#please at least let her find out that Bran and Rickon are alive before she hears about Jon's death 😭

[fromtheseventhhell]

She could feel the hole inside her every morning when she woke. It wasn't hunger, though sometimes there was that too. It was a hollow place, an emptiness where her heart had been, where her brothers had lived, and her parents. Her head hurt too. Not as bad as it had at first, but still pretty bad. Arya was used to that, though, and at least the lump was going down. But the hole inside her stayed the same. The hole will never feel any better, she told herself when she went to sleep. (Arya XII, ASoS)

[7deadlycinderellas]

in the dark of the moon I planted, but there came an early snow 1/4

Ao3 link

It hadn’t been hard, really.

The Hound had been far too distracted by filling his gut with his coveted chicken that he hadn’t realized she’d slipped away. With Needle clutched tightly in one hand and blood still rushing under her skin from killing Polliver, it had been easy. The stout gray mare tied up outside had shown no distress at her untying and mounting her. She moved surprisingly fast for an old nag.

The day after she leaves, it begins to rain. She doesn’t feel the cold or the wet. She’s just pleased it’s covering her trail.

That day the hunger begins to get at her. All she manages to find is a handful of berries, and she barely checks to see if they appear to look edible before shoveling them down. Might that be better, if they gave her stomach cramps and shakes and she died out here, alone.

She has no idea where she’s going. Is she still in the Riverlands? She thinks about finding a village, it’s dangerous out here for a lone girl.

She finds one one day, and stares from out in the trees. The people look blessedly ordinary. They push their carts and smile and laugh. Their buildings are still in shambles. The war has not stopped here. Arya sees several crying.

Arya turns her back to them and leaves.

She wonders if the Hound is still following her.

The rain continues, and the air becomes colder.

The hunger pit in her stomach gets stronger the further she rides. It grows and grows and threatens to swallow her alive. To burst forth from her gut, a demon all it’s own.

She steals a loaf of bread off a windowsill. The beast abates, enough for the girl to feel guilt.

She’s getting closer to the sea, she thinks at least. The smell of salt is on the air, the way it was on the Kingsroad when they passed through the Riverlands. She guesses that she’s heading southeast,  she’d tried so hard to turn away from the Eyrie, and away from wherever it was the Hound wanted to take her. Her Aunt Lysa. She might be her only remaining family, but Arya has never met her.

At night, as she recites her list, her mind cycles through their faces.

Her father, she is glad Yoren stopped her from seeing him. Her mother, throat slit from ear to ear like that Frey man had laughed about. Robb and Grey Wind, defiled even in death.There are rumours out of Winterfell, about Bran and Rickon that she can’t even contemplate.

Who knew what had even become of Jon, at the wall?

Sansa, wed to a Lannister, rumor had it. Though Arya mused, the Imp was far superior to Joffrey. Lost to her either way.

She doesn’t let herself think of Gendry, of his face as they dragged him off tied like a hog, sold for coin like one too.

Afterwards, she goes through her list of names again, before passing out with Needle on her lap.

She keeps her ears perked up, and at the tiniest hint of voices in the distance, she and the old nag will flee.

One night, she hears men laughing. Even without hearing their words she feels the rage ball up in her chest and has to press her head into the ground to try and block it out. They’re probably only laughing at a fart.

Though most days she prefers the rage to the numbness.

She tries to exhaust herself, so that the dreams won’t plague her. Even the wolf dreams, where she runs through the underbrush, the scent of blood on her nose, don’t please her the way they used to. If she ran into Nymeria, would she even let her see her? Or had she gone wild again?

The smell of salt leaves the air, and Arya’s less sure of where she’s going. Eventually, she finds another village, but to call it a village seems wrong. It’s a corpse. Buildings are crumbled, destroyed, burned. The fields too. The people too, walk around as though dead themselves.

Arya remembers vaguely hearing about the rampage committed by Lannister men led by the Mountain. That had been near Pinkmaiden. Clearly she was further west than she had first thought.

It was easy enough to tie Nan (she’d decided sometime before Nan was a good enough name for a horse) to a tree and begin helping the men and boys who were clearing debris. They don’t ask questions.

She’s not sure how long she’s been here, fetching and carrying, sleeping in the woods, eating the gruel they all share when they have it, not talking to people. Maybe a sennight or two. It rains the whole time.

It helps. She still feels cold and angry inside, but now she’s too tired to dwell on it, and in the freezing rain she supposes no one else can tell.

Sometime past the third sennight, one of the women who brings them food twice a day shoves a bowl of gruel into her hands and tells her to take it to the smithy.

“We need more nails, and he don’t come outside for nothing it seems.”

The forge could barely be called a building anymore, half of it’s roof has been caved in and smoke billows from it. But it is still being worked.

She didn’t give it any sort of thought. There were thousands of blacksmiths across all of Westeros, every keep and every town and every village had one.

She had absolutely no reason to think that when she came in and called out, “the men need more nails”, the smith would turn to her voice and she would meet a pair of blue eyes she was certain belonged to a dead man.

She drops the bowl.

Sometime later, over the remains of the gruel, she asks.

“What did the Red Woman want with you?”

Gendry wipes his mouth and says, as slowly as possible.

“My blood. She would have killed me, but one of Stannis’s men put me in a boat and set me free.”

Arya is skeptical.

“You got here from a boat?”

Gendry shrugs.

“I can’t row, or swim. I tried to follow Ser Davos’s directions….but I got lost. Got out as soon as I saw dry land. Meant to head back to King’s Landing, got lost again. People here needed help, seemed a good enough place. Better than King’s Landing. No kings and queens.”

No kings and queens to help them rebuild from the rampage of the king’s man, Arya thought.

They’ve finished up, and Arya plans to leave to sleep beside Nan again, when Gendry asks.

“What about you?”

Arya had been hoping he wouldn’t ask.

“I ran from the Brotherhood, got grabbed by the Hound. Immediately. Made it to the Twins, then we left. He let his guard down and I ran again.”

Gendry’s face goes cold. It’s not been warm before, not even like it had been when she’d seen him last.

“There-there have been stories making their way here about the Twins…”

Arya’s voice is even, dead.

“They’re true. I was there. I was outside. They killed my mother, my brother, his wife, their child, most of their men. Many men I’ve known since I was a child. They slit my mother’s throat and threw her body in the river. They killed my brother’s wolf too, cut off his head and sewed it to Robb’s body…”

Her words are pointed. Saying them makes the ice in her gut begin to burn again. It’s something more than the nothing that it’s been.

Gendry, to his credit, lets her talk.

When night falls, Arya looks him up and down.

“Where have you been sleeping?”

He points to a blanket in the corner, in the part of the forge that still has a roof.

He has a blanket, she has a horse. They’ll get soaked either way, so when she tilts her head out the door, he follows her without comment.

Her stomach swoops slightly, when she realizes that in the handful of moons since she’d seen him, she’s already gotten a bit taller.

The first night, overcome by the memories of the nights on the road to Harrenhal, she rolls onto her side and lays a hand across his shoulder.

His muscles tense up underneath her fingers.

“Please don’t touch me.”

His voice is rough, rougher than she’s heard him before. She obeys, rolling to lay in the opposite direction, heart a little more of a hole than before.

In the morning, she shows him Needle.

“The Hound and I found Polliver. A fight ensued, I got this back and stabbed him through the throat.”

“Just like Lommy,” Gendry says, with understanding. He doesn’t flinch. Maybe someday she’ll even tell him about the stable boy.

It’s while they’re still in Pinkmaiden that they hear what happened to Joffrey.

As soon as they’re away from the others, Arya doubles over in laughter. It’s hollow laughter.

“I wanted to be the one to do it,” she admits, “I thought I’d slit his throat with Needle, or poison him, or choke him on a chicken bone if I had to.”

She giggles more at the thought of Joffrey’s beautiful golden face purple with lack of air.

“At least that’s one name off your list.”

She still recites the list every night, without fail. She leaves on the Red Woman and the others, and she feels Gendry shift at her back every time. His breathing is rough, even in sleep, and some nights he tosses and turns. Bad dreams, Arya imagines, much like her.

After maybe two or three moons, Arya’s feet feel the need to shift underneath her.

“I don’t think we should stay here,” she tells Gendry, “As things get better here, people will start to talk, to ask questions. Especially if they see me with Needle.”

A girl wearing trousers was unusual enough, a girl with trousers and a sword would definitely be remembered. And though she knows she’s no beauty, she has felt her arms and legs lengthening and suspects her years of disguising herself as a boy are coming to an end.

The first days in Pinkmaiden, Arya had tucked Needle carefully away under a rock near where Nan was tied. Once she’d found Gendry, she’d taken to leaving it in the forge.

Gendry’s face is grave.

“Where can we go?”

Arya sighs, tucking her knees up to her chest.

“I don’t know. Winterfell has been taken, Riverrun’s under control of the Freys. The Hound is probably still in the Vale trying to find me. I’m not going back to King’s Landing. I don’t know enough about the Stormlands or the Reach to risk it…”

Gendry’s quiet for a long time.

“We could just pick a direction and go. If something happens, we’ll pick up and move again. We’re getting good at it.”

She looks at him, a touch of longing in her eyes. He doesn’t want to leave her again. And she supposes that that’s something.

They set off in the night, with little more than the clothes on their backs and some of Gendry’s tools. They still have Nan though, and that’s something too.

Despite their plan, Arya deliberately does not guide them west. The Westerlands are Lannister lands and if they end up there Arya does not think she will be able to keep a lid on her rage. These days, she mostly settles for level instead of dead. She would have thought rage would keep her warm, but most nights it just threatens to help her freeze.

It’s in a tavern, somewhere in the Riverlands that they hear of King Tommen’s coronation.

Arya shoves her last bite of her pie down. Gendry had a tiny bit of coin left from what Davos had given him, but they didn’t want to waste it. That day, they had found the tiny tavern, off the beaten path, and they were just too hungry to resist. They forage some, hunt and trap with their miniscule knowledge, but it barely keeps them fed.

“Looks like a babe he does,” the man swears, “Not even a hint of a beard.”

“Babe or not, he still the spawn of incest-”

The innkeep comes over and cuts him off with the slap of a wooden spoon to the head.

“There will be no talk of that here. I won’t be bringing the king’s men down on this place.”

And Arya and Gendry slink off to their spot in the woods.

“I remember Tommen,” she admits, “He was really shy, always off playing with his kittens. Joffrey was horrid to him as well.”

“Do you think he’ll make a better king than his brother?”

Arya shakes her head slowly.

“They’re right, he’s basically a babe. He’ll be under one thumb of his mother and one of his Hand, Tywin.”

Gendry can’t keep the distaste at the name of Tywin Lannister off of his face. Arya thinks grimly, that he had somehow seemed to like her.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll kill each other.”

And Arya laughs, again.

After a day or two of hitting water, with a sinking feeling Arya realizes they’ve hit the God’s Eye. It’s a decent spot, good fishing as long as winter hasn’t set in. But up, directly north of the God’s Eye lies Harrenhal.

Sometimes at night, Arya wakes up early in the dark, and thinks she’s still there.

Sometimes she stares off into the lake, where the isle of faces lies. Maybe they could swim out there, live among the weirwoods, like the children of the forest did.

It’s by the shores by the God’s Eye that Gendry wakes one morning to Arya rustling through their belongings, her breeches unlaced and halfway down her legs.

“Arya, what are you-”

“Do you have any bandages, extra stockings, an old shirt maybe?”

Her voice is almost panicked. He almost joins her when he notices the dark red stains on her smallclothes, before his mind catches up with the situation.

She eventually finds an empty burlap sack that she slices with Needle and folds thick. It would do until they could reach a village and she could trade for some lambswool.

She spends most of the morning in the lake, nude from the waist down, trying to scrub her small clothes clean. She can’t fight the feeling that the blood might attract predators, even though part of her brain insists that that’s stupid.

When she returns to camp, Gendry can’t look at her.

“Don’t be stupid,” she chides him, sitting and eating from their pitiful stash of nuts and berries. She’s the same as yesterday, just now bleeding from the cunt.

Later that day, she admits.

“Know what I keep thinking of? If I hadn’t ran when I did, I might have been with the Hound when this happened.”

She wonders if the Hound knew anything about how women’s bodies worked. Would he have let her ride her own horse now?

She laughs roughly, though Gendry remains silent.

Later that night, with her stomach aching, she wishes Gendry would rest a hand on her middle, just for the hint of warmth. Arya remembers the stories her septa told her, of lost maidenheads and childbirth. It wasn’t fair. Did every part of womanhood involve pain?

And quietly, a few moons later, she confides to Gendry.

“I’ve flowered. If I had gone back to my family, they could marry me off now. Might have already betrothed me to someone, for all I know.”

But they’re dead now, she doesn’t say. They’re dead, and she can’t know. Can’t be angry at them, even if they had done it, because they’re dead and she’s grieving. She continues though,

“That’s all a highborn girl is. A tool for her family to use for their benefit, no input from her required.”

She’s needling him, because after all of this, sometimes he still slips up and calls her “milady.” The last time had been in a tavern, in front of people. People who might hear him.

Sometimes she catches him looking at her now. Looking at her in a way. It doesn’t bother her, the way she often thought it might. In fact, secretly she might admit she likes it. But she hates what comes after, the look of self-loathing that always seems to follow. She hates that he still thinks of himself as less than her.

And he still won’t touch her.

One early morning, Arya twitches awake to the sounds of leaves rustling. She smells the man’s breath, heavy with ale, before she feels the hand even reaches to cover her mouth.

Her heart hammers itself to life. She still sleeps with Needle under her.

The man is alone, and drunk. It is easy enough to slice up the arm that’s grabbing her, splitting the artery that bleeds heavily. He screams and falls half on top of her, his weight trapping her, pressing her into the ground.

She hadn’t even realized Gendry had woken, but the man clearly hadn’t either. Had he just seen a young girl asleep in the grass, ignoring the lad and horse along with her? Arya’s mouth tastes of bile as Gendry pulls the man off her, and she crawls to her feet and slashes his throat. He howls as he dies.

Gendry is breathing as heavily as the bull he was often accused of being, and looking at Arya like she was a creature from one of Old Nan’s stories.

The dead man has a dagger in his belt, and Arya feels a fresh rush of bile at the thought that he could have used it. He could have gutted her before she could even grasp for Needle.

“Take it,” she tells Gendry, “You’re not armed. What if you had been on your own?”

She thinks on the man’s throat gaping open, and retches, remembering what had become of her mother. She imagines Walder Frey meeting his end in the same way, skin sagging open as the life drained from him.

The rains start again. They’ve managed to avoid Harrenhal, but Arya still often notices patches of land that ring familiar to her mind. The rain stops this, leaves them wandering.

There’s no water to fish in, they can’t forage as easily in the rain. The hunger begins to get to them, and so it’s unspoken between them. They must find an inn, somewhere to both fill their bellies and rest their bones. They’re down to the very last of Gendry’s coin, miraculously having not lost it to robbers.

It’s raining too heavily, so they don’t recognize it. They tie Nan up as best as they can, and push through the front door against the wailing wind.

The inside isn’t large, but it is blessedly dry, and a girl about Arya’s age approaches them, her feet skidding.

“Are you lookin’ for a room or just a meal?”

Arya barely opens her mouth when a head sticks out from where the kitchen is and yells.

“Willow! The soup’s done!”

Arya freezes. She feels Gendry go tense beside her. Not a sound will escape.

Except from the cook.

“Arry? Gendry?” Hot Pie says, abandoning his soup to come out and embrace the both of them. He’s somehow gotten both taller and rounder since the last time they’ve seen him, and Arya watches as Gendry��s face pinches and winces at the touch.

Sickness slides into Arya’s gut like an oil slick when she recognizes where they are.

“Sit, come on,” Hot Pie insists, “It’s been what, nearly two years? WIllow, bring us some bread and ale.”

“No,” Arya says firmly, and Gendry agrees.

“We won’t be staying.”

“What, why not?” Hot Pie asks, confused.

“Because this was the inn where those Brotherhood fucks brought us, and if they find us again, we’re fucked,” Gendry explains.

There’s a harsh laugh from behind them, coming from a woman who looks like Willow, but older.

“As if those fucks would come back here, now that winter’s coming. Bridge out over the hill stopping most of our business. Used to come by all the time they did, buying our ale and brings us more orphans to protect, but where are they now that they need food?”

“That’s Jeyne,” Hot Pie explains. “Masha Heddle died a bit back. She runs this place now. And she’s right, the men of the Brotherhood don’t come here anymore.”

“They probably stay near Acorn Hall now that the bridge is out,” Willow interjects, “There’s always whores over that side.”

Hot Pie’s voice quiets a bit before his next comment.

“There’s stories come from a couple of the younger boys about the lot of them now...but we don’t know for sure. It’s been moons since we seen any of them.”

The food they are served is more than adequate at least. Throughout supper, a group of young children make their way into the walls, soaking wet. Most of them are thin, but obviously not starved. One of the older girls, maybe Arya’s age, but looking far more Sansa, hands a bag of flour to Hot Pie.

“Miller says use it slow. With winter on the way, the wheel won’t turn if the river freezes.”

A couple of the children approach Arya and Gendry throughout the meal, most out of curiosity, some of suspicion. They answer questions in vagaries. Some of the younger children try to touch Gendry affectionately, as Arya once had. He still scoots away.

One of the older girls tries to touch him a little less innocently. She’s the one that sort of looks like Sansa, like she’s used to boys acting a certain way around her. Gendry jerks so violently at her touch and her coquettish voice that he falls off the end of the bench, and quickly excuses himself.

“Are you and him, like,” The girl, her name is Elinor, later asks Arya when they’re alone, “Or is he one of those men who just doesn’t like girls?”

Arya sighs. Once she would have felt a glimmer of pride to be considered on the same level as the Gendry, that ordinary people might think they went together.

“No. Someone’s hurt him.”

The room they are given is the size of a pantry, but the roof doesn’t leak, and if the door only sticks instead of closing, that’s fine enough too.

Tossing the bag of their meager possessions at the foot of the narrow bed, Arya mentions.

“One of the older girls asked me if I was yours.”

Gendry’s expression is gruff.

“Should have said you were my sister again.”

Arya sighs and sits beside him.

“That isn’t going to work anymore, we’re too old and we don’t look anything alike. I don’t think it will be an issue here. This place is full of orphans, we’re just two more.”

Arya swallows the sob that surges up in her throat at her own words. She’s an orphan now.

Gendry nods.

“Hot Pie says we can probably stay as long as we’re willing to work. If we hear anything from the Brotherhood, we’ll leave, no questions asked.”

They’re both silent. Neither of them are ready to sleep yet, it’s too early and they’re too warm and too full. And there’s too much between them.

“What did the Red Woman do to you?” Arya finally asks.

Gendry turns away.

“I already told you, she wanted my blood-”

Arya cuts him off.

“No. I asked what she wanted you for before. I want to know what she did to you to get it.”

Gendry stares at the floor, but eventually begins to talk.

