#jaqen x you

[novaursa]

Hi! Could I please request more for Jaqen H’ghar x reader, either a sequel to what you wrote if you’re open to doing that but if not then just anything with him in it. I’d never really considered reading stuff about him before but you honestly had me hooked with the fic you’ve made for him and I would just love love love some more if possible, thank you so much!

The Game of Faces (name)

Requests are closed!

- Summary: You meet your sister’s “friend” and he offers his help, for a price.

- Paring: stark!reader/Jaqen H'ghar

- Rating: Mature 16+ (jus to be safe)

- Previous part: 1

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround

The nights in Harrenhal seem longer than the days, each hour stretching into the next as if time itself is trapped within the cursed walls. The weight of Jaqen’s words still hangs heavy in your mind, as though each passing moment presses you closer to the inevitable. Arya is asleep beside you, curled against your side in the straw bed, her small form breathing steadily. But you cannot sleep, not with the decision that gnaws at your soul.

A name. That is all he needs.

You sit up slowly, careful not to wake Arya. She has seen too much already, and you want to shield her from this—whatever this is that Jaqen H’ghar has pulled you into. Quietly, you slip out of the bedding and make your way through the dim hallways, your footsteps echoing softly against the cold stone floors.

When you find him, Jaqen is standing near the kitchen fires, his silhouette lit by the flickering orange glow. His back is turned to you, yet you know he senses your approach. He always does.

“A girl comes,” he says without turning, his voice smooth and soft, as if he had been waiting for you.

You stand there for a moment, the heat from the fire warming your face as you try to gather your thoughts, your courage. “I have a name,” you whisper, your voice trembling more than you’d like.

Jaqen turns to you then, his mismatched eyes meeting yours, and for a heartbeat, you feel as though the world falls away. There is only him and the promise hanging between you.

“A name will bring death,” he says, his tone as soft as ever, though there is something sharp beneath it. “But it will bring freedom too.”

You swallow hard, your heart pounding in your chest. You know what you are doing, and yet, the weight of it is heavier than you imagined. You think of Arya, of the prisoners, of the suffering that has stained this place. And then you think of the man who keeps you all bound here.

“The Tickler,” you say, your voice steady despite the fear clawing at your insides.

Jaqen's eyes gleam in the firelight, and his lips curve into that familiar, enigmatic smile. He inclines his head ever so slightly, as if acknowledging the choice you’ve made. “It is done.”

You feel the air shift around you, as though a part of the world just turned on a dark hinge you cannot see. Jaqen steps away from the fire, his movements graceful as ever. “A girl will see.”

Before you can ask what he means, he is gone, his figure swallowed by the shadows.

The next day, chaos erupts. Word spreads quickly that the Tickler is dead, his body found in the night with no sign of a struggle, no clue as to how he met his end. The Lannister soldiers are in disarray, scrambling to keep control of the prisoners, but it is clear that the balance of power has shifted.

Amid the confusion, Arya tugs at your sleeve. “Now,” she whispers, her eyes bright with urgency. “We have to go now.”

You don’t hesitate. With your heart racing, you and Arya slip through the chaos, blending into the mass of bodies and movement. The guards are distracted, too occupied with the growing disorder to notice two prisoners slipping away. You follow Arya, your mind whirling with the thought of escape, of freedom, of the promise Jaqen made to you.

As you near the outer gates, you feel a hand close around your arm. You turn, startled, only to find Jaqen standing there, his grip firm but not painful. His eyes lock onto yours, intense and unreadable.

“A man honors his promise,” he says quietly, his voice cutting through the noise of the surrounding commotion. “A girl is free now. But a girl must follow.”

Your heart pounds in your chest as his words sink in. Follow him? Away from Arya? You glance back at your sister, who is darting through the gates with the prisoners, her small form disappearing into the crowd. For a moment, panic grips you—how can you leave her? But then, you remember Arya’s strength, the steel in her eyes, the fire that burns in her heart. She will be fine. She has to be fine.

Jaqen’s hand on your arm pulls your attention back to him. His face is calm, his gaze unwavering. “In the chaos, a girl will be safe. But if a girl stays, death will follow.”

The weight of your promise presses against you. You gave him your word, and he fulfilled his part of the bargain. Now it is time for you to honor yours.

“A girl must obey,” Jaqen says, his voice soft but firm, as though reminding you of a vow already made. And in that moment, you realize there is no turning back.

You nod, your throat tight with emotion. “I will follow.”

Jaqen releases your arm and steps back, his gaze lingering on you for just a heartbeat longer before he turns and walks away, his pace measured, deliberate. You hesitate for only a moment before you take a deep breath and move after him, your steps quickening to match his.

As you leave Harrenhal behind, the sounds of the castle fading into the distance, you glance back one last time. Arya is gone from sight, but you know she will survive. She has always been a survivor, just like you.

Jaqen’s figure leads the way, silent and sure, and you follow without question, stepping into the unknown.

[marsconer]

the traveller: okay, ringo star, you can stay

mizu: no he can’t

ringo: you think i’m a stAAAAAAR🥹🥹🥹🥹

[ewinofthelake]

Jaqarya Netflix romcom AU where Jaqen is the gruff vineyard's keeper born and raised in the mountains and Arya is the exhuberant city girl who inherits the vineyard and goes to claim it. What in the Seven hells could ever happen when they meet-not-so-cute? XD

[insp.]

[first-of-her-nxme]

I wish we had more fanart of ASOIAF Arya and Jaqen. 

There are so many meaningful moments between them in the books. Naturally, there are more of those to come in the next books but those that have already happened deserve more recognition. After all, many of the fans have only seen the show. Even some of the fans who read the books have forgotten the original story because Game of Thrones overshadowed it.

I would love to see more of artists’s interpretations of Arya’s prayer under the weirwood tree with Jaqen watching over her. Or Jaqen passing by on the horse with Arya disappointed that he doesn’t look at her and the girls giggling in admiration. Or that night conversation of theirs when he kissed her. Or the moment he kneels before her and gives her the coin and tells her it means as much as life and death.

I’m eternally grateful to the artists who have blessed us with their Jaqarya fanart so far but I would love to see more.   

[random-imagines-blog]

Poison Oak {Jaqen H’Ghar x Reader Oneshot}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 3568 Summary: You travel in disguise to visit a fellow no one. Along the way, you become a someone. Notes: It is Jaqen and follows the show, so there will be death mentioned.

The armor, these ‘uniforms’ that the Lannister men wear had to be more uncomfortable than the most grizzled of faces. The squeakiness of the metal, the weight of it. A woman does not complain, though she wears something that was not made for her. A woman does not let anyone else know that she is not a man. You wore the face of a man for now, becoming one in manner, voice, and appearance. That was a gift from the Many-Faced God. You were no one behind the face. You were simply ‘A woman’ when you did not wear it, no name of your own, no past, only freedom, only unlimited skies. You were not currently on a job; you had no target near you that you were meant to assassinate. You were here for the company, despite the troublesome circumstances. You were a woman coming to meet a man. 

“Jaqen H’Ghar,” you said, your eyes catching onto those of your friend. A Faceless man recognizes another, and for a second, you see that his own eyes brighten up. You were always able to read his faces better than any book in the Citadel library. Every little twitch, glint in the eye, even the way that his nostrils would flare. Whatever face that he wore, you would be able to tell. That was a gift from the Many-Faced God.  

His head bowed to you, and he turned a corner into a corridor leading into the great castle. A quiet place, where we could talk alone. Despite the desolation of the castle, it’s near ruin, and the rumors of it being a cursed place - quiet was hard to find here. Echoes of those being tortured by ‘the Tickler’ were often bouncing around, reaching the ears of everyone, no matter how hard they held their hands to try to attain silence. “You’ve used this face before,” He hummed, firelight bouncing off of his red hair.  

“It is one of my favorites,” You admitted, your smile pulling at the hollowed cheeks of the person you were wearing. “Do you remember when I wore it last?” 

“Raventree Hall,” He nodded. “A man does not forget a kill. Especially when it is a team effort.” 

To others outside of you and him, this might sound like a stiff conversation. To the point. Almost impersonal. But your heart was beating fast beneath all of this metal, flesh and bone. Feeling first and thinking later was not the way that the Faceless Men operated - all except for you. Feelings were the only reason you were here. 

“A job well done, in my books. It may be foolish for a woman to believe in luck, and yet I find this face to be the ... a charm for me. And it has worked again.”  

“Who are you?” Jaqen asked, curiously. The two of you could do this all day. Coming up with backgrounds and names for the faces that you wore, weaving together a life that could be discarded and forgotten at any moment. That was the thrill of it. It was such a short time to be someone, before returning to being no one. 

“My name is Barrish Falwell,” you said, in a low and gravelly voice that matched the face. “I grew up in Gulltown, the son of a fisherman, and became a sailor meself, having my first fishing boat by the time I was thirteen. I found there was more money in transportin’ than in Fishing, so I made my livin by ferryin’ people to and fro, across the waters. I found me a wife, an’ I had two daughters, the most precious people in my life they’ll forever be - though they were drowned during a storm, and I had no more love for the sea. I gave up my vocation to become a soldier for the Lannisters, who I’ve chosen to give my loyalty to, as I have no love for the Starks or the Baratheon brothers. Joffrey is and should be the one true king by right, and it is only what’s right that keeps the world goin’ round. If I should die for them, I’ll be back with my family, and it will be the most noble way to die.” 

“What made Barrish so interested in the line of inheritance to the throne?” Jaqen asked, as if testing. I had an answer for everything, though. I paid close attention to my story. Details were my strong suit. 

“I once had the displeasure of ferrying Stannis across a short way. He paid me poorly for the pleasure. Did not even give a tip, not the flash of an extra coin. A man like that should not be in any sort of power. He’ll cheat all the common man. But not the Lannisters. No, it is in their motto. t’s only right that a boy raised with those values continue to sit on the throne. Bring the Seven Kingdoms to prosperity by payin’ everyone who is loyal to them.” 

“And you believe you’ll be paid for this?” 

“Aye, I do. A Lannister always pays his debts, so surely, I would be paid for my loyalty and hard work, no?” You said, your voice still gravelly. You sounded pathetically naive. You sounded like just the kind of man that a Lannister would let into his service willingly. And to give one of the shit jobs that no one cares about. There were more than enough men to watch over the castle, without having some slim ferryman like you around.  

“Hello, Barrish Falwell,” Jaqen said with a small smirk, leaning against the stone wall. “Do you miss your wife?” 

“Very much so, friend. She was the mos’ amazing woman that I’ve ever met. I was quite the lucky man to have her. Enith, her name was. The jewel of our town too, the prettiest pearl that ever lived. Aye, that she was.” 

“I once knew a woman like that myself,” Jaqen said, his eyes darting over your playfully.  

“An’ what happened to her?” You asked, your own shining brightly through the face that you were wearing. It was so unlike your own. Such masculine features to cover any feminine that you had. Even your body seemed to transform in the garb that you were wearing, in the way that you walked, your mannerisms, had all become that of a weary widowed man just trying to get through the day.  

“She became no one,” Jaqen said, a rare smile crossing his handsome face. His true face, on this occasion, was the one that you admired the most.  

“What a beautiful thing to happen,” you said. Though it wasn’t entirely the truth. To be truly no one - one must have no attachments, no past, no future. You had one attachment, and he was standing in front of you. To be attached to a man with no attachments - it was a torturous way to live. But you could not help yourself - you were not just a woman, but you were a woman in love.  

The sound of approaching footsteps, more like clanks in the armor, came to your attention and you and Jaqen both straightened up, faces serious, looking like men on duty. A soldier walked past with barely a look at the two of you. “It is dangerous for a woman to be here,” Jaqen said, that slight hint of joviality in his eyes gone. 

“It’s dangerous for anyone to be here, there’s a war,” you said, your own mouth in a straight line. “Why do you stick around so? There’s much work to be done back in Braavos. Prices are high during these dire times.” 

“A debt needs to be paid, and I must stay until it is done,” Jaqen said, and with those words, you knew that there was nothing that was going to get him to leave. 

“To the Red God?” You asked in a low tone. 

“To the Red God,” He affirmed. 

“A woman understands. If a debt is to be paid, then a debt is to be paid,” you said with a nod. “I will stay until your business is over.” 

He raised an eyebrow at you, and moved in closer, his breath warm against your worn face. “Why does a woman choose to stay?” He asked you. “It is perilous, even for us. Faces - they cannot save us from this war.” 

“Death will come when it comes,” you said, shrugging that off. “A woman is no coward to it. But it is dangerous to travel alone in these times, so I shall wait for you. And then we shall set back together.” 

After a moment, he nods. “I can agree to this. Be careful - we are not the only ones who do not belong here. I will signal you when the debts are paid.” 

“Excellent,” you said, right as a feeling of cold goes through you, his breath removed, Jaqen gone down the hallway to attend to his duties - those of a Faceless man, and those of the soldier that he was pretending to be. You breathed out yourself, and then set off, one foot in front of the other, to a soldier’s patrol, blending in seamlessly. 

This face got you through the next while. No one suspected you of a thing, and not even the slightest about being an outsider here. You were never apart from this face, not when you slept among the rest of the men, not when you thought you were alone, not for a second. You lived and breathed being Barrish Falwell. You were flawless in this, truly becoming the man, moaning out his dead wife’s name in his sleep to the displeasure of the others around, taking part in the drinking of ale and having a preference for sitting close to the fire, and even talking dirty about women, making sickening jokes.  

Jaqen was never too far, his eyes either on you, or on a masquerading girl who poured wine for Tywin Lannister. It was a wonder to you that others did not see through her short hair and boyish face to the female beneath. It was she who had saved Jaqen, and thus owed the Red God three deaths, using Jaqen to get them. The Ticker - he was the first. You knew Jaqen’s handiwork, the body lying dead in the courtyard, under the windows. What a relief, you may finally get a night’s break from the screams. Ser Amory Lorch. It was not done with the usual grace, so it must have been under extreme haste. That set Tywin on guard who starts to order the assassination of many of his own men. Although Jaqen seemed safe, it seemed as if time was running out for you. You kept your head down, keeping to yourself, still giving off the appearance of a man who was too loyal to do this, too scared of Tywin to do something like this, too pathetic to kill someone of his own volition. But it felt as if eyes were ever on you. 

It would be only too easy to remove the guise of Barrish Falwell. To rid yourself of the face and slip on another, become someone else. But a newcomer now would only be under more suspicion. A woman had to be smart, smarter than any man in order to survive this. But you were running low on ideas. You had gotten the call - Tywin wished to see you and three other soldiers that night, after dinner.  

As you were thinking, silently having your stew and your ale, a slight nudge on your back told you everything that you needed to know. It was calculated. It was purposeful. It was the signal that something was to happen. Your eyes darted to the back of Jaqen as he walked through the tables to his own, sitting down with some of the other men. His own blue eyes looked back at you, and you turned back to your bowl.  

It would not be your death given to the Red God today. He would make sure of that.  

An escape plan had been forged. Jaqen had wordlessly met you after the sun had gone down, when you were meant to be making your way to Tywin. Instead of going to where you were supposed to be, you walked with Jaqen towards the gates, and silently dispatched the guards there. Killing was as easy to you as eating, as drinking water from a fresh stream. Blade through the flesh and move on. The Red God would be happy with your offering. Jaqen pinned them in place with their own spears to not arouse suspicion until the morning shift came around to relieve them, giving plenty of time to escape. You left with him in the hills, leaving Barrish behind. Your own skin was touched by the wind for the first time in days, a sigh of relief escaping from your lips. 

“So, a girl has given you your name?” You asked towards Jaqen as you walked away from the girl and her companions. “That is quite a cruel twist. A girl will go far in life.” 

Jaqen looked grumpy as he remembered the sound of his name coming out of the lips of Arya Stark. The girl had pushed him into doing more than he had intended to do. Killed more than the God had required. “I would have had to do it.” 

“I know, you’re a killer with honor,” you said, looking amused, nonetheless. “If such a thing exists, it is surely you.” 

Despite the heavy armor that you were stuck wearing - there was not much else that would protect you if you were to come across others on the road back to the Braavos - you were walking quickly, near skipping, energy in your stride. You held your hands behind you, walking a short distance ahead of Jaqen, turning your head to face him. His blue eyes looked at you and then down at the ground, and if you didn’t know better, you would almost think that he was blushing.  

“A man is,” He nodded, his eyes continuing to look down at the worn trail that you were taking. It was not a road; you were both avoiding those. Besides - the roads took too long, creating detours. “Has to be, when a girl lacks it.” 

“Has it left a bitter taste in your mouth?” You teased. 

“Like poison oak,” He stated.  

“And yet you have given her the coin, our codeword,” You reminded him. “I think that you secretly saw something in her. More of that poison oak that you could help grow, to spread towards targets.” 

“There was something there,” He admitted, more so to himself than to you. “A potential, yes. Sometimes it can be found in the most unlikely of places.” 

“It almost sounds as if a man has a heart,” you said, tilting your head towards him as you walked. 

“A man has never said that he hasn’t,” He retorted, making you smile. And making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like you were sitting by a fire after coming out of the rain. It felt as if he were flirting with you. Almost too good to be true. 

And when things are too good to be true - they usually were. Because all of a sudden, his arm shoved you away from him, hard, sending you falling onto the ground. Your head hits one of the rocks, causing your vision to grow fuzzy. You were struggling to hang onto it, to stay conscious. Your hand went to the back of your head and pulled away with crimson on your fingers. You had seen enough blood to know exactly what it was. And you had also caused enough head injuries to know that it wasn’t a good thing at all.  

Where you had been standing only seconds before, an arrow was sticking out of the ground. The feathers attached to it were red - The Lannisters. They had found their dead and sent trackers after the two of you. 

Jaqen managed to make quick work of them while you stayed low to the ground, putting pressure where the wound was despite the fact that it hurt. You were moaning, unable to keep it from coming out of you. The rising sun hurts your eyes, making you close them tightly. Clenching, more like. 

“Y/N, are you alright?” He asked, returning to your side, using the name that you often used in your disguises. It was close to the name that you had been born with, but not close enough to bring back all of the bad memories.  

