled your eyes “how long do I have to read this? I read it yesterday” you sometimes hated when your teacher wouldn’t speak in Valyrian, making you speak in the common tongue, but it gave you an answer nonetheless. “Do you find my lessons boring? When I were your age I would have been lucky to-”

“I just miss Daenerys…” you interrupted your teacher this time, earning you a scowl “she will be back when she is back, now, who was Rickar Stark’s father?” you groaned low “Jon Stark” you mumbled, leaning your head against your hand “can we talk about Aegon instead?” you looked up at your teacher, who scoffed “alright, what was the name of the Northern king who ruled and lived at the time when Aegon conquered Westeros?”

“Torrhen Stark, he was also known as the King Who Knelt” you answered proudly, your teacher giving you an unimpressed look, making your pride dampen a bit. You flinched when your door barged open, seeing Daario. You grinned wildly, abandoning your lessons to run up to him and hug him, he chuckled low and picked you up as you hugged him, giving the teacher a look, making your teacher nod, gather their things and leave quickly “where’s Mhysa?” you asked with a big grin “I wanna tell her about what I learnt today” Daario visibly tensed up “uhm, why don’t you tell me first?” he gave you a quick smile, still holding you in his arms as he carried you down the hallways “did you know that a Northern King, called Torrhen Stark, bent the knee to Aegon Targaryen, first of his name?” you had one of those smug smirks that only a child could wear, making Daario laugh a little “I did not”

“Well, there was also another king, called Brandon Stark, but people called him Brandon the Builder, he built a lot of things” Daario smiled softly at you “I can imagine, wanna tell me what he built?” you lit up at his question “they say he built Winterfell! Capital of the North and where all the nothern kings lived before Aegon came, and the Starks still live there too, but now as wardens of the north. And he built this giant wall too, it’s so big! They say you can’t see the top some days!” Daario laughed at your enthusiasm, finally reaching Daenerys’ room, setting you back down, but when you didn’t see Daenerys you just grew confused. Seeing Missandei you ran up to her, hugging her “how were the fighting pits? Was it fun? Where’s mother?” At your last question Missandei tensed visibly, a silence falling over all of you as Missandei glanced to Daario, then Tyrion, then back to you “there was some trouble in the fighting pits… The Sons of the Harpy appeared and they attacked us” your smile faded, preparing to hear the worst thing of your entire, short life, and when Missandei noticed she quickly added “Daenerys is okay, Drogon came and saved her, he saved all of us in fact, but she had to leave” you were quite relieved to at least know that the woman you considered to be your mother, who called you her own daughter, was alive.

“How long will she be gone?” you asked in a quiet voice, earning only a sad look in response, making you look down “she will be back, she will come back to you, she loves you” Missandei added, trying to take your small hands in hers, as she had seen Daenerys do so many times now, but it didn’t bring you the comfort she had hoped, instead you just nodded, standing still, your gaze at the floor as you wondered where she were at this moment.

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

Daario and Ser Jorah had left to search for Daenerys, that was a few months ago. Tyrion had convinced you, and mostly Missandei and Gray Worm, to let you sit on the throne, just until Daenerys was back. His argument was that she had taken you in as her daughter, and so, although unofficially, made you her heir. It took quite some time to convince Missandei, who was a sort of aunt to you, and who loved you almost as much as Daenerys did.

So here you sat, on the stone throne, listening to a former slave tell you of his former master harassing him. Though you sat on the throne, Missandei and Tyrion did most of the decision making, but not out loud, both of them advised you quietly. But even amongst all of the chaos, Missandei had a small gift made for you, for your upcoming name day, which she gave to you early. It was a small doll made to look like you, the same (Y/H/C) string of hair, a (Y/F/C) dress, and small (Y/E/C) buttons as your eyes, the fabric was also dyed to match your skin tone, and you had proudly displayed it on the table next to your bed, which made Missandei very happy.