“On the way to Dragonstone, she asked me if I knew who my father was. She insists it was the former king.”

Arya pauses before commenting.

“You do look like him, in a way Joffrey and Tommen certainly don’t.”

That’s not to say she sees a bit of fat, drunken, lecherous Robert Baratheon in his though.

Gendry nods.

“When we got there, she sent me to my rooms, and then came up alone. Started telling me all kinds of big words, things about king’s blood, and how important I could be. And then she started taking off her clothes, and mine too...at that point, I would have done anything she said, I couldn’t think. I barely remember any of it, until the point I realized I was chained down and couldn’t move, and then Stannis was there, and she was dropping leeches on my cock, and there was fire and chanting...I cried and screamed, and no one cared. Then they left me alone in a cell for days. Davos let me out when he realized they intended to sacrifice me to their Red God.”

Arya watches his face. There’s shame there, shame and fear and violation. In his face, she sees ghosts. Ghosts of the girls Lannister soldiers would drag into bushes along the road. She feels the ghost of the man by the road, and his ale soaked breath.

“I’ll kill her,” she says, even and low. “She promised we would meet again. When we do I’ll split her down the middle and let her entrails spill out on the road.”

Gendry’s avoiding her eye.

“If all she needed was your blood, there’s a thousand ways she could have done that. She didn’t need to…”

Gendry’s eyes are squeezed shut now.

“I fall asleep and she pops up in my dreams. When people touch me, I remember her touching me. Fuck, whenever I see a pretty girl, I remember her and suddenly I’m disgusted at myself and want to retch.”

Arya shifts, moving so that she’s kneeling on the end of the bed between Gendry’s knees. She looks him in the eye.

“I’m going to hug you. But first, open your eyes.”

He obeys.

“This is just me. We’re not in Dragonstone, we’re in the Riverlands, at the Inn. Both of us have our clothes on. I’m not the red woman. I’m not that tall, I don’t have red hair, I don’t use big words when little ones will do. And lets be real, my tits are tiny.”

Gendry’s laugh is rough.

“I’m going to hug you, and that’s it. I think we both need it. If you tell me to stop, I will.”

Gendry waits, his eyes trailing shut. But then, there’s a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.  

Her arms fit more easily around him, than they ever did before, and she rests her chin on his shoulder. After a long moment, she feels his arms come up around her too. Before Hot Pie today, she can’t remember the last time anyone hugged her.

“You were right,” he admits, “We did both need this.”

He doesn’t let go.

“Don’t talk about killing her anymore though. I don’t like knowing you had so many demons that needed killin’ even before you took mine upon you..”

Arya sighs, breathing in the scent of his neck.

“Alright, I won’t talk about it. I will do it though, I have to. She tried to take you away from me and nearly succeeded. They’ve already taken my family, they won’t get the rest of my pack.”

Eventually they part. They sleep back to back that night, still not touching, but Arya hears Gendry’s breathing much more evenly than on the road. She waits to recite her list until she’s sure he’s asleep.

And outside the window, she swears she hears a wolf howl.

[justauthoring]

Corruption of Innocence (6/?)

Prompt: The Capital was cruel. The people there even more so. If this arrangement truly was meant to follow through, Jaime knew you would be corrupted by Kings Landing. But staring at you now, with bright doe eyes and a soft smile on your lips as you engaged in a conversation with your brother, hushed so as not to be disrespectful, Jaime knew he would put all his focus and strength into making sure that never happened.

A/N: Red Wedding next chapter...?

Please continue to comment and reblog, it encourages me to write this series regularly. Thank you!

Chapter *six* was accidentally deleted. I might rewrite one day, but for now, given that the chapter was only really a filly chapter, this is now chapter six and we will continue on from here. However, if you didn’t read chapter six and you’d like to know what happened, I linked it on my masterlist titled: “PLEASE READ!”

Send me a little comment in the ask section or leave it below on what you thought of this chapter. As usual, I hope you all enjoyed!

AGAIN, remember if you’d like me to continue this series, just leave a little comment or an ask letting me know. I will NOT continue the series if no one wants me to.

Please don’t plagiarize my work - I spend a lot of my time writing, copying and pasting destroys that. If you want to repost my work. please ask first - but even then I might say no.

Pairing: Jaime x Stark!Reader

Based off of: Game of Thrones last half of season two, first half of season three.

You were happy for Robb. Truly, you were.

While a part of you was worried about the consequences that would follow, you thought that if anyone deserved to be happy, it was your brother. And Talisa was a sweet girl, that much you knew. Things were bound to go wrong, but... he was marrying the woman he loved. And you didn’t see how that could ever be thought of as a mistake.

Marrying for love had been something you’d always dreamed of as a little girl. It was also a dream that had been stolen from you.

You watched as the two swore vows to one another, as they gazed up at each other lovingly. There was no mistaking the bond that had grown between the two of them, no matter how short their time has been together. You knew that look in your brother’s eyes and you knew when he meant something. He loved Talisa, as she loved him, and you were happy for them.

But a part of you couldn’t help but be jealous. You hadn’t married for love, and rather it was an arrangement you were all but forced into. And your husband was not only part of the family that had murdered your father and kept your sisters captive, but also had barely given you the time of day when you’d been together. Because he was in love with his sister. While your husband could barely touch you, let alone look at you, he had been entwined in his twin sisters sheets, sharing her bed.

You couldn’t help but envy them

“...I am hers and she is mine... from this day, until the end of my days.”

You watched as their foreheads touched, their lips curled into soft but bright smiles. There was nothing but love in their eyes.

-

Jaime twirls the metal, gold ring around his finger, just staring.

In the dead of the night, the fire across from him sheds the only bit of light. His captor sits in front of him, turned away from him but still in a position where she can keep an eye on him. She keeps her hand tightly wrapped around the handle of her sword, her free hand mindlessly playing with the fire as the two of them sit in silence.

Jaime, as he often finds himself doing, thinks back to you. It’s odd, he expects Cersei to be on his mind. To be all he can think about. Since he was a child and even before that, Cersei has been the constant in his life. Being twins only signified this thought. For the longest time, Cersei has been the only thing that mattered to Jaime.

And then you’d waltzed into his life. Unexpectedly and suddenly, but all the same majorly.

He wonders if you think of him, as he thinks of you... Something tells him no.

Jaime thinks of your smile; he saw it so rarely, but it had never left his mind. He thinks of your eyes, and how day by day, they darkened with the reality of the world. Jaime remembers the first day he saw you, when he swore he would never let the evils of the world taint your innocence. Somehow, he’d broken that vow as well.

He could only imagine the darkness of your gaze now that you knew the truth.

So he twirls and twirls and twirls the ring, never once taking it off his finger but never keeping it in place either. Jaime’s vow to you as a husband, to protect you and keep you safe, it seemed, he’d broken as well.

-

“Is that for Bran and Rickon?”

Mother barely raises her head, her hands busy at work. You grab the length of your skirt in your hands, bunging it before taking a seat next to your mother, head bowed. You hear her faintly sniffle before she meets your gaze, nodding. “To pray for their safety.”

You nod, biting your bottom lip. “I’m sorry, mother,” you whisper, your voice soft, hesitant. “I cannot imagine what you are going through. How much you must miss them.”

And then, to your surprise, mother lets go of the wheel in her hand, taking your own in hers. She squeezes it tightly, pulling your eyes to her own as she forces a soft smile on her lips. “I know you miss them as well, Y/N, And... And praying for Bran worked before, when I prayed for him to awake after his fall.” Your shoulders tighten at the memory of what happened to your brother, an image of your husband flashing in your mind. 

“Had you made one before that?” You question, your voice light as you quirk a brow in question, gesturing to the wheel in her hands.

“Once,” mother nods, “long ago. When one of your brothers fell with the pox.” Your head quirks at her words, brows furrowing for some sort of memory of what she speaks of. You find none. “Maester Luwin said if he made it through the night, he’d live.” She lets go of your hand then, something shifting in her gaze as she moves to work on her wheel again. “But it would be a very long night. So I sat with him all through the darkness. Listened to his ragged, little breaths, his coughing, his whimpering.”

You pause a moment, frowning. “Who, mother?” When she turns to look at you, you shuffle towards her. “Robb?”

She shakes her head. “Jon.”

Your eyes widen, lips parting.

“When Ned, your father, brought Jon home from the war, I couldn’t bear to look at him. I didn’t want to see those brown stranger’s eyes staring up at me. So I prayed to the Gods, take him away.”

Your brows furrow, something akin to betrayal flooding you. You’d always known of your mother’s distaste for Jon, your own brother, or at least, who you’d always thought of as your brother, and part of you could understand it. In some senses. But... to hear this...

“Make him die,” She continues, your jaw clenching. “He got the pox. And I knew I was the worst woman who ever lived. A murderer. I’d condemned this poor, innocent child to a horrible death all because I was jealous of his mother.” You blink, eyes falling on mother when you hear the crack in her voice. She meets your gaze, shame flooding her own. “A woman he didn’t even know. So I prayed to all seven Gods, let the boy live. Let him live and I’ll love him. I’ll be a mother to him. I’ll beg my husband to give him a true name, to call him Stark and be done with it, to make him one of us.”

Swallowing thickly, you whisper; “and he lived.”

“And he lived,” mother nodded, “and I couldn’t keep my promise. And everything that’s happened since then... all this horror that’s come to our family... it’s all because I couldn’t love a motherless child.”

Letting out a sigh, your eyes fall to your lap, clasping your hands together. Mother was wrong, it wasn’t her fault and she certainly wasn’t to blame but you couldn’t find anything to say.

So, you just stayed silent.

-

Jaime hears her screams, and he thinks of you.

He thinks of you being pulled away, screaming and kicking at the hands that hold you, knowing what awaits. He thinks of how he’d feel if these men tried to take advantage of you like they’re trying to take advantage of her, after all he’d done to make sure your honour stayed intact. 

Even just the thought brings Jaime to a boiling anger.

More than that, he thinks of what you’d think if he just sat there and let that happen to Brienne, She may be his captor, but no woman deserved that and Jaime knew that. His conscious knew that. The consciousness that had him break a vow to save hundreds of millions of people knew that. But it isn’t only that that has him speak, do something, it’s you. What you would think of him, worse than you probably already do, if you saw him just sit there and let it happen.

“You know who she is, don’t you?”

Lord Locke turns to him at Jaime’s voice, raising a brow; “a big dumb bitch from who cares where.” He takes a step towards Jaime, uncaring. “Never been with a woman that big.”

“She’s Brienne of Tarth,” Jaime sighs, shaking his head. “Her father is Lord Selwyn Tarth. Heard of Tarth?” Jaime quirks a brow. “They call it the Sapphire Isle. Do you know why? Every Sapphire in Westeros was mined of Tarth. Sapphires are gemstones. The blue ones--”

“I know what they are,” Lord Locke cuts off, eyes narrowing. 

“Lord Selwyn would pay his daughters weight in sapphires if she’s returned to him,” Jaime bargains. “But only if she’s alive, her honor unbersmirched.”

As if on cue, Jaime hears Brienne let out a piercing cry, one that causes Jaime to frown.

Lord Locke takes the bait. With a cautious stare, Jaime watches as Lord Hocke heads toward where they carried Brienne off. Raising his voice, he calls: “bring her back!”

“Yes, my Lord.”

As Brienne is brought back, Jaime doesn’t stop there. He continues to speak, Lord Hocke falling right into his trap when he asks if his father will do the same; pay his weight in gold. He considers mentioning you, asking for you to be brought back as well; something that would double his pay. But ultimately, he chooses to remain silent, until the opportunity presents itself.

But, as Jaime continues, feeling confident in himself, until he doesn’t. He wonders if it was worth it, saving his captors dignity. Even if it was for your sake. Was it worth losing a hand? His fighting hand. The hand that’s not only brought him glory and shame, but saved him many times.

The hand that could’ve brought you back to him...

Jaime wonders.

-

Your lips tremble, breath quivering. The sight before you is one you’ve never seen before, and you don’t think, no matter how many times you’re forced to look at it, you’ll get used to it.

“Bring them in.”

Your heart drops at Robb’s words, taking a step back, bowing your head. You’re stood behind Robb and Talisa, to the latter’s right, to your own left, mother. The atmosphere in the room is somber, and you can feel the anger boiling off of your brother.

Uncle Blackfish moves towards the door, pulling it open, and in comes Lord Karstark with the men that helped him kill children. Innocent at that.

“Is this all of them?”

Blackfish nods.

“It took five of you to kill to murder two unarmed squires?” Robb spits, and you can imagine his face, twisted in anger and disgust. 

“Not murder, your Grace,” Lord Karstark answers instantly, voice confident. “Vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” Robb questions, disbelief evident in his tone. “Those boys didn’t kill your sons. I saw Harrion die on the battlefield and Torrhen--”

“Was strangled by the Kingslayer. They were his kin.”

“They were boys!”

You flinch, jaw clenching.

Inhaling deeply, Robb collects himself. “Look at them,” he orders.

“Tell your mother to look at them,” Lord Karstark growls and you feel your eyes widen. Instinctively, you step in front of your mother, shielding her from view. How dare he. “She killed them just as much as I.”

“My mother had nothing to do with this. This was your treason.”

“It’s treason to free your enemies. In a war, you kill your enemies. Did your father not teach you that, boy?”

Without hesitation, Blackflish swings his fist back, smacking it into Lord Karstark’s cheek. It causes you to jump, watching as the man crumbles to the ground.

“Leave him,” Robb orders.

“Aye,” Karstark mumbles, turning to Blackfish. “Leave me to the King. He wants to give me a scolding before he sets me free. That’s how he deals with treason.” Pushing himself to his feet, Karstark stares at your brother without hesitation. “Our King in the North. Or should I call him, the King who lost the North?”

Swallowing thickly, your eyes fall shut. This cannot end well.

“Escort Lord Karstark to the dungeons,” Robb orders, voice eerily quiet. “Hang the rest.”

“Mercy, your Grace!” One of Karstark’s men pleads in the back as Karstark is led away, “I didn’t kill anyone! I only watched for the guards!”

“This one was only the watcher. Hang him last so he can watch the others die.”

-

“There you go! Better!”

You let out a laugh at Robb’s encouragement, smiling up at him before his grip on you eases and he shuffles back. You step back then, standing up straight as you wipe a hand across your forehead, letting out a heavy breath.

Setting down your sword, you turn to your brother. “Am I getting any better?”

“Much,” Robb smiles encouragingly, nodding his head. “The sword doesn’t slip out of your hand every five minutes anymore.”

Your lips part at your brother’s teasing, mockingly offended. Raising your hand, you swipe it across his shoulder, shaking your head at him. “Oh, ha, ha,” you sigh, rolling your eyes. “Before you know it, i’ll be better then you.”

Robb let’s out a chuckle; “sure.”

Shaking your head, you wipe your hands across your trousers. Taking a moment to collect yourself, before turning back to your brother. “So, the alliance with Walder Frey is still intact?”

Robb, who’d turn to sharpen his sword, turns back to face you, raising a brow. “With a compromise,” he sighs, “I actually meant to speak to you on the matter.”

For some reason, you feel a sense a dread flood you. Something about the look in his eyes, worries you and you feel yourself anxious for his next words. What could have possibly been so important from the discussion that had to do with you?

“Along with an apology and Harrenhal, Walder Frey wished for another marriage in place of what was supposed to be my own.” Just like that, the panic spikes. Increases ten-fold. You turn to your brother with wide eyes, shoulders tensing. He couldn’t possibly mean... 

“Robb--”

“He wanted Uncle Edmure to marry one of his daughters.” And just like that, a breath of relief floods you. “The wedding will happen promptly.”

“Oh,” you mumble, relief flooding you as you nod your head. “Is our uncle upset?”

“Yes,” Robb nods, “but, he knows why and he knows he has my thanks and deep gratitude. However, he also did it for you, Y/N.”

Your brows furrow at Robb’s words; “pardon me?”

“Walder Frey’s original arrangement was for either one of you to marry into his family, it mattered not to him whether it was you or Edmure. Nor did it matter that you were already married to...” Your lips part, surprise flooding you. Your earlier fears had been correct then, only, hadn’t played out as you had feared. “Edmure said yes for you.”

Your gaze lowers, biting your lip.

“I owe him my thanks, then.”

You wondered, if this is what your life has become. Yes, you were not being forced to marry a Frey, thanks to your uncle and brother. But... it seemed, being passed from man to man, without even a thought to you or your feelings, was something of a reoccurring occurrence.

How many names must you go through before you find your place in the world?

-

Part 7?

Let me know what you thought?

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[chid-sen-gan-blog]

My Thoughts on GoT 8.01 (“Winterfell”)

So, this is late, but I watched S8, E1 (”Winterfell”) with my Dad and Brother and had some thoughts (these thoughts are from my first time viewing it, but I was too insecure to post them until a magnificent mutual of mine suggested it).

Spoilers, but the warning might be irrelevant by now. Featuring running commentary from my family because they’re amazing.

So, maybe I’m alone, but I���m not that fond of the new opening. Sorry, it just looks cheaper to me than the old one somehow, even though I read somewhere that more money was spent on it

That child climbing a tree gave my entire family and I some serious Bran/Arya nostalgia, as did that Baratheon theme

Arya’s little smile when she saw Jon half filled me with joy, and also half broke my heart. So much has happened since they last saw eachother. So fricking much

Arya looking at the Hound in a parallel to S1, E1 has been found

Non-verbal Gendrya is life

Oh, yay, an obligatory manhood joke to start off the season. Ugh. You know, I’m really tired of them at this point.

So......... can somebody remind me why Tyrion is even here anymore? And how he became the least interesting remaining Lannister by far?

Missandei and Grey Worm’s little “wow, they hate us” look is honestly the best thing. To quote my Brother: “Finally, two people that can take a hint”

Dany is upset at people not kissing her boots - shocker. Look, sweetie, it’s been a rough couple of years for the Northerners. Not to mention the last time they had a Targ in power he burned their liege lord and had his heir strangled. And that Targ was your father. So no duh they’re skeptical 

Yeeeeeeaaaaah... I don’t think giving a good portion of the people you’ve supposedly come to “save” heart attacks with your WMD children is the best way to establish you’re a “great” ruler

SHE SMIRKED THAT LITTLE --!!! 

(And the camera lingered on said smirk, hmmm, wonder why...)