“Hit my head - on the rock -” you said, pointing towards the spot where your head had made contact. There was a bit of your blood there, oxidizing in the sunshine. It would be brown soon, rather than red, but still a sign that you had been there.  

“I - have pushed you too hard,” he said, using first-person speech. “I should have noticed -” 

“You still saved me,” you said, opening up one of your eyes to look at him. There was more concern in his expression than you had ever seen from him before. “I would have been shot with that arrow if you hadn’t pushed me.” 

“I do not owe the Red God your death,” Jaqen said, putting his arms under you and picking you up, armor and all. You winced at the movement, still holding your head. “I will not let him have it until the time is right.” 

“I feel a little dizzy, Jaqen,” you said, though that was an understatement. The world was spinning, and he was spinning too. You closed your eyes again to keep yourself from growing sick, though that didn’t help the vertigo. He managed to move as stealthily as ever, while keeping his stance solid. You weren’t being jostled around inside of his arms. And then, to your surprise, you found yourself lying on soft, sweet-smelling hay.  

You opened your eyes to see that you were somehow in a cart, and Jaqen was beside you. He had changed his clothes, into softer linens, no longer looking like a soldier. He pressed his finger to your lips, to stop you from speaking. 

“I cannot apologize enough,” he said, looking deep into your eyes. “I never meant to hurt you. Never you.” 

“Ja-” You started, but he pressed his finger a little rougher against your lips, stopping you. 

“Seeing you hurt - it makes me ... it makes me want to rage against the Red God, for even attempting to take you. It is blasphemy, but I cannot help myself. I cannot help myself. Not a man-”  

He looked out the back of the cart, at the road that you were on. You didn’t question whose cart you were in, or who was driving, where you were going, how Jaqen had convinced them to let you both on. All of those details were unimportant. All you could focus on, or tried to focus on as the world was spinning, were his eyes.  

“I do not know when I became I - but it is because of you,” he said, his voice softer than anything that you had ever heard before. Like velvet. You could feel it like a texture over your skin. “A man has become ... a man who loves you.” 

Your breath caught in your throat - if you even had any breath left. It felt like it had been pushed out of your lungs, and then all of a sudden, bellowed back in, making you breathe in deeply. A look of concern came over his face and he lightly started to look over your wound again, moving the hay beneath you to get a better view.  

“It’s okay - I’m okay,” You tried to convince him, reaching up to his arm to stop him from touching the wound, from poking around it. That wasn’t your focus either. “Who are you now, tell me again.” 

“A man in love,” he said, more resolutely this time, like he believed it rather than realized it. 

“Ask me,” you said, weakly. His eyebrow raised at you and so you nodded at him slightly, trying to get him to do the same.  

“Who are you?” He asked, in the exact same tone that he had when he asked you in the castle days ago. You had given him all the details of a false identity back then. A fake name. A fake life. A fake dead wife and children. But what you were going to say now was going to be the truth, the whole truth. 

“A woman in love.” You answered him. 

His coarse fingers skimmed over your forehead, caressing it in a way he made sure was nowhere near the wound on your head. And then he lowered himself down and kissed it, his lips chapped and dry but felt wonderful, nonetheless.  

“We could be somebodies,” You whispered, feeling the energy draining out of you. “When I wake up - we could be somebodies together.” 

“I would enjoy that,” he said, his own voice softer than touch. “When you wake up.” 

“When I ... wake up...” You said again, before everything went black. 

[gendrie]

the interesting about clash within the context of arya's arc is that its the only book - so far - that ends with arya fully embracing her identity. it ends on a, relatively, high note as far as that is concerned. which i would argue makes it feel a lot different from the rest.

in game her last chapter features ned's execution and arya's life is torn apart. her identity and future are both thrown into doubt.

in storm arya is left reeling from the aftermath of trw and she is flung further off course than ever when she sets sail for braavos

in feast she is blinded

in dance her last words are "no one" as she prepares to receive a new face

but clash is different. it breaks the pattern. which is why ive always felt it represents arya's greater arc on a smaller scale. when it opens arya is using her first true alias. over the course of the book she struggles until arya is doubting who she is and where she belongs. its at that point that the old gods intervene. they remind arya; her identity and her place ("arya of winterfell, daughter of the north") and of what matters most to her ("the pack survives") arya hears wolves howling from outside harrenhal again and again and again as these last few moments play out in clash.

arya grabs a hold of it with everything she's got. she smashes the broomstick over her knee. she gathers her boys. she steals supplies. she cuts thru the guard standing in her way. she gets her hands bloody. she is resolved to return to her life as arya.

i ALSO think arya's twow arc will mirror clash in terms of storytelling more than any of the other books so far. arya's clash arc is split into two equal sections: 5 chapters in the wartorn countryside and 5 chapters as a "servant" (pow) in harrenhal for a total of 10. twow will reverse this with x number of chapters as a "servant" in braavos to start and x number of chapters back in westeros @ war to finish. the ratio might be different but i think she will have a similar number of chapters in total.

when clash opens arya is forced into the identity of arry. yoren has done this to try and protect her from arrest and assault.

Afterward he told her that from there to Winterfell she'd be Arry the orphan boy. [...] "This lot, half o' them would turn you over to the queen quick as spit for a pardon and maybe a few silvers. The other half'd do the same, only they'd rape you first." (ACOK)

and we have arya's opening twow chapter

Mercy, I’m Mercy, and tonight I’ll be raped and murdered. Her true name was Mercedene, but Mercy was all anyone ever called her… (TWOW)

arya is once again using an alias and one of her first thoughts is that she will be raped and murdered. but arya is no longer the one in danger here. at least not from that.

arya's early clash chapters also introduce some key components that have already become relevant as of her first twow chapter. lommy greenhands, arya's traveling companion, is ruthlessly murdered by raff the sweetling which is echoed in mercy. arya makes raff beg for mercy. despite what was supposed to be 5 years of indoctrination she hasn't forgotten anything.

jaqen h'ghar is also introduced in arya's early clash storyline. jaqen is an incredibly mysterious character. when he first speaks arya is instantly reminded of syrio forel, her braavosi mentor. jaqen is a faceless men, but this is never directly stated in the text. his fake persona claims to be from lorath - the free city nearest to braavos. where this man was born will never be known but the assassin is a braavosi figure at his core just like syrio. which is reinforced when he sends arya in that direction as they part.

"You don't know what's out there, Arry. I heard wolves before." Yoren wouldn't like it if she fought with him. She tried to look afraid. "Wolves? For true?" (ACOK) Mercy looked down at her feet, so shy. “Izembaro said to please the lords,” she whispered. “If there is anything you want, anything at all…" (TWOW)

in clash we see arya have to start acting. she is in a dangerous situation on the road. she has to conceal her true identity. in mercy its official as arya trains with the mummers. she is playing a role within a role. her acting skills has improved, but arya does still show thru the mask.

I won't cry, she thought, I won't do that. I'm a Stark of Winterfell, our sigil is the direwolf, direwolves don't cry. (ACOK) “I would like to see a dragon,” Mercy said wistfully. “Why does the envoy have a chicken on his chest?” Daena howled. “Mercy, don’t you know anything? It’s his siggle. In the Sunset Kingdoms all the lords have siggles." (TWOW)

part of the routine is that arya is foolish and braavosi born. she pretends not to know what sigils are with mercy's friend daena despite arya's own sigil being the direwolf.

the biggest role arya takes on in clash is that of a servant. her secret girlhood is "taken" like everything else when her and the boys are captured. arya then becomes weasel - a serving girl. servitude is a major component at this point in her storyline as it has become again in braavos. both ask the same question: can arya forget who she is and submit to this?

the answer is no. arya reaches this conclusion in harrenhal as she prays before the heart tree. she remembers who she is and finds a way out of the situation that was causing her identity crisis. the situation in the hob&w is very similar. arya will remember herself and get out.

[howyouloveyourdragon]

Hii! I loved your yandere Arya x reader but is it alright if you make a part 2?

yesssss i was looking forward to this

𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 ��

( 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 : 𝔶𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔱, 𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔭𝔲𝔩𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 ) 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔰 : 𝔰𝔥𝔢/𝔥𝔢𝔯

𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 very few things after meeting Jaqen and learning the art of being faceless, it was just unfortunate that one of those things had to be you. Her eyes glared cautiously as she studied you at dinner. You appeared skittish and your hand trembled when it reached for your goblet. She wasn't the only one who had noticed, it would seem as Sansa eyed her carefully when she brought food and drink to your mouth. No doubt she was suspicious. However, this time she believed she had done no such thing. You woke up so shaky that she considered abandoning her training to take care of you. Her brows furrowed as she took in your flinch. Her hand roughly chooses to take a hold of yours and her mouth is moving but it's like you can't hear her. "I'm taking Y/n to retire to her chambers." She tells them, and lifts her lady by the arm. She moves mindlessly in response, barely lucid if at all. Partway through the journey Arya stops and rushes to rest her hand against her love's cheek, her eyes crossing over every feature twice. "What's wrong, my love?" She asks so quiet that you almost don't hear it. She's still holding your hand and sends a little squeeze. She moves the hand reluctantly to your forehead–scared of what she might find there. And sure enough a glaring heat permeates. Her eyes bulge and her grip tightens. She swallows her fears however. "Darling, you're ill." She bit on her lower lip. "I'll take care of you, don't worry." Her voice is breathy and nervous as she starts to retreat her hand from your forehead and instead uses it to wrap around your waist. She holds you tightly to your discomfort. You walk together in silence until you enter your chambers–newly gifted to you. She guides you to the bed and finally lets go to release you on the bed. Her suffocating air dissipates as she steps back, freeing you for the first time in weeks. You roll over in a sleepy haze. She frowns. "Why won't you speak to me?" Arya utters.

You don't reply further than an incomprehensive murmur. She isn't satisfied. "I love you." Her tone sounds betrayed, her eyes flitting over your form. "I cloth you, I feed you." The longer she talks the more she is confusing herself and her volume raises though doesn't stir you. "Why won't you love me? I would kill for you." She rushes to your side in a sudden surge of adrenaline, urgency dripping from her tongue. "Go ahead and ask me to I will do it, I swear to you!" She clasps her hands around your own and squeezes tightly–trying to squeeze any droplet of love from your hands. She'll take what she can get at this point she has wanted for the affection once shown to her so many years ago and when you met you were so kind to her, she could finally repay the favour to you. She had lay bleeding on a street and you took her in so warmly, you welcomed her no matter how your beloved thought of her. He was a mere obstacle–a perfect demonstration to show you the warrior she could be with the power of your presence. Arya stares into your closed eyes and fights the burning frustration set alight in her. She sighs and gazes at your sleepy face. She slowly rests her left hand against the side of your face to cup it as though trying not to startle you–you have became a young doe to her, in need of protecting, of nurture. For a second she tricks herself into believing you will accept her but you flinch the second she makes contact. Arya freezes at the clarity but she swallows and continues to lay her hand there. She knows deep in her heart that no matter how aware she is, she will not be able to let you go even when you cry and beg because without you it all means nothing. The only person on her list that gave her the release and freedom she longed for was your previous betrothed because it meant time was not wasted and she could still have meaning. The only vengeance that worked out for her. She stayed stroking your cheek that night until she too fell asleep

What Arya hadn't anticipated was the strong will that her sister Sansa had blossomed as she grew. She didn't anticipate the breweries she had learned of in King's Landing to raise your temperature just long enough to bring you rest for your journey ahead. Sansa thought of this as she crept into your rooms. When she stepped in she carefully made her way to your bed, your figure already slinking carefully from your sheets. Arya lay sleeping on the floor beside your bed, humming in low snores. You head snapped as you realised Sansa's presence. You let out a relieved sigh. "Thank the gods." You told her, grateful for the kindness she had given you. She carried a large bag with her. "For your clothes, I have already snuck enough coins for you. The men are waiting outside." She rushed out as quietly as she could manage, flickering her gaze worriedly at Arya's hunched figure. She thrust the bag into your arms and then as many clothes and food she could manage inside it. Your hands rushed about while you tiptoed lightly. Sansa couldn't help the wavering guilt as she caught glances at her sister but she herself had been a victim of unwilful abduction and she couldn't let another be even if it was by someone she cared for. However, her morals didn't stop their shaking as she guided you through the doors and helped carry you into the carriage she had paid to be as discreet as possible. Sansa turns to leave but you grasp her hand quickly. Your eyes look to her in unfiltered gratitude as you speak to her. "I will never forget you for this." You tell her to whcih she lets out a stunned nod quickly and once more pushes you into the carriage and tells the men to leave. She watches the carriage as it surges forward, knowing what she will be waking up to in the morrow...

[laurellerual]

Hello!! What are your top 3 favorite and 3 least favorite ASOIAF ships?

I'm a basic person, I love mostly canonical and unproblematic ships.

Love:

Arya x Gendry (obv). I mean come on, If Martin didn't want me to ship them he could have done without writing all the tropes of the romance genre on them. I can't tell you it will end well, but I can tell you it will happen.

Jaime x Brienne. My first asoiaf ship. I think it's very difficult to write this kind of interaction while we can read both characters' thoughts, but it's so well crafted.

Renly x Loras. When the sun has set, no candle can replace it…

The only ships I love, but I'm sure will never happen are Aegon/young Griff x Shireen and Jon x Satin (!).

Hate:

Jon x Sansa. It wouldn't be number one if it wasn't so popular in the fandom. Plenty of characters share themes or parallels, but that doesn't mean they're going to fuck.

Jaqen x Arya. I like most Arya ships, but this one makes me want to puke. It's wrong on so many levels.

Drogo x Dany. I don't think all ships have to be romantic necessarily, but this is… (sorry George) a girl who convinces herself she's in love with her rapist because the reality is too hard to process.

[yourworstkeptsecret]

Jaqen X Arya: Alkaline (Mature) : Part 2

Jaqen froze above Arya, his hand still poised and holding himself against her entrance, an entrance that was so very soaked, that he felt the drips of her fluids as they fell upon the sensitive head of his masculinity. Those footsteps he thought, he recognised them. Of all the damnable nights for her to try her luck with him once more? Why did she have to choose tonight of all nights, right as he and Arya were about to finally be joined.

"Jaqen..."Arya whispered in question, her voice still quivering with the previous end he had mercilessly dragged from her. As well as the pressure of the fresh sensation their teasing play thereafter had elicited. However, he hushed her gently.

"Quiet my lovely girl, a man does not wish for you to be heard in his rooms. Not by this attempted visitor. It shall put a target upon his woman's back."

"What do..."

Jaqen's hand clamped over her mouth gently but firmly as he shook his head 'no', then turned it back to the door. He felt Arya follow the movement and soon both of them were looking. They could see the shadow of feet standing outside the door from the small crack at the bottom of it. A knock came, strong and true but both did not speak. Jaqen not daring to even breathe too heavily, while Arya was so lost in her confusion that she didn't know what to do or to stay so blissfully, she remained quiet. Another knock came, harder this time and Jaqen felt his jaw clench as he stared at the small slit between his door and the floor.

If that woman knelt down and flattened herself to the stone, she would be able to get a glimpse of them. She may not be able to see fully, but she'd be able to see enough, to know that he was not alone in here and from there it would not take her very long to figure out who shared his chambers with him. Fuck! He cursed internally, before pressing his finger to his lips when he drew Arya's attention back to himself. He then hitched her legs up and locked them around his waist, urging her to also wrap her arms about his neck. Once he had her secured he gracefully and silently rose to his knees and then to his feet and made his way over to his bed quickly, his steps practically ghosting over the floor. Thank god he was barefoot, it had served him perfectly on this night. Climbing the three steps like a flash, he carefully climbed onto his bed, mindful not to apply pressure to any of the spots that he knew would creak and be heard. Once secure, he gently deposited Arya onto her back, making sure to support her with the pillows. He then flattened himself over her, nudging her legs further apart with his hips.

"Don't make a single sound, little wolf." He whispered in her ear, before his hand ghosted between them once more and he took hold of himself again.

He would not enter her, not yet. Not until he knew the other was gone. But just because he wouldn't breach her core, didn't mean that he wouldn't tease her within an inch of her life. He had to keep her ready and lusting for him, if she truly wanted him to take her tonight. This in mind, he allowed his maleness to slip between her folds, the slickness of her ensuring that he glided between them easily. From here he was able to apply friction against the bundle of nerves, using his head to rub and press against it, before he slipped down again, barely dipping inside of her with each pass he made. As he teased her womanhood with his masculinity, his lips closed around a taut, aching nipple where he suckled, nipped and licked.

He glanced up and watched as Arya bit into her swollen, red lips as she did her best to keep herself from moaning out for him. He smirked as he drove down against her harder and had to bite down on her nipple, softly mind you, when she snapped her hips against him at the same time, the motion almost causing him to breach her, given how slippery her centre now was. By the Gods! This was going to kill him! He was about three seconds away from just saying to hells with it and making two, one. Let the waif hear and despair! But he held himself back from this. Driving into Arya too fast or too hard, would only hurt her that much more and he didn't want that. Discomfort would be normal, especially during the first time, but pain was not. Regardless of the claims made by everyone else.

But blissfully he heard as the waif's footsteps departed, sounding distinctly more irritated than when they had first come. Waiting just long enough to know that she was well out of earshot, he rose up on his hands and smirked down at his petite she-wolf. She was even more beautiful, flushed with desire for him and aching with need, than what she was day to day. And to think, he had been missing out on this vision below him. Gods he wanted to choke himself.

"One last chance, lovely girl. For a man has no plans of stopping once he begins." He warned, giving her a final opportunity to back out.

"Oh for fuck sake, Jaqen! Would you just shut up and love me!? My mind hasn't changed from the last three times you asked. So either do your job or roll over and I'll do it for you!" She raged, momentarily and a most delicious image floated across his mind's eye of Arya pinning him below her and riding his cock into oblivion.

"A woman wouldn't know how to fuck a man. She'd flounder most adorably above him and a man would have to put her out of her misery. Do not despair though, for a man will soon teach you. Just not tonight." He replied back in a growl-like fashion, before he crashed his lips to hers in a kiss that soon had both their heads spinning.