You frowned as you heard the former slave talk of what exactly his former master did that counted as harassment, threatening him included, but you felt that he held back, due to your age, and before Tyrion or Missandei could speak, you decided to do so first “you can tell me, I know I’m young, and our Queen will return soon, but for now I can’t help if you don’t tell me everything” the former slave nodded, going into more detail of what his former master had said and done to him after he had been freed. You missed the proud look Missandei gave you, she only wishes Daenerys was here to see it too, knowing she would be glowing with pride and joy at your words. “We can’t let it go on, slavery is no longer a thing here, and by what you’re telling me, it sounds like your former master haven’t figured that out” you looked to Gray Worm “Gray Worm, put his former master in the cells, his fate will be decided later” Tyrion looked at you with an oblivious and, frankly, confused look, not understanding much Valyrian at all, watching Gray Worm leave with the former slave, Missandei once again standing proud.

“May I ask, what was your sentence?” He neared you on the throne, walking up the steps slowly “I haven’t decided yet” you admitted “but he’s being thrown into one of the cells” you stood up, looking at Missandei who still had a proud smirk on her lips, Tyrion, however, was not so proud “perhaps-” you walked past him, with Missandei to your room, Tyrion struggling to keep up “perhaps the cells are a bit too much” you stopped and glanced down at him, and Tyrion felt even smaller under your gaze, even at such a young age, you had learned from Daenerys “as my mother, your Queen, once said, I will answer injustice, with justice” you turned back around, continuing to walk with Missandei who did everything she could to not jump up and down in joy at your words, while Tyrion sighed, looking around to figure out what to do now.

[esther-dot]

There was a passage where ygritte was referring to how lords of North didn't allow to share the resources with them and think that stealing is better than kneeling. The thing is that ygritte is an extremist and think only their way is correct. And people think she is right due to flawed structure of westroes system. Yes the system has its flaws but it didn't mean her way of raiding and pillaging is justified. She would never have co-operated with Jon plans to unite wildlings with westroes.

This is a good point. Ygritte does refuse to understand alternative perspectives.

On the one hand, I think we are meant to understand that she does have a point. The exchange initially reminds me of the way conversations between Native Americans and settlers are depicted:

"You're the ones who steal. You took the whole world, and built the Wall t' keep the free folk out."

"Did we?" Sometimes Jon forgot how wild she was, and then she would remind him. "How did that happen?"

"The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. My trees, they said, you can't eat them apples. My stream, you can't fish here. My wood, you're not t' hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I'll chop 'em off, but maybe if you kneel t' me I'll let you have a sniff. You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t' be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t' kneel."

and I feel like there is no way Martin wasn't writing that in a self-aware way. I used to watch Westerns with my grandad, and a cowboy or soldier falling in love with a Native American woman, sharing a blanket with her, being married by their customs even though he may not fully understand...I've definitely seen that before. I'm not sure if Martin has acknowledged any specific influences there, but it felt very familiar to me, and because of that, I think he sincerely meant for us to understand that the Free Folk had been mistreated.

On the other hand, I agree, that Ygritte as an individual was created to give voice  to a specific thought, the extreme thought, and she refuses to understand that her way of life involves victims too. Martin has Jon point this out in that same convo:

"Harma and the Bag of Bones don't come raiding for fish and apples. They steal swords and axes. Spices, silks, and furs. They grab every coin and ring and jeweled cup they can find, casks of wine in summer and casks of beef in winter, and they take women in any season and carry them off beyond the Wall."

"And what if they do? I'd sooner be stolen by a strong man than be given t' some weakling by my father."

"You say that, but how can you know? What if you were stolen by someone you hated?"

"He'd have t' be quick and cunning and brave t' steal me. So his sons would be strong and smart as well. Why would I hate such a man as that?"

"Maybe he never washes, so he smells as rank as a bear."

"Then I'd push him in a stream or throw a bucket o' water on him. Anyhow, men shouldn't smell sweet like flowers."

"Nothing, for a bee. For bed I want one o' these." Ygritte made to grab the front of his breeches.

Jon caught her wrist. "What if the man who stole you drank too much?" he insisted. "What if he was brutal or cruel?" He tightened his grip to make a point. "What if he was stronger than you, and liked to beat you bloody?"

"I'd cut his throat while he slept. You know nothing, Jon Snow." Ygritte twisted like an eel and wrenched away from him.

I know one thing. I know that you are wildling to the bone. It was easy to forget that sometimes, when they were laughing together, or kissing. But then one of them would say something, or do something, and he would suddenly be reminded of the wall between their worlds.