Just a little over ten minutes into the episode and I’ve already reached new levels of Dany hatred

Entrance to the Winterfell courtyard parallel to S1, E1 spotted 

Jon riding in and seeing Bran is making me cry. Like, the last time he was riding towards a family member was with Rickon, the only “sibling” (aside from Sansa) he thought he had left - only for Rickon to die moments before he reached him. And here’s Bran, his “brother” who he thought was dead up until recently, sitting there alive and (mostly) well, and I just... *sobs uncontrollably*

Compare and contrast how happy Jon is to see Bran vs. how “who cares?” he was when finding out he was alive in S7 and tell me that political!Jon isn’t real. Tell me

... I thought we were supposed to get non-robo-Bran this season, but, so far, I don’t see it

My Dad is honestly cheering because Bran’s looking at Dany all creepily. He’s just thrilled someone’s giving her some variation of the stink-eye

That Jon and Sansa hug is not the same one that was released, and I’m a little disappointed. Let Jon give bear hugs to his entire family 2k19

Sansa/Ned parallels from S1, E1 and I’m loving it

Dany is literally the embodiment of all her stans who thought she and Sansa would be besties and braid eachother’s hair. Sansa is the rest of us who knew better

Bran cutting straight to the point adds years to my life

Sansa running things is my aesthetic

Dany seriously didn’t sit down till Ned Umber called her “my queen” and I’m rolling my eyes. So what if I’m too critical? I’m bitter

I love Jon getting called out if political!Jon isn’t real, but I’m honestly tired of Lyanna Mormont at this point. Sorry, unpopular opinion

......................... is it just me, or has Tyrion become a lot less smart in recent seasons? 

Wait until they find out who burnt the loot train * snicker snicker*

Sansa asks practical questions. Dany replies with an answer that basically gives the green light for eating innocent civilians. But, sure, Sansa’s a jerk

My Dad doesn’t even like Sansa and he’s scoffing that Dany couldn’t hold a candle to her when it comes to ruling

Yep, Tyrion’s become a lot less smart. I was right

Bran being creepy is actually great when it’s directed towards Dany and her team 

Awwwwwww... Jon and Arya. Don’t screw this up for me, please...

Parellel to Ned/Catelyn in the Godswood in S1, E1, I believe

Seriously, Jon is ecstatic to see his little “sister”. Don’t tell me he would’ve reacted with nonchalance to the news of her being alive if political!Jon isn’t true. Don’t even dare

Am I the only one who’s a little heartbroken that Jon is actually surprised that Arya still had Needle?

So....... I think that “Sansa thinks she’s smarter then everyone” comment was supposed to be an awkward joke. So therefore, I’m not going to get angry

STARK SISTERS AS A UNITED FRONT! YES!!! NED, YOU WOULD BE SO PROUD!!!

Yeah, Jon, don’t forget. I believe in you

I imagine everyone’s probably going to be really angry with Jon, but I kind of feel badly for him. He seems so insecure about everything in this episode. If the parentage reveal happens here, too, I’m a little worried how he’ll take it

My Brother pointed out that Jon’s homecoming in this episode kind of mirrors Jaime’s in S4 and I’m honestly living for it

I missed Cersei. I really did

I missed Yara, I really did

I didn’t miss Euron, not a bit

Wow, the Red Keep feels so lonely and I think that’s the vibe the showrunners were going for. Kudos if it was

Cersei seriously has some of the best lines and Lena Headey is brilliant in her delivery

Euron... yeah. Dude needs help

Oh, so that’s what happened to Ed Sheeran and co. Time to get started on my “I See Fire” tribute

Little parallel to Tyrion in the brothel with Bronn from S1, E1

“Which girl?” Poor Bronn in a world without modern medicine

Um, excuse me, but if you even think of using that crossbow I’ll make sure that Ser Bronn of the Blackwater becomes black and blue

Someone get Cersei her elephants

Okay, so what’s up with the pregnancy? Was it a hoax, or something else...?

THEON!!! Finally stepping up! Finally!

So... anyone else thinking that Yara believes Dany sent Theon to rescue her and that’s why she’s still loyal to this dragon brat?

Tyrion is on and I’m ignoring him.

Davos nooooooooooooo. No marriages!!!

I see you, Varys. I see you showrunners. Nothing lasts, indeed... *laughs evilly*

Aw, what happened to Dany and Sansa braiding eachother’s hair again?

I’m angry at Jon for not defending Sansa. Really. But how much could he actually have done without spelling potential doom for the North? Littlefinger didn’t have dragons. Dany does.

OKAY, NO. THAT WAS A THREAT. A FRICKIN’ THREAT. AND MY FAMILY AND I ARE NOT OKAY WITH IT!!!!!!!!!

........... the dragons are barely eating? Barely? And just how many Northerners could those 29 goats and sheep have fed?

“Um, Dany, giving Jon a dragon might be the dumbest thing you’ve done yet” - My Wonderful Dad

“And that’s saying something” - My Wonderful Brother

Wow, Dany doesn’t give two cents about Jon’s consent. Shocking

Wow, Dany doesn’t give two cents about Rhaegal’s consent. Actually shocking 

So... if no one knows how to ride a dragon until they do and you’ve already ridden one so therefore know, give the guy some pointers

Haha you might die. Isn’t that adorable?! *sarcasm sarcasm*

POINTLESS SCENE ENSUES

That boy kept his eyes open, honey. That’s not a good thing.

Drogon and Bran should have a staring contest. My money’s on Bran

(scratch that, my money’s on Jaime and Brienne whenever they see eachother)

Ugh. How many manhood jokes are we going to have before this season’s over?!?!

So... the Hound and Arya’s reunion was kind of underwhelming, imo

Gendrya awwwwww.

Ooh, new weapon. Wonder what it does.

“You don’t know any other rich girls” - Arya // “And with you around he never will.” - My Wonderful Dad 

Interesting point my Brother made about Lord Glover always being that guy never wanting to join the fight

Oh, Jon. If political!Jon is true, then stop handling this all on your own. Heck, even if it’s not. Your family is strong as steel. Trust them

Not sure if it’s intentional, but this scene kind of brings to mind shades of Ned and Catelyn in S1, E1 when discussing Ned becoming Hand of the King

Sansa is not helping those vibes. Oh, boy

“Why does everyone who claims Dany will be a good queen sound less like they believe it and more like they’re trying to convince themselves it’s true?” - My Wonderful Brother

SAM!!! MY DEAR CINNAMON ROLL!!! I’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!!

Oh, shoot. Is this the Tarly reveal? I don’t think an “it was necessary” is going to work this time...

WOW. She didn’t even try to explain her actions. This somehow makes it far worse for me...

Jorah looking guiltier is actually unsettling

You made Sam cry, Dany. The gloves are off. You’re officially irredeemable in my books

Um, has no one wheeled Bran in yet? Like, he’s just been sitting there?

“Waiting for an old friend”? Is it Jaime? It’s got to be Jaime. Wonder if they’ll save the reunion for the end because more parallels

PARENTAGE REVEAL!!! PARENTAGE REVEAL!!!!!!!!

Jon looks so tired all the time in this episode, even with his family. Even if political!Jon isn’t real, Dany certainly isn’t doing him any wonders. And if you say she is, you’re not really watching the show

Awwww, Jon and Sam together again! And Jon is just as happy to see him as his “siblings”! My heart...

“So, are we ever going to find out if Little Sam’s alright, or...?” - My Wonderful Dad

Jon’s reaction to the burning of Sam’s dad and brother is kind of weak, but I”m hoping we get some more of his wrath directed at the source of this fiasco (Dany)

No, Jon. You and Dany aren’t alike in any way. Case and point - how you’ve been talking about how titles don’t matter every two seconds of this episode, while she was about to threaten your “sister” for not “respecting” her. See the difference, sweetie?   

PREACH, SAM! PREACH!!!

Um... it probably would’ve been better to lead with Ned’s wasn’t your father than Lyanna’s your mom, but other than that, you’re doing great, Sam

A man from the south tells his northern best friend with a man-bun some game-changing news in a crypt. Sam-Jon, Robert-Ned parallel from S1, E1 achieved

I’m going to take  a moment to appreciate how Kit subtly incorporated and conveyed each of the five stages of grief in this scene

“It’s treason”/”It’s the truth”. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but Jon seems almost terrified to hear this news. Which tells me he’s well-aware of how Dany could react to it. Which tells me he’s not as daft as he’s letting on. 

“You gave up your crown to save your people. Would she do the same?” Sam knows what’s up and I love him all the more for it

“No, no she wouldn’t” - My Wonderful Dad, Brother, and Less-Wonderful I all at the same time in response to Sam’s query

The score in the back, “Winter is Here”, when “Truth” might’ve been a more ironic, dramatic option - like with the last reveal. Hmmm. I see you, Ramin Djawadi. I see you

Edd! Beric! Tormund! Still stand by the idea that at least one of you should’ve died for emotional weight, but I’m glad to see you.

Okay. The blue eyes joke got a chuckle out of me, I admit

Child nailed at their torso thanks to white walkers parallel to S1, E1 achieved

Ned Umber opening his eyes seriously made me jump and I was expecting it

Child who is actually is a white walker nailed at their torso by white walkers parallel to S1, E1 achieved

And now I’m deaf. Thanks, Ned Umber

“Hey, don’t you think that creepy art piece kind of resembles the Targ sigil?” - My Wonderful Brother before the piece was set on fire

“Hey, now it really does.” - My Wonderful Brother after the piece was set one fire 

A rider riding into town and I think I know who it is...

JAIME!!!!!!! *has meltdown because he’s my second favorite character, okay?*

My Wonderful Dad and Brother are just as hyped as I am. Bless them.

Jaime taking off headwear and looking around Winterfell parallel to S1, E1 spotted

Is it just me, or does he actually look happy to be there? I mean, you’d think he’d be more uncertain...

Oh, there’s the uncertainty

Jaime and Bran ending off the episode on a cliffhanger parallel to S1, E1 unlocked

[ansheofthevalley]

Till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old - chapter five: Hold on to me [part III]

Summary:  Jon is left shaken by visions of smoke and stone. But he's also shaken by the words said the previous night; guilt, anger and hurt weight heavy in his heart. And a truth he's not ready to share yet, not even say aloud. But the truth always finds its way to the light, even if it hurts, even if it makes you feel helpless.

A/N: you can also read here

                                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The morning skies were heavy and grey, and the winds were strong and cold. A storm is coming, Jon thought. He woke up in the middle of the night, haunted by dreams. The one that woke him up was more of a nightmare, his worst nightmare. He was in Winterfell, that much he knew, but it was almost unrecognizable. He was in the courtyard, surrounded by stone and smoke. Up in the air, unnerving screeches made the earth under him tremble. He wanted to run but it was as if he was a tree, his feet planted on the ground like old roots. He was alone, surrounded by smoke and shadows. He heard another screech and it rattled his bones. He felt a wave of fear wash over him as a stream of fire came from the sky and set the whole courtyard ablaze. When he woke up it wasn’t the heat of the flames he felt, but the cold winds of the winter night.

The feeling of dread that the nightmare brought with it kept Jon awake; now, the sun was slowly rising in the sky. A brand-new day. And more problems to deal with, the voice in his head reminded him. Since his mind was tormented, he figured he’d have a bath and go over some of the battle plans he had discussed with Davos. But not even hot water and the impending war against the dead could give his mind focus. His mind was everywhere. What if I made a mistake? What if this isn’t the way? He found himself thinking. That nightmare had left him shaken. It felt as real as the wooden piece sybolizing the Knights of the Vale he had in his hand, it felt as real as the wind finding its way into the room. It would have been easier if it was just the nightmare that made him feel that way, but alas, things were always more complicated. Words spoken in an empty solar, with a crackling fire as the only witness. Sansa, angry and hurt. But he also was angry and hurt. Angry at her, because he couldn't understand her, and angry at himself because somehow, he had hurt her, and seeing her hurt, again, after all she’s been through hurt him too. It would be simpler if he could just forget their argument, but his mind wouldn’t let him. Every word, every look, was printed on his mind and haunted him by repeating themselves over and over again.

“Why did you do it?”

“We already told you, he was a threat to our House”.

“He was a threat to all of us the minute he decided to stay”

“The reason I never told you about the Vale is because if I asked for his help, I knew I had to repay Littlefinger in some way. I knew what he wanted since the day we retook Winterfell, he told me himself”

“That was reason enough to send him back to the Vale”

“You need to keep men like that close to you. If they’re close, at least you can know what they want, what they do. He betrayed everyone he knew. Would you had me sent a man like that away, to plan Gods know what?”

“Yes. If it meant you were safe, then yes. Especially after I left”

“You think I kept Littlefinger around for fun? His face reminded me of every single thing I’ve been through”

He could see now that she was right. They were both right. Lord Baelish was a threat, and the more time they gave him to scheme and plot against them, the more likely he would've succeeded. But his cousins had stopped him, for good. But now, he realizes he wished he had done it himself, with his own hands. After every single crime he committed, after every atrocity, he wished he could have beat him to a pulp, until there was no more of his hand that blood and bone.

“What did you do?”

“I slept with her”

The way her body was tensed, just like a bowstring ready to be set loose. And her eyes, Gods, her eyes. He prayed to the Old Gods to be kind enough with her, for her to never encounter hurt and pain ever again, and somehow, and he delivered both at her feet. But she was quick to transform that pain into icy anger and lash out at him.

“So you decided to play the game? A game you obviously have no idea how to play?”

“You think this was a game for me?”

“It sure feels like it. First you gamble with our home and lands, then with our own lives. And now you tell me you gave yourself to her”

“I didn’t give myself to her”

“Right, you just bedded her. The North surely will thank you for that”

“You say all you want, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t do this to help the North, for the people. I’m not asking you to understand"

There could be ice between them, Seven Hells, the Wall itself could stand tall between them, but it would melt eventually. Her ice quickly transformed into fire, mimicking his. And lately, that fire has been growing, burning him slowly, painfully.

                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a few more hours, he decided it was time he visited Bran and Sam and tell his friend the truth. The castle was fully alive, with kitchen maids coming and going, the clash of steel against steel as people trained in the courtyard, the eerie song of the dragonglass the blacksmiths were working with in the smithy. It felt familiar. War shouldn’t feel familiar, he thought. But it’s all you’ve known since you left, a voice responded. With these thoughts, he headed towards the library tower.

He knocked the heavy wooden door twice, each followed by a “wait, please” and “just a minute”. He thought Sam was surrounded by books and parchments, so he just opened the door instead of knocking the door for a third time.

“Please, be careful with the door!” Sam

“I’ll be careful” he answered, trying to calm down his friend

“Jon, it’s you” the former brother of the Night’s Watch said with a sigh of relief. “I thought it was Maester Wolkan. We’ve been gathering all the documented reports of the Others” he explained while looking at the floor, it was covered with books. There were parchments all over the table, some with ripped edges and yellow, marked by time. "I don't think he likes me very much. The library is like you're seeing it ever since I arrived" his friend continued, with more of a tint of guilt in his voice.

"He doesn't hate you, Sam. He's just used to having this place to himself" Bran said, always keeping his eyes on an old tome about the Age of Heroes that must be, at the very least, a couple of centuries old.

"As you can see, we're trying to find any piece of information about the Night King. Bran told me of his vision, of how he was made. So I thought that maybe we could find something in these books" he explained, "even if it is in the form of legend or tale".

"It goes back to the war between the Children and the First Men" Bran remarked. "Any information we can come across would most likely be written in a story, like the ones Old Nan used to tell us. Stuff of legend".

"Every single thing counts, even those you might come across as a tale. Every new piece of information we have will makes us understand him and his army, it will help us find a way to defeat him" Jon assured them.

"I really hope so" Sam said. "I'm sorry Jon, if you came to see if had any news, I'm afraid we can't give you any", the way his shoulders were down, how he looked down at the floor and how he looked, with a creased doublet he was trying to cover up with his cloak and like he needed a good night's sleep, or maybe ten; it all made Jon realized his friend has been working non-stop.

"Sam, it's alright. I already told you that the information you gave me means a lot. Don't stress yourself if you can't find anything more. We'll fight with what we have" Those last words that came out of his lips reminded him of another time, a night before a battle. He had said those words to Sansa, to assure her that no matter the odds, they would win. And they almost lost that battle, they almost lost Winterfell. He had already lost Rickon that day, right in front of him, and he almost lost Sansa too. If it weren't for her and the Knights of the Vale, he wouldn't be alive, he was certain. But it's not going to be like last time, he thought. We have more men and we have Daenerys' dragons. We can do this. I can do this. He gave his friend a reassuring smile, and he returned it.

"So, what are you doing here? Not that you're not welcomed, it's just that I figured you'd be out there in the courtyard or planning for the war. You know, what commanders do" he added with a small smile.

"I wanted to talk with you Sam" he started "We both did, actually" he said, looking at Bran.

"Why don't you sit, Sam?" Bran suggested. He did as Bran told him and sat in a stool that was near the table.

"Alright" he looked first at him, then at Bran. "You're scaring me" he laughed nervously. "What happened?"

Sam's question lingered for a few moments. He wanted to get out of there. He's my brother, I have to tell him, but Gods, I don't know how to do this. How do I tell him his father and brother were killed, he thought. Killed by fire. We both saw how Mance was fed to the flames when Stannis was at the Wall. I know we both remember the screams. I've seen men die, he reflected. I've seen women and children die. I've seen people kill each other. I've killed, yet still, it's the image of Mance, tied up in that pyre, screaming, while flames danced around him one of the images that can't leave my mind. A horrible way to die, a cruel way to die. How can she do this to people? he thought bitterly. Stand there and watch people be consumed by the flames? Are all Targaryens like this? Am I like that, too? If not, what will it take for me to be numb to it all?

"You know what happened at the Reach?" Jon asked.

"Yes. Apparently, Highgarden was assaulted by Lannister forces and now House Tyrell is dead" he recalled. "Some say Cersei made my father Lord Paramount of the South" he said this with some disbelief in his tone and a little wonderment in his eyes. "Though there's no surprise there, my father uniting forces with the Lannisters" he continued.

"Do you know anything more?" it was Bran who asked him this.

"Not really, only the rumors. That Olenna Tyrell threw herself out of a tower, that she was killed by Jaime Lannister, that the Lannister forces took all the gold and food from Highgarden, though the last one is probably true" .

"Nothing more? That's all you heard?" Jon insisted.

"Yes. There's quite a distance from the Reach to here. Rumors don't travel fast in winter, I suppose" he tried to talk in a jesting tone, but Jon noticed the tension in his voice. "Why are you asking this?"

"Because we need to tell you something. About your father and brother" Bran answered.

"Oh, Gods, they died, isn't it? They died in battle?"

"Sam, I want you to listen to us carefully, alright? I need you to listen carefully to what Bran and I are going to tell you" Jon tried to calm down his friend. He only nodded, unable to get words out of his mouth.

Bran began explaining. "Like you said, the Lannister army assaulted Highgarden. Jaime Lannister was the commander and your father and brother fought beside him. After the battle was won, the Lannister army started taking all the gold and food they could find so they could send it to the capital. Just as they were leaving the castle, they were intercepted by a horde of Dothraki riders".

Sam went white. The tales about the Dothraki and their ability to kill were known in Westeros, only now some had died by their blades and a few, a lucky few, had lived what it's like to meet a Dothraki in battle.

"Daenerys sent his men to intercept them?" Sam whispered.

"Not only that," Jon answered, never daring to look at his friend "she was there with one of her dragons".

The silence was deafening. If he didn't dare to look at his friend before, he could not dare, for the life of him, to look at him now. He only listened. There was a light sob.

"And what happened?"