The kiss this time although extremely ardent, was slow, deep and filled with the combined passion of both of their lusts and earlier confessions. It was then that the full weight of what they were about to do dawned on him. It was finally happening, he was about to claim the last vestiges of Arya's innocence, as a most willing chaperone that would lead her onto the final path to begin her womanhood fully. Until now, he had not known that he had wanted to be that for her. Hadn't even dared to hope that she would want him to be that for her. But as he slowly pushed into her body, her walls readily swallowing him inch by torturous inch, he knew he would never change this for the world. To be her first and to open her to all the wondrous pleasures of the flesh, was indeed a heady feeling and a bloom of something that could only be described as honour, filled his chest.

'Not acid nor alkaline

Caught between black and white

Not quite either day or night

She's perfectly misaligned'

Yes, indeed, he was honoured by Arya this night, to allow him to claim the one thing she could only ever give away once. As he finally seated within her fully, wincing a little in sympathy when he felt her barrier tear slightly even though he'd been trying to avoid that, he wanted to weep in happiness when he heard her softly gasping words in his ear.

"I love you..."

It had come out breathlessly and on the back of a slow, deep moan as she felt his length settle within her. Her walls, although tight because he was quite large and this was new for her body, stretched around him perfectly and easily. He had tried so hard to be as careful and as gentle as possible on his entry, he only hoped he hadn't hurt her too much. Although the absence of grimaces or gasps of pain, hinted that he hadn't, he still couldn't help but worry. The thought of hurting her in any way, even if it was only a little and inevitable, tore at his heart and tightened his chest. He felt her relax around him, her body going blissfully limp as it sank into his bed. Her arms came up around his neck pulling him until their mouths were millimetres apart.

"Jaqen–I love you..." She murmured, once again reiterating her words, reassuring him that they hadn't just been said, as a heat of the moment thing. He fell apart then, all of his walls, guards and defences falling in the face of Arya Stark of Winterfell. In that moment he was no longer a faceless man, he was Jaqen H'ghar of Lorath, the man and lover of Arya Stark.

"I love you too, Arya. I honestly do." He replied breathlessly, for once dropping his third-person pattern of speaking, as he gazed into her eyes. A gaze that had her mouth falling open with what I knew she could now see within them.

She had come to the realisation that it was not the faceless mentor she had fallen in love with that was with her now. But the true man behind the smoke and the mirrors. A man that, until now, she had only ever caught brief flashes off from time to time. He draped his body over hers protectively then, his arms slipping below her shoulders to hold her close to him.

He lay like this with her for a few moments as she finished adjusting to him being inside of her finally. He was sure that the feeling was so unusual for her. He had heard from previous friends of his that were women, that it had often felt unusual the first time. Like they were fuller than they could handle and stretched to their very limits. But that it would feel strangely wonderful too. But all in all, it was a rather confusing and overwhelming moment, but one that they normally didn't regret. Well, provided their lover was good at what he did. And Arya would be one of those lucky women. Because he was very good when it came to this.

He could feel every single inch of him pressed against every inch of her, their hips pressed together tightly. The feeling was truly indescribable and he felt as her knees came up a little further and she spread them wider, to accommodate him more comfortably. This small movement shifted him within her just enough that she sucked in a sharp breath, her hips lifting up against him of their own accord. Gods but she honestly felt so perfect, wrapped around him, like they were made for one another and they hadn't even begun to move yet. Something she had noticed as well it seemed, if her next words were anything to go by.

"Jaqen, please..." She pleaded with him, her words barely audible because she had spoken them so softly. But it didn't matter, because his ear was right by her mouth so he had heard her.

"Don't ever beg of a man, little love. Just tell him what you need or want from now on and he will serve." He answered, his tone one of willing submission to her and her wants. "A woman and a man are equals. Never feel you need to plead with him for something you need."

With this said, he pulled his hips back slowly but steadily before he drove forward again. Arya called out his name, as her head fell back against the pillows, her hands tangling into his vermillion tresses. Together they moved, each in sync with the other. Her hands never left his hair, and their skins never separated. Looking down at her, he was once again struck by how wild and untamed she was. She had the spirit of a feral wolf and he adored that about her.

She wouldn't be one to be domesticated in any sense. She craved freedom and would kill for it. And that was ok, because that was exactly as he wanted her. He wanted her to challenge him. Fight him. Bring him to his knees. He was wild and untamed too when he was allowed to shed all of his many layers and years of strict, unyielding training. He needed a woman that would challenge all of him as well as who could take all of his challenges to her. He wanted that passion, that bite. That sheer ferality of unchained hearts and emotions. As long as when all was said and done? They still fell into one another's arms. Still maintained their mutual respect, equality and understanding. Because both would always keep their love for each other as the driving force of defending all they would face with one another.

As the moonlight outside reached its zenith, its rays fell across his bed. Across their naked, undulating bodies and he had a moment of thinking that Arya was stunning in the light of the moon. Ethereal. A fever dream of a most blissful kind. His body surged with emotion as well as sensation the, as he drove in and out of her so deeply. Her hands had left his hair, to grip onto the back of his shoulders, her nails digging in and scratching at his skin. He would undoubtedly bear the marks of her, come the morning. But he would wear them as a badge of pride and honour. As he leaned down to claim her lips in a decadent kiss, his hair fell forward, shielding their faces like a curtain, the white streaking glinting in the moonlight like snow. With Arya, he felt as though he was in the presence of divinity. That she was a goddess that had chosen him for a very special and important purpose. A purpose that he would live for to the end of his days.

This reminder of a previously realised fact, still hit him like crashing stone. It was a heady feeling and once more his heart exploded in achingly powerful love. He would travel to the ends of the earth for this woman and then travel further if it meant she would be happy. He would spend his nights below her if that is what she wanted, letting her find pleasure in his body. Then he would spend his days at her side, protecting her from any or all harm. She could protect herself? But why have her exert the effort, when he could be the one to spill the blood for her? HIs job now, was to see to her every need and provide for her in every way. No matter what form that provision took. These things he would do for the rest of his life. If it meant he could always feel like this with her and he could see the love and aching need for him within her entrancing, grey eyes. He would fall to his knees before her, and claim servitude to her, if he thought it would give her happiness in life. He didn't know how he knew this so innately without ever actually thinking about it at any length or depth. But something in his ravaged soul recognised something in her equally battered one, that told him of this knowledge. Knowledge that felt so forbidden and dangerous. He would burn this world down with one word from her and he felt, somehow, that she would do the same for him. He was hers. He was meant for her and he could only hope that she felt the same about him.

As their pleasures built and their sounds grew in volume and strength, he found that he never wanted to pull out of her ever again. He wanted to stay between her legs, just like this, touching every single part of her soul, body, mind and heart. Like this he felt so deeply connected to her, that he knew it would become addictive. He knew he would want her every day, multiple times a day for the rest of his life. For this woman, he would give her child after child if she so wished it, if it meant he could always have her like this. But more than that, he wanted her at his side for the rest of his life.

Her presence alone was enough to calm the storms of his mind and heart. She was his anchor that kept him afloat in the vastness of the unforgiving ocean that was life and living. This woman was his everything and as they finally found their long sought after releases? She cried out echoes of what was in his heart without him having to voice his own musings. But as her body's release pulled his from him? She kissed him deeply, locking her legs around his waist and pumping her hips in time, with each pulse that his manhood made within her. The feeling of his seed pouring into her, thick and hot was unlike anything he ever felt and combined with the blinding bliss of her still spasming walls, he knew unless it was with her? He would never feel the likes of this again. He was ruined for all other lovers, should Arya decide he was not what she wanted.

'I'm caught up in her design

And how it connects to mine

I see in a different light

The objects of my desire'

But as they collapsed together in a heap of heaving breaths and sweating bodies, she turned his head back gently to face her. Then looking into his eyes she whispered the words he didn't realise that he not only wanted to hear, but that he needed to hear.

"You can never leave me now, my Lorathi love. For if you do? You will leave me a broken, desolate woman. Truly, I love you dearly." These words were whispered with such vulnerability, that he knew them to be true. His heart swelled, almost bursting and he claimed her lips again in a slow, deep kiss.

"A man is not going anywhere, his she-wolf. He is yours. Fully and truly. You could ask a man to wed you tomorrow and he would do this thing. Without hesitation." He replied after she had pulled away from the kiss.

-X-

As Jaqen sat by the waters of the painless death, he was quite tired this morning. But then, he shouldn't be surprised. He smirked down into the waters as his mind cast back to the previous night with Arya. After they had sworn their oaths to remain at each other's side, they had fallen into a sound and restful sleep.

Well, once Arya had shifted and squirmed trying to get comfortable, leading him to pull her up and over so that she was resting on top of him. Strangely, within moments of him doing such, she had promptly fallen into a deep and peaceful sleep. He had been greatly amused at this fact but he had also adored it and thought that he would be quite content to be her pillow for the rest of their nights.

Hearing a barely audible sound of footsteps, Jaqen frowned knowing he was no longer alone. He had hoped it to be Arya trying to sneak up on him. But as the scent of lily of the valley reached his nose, he knew that it was definitely not his little wolf. No. She smelled of jasmine and warm vanilla, with a dash of bergamot. Divine really. Much better than the strength of the perfumed oil the waif was so fond of. He imagined some men would pant for that scent, but for him it had always irritated his nose and caught in the back of his throat annoyingly. With how cloyingly sweet and flowery that it was. He supposed it suited the waif, but it definitely did her no favours while in his presence.

"What does a woman want with a man?" He asked, allowing his irritation to seep through, giving his words a biting note that was as much a warning as it was a question.

"A woman was on laundry duties today..." She replied, her tone carrying an edge of something that he wasn't sure that he much liked. He didn't know where this was going, but as she came to a stop in front of him, he glanced up at her in question.

"Why would a man care to know what duties a woman was assigned, this day? Faceless men all pull weight in the temple. If they didn't, it would be akin to a pig sty."

"A man should care that a woman was taking care of laundry. Particularly given she was responsible for chamber linens." She snapped, her eyes a seething tempest of rage, as she snapped her wrist and tossed a bed sheet towards him.

As he caught it, his confusion clear on his face, he was about to ask her why he would need to have this cloth. That is until his nose gifted him with the scents upon the fabric. Cloves, ginger and sandalwood. His scents. But mixed with that? Jasmine, vanilla and a dash of bergamot. Seven hells! This was his bed linen. Cutting a glare up at the waif, he surged to his feet, his own anger pushing through, hot and heavy.

"Speak the meaning, vile woman. What reason does she have to give a man his linens?"

"I think a man knows why." The waif hissed in return, taking a menacing step closer to him. Or at least he assumed she meant for it to be menacing. But he was unaffected by her. He could take her down easily and without much effort if he had too. So his fear of her was non-existent.

"Clarify for a man, anyway! Because he thinks that what a woman believes, is a falsehood." Jaqen seethed, stepping forward as well and watched with minor satisfaction, as she took a half-step back. He towered over her. He was angry. He was lethal. She knew she wouldn't win this square off between them. So instead she smirked in a most self-satisfied manner, that made his blade hand twitch with a need to put some extra holes into the woman.

"A woman thought it odd that a man's sheets would carry any other scents but his own. Given he is so particular about spending his nights alone. But then a woman thought, maybe a man has been experimenting with new oils. Wanting a change of scent for himself. That is, until she pulled back his covering and found blood upon his linen."

Jaqen raised his brow at this, showing faux confusion, as he began to unravel the balled-up mess of his sheets. And soon the most damning thing met his eyes. There, no bigger than the coin he had once gifted his little wolf, was a circle of pinkish red blood. Fuck. He hadn't thought he'd torn Arya's maidenhead quite as badly as he apparently had. He started to panic although outwardly, he maintained a scarily level calmness before he shrugged and balled the linen up again and threw it back at the waif.

"So? Just the mere presence of blood on a man's sheets, isn't enough to assume its origin. Many things can happen to cause blood in a bed. Things that don't always mean the claiming of a ladies virtue." He replied casually, rolling his eyes 'accidentally' to appear more much less concerned than he actually was.

"Not when it appears like this! It can only mean one thing. Another woman was with a man recently. It is clear. So a woman thought to herself, whom does both man and woman know, that would have been untried and smell like Jasmine and bergamot? Well, there is only one answer then, isn't there? A man bedded with that wretch, didn't he!?" She accused angrily, throwing the linen down on the floor as though it both burned and offended her. Jaqen felt his gaze darken with his fury.

"Whom a man chooses to share his body with, is no concern of a woman. She holds no claim over him, nor does he wish for her too. This thing has already been made clear to a woman, time and again. But still she refuses to hear a man. Tell him, is a woman simple? Beside all of that, a man..." Jaqen challenged her in return, before he was cut off as words echoed through the cavernous room, as though a ricochet.

"Did not bed down with this woman!" The voice of his Arya, called out strong, true and furious. And he found himself smirking then. Ah. There she was. His little wolf baring her teeth and claws. He much appreciated it and felt his body stir a little in whispers of need.

"She was indeed inside of a man's room last night. But not for the purposes that another woman so lewdly accuses." She replied flippantly, then lifted her tunic and showed the waif a fresh wrap of bandages, which were stained in red.

Jaqen found himself quite relieved that he had left all of his marks on her in places higher or lower than her lifted tunic exposed. He was also not concerned with the sudden appearance of said reddened bandages. They had not been there last night when he laid siege to her body, and it had only been a few hours since they had awoken and left his room. A trick. A very convincing trick he noted, as the waif's confidence wavered and her eyes showed a flash of concern because of her accusations towards them. Watching that unfold found him growing a little more hot beneath his collar, as his pride for his Arya flooded him.

"A woman got wounded recently while out on a mission and her injuries reopened in the night. A woman could not make it to the healer in time, so being close to a man's room as she is, a woman went there. Because a man is her mentor and she trusts him to see her body in an intimate manner if need be, without fear of roaming hands or attempts at coaxing her into relations! A man is not that way inclined. And well, another woman should know." She explained boredly, dropping her tunic again, but letting her affront show through clearly as she glared at the waif.

"That does not explain how such a light amount of blood would end up on a man's bed! If another woman, as she says, only went to a man for help with a wound! She could have sat upon a chair or a man's desk, while he worked to stitch her back up." The waif hissed, a look of victory beginning to alight on her face now. She thought she had caught Arya out and Jaqen was now a little concerned about this too. The waif, galled as he was to admit it, did have a point.

"A woman had to lie upon a man's bed as his bedding was clean and dry. They did try to sit her on a man's desk at first. But the blood was flowing faster than a man could staunch it, in order to work. So the bed was the next best place, as when she lay down, a woman's wound flowed slower." Arya replied with a shrug of perfect nonchalance and once again, Jaqen felt a stab of pride for his wee, little woman. She paused in her explanation, waiting to see if the waif would challenge her words again. But when she didn't, Arya finished her story.

"So a woman remained there, while a man staunched her bleeding and closed her wound up once more. Some of her blood spilled onto his bedding, during the final stitches when the wound was almost completely sealed. So there another woman has it. That is why she smelled a woman's scent on a man's sheets and found so little blood upon them as well."

After she was done speaking, Arya made her way over to Jaqen to stand by him. He noted the twinging in her gait as she walked. She was in pain, undoubtedly because of what they had done together. But it gave a wonderful dash of extra confirmation to her story. Confirmation that the waif clearly couldn't deny, with the context that she currently had. Looking at the both of them, the waif snarled, before she snatched up his linen again and with a look of fury, she turned to leave. But before she got to the door she paused and turned around to smirk.

"A woman should tell another, why then was her bed linens unspoiled with blood?"

"Ah yes. A man helped a woman change her sheets after closing her wound, so she wouldn't pull at it again. You will find the soiled ones in the laundry hall, awaiting washing. A woman believes they were left in the hamper closest to the door. But given a man deposited them there, a woman is not sure of this." Arya replied with a bright smile, before she turned to Jaqen, his queue to nod.

"Indeed. That is where a man placed them. So provided washing has not already been begun by another woman's colleagues, they should still be where a man left them." He lied smoothly, giving another nod, before he turned his head away from the waif to gaze into the pool of painless death once more. His indication to her that this conversation was now over.

After some time of nothing but comfortable silence, Arya, now sitting beside him on the ledge of the pool, spoke.

"Thank goodness you brought me more strawberries than I could eat, during my last cycle. Because I was hating knowing I would have to throw them away due to the beginnings of rot. Interesting fact, did you know that strawberries, at the perfect stage of rot starting, can look an awful lot like blood? And when crushed and smeared? Smell enough like iron to trick another person." She quipped playfully, nudging his shoulder with her own as she shared this cheeky little secret with him.

He couldn't help but smirk in delight then. What a sneaky and cunning little thing she was. And once again he was struck dumb at how she now belonged to him.

"A man did not know this fact, no. It seems as though his little wolf is a wily one indeed. But how did a woman know to set this up? The waif only approached a man a few moments prior to a woman's arrival." He asked curiously, looking at her before looking away again and tapping his chin in thought. She chuckled then, drawing his attention back to her.

"I saw my maiden blood on your sheets this morning, when we got up to prepare for the day. I knew that if we changed your sheets ourselves, it may raise suspicion. So I left the sheets there and went to my room and prepared. I knew the waif was the one that was approaching last night. And that she was one of the members on laundry duties today." She explained, pausing to let him take in this information.

He wasn't sure how he had missed her blood this morning. But then, he had been much too distracted with finally waking up beside her and marvelling at how she looked in the bright, early morning sun that shone through his window. So he would say he was probably slightly distracted.

"Ah? Was it because of a man's comment about a target appearing on a woman's back? Should the midnight visitor hear her pleasured cries and pleas for a man?" He queried, laying his hand over hers between them, his thumb running over the back of it. He felt like that might have been the cause of her gaining knowledge on who had tried to disturb them during their explorations with one another. But it seemed he had guessed incorrectly.