Ygritte is fortunate that Jon is not the kind of person she is. As much as she insists Jon stole her, she is the one who stole him. He is the maid, she is the one who resorts to sexual aggression, and then violence against him, and he would never hurt her because he does not believe that physical strength is the ultimate decider in what is right, whose is whose. He advocates for choice, when his choice was denied. Of course, we all know that Jon’s culture is flawed as well. That Sansa, who was not stolen, but given, became the victim of abuse, so on either side of the wall, these cultures are victimize women. Jon doesn’t endorse it in Westeros either and helps Alys. He’s such a good kid!

But, baa ask to the quote. Jon is showing Ygritte what he means, warning her, out of concern for her, and she refuses to understand, just as she refuses to understand his denials about stealing her. She doesn't want to expand her understanding of anything.

"A man can own a woman or a man can own a knife," Ygritte told him, "but no man can own both. Every little girl learns that from her mother." She raised her chin defiantly and gave her thick red hair a shake. "And men can't own the land no more'n they can own the sea or the sky. You kneelers think you do, but Mance is going t' show you different."

It was a fine brave boast, but it rang hollow. Jon glanced back to make certain the Magnar was not in earshot. Errok, Big Boil, and Hempen Dan were walking a few yards behind them, but paying no attention. Big Boil was complaining of his arse. "Ygritte," he said in a low voice, "Mance cannot win this war." (ASOS, Jon V)

And of course, that argument continues. I suppose the point is the inherent hypocrisy within their cultures. Ygritte bemoans how they have been wronged, and yet thinks nothing of taking innocent life, of how they wrong the people they kill or women they kidnap. Jon thinks his world does it better, but he doesn't have a full grasp on how badly women are treated in his world, something that I suppose the revelation of R+L=J and the reunion with Sansa will make clear to him. His mother was so unhappy with what she was going to be forced to do, she run away, and that man, who promised her better, left her to die while he waged war against her family. Sansa did accept her father's decision and found herself a prisoner of war, beaten, married off to a man who wants to take Winterfell/the North from the Starks. Either way, women are being used/wronged. 

Ultimately, the threat of the Others is the thing, and Jon's pragmatism is right, but I like to think that Jon's goodness, his concern for people, his inability to not care (something that frustrates him when with the FF), would have eventually resulted in him favoring a similar solution. The show made him a bit more humanitarian I think, but book Jon certainly cared too.

As for Ygritte, had she survived, she may have agreed in order to survive, but I do not think she would have been able to not engage in violence. I think she would chafe at the idea of these people who wronged them being in charge of them and eventually, would have done something that disrupted the tentative peace.

Also, I have mentioned before, but I will say it again that anyone who doesn't like Ygritte should peruse @agentrouka-blog's anti ygritte tag (link) or at least read the anti Ygritte post. There's a certain euphoria in discovering that someone has already put your feelings into words, and I think you'll enjoy.

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

Bran Stark's Journey

Today I've decided to talk about Bran. He may not be the most beloved character, or the most exciting, but to me at least, he is a very interesting character and his path is very interesting. One revelation the show gave us (that was later confirmed) is that by the end of ASOIAF, he will be King. So today I wanted to talk about his arc, possible paths to kingship, and also about his abilities and what he might be able to do in the future.

Summer to Winter

A large theme in Bran's story is fear. In his first chapter (the first chapter in the entire series, not counting the prologue), Bran asks if a man can be brave when he is afraid, after Jon and Robb argue about the deserter's death, to which ned famously replies "that is the only time a man can be afraid". Later, during his coma dream, he becomes afraid to look down as he falls, crying, until the three eyed crow convinces him to look down at the world below him, and into the heart of winter.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. "Why?" Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. Because winter is coming.

Upon waking from that dream, Bran wakes up and names his wolf Summer. Later, Bran listens to a story about the Long Night from Old Nan, telling her that his favourite stories are the scary ones. The dream has is rich in symbolic visions, but I think the most important take away from both that and the story Old Nan tells him is that Bran will need to overcome fear and take on the monsters and villains of those scary stories to help end the Long Night. His direwolf's name Summer also fits with this.