"Daenerys burned all the food that the Lannister army took from the Reach. And, as if the horde wasn't enough..." Jon couldn't continue. Even as the words were about to leave his mouth, he couldn't help but imagine the massacre that it must have been. It made him sick, it made him angry.

"What happened?" Sam came closer to Jon, begging him for more information.

"She ordered her dragon to breath fire across the fields" Bran answered.

It was at this moment when Jon dared to look at Sam. His eyes were glimmering with unshed tears. There was sadness in his eyes, but there was also anger, disbelief, heartbreak. So much for him to handle.

"Your father and brother survived the battle" Jon quickly added. "There were a number of soldiers that also survived".

"So they're alive? Are they her prisoners? Did you see them at Dragonstone, Jon? Did you see them?" Sam asked frantically. Now Jon regretted telling him that. I'm getting his hopes up, only to hit him with the truth, he thought.

"Daenerys had the Dothraki take all the survivors to one spot, so she could talk to them. She talked to them about bringing peace to Westeros, how the Seven Kingdoms were suffering under Cersei's reign. She then told them to bend the knee and join her. Anyone that refused her offer would die" Bran told him.

"My father didn't kneel" Sam guessed. "He's a proud man, he'll do things they way he sees it's best, no matter the consequences".

"He didn't kneel, so Daenerys sentenced him to death" Bran concluded.

A few seconds passed before Sam talked. "You know, he wasn't a kind father. He was mean and always expressed his dissapointment in me" he revealed, with tears falling down his cheeks. "But he was still my father. He was still my mother's husband, and Dickon's and Tallas's father. I know he loved them, and they loved him".

Jon meditated on his friend's words. All his life, Sam was humiliated by his father, and now here he was, crying for his death, crying for his family. I don't dare to break my friend's heart, he thought, but he needs to know. He remembered all the times he mentioned his brother Dickon at the Wall, back when they were stewards. He always spoke of him with love and care.

"That's not all, Sam" Jon finally said. "Your brother... He stood up for your father. He refused to bend the knee too".

Sam just stared at him, his mind still processing what Jon's words meant. More tears fell down his cheeks. The silence was unbearable.

"I'm so sorry, Sam" Jon was quick to add. "I found out about it when I got here. She never told me a word of what had happened at the Reach" he explained.

"How" Sam whispered.

Jon looked at Bran. He could see something akin to worry glimmer in his eyes.

"How" Sam repeated, louder. "How did it happen? Was it beheading?" he inquired.

Jon couldn't help but gulp before answering his friend's question. "Dragonfire" Jon whispered.

Jon didn't know how much time it has passed until Maester Wolkan walked in again. "Your Grace, there you are. Lord Tyrion wishes to have an audience with you-"

"Not now, Wolkan. Tell him I'm busy" he said as he walked to the door.

"He told me it was an urgent matter"

"Tell him that right now I'm busy. Can't he talk with Sansa?" her name brought the memories of the previous night back to his head. One thing at a time, he reminded himself.

"He told me it was you he wished to speak to"

"As I said" his tone was harsher this time "tell him I'm busy. Anything that he wants to discuss with me, he can do so with the Lady of Winterfell".

"Yes, Your Grace" the Maester said with a light bow of the head and left.

Jon closed the door softly, as if it were made of glass. He turned around to see Sam sitting still, looking at nothing and quietly sobbing.

"Dickon" he started "He was good. He was good and kind and brave. And now he's dead. They're both dead" he stopped himself, as if he was coming to terms with the idea. "They didn't deserve to die like that, Jon. Nobody deserves to die like that" his friend stated.

"I know Sam, I know. And I will talk to her about thi-"

"And she comes here, talking about uniting the people, about leaving wars behind, about knowing what her father was" Sam interrumpted him, his voice becoming more frantic with each word "but she can't do that. She's not able to do that. She truly lives up to her House words" he spat.

The silence that befell the room was something tangible. Jon felt uncomfortable, he felt sorry for his friend. This is a mess.

"She doesn't deserve that Throne. What's the difference between her and Cersei Lannister? Or Stannis? He burned people alive, Bran told me he burned his own daughter. A man like that didn't deserve to rule. Cersei killed hundreds with wildfire. What's the difference between wildfire and dragonfire?"

"Sam, I will talk to her. I will confront her about this. I will get justice for your family, I promise" Jon knew he couldn't live up to his promise the moment the words left his mouth, and also did Sam.

"Justice? What justice, Jon? They're already dead. And we need her armies and her dragons" he said, resigned.

Bran's voice surprised him. "Jon" it almost sounded like a plea.

He looked at his cousin, then at his friend. He made up his mind. "We're going to win this war, we're going to defeat the Night King" he assured him. Bran called out his name once more, but Jon only looked at him. "And after we do that, you're welcomed to stay here, at Winterfell. You and your family. Your mother and sister, they can come here, once we recover from the war"

"Thank you, Jon, but you don't need to-"

"After the war, Daenerys will go south, to continue her conquest, but she won't have the North. I'll go to war, if it comes to that" Gods be good, he thought. There's no turning back from that. And I don't want to, he realized. "You're right, she doesn't deserve to rule, she does not deserve to rule over these people. We all fought so hard for our homes, many brave men and women died. We lost so much. And I'm not going to let it be in vain" he took Sam by the shoulder. "I already lost two brothers for the North's cause, I won't lose another. You're family, Sam"

Sam was really touched by everything Jon just said. It was with tears in his eyes that he replied to Jon "Daenerys is your family, too, Jon".

"She's not family. She might be my father's sister, but the Starks are my true family, you are my family". As he said those words, he felt as if a rock was lifted from his body, he was now weightless, nothing was pulling him down. "And there's nothing I wouldn't do, nothing, to keep my family safe" his grip was tighter, now.

Sam didn't say a word, he was letting Jon's words sink in. After a minute, his face transformed, even though there still were tears in his eyes, he was now smiling, a small thing really, but the smile was there. In a second, he pulled Jon into a tight hug. "Thank you, Jon. For everything" he said, tears running free down his cheeks.

They separated after Sam's words. He then went towards Bran. "Thank you, Bran. Thank you, both of you, for telling me this".

"Sam, do you want to have some time alone? Maybe we could send for Gilly and little Sam" Bran offered.

"You're very kind, but I think I'll retire to my chambers, if it's alright with you, Bran"

"Of course, go" Bran said and with that Sam was out of the Library Tower.

Jon felt free, that whatever that was holding him down now was gone.

"I hope you understand what you just did" Bran said, his eyes boring into his, like trying to figure out his future.

"What? With Sam?"

"No, the promise you made. To make the North independent"

"Well, first we have to defeat the Night King" he reminded Bran.

"Sansa's right. You gamble too much with things you shouldn't gamble with. It's too much of a risk"

Those words twisted inside him like a knife. "Sansa" was all Jon managed to say, whisper really. "What do you know about what Sansa said?"

"I know she didn't take too kindly to the nature of your relationship with Daenerys"

"Did you..." Jon was afraid to ask, afraid to know that Bran had seen their fight, afraid that he might know some things he wasn't ready to say out loud.

"Yes, I did. But only because I was worried about Sansa" he assured him. "I asked Wilton, the guard that stays at my door every night, to take me down to the Godswood at the Wolf Hour. When we were near the pools, we saw someone was there, sitting in front of the carved face. Wilton managed to see red hair, and told me it was Sansa, so I told him to take me to her. The wheeled chair is not the most sutile thing in the world, so she heard us coming. She stood up quickly, straightened her skirts and passed her hands across her face".

"Thank you, Wilton. I'll stay with my brother" she said in a dutiful tone.

"Of Course, I'll be right there by the entrance, my lady" and with that Wilton disappeared into the remnants of the night.

"What are you doing here this early?" she asked him, the dutiful tone in her voice gone. Now he could see the real Sansa, tired and conflicted about something.

"I was about to ask you the same thing. I came down to see if I could have a vision. Maybe at the Wolf Hour I'll be luckier. You?"

"I just needed some air, and some space" she was staring at the snow below her feet as she said this. "These last couple of days... It's been hard"

They stayed in silence for a while, enjoying the cold breeze of winter and the smell of fresh snow paired with the Weirwood. The smell of home.

He knew something troubled Sansa's mind, but still, he didn't expect her sister to be so direct. "Did you know about Jon and Daenerys?" her voice was stern and cold, almost as cold as the breeze.

He looked her in the eyes to respond. "Yes, I knew. And I talked to Jon about it. He told me he wanted to tell you himself"

“I just…” her breathing was ragged, as if she were running around like when they were kids, hiding behind the old trees of the Godswood. “I just don’t understand how he could do something like that” she confessed, confused and… there was something else, something Bran couldn’t quite place.

“He told me he did it so Daenerys would commit to our cause”

“Yes, I know. He told me the same” his sister told him. “But, Gods take me, I cannot understand” her voice was like ice, but there was something underneath.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“How am I supposed to tell the lords and ladies that Jon has not only bent the knee, but is also the long-lost son of Rhaegar Targaryen, and on top of that, that he’s been… consorting with Queen Daenerys Stormborn” she looked utterly lost. She looked scared, the first time he’d seen her like that since their reunion.

“It won’t be easy. Many will plot to leave. They won’t say anything in front of Daenerys, they’re afraid of her” he revealed.

“Well, she does have two full-grown dragons” she added, bitterly. “How am I supposed to protect our people? Some will label Jon a traitor, because they won’t understand, and they will plot against him, against us. But once everyone knows about Jon, I’ll have to protect all of them, the ones that will remain loyal to us and the ones that won’t from a Targaryen that’s known for burning her enemies alive”. She let out a heavy, trembling sigh. “With each day that passes, I feel like things are getting harder to control, like they’re getting further and further away from my reach, and I don’t… I truly don’t know what will happen if I fail” she confessed to him. She turned to him. Her eyes were glimmering with unshed tears. “I cannot fail, Bran. Not after all that’s happened” she whispered as a single tear fell down her cheek. "We're a pack, and the pack survives".

They remained in silence; he was taking in Sansa's words, his sister seemed to find comfort in the cold air of the night.

“You said it won’t be easy, but will we make it? Will we be able to fight together?” she asked him.

“Like I said the day Jon came home, two things could happen: he will have the support of the North and the Vale, or he will have the support of Daenerys Targaryen. I haven’t seen anything that showed me him having the support of both the lords and ladies and Daenerys.”

She set free some of the tears that she was holding back, her eyes lost, looking at something only she could see. After a few moments, she seemed more composed, free of whatever that was holding her down. “Do you want me to stay with you while you have your visions?” she offered, changing the subject.

“You should get some rest. The lords and ladies will need to borrow strength from the Lady of Winterfell”. This comment made her chuckle.

“You know, every time I come here, my mind just takes me back to when we were children” Sansa told him.

“When we played hide and seek…” he added with a little joyful tone in his voice.

“Knights dueling for the princess’ hand” she said, smiling at the past.

“Or at being wildlings” he said with a chuckle.

“Oh no, you, Arya and Rickon played at being wildlings” she reminded him. But just as she said their younger brother’s name, her face turned somber.

“I miss him, too” he said. “I’m sorry you had to see that”.

“I didn’t see it happen, Jon did” she responded. “After all that has happened to us, I thought I could handle it, that I could see Rickon like that” new tears began to fall down her cheeks. “But the truth is I only saw as Father was murdered. I didn’t see Robb or Mother. And I thank the Gods for that. Because I don’t know what would be of me if I had to witness all of it”. She stopped to dry the new tears that were falling down her cheeks.  “After we were all settled, the day we retook our home, I went to my chambers and cried myself to sleep” she continued.

“You couldn’t stop thinking about Mother and Father” he said. She just looked at him, her eyes unguarded and vulnerable.

“I miss them so much” she remarked.  After this, silence took over, leaving each of them to their thoughts. A few minutes passed before Sansa spoke again, memories pouring out of her mouth. “Mother caught me crying the night before we left for King’s Landing. I told her that I was afraid. Even though it was all I ever wanted, I was afraid. And she wouldn’t be there with me, nor you or Rickon. And what she said to me…” she smiled. It was a sad smile, remembering their parents was a hurtful thing. Still, after all these years.

“What did she say to you?” he asked.

“Hush, my love. You are a Stark of Winterfell. We might not see each other in a while, but remember you are strong, and brave. Remember our words: Winter is coming. You are a strong little lady and someday you’ll be a strong woman,a strong Queen. But also remember you’re a Tully: Family, Duty, Honor. Those are your words, too. Trust your family, remember your duty and always behave with honor. Everything will be fine. Always keep that in your heart, and you’ll always be safe”.

“She would be proud of you, Sansa” he offered. And it was the truth. Their mother would be very proud of her; not only was she Lady of Winterfell, leading them as the head of their House into the Long Night, but she was a strong woman, something she, and Arya, took from their Lady Mother.

“She would be proud of all of us. They both would" she told him. She smiled again, but this time it wasn't sadness he found in his sister's face. It was nostalgia, missing all those moments they knew they could never get back, but no matter how far away they seemed, they were sweet memories now. It was a sense of security; they were home, the four of them. They were safe. It was faith, believing that from some place, their parents were looking after them, giving them strength, guiding them.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay? I wouldn't mind" Sansa offered again. "Besides, I don't like the idea of you being here alone at dawn. There are too many strangers in Winterfell"

"I won't be alone. Wilton is at the entrance and I'm sure you'll send another guard just in case. Also, Sam should be here any minute now"

His sister studied him for a moment, considered staying with him, even though it was obvious she didn't prepare for a long stay. She had one of her old dresses on and a grey cloak to shield her from the cold. She didn't plan on coming out. She must have wandered here. Something's bothering her.

"Just send a couple of guards alongside with Wilton" he reassured her.

"Alright" she said, still not entirely convinced.

"I'll be fine, Sansa. I've been in-

Sansa interrupted him with a hug. "Just... just be cautious. Promise me?" she said with worry.

He had a feeling that she wasn't just talking about staying outside during nighttime. "I promise".

Sansa let go of him after a few seconds. Her face showed determination, but her eyes shone with sadness. "I'll see you later".

"After she left, I tried to find what affected her so much" Bran concluded. He took one look at Jon, trying to read him. "It didn't take me much to find you two at the solar" he sighed.

Jon didn't know how to feel. Was he relieved? Was he scared? Probably both. "Bran..."

His cousin didn't face him, his fixed in an invisible point in the middle of the room.

"I... I don't know what to do, Bran" he was surprised to hear his voice break. Before he knew it, he was crying the tears he held on for so long.

At the sound of Jon's tears, Bran turned to him, seeing him. "You love her" he whispered. There wasn't surprise in his voice, there wasn't reproach. It was an statement.

His sobs grew stronger and louder. He wanted to talk, to offer an explanation, but the words wouldn't come out.

"Jon" Bran sighed.

He couldn't bare to look at him. What would he think of me, the voice in his head spat. He wanted to say something to him, anything, but for the life of him, he just couldn't. He had no words and all he was left with was the tears he hadn't shed and the emotions he had held back for what it seemed like an eternety.

"Jon" Bran repeated, a little harsher this time, so Jon would look at him. "You love Sansa" he told him, as if he were a child explaining him how sums work. "And that's alright. After what you've been through, what you both have been through... You feel like you don't deserve this, don't you?"

Jon was caught off guard. He didn't expect Bran to be so direct, or to read him so clearly. "I... I..." again, words were failing him and his thoughts were all over the place. "Before I left, I was a bastard. I knew I could never give anything to anyone, that I'd had no lands to call my own, that I'd have no woman to call my wife, no children to call mine. So I never dared to think about it. I knew it would be as easy as grabbing a star from the sky" he confessed. "But then, when I came back-"

"Everything changed" Bran finished for him. "Now you know you're the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The Seven Kingdoms are yours by rights of succession" he reminded Jon. "But that's not what you want, isn't it?"

He looked up to his cousin, and simply moved his head. "I don't want the throne, just as I didn't want the Northern crown. I just want peace and be here, at home" he told him, looking at the floor.

"It's funny how the world works, Jon. The things men and women do in order to protect those they care about. Duty can be a heavy crown... But what is duty compared to love?" he said

At the mention of those words, Jon looked at Bran. Those words had an odd feeling growing in his chest, the same effect the Red Woman's words gave him back at the Wall, when he was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

"You're surprised"

"I haven't heard that question in a long time" he said, and a sad smile started to grow on his face at the memory of the old Targaryen Maester.

"Aemon Targaryen" Bran recalled. "I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with your relative".

"How so?" Jon was intrigued.

"Duty and love are not opposites. At least, not always" he reflected. "Why did you bend the knee?"

"To protect the North" he replied in an instant

"And why do you feel like you have to protect it?" Bran asked

"Because it's my duty, it's always been. Ever since I swore an oath"

"And that duty, that desire to protect the North, where does it come from?" he continued with his inquery.

"I protect it because it's my home, a part of me"

"Your home, and you love it" he stated. "Sometimes, duty and love go hand in hand" he pointed out. "But sometimes, we must choose between one and the other. Father chose both, his love was with your mother, as same as his duty. Robb chose love, forsaking his duty" he said this as he took his hand in his. Bran's hands were awfully cold. "Jon, you've chosen duty over love so many times. You have the chance to choose love, now" he reassured him.

Jon was scared. "But what about my duty? What about Daenerys?"

Bran let go of his hand, his eyes going back to that invisible point. "Everthing will work out the way it's supposed to".

[sailorshadzter]

 @jonsaspringblossoms

Day 1 (Friday 15th): flowers / gifts / colours

It was early morning and he had woken from a dream of spring.

He'd been walking through the gardens of Winterfell abloom, the sun high in the clear blue sky. There, at the very center, had she stood, like a beacon calling out to him. A crown of wildflowers were woven like a crown on her head, petals falling down the light blue gown she wore. He loved that gown, even in the dream he knew that he did. Sansa... Her name had been on his lips, a familiar sound that offered him comfort even to his sleeping mind. She had smiled upon him in the dream, opening her arms to embrace him, her body warm and solid, a reminder of the waking world. He pulled a single blue rose free from its bush behind her, offering it to her, if only to watch her face light up with another smile.

The moment Jon woke, he dressed, pulling on the cloak she'd painstakingly made for him before the long winter, the pads of his fingers brushing the direwolves stamped into the worn leather. Down the corridors he went, out into the courtyard, but his feet took him another path rather than to the stables or towards the godswood. Instead, he walked along the outer gate and into what once had been the gardens he'd dreamed of.  Every inch of it was covered in a sheet of ice and yet he still could not help but to marvel at the beauty of it. The winter roses had once bloomed there in these very gardens, but then the true cold came and even wiped those away. Jon found himself longing to see the blue roses, to inhale their sweet scent, and to tuck one or two into beautiful red hair.

Spring was coming though so he supposed it'd not be long he would have to wait. Everyday they came a little bit closer. The snow had begun to melt beneath the warm winter sun and no longer did the cold snatch the breath from a man’s lungs. In truth it was becoming quite like it used to be, before the long winter had ever come.