"Well, yes it would have, if I hadn't already been aware. But I have heard her trying to get into your room at night. I have heard your words of refusal and I noted that you started to close your door rather than leave it cracked. Then you began to lock it. I can hear the bar sliding into place when you decide to take your rest. Given I am only a few doors up from you on the other side of the hall." She corrected, moving her hand from under his to instead lace their fingers together intimately, his robes covering the interlocking of what was clearly of an intimate nature.

"And so a woman plotted and ployed, to hide truths from her sister in death dealing? A man is very enthused and impressed by a woman's progress." He praised her and watched her shudder in delight. Hmm. He would have to make a note of that and praise her more, if only to see that reaction. He also wondered just what it would do to her in a more intimate setting?

"She is no sister of mine. But she is an enemy to myself and now to a woman's man. Unacceptable. Speaking of pleasured pleas and cries..." She replied seductively, before she stood and offered him her hand. "I would rather like to hear yours. And just yours. A man performed well, the night passed and a woman found herself intensely wanting to repay the favour. Time for a man to become her mentor once more and show her what gets him off." She added decadently, her words and tone shooting straight to his manhood and waking it from its slumber.

Oh but she was a wicked, wicked girl. A part of him whispered that he should be concerned about the monster he had just created, but another throttled that voice and urged him to see just how much he could corrupt his she-wolf. Listening to that voice, Jaqen did not need to be asked twice, as he took her hand and stood. Brushing his lips over her hair, as he once had at Harrenhal, he spoke.

"It seems a woman has pondered too long. A man warned her not to do so, because he became quite impatient to claim her as a pupil." His words ran a strong shiver through Arya, as her mind sent her back in time to that place.

A place where it all began, but neither of them could know where it would end. Until now. Maybe it was always supposed to be this way, he considered. And maybe they had simply met too soon and so she was kept away from him until she was ready. Or until he was ready. Maybe both.

Then with that he spun and started to lead them away towards the area of the House that held the chambers. Hmm. Her chambers this time, he mused. He would quite like to taint that area and fill it with the echoes of his bliss, so that his little woman had pleasant dreams going forward.

-X-

[demoncryptspanties]

Dorne Chapter 5

A/N: I'm not even sure why this took so long to get out. I have no concept of time or anything tbh but I'm not dead so that's great.

Pairings: Oberyn Martell x Female!Reader, Jaqen Hagar x Female!Reader, (Future!Ellaria Sand x Female!reader, Future!Sandor Clegane x female!Reader, Future!Tywin Lannister x Female!Reader)

Warnings: Bad spelling, violence, bad grammar, smut.

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Chapter 4

Word Count: 6649

Chapter 5

Secret secrets

The servants seemed to have vanished for whatever reason, and her brother and father appeared to be missing once more. She didn't want to sit in her thoughts and spiral without the facts, so she took one of the Dothraki children's stories, a translated dictionary, and a journal to sit in the garden. Her plans to educate herself were short-lived, as she instead went to look at the clouds and fell asleep under the morning sun.

Around midday, a shadow fell over her. She shifted her gaze away from the sun to allow her eyes to adjust, then up at the figure, patiently waiting for her to fully awaken.

“I was starting to believe that you no longer had an interest in me.” She looked up into his bright blue eyes with a frown. 

"That, my dear, would be impossible.” She sat up to accommodate him, taking note of the small box in his hand but feigning a lack of interest. He sat to her left, holding out a hand, which she ignored, but was still staring right at her. “You command my full attention. How am I supposed to think about the duties I have when in your presence?” 

She softened at his words, “There will come a day where your flattery won’t work.”

“And clearly that day is not today.”

She chuckled, unconsciously leaning into him, glancing discreetly at the box. He caught her gaze and smiled to himself.

“A gift for my lady.” He presented the box to her, simple and made from wood. There was no extravagant and detailed engraving, only the clear hand of an amateur wood carver. 

She took the box from him slowly, twisting it in her hand before slowly sliding open the top panel. There was a simple ring inside, cushioned by what appeared to be silk. The ring was silver and in the shape of a sun. There was a shallow engraving of a snake in the middle of the sun,  but aside from that, the band was plain. 

“It is truly beautiful, Jaquen.”

“Consider it a promise as well as a representation of a formal question.” He said while she put the ring on the middle finger of her left hand. 

“What promise?”

He let out a small hum, looking at the deep smile on her face before answering. "A promise that whenever I see or feel the sun, I will think of you, and, of course, this is me formally asking you to be my life partner and wife."

“Have you spoken to my father?”

“I will ask your permission first. It is a union; of course, I want you to be willing.” She put the box, which was still in her left hand, on her lap and turned to face him. His eyes were wide and his smile soft. There was a certain type of vulnerability that she hadn’t seen on anyone before. 

"The only answer is yes," she took his hand in hers, closing her palms around his larger ones while maintaining eye contact. Take me to your home and show me your culture, freedom, and world. I am and will always be wanting and willing."

He let out a quick sigh, smiling and looking away from her. He muttered something under his breath, but it didn’t appear to be the common language. He cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips against hers.

The lady jerked backwards slightly before leaning into him. She put a hand on his shoulder and caressed the back of his head with her other hand, tangling it in his hair. He pulled her toward him. They were so close, she thought she could hear his heart beating in time with hers. 

She pulled back slightly and hiked her dress up so that she could straddle his thighs. She pulled him again into a searing kiss, her hands braced on his shoulders. He leaned back a little too far and lost his balance, falling onto the soft grass. She giggled and gave him a soft peck, rolling off of him and looking up at the clouds. 

“Please, tell me about your travels. Tell me what you have already told me and what you have not.” She looked at him with a genuine interest, head cocked to the side, watching his lips with a small smile. 

“In due time, my love. Let me first ask you how your time was spent here without me.”

She sighed and shifted her gaze away from him, not quite in annoyance, but close. “Oberyn is to have another child.”

“Congratulations, he already has one?” The smile that had vanished so easily returned. 

“Two, this will be his third. I think a girl, yet again. I believe that man is incapable of producing boys.”

“And how do you feel?” His words were slow, and his eyes held a kindness that lacked the judgement of a normal man. 

"Of course I'm delighted; this is a new beginning for both him and me. I hope we can settle easily into this new dynamic.” She hoped to convey how much she meant that, but he watched so carefully that she was sure he saw the slight twitch in her smile. She trusted that he would see that as nervousness and not irritation. 

He made a note to himself to ask her again at another time and opted to change the subject instead, “You don’t think it is too soon?”

“Too soon?” She sat up on her left elbow and waited for him to laugh, though when he did not, she giggled and leaned into him, saying, "If my father was to have any say, we would have been formally engaged after our second meeting. Things that are right, that are fate, never come too soon; they only come when the time is just right."

“It sounds like there is much to be learned about your customs, and I look forward to discovering every part that is important to you.” 

She beamed down at him, not noticing how close she had ended up to him, not noting the way his eyes travelled to her lips, and definitely not feeling the light touch of his left hand tracing soft circles on her hip. The only thing she could concentrate on was the promise of his previous words, the pledge to always make an effort with her. She was unsure of what it was about the notion of something so basic that caused her to become lost in images of their future, her eyes fixed on the sea blue hue of his in the waning sun. 

He recognised the look in her eyes—the undercurrent of lust that she, herself, likely did not notice. “My love, the nights these days are cold, I wish for you not to become ill.”

“Jaqen, do you not want me?”

“Is my ring not proof enough?”

"No, but do you not want me?” 

He thought about teasing her with his faux ignorance of her feelings for a little longer, but decided against it. “I only want you; I will only ever want you, but I wish not to disrespect you until I’ve spoken to your father.”

“You will not be disrespecting me. We are not like the others in this kingdom, and I will not be tainted. It is not improper.”

“It would be improper of me not to talk to your father before we join our energies and spirits.” She conceded at that, nodding slowly but still bending down further so that her lips ghosted him.

He closed the distance and kissed her softly, letting their mouths move in languid and quiet motions, pulling her so that she was completely atop him. He let his hands wander conservatively, caressing the small of her back but stopping just before meeting her ass. She let her tongue run across his bottom lip, and he opened his mouth to accommodate her. A hand snaked up to the nape of her neck, and before she knew it, their positions were reversed, Jaqen trapping her on the ground. His lips swallowed her gasp, and his hair tickled her cheeks.

He jerked away, sitting up with his legs on either side of her. He was breathing hard but still took both his hands to the side of her face to kiss her again. She couldn't place the emotion in that kiss—not quite lust but also a certain type of desperation. He once again pulled away and leaned over her, tucking his hair behind his ears. 

“I fear I cannot kiss you any longer. You truly are intoxicating.” She looked up at him with a soft smile, running a finger over her bottom lip. His eyes followed the movement, and his thumb traced her actions. She puckered her lips, but his thumb had left them, instead tracing her jaw gently. 

“Cannot or will not?” He smiled at this, standing up and putting a hand out for her.

“You are a little vixen.” 

She took his hand, pulling herself up a smidge too hard and stumbling into him. “And I fear that you love me for it.”

“That I do.” She couldn't stop herself from leaning into his arm, hiding her face slightly. There was a childlike giddiness in her smile and step, though she could not tell whether he noticed that or not.

She walked through the back doors of her home, scanning the somewhat empty rooms as she led Jaqen to the front door. Her movements slowed, and she peered into one of the corridors that led to the kitchen. The sound of her brother's steps was burned into her memory, and she laughed to herself, pulling Jaqen in that direction instead. 

The kitchen doors were wide open, and the smell the space elicited was almost sickly sweet. “Aneera I think I burned it. I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”

“Aneera spun around, putting the rolling pin in her hand down. She winked at the two by the door and walked over to the fire that Oran was standing over. “It's not supposed to smell like that either. I turned around for less than a minute. How did you manage to burn it?”

Y/N gently tugged Jaqen towards the pastry on the table, putting her hands in a bowl of water near it to wash them. “What are we making, Aneera?”

Oran waved without looking at the sound of her voice and grumbled something under his breath. “They were supposed to be pastries, but this is the second time I've burnt the filling, so I’m not entirely sure they’ll have a centre." 

“They’ll be fine. Roll out the dough for me, my dear.” Aneera left the lady to her task and turned to Jaqen, who was watching with a smile, and said, “it is magnificent to finally meet you properly. You are just as handsome as I thought you would be.” 

"Aneera, please,” the lady said, smiling at the light pink tint on Jaqen’s cheeks. 

"I truly wish I could stay and talk to you properly, but I have somewhere to be," he said shyly, bowing his head slightly.

“I know, we have plenty of time to get to know each other properly. And you have plenty of time to practise your wood carving.”

Y/N immediately looked up at the box, which she had left on the far side of the table. “You carved it by hand and didn’t tell me?”

“I forgot; we were occupied with other things.”

"You're disgusting, in the garden, seriously," Oran whirled around, looking between the two lovers.”

“We didn’t do anything, Oran, stop being such a prude.” The siblings traded a look, which made both Jaqen and Aneera chuckle.

Jaqen walked up to the lady, putting his hands softly on her shoulders and  placing a tender kiss on the top of her head. “I am working tomorrow, but you are welcome to come for lunch.”

“I’ll bring some of the desserts if Oran does not burn them all.”

Oran grumbled something under his breath, and though nobody heard his exact words, everyone let out an easy laugh. Jaqen gave her another kiss and walked out of the room, showing himself out. After a minute, Y/N finally spoke up.

“Aneera, will I have children?” Her eyes were glued to her mother, and thus she missed the slight look of concern on Oran’s face. 

Aneera had a smile that became larger and larger until she was laughing to herself. “You, my child, are one of the most fertile women in all of the seven kingdoms. You should be happy about the divine timing of the Gods because you will never have any trouble in that regard.”

The lady's smile came back as quickly as it had left, and she continued to roll out the dough. “Aneera, your feelings for my father are so clear, why do you deny yourself that happiness?”

“I have never seen my own future, nor do I want to. It is the only area about which I am unsure; I guess you could say that I am afraid of the unknown.”

“You should take that leap. Since love is so unpredictable anyway, I guess for once you will be experiencing what the rest of us do. It is too beautiful and too brilliant a thing to deny yourself just because of fear.” Y/N looked at him with a slight surprise but let out a hum of agreement.

“At the very least, move into our home; you practically live here anyway.” Aneera thanked the two of them for their wise words but said nothing more on the subject. 

“I think that the filling is done.” Aneera rushed over to Oran, looking over the pan, and patted his back lightly. 

“I believe it is indeed.”

By the time that there were enough desserts made and packed for the servants and maids, the moon was high in the sky. Aneera retired into her room at the back of the house, leaving Oran and Y/N in the kitchen.

“Have you any plans tomorrow after your morning class?”

“No, why?” She looked into his eyes for any sign of mischief, but there was none. 

“Ayenna is free, and I am busy all day. Perhaps you could deliver these to her and spend the day with her because I remember the last time the day was cut short."

“Of course, Oran.” He smiled, nodding his head slowly. He got up, pulling the lady into a hug, and put the packaged desserts in her lap so that she would not forget. 

The lady studied the wooden box that Jaqen had given her while lying in bed. She hadn't noticed the shallow dips from where he probably tried to carve something but decided against it. She imagined the way he measured the lid and sanded down the sides. She wondered whether there was a reason he had chosen that wood, and that material for the interior. From what she knew of him, everything he did was intentional and calculated. She'd have to ask him about it the following day.  

The next day, she rode quickly after Oran told her that Ayenna wanted to meet her at the bakery. She didn't need an excuse to smell the freshly baked bread and pastries, and she was glad they could spend some time eating at one of her favourite restaurants in King's Landing. 

Ayenna wore a scarf in her hair, likely to keep her hair out of the food. Her brow had a hint of sweat on it, but she seemed calm rather than frazzled. The minute she noticed the lady watching her, a magnificent smile graced her face. 

“Y/N, I made some honeyed bread fresh for you.”

“Ayenna, I pray to the Gods that you stay in our family forever if you continue to spoil me like this.” Y/N swiped the bread from the counter, taking a generous bite. It was still warm and soft, with just the right amount of sweetness to make it seem unbelievably light.

“Did you make this? It tastes different than usual.” She said, tearing off another liberal piece. 

"Oh, if it's not to your taste, I’ll use the original recipe.” 

The lady shook her head in response, trying to finish the piece in her mouth before she began speaking. “No, no, it’s wonderful. Whatever you did, please keep doing it.” 

She thought that Ayenna’s smile could not get wider, but it did and she nodded shyly to herself. The lady finished her meal with a glass of honeyed wine, asking questions about the baking process and the shop itself, as Ayenna shaped dough and pastries with a delicate hand. 

The lady turned at the light footsteps that entered the cafe and saw the familiar face of Ayenna’s mother. “Ah Maliya, your daughter makes the absolute best honey bread.”

“My lady, that is precisely why I am happy it is her rather than her sister who will take over this place.” Maliya’s face revealed a slight frown. She turned to her daughter and opened her mouth to say something more, but decided against it, instead choosing to grumble to herself. 

“I have yet to meet this elusive sister.”

“She was sick the last time we met, and she remains just as evasive to us. That woman is hopeless, truly. The only person who can ever catch her is Ayenna here.”

Ayenna said nothing, instead finishing the batch of food she was cooking before taking off her apron. She whispered something to her mother and excitedly led the lady out of the door. “Is there somewhere specific you wish to go, or shall we wander around the streets of Dorne.”

“I have been meaning to go to the market again. There is something I wish to inquire about.” She began unlacing her horse, but Ayenna stopped her with a gentle hand to the shoulder.

“Oh, is it possible that we do something else today? There is someone I wish to avoid.”

“A jealous past lover.” The lady said with a smile. 

Ayenna smiled politely in return and said, "Something like that.”

“Perhaps a walk then? Down one of the rivers? We can stop by the grape brothel so that I may drop off these desserts to Jaqen. Oh, I forgot to tell you about yours. I left them on the counter.”

“That is fine, my mother would have noticed them, and of course, a walk sounds lovely. It would give us time to talk.” Ayenna was wringing her hands together, fiddling with one of the many rings that adorned her fingers. 

The lady turned to her in an attempt to catch her eye. "Is there something in particular that you wanted to talk about?” 

“Yes, I’ve been meaning to tell you since we met, although I wanted you to get to know me first.” The lady still kept a soft smile on her face, there was no hostility or anger within Ayenna that she could tell and thus she felt as though whatever the problem may be, it would be something that was easily fixed. 

“In your own time, Ayenna.” 

Ayenna bowed her head graciously and let a cheeky smile engulf her features. “Though you seemed extremely cheery this morning.”

The lady took a minute to answer, eventually nodding to herself and saying, “If I tell you, you mustn't say anything to my brother just yet.”

“My lady, I wouldn't dare now, please; I am dying to know.”

“I am formally engaged now. Jaqen designed the ring and carved the box himself; I could not have asked for a better partner than him, and now I am truly to be married." Once the words started flowing out of her mouth, she could not stop. Remembering to hold her gesticulations as her teachers had taught her, she let her excitement show through her smile and tone.

“Well, I never doubted that for a second”

“Yes, well, as much as it feels like I have known you forever, we only met a few moons ago. I never imagined myself in this position or feeling this content. Of course, my mother is well known as an oracle throughout Dorne, and yet I couldn't bring myself to believe her after I fell in love with Oberyn, but this just feels so deeply right; I finally know the direction my life is taking, and I can hope and dream and imagine a different type of happiness."

“That is truly beautiful, my lady, and I am so glad that you feel this way,” Ayenna’s features were soft, not quite displaying the same enthusiasm but still polite and happy.

The lady had not noticed how close they were to the brothel until the women in sheer purple walked towards them in the street. The lady practically ran, with Ayenna chasing reluctantly behind her, and walked into the brothel. The lady gently refused the services of the women she knew and asked where Jaqen was. 

The two were led by a woman, whom the lady did not recognise, into a small office at the back of the building. One would think that Jaqen had wished to keep his business and pleasure separate, but the sheer curtains that led into a room with a plush bed said otherwise. 

The lady shared a look with Ayenna before motioning to the seat at the desk. Ayenna sat down while Y/N looked around the room. It was mostly barren; he clearly didn't spend much time here, and she felt that there were little secrets in this place waiting to be discovered. 