A literal summer child, Bran has never experienced winter and the horrors that come with it. Soon he begins to live out the stories he was told, traveling beyond the Wall in search of the elusive three eyed crow, dealing with wights along the way. In a way, the story of the last hero does work as foreshadowing for Bran's journey to the far north. When he joins Bloodraven, he is given advice for the future, that once again touches upon the theme of fear.

"Never fear the darkness, Bran." The lord's words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. "The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong."

Bloodraven is a man who has a very storied past, acting as Hand to several Targaryen kings, being an effective administrator (although he had some flaws when it came to dealing with the Blackfyres), and eventually rising to the level of Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. He sometimes did have to do dark things for the greater good, and he's teaching that same principle to Bran. Of course, going back to the theme of fear, he is also telling Bran to overcome his fear in order to do things that will help the world around him.

That is where we end with Bran as of ADWD, but thanks to both the show and GRRM, we have some idea of what happens with Bran next. One of the more shocking moments in Game of Thrones came in season 6 when it was revealed that Bran caused Hodor's disability in the first place by skinchanging him in the past, thus creating a time loop and sealing his fate as he holds the back door of the cave against the wights so he can escape. For Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, a book about the production of the TV series by James Hibberd, GRRM expanded on what that meant and how it will play out in TWOW.

"It's an obscenity to go into somebody's mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor's simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. The explanation of Bran's powers, the whole questions of time and causality - can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book, but it's harder to explain in a show." Martin said the 'hold the door' scene in a forthcoming book will play out a bit differently than in the show. "I thought they executed it very well, but there are going to be differences in the book. They did it very physical - 'hold the door' with Hodor's strength. In the book, Hodor has stolen one of the old swords from the crypt. Bran has been warging into Hodor and practicing with his body, because Bran had been trained in swordplay. So telling Hodor to 'hold the door' is more like 'hold this pass' - defend it when enemies are coming - and Hodor is fighting and killing them. A little different, but same idea."

Varamyr's prologue in ADWD touches upon the various concepts of skinchanging, and how certain acts are considered abominations, including; eating the flesh of a person, mating in the skin of a beast, and entering another person's mind. While I don't necessarily think that Bran will commit the second one, it makes sense for there to be consequences for Bran's disregard for the rules. He may be only a child and not fully understand what is happening around him or how his actions effect his surroundings, but if he is becoming extremely powerful, he needs to learn to use it effectively while not becoming completely ignorant of how his actions effect people.

So, this as a consequence of his breaking of the rules of skinchanging makes perfect sense. What I think this isn't, however, is Bran becoming a villain, or Bran heading down a dark path that he won't come out of. If anything, this might actually have the opposite effect, and set him on a path to try to fix the sins he committed. Personally, I think that after this is when Bran will once again have doubts, this time in his ability to use his powers effectively. After all, he's a child, he's going to have strong emotions about this.

It makes perfect sense for him to suddenly fear his powers, realize what he's done, and try to reject that part of him out of fear of what he might do. But ultimately, it's part of a learning process, and something or someone will once again convince him to embrace his powers and use them for good, this time with his past mistakes now influencing better decision making. After that, he must face the true horrors of reality, the creatures from those nightmarish tales he loved hearing about, when the Long Night falls again. He must confront fear itself.

Greenseeing Powers

The show had Bran as someone who only used his powers to look far away and in the past, but greenseers in the books are much more than people sitting in a tree watching. They had all sorts of abilities, and Bran has demonstrated some of them. Others we learn from stories of the past. As a greenseer, Bran is a skinchanger, and an incredibly strong one at that, able to enter Hodor's mind on a whim. He can enter into ravens hundreds of miles south of the Wall, as demonstrated by the curious ravens cawing Theon's name in the TWOW sample chapter.

He can also enter and look through the weirwoods, and back at the past. Apparently, his seeing won't be restricted to the trees and eventually he can look even further without the need for them.

"Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth's wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves."

And despite Bloodraven's insistence that Bran cannot change the past, it's very clear that is wrong. Bran speaks to Ned when he sees him and Ned visibly responds. Not to mention "hold the door" and going back in past Hodor's mind. Speaking of, Bran can seemingly communicate with the trees, and he has done so with Theon at the Winterfell godswood. First, during the night of the Pink Wedding, Theon hears something calling to him but finds nobody around. True, might be he's been driven psychotic by the torture at Ramsay's hands, but it becomes a bit more real later on.