He was reminded of his childhood winters, where he and his brothers would wrestle in the snow and laugh when Arya pelted them with snowballs. He remembered how it felt to throw an arm around Robb as they walked back to Winterfell, tired and out of breath, but happy just to be with him. It wasn’t all that long ago that he thought he would never again be as happy as he was then. Jon missed Robb terribly some days… So much so that it hurt. He missed Rickon too, the little brother that he had failed. He could not help but to think of what it would be like if they were still alive, or at least if Robb's wife and child had lived beyond the wedding feast. Would the child look like a Stark? Or even a Tully? Robb always had favored his mother looks, after all. Or would it have looked like its mother, a beauty they said, though foreign. And little Rickon... He'd be growing into a man now. Jon would have smiled upon him when he found his first love and maybe even married her someday. Shaggydog would play in the courtyard with Ghost and perhaps even Nymeria would have someday rejoined them with pups along with her.

"Lost in thought, are you?"

Turning at the sound of a voice, Jon could not stop himself from smiling as his eyes fell upon her. She was bright-eyed in the morning sunlight, her red hair a stark contrast to her black cloak. "Thinking of our family." He admitted as she stepped closer, his own arms winding around her as she fell into place against him. For several long moments he held fast to her, breathing in her sweet scent, ever thankful that she was there for him to hold. "I miss them." She drew back then, a gloved hand reaching up to tenderly touch his cheek, her rosy lips torn between a frown and a smile. Of all people, she understood his pain.

"As do I," she spoke softly, her voice catching as she too thought of the brothers left behind, of the mother and father she no longer had. "But we still have each other." She reminded him with a nod, her hand sliding down to press against his heart, the beat of it strong against her palm. "We have Arya and Bran." It was his turn to nod, his own hand coming up to catch hers. "Come... Arya was already talking about a sparring match." She rolled her eyes, but her smile was easy-going, those same eyes twinkling. Jon chuckled, his hand in hers as they made their way back towards Winterfell, where sure enough Arya already stood with Needle in hand.

Sansa let his hand slip free from her own, watching as he strode confidently towards the girl he would always call little sister. She could not stop herself from smiling as she watched him pull her into a tight embrace, laughing at something she said. Across the way, Brienne stood beside Jaime, their shoulders brushing as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. For the first time in as long as she could remember, everything felt right. Everyone was happy, truly happy. Her family had been broken apart, nearly destroyed, but they had pulled the pieces back together and found happiness again. Soon, it would be spring and everything would be green and lush again, even the winter roses would bloom again soon. Jon had promised her the night before the battle with the Night King that he would bring them to her the day they bloomed again and she knew that day would come sooner than they all thought.

And for that, she was oh so happy.

[ x x x ]

When she woke a few days later, Sansa rolled onto her side and there on the table just across the way was a bouquet of beautiful blue roses. Her heart swelled and she rose up from the bed to stand before the table, gingerly brushing her fingertips across the delicate petals. Against the vase he'd put them in, a folded up parchment leaned, and she raised it up so she could read the words he'd written across it.

Spring is here.

A smile touched her lips and she turned to the other wall, where her newest gown hung from a peg. Jon had brought her the bolt of fabric from King's Landing just weeks before, a beautiful pale blue silk she'd insisted was too much for her. But he'd grinned and said nothing was too much for her, for his queen. Queen... still yet the word tasted funny on her tongue. As a child, she'd dreamed of nothing but a crown of her own and now that it was hers it almost sounded wrong. Even so, she'd done as Jon had bid and made herself a new gown with the fabric, promising only to wear it when spring came again. As he'd promised to bring her the beautiful roses, she promised a gown, and so she dressed herself in the blue silk and braided her hair and pinned it into place as she did every morning.

Making her way down to the main hall, she found him already there, as if waiting for her. He could barely catch his breath as he caught sight of her in the blue silk gown, her dark cloak draped over her arm and a radiant smile upon her face. "You're like a dream." He said as he approached her, his compliment sending a rush of heat to her cheeks. "Like a dream of spring." This time she laughed and swatted at him playfully. "You're missing something though," he admitted, drawing back to inspect her closely, his dark eyes finding hers as she frowned. From his cloak pocket, he pulled a single winter bloom and reached for her then, carefully tucking the rose into her hair, the color vibrant against the red. "There." He grinned before he pulled her close and kissed her deeply. "Now... You're perfect."

Sansa smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but the door behind them opened and in came the first of the servants to bring in their morning meal. Soon, all of the others would begin to join them too. They only had a few more mornings together like this before things began to change, before Jon would be crowned King of the Iron Throne and she his queen. They would go to King's Landing for a time, but he promised they'd return to Winterfell as often as she pleased. No King before had lived anywhere but King's Landing, but this would be a new reign quite unlike any King before him.

Taking their seats at the head table, Sansa smiled as Arya came into the room, her dark-eyed little sister taking her place beside Jon. Bran came next, his spot on her other side. They were the last surviving Starks, the last three true born children of Eddard and Catelyn Stark and the one time bastard of Winterfell. Touching the flower Jon had tucked into her hair, she could not help but to smile. Their dream of spring had finally come true.

[taronunwin]

My thoughts on the Game of Thrones finale that no one asked for and pretty much a script of my perfect ending.

Honestly I’m so much happier after writing this and I can move on with my life now.

PLEASE NOTE: I’ve been watching GoT for like 4 months now and I know that probably most of the names below are misspelled as I know how they sound but not how they’re spelled exactly. Please forgive me. I’m literally too lazy to spell-check every word and name from the show. Please autocorrect them in your mind ;)

So my fear going into this episode was that Jon was going to die, or come very close. To some extent, yes I’m very pleased that he didn’t but the ending was still incredibly unsatisfying for his character. Why build up all the King of the North/True Heir to the Iron Throne/Prince that was Promised stuff only to have him go back to where he ‘came from’ and be a nobody at the wall? I saw someone say that he rejected it and became a Wildling with them. I dunno about that, I took that last scene as Jon helping to return the Wildlings to their land and help them resettle before returning to the Watch. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, incredibly unsatisfying with no real explanation of what that last scene meant for him.

Here’s what I really hoped would happen, in a perfect world where I wanted some tragedy but also a good ending for Jon:

Excluding what I would change in the rest of season 8, the one major thing I would change is that Jon kills the Night King. Obviousfreakingly. He wasn’t on a dragon the whole time, he was in the trenches with his men. Epic battle, some explanation for who the Night King was and what the motives were (and I love the headcanon that Bran was in fact the Night King but I’m going to ignore that for this), and a satisfying end to that really cool storyline. After that, Jon is even more loved by the people and hailed as the hero who saved Westeros. Dany continues being jealous of the love they have for him and trying to convince him to hide his identity. The rest happens as it happens because I don’t have the energy to change everything else, haha.

At the finale, after talking to Tyrion, Jon is terribly torn. He can’t reconcile what Dany did at all and he’s struggling to figure out his next step. He goes to the throne room and talks to Dany as he did but instead of giving the ‘You are my Queen’ thing with the kiss and what happened next, he says, “I can’t stand beside someone who would slaughter an entire city because of their ruler’s choices. Dany, I beg you. Offer mercy now and lead with kindness and justice, not fire and blood.”

Daenerys cooly steps back, hearing an unspoken ‘or I will be forced to take my rightful place’, and calls for her soldiers. Jon doesn’t fight, he knows he’s signed his death warrant by opposing her while his lineage makes him more of a threat now than ever, and he’s taken outside. The remaining terrified people left in the city are gathered, the Unsullied, Dothraki, and remaining Northmen stand nearby. Jon is brought to the same place that Ned was beheaded and forced to his knees. Dany assumes that Jon has enough Targaryen in him to be fireproof so Drogon isn’t called.

We see Arya in the distance. Her eyes widen in horror. She was waiting at the city gates for Jon but knew something was wrong when he didn’t come. She starts pushing through the crowd. Jon closes his eyes without seeing her, accepting his fate, just as Ned did.

Dany says that opposition will not be tolerated and orders Grey Worm to behead Jon. The Northmen begin to riot and the other two other armies clash with them. Dany looks over the crowd and doesn’t notice Arya coming up behind her. A blade, Needle, stabs through Dany’s chest, straight through her heart. She cries out and Jon’s eyes jerk open. He looks over and sees only Dany. Arya is already gone, but Needle is left. Jon focuses on it and his eyes widen even more. Dany falls to the ground and Grey Worm rushes over. Jon stays on his knees, taking in the chaos and the blood pooling. He’s in shock.

The soldiers are fighting each other, barely noticing their Queen’s fall. She stares at Grey Worm, in pain and terrified, until her eyes slip closed and she dies. Grey Worm wants someone to blame but Jon was clearly not at fault. Jon slowly stands and walks to Dany, settling beside her. This wasn’t how he wanted it to end. He had so hoped that she would change her mind, and he knows that Arya did it so he’s equally afraid that she will be caught. He looks around uselessly, knowing that he won’t see her anywhere.

Grey Worm removes the blade and lays his Queen down. He stands, lifting it high. He calls for justice, gaining the soldier’s attention finally and they see what’s happened. He demands to know who the blade belonged to and whoever finds the owner will be given a reward. Jon stays silent, staring at Daenarys. He stays there as Grey Worm and several of the soldiers leave in search of Dany’s killer. Jon lifts her the way he did with Ygritte and cries for her. In the distance, Drogon is heard screaming.

Some time has passed by the time we see Tyrion as he’s being released from jail by Jon. Tyrion asks if Jon was the one who killed Dany. When he finds out that Jon is innocent, he manages a smile. “I suppose nothing stands between you and the Iron Throne now.”

Jon isn’t pleased and he repeats, for the last time, “I don’t want it. I’ve seen what that thing does to people, how it corrupts them, how it makes people insane. I want no part of it.”

Tyrion is thoughtful. He completely understands Jon’s fear, after all the majority of people who have sat on the Throne in recent years were crazy, in one way or another. “The throne is not what changes people, Jon. It’s the lust for power that changes a person. And you have no such lusts. Even if you were a bastard and your father wasn’t a Targaryen , I can’t think of anyone who would be a better fit for power. You have had it and you have used it well. You have shown both mercy and justice. You’ve made hard decisions and you’ve seen the good and the bad that comes from them. You killed the Night King. The people love you—and not because of everything you’ve done but because of who you are: a good man. And isn’t it time that a good man sits on the Iron Throne?”

Jon sits, overwhelmed. “Would you want that kind of power?”

“Me? No. No, I fear it might go to my head, too. I am a Lannister after all and our lusts have always been our downfall.” Jon is silent so Tyrion sits next to him and quietly asks, “What do you want, Jon? You’ve said time and time again what you do not want, but what do you want?”

The young man’s eyes are filled with tears when he replies, “I want my father to be alive. I want Catelynn to be alive. I want Robb and Rickon to be alive. I want Sansa to have been protected. I want Arya to have stayed in Winterfell and never seen how awful the world outside is. And I want Bran to be... Bran.”

Tyrion smiles faintly. “Your greatest desire is for your family’s safety and protection. That is good. But what about you? Where do you want to go from here if not up those steps?” he asks, motioning to the throne room.

“Home.”

“Is that Winterfell?”

Jon nods.

“Then go.”

Jon glances at him, frowning. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

Tyrion smiles. “Imagine for a moment that the Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms doesn’t rule from the Iron Throne. Imagine that he lives among his people and protects them, as a King should. Imagine if he ruled from the dining hall in his beloved home instead of a throne room painted with blood.” Jon is obviously doing just that. “You’ve already been the King in the North. You need only add a few more titles after that.”

Jon is silent for a long moment before a bell outside sounds. He stands suddenly. “I have to go.”

The former Hand of the Queen sighs. “Will you not even consider it? I thought I made some good points here.”

“No, it’s not that,” Jon says, inching toward the open door. “I have to go. I’ll find you later.”

Tyrion is a bit confused but he watches Jon leave. We follow Jon out of the destroyed Keep, through streets, passing people as they try to figure out how to start life over. Some people have bread for sale and a small marketplace is beginning to take shape. Jon is clearly in a hurry but he slows as he takes in the sight of people that he feels a deep longing to protect. He may not want power, but he wants to protect them. The thought stays with him as he continues and we follow him to to the beach. A small boat sits in the water with a man inside and a girl on the sand. Ser Davos waits in the boat, acknowledging Jon, and Arya smiles when she sees Jon approaching. They hug.

“You weren’t followed, right?” Jon asks, pulling away to look at her face.”

“No, no one knows we’re here, I’m sure of it. Do you have it?”

Jon smiles and removes Needle from under his cloak. He hands it to Arya and she grips the hilt tightly, possessively. “Thank you, Jon. I didn’t think I’d ever get it back.”

“You almost didn’t. Grey Worm had it under a close watch but when no one found the owner, I think he got tired of the reminder.” Jon’s smile fades. “What you did was foolish. You could have been caught.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“I know that, but you could have.”

“Jon, she was going to kill you. I couldn’t let that happen. Not again.”

He looks confused. “‘Not again’?”

“I couldn’t do anything when Father was killed. I just stood there and listened.”

Jon’s eyes widen. He didn’t know that she had seen it, or at least been close enough to hear it. He looks at the girl and sighs. She’s seen so much, and grown so much. “You know, I’ve wished for many years that things were different—as they were. But... I am so proud of you. And your sister. You both have become such strong women.”

Arya beams under his praise. “You may not be my brother by birth, but you will always be my big brother. And I’m proud of you, too.”

He smiles. “Thank you, Arya.” They hug again. “When will I see you again?”

Arya glances behind her to the boat. “I don’t know. I’m going West.”

“What is West of Westeros?”

“Exactly. I want to find out. And no one there probably even knows the name Daenerys so I’ll be safe.”

Jon’s eyes are sad. “Be safe. Please.”

She reaches as high as she can and Jon bends the rest of the way so she can kiss his cheek. “I will. And I will come back someday.”

“You’d better. I don’t know how I’ll be King with you to protect me.”

Arya’s expression blanks. “King? Are you going to take your place?”

He exhales. “I’m thinking about it.”

She smiles wide. “I can’t think of anyone better suited for it.” She turns and starts toward the boat before turning back. “You know, I don’t need someone to go with me. I can go alone.”

Jon’s sweet smile returns. “Oh I know. He’s there for my peace of mind. And he can tell me where you’ve gone when he returns so, perhaps, I can come visit.”

Our view pulls away, far away, as Arya nods, grins, and walks to the boat; gets in, and they head off while Jon watches.

Time moves forward once more as our view of a start-of-repairs Red Keep comes back into focus. Jon steps out in the same way Daenarys did at the start of the episode, but there is no great crowd awaiting him. He’s not there to make a speech, he’s ready to leave. Tyrion follows. “We will miss you here, you know. There are too many ghosts here for my liking.”

Jon looks over the city. “We all have our ghosts to live with.”

“Yes, some more than others.”

Jon looks down. “Thank you for all you’ve taught me, Tyrion. You’ve always been honest with me, even when others weren’t.”

Tyrion is obviously honoured. The two men hold each other in very high regard. “And you, Snow. Though I suppose I can’t call you that anymore.”

Jon smirks. “I like it better than Targaryen, actually.”

“Well, I certainly can’t call you the Bastard of Winterfell anymore.”

“No, and I can’t call you the Imp of Casterly Rock, either.”

Tyrion extends his hand. “Farewell then, King Jon of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Jon extends his own and they shake. “And you, Lord Tyrion of the Red Keep.”

“Actually, I like those better,” Tyrion replies with a smile.

Before Jon can reply, Drogon flies in and lands at the bottom of the stairs, bellowing in Jon’s direction. Jon looks from the dragon to Tyrion, a question in his eyes. Tyrion states, “I think your ride home has arrived.”

Jon looks unnerved. “I don’t know how to care for a dragon. And the North is no place for one.”

Tyrion gives the animal a sympathetic look. “I imagine he can take care of himself just fine, but... he’s lost everyone. You’re probably the only one he trusts now.”

With a sigh of resignation, because he still feels guilt over Dany’s death, he gives Tyrion a last nod of goodbye and descends the long staircase. At the bottom, Drogon squeals and lowers himself so Jon can step on. Still a little wary of riding a dragon, especially without Dany’s guidance or aid if necessary, he climbs on. Not knowing what to say, he simply commands, “Winterfell.”

Drogon stands, stretches his long wings out, and starts to fly. We watch the pair fly out of sight from Tyrion’s perspective. Tyrion smiles.

Winterfell comes into view after a long flight and Drogon descends, carefully landing nearby. Jon, clearly not at ease after the flight, stumbles a bit as he gets off. Turning back to face the gorgeous beast, he removes his glove and gently pets Drogon’s face. The dragon’s eyes close and sounds of contentment come from deep within. “I’m sorry about your mother,” Jon says quietly. “She was a good woman and I loved her.” He pauses, not sure what to say next. In a sense, he feels like he’s just as much apologizing to Dany herself as the dragon’s eyes focus on him. “Go. Go wherever you want and do whatever you want. But, please... don’t kill anyone. Those days are over now.”

He has no idea if the dragon understands or not but somehow, he feels like it does. Drogon stands back, makes one last noise at Jon, and then flies away. Jon watches, his cloak billowing in the wind. He turns to the gates of Winterfell and, for the first time in so long, exhales a breath it seems like he’d been holding for years. He is home.

The gates open and Sansa, Bran, Sam, Tormund, and Ghost await inside. Ghost bolts as soon as he catches sight of Jon and nearly knocks his owner over. Jon laughs, balancing himself and giving the wolf a proper rub. “I missed you, too, boy. It’s good to see you.”

He enters the city and hugs Sansa tightly, shakes Bran’s hand, hugs Sam, and stops at Tormund. “What are you doing here? Did you get too cold in the ‘Real North’?”

The bearded man laughs. “We came as soon as I got the letter from Sam. Your dog wasn’t eating much and I knew he needed his real owner. Besides, I wanted to see if you looked any different now that you’re a real King.”

Jon laughs. “And? Do I?”

"Besides the belly you have from eating like a King, no.” Tormund laughs uproariously as he strikes Jon’s abdomen before pulling him into a hug.

When they separate, Sansa, smiling, steps forward. “Can I still call you Jon?”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes. If I can still call you sister.”

She hugs him once more. “I will always be your sister.”

Bran clears his throat, gaining everyone’s attention. “Jon, you have work to do now. The Seven Kingdoms need you.”

Jon sighs. This isn’t what he wanted, but he knows that it’s his duty. And there was nowhere else he’d rather be, and no one he would rather be surrounded by than his family and friends.

“Do we have time to celebrate his homecoming first?” Sam asks.

Bran gives a faint smile. “So long as there are no more stories about giant’s milk.”

Jon frowns and turns to Tormund. The man’s lips are pursed out, his brow furrowed. “How did you know about that?”

“I know everything,” Bran replies.

Tormund’s confusion seems to grow. “Do you also know about the time that I killed a bear with my own hands?”

Bran nods without emotion. “Yes.”