Jaqen walked through the door with a slight flourish, a smile on his face as he made his way to the lady, not pausing to acknowledge Ayenna. He gathered her in his arms and gave her a long kiss before the lady pushed him off, motioning vaguely towards Ayenna. 

“I apologise, my love. We are only here to drop these off.”

“Will you not enjoy them with me?”

“Not this time; I wish to talk to my sister, and I wanted to run this errand first.” Y/N missed the small smile that graced Ayenna’s face. She sat uncomfortably in the seat as though she were waiting for Jaqen to throw her out of it. 

“Is that all I am to you? An errand.” He said slyly, laying a hand lightly on the woman's chin to tilt her head towards him.

"Yes, an errand that I am quite finished with for the moment.”

He scoffed and let her chin go, looking at her with his head tilted and saying, “I shall miss your company until we next meet.”

“No need for the dramatics; you will be waking up next to me every day until we die as soon as we marry.”

“And that will not happen soon enough.” Neither woman could hide the smile at his words, albeit for different reasons. 

Ayenna stood up, drawing attention to herself, and began to leave the room when Jaqen called out, "Ayenna, is it? Sorry, but you look strangely familiar, though I'm almost certain we've never met."

“I have been told I have that sort of face that you see constantly in a crowd. I can assure you, my lord, that we have never met.”

Jaqen's disgust was obvious, and his change in expression made the lady laugh heartily. “Please, I am no lord; I am just a commoner like you, a merchant and traveller. Please do not address me with formalities that are inappropriate for my position."

"You heard him, Ayenna; he is but a traveller," she gestured for Ayenna to leave the room and moved to follow her, Jaqen taking steps in time with her and sliding his arms around her middle. “If the traveller is ever weary enough to warrant a certain type of relaxation, he knows where to go,” she whispered into his ear, kissing his jaw lightly. 

She attempted to slide out of his arms, but he only held on to her tighter, waiting until Ayenna turned back to the two and then moved so that she would leave the brothel. “Must you truly leave now?”

“You are acting as though I am going on a long journey away from you. I will see you soon.”

“It will not be soon enough.”

“You truly have a way with words, my love.”

“And I will make an effort to make you feel this way with them until the end of my days.” He pecked her lips and walked back into his office, allowing the lady to leave the premises. 

She was still in clear sight of the brothel when Jaqen called out to her, “I am taking you for the evening. Be ready by dusk, I’ll pick you up from home.” The lady nodded to convey that she had heard and went on walking with a smile on her face.

“He truly seems obsessed with you.” Ayenna said, walking in time with the lady.

“I suppose, in the way that my brother is with you, correct?”

Ayenna smiled to herself but looked down towards the ground. “He loves differently, but I suppose yes, in his own way he is indeed.”

“Have you met Jaqen? He is not one to forget a face.” Ayenna looked directly at the lady with her response. 

"No, I have not; I truly believe that I must look like someone else that he knows.” The lady looked for any sign that Ayenna was lying but hummed to herself when her face was as honest as she would have expected. 

The two walked across one of the canals, talking about the men in their lives, until the sun was at a point where the lady needed to be home to be ready. Ayenna said that she would walk the lady home so that she could talk to Oran. The lady took this as a chance to ask what she really wanted, as Ayenna would have little time to skirt around the subject before they got to the house.

“Your sister, why is it that I have yet to meet her.”

“I didn’t want to take the chance that you knew each other. I just wanted us to be secure in our relationship first to decrease any possible awkwardness. I hope that she will be less busy soon so that I may properly introduce you to her.”

“Your sister, what is her name?”

Ayenna hesitated, which the lady caught, and she said her name under her breath. The lady hummed to convey she had not heard the woman, and Ayenna said again, louder this time, “Alaiana.” 

The lady searched her mind for recognition in the sound of the name, but there was none. She figured she'd have to talk to Mara at some point to see if she knew who this Alaiana girl was. 

“Sorry to ask so many questions, but you have wanted to tell me something for so long. I fear that if I don’t push for it now, we will never get to the bottom of this matter.”

“Honestly, it was about my sister. I believe it would be better for you to meet her first and then you will know.”

“I had a feeling.” 

“You are known to be something of an oracle or soothsayer. Some say your family is descended from Gods.”

“Do you believe that?”

“If I believed that, I would not be keeping secrets from you like this.” Ayenna smiled nervously, hoping that the lady would understand her tone and how she meant her words. She let out a small sigh of relief when Y/N laughed heartily. 

Oran seemed to get back from whatever he was doing all day at the same time the women did. He rode onto the grounds with a small entourage of people the woman did not recognise but did not question, letting dust and sand gather in the air.

“Oran, do you wish to ruin all of my clothes with your foolery?”

One of the men with Oran laughed and then bowed his head politely at her, saying, “my lady, he was simply losing a race.”

“I won actually,” the other men all grumbled in disagreement as Oran laughed. He lowered himself from his horse and pulled Ayenna into a passionate embrace. 

“I believe I will leave you and your friends to whatever it is you wish to be doing and take my leave.”

"Bye, my lady,” Ayenna said with a grin, and the rest of the men echoed a similar response. 

She walked the winding staircase into her room and flung open the wardrobe to look at the evening dresses she had yet to wear. She called in one of the maids to help her look, and the two discussed what would be good for an evening that you could not prepare for. 

They chose a simple silver gown, which they paired with silver bodice jewellery, the stones Jaqen had gotten her, and a massive gem of a necklace that Oberyn had insisted she own the moment he saw it. The woman looked into the glass on her far wall and decided she reminded herself of the moon. She walked to her balcony to relish the colour of the sun in the clouds. It made her wonder, how those who believe in the Lord of Light, must have looked at the sun and seen its power. She decided it was most likely dusk by now and pulled one of the shorter books that she had yet to finish and read. 

Her immersion in the world provided by the pages, however, was brief, as a servant quickly knocked on the door, saying that her visitor had been accosted by the group of men with her brother. 

She practically ran down the stairs, not being too careful with her steps, and stopped short of the last step right in front of her betrothed. 

“Hi,”

“Hello dearest.” He extended his arms and drew her into a hug off the steps. Neither of them noticed the look that her brother was giving them from behind one of his friends. 

“Stay safe sister.”

“I can handle myself, brother.”

Jaqen held out an arm and led her to his horse, gesturing her to the brown stallion she had seen before but had no name for. “Your horse has a name yes,”

“If he does, I do not know it, when he learns to speak, that will be the first question I ask,” she hit his arm playfully and mounted the horse.

Jaqen sat behind her, speeding the horse through the dirt roads and lush fields. They seemed to go completely out of the city, and the lady just let the wind in her hair lull her into a sense of peace. She would have spoken but was sure he would not be able to hear her, so she leaned back into him, caressing one of his hands that were on the reins, and smiling up at him as gracefully as she could at that angle.

The journey seemed brief, but she was unfamiliar with her surroundings. They were in a clearing, and there were hedges by a river that made the area seem isolated and private, as if it were their own private garden. He'd laid out a large piece of cloth for her to sit on, along with a basket of fruits and two bottles of Dornish wine. The area was lit up with candles, and the basket held a bouquet of flowers. 

He got off the horse first and then helped her down with strong arms. 

“Jaqen, this place is beautiful; where did you find it? Who set it up for you?” The smile on her face was unmatched, and she had to stop herself from gasping every time she took in a new detail. The entire area seemed as though it had come from a dream, and she realised that this was exactly how she was supposed to feel whenever she was around him. 

“I had a few conversations with your brother; he said that he had travelled the area around your home and found it accidentally.” He led her to the cloth on the floor and sat across from her, pouring wine for both of them into silver goblets that were also in the basket. 

"I was so taken with your beauty when I first saw you that I didn't tell you how lovely you are. I cannot wait to see you reflected in the moonlight.”

“You flatter me in a way I am not entirely sure I deserve. You are a God among men, a lover from the legends."

“Must you try to one-up me even in compliments, dearest?”

“I wish to see your cheeks redden and lips pull into a smile as often as I can, Jaqen.”

“You do that simply by existing; I need no flattery from you.”

“And you're complaining about my flattery. By the Gods, Jaqen, I feel as though you wish for me to collapse.” The two laughed heartily, and she began to lay out the fruits but squealed when she saw what was under them. There was a selection of cheeses, some of which she had not seen before. They were a delicacy she was somewhat used to, but Dorne only had so many types, and she was certain she had read about one of them that was from Highgarden, judging by its shape.

“Is everything alright?” He had taken in her expression but misread it, leading to a look of concern.  

“Is this cheese from Highgarden?”

“Yes..” He was unprepared for the force she used to propel herself towards him. She wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around his shoulders as he stumbled back into the grass behind them, taken aback by the gesture. “If I knew something as simple as cheese would have made you act this way, I would not have spent this time courting you.”

“Jaqen, I have hardly known you for a time normal enough to result in a proposal.”

“We, dearest, are not normal people, and thus there is no reason that we should behave as though we are.” She leaned into him, giving him a soft peck, before sitting up and immediately beginning to gorge herself on the foods that he had brought. 

“So tell me, Jaqen, about your travels, and do not leave out a single detail.”

"We'll be here for a long time then," he said softly.

“And I will cherish every moment that I get to be with you.”

By the time she noticed that time had actually passed, the food was mostly gone and the stars were high in the sky. They had moved so that Jaqen lay in her lap; his white hair shone as she would have imagined snow to, and his red waves seemed the colour of blood. She gently ran her fingers through his hair, twirling the ends. 

She looked up at the sky and pointed upwards, “would you like to hear a story, my love.”

“I would like anything as long as it comes from your lips.” She cleared her throat and attempted to hide the smile but by the look in his eyes she knew she didn't well enough. 

“It’s a love story about the north star.”

“Are those not the best kind?”

“The north star is the brightest star in the sky,”

“Yes,” she stopped at the sound of his voice and raised an eyebrow. He put his hands up and laughed to himself.

“It guides us home, and that is all because of a sailor who loved harder than any person thought capable. His wife was a barmaid at a seaside tavern, which is how they met. One time, just before he left, she asked him how he always found his way back to her on time, and he said he just always knew. He closed his eyes and thought of her, and she always showed him his way home. She was pregnant at this point, their first child, and he was to do one final trading journey before he took a break to take care of her. She said she had a bad feeling, but he said that he knew the sea just as well as he knew her, and so he left. ” She looked down at his blue eyes and lost her concentration at the pure and complete attention he was giving her. Unable to stop herself, she bent over, met his plush pink lips, and whispered an 'I love you' before continuing without giving him a chance to speak..

“Anyway, they inevitably blew into a storm. One that was wild and dangerous, more dangerous than any he had encountered in his lifetime of sailing. The majority of the crew survived, but they became so disoriented that this man, who knew the sea better than anyone, couldn't figure out which way to go. He was now panicking because the storm had caused him to be gone for much longer than expected, and he didn't want to miss the birth of his child, but the days turned into weeks and they still hadn't seen land. He accepted the fact that he would most likely miss his child's birth and prayed to the gods to show him the way home. That same night, he had a dream in which his wife told him she loved him and asked him to come home, and when he said he was lost, she told him to look up to the night sky and she would show him the way home. That is exactly what he did. The stars were bright, but there was a new one in the sky, brighter than the moon, and every member of the crew swore they'd never seen anything like it before. They waited for it to move before following it on a whim. It eventually led them home, but what awaited him was a baby with grey eyes like a constellation of stars and the grave of his wife, who had led him home to his son."

“That was rather sad, don't you think?” He sat up, gathering her in his arms so that she sat in his lap.

“It's sad, but it is truly beautiful. Would you become a star for me, Jaqen?" She trailed kisses along his jawline, and he lost his concentration for a moment. 

His right hand came to cup the bottom of her jaw, tilting her head up at him. “I would become the moon if the gods would allow it.”

“And I hope you should never have to ask.” 

“Do you think you will have a love like the stories?”  He asked, cupping her face in his hands. 

“I believe that this is only the beginning of one.”

“You truly have a way with words, dearest.”

“It is from the stories and lives they have allowed me to live.” He ghosted over her lips, but she spoke again before they could lose themselves in each other. “How do you envision your future?”

“That is a big question, dearest. I only wish to love as much as I can and discover the world in more ways than one lifetime will allow. I never knew my true parents, and so I want to live enough lives for them as well.”

She hummed at him and did not allow him to ask her the same question back. Instead, she gave him a soft and slow kiss before she rose, holding a hand out, and said, “It is getting late; I believe that I am due home.”

He gave her the same hum and took her hand, pulling her back down and kissing her again before reversing their position. She giggled, and the two rode home calm and full of joy.

[novaursa]

jaqen h’ghar x fem!stark!reader! there in harrenhal and she’s Aryas older sister. “if i do this thing, a girl must obey.” “a girl will obey.”

jaqen h’ghar is obsessed

A Game of Faces

- Summary: You meet your sister’s “friend” and he offers his help, for a price.

- Paring: stark!reader/Jaqen H’ghar

- Note: The reader is Arya's older sister.

- Rating: Mild 13+

- Next part: name

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround

The walls of Harrenhal loom dark and foreboding, each stone etched with the torments of those who have suffered within. You move silently through the damp corridors, eyes sharp and ears keen, every sense attuned to the danger that lurks in every corner of this cursed place. Arya is at your side, her small hand gripping yours, knuckles white with fear and anger. The men who captured you—those cruel soldiers in Lannister red—tore you from one nightmare and cast you into another.

Your sister’s “friend” Jaqen is never far from you. His presence is a mystery, his identity a mask more impenetrable than any helm. You’ve watched him from afar, seen the way he moves like a shadow slipping between torchlight. There is something unsettling in his eyes, a depth that swallows you whole when he looks your way.

One evening, you find yourself alone in the courtyard, watching the sun sink behind the jagged peaks of the mountains. Arya is with the other prisoners, her task for the day yet unfinished. You feel the weight of the castle pressing down on you, a suffocating presence that seeps into your bones.

“A girl looks troubled.”

The voice is smooth, with an accent that lilts like a melody. You turn, startled, to see Jaqen leaning against a stone column, his gaze fixed on you. His red-and-white hair glows in the dim light, a vivid slash against the drab surroundings.

“I am fine,” you lie, your voice steady but your heart hammering in your chest. There is something about him that makes you wary, though you cannot say why.

“A lie,” he says softly, as if amused. “A girl carries many burdens on her shoulders. Perhaps too many.”

You bristle at his words, but before you can respond, he steps closer, his movements fluid and graceful. There is a scent about him, something foreign and faintly sweet, like spices from lands you have never seen.

“You are Arya’s friend,” you say, more statement than question.

“A friend, yes.” He tilts his head, studying you with eyes that seem to pierce through all your defenses. “And perhaps a friend to you as well, if a girl wishes it.”

“I don’t need friends,” you reply sharply, your voice low. “I need to protect my sister and find a way out of this place.”

Jaqen’s smile is enigmatic, his eyes gleaming with something you can’t quite decipher. “A girl’s desire is a noble one. But sometimes, to protect, one must first obey.”

His words send a chill through you, and you take a step back, instinctively putting distance between you. He doesn’t follow, merely watches, his gaze never leaving your face.

“If I do this thing, a girl must obey,” he says quietly, his voice a whisper of silk and steel.

“What thing?” you ask, though you already sense the answer, a dark promise hanging in the air between you.

“A girl must say a name. And in return, a man will grant her wish. But a girl must obey.”

His words are simple, but the weight of them settles heavy in your chest. You know what he means—Arya has told you about his offer, the deaths he can deal with a whispered name. But you are not Arya, and you do not want to wield death like a blade in the dark.

“I don’t want anyone to die,” you say, your voice trembling despite your resolve. “I just want us to be free.”

Jaqen’s expression shifts, something softening in his gaze. He steps closer, and this time you do not move away. His hand, cool and gentle, reaches out to brush a lock of hair from your face.

“A girl’s wish is a pure one,” he murmurs. “But in this world, freedom comes at a price.”

You meet his eyes, feeling the pull of them like a tide. There is a power in this man, something dangerous and compelling, and it frightens you as much as it draws you in.

“What do you want from me?” you ask, your voice barely more than a whisper.

Jaqen’s smile returns, a shadow of itself, and his hand drops back to his side. “A man wants nothing. But a girl must remember: if a man does this thing, a girl will obey.”

The words hang between you like a vow, a binding promise sealed by the intensity of his gaze. You nod, unable to look away, and he inclines his head, satisfied.

“A girl will obey,” he repeats, as if to himself, before turning and walking away, his steps as silent as a ghost.

You watch him go, your heart a wild drum in your chest. You do not understand him, cannot fathom the depths of his motives, but you know one thing with a certainty that burns in your veins: Jaqen H’ghar is no ordinary man, and the game he plays is one of life and death. And you, caught in the web of his interest, are now a piece on the board.

When Arya returns to your side, her face smudged with dirt but her eyes alight with fierce determination, you pull her close, holding her tighter than before. You will find a way out of Harrenhal, you vow. You will keep her safe.

But as you look back at the shadowy figure disappearing into the castle’s depths, you cannot shake the feeling that your fate is now entwined with his, in ways you cannot yet see.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: A Ghost in Winterfell (Theon VI) [Chapter 46]

It's a Christmas murder mystery! 🎄🎅🏼🎁

Thank you for allowing me the break. I needed it before tackling this chapter.

It wasn't Harren, Arya wanted to say, it was me. She had killed Chiswyck with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. I'm the ghost in Harrenhal, she thought. And that night, there was one less name to hate. - Arya VII, ACOK

Before we get started, I have to point out something that may or may not be important.

It's a rare Arya -> Theon chapter transition. We all know sometimes the character transitions are significant, sometimes they're not.

In ACOK, mysterious deaths start happening at Harrenhal, which is paralleled in this chapter.

While it was Jaqen killing the men, it was Arya who was responsible for the deaths. She was the ghost in Harrenhal. She called herself the ghost in Harrenhal.

Is that relevant right now? I don't know.

On we go.

+.+.+

The dead man was found at the base of the inner wall, with his neck broken and only his left leg showing above the snow that had buried him during the night.