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. "Theon," they seemed to whisper, "Theon." The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. "Please." He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. "I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands." A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran's face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran's ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm.

Bran also seems to have the ability to awaken others skinchanging powers, even when he was not entirely aware of it. Take the wolf dream Jon has while in the Frostfangs.

When he closed his eyes, he dreamed of direwolves. There were five of them when there should have been six, and they were scattered, each apart from the others. He felt a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness. The forest was vast and cold, and they were so small, so lost. His brothers were out there somewhere, and his sister, but he had lost their scent. He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow. Jon? The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only . . . A weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes? Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs. Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him. And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.

And we know that this was real because later...

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

Nope, not a dream. That was real. It's almost scary to imagine how powerful he is if he awakened Jon's abilities unconsciously from so far away. Of course, greenseers can also have prophetic dreams of the future, in addition to visions of the past. Greenseers seem to have no limit on what animals they can enter, too.

"The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world."

The hunters among the children—their wood dancers—became their warriors as well, but for all their secret arts of tree and leaf, they could only slow the First Men in their advance. The greenseers employed their arts, and tales say that they could call the beasts of marsh, forest, and air to fight on their behalf: direwolves and monstrous snowbears, cave lions and eagles, mammoths and serpents, and more.

We must also talk about Coldhands, a very curious person indeed. He is a wight, but he can speak and do as he pleases himself, lacks the blue eyes of ice wights, and has lots of ravens following him. Personally, I believe Coldhands was one a member of the Raven's Teeth, Bloodraven's personal escort who joined him on the Wall. Is Bloodraven now using the body of a dead man for his own purposes? Is he skinchanging into a corpse and it's actually Bloodraven speaking through him?

We don't exactly know how the Others are controlling the wights, but it makes sense for them to be in some way related to skinchangers and greenseers. if that is the case, does that mean greenseers hold this power too, albeit in a different way? There is also this interesting tidbit from Asha.

She thought back to a tale she had heard as a child, about the children of the forest and their battles with the First Men, when the greenseers turned the trees to warriors.

The trees to warriors? Who knows what that means. Although I think it is time to consider exactly how the use of greenseeing and weirwoods could effect Bran. Unlike most gods, it seems the old gods are indeed real... but they aren't exactly literal gods.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. No ink, no parchment, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhood."

Bloodraven doesn't seem to be entirely all there at the end either. We know there is a consequence of skinchanging too much, becoming more beast than man. Entering the weirwoods could have its own unique, but similar effect. The more you enter, the more you might mingle with the spirits inside the trees.

Let's look back at an early novella GRRM wrote, called A Song for Lya. In the novella, two telepaths, Robb and Lyanna (yup) travel to the planet of Shkea and learn about the inhabitant aliens, the Shkeen, worshipping a giant parasite called the Greeshka, which is an amalgamation of different peoples consciousnesses mixed together as some sort of afterlife.

Robb and Lyanna are a couple, and despite their telepathy allowing them to be closer to one another, Lyanna still feels lonely. When contacting the minds within the Greeshka, she learns that many people have found their loneliness vanished upon joining the Greeshka. After a fight with Robb, Lyanna allows herself to be consumed by the Greeshka before contacting Robb as he dreams and telling him to join her, only for him to reject.

There are quite a bit of similarities between this and how the weirwood afterlife functions. While the thematics of the two stories are rather different, Bran is a telepath, and he is entering into what is essentially the afterlife with many different consciousnesses inside of it. The idea that he becomes a little less Bran and a little more absorbed into this afterlife hivemind makes sense, although I don't think that we will see it quite the same way the show portrayed.

King Bran the Rebuilder

"Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said."

ASOIAF has a lot of events in the main series that parallel those in-world historical events, and those historical events might even be foreshadowing for the future. So it might not come as big of a surprise that Bran becoming king at the end sort of acts as a parallel to Bran the Builder. Bran the Builder was supposedly the first Stark King of Winter who emerged after the Long Night, built the Wall, Winterfell, and supposedly Storm's End and the Hightower. Likewise, Bran is the first new king emerging after the Long Night, and given how broken the realm will be at the end of the series, it will be his prerogative to try to rebuild it and make it function again. So, Bran the Rebuilder.