“Can I tell that story?”

“Yes.”

Tormund throws one arm around Jon’s shoulder as they all walk into the main hall, Sam pushing Bran’s wheelchair as he and Tormund continue going through a list of Tormund’s appropriate stories. The people of Winterfell are pleased to see Jon and smile and greet him as he passes.

Their true King had returned.

THE END

[quccnnorth-archive]

Ramsay shows Sansa a new toy. A broken and battered Robb Stark, a present from House Frey.

ramsay bolton was the cruelest man to step foot on this planet. this, she could say without a shadow of a doubt. every day had been a new level of hell where he introduced a new level of torture to her, whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally. today, was no different. the newlyweds sat in the great hall, eating their food in silence, theon – or reek, apparently now, watching in the corner as they got to eat food he could only dream of. it felt wrong to sansa, and although she harbored resentment towards everything theon did to betray her family, seeing the absolute torture he had gone through, not even being recognizable to himself as theon greyjoy – made her pity him. almost forgive him..‘ i have a present for you, my beautiful bride. ’ ramsay announced, his tone as enthusiastic as could be. the menacing smile on his face causes her to shiver, chills shooting up her spine. for the level of excitement he had, sansa knew whatever he had for her would be absolutely torturous. ‘ you’ll like this too, reek. ’ he mentions over to theon, beckoning him over. the empty shell of who she once knew seemed eager for compensation, but sansa knew better than to trust ramsay, she knew this would be something that could only hurt the two of them, though she couldn’t think what. ramsay calls for myranda to bring the gift in, sansa’s eyes looking up as she sees a figure accompanying her. in that moment, her fork crashes to her plate, the loud sounds of dishes clattering echoing through the stone room. theon, too, reacts, because she notices his body beginning to tremble violently. ‘NO!’ she hears herself yell out, rising from her seat to run closer to the other body, hand reaching out to cup the man’s face. his mouth was gagged, body beat to a pulp. IT WAS ROBB. 

tears threaten to spill from tully blue eyes, sansa refusing to give ramsay exactly what he wanted from her: a reaction, a plea. theon, too, steps closer, terrified of the best friend he had completely betrayed, robb himself refusing to meet his eyes. instead, robb’s eyes only focus on sansa’s, begging internally for her to help him. ‘ well, well, well.. isn’t this a touching family reunion. ’ ramsay begins, walking closer to sansa. he grabs sansa’s face violently in his hands, watching as robb struggled to try to help, his eyes finally shooting to theon to take some action for the sake of his sister. yet, he remained still, head bowed down in shame, eyes fighting back tears that told stories of the nights he’d watch ramsay have his way with sansa. ramsay forces a kiss to sansa, her struggling against his grip. typically, she remained numb, stayed perfectly still as he did what he pleased with her. but with the presence of her brother, she felt a new sense of hope to get out of this living hell she was stuck in. ‘ now, now.. don’t let your brother think that his sister isn’t happy with her husband.. warden of the north, lord of winterfell. ’ he uses these words to tease robb intentionally, wanting him to be bothered over ramsay having what was once his. ‘ no matter, i think we can arrange for your brother to watch with reek tonight. your brother can see the woman i have made of you. ’ he laughs at the conclusion, sansa now suppressing the sob that dared escape her throat. robb, however, has seen enough. with every last bit of strength he has left, he manages to head butt ramsay, knocking him out. he looks at sansa with urgent eyes, already planning their escape. but before they can react, myranda is standing before them, knife in hand. ‘ not so fast! ’ she warns, wicked smile on her face. though they manage to run past her, sansa dragging theon along with them as they went to run free. he refused to leave, though, robb begging her to leave him behind. she swallowed, fearing this escape couldn’t be possible, though robb’s optimism was the only thing that allowed her to run through the halls of winterfell. their exit seemed to be inevitable, the castle gates becoming larger and larger in their field of view, though something stops them from exiting. an arrow soars past, shooting robb in the back. he screams out in agony, sansa screaming out as he’s hit. sure enough, myranda is standing behind them, theon at her feet. that bastard, she thought angrily, he’d betray robb twice over. though, in all fairness, she understood he was no longer theon. he was something else.. something destroyed beyond repair. ‘ sansa, run. ’ robb grunts out, trying to continue to run, the arrow not leaving fatal damage, but she refuses. sansa stands in front of robb, right in the pathway of the arrows myranda was aiming with an unfortunate accuracy. ‘ i’m going to kill you both. then there will be no stark claim left for winterfell, you’re just making ramsay’s job even easier. ’ she snides, eyes wide with excitement of the kill. sansa hears robb pleading with her to move, but she does not dare move a muscle. ‘ kill me then. ’ she says sternly, almost daring the other woman to do it. ‘ i don’t fear death anymore, in fact, i welcome it. death is the superior option to ramsay and what he’s done to me. ’ she uses the back of her foot to kick robb, urging him to continue to run while she’s distracting myranda. she braces herself for the arrow, clenching her firsts tightly, breath sucked in. she prayed silently in her head, begging her mother and father to greet her when she was with the gods soon enough. BUT NOTHING HAPPENED.instead, myranda’s arrow misses, bouncing off the wall. she sees the anger in the female’s eyes as she realizes theon was the one who stopped her. sansa’s eye’s widen with shock, robb grinning like a wicked fool as he realized that perhaps, his best friend was under there after all. lost in all of the chaos, sansa blinks and then suddenly finds myranda’s lifeless body on the ground, at least forty feet below them. ‘ come on! ’ theon screams out, his hand grabbing sansa’s, sansa’s grabbing robb’s. the three ran through the halls of winterfell almost as if they were reenacting one of their childhood games, though this time the danger was very real.she hears ramsay awaken, barking orders to ready the hounds and follow them. the stark siblings and their companion sprinted, robb slowing down due to the arrow still lodged into his flesh, wincing out loud in pain with each corner they turned, the arrow banging into the wall. sansa had no time to react to his pain, for she was too busy running for her life, dragging robb as hard as she could so he wouldn’t get lost behind. they make it to the edge of the castle, now realizing their only shot of survival is to jump into the snowy banks down below. sansa looks at her brother uncertainly, though deep down she knows this is what they have to do. the sound of a hound is heard running frantically towards them, theon urging them to jump before it catches up.. but then robb drops her hand. sansa looks at him questioningly, though the tears in his eyes show her what he’s about to do, and she begins yelling at him to stop, hand grabbing at him so they can jump down together. ‘ robb, don’t be dull. come on, we can get away. we can find bran and rickon – we can find jon. we can come back here, on our terms. but i need you robb, please. ’his eyes look to theon at the mention of bran and rickon, the other boy nodding in confirmation that they were alive, robb flashing a smile as the realization the stark children were still out there, and that they weren’t burned alive at the hands of his best friend. still, he didn’t climb back up to the edge with sansa and theon. he shook his head simply. ‘ they murdered mother. they murdered my wife – my unborn child. all of my men. they took everything from me, they humiliated me. they tortured me for years, and i feel like an empty shell of myself. i don’t deserve to survive when no one else did, sansa... ’ her eyes are now leaking, the eldest stark daughter grabbing desperately at the eldest son, trying to get him to simply just go with them.‘ theon, take her to jon at castleblack, please. i trust you, theon. i trust you to bring sansa there safely. i need you to do this for me. ’ the other man blinks back tears, swallowing at the lump in his own throat, knowing this means in a sense he earned the forgiveness he didn’t deserve from his best friend. sansa, however, is too mad at her brother to allow him to do this.  ‘ you don’t have to do this, robb. we can all jump now. don’t be a martyr. ’ though, as soon as those words escaped her, she hears the hounds pounding up the stairs, right outside the doors they were standing behind. ‘ ROBB, NOW, PLEASE! ’ she practically wails, though he nods at theon and she knows what’s about to happen.‘ i’m buying you the time that you need. they’ll be too distracted with me to find you at first. sansa… i love you, please. live for me. go, now! ’ before she even has the chance to reply, theon’s hand is dragging her down the castle walls with him, the last thing she hears is the dogs reaching robb. the two of them land in the snow, scurrying as fast as they can to move past into the woods, robb’s agonizing screams  echoing in her ears as violent sobs overcome her. despite this, she keeps running, promising she’d live for him. and that is exactly what she did. 

[iknownothingihearnothing]

Game of Thrones 8.2 “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”

So, we’ve come to the “calm before the storm” episode.

Literally, I guess, considering winter is finally here. 

Taking bets now on who bites the big one in the Battle of Winterfell next week. A Stark is probably going to fall because it’s been quite a while since we lost one.

Sorry, Rickon.

Sansa is probably safe, since she’s not fighting, but GoT likes to fuck with us. I call 50/50 equally between Arya and Bran in Westerosi Woulette. If I had to pick one, I’d pick Bran because he is now a robot and Arya breaks my heart but...

As for the remaining players, well, Jaime always said he’d die in the arms of the woman he loved, and we all know he loves Brienne so it’d be a fitting end to his character arc. Started out as a Kingslayer, ended up dying fighting for his daughter in the arms of a woman he derided until now.

Lo how many of us would be so sad panda over the premature exit of Nickolaj Coster-Waldau from the show.

He could just as easily survive, tho! Remember, Maggy the Frog’s prediction was that one of Cersei’s brothers would kill her, and how boring and predictable would it be if it were Tyrion? Besides, he already slew Tywin.

That was only mentioned in the books, however, not on the series. Gah! All so complicated, this mythos.

Furthermore, Brienne could potentially fall in battle. Dany I see surviving just because she’s gotta kick Cersei’s butt. Or at least march on King’s Landing. Jon will probably make it, too. Gendry is up in the air.

Theon is probably a goner but we’ll see. There’s a spark of hope there. Please, for all that is holy, do not kill Tormund, he is our shining star.

Even his eyes are light.

Tormund, you are delightful. 

Which means of course he’s gonna die, oh Seven Hells. No one anyone actually likes lives on this show.

Alrighty, Thronesians, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty!

Last episode ended with Ser Jamie “Fuck You, Cersei” Lannister riding up into dat North on his horsey to fight for Team Alive, when, upon descending, his eyes settle upon...

You see that look on Jaime’s face? That is the look of someone who has just realized he is oh so much deeper shit than he initially anticipated. 

As the episode opens, Jaime is facing a trial at the Great Hall, not unlike the one Tyrion had back in season four following the Joff’s death (presumably this one won’t end with any squishing of heads...or will it?!). Daenerys is not amused. Jaime is, after all, the dude who stabbed her father in the back and slit his throat. That’s how he got his nickname, the Kingslayer. Mad King or not, Aerys was still her father and his death led to her family losing the Iron Throne after his most trusted advisor killed him and watched him bleed to death.

It’s kinda something a person holds a grudge against, you know?

(And if they all die soon, that grudge will still be there, I’ve seen it happen and so has Sarah Michelle Gellar)

Dany is all “Your sisbitch promised us an army, there ain’t no army, broseph” and Jaime’s like “There ain’t dat, Your Grace” and it’s the first time we’ve heard Jaime refer to anyone other than his sisterlover as that title. Grudging, maybe (there’s that word again) but if he wants to fight for Team Still Breathing, he’s gotta eat some crow. And we ain’t talking about the the fellows of the Night’s Watch.

That’s my favorite gym shirt. Whenever I get tired on the treadmill, I just look down at my shirt, and laugh. And also wish I’d worn a better sports bra. 

Jaime confesses she lied about sending the Lannister army North and that “we” are alone fighting the dead.. And Dany’s all “we”? And Jaime professes that he promises to fight for the living and he intends on keeping that promise. Tyrion tries to stand up for him, that he knows his brother, but Dany’s in NO mood after Tyrion’s repeated screw-ups--while Tyrion is quite the clever man, sometimes clever people can become cocky and that has seemed to have occurred with Dany’s Hand...a few times--and cuts in icily “Like you knew your sister?” Tyrion tries to reason that Jaime wouldn’t come here and put his ass on the line if he wasn’t serious. But Daenerys remains...unconvinced.

Dany has gone as icy as her hair. She is not okay with this. And right now, she has icicles for eyes. 

If she survives the Battle of Winterfell, she may not need her dragons. All she’ll need to take out Cersei is stare her down like that. Hell, I’m scared and I’ve already bent the knee. Don’t set me on fire, Dany. 

Sansa agrees with Dany for the first time since she arrived in Winterfell, throwing aside their little “I don’t like my brother’s new girlfriend even though she brought TWO ARMIES AND DRAGONS TO SAVE OUR FROZEN REAR ENDS” battle of wills. 

Sansa lists all the crappy shit Jaime’s done to her family and Jaime insists they were at war and he’d do it again. That is when BranBot babbles “The things I do for love”, echoing Jaime’s remarks from the pilot before he pushed Young Bran out the window but in a much less human, more Twilight Zone-y way.

Jaime:

Daenerys wonders why he has abandoned his House and family now and Jaime argues that this is above loyalty; this is about survival. That is when Brienne, the badass mofo, jumps to her feet and argues Jaime’s case. Ser Jaime is a man of honor who defended Brienne against men who tried to force themselves on her. He is the reason Sansa and Arya are alive, as he passed his oath to Catelyn to keep her daughters safe onto Brienne. Sansa nods and agrees he should stay, as she trusts Brienne with her life.

Dany asks how Jon feels about it, and he concedes that they need every man they can get. Dany, obviously reluctant, agrees with an icy “Very well”, and signals to Grey Worm to arm him. Which he does, but while giving Jaime this look:

Don’t cross Grey Worm. He’s lived through getting his junk sliced off. He will eff you up, he ain’t afraid of shit.

When the trial concedes, Dany rises and looks up at her new BF, but Jon quickly gets the hell out of there. While she stands there, confused, the rest of us watching are like--

We feel bad for Dany, and we also feel Jon/Aegon’s WTFery. He just found out he’s half-Targaryen, after all, and the woman he’s been Queening is his aunt. Jon loves her, and it’s not like he can ghost her. They’re fighting an epic battle in a day or two.

Brienne and Jaime catch eyes as they depart and we’re left to wonder if it’s simply two warriors’ mutual respect or Something More.

Tyrion, ever the faithful Hand, is beseeching Dany as she storms down the hall. He believed Cersei was sending an army; he’s either a traitor or a fool. Tyrion admits he was a fool, and not for the first time. Cersei is still sittin’ pretty (and batshit bananas) in King’s Landing and if he can’t help Dany take back the Iron Throne, she’ll find another Hand who can.

Yeah, Dany be pisssssssed. It probably doesn’t help that her boyfriend’s avoiding her and she has no idea why.

Oh, to be a woman in power.

Down in the Forge, Gendry’s makin’ weapons out of Dragonglass all sweaty and stuff and Arya seems to appreciate the view.

Well. ARE YA feelin’ the call of the wild, there, milady? ARE YA?

Once she’s done checking him out, Arya asks Gendry if he’s made her weapon yet. He says he will once he’s finished making a few thousand more of the Dragonglass knives. Arya then asks if Gendry’s ever faced a wight before, and what they’re like. She is patently not satisfied with his reply of “Really bad”. 

Gendry: “I know you’re not afraid of rapers or murderers or...but this is different. This is Death. You wanna know what they’re like? Death.”

Arya blinks, then picks up three of the Dragonglass weapons and nonchalantly hurls them into the wall behind Gendry. “I know Death. He has many faces.”

She asks about her weapon again, he promises to get right on it, and she leaves while Gendry stands there looking a combination of impressed, scared, and mildly turned on. 

In the Godswood, Bran is sitting beneath his massive tree when Jaime decides to work up the balls (You know, the ones that Varys doesn’t have, right, Tyrion?) to confront him and apologize for, IDKKKKKKKKKKK, pushing him out a window, crippling him, and leaving him for dead years earlier.

*da-dum. da-dum. dum dum dum dum dum dum*

Jaime doesn’t beat around the bush and instantly says sorry for what he did. BranBot is not angry. The fact is, if Jaime hadn’t have pushed him out of that window, he’d still be Brandon--

--Stark. 

Jaime, perplexed, is all, “You’re not?”, I guess thinking that Bran has been possessed but nah he is just “something else, now”. Bran Stark got an upgrade and he is now BranBot 2.0. 

Jaime asks why he didn’t tell anyone it was him. He replies that Jaime couldn’t help them win against the dead if he was killed horribly before the battle began which is a--

Then Jaime inquires about after and BranBot is all “How do you know there will be an after?” and Jaime’s like:

I’m gonna start collecting caps of Jaime just reacting to bad news. His faces are delightful.

In the courtyard, Tyrion and Jaime reunite, though it’s certainly not reminiscent of dem Stark feels; Lannisters don’t express emotion that way. Perhaps through goblets of wine and a sarcastic comment. 

Like Tyrion’s when three Northern men gathered above them literally spit at Jaime’s presence:

They walk talking about Daenerys for a bit--yes, she is different than her father; yes, Tyrion does believe in her--and bemoans that he overestimated Cersei’s claim that her new child “changed her”, which, of course, it has not. But no, she was not lying about that in particular. Jaime claims that she lied to everyone, him most of all, but Tyrion ain’t falling for it. “You always knew exactly who she was and you loved her anyway.”

Upstairs, they continue talking. Tyrion says idly that they’re going to die at Winterfell. It’s not the death Jaime would’ve chosen, nor Tyrion. Tyrion always wanted to die at eighty, with a belly full of wine and--Jaime repeats--a woman’s mouth around his cock. 

Ah, brothers. 

While Tyrion continues that at least he’ll get to deny Cersei the pleasure of killing him herself, Jaime walks to the edge of the balustrade and watches Brienne train Podrick. I don’t think I’m imagining the doofy little smile on his face.

Downstairs, Brienne is instructing Podrick on the follow-through with a fond smile on her face. The lady who didn’t need a squire has now grown pretty attached to him. Like a kitten you were forced to take care of.

Jaime shambles to her side and she confirms that she is commanding the left flank. They talk normally, weirdly normally, for a minute until Brienne’s all--

Brienne has had enough of this niceness nonsense. Jaime has never been in Brienne’s presence for this long without insulting her, not one damn time. Jaime asks her if he wants him to insult her, like maybe Brienne has a masochist kink we’re not aware of (why not? The dragons have a cuckold-mommy porn one), and she’s like:

And we at home watching are--

--cus she actually kinda does a little bit if she held this torch for Jaime this long knowing he kept lobbing insults at her like spitballs. And Brienne’s so shocked at this blatant display of Nice Jaime she goes like--

Just like us wominz, amirite? We only like guys when they’re assholes. He lost a hand for you! So unappreciative. Drop your sword fighting bizzness and get back in that kitchen! Make him a sammich with it.