If Ramsay's bitches had not dug him up, he might have stayed buried till spring. By the time Ben Bones pulled them off, Grey Jeyne had eaten so much of the dead man's face that half the day was gone before they knew for certain who he'd been: a man-at-arms of four-and-forty years who had marched north with Roger Ryswell. "A drunk," Ryswell declared. "Pissing off the wall, I'll wager. He slipped and fell." No one disagreed. But Theon Greyjoy found himself wondering why any man would climb the snow-slick steps to the battlements in the black of night just to take a piss.

Right away let's get it all out there.

The murders that happen in this chapter aren't considered much of a mystery. It is all but confirmed by the text that the wildling spearwives are responsible for the killings.

It's foreshadowed in ACOK.

The killings stopped after Farlen's death, but even so his men continued sullen and anxious. "They fear no foe in open battle," Black Lorren told him, "but it is another thing to dwell among enemies, never knowing if the washerwoman means to kiss you or kill you, or whether the serving boy is filling your cup with ale or bale. We would do well to leave this place." - Theon V, ACOK

Osha seduces and kills one of Theon's men.

Theon flung the cup into the hearth. "I'd say Drennan was pulling down his breeches to stick it in the woman when she stuck it in him. His own cheese knife, by the look of it. Someone find a pike and fish the other fool out of the moat." - Theon IV, ACOK

We're shown a Ryswell privately canoodling with a spearwife in the previous Theon chapter.

Beneath the Burned Tower, he passed Rickard Ryswell nuzzling at the neck of another one of Abel's washerwomen, the plump one with the apple cheeks and pug nose. The girl was barefoot in the snow, bundled up in a fur cloak. He thought she might be naked underneath. - The Turncloak, ADWD

And Theon outright accuses them.

"Touch me," he said. "Kill me." There was more despair than defiance in his voice. "Go on. Do me, the way you did the others. Yellow Dick and the rest. It was you."

Holly laughed. "How could it be us? We're women. Teats and cunnies. Here to be fucked, not feared." - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

x

Little Walder, thought Theon. The big one. He glanced at Rowan. There are six of them, he remembered. Any of them could have done this. But the washerwoman felt his eyes. "This was no work of ours," she said. - Theon I, ADWD

x

"Words are wind." They are no better than me. We're just the same. "You killed the others, why not him? Yellow Dick—"

"—stank as bad as you. A pig of a man."

"And Little Walder was a piglet. Killing him brought the Freys and Manderlys to dagger points, that was cunning, you—"

"Not us." Rowan grabbed him by the throat and shoved him back against the barracks wall, her face an inch from his. "Say it again and I will rip your lying tongue out, kinslayer." - Theon I, ADWD

With no denial.

In the following Theon chapter Rowan is adamant they didn't kill Little Walder (they didn't), but isn't bothered by the accusation that they killed the rest. Putting all of that together we can safely assume they're the killers.

However, I'm not happy unless I'm throwing widely accepted theories into the garbage.

Therefore, we're going to remain open-minded, and examine the possibility Theon's the ghost in Winterfell who is killing these men.

Yes, I realize that sounds ridiculous.

Moving on.

The first murder is a Ryswell man-at-arms thrown from the battlements.

Theon - the potential murderer - doesn't believe the man was drunk and fell. Theon doesn't buy any of the causes of death throughout the chapter. On its own that's not remotely suspicious, but it's something to keep in mind as the evidence builds.

Of course you're asking yourself how come Theon's internal monologue is never incriminating. If he's killing these men, surely that's going to be reflected in his thoughts, yes?

We'll cover that as we go, but I'll quickly say Theon has demonstrated a bit of detachment from reality, potentially has an alter ego, and probably isn't consciously aware he's killed these men.

I know this is insane, please keep reading the post.

Back to the kill. A man is thrown from the battlements. Theon and the battlements. It's less clear here, but it becomes more obvious the locations and causes of death are all relevant to Theon.

Above, he could see some squires building snowmen along the battlements. They were arming them with spears and shields, putting iron halfhelms on their heads, and arraying them along the inner wall, a rank of snowy sentinels. "Lord Winter has joined us with his levies," one of the sentries outside the Great Hall japed … until he saw Theon's face and realized who he was talking to. Then he turned his head and spat. - The Turncloak, ADWD

+.+.+

As the garrison broke its fast that morning on stale bread fried in bacon grease (the lords and knights ate the bacon), the talk along the benches was of little but the corpse.

"Stannis has friends inside the castle," Theon heard one serjeant mutter. He was an old Tallhart man, three trees sewn on his ragged surcoat. The watch had just changed. Men were coming in from the cold, stomping their feet to knock the snow off their boots and breeches as the midday meal was served—blood sausage, leeks, and brown bread still warm from the ovens.

A potential red flag.

Blink and you would have thought that was a continuous scene. We've jumped from breakfast to a midday meal in the span of seconds. There's no indication hours have passed in the middle of this thought.

Is this horrific writing or is Theon's mind a little jumbled?

+.+.+

Endless, ceaseless, merciless, the snow had fallen day and night. Drifts climbed the walls and filled the crenels along the battlements, white blankets covered every roof, tents sagged beneath the weight. Ropes were strung from hall to hall to help men keep from getting lost as they crossed the yards. Sentries crowded into the guard turrets to warm half-frozen hands over glowing braziers, leaving the wallwalks to the snowy sentinels the squires had thrown up, who grew larger and stranger every night as wind and weather worked their will upon them. Ragged beards of ice grew down the spears clasped in their snowy fists. No less a man than Hosteen Frey, who had been heard growling that he did not fear a little snow, lost an ear to frostbite.

The snowmen are growing larger and stranger. Whatever that means.

Ser Stupid Frey is about to be in over his head. Literally.

He's gonna fall in a lake.

Water will be over his head.

His men will be well nourished, ours go into battle with empty bellies. It makes no matter. Ser Stupid, Lord Too-Fat, the Bastard, let them come. We hold the ground, and that I mean to turn to our advantage. - Theon I, ADWD

+.+.+

The horses in the yards suffered most. The blankets thrown over them to keep them warm soaked through and froze if not changed regularly. When fires were lit to keep the cold at bay, they did more harm then good. The warhorses feared the flames and fought to get away, injuring themselves and other horses as they twisted at their lines. Only the horses in the stables were safe and warm, but the stables were already overcrowded.

On the real, how are those Dothraki warhorses going to cope with dragon flames going off around them?

+.+.+

"The gods have turned against us," old Lord Locke was heard to say in the Great Hall. "This is their wroth. A wind as cold as hell itself and snows that never end. We are cursed."

"Stannis is cursed," a Dreadfort man insisted. "He is the one out there in the storm."

"Lord Stannis might be warmer than we know," one foolish freerider argued. "His sorceress can summon fire. Might be her red god can melt these snows."

That was unwise, Theon knew at once. The man spoke too loudly, and in the hearing of Yellow Dick and Sour Alyn and Ben Bones. When the tale reached Lord Ramsay, he sent his Bastard's Boys to seize the man and drag him out into the snow. "As you seem so fond of Stannis, we will send you to him," he said.

Theon might be a little mad, but he's still one of the more astute POVs in the story (ADWD only). Most of the time you can trust his assessment of a person or situation. I say this with Barbrey Dustin in mind.

Yes, Stannis will temporarily melt the snows. Bad news for Shireen, great news for Sansa who has to get to the Wall.

+.+.+

Then, whilst Skinner and Yellow Dick made wagers on how fast his blood would freeze, Ramsay had the man dragged up to the Battlements Gate.

[...]

The bleeding freerider was carried across the bridge and up the steps, still protesting. Then Skinner and Sour Alyn seized his arms and legs and tossed him from the wall to the ground eighty feet below. The drifts had climbed so high that they swallowed the man bodily … but bowmen on the battlements claimed they glimpsed him sometime later, dragging a broken leg through the snow. One feathered his rump with an arrow as he wriggled away. "He will be dead within the hour," Lord Ramsay promised.

"Or he'll be sucking Lord Stannis's cock before the sun goes down," Whoresbane Umber threw back.

"He best take care it don't break off," laughed Rickard Ryswell. "Any man out there in this, his cock is frozen hard."

ha HA, get it?? In weather like this, you're better to not have a cock if you're going to fall from the battlements and survive.

+.+.+

Winterfell's great main gates were closed and barred, and so choked with ice and snow that the portcullis would need to be chipped free before it could be raised. Much the same was true of the Hunter's Gate, though there at least ice was not a problem, since the gate had seen recent use. The Kingsroad Gate had not, and ice had frozen those drawbridge chains rock hard. Which left the Battlements Gate, a small arched postern in the inner wall. Only half a gate, in truth, it had a drawbridge that spanned the frozen moat but no corresponding gateway through the outer wall, offering access to the outer ramparts but not the world beyond.

The author would like everyone to know it's impossible to leave through a gate.

+.+.+

"Lord Stannis is lost in the storm," said Lady Dustin. "He's leagues away, dead or dying. Let winter do its worst. A few more days and the snows will bury him and his army both."

And us as well, thought Theon, marveling at her folly. Lady Barbrey was of the north and should have known better. The old gods might be listening.

It's up to you to decide whether she's as foolish as she seems.

My stance remains the same. She is.

+.+.+

"Never touch me," he said, twisting down to snatch the fallen utensil off the floor before one of Ramsay's girls could get hold of it. "Never touch me."

She sat down next to him, too close, another of Abel's washerwomen. This one was young, fifteen or maybe sixteen, with shaggy blond hair in need of a good wash and a pair of pouty lips in need of a good kiss. "Some girls like to touch," she said, with a little half-smile. "If it please m'lord, I'm Holly."

Holly the whore, he thought, but she was pretty enough. Once he might have laughed and pulled her into his lap, but that day was done. "What do you want?"

"To see these crypts. Where are they, m'lord? Would you show me?" Holly toyed with a strand of her hair, coiling it around her little finger. "Deep and dark, they say. A good place for touching. All the dead kings watching."

"Did Abel send you to me?"

"Might be. Might be I sent myself. But if it's Abel you're wanting, I could bring him. He'll sing m'lord a sweet song."

Every word she said persuaded Theon that this was all some ploy. But whose, and to what end? What could Abel want of him? The man was just a singer, a pander with a lute and a false smile. He wants to know how I took the castle, but not to make a song of it. The answer came to him. He wants to know how we got in so he can get out. Lord Bolton had Winterfell sewn up tight as a babe's swaddling clothes. No one could come or go without his leave. He wants to flee, him and his washerwoman. 

Theon correctly deduces Mance and his washerwomen are looking for a way out.

That's fantastic, but we also have every reason to believe Mance went to Winterfell with more than one goal.

Does she never sleep? What game are you playing, priestess? Did you have some other task for Mance? - Jon IX, ADWD

x

Mance Rayder and his spearwives had not returned, and Jon could not help but wonder whether the red woman had lied of a purpose. Is she playing her own game? - Jon X, ADWD

x

He wondered where Mance was now. Did he ever find you, little sister? Or were you just a ploy he used so I would set him free? - Jon XI, ADWD

Why is the wildling interested in the crypts?

"The steps go farther down," observed Lady Dustin.

"There are lower levels. Older. The lowest level is partly collapsed, I hear. I have never been down there." - The Turncloak, ADWD

What is on the lower levels?

+.+.+

Theon groped his way to the wall, then followed it to the Battlements Gate. He might have taken the guards for a pair of Little Walder's snowmen if he had not seen the white plumes of their breath. "I want to walk the walls," he told them, his own breath frosting in the air.

"Bloody cold up there," one warned.

"Bloody cold down here," the other said, "but you do as you like, turncloak." He waved Theon through the gate.

The steps were snow-packed and slippery, treacherous in the dark. Once he reached the wallwalk, it did not take him long to find the place where they'd thrown down the freerider. He knocked aside the wall of fresh-fallen snow filling up the crenel and leaned out between the merlons. I could jump, he thought. He lived, why shouldn't I? He could jump, and … And what? Break a leg and die beneath the snow? Creep away to freeze to death?

✨ foreshadowing ✨

Want to know how stupid the fandom is?

Euron turned to face him, his bruised blue lips curled in a half smile. "Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?" The wind came gusting through the window and stirred his sable cloak. There was something obscene and disturbing about his nakedness. "No man ever truly knows what he can do unless he dares to leap." - The Reaver, AFFC

Looking back that's such obvious Theon foreshadowing, yet everyone in the world thinks it means Euron is somehow tied to Bloodraven.

We're going to ignore the fact that I also didn't make the connection to Theon at the time.

+.+.+

The next morning Ser Aenys Frey's grizzled squire was found naked and dead of exposure in the old castle lichyard, his face so obscured by hoarfrost that he appeared to be wearing a mask. Ser Aenys put it forth that the man had drunk too much and gotten lost in the storm, though no one could explain why he had taken off his clothes to go outside. Another drunkard, Theon thought. Wine could drown a host of suspicions.

Then, before the day was done, a crossbowman sworn to the Flints turned up in the stables with a broken skull. Kicked by a horse, Lord Ramsay declared. A club, more like, Theon decided.

The second murder is a naked Frey squire found in the lichyard.

Makes perfect sense it was a washerwoman seducing the squire. They were spotted in the area in a previous Theon chapter.

Even here in this half-frozen lichyard of a castle, surrounded by snow and ice and death, there were women. Washerwomen. - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

However, Theon also frequently visits the lichyard at night, and is petrified of being naked.

"No." He could not let them take the clothes Lord Ramsay gave him. He could not let them see him. - Reek III, ADWD

x

Theon peeled his gloves off and held his hands up for them to see. It is not as if I stand before them naked. - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

The third murder is a Flint crossbowman found in the stables.

Nothing connecting the spearwives to the stables.

Quite the opposite for Theon, who has had several traumatic memories about the stables leading up to this.

The memory came back in a rush. Smiler's screams had sounded almost human. His mane afire, he had reared up on his hind legs, blind with pain, lashing out with his hooves. No, no. Not mine, he was not mine, Reek never had a horse. - Reek II, ADWD

x

He set my horse afire. That was the last sight he had seen the day the castle fell: Smiler burning, the flames leaping from his mane as he reared up, kicking, screaming, his eyes white with terror. Here in this very yard. - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

x

Beyond the tents the big destriers of the knights from White Harbor and the Twins were shivering in their horse lines. Ramsay had burned the stables when he sacked Winterfell, so his father had thrown up new ones twice as large as the old, to accommodate the warhorses and palfreys of his lords' bannermen and knights. - The Turncloak, ADWD

So far we have dead men sworn to the Ryswells, Freys, and Flints.

Do the spearwives know the internal politics of the north? I'll let you decide.

+.+.+

It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. Roose Bolton was playing the part that Theon had played the last time round, and the dead men were playing the parts of Aggar, Gynir Rednose, and Gelmarr the Grim. Reek was there too, he remembered, but he was a different Reek, a Reek with bloody hands and lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with sneak.

And which part are you playing, Theon?

Theon is correct, we've done this before. Not just Arya. In ACOK, there was another ghost in Winterfell causing mysterious deaths. We know it was Reek (Ramsay) who was responsible.

Theon pointing out the similarities seems to suggest this Reek (Theon) might be committing the murders again.

+.+.+

"How long must we sit here waiting for this king who never comes?" Ser Hosteen Frey demanded. "We should take the fight to Stannis and make an end to him."

[...]

Lord Wyman Manderly slapped his massive belly. "White Harbor does not fear to ride with you, Ser Hosteen. Lead us out, and my knights will ride behind you."

Ser Hosteen turned on the fat man. "Close enough to drive a lance through my back, aye. Where are my kin, Manderly? Tell me that. Your guests, who brought your son back to you."

Wyman Manderly is so funny. A treasure.

That is exactly what will happen.

Lord Bolton unrolled the parchment. "His host lies not three days' ride from here, snowbound and starving, and I for one am tired of waiting on his pleasure. Ser Hosteen, assemble your knights and men-at-arms by the main gates. As you are so eager for battle, you shall strike our first blow. Lord Wyman, gather your White Harbor men by the east gate. They shall go forth as well." - Theon I, ADWD

The Freys will fall in a lake, will the Manderlys be more lucky?

Unfortunately Stannis doesn't know Wyman Manderly conspires against the Boltons.

"Wyman Manderly." The king's mouth twisted in contempt. "Lord Too-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse. Too fat to come to me, yet he comes to Winterfell. Too fat to bend the knee and swear me his sword, yet now he wields that sword for Bolton. I sent my Onion Lord to treat with him, and Lord Too-Fat butchered him and mounted his head and hands on the walls of White Harbor for the Freys to gloat over. And the Freys... has the Red Wedding been forgotten?" - Theon I, TWOW

There's a lot of room for an oopsie here.

+.+.+

"His bones, you mean." Manderly speared a chunk of ham with his dagger. "I recall them well. Rhaegar of the round shoulders, with his glib tongue. Bold Ser Jared, so swift to draw his steel. Symond the spymaster, always clinking coins. They brought home Wendel's bones. It was Tywin Lannister who returned Wylis to me, safe and whole, as he had promised. A man of his word, Lord Tywin, Seven save his soul." Lord Wyman popped the meat into his mouth, chewed it noisily, smacked his lips, and said, "The road has many dangers, ser. I gave your brothers guest gifts when we took our leave of White Harbor. We swore we would meet again at the wedding. Many and more bore witness to our parting."

Lol.

+.+.+

"Step out into the yard, you sack of suet, and I'll serve you all the bloody bits that you can stomach," Ser Hosteen said.

He might like that.

+.+.+

Wyman Manderly laughed, but half a dozen of his knights were on their feet at once. It fell to Roger Ryswell and Barbrey Dustin to calm them with quiet words. Roose Bolton said nothing at all. But Theon Greyjoy saw a look in his pale eyes that he had never seen before—an uneasiness, even a hint of fear.

Bwahahahahaha.

+.+.+

That night the new stable collapsed beneath the weight of the snow that had buried it. Twenty-six horses and two grooms died, crushed beneath the falling roof or smothered under the snows. It took the best part of the morning to dig out the bodies. 