But again, the circumstances are a bit different. Bran the Builder became a King of Winter, but apparently Bran is going to end up as King of Westeros. Isaac Hempstead-Wright said:

"David and Dan told me there were two things George R.R. Martin had planned for Bran, and that was the Hodor revelation, and that he would be king."

And in Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, GRRM says:

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: It wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t want to give away my books. It’s not easy to talk about the end of my books. Every character has a different end. I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and “hold the door,” and Stannis’s decision to burn his daughter. We didn’t get to everybody by any means. Especially the minor characters, who may have very different endings.

This does come as quite a shock, and it is admittedly difficult to see how this will happen. However, while the show was extremely disappointing, I am willing to give GRRM a chance to show us how we get there. Narratively, it does make a certain amount of sense, since Bran was the first character George created and the first POV character whose chapter we get, so for it to end with him is a good circle.

Thematically, I think there is a certain view of why this ending for Bran fits. For starters, I don't think magic is going to go away like a lot of people predict, but come to stay. In contrast to the way The Lord of Rings ended, King Bran seems to suggest some sort of more magical world. Not to say it will be super high fantasy, but magic will be more common. A magical kingdom, a magical king. What better way to usher in a new era in Westeros?

Bran also has a deep connection to the weirwoods. If the First Men cutting down the weirwoods was a metaphor for humanity's current destruction of the environment and climate, then Bran being king might be a metaphor for humanity coexisting with nature. Admittedly, I'm not saying that is 100% what King Bran means, I'm mainly just suggesting ideas on what it could mean, given we have no real context behind it other than what were were told and the last two books have yet to be released.

I dislike the reading that Bran as king is dystopian and that he would be enforcing a "police state" and that only a "god-king" could be a good leader. Or even further, that Dany and Bran's endings mean "revolution bad, big brother king good". Disregarding what Dany's ending means being, in my opinion, irrelevant to her status as a revolutionary, these takes always presume that King Bran has to be one way and has to be evil. That Bran having such immense power means that it's going to be the worst case scenario. Why can't it be more hopeful? The series isn't ending nihilistically, it's ending bittersweet.

Bran can look into the past, he could learn about the past mistakes people have made, and learn from it to make better decisions in the future. Sure, he could spy on people far away, but I don't think it's really Big Brother-esque. When you live in a world not so technologically advanced, it might help to learn info from far away much quicker.

That said, how Bran's ascension occurs is a mystery. The show hand-waved it away as just "he has a good story and that will unite people", which is... weak to say the least. Also there is the fact that he is effectively proof of the old gods, and a wizard with immense powers, which might alienate people in the south, or just outright scare people because he's capable of so much and they don't understand and find it scary. He's also going to be a kid, and he has no claim to the Iron Throne.

I will end this post with some suggestions for how this could happen. Nothing concrete, but some ideas of how we might get there. For starters, Bran has to amount to something, unlike the show. He did practically nothing but act as bait. But GRRM is not shy about showing magic, so the magical components of his story are definitely going to play a larger role. Since there is set up for it, Bran having a large role in ending the Long Night could indeed make him a hero of sorts to people, and make him be respected. As a disabled person in a very ableist society, people won't inherently trust or like him.

It's also possible that if Daenerys ends up dead and Jon is exiled, that through some technicality, Bran could be viewed as a sort of heir. Jon is both Targaryen and Stark. With the other Targaryens all but gone, the closest relatives to the final living Targaryen being Starks might give Bran a chance to be selected as king. We could also see Sansa or someone else trying to maneuver events politically to help Bran gain the throne, especially if she sees him as the best option for Westeros in the long run. A Great Council being called makes sense too (not the laughable "council" in the show).

But these are all just ideas I'm throwing at a wall. It's important to keep in mind that a lot of what I'm proposing is mainly just my own interpretation of the text. I'm flawed, I might not always make sense. It doesn't help that we don't have the last two books yet, and the show was a badly pasted together cliff-notes version, so we are left in the dark about a lot.