(Just in case that wasn’t obvious; if I had a nickel for every person who misread my disdain, I’d at least be able to pay for my own Pac Man machine with them)

Elsewhere in Winterfell, Dany is gazing into the hearth, I guess because Ye Olde Westerosi Netflyxxe hasn’t been invented yet, when Jorah enters behind her and asks his Khaleesi to forgive him. He’s made lots of mistakes, that she has already pardoned him for, but he confesses that when he learned she made Tyrion her Hand instead of him, it broke his heart. She didn’t know she’d ever see him again, but Jorah insists she made the right choice. Though Jorah never thought much of Tyrion--the Seven Faced God knows he never shut up between Meereen and Volantis--but he has a clever, strategic mind, something Dany needs to win back the Iron Throne. She insists, with that scary AF icy stare, that he’s made mistakes, but, well, haven’t they all? And if Jorah would stick up for the dude who stole his position, Dany figures he’s got a point. 

And Jorah also has another request.

That second request is obviously “Get Sansa on your good side because we kinda have to stay here for a bit and the Northerners won’t trust you if she doesn’t”. So Dany goes to extend an olive branch to Sansa, and at first, it seems to be working. They bond over their shared history of family weirdness and being badass ladies who literally rule. “Who are doing a damn good job at it, as far as I can tell.”

But Dany has noticed that they’ve been at odds with each other, because of Jon? Sansa replies that men to dumbass things for women and they’re easily manipulated, but Dany’s here, having only knowing “Get the Iron Throne, damnit!” all her life, after meeting Jon, with two armies and dragons. Who manipulated whom? Sansa smiles and agrees, she should have thanked her when she arrived.

Logic, Sansa. It’s not just for the Vulkans, you know.

They gossip like girlfriends for a minute, even clasping hands over the table, until Sansa asks what’s gonna happen afterwards. If they defeat the dead, destroy Cersei? Dany will take the Iron Throne, but Sansa wants to know about the North. It was taken from them, they took it back, and they swore that they’d never bow to anyone ever again. 

Well. I guess Dany and Sansa aren’t gonna go shopping or getting mani/pedis together any time soon.

Their little “chat” is fortuitously interrupted by Lord Wolkan, who escorts Dany and Sansa to a newly arrived Theon. Bending the knee, Theon informs Dany that Yara has sailed to the Iron Islands to take them back in her name, but he came to Winterfell to fight for the living. Is...is everyone cool with that?

Sansa surely is.

If you remember, and if you don’t, you’d be forgiven because this show has more layers than an onion, Theon saved Sansa from Ramsay, altering her fate being stuck as Lady Bolton. But let’s be real: Theon doesn’t have much of a chance in Westerosi Woulette. 

In town, Davos is assuring a pants-shittingly terrified Northener, while ladling soup, that he’s a soldier now and if he, Davos, a man who had spent his life avoiding war, could survive some epic battles so could he. Oh, Davos may be a goner, too. He’s been bragging about his dumb luck too much and the Seven Faced God doesn’t like that.

A little girl named Teela wants to fight, too, like her brave brothers. But Gilly convinces her that she’d be relieved to have her down in the crypt protecting her and her son.

The horn sounds and the hunting party arrives back at Winterfell! Huzzah! Jon aims to greet Dolorous Edd but Tormund intercepts him with a bear hug and a “My little crow!” 

Oh, Tormund.

The Merry Men inform Jon that the Umbers are fighting for the Night King now. And so is anyone west of Winterfell, most like. The dead will be here before sun up. 

They’ll prepare. They’ll train until their knuckles bleed.

But first...

Tormund appreciates him a powerful lady.

On the outskirts, Jon narrates as our armies test out the many weapons created especially for this battle at the Forge. Including this awesome catapult:

Gonna save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah. 

In the war room, all our players are assembled. Jon and Sansa posit that the dead follow the Night King because he made them, so if he falls, they’ll be easier targets. Jon figures ol’ Nighty won’t be showing himself and he’ll stay hidden but BranBot negates that. He’ll come for BranBot, as he has come for many Three Eyed Ravens before him, because Nighty wants to erase the world and BranBot is its memory. 

Oh, BranBot. You make it too easy.

BranBot offers himself up as bait to lure in the Night King, and Theon in turn offers to protect him. Because he took the castle from him once and he’s gonna make up for that.

Tyrion also suggests joining Davos in fighting fire against ice, but Dany negates that. Though Tyrion has fought in battle before, Dany needs Tyrion for his mind if they all survive this. He needs to live and thus will be in the crypt with Sansa, Gilly, and Co. 

It’s kinda Dany’s way of saying “I know you fucked up in the past but I have faith in you as my Hand again...largely because Jorah gave me a stern talking-to.”

Then, they talk about the dragons. Should they be in the field or protecting BranBot? Would dragonfire work against the dead? They turn to BranBot, who seems to have all the answers, but not even Westeros’ answer to a SIM card knows. No one has tried in the past.

There’s a melancholy pause, like everyone at that damn table knows their fates are sealed. But Tormund, as always, prefers to look on the bright side:

Starting the #TormeoandBrienniet hashtag now.

Everybody begins to disperse. Dany looks at Jon expectantly but Jon only nods with a quick “Your Grace” and Dany’s left there like--

Dany may be in the race for the Iron Throne, First of her Name, Breaker of Chains, Queen of the Andals, whatever the hell, but she is still a young woman in her twenties with her second boyfriend after the premature loss of her Dothraki hubby (RIP Khal Drogo), and her second only love (sorry, Daario Naharis). Behind all those Targaryen walls, she’s still just a girl, confused why her boyfriend is being a dick. We’ve all been there.

After everyone else disperses, Tyrion turns to BranBot and comments that he’s had a “strange journey”. BranBot’s like “yeah, man”. Tyrion wants to hear all about it, and it’s a good thing they’re holed up in a vacancy in the middle of winter so he has plenty of time.

Outside, Grey Worm approaches Missandei. After Dany takes the Iron Throne, there won’t be much need for them. While he’s loyal to his Queen and will fight to the death for her, once her enemies are defeated, he wants to take Missandei and go...away. From the North, from K.L., from Westeros entirely, not that I blame him one iota. Missandei would like to go to the island of Naath, where she was born and raised before being kidnapped and made a slave. And Grey Worm promises to take her there, where he will protect her and her people.

Upstairs, Jon is commiserating with Sam that, no, he has not told Dany that, technically, they are related yet. But the important thing is we see a glimpse of Ghost for the first time since the end of season 6!

I hope Jon has many treats for Ghost. Are there any Ye Olde Westerosi Mylkbones?

Mr. Edd joins them on their watch. Jon suggests that Sam join Gilly and Little Sam in the crypt, but Sam wants to fight. After all, he was the first to kill a White Walker. He’s killed Thenns!

Mr. Edd: “Thenn.”

And Sam has stolen books from the Citadel. He is a rebel, damnit! Well, Mr. Edd muses out loud, if Samwell Tarly is a Slayer of White Walkers and a Lover of Ladies, now they know how fucked they are.

Inside, Jaime and Tyrion are staring at the hearth (that hearth is so entertaining!), Tyrion musing that he’d like to see his father’s face when he discovered that his two sons were about to die fighting to defend Winterfell. Tyrion remembers the first time they were here. Jaime was a golden lion and Tyrion was a whoremongerer. Correction: Jaime was sleeping with his sister, and Tyrion had one friend in the world who was sleeping with his sister. But Jaime’s golden lion days are dunzo, and Tyrion’s whoremongering ones are not an option anymore. 

Brienne and Podrick join them and, soon, so do Davos and Tormund. Tormund suggestively says to Brienne that this may be their last night alive and she stutters that she’s glad he’s here fighting with them and survived Eastwatch.

He then tells Jaime, the King Killer, about why he’s called Giantsbane. He killed a Giant when he was a lad, then got into bed with his wife, who thought he was her baby and suckled him to her breast for two months. 

Jaime:

They could not have died without knowing that Tormund fed from literal giant tiddies for two months.

Outside, Arya confronts the Hound, who offers her a drink (and is, at first, wigged out at how quiet she is). Why is he here? He’s never fought for anyone but himself, yet he joined the Brotherhood, and he went beyond the Wall to catch a wight with Jon. 

Beric Dondarrion soon joins them, addresses Arya as “my lady”, and begins babbling about the Lord of the Light. The Hound rolls his eyes and tells him the Lord of the Light would wonder why he brought him back all those times just for him to chuck Beric over this wall. The Hound passes him a drink and Arya begins to leave, throwing over her shoulder that she ain’t spending her last hours with “two miserable old shits”.

Ah, Arya. Never change. 

You know, if you survive tonight.

Instead, Arya goes off to practice shooting arrows when Gendry shows up with her freshly made weapon. First, they start talking about Melisandre, what she wanted with him, and he confesses to being Robert B’s bastard and she needed his blood for a spell. There were leeches and shit. 

Arya wonders if that was the first time he’d been with a woman, and when he protests (like no, having leeches all over your dick isn’t exactly a good time, or maybe it is for some people, I don’t know your life) she probes him further: has he been with loads of women in K.L. or what?

Gendry’s like “Uh yeah” and she asks how many. He buffs his knuckles on his chest, hi-fives someone off-camera, and replies “I didn’t keep count” and she calls bullshit. “One? Two? Twenty?”

And then this happens:

Arya can never be accused of not voicing exactly what--or in this case, who--she wants.

Get it, grrl!

Gendry looks both flabbergasted and delighted.

Arya demands Gendry take his bloody pants off because she’s in charge here, damnit. 

I read an interview Maisie Williams gave just after this episode aired of her reaction after she read that script. At first, she thought David and D.B. were joking, as they were wont to do, but when she realized they were srs, she about shat herself and wondered if she needed to go to the gym. Sophie Turner, her bestie, has been teasing her relentlessly. She just posted a video of herself saying Joe Dempsie “got that pussayyyyyyyy”. Must feel weird for him. He’s known her since she was a little-un and now he has to do that thing on camera with her. 

Around the hearth, our unlikely group of allies are still sitting around chatting. Tyrion comments on all the battles the people gathered here have survived. Ser Davos--the Battle of Blackwater and the Battle of the Bastards. Ser Jaime--fabled hero of the Siege of Pyke, fabled loser of the Battle of Whispering Wood (these are awesome battle names). Lady Brienne, who is not a Ser because women cannot be knights, defeated the Hound. Tormund scoffs to blast tradition! If he were king, he’d knight her ten times.

I’m sure he would.

But Jaime insists a king is not necessary; any knight can make another knight. So after some stubborn disbelief from Brienne--who claims she doesn’t even wanna be a knight, thanks, it’s cool, though we all know she totally does--the lady rises with an incredulous look on her face and kneels before Jaime while everyone else in the room watches.

Tapping his sword against her shoulders, Jaime recites:

In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave,

In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just,

In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent.

Then, she rises, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

The title of this episode both refers to Brienne and Jaime, methinks. 

Brienne could very well die in a few hours (sob) but at least she fulfilled her life’s wish--she became a knight.

Outside, Jorah and Lyanna Mormont are arguing. She fully intends to fight and he’s balking at the idea. She’s the future of their House, and she’d be safer in the crypt.

But Lyanna, that monument of badassery, is dressed up as a knight and has no inclination to hide in the crypt. She fought before; she can do it again. But she wishes her cousin good fortune in the battle to come.

Bad. Ass.

Sam appears with his family sword, Heartsbane. He wants to give it to Jorah to use in battle because lort knows he can’t wield it himself. Jorah’s father taught him how to be an honorable man, taught him what’s right, and Jorah will wield the sword in his name. 

Before Sam departs, he leaves Jorah with thus:

Inside Winterfell, our drunk allies have run out of wine (Lannisters without wine is like a car without an engine), so Tyrion suggests a sing-along. Unfortunately, neither Davos, Brienne, nor Tormund know any songs. (Lol could you imagine what Tormund would sing? It’d be something about giantess bewbies) But Podrick does.

I’m told that Florence + the Machine sing this song in the credits. But, yanno I’m Deaf Chick.

As the song plays, everyone is off doing their own thing. Sam, Gilly, and Little Sam are in bed. Sansa and Theon are outside playing a game and exchanging cow eyes.

This is why I think Theon has a wee chance. He could end up Sansa’s...well, Jon is the Warden of the North. Would he be...Lord Greyjoy? Lord Winterfell? Man...of Winterfell?

Arya is in bed with Gendry.

Grey Worm and Missandei kiss passionately before he goes off to join the rest of the Unsullied to prepare for battle.

Really. There is so much love in Winterfell tonight. Whether it be friendly, let’s get drunk together love, experimental love, burgeoning love, or desperate love. 

Who is not particularly feelin’ the love right now? Dany. So she goes to the crypt to confront Jon, who has been, to her, randomly ignoring her all day.

Jon is looking up at the sarcophagus of Lyanna Stark when Dany enters. When he sees her, he offers a pained smile, and she approaches with evident relief, but it obvs doesn’t last. Now is the time to tell her. She asks who he’s looking at, and when he tells her, she murmurs that she was told her brother was decent and kind, but he raped Lyanna, which we know is false. Jon corrects her; they loved each other and married in secret. When Rhaegar was killed, Lyanna had a son. Who was given to Lyanna’s brother on her deathbed, with a promise that he’d protect her son.

Dany’s face as she realizes Jon is talking about himself:

 He tells her his real name, Aegon Targaryen. She’s like “That’s impossible! Who told you this?” He says BranBot and Sam, the first who, er, :”saw” it with BranVision and the second who read about the marriage at the Citadel. At first, Dany tries to push the notion that the story could be made up, known as it is only by Jon’s brother and his bestie. But Jon knows deep in his gut that it’s true. 

Dany: If it is true, it’d make you the last male heir of House Targaryen. You’d have a claim on the Iron Throne.

Jon:

Jon is kinda freaked that Dany doesn’t seem to give a second’s thought to their being related and all. And she should know that he doesn’t want the Iron Throne. Like, at all. But I read an interview with Emilia Clarke that defended her character’s reaction. And it makes sense. Dany grew up in an incestuous environment. Hell, she was supposed to marry her own damn brother. But the Iron Throne...she’s been working for that her entire life, it’s all she knows, to get back what rightfully belongs to her House. And here is Jon coming out of left field and he has a claim on it and he doesn’t even want it!

Alas, they don’t have time to discuss their relationship. The White Walkers are a-comin’! A horn sounds and Dany and Jon race to the roof of Winterfell to join Tyrion. Battle is about to begin.

Indeed.

This episode was great! It really delved into the psyche of our favorites, explored where everyone’s at, allowed them to just be for a while before all hell breaks loose. It makes the inevitable deaths we fear on Sunday all the richer, and more painful. 

Aye. Sunday’s episode is gonna be epic. And terrible, in the best way.

[pardonmymannerssir]

happiness throws a shower of sparks (Part Two)

Part two (AO3 Link)

(Can find part one here: AO3 Link)

Warnings: Mention of past abuse; PTSD symptoms

Rating: Mature

Sansa takes to sleeping in his bed every night, curled into his side with her hand pressed against his chest, but little else changes.

No, everything is the same despite Jon’s entire world turning upside down.

Mornings are always a bit awkward, as he angles her ass away from his crotch, having succumbed to the weakness of his desires in his sleep. She’s so soft and warm and sweet that it’s impossible to keep his body from reacting to hers, and some nights he can’t sleep, trying to master the animal inside him that’s dying to taste her, touch her, anything.

He doesn’t want to frighten her. Would rather die than scare her or make her uncomfortable. So he drinks more coffee and accepts the ribbing the guys give him at work for his new ‘girl’ keeping him up at night. It would be much worse if they knew the truth, the bastards.

He is constantly reminding himself not to stare at her, but honest to God he can’t help it. She’s so fucking pretty it might kill him as she wanders barefoot through his apartment in a simple summer dress, humming to herself as she sweeps. Her hair is tied back into a haphazard tail, pieces escaping and sticking to the damp curves of her neck. He’d like to kiss her there, where the graceful arch of her neck meets her slender shoulder, and taste the salt of her sweat, follow a trail down- he squeezes his eyes shut, sinking lower into the couch, and drives the images away before they have a chance to overwhelm him.

It’s nearly summer in the city and the humidity is already bordering on insufferable.

“Let’s go to the pier,” he says before consciously deciding to speak. He needs to get out of the apartment before he combusts. She turns, wiping her hand across her brow and beams at him, making his knees turn to jelly.

“Okay, let me get my shoes.”

Navy Pier is a tourist trap but Sansa, who has seen very little of the city despite living with him for half a year, is clearly thrilled. She drags him to almost every both and onto every ride. He can’t even feign reluctance, content to follow her wherever she might lead him and trying to ignore the implications of the sentiment. He’s never seen her so happy. There’s new life in her eyes and her skin glows in the carnival lights. He can’t take his eyes off her as she leads him by the hand.

The sun is setting when they board the Ferris wheel and he’s getting hungry but thinks he’d probably be willing to starve if it meant a few more moments in her presence. Fuck, he’s in so deep he can’t even see the surface anymore.

She’s quiet as the ride begins to move. She’d been rather chatty all afternoon, more so than she had been since she’d shown up at his door what feels like a lifetime ago, but there’s a contemplative look on her face now as they sway above the glittering waters of the bay. The setting sun sets her hair on fire and not even the cheesiness of the sentiment can ruin the reality of it. His chest burns looking at her and he has to clench his hands on his knees to stop himself from reaching out and doing something stupid like tucking fluttering strands of hair behind her ear, or taking her small hand in his, or drawing her to his side where he can try and shield her from all the world-

She catches his eye and he blushes, but she smiles and it’s a soft, intimate thing that does all sorts of things to his stomach. He has to look away, feeling very much like teenage-Jon as opposed to lived-through-a-war-and-risks-his-life-at-least-once-a-week-Jon.

The ride stops and they dangle there, caught in amber and fire above the water, the city alive and ever moving beyond their warm little bubble.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she says at last, a cool breeze nearly snatching the words away from him.

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. It’s been fun-“

She silences him with hand on his and he turns to find she’s crying, tears catching the light and gleaming brightly. “No, Jon. Thank you, for everything. I don’t-I can’t express how much it means to me.”

He reaches out and grips the handle of their little cart, trying to master his frenzied emotions. He wants to kiss her so badly in that moment it’s a physical pain.

“Please,” he half begs. “Don’t. I wish-I would do anything-If I could I would-” he can’t find the right words to tell her he’d set the world on fire to punish everyone who’s ever hurt her.

She chuckles a little, tears still dancing in her eyes, and he has to huff out a laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never known the right thing to say, but you know that,” he gives a self-deprecating laugh, embarrassed. She must remember how awkward he was in high school, how he’d stuttered and stumbled every time she’d spoken to him or even looked his way.

He’s surprised to see her face fall and she looks ashamed as she turns to stare out across the water blindly.

“You were always wonderful, Jon. Always kind and thoughtful, helping Robb get out of trouble or babysitting Rickon and Bran when the rest of us were too busy,” her gaze darts back to his, an almost endless sea of regret clear in her eyes. “You’ve always been the best of us, I was just too stupid to see it. I’ve always been so goddamn stupid.”

“Sansa, you’re not stupid-” he reaches for her hand, resting near his on the restraining bar, but she slides it away and she won’t meet his eye.