Dear lord (@aegor-bamfsteel),

Please forgive me for laughing at all the imaginary dead horses. This does not represent who I am as a person.

Anyway, what kind of northerner doesn't know you have to remove heavy snow from an unstable roof? Please, George.

+.+.+

And no sooner had the men finished digging out the dead men and butchering the horses than another corpse was found.

This one could not be waved away as some drunken tumble or the kick of a horse. The dead man was one of Ramsay's favorites, the squat, scrofulous, ill-favored man-at-arms called Yellow Dick. Whether his dick had actually been yellow was hard to determine, as someone had sliced it off and stuffed it into his mouth so forcefully they had broken three of his teeth. When the cooks found him outside the kitchens, buried up to his neck in a snowdrift, both dick and man were blue from cold. 

The fourth murder is Yellow Dick, one of Ramsay's favourites.

His teeth are broken (!), and his penis is cut off (!!!).

He rubbed his mouth to hide his broken teeth, and said, "I need to speak with your commander." - Reek II, ADWD

x

"Reek, get over here. Get her ready for me."

For a moment he did not understand. "I … do you mean … m'lord, I have no … I …" - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

A penis shoved in the mouth of one of Ramsay's favourites feels a little personal to me. What about you?

+.+.+

"Burn the body," Roose Bolton ordered, "and see that you do not speak of this. I'll not have this tale spread."

The tale spread nonetheless. By midday most of Winterfell had heard, many from the lips of Ramsay Bolton, whose "boy" Yellow Dick had been. 

I bet Roose is thrilled Ramsay can't keep his mouth shut.

+.+.+

The horsemeat was too tough for the ruins of Theon's teeth. His attempts to chew gave him excruciating pain. So he mashed the neeps and onions up together with the flat of his dagger and made a meal of that, then cut the horse up very small, sucked on each piece, and spat it out. 

Quick reminder of the state of Theon's mouth.

Dagger! Highlighting for later.

+.+.+

Lord Bolton commanded Abel to play for them as they ate. The bard sang "Iron Lances," then "The Winter Maid." When Barbrey Dustin asked for something more cheerful, he gave them "The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, the King Took Off His Crown," and "The Bear and the Maiden Fair." The Freys joined the singing, and even a few northmen slammed their fists on the table to the chorus, bellowing, "A bear! A bear!" But the noise frightened the horses, so the singers soon let off and the music died away.

[...]

He fled quickly, before they changed their minds. His tormentors would not follow him outside. Not so long as there was food and drink within, willing women and warm fires. As he left the hall, Abel was singing "The Maids That Bloom in Spring."

I'll let you guys read into the songs.

I'm mostly including this so everyone knows Mance is accounted for, and can't be the Hooded Man.

Seriously, the amount of people I saw speculating it was Mance would blow your mind. When I say people can't read I mean they can't read.

+.+.+

Outside the snow was coming down so heavily that Theon could not see more than three feet ahead of him. He found himself alone in a white wilderness, walls of snow looming up to either side of him chest high. When he raised his head, the snowflakes brushed his cheeks like cold soft kisses. He could hear the sound of music from the hall behind him. A soft song now, and sad. For a moment he felt almost at peace.

Did you know people use this to dismiss the jonsa in Sansa's drifting snowflakes? Lol.

Poor bastards don't know about the prologue.

+.+.+

Farther on, he came upon a man striding in the opposite direction, a hooded cloak flapping behind him. When they found themselves face-to-face their eyes met briefly. The man put a hand on his dagger. "Theon Turncloak. Theon Kinslayer."

"I'm not. I never … I was ironborn."

"False is all you were. How is it you still breathe?"

"The gods are not done with me," Theon answered, wondering if this could be the killer, the night walker who had stuffed Yellow Dick's cock into his mouth and pushed Roger Ryswell's groom off the battlements. Oddly, he was not afraid. He pulled the glove from his left hand. "Lord Ramsay is not done with me."

The man looked, and laughed. "I leave you to him, then."

Theon trudged through the storm until his arms and legs were caked with snow and his hands and feet had gone numb from cold, then climbed to the battlements of the inner wall again.

Oh goodie, is it time for another meta?

Who is the Hooded Man? Wait until you see how many candidates we have to cover. I'm truly blessed.

I'll leave Theon for last, but to start off I'll let everyone know the general consensus is the Theon Durden theory.

In the movie Fight Club, Tyler Durden is a figment of the The Narrator's imagination. Many theorize the Hooded Man is a manifestation of Theon's own psyche. Theon Durden.

Okay, let's get to it.

THE CANDIDATES

A Banefort

Who? Yeah, exactly. House Banefort of the Westerlands has a black hooded man on a grey field as their sigil.

Um, Black Hood is a comic book reference.

Benjen Stark

One of the more popular theories.

Why Benjen? Benjen is a missing Stark, there's a bizarre belief within the fandom that a Stark literally needs to be at Winterfell at all times or the world will collapse, and there's an exchange between him and Bran that people have read far too much into.

At the feast in honor of King Robert's visit to Winterfell, Bran had recited the names for his uncle Benjen, east to west and then west to east. Benjen Stark had laughed and said, "You know them better than I do, Bran. Perhaps you should be First Ranger. I'll stay here in your place." - Bran III, ASOS

Anyone who believes Benjen Stark could walk around Winterfell unnoticed is crazy.

Brynden "Blackfish" Tully

Missing, major character, and another Stark loyalist.

Same as Benjen, you don't think someone would have recognized Blackfish by now?

Besides, the former Knight of the Gate is going to the Vale, the ellipsis of truth told me so.

And if Ser Brynden should survive this siege, he might be inclined to claim Riverrun in his own name . . . or in the name of young Robert Arryn. - Jaime V, AFFC

Faceless Man

The Faceless Men are known for infiltrating castles and causing mischief, but there's zero evidence supporting this.

Galbart Glover

Master of Deepwood Motte, last seen in ASOS where he was sent to the Neck with Maege Mormont.

Personally I think he's sitting on a far bigger developing storyline.

Hallis Mollen 

The second most popular theory ... yeah, you read that right.

Do you remember Hallis Mollen? Probably not. Member of Eddard Stark's household guard, tends to state the obvious, and was tasked with bringing Ned Stark's bones back to Winterfell in ACOK.

Hallis has been missing for quite awhile, and we're one Theon chapter removed from being reminded of Ned Stark's bones by Barbrey Dustin. Not only that, but Hallis Mollen = Hooded Man. Suspicious, right?

Wrong.

Are we seriously doing this? Hallis Mollen magically got to Winterfell with Ned's bones, and now he wanders around with a knife? Okay, and now what? He dismantles the Bolton empire from the inside?

Leave it to the fandom to take a nothing character and give him one of the most important roles in the north.

Now that I think about it, maybe Val is the Hooded Man.

Harwin

Another popular theory. Wow.

Current member of the brotherhood without banners, former member of the Stark household guard, and horse whisperer. Knows Arya is alive, and might have been motivated to come save her. The brotherhood without banners have infiltrated Riverrun, why not Winterfell?

Because it's stupid.

This is not Harwin. Have people forgotten how many clues there were that pointed to Tom Sevenstrings being the singer?

Hother "Whoresbane" Umber

It's implied all the high lords are in the Great Hall eating.

Umber is big picture betrayal, not petty murder betrayal.

Howland Reed 

Stark loyalist, and eagerly awaiting his debut. Not to mention Howland Reed is actually every character in the story. Hooded Man? Howland Reed. The Knight of the Laughing Tree? Howland Reed. The High Sparrow? Howland Reed. Ser Shadrich? Howland Reed. Septa Lemore? Howland Reed.

If it was Howland, guaranteed Theon would have commented on the height of the man.

Mance Rayder

I'm speechless. We just saw him, he's in the Great Hall singing.

I swear to god introducing glamor to the story broke so many brains.

Mors "Crowfood" Umber

Stark loyalist, commits to Stannis, shows up right outside the castle by the end of this chapter, and calls Theon a kinslayer in the next book.

Uh, how is he getting in and out? Theon never connects Mors to the Hooded Man in the sample chapter. He's also a huge man, and that would have been mentioned.

Mountain Clansman

What? They're with Stannis.

Random Unnamed Northman Loyal to the Starks

Surprisingly popular theory.

I mean, maybe? Kind of hard to refute this. I don't mind when unnamed smallfolk are elevated within the story, but it's unlikely.

Robett Glover

Last seen conspiring against the Boltons with Manderly and Davos at White Harbor.

We don't know his current whereabouts, but he's not worth serious consideration. What is the point of Robett Glover being the Hooded Man? Wyman Manderly is already inside the castle, and could execute the same plot.

Rodrik Cassel

Oh my god.

I'm not lying, I came across this idea several times.

The Miller

As in the miller's wife's miller.

Jesus Christ. No.

___

All of these theories suck hard.

Which brings us to our final candidate.

Theon "Durden" Greyjoy

How very George R. R. Martin.

Farther on, he came upon a man striding in the opposite direction

Sounds symbolic. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden is everything The Narrator wishes he could be. Worth pointing out, after this encounter Theon's name will return as the header for his chapters.

One thing I think people miss is that if they're walking in opposite directions, the Hooded Man is walking towards the Great Hall. Why in the world would Benjen or Blackfish walk towards the Great Hall?

a hooded cloak flapping behind him.

Theon wears hooded cloaks.

Ice crunched beneath his boots, and a sudden gust pushed back his hood, as if a ghost had plucked at him with frozen fingers, hungry to gaze upon his face. - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

Babe, why are you hiding your face?

To be fair, many characters are described wearing hooded cloaks.

When they found themselves face-to-face their eyes met briefly.

Not explicitly stated, but it's implied they're similar height. Sorry to Howland and the Umber brothers.

Theon doesn't name the Hooded Man. Theon should be familiar with almost every notable figure from the north. He grew up in Winterfell, and was right by Robb's side throughout the war.

The man put a hand on his dagger.

Dagger!

A lot of attention is paid to the dagger Theon carries on his hip.

He could feel his missing fingers cramping: two on his left hand, one on his right. And on his hip his dagger rested, sleeping in its leather sheath, but heavy, oh so heavy. It is only my pinky gone on my right hand, Theon reminded himself. - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

To be fair, many people in Winterfell are described carrying daggers.

No longswords had been allowed within the hall, but every man there wore a dagger, even Theon Greyjoy. How else to cut his meat? - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

"Theon Turncloak. Theon Kinslayer."

The Hooded Man recognizes Theon despite Theon's altered appearance. Is that bad news for the Harwin and Hallis crowd?

More important, this is the first person to ever call Theon a kinslayer.

Theon will refer to himself as a brother to Ned's children in this same chapter.

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. - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

To be fair, Rowan the spearwife and Mors Umber will also call him a kinslayer.

"False is all you were. How is it you still breathe?" "The gods are not done with me," Theon answered

Where did you get that idea from?

If you've been following along you know Theon has been doing a whole lot of not killing himself despite claiming he wants to die.

Theon answered, wondering if this could be the killer, the night walker who had stuffed Yellow Dick's cock into his mouth and pushed Roger Ryswell's groom off the battlements.

If Theon is the Hooded Man he just questioned whether he's the murderer.

Oddly, he was not afraid. He pulled the glove from his left hand. "Lord Ramsay is not done with me."

Oddly, indeed. Theon isn't frightened of the Hooded Man, and volunteers his hand. Theon hates showing people his hands.

Later in this chapter he'll be approached by washerwomen, and won't come off quite as confident.

"I told you. I want to touch you, turncloak." Holly smiled. In her hand a blade appeared.

I could scream, Theon thought. Someone will hear. The castle is full of armed men. He would be dead before help reached him, to be sure, his blood soaking into the ground to feed the heart tree. And what would be so wrong with that? - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

The man looked, and laughed. "I leave you to him, then."

Theon never laughs in ADWD. Not once.

If he had dared, he would have laughed. - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

x

Once he might have laughed and pulled her into his lap, but that day was done. - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

x

Theon would have laughed aloud if he'd remembered how. - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

x

Theon would have laughed if he had dared. - Theon I, ADWD

Does this mean the Hooded Man isn't Theon?

No. Tyler Durden is everything The Narrator wishes he could be. Theon Durden would laugh. He might also do a few murders that Reek isn't capable of.

We'll cover this again a little later.

___

ADDITIONAL ARGUMENTS

If Theon is the Hooded Man, it makes complete sense that Theon is also the ghost in Winterfell. If Theon is the ghost in Winterfell, it makes complete sense that Theon is also the Hooded Man. They work better in tandem.

If the Hooded Man isn't Theon, what the hell is he doing? It's Theon or the washerwomen killing all the men. If the Hooded Man isn't Theon he's just some dude walking around with a dagger he apparently doesn't know how to use.

Theon calls himself a ghost in Winterfell. The Hooded Man is a perfect embodiment of a ghost in Winterfell.

I made reference to it before but it bears repeating. If the Hooded Man is Theon Grejoy, it's so George R. R. Martin it hurts. Remember, it's Cersei who is the YMBQ. It's Daenerys who is the focus of almost every vision she's shown from The House of the Undying.

"Murdered by whose hand?" Cersei demanded.

"Have you ever considered that too many answers are the same as no answer at all? - Tyrion VIII, ADWD

___

THEON DURDEN COUNTER-ARGUMENTS

Theon is shown to be recovering mentally with each passing chapter, why has he suddenly developed schizophrenia?

Let me combine this with the next point.

Why is this not happening in a dream? George always writes characters having self-confrontations through dreams. Theon has an extensive history of this.

The reason it's not happening in a dream, and the reason he could be having sudden delusions, is because Theon suffers from insomnia. He can't sleep.

Though his arms and legs were thin as reeds, his belly was swollen and hollow, and ached so much that he found he could not sleep. - Reek I

x

Last night, unable to sleep, Theon had found himself brooding on escape, of slipping away unseen whilst Ramsay and his lord father had their attention elsewhere. - The Turncloak, ADWD

x

"I cannot sleep, m'lord. I walk." - A Ghost in Winterfell

x

The hour of the wolf found him still awake, wrapped in layers of heavy wool and greasy fur, walking yet another circuit of the inner walls, hoping to exhaust himself enough to sleep. - A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD

In Fight Club, The Narrator very famously has insomnia. It's the reason he hallucinates an alter ego.

Regardless, I would argue the encounter feels like a dream anyway. The Hooded Man exists for precisely this one moment, and is never thought of again.

Why doesn't he recognize himself?

Why doesn't The Narrator recognize Tyler Durden as his alternate self?

Putting aside the fact that Theon is having one hell of an identity crisis throughout this book, if you read it again, I'm not even sure that's an accurate takeaway.

Why does he call himself a kinslayer?

Yeah, that's a head-scratcher.

Theon didn't kill Bran and Rickon. He knows he's not a kinslayer.

Many have suggested Theon might know the miller's boys were his. Listen, I hate Theon, but even I don't think he's capable of killing kids he suspects are his own.

My only explanation for this is that he blames himself for his brother Robb dying.

I got nothing else. I did my best.

+.+.+

He was trapped here, with the ghosts. The old ghosts from the crypts and the younger ones that he had made himself, Mikken and Farlen, Gynir Rednose, Aggar, Gelmarr the Grim, the miller's wife from Acorn Water and her two young sons, and all the rest. My work. My ghosts. They are all here, and they are angry. He thought of the crypts and those missing swords.

Ghosts he had made himself. His work. His ghosts. Mmkay.

Shoutout to @agentrouka-blog for reminding me of this killer Tyrion quote.

There are worse ways to die than drowning. And if truth be told, he had perished long ago, back in King's Landing. It was only his revenant who remained, the small vengeful ghost who throttled Shae and put a crossbow bolt through the great Lord Tywin's bowels. No man would mourn the thing that he'd become. I'll haunt the Seven Kingdoms, he thought, sinking deeper. They would not love me living, so let them dread me dead. - Tyrion V, ADWD

x

There are ghosts in Winterfell, he thought, and I am one of them. - The Turncloak, ADWD

+.+.+

Steelshanks led him back to the Great Keep and the solar that had once been Eddard Stark's. Lord Bolton was not alone. Lady Dustin sat with him, pale-faced and severe; an iron horsehead brooch clasped Roger Ryswell's cloak; Aenys Frey stood near the fire, pinched cheeks flushed with cold.

Notice how Roose didn't invite Ramsay, the lord of this castle and his supposed heir, to the meeting of Very Important People?

The rift between father and son is subtle, but it's there.

+.+.+

"I am told you have been wandering the castle," Lord Bolton began. "Men have reported seeing you in the stables, in the kitchens, in the barracks, on the battlements. You have been observed near the ruins of collapsed keeps, outside Lady Catelyn's old sept, coming and going from the godswood. Do you deny it?"

The author officially indicates the killer might be Theon.

+.+.+

"No, m'lord." Theon made sure to muddy up the word. He knew that pleased Lord Bolton. "I cannot sleep, m'lord. I walk." He kept his head down, fixed upon the old stale rushes scattered on the floor. It was not wise to look his lordship in the face.

Roose preferring Theon speak like a peasant is deranged.

+.+.+

"I was a boy here before the war. A ward of Eddard Stark."

"You were a hostage," Bolton said.

"Yes, m'lord. A hostage." It was my home, though. Not a true home, but the best I ever knew.

Is there a sadder character?

+.+.+

"Someone has been killing my men."

"Yes, m'lord."

"Not you, I trust?" Bolton's voice grew even softer. "You would not repay all my kindnesses with such treachery."

"No, m'lord, not me. I wouldn't. I … only walk, is all."

Normally I would jump out of my seat at that ellipsis of (un)truth, but Theon's dialogue is always written in this manner, so I don't know.

Damn, I want to believe in the ellipsis of (un)truth so bad.

+.+.+

Lady Dustin spoke up. "Take off your gloves."

Theon glanced up sharply. "Please, no. I … I …"

"Do as she says," Ser Aenys said. "Show us your hands."

Theon peeled his gloves off and held his hands up for them to see. It is not as if I stand before them naked. It is not so bad as that.

. . .

(Look who doesn't want to take off their gloves.)

+.+.+

Theon peeled his gloves off and held his hands up for them to see. It is not as if I stand before them naked. It is not so bad as that. His left hand had three fingers, his right four. Ramsay had taken only the pinky off the one, the ring finger and forefingers from the other.

"The Bastard did this to you," Lady Dustin said.

She's comfortable calling Ramsay a bastard in front of Roose because Roose doesn't care.

+.+.+

"Four is enough." Ser Aenys Frey fingered the wispy brown beard that sprouted from his weak chin like a rat's tail. "Four on his right hand. He could still hold a sword. A dagger."

Lady Dustin laughed. "Are all Freys such fools? Look at him. Hold a dagger? He hardly has the strength to hold a spoon. Do you truly think he could have overcome the Bastard's disgusting creature and shoved his manhood down his throat?"

"These dead were all strong men," said Roger Ryswell, "and none of them were stabbed. The turncloak's not our killer."

Roose Bolton's pale eyes were fixed on Theon, as sharp as Skinner's flaying knife. "I am inclined to agree. Strength aside, he does not have it in him to betray my son."

Are you not all side-eyeing this exchange?

They're LAUGHING at the prospect of it being Theon. It's simply impossible! Look at this pathetic weak man! Too broken to ever plot betrayal!

Is that not making your brain itch? This is the exact same dismissal Wyman Manderly receives from these people.

Are we sure it's the spearwives? Are we?

Strength aside, he does not have it in him to betray my son.

He does. :D

What about strength? Admittedly, that's the biggest issue with the theory. These men weren't stabbed. Is Theon capable of overpowering all the men he potentially killed?

I can't answer that question, but I think Theon gives himself more credit than Barbrey Dustin does.

Fear went through him like a knife. They are only children, he thought. Two boys of eight. He could overcome two boys of eight, surely. Even as weak as he was, he could take the torch, take the keys, take the dagger sheathed on Little Walder's hip, escape. - Reek I, ADWD

x

It is only my pinky gone on my right hand, Theon reminded himself. I can still grip a knife. - The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

Side note, have to throw it in for fun:

Victarion is like some great grey bullock, strong and tireless and dutiful, but not like to win any races. No doubt, he'll serve me as loyally as he has served my lord father. He has neither the wits nor the ambition to plot betrayal.

He does. :D

+.+.+

Roger Ryswell grunted. "If not him, who? Stannis has some man inside the castle, that's plain."

Reek is no man. Not Reek. Not me. He wondered if Lady Dustin had told them about the crypts, the missing swords.

This has such guilty dog energy.

Not Reek. Not me. Theon Durden!

He thought of the crypts and those missing swords.

x

He wondered if Lady Dustin had told them about the crypts, the missing swords.

Kind of hilarious he's consumed with the missing swords, but not a hooded man with a dagger prowling around Winterfell.

+.+.+

"We must look at Manderly," muttered Ser Aenys Frey. "Lord Wyman loves us not."

Ryswell was not convinced. "He loves his steaks and chops and meat pies, though. Prowling the castle by dark would require him to leave the table. The only time he does that is when he seeks the privy for one of his hourlong squats."

Or to plot treason with Davos Seaworth.

+.+.+

"I do not claim Lord Wyman does the deeds himself. He brought three hundred men with him. A hundred knights. Any of them might have—"

"Night work is not knight's work," Lady Dustin said. "And Lord Wyman is not the only man who lost kin at your Red Wedding, Frey. Do you imagine Whoresbane loves you any better? If you did not hold the Greatjon, he would pull out your entrails and make you eat them, as Lady Hornwood ate her fingers. Flints, Cerwyns, Tallharts, Slates … they all had men with the Young Wolf."

"House Ryswell too," said Roger Ryswell.

"Even Dustins out of Barrowton." Lady Dustin parted her lips in a thin, feral smile. "The north remembers, Frey."

Barbrey's big moment that has the fandom convinced she's Team Stark.

All I see is a woman too chicken shit to acknowledge the Boltons are as culpable as the Freys.

+.+.+

"You are free to go. Take care where you wander. Else it might be you we find upon the morrow, smiling a red smile."

Roose should maybe ask himself why Theon, the most hated man in the castle, hasn't already been killed.

+.+.+

The hour of the wolf found him still awake, wrapped in layers of heavy wool and greasy fur, walking yet another circuit of the inner walls, hoping to exhaust himself enough to sleep. His legs were caked with snow to the knee, his head and shoulders shrouded in white. On this stretch of the wall the wind was in his face, and melting snow ran down his cheeks like icy tears.

Kind of sounds like a ghost.

+.+.+

Then he heard the horn.

A long low moan, it seemed to hang above the battlements, lingering in the black air, soaking deep into the bones of every man who heard it. All along the castle walls, sentries turned toward the sound, their hands tightening around the shafts of their spears. In the ruined halls and keeps of Winterfell, lords hushed other lords, horses nickered, and sleepers stirred in their dark corners. No sooner had the sound of the warhorn died away than a drum began to beat: BOOM doom BOOM doom BOOM doom. And a name passed from the lips of each man to the next, written in small white puffs of breath. Stannis, they whispered, Stannis is here, Stannis is come, Stannis, Stannis, Stannis.

Mors Umber, not Stannis.

"We had expected to find the king at Winterfell. This same blizzard has engulfed the castle, alas. Beneath its walls we found Mors Umber with a troop of raw green boys, waiting for the king's coming. He gave us this." - The Sacrifice, ADWD

With Stannis stuck in the village, Mors is a sitting duck outside the castle.

+.+.+

Theon shivered. Baratheon or Bolton, it made no matter to him. Stannis had made common cause with Jon Snow at the Wall, and Jon would take his head off in a heartbeat. Plucked from the clutches of one bastard to die at the hands of another, what a jape. Theon would have laughed aloud if he'd remembered how.

Covered in Hooded Man, but I want to expand on it.

Theon gets his name back, and can't stop laughing in TWOW.

"None. No men." He grinned at his own wit. - Theon I, TWOW

x

"Their spears and axes were older than the hands that clutched them. It was Whoresbane Umber who had the men, inside the castle. I saw them too. Old men, every one." Theon tittered. - Theon I, TWOW

x

Theon Greyjoy kicked his feet feebly, and laughed under his breath. Caught! - Theon I, TWOW

x

Theon's laugh was half a titter, half a whimper. - Theon I, TWOW

Not so hard to believe Theon Durden would laugh.

+.+.+

"Do they mean to try and blow our walls down?" japed a Flint when the warhorn sounded once again. "Mayhaps he thinks he's found the Horn of Joramun."

That is such a bizarre addition to the chapter it makes you stop reading.

What's at the bottom of the crypts, George?

+.+.+

"We should take the fight to him," declared a Frey.

Do that, Theon thought. Ride out into the snow and die.

They will. :D

+.+.+

Leave Winterfell to me and the ghosts. Roose Bolton would welcome such a fight, he sensed. He needs an end to this. The castle was too crowded to withstand a long siege, and too many of the lords here were of uncertain loyalty. Fat Wyman Manderly, Whoresbane Umber, the men of House Hornwood and House Tallhart, the Lockes and Flints and Ryswells, all of them were northmen, sworn to House Stark for generations beyond count. It was the girl who held them here, Lord Eddard's blood, but the girl was just a mummer's ploy, a lamb in a direwolf's skin. So why not send the northmen forth to battle Stannis before the farce unraveled? Slaughter in the snow. And every man who falls is one less foe for the Dreadfort.

Theon recognizing it all falls apart without the girl.

Because of the inclusion of the Ryswells, I'm not automatically assigning all these houses Team Stark.

the girl was just a mummer's ploy, a lamb in a direwolf's skin

Not to be mistaken with that other mummer's ploy: a direwolf in dragon's scales.

+.+.+

Theon wondered if he might be allowed to fight. Then at least he might die a man's death, sword in hand. That was a gift Ramsay would never give him, but Lord Roose might. If I beg him. I did all he asked of me, I played my part, I gave the girl away.

Death was the sweetest deliverance he could hope for.

I'm not sure it will be a sword.

How many fingers do you need for a bow?

As the maester knelt to examine the wound, Bran turned his head. Theon Greyjoy stood beside a sentinel tree, his bow in hand. He was smiling. Ever smiling. A half-dozen arrows were thrust into the soft ground at his feet, but it had taken only one. "A dead enemy is a thing of beauty," he announced. - Bran V, AGOT

+.+.+

And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.

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."

Begging Bran to give his life purpose.

Is the boom DOOM supposed to feel like the Red Wedding?

+.+.+

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. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water. "I had to have two heads, else they would have mocked me … laughed at me … they …"

Not sure what to make of that bloody leafy hand. Is the pool important?

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.

I try to tolerate Theon. I really do.

+.+.+

A voice said, "Who are you talking to?"

Theon spun, terrified that Ramsay had found him, but it was just the washerwomen—Holly, Rowan, and one whose name he did not know. "The ghosts," he blurted. "They whisper to me. They … they know my name."

"Theon Turncloak." Rowan grabbed his ear, twisting. "You had to have two heads, did you?"

"Elsewise men would have laughed at him," said Holly.

They do not understand. Theon wrenched free. "What do you want?" he asked.

I'm not sure I'll ever understand how these wildlings became the biggest Stark loyalists in the story, or why they're prepared to die for Arya Stark, but whatever.

+.+.+

"I told you. I want to touch you, turncloak." Holly smiled. In her hand a blade appeared.

I could scream, Theon thought. Someone will hear. The castle is full of armed men. He would be dead before help reached him, to be sure, his blood soaking into the ground to feed the heart tree. And what would be so wrong with that? "Touch me," he said. "Kill me." There was more despair than defiance in his voice. "Go on. Do me, the way you did the others. Yellow Dick and the rest. It was you."

Holly laughed. "How could it be us? We're women. Teats and cunnies. Here to be fucked, not feared."

"Did the Bastard hurt you?" Rowan asked. "Chopped off your fingers, did he? Skinned your widdle toes? Knocked your teeth out? Poor lad." She patted his cheek. "There will be no more o' that, I promise. You prayed, and the gods sent us. You want to die as Theon? We'll give you that. A nice quick death, 'twill hardly hurt at all." She smiled. "But not till you've sung for Abel. He's waiting for you."

She laughs! She jokes. So obvious. Of course the washerwomen killed everyone ...

or did they.

Final thoughts:

I can't keep doing this. I'll be a puddle by the time we get to locusts.

One final thing I want to mention. The title of the chapter is A Ghost in Winterfell.

George abandoned his typical method of naming chapters.

The Prince of Winterfell, The Turncloak, The Dragontamer, The Griffin Reborn, The Discarded Knight, The Watcher, The Iron Captain, The Drowned Man, The Princess in the Tower, etc.

Unless it's a new name (Alayne, Reek, Cat, Mercy), George exclusively uses the instead of a.

Why does it change for this one chapter?

I don't know, but I can't help but feel that if it was 'The Ghost in Winterfell' the title reveals Theon as the murderer, whereas 'A Ghost in Winterfell' leaves it a mystery.

Okay, I'm crazy. I'll shut up now. It was the spearwives ...

or was it.

-> return to menu <-

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Arya 🤝 Sam

Using Jon's memory to curb their fears

"I'm not an owl," said Arya. "I'm a wolf. I'll howl."

Alone, she slid through the shadow of the Tower of Ghosts. She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. (Arya X, ACoK)

--

Do it now. Stop crying and fight, you baby. Fight, craven. It was his father he heard, it was Alliser Thorne, it was his brother Dickon and the boy Rast. Craven, craven, craven. He giggled hysterically, wondering if they would make a wight of him, a huge fat white wight always tripping over its own dead feet. Do it, Sam. Was that Jon, now? Jon was dead. You can do it, you can, just do it. And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

[ewinofthelake]

Slumping against her, he didn't seem to understand what was happening. What had happened. Until–

"You found me," he murmured as – incredulous and strained and so vulnerable – he focused on her.

A Man and a Girl and a Drabble update! Chapter 49: Roses and Rain

[first-of-her-nxme]

What if Gendry r*pes Arya? I was talking with someone about theories and they were telling me practically a whole book , they said something about Arya having a child but leaving it with Gendry and go away in the sea!! For some reason it brought me back a theory i read on your Quora about a r*pe that could potentially tie in Arya‘s arc or attempt.. My thoughts were maybe The Mountain now Robert Strong or Jaime (revenge on Ladystonehart or something) and maybe Gendry 🤔

Hi Anon!

It's not going to be Gendry. Gendry had already made a move that looked like rape but, luckily for Arya, it was only a stupid play. Do you remember that they were wrestling in the smithy? Gendry invited Arya to a secluded place and then he pushed her to the ground. They wrestled and Arya looked like a rape victim afterwards. Her pretty dress was ruined and all. It looked like a rape attempt: luring a girl to a secluded place, pushing her to the ground, tearing her dress. I really hope it was only stupidity on Gendry's part, not a real threat to Arya.

That scene had its function. Because it made Arya look like a victim of sexual abuse. Moreover, when the two of them returned from the smithy, Martin let us hear My Featherbed, a song about a Targaryen prince in love with a girl from the North.

This chain of events reflects what happened between Robert, Lyanna and Rhaegar. Lyanna and Rhaegar fell in love in Harrenhal and it made Robert furious. When Rhaegar left, Robert "demanded his rights". Lyanna pushed him away, ran off and married Rhaegar.

Gendry, Arya and Jaqen are involved in a love triangle, similar to that of Robert, Lyanna and Rhaegar.

GRRM said that Gendry and Arya have no future together. There won't be any baby. If Arya is going to be a mother someday, Jaqen will father her child/children.

But back to the rape threat. There are at least three scenes in the books that point to a Lannister threatening Arya.

First one is the prologue to A Feast for Crows where Rosey is a foil for Arya, Pate is a foil for Jaqen and Lazy Leo is a foil for Jaime. Leo tells Pate that he wants to rape Rosey and Pate warns him that he might kill him if he does.

Then, in A Dance with Dragons, we get a foreshadowing of Jaqen fighting Jaime. It's in Jon X chapter where Alys Karstark marries Sigorn. Here, Patchface is a foil for Jaqen and Owen the Oaf is a foil for Jaime. The two are dancing together during the wedding feast which makes everyone laugh. It is a metaphor for the fight between Jaqen and Jaime. I suppose the latter won't be a laughing thing.

We also get a foreshadowing of a Lannister raping Arya in the Mercy chapter from The Winds of Winter. Here, Arya is playing a rape victim in the play about the Stranger's revenge. In the play the rapist is Tyrion. It's a reminder of the love triangle that GRRM had originally planned for Tyrion, Arya and Jon. In the current version that would be Jaime, Arya and Jaqen.

The showrunners of Game of Thrones gave a nod to that part of the books when they showed Arya and Jaime at the Twins in the finale of season 7. Arya wore the disguise of a wench and was eye-flirting with Jaime. Nothing much happened between them because Jaqen, and the whole storyline that came with him, had been written off.

Thank you for dropping by, Anon. And I apologize for the delay.

[longeyelashedtragedy]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @tetrapod7 ...i did some of them already, but not all! so i might as well answer the ones i didn't already answer!

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 155! now that i have an anonymous fic these all will get more annoying to answer, looool

2. what's your total ao3 word count? 478,822

3. what fandoms do you write for? right now i just write for "men's football rpf." i'm occasionally tempted to write for the Old Fandom again.

4. top five fics by kudos: top 5 of all time are all from a song of ice and fire days:

drabbles of ice and fire

captivated

egg baby

arya saves the day

ends and beginnings

was i the best writer of aged-up arya/jaqen AUs in the fandom? uh, yes, since 4 of those are...that, lol.

if we're just talking footy though...

shakira ex machina

doce

two hundred words to say i love you

ça c'est ma dope

hairbrush

oh ffs...removing the crossovers....

shakira ex machina

two hundred words to say i love you

hairbrush

the right kind of blue

desperate times

5. do you respond to comments? sometimes....when i don't lose track 😭 i need to be better...

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? i answered that here!

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? ummm...not sure. could it be 5.VII? that's a really satisfying ending. i'll go ahead and say that one.

8. do you get hate on fics? only once, and it was a very pathetic stab at armchair activism "how dare you write a fic on this problematic topic" shit. it could happen again at any time i guess.

9. do you write smut? unfortunately...i'm not very good at it and it stresses me out.

10. craziest crossover: i wrote hozier x jaqen h'ghar for my bestie long ago and posted it at like ass am in zurich airport :')

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? yes! answered here. it was this rakidric! published 3 days before we all locked down. i have not read this in a zillion years.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? also answered here!

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? answered here but also i want to cowrite with someone so very much!

14. all time favorite ship? also answered here!

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? my ivantoine, "In The" :'( and others too...my post-WC modren for example. i'm wondering if Mare Liberum will ever be finished. we'll see...

16. what are your writing strengths? i think i am confident and experienced and that comes across (?) even things i wrote a while ago, that i think are "better" (more artistic, more daring) sound less experienced at the same time. my dialogue has improved so much. i think my fics have a good rhythm--varied sentence lengths, good use of repetition and parallelism, line breaks, etc. i like to think i can get people to empathize with/care about people they didn't expect. my writing helps me examine my own flaws. i am not sure what else? my bff said i describe love and loss really well <3

17. what are your writing weaknesses? i think i'm a weak writer, actually! i think my writing is shallow and always sounds the same. a lot of angsty endings, alienated characters, sounds more immature than it should. i don't know how to make porn hot (because i think strange things are hot, i guess?). truly, i've been grappling with how shallow it all sounds. i am a deep feeler (lol) but not a deep thinker at all and i think that shows.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? answered here

19. first fandom you wrote in? answered here!

20. favorite fic you've written? honestly--my favorites are probably still trophy boyfriend and then "chief of the armed forces" because that's just an absolute crackfic masterpiece. in footy...i probably should pick some favorites, no? let's go with dangerous, i tore off the golden branch, possible red card - violent conduct, rojo y blanco/crvena bijela, and 5.VII. i feel like some franko fics belong here but i just chose 5!