“Yes I am Jon, I am so, so stupid.” She draws in a trembling breath, blinking back tears as the breeze tosses their hair. “Joffrey hit me the first time on our wedding night,” she says, voice hard and brittle like shards of glass, “but the worst part is, he was terrible to me long before that. It’s easier to see now, all the subtle ways he tore me down, but I knew it then too. The things he wanted me to do... The way he spoke to me in front of his friends when no adults were around…it was all there, and I just ignored them. Some of it was shame, having to admit that our marriage was a mistake, but most of it was weakness and stupidity. I kept thinking it would get better… that I would get better, or be better somehow so he would stop hurting me… but it only ever got worse.”

Jon’s heart is loud in his ears, a furious terrible roar. He’s only felt this way once before in his life; when he’d found Ygritte’s body inside a burning building, unresponsive and lifeless.

It’s like a dam has been broken and Sansa can’t seem to stop herself, the horrible truth spilling from her lips, tearing at his soul. He had known something was wrong with Joffrey. He’d heard rumors about the way he liked to talk to and treat girls and he’d ignored them. They had all ignored them. God, he’d been such a coward.

“T-The night I came to your door, we’d flown to LA for some charity ball and we met a m-man, some prospective business partner,” tears well in her eyes at the memory and slip down her colorless cheeks. “His name is Ramsey Bolton, and he came to our hotel room after the party. Joffrey made me… he made me do things,” her voice hitches and she’s breathing hard, “A-And when I tried to stop it he let Ramsey hurt me… he hurt me so much I thought I would die. I wanted to die, but I couldn’t… I thought of Arya, of Robb, and mom and dad, a-and when they finally left me alone to go get drunk at the hotel bar I-I ran. I drew out enough money for a plane ticket and I ran.” She looks up and she’s trembling so hard the cart is swaying. “I ran to you because… I used to think of you, Jon. I thought of you all the time really. The way you’d once looked at me before I understood what it meant and how you were always so kind to me and I’ve never regretted anything as much as I regret not being with you when I had the chance.”

His heart is a tattered ruin in his chest, his mind a mess of violence, fury, and tenderness. He chooses tenderness as he reaches for her, taking her face in both his hands and brushing the tears away, drawing her toward him till her forehead touches his. He chooses tenderness for her, because its what she needs from him in that moment, but someday... someday he might choose violence.

“Sansa…” he murmurs. There are no words for how sorry he is, for how much her pain stabs through him like a physical wound, throbbing in his gut, making him sick. “Sansa, I would do anything for you,” he says at last, distantly aware the ride has started moving again. “Anything.”

She draws in a harsh breath that seems to rattle through her and into him and something delicate and fragile blooms between them. “Then kiss me, Jon, please kiss me.”

He’s never been more willing to fulfill a request.

He catches her mouth with his, leashing his turbulent emotions and brushing her lips gently, once, twice, before sinking into the temptation of her warmth. She sighs and melts into him, the tension leaving her in physical waves as she presses her hands to his where they hold her gently prisoner, sliding shyly down his arms and gripping his shoulders. She tastes like home, like humid summers and frozen winters, like Christmas mornings with everyone laughing and smiling, like cool summer nights when the fireflies first come out and the moon is full. Kissing her makes him feel absolved. Absolved from the horror of a war he’d been stupid to fight and of the loss of the only other woman he’s ever loved or cared for.

He pulls away before he loses all control and she studies him in the breathless aftermath, flushed pink, lips moist and slightly swollen. Her slow smile, like warm summer honey, draws an answering one from him and then they’re both chuckling at the improbability of it all.

They exit the Ferris wheel hand in hand and it feels like being reborn.

-

More memories float to the surface, unbidden.

Sansa and Arya fighting over the best blanket for movie night, dissolving into laughter and a one sided wrestling match. Sansa laughing so hard she’s crying as Arya pins her down with a triumphant shout before Robb tackles her to the ground.

Sansa baking a friend a cake in the kitchen his senior year, covered in flour and chocolate, a mixing bowl balanced on her hip as she frowns over a cook book. There’s a smear of chocolate near the corner of her mouth and Jon has to leave the room, the house actually, before he does something stupid like lick it away.

Sansa furious with Arya over something he doesn’t remember, both of them shouting, her face alive with fury, cheeks bright and eyes flashing.

Robb mussing her hair and her indignant squeak. They all laugh when she dumps her glass of ice water over his head and laugh harder as he chases her around the yard as she squeals.

Thirteen year old Sansa taking his hand at his mother’s funeral, her small fingers, tight on his, the only thing grounding him to reality as part of his heart is lowered forever into the cold, frozen ground.

-

Later that night they assess each other in the darkness of his apartment, laying side by side in his bed, both ragged shades of the children they’d been. They are face to face, noses inches apart. Her breath is sweet and gentle, her lips a constant temptation, but her eyes hold him fast, bright as polished silver in the dark. They’d eaten a quiet dinner on the pier, not uncomfortable, exactly, just new and frail, a fresh brightness between them that could be snuffed out with a single wrong word, a single look, a clumsy touch.  

But cocooned in darkness, the insecurities and uncertainties dissolve into nothing. To Jon, it seems if they are the only two people left in all the world.

“I’ll kill him,” he says at last, a secret in the dark, one he means with every fiber of his being. He’s killed people before, more than he’d ever like to think of, more than he’d ever like to admit to her, and he’d found no joy in it, only darkness and self-loathing, but this… this he is sure he’d enjoy. He knows how to hurt people, he could make it last. “I’ll kill them both.”

Steel, sharp and deadly, flashes in her eyes and her pupils dilate and her breathing grows ragged. Her fingers clench, sharp as daggers into his shoulders.

“No, Jon,” she breathes, tilting toward him like a tower crumbling. “No… if he ever touches me again. I will kill him.”

He groans, electricity clawing through his veins, and kisses her the way he’s dreamed of kissing her nearly half his life; first as a boy with almost no experience and then as a broken, desperate man with little to offer but himself and whatever comfort he can provide.

There is comfort in the way she draws herself to him, the way she presses her hands into his hair, but there is also want, a desperate, almost mindless desire, as if he’s not the only one who’s dreamed of something more. He hadn’t realized how alone he was, how cold he’d become, until Sansa had shown up at his door.

She tugs on his hair and he nips at her full lower lip with a growl he can’t suppress and suddenly it’s a mess of limbs and hands and the rough melody of their irregular breathing. She so damn sweet he can’t taste her enough, can’t touch her enough, and it feels like he’ll never be close enough to her. It’s a kind of madness, kissing Sansa Stark, like death by slow, delicious degrees.

He reaches for her breast, close to being consumed with need, and she stiffens a little, breath catching sharply in her throat, and he swallows, reigning himself in, and moves his hand away. He gentles their kiss, guides her back from the precipice, and tries to tell her with lips and hands that he’ll never hurt her. Never take from her anything she isn’t willing to give.  

Slowly. He has to go slowly.

He smooths down her hair and kisses her forehead, each eye, and the tip of her nose. He can feel her heart racing against his chest and he draws her to him.

“Shh,” he murmurs, almost mindlessly, “I’ve got you.”

She wraps her arms around him and squeezes him tight, pressing tentative kisses along his jaw and throat. They fall asleep like that, entangled and warm with the promise of the future.

-

He wakes to her lips on his and it’s easily the sweetest thing he’s ever experienced, he keeps his eyes closed, wanting to make the moment last. She’s all warmth and softness as his hand smooths down the curve of her side, up the ridges of her spine, and tangles in the fragrant fall of her hair. It’s like a baptism, caught in dazzling sunlight, washing away the darkness of the night before and turning it into something sweet. She smiles against his mouth and he responds in kind, chuckling in the back of his throat. God, he’s never felt like this before.

He expects the specter of Ygritte to diminish his fledgling joy, to remind him of all he’s lost, instead he only feels an endless well of warmth and… encouragement. She would have wanted him to be happy, would have wanted him to find joy and comfort where he could.

“You have to go to work,” Sansa reminds him, trailing fire along his jaw with the moist heat of her parted lips, “and so do I.” He shivers, fingers digging into her hip. He’s already painfully hard beneath the blankets.

He groans, half in want and half in reluctance. “I’ll call in,” he says, voice rough with sleep, and cracks an eye open only to be half blinded by the sun gleaming offer her tousled hair. She nips at his chin.

“I happen to know you don’t have any more time off,” she tells him, pulling back and stealing his breath away with a brilliant, unabashed smile that holds so much pure joy in it he can hardly breathe. He’s certain no one has ever looked at him the way Sansa is looking at him now, as if the sun rises and sets with him. Her t-shirt is slipping down one shoulder, revealing the curve of one pert breast and the sunlight has turned her skin into honey and cream, he’d do anything to taste her, touch her, anything to make her moan and whimper-

“You’re killing me,” he tells her honestly, his hands spanning her slight waist and he rubs his thumbs along the tantalizing strip of bare skin above her pajama pants, watching as her eyes darken and she bites her lip. “I hope you know that.”

She rubs her nose along the side of his and steals another quick kiss before rolling out of his grasp with a devious laugh. “The sooner you leave the sooner you can come home,” she says in an almost sing-song, bouncing out of bed, and gliding into the kitchen to get coffee started. Jon sits up, content to watch her, but she gives him a meaningful look and he dutifully gets up and heads for the shower.

She’s dressed when he gets out of the shower, towel drying his hair, still shirtless. A calculated move on his part that is entirely worth any sense of embarrassment he might have had as Sansa stops mid stir, hand hovering over her coffee cup, and stares at him with wide eyes. He’d carefully avoided going shirtless since she’d taken up residence on his couch and doubly so when she’d crept into his bed. He’s thinking now that that might have been a mistake.

She reads his expression and laughs, color rising high in her cheeks.

“You’re such a tease, Jon Snow,” she says and it’s his turn to blush. She steps forward, and slides a tentative hand down his chest and there’s no suppressing the shiver of pleasure that sweeps over him. “I like it…” she whispers, eyes half lidded and Jon drops his towel and sweeps her into a deep kiss.

He makes it to work… eventually.

-

Sansa’s smiles, the real ones, always start in her eyes. This one is no different. “Why, Jon Snow, are you asking me on a date?”

It’s ridiculous that this makes him blush, but it does, it definitely does. He’s holding flowers out to her in an awkward half bow, still dressed in his uniform, and he can tell she’s enjoying his embarrassment. He doesn’t mind looking stupid, not if it makes her smile like that.

“Uh, yes?”

She laughs and takes pity on him, sweeping up the flowers he’d bought at the corner store near the station –the guys had given him a lot of shit about it too- and pressing her face into them, inhaling deeply.

“Well, in that case, yes,” she tells him, that devious twinkle back in her eyes. It’s contagious, her playfulness, and he tries to catch her in his arms, but she dances away.

“No, nope! You’ll only distract me and I need to get ready. I have a date, after all.”

He huffs and it only makes her laugh again.

Sansa snatches something out of her closet and disappears into the bathroom, flowers still in hand and bare feet flashing on the faded linoleum. Jon pulls himself together and quickly changes into his best pair of jeans, shoving his feet into his favorite black boots, and tugs a faded V-neck t-shirt over his head, one that Tormund always gave him shit for. Tormund thought wearing a shirt without a half-naked woman or some obscure beer company on it was dressing up so Jon usually ignored his fashion advice.

Jon tends to keep his hair long, partially out of laziness, and partially because Ygritte had once told him it made him look dashing, and he runs a quick comb through the curls with a bit of product. He considers shaving, studying his reflection in the mirror over his dresser, and decides against it just as Sansa exits the bathroom. His heart nearly stops, as he watches her move toward him through the mirror.

She’s wearing a vintage looking red dress that presses her breasts upward enticingly, and it hugs her waist and flares out prettily at her hips to create a full skirt effect. She’s still barefoot, but her long legs gleam in the yellow bathroom light, the dress swaying as she walks with a natural grace that’d hypnotized him as a teenager and is no less mesmerizing as a man. She’s left her hair down mostly, tying back the top half into something messy and casual that makes him want to run his fingers through it. There’s a bit of makeup around her eyes and her lips gleam with something, maybe lip gloss –Jon is hardly an expert with it comes to cosmetics- but she looks wonderful and that’s really all that matters.

She bites her lip again, studying him through the mirror in turn, and her eyes tell him she likes what she sees, which does all kinds of ridiculous things to his stomach. She giggles and wraps her arms around him, pressing her forehead to his back.

“This is crazy,” she murmurs, warming a spot on his spine through his shirt and he turns to pull her to him. Christ, she smells like heaven and feels like sin.

“Yeah, insane.” He agrees and she pulls back to study his face. “But I don’t mind if you don’t.”

She shakes her head and bites her lip, “No, I don’t think I mind at all.”

-

Sansa moans loudly as she takes an impressive bite of chocolate cheesecake and Jon chuckles, trying to ignore how the sound plays havoc with the more carnally focused parts of his brain.  

“Good?”

Sansa only moans again around a mouth full of cake. Jon grabs a bite for himself, well aware of how great Nettie’s cheesecake is –best in Chicago, in his humble opinion- but nearly moans himself as flavor explodes on his tongue. Then he nearly moans for an entirely different reason as Sansa dips her finger into a bit of chocolate and sucks it thoroughly off her finger.

She feels his stare and opens her eyes with a smirk, slowly sliding her finger out of her mouth. Jon has to grip the edge of the table for support.

“Killing me,” he murmurs, making her giggle, “You’re definitely trying to kill me.”

She hums at him and brushes her foot along his calf beneath the checkered table cloth. Jon reaches down and grabs her ankle gently, startling her a little, and props her foot on his knee. Maintaining eye contact, he slides his hand along the smooth curve of her calf and up the back of her knee. He feels her tremble and watches with deeps satisfaction as her eyelashes flutter and she swallows thickly.

“Anything else dears?” Nettie asks, appearing at the side of their table and nearly making Jon jump out of his skin. There’s a knowing look in her wise eyes as Jon’s knees slam up against the table and Sansa’s foot slides to the floor.

Sansa laughs brightly, but her cheeks are nearly as red as her dress.

Jon clears his throat, “Uh, no, I uh, think we’re ready for our check.”

Nettie puts a wrinkled hand on one wide hip and gives him a stern scowl. “You know very well you don’t pay when you eat here, Jon Snow. I wouldn’t have a restaurant if it wasn’t for you and you insult me by asking.”

Jon rubs at the back of his neck, embarrassed, but there’s a fond warmth in Sansa’s eyes that tempers his pride.

“I-uh, I’m sorry?”

“Damn right you are,” Nettie says, but gives him a wink and a smile to let him know he’s forgiven.

Moments later they step into the humid night air and Sansa takes his hand. It’s ridiculous how such a simple thing can make his heart race.

“That was delicious,” she tells him with a satisfied sigh. “Now where?”

Jon considers for a moment, glancing about him for inspiration.

“We could… walk around the lake a bit, there’s a pretty path around the block,” he feels stupid, not thinking past dinner, but she gives him a knowing and affectionate look.

“Sounds perfect to me,” she says and leans into his side.

Fuck it, he thinks, tossing aside all pretense, and wraps an arm around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head for good measure.

They’re halfway down the street when Sansa stops and drifts toward the open door of a little country bar. Music and the smell of cigarettes and beer wafts out onto the sidewalk. “I love this song!” she tells him with a backward glance and a small smile, “I haven’t heard it in years.” There’s a wistful, sad sot of longing in her voice that brings him quickly to her side. She wraps her arms around herself and sways a little as a country song he vaguely recognizes -country isn't really his thing- plays.

Jon girds his metaphorical loins, takes her hand, and pulls her inside.

“Jon, what-”

He quickly positions them out on the dance floor, attempting to remember the steps Ygritte had barely managed to teach him the few times they’d gone dancing -and he'd definitely been drunk- and pulls her into his arms.

Such pure joy is glittering in her eyes when he finally dares to look at her that he falters, feeling foolish. “I’m a terrible dancer,” he warns.

Her smile is blinding, buoying his wavering confidence as he eyes the couples around them. “Don’t worry, I’ll lead.”

And she does, guiding him through the steps as she sings along in a clear, bell like voice that warms him to his toes. He’s certain he’ll never forget the way she looks right now; spinning away from him in a twirl of crimson skirts, hair fanning out around her, and the promise of a brighter future in her smile.

The song fades into something slower and the lights on the dance floor dim as the couples either drift into the bar or draw closer together. Jon clears his throat and, with as much confidence as he can muster, drags Sansa up against his chest. She smiles knowingly and reaches up, latching her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder, breath warm on his neck. He smooths his hands down her back, overwhelmed by her suddenly, by the intensity of his feelings for her, and settles his hands on her hips. He wonders absently what Robb would think of them, and chuckles at the certainty he would have hated it… before eventually coming around.

“What?” Sansa asks, pulling away just enough to look at him.

He shakes his head feeling foolish, but her eyes implore him so he says, “Just thinking of Robb, what he would have said about me and you… you know, uh-”

“Jon,” she says, gaze lowering, darting away to look out across the dance floor. “I… this isn’t some kind of… rebound for me. This isn’t what I wanted o-or expected coming to you the way I did… but,” she inhales deeply and forces her eyes back to his. “But whatever this is between us… it’s real… maybe the only real thing in my fucked up life. A-And I don’t know how you feel but-”

Jon shakes his head, heart in his throat, “Sansa, I’ve been half in love with you since I was twelve years old, you know that, don’t you?”

Tears well and she bites down a smile and nods. “Yes… yes I do know that. I don’t deserve it, I don’t-“

He silences her with a kiss, swaying with her on the dance floor, holding her safe in his arms. She pulls away, but doesn’t go far, pressing her forehead to his.

“Take me home, Jon.”

-

They’re both laughing as Sansa drags him into the apartment, stumbling as she fuses her lips to his and Jon only barely manages to catch them on the edge of the table.

He kicks the door shut behind them and, on impulse, lifts her off her feet and sets her on the tabletop, smoothing his hands up her legs and pressing his tongue past her parted lips. She squeaks and then sighs into his mouth as he settles between her thighs. He can feel the warmth of her through his jeans and he can’t help but press the growing length of his dick against her in a languid grind.

Sansa moans and her head falls back, the long line of her throat exposed to his eager lips. Her skin is salty and sweet on his tongue as he follows the line of one tendon and then bites at her pulse point, sending a shockwave of sensation down her body that reverberates through him. She clutches at him desperately, and he knows she’s inexperienced, that she’s unsure and insecure. That there are demons and devils lingering in the shadows of her heart, just like his. So he forces himself to slow, to pull back and take her face in his hands, waiting for her hazy eyes to focus on his.

He doesn’t want her to be afraid.

“Nothing you don’t want, Sansa,” he tells her. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop, no matter what. I swear. Do you trust me?”

She’s teary eyed again but she nods and drags him back to her, answering with a kiss, with the slide of her tongue into his mouth, and the arch of her back as he presses into her like a man in search of air.

The world goes hazy on him. Everything takes on a dream like quality as he helps her out of her dress. Tracing each new patch of skin with a reverence that he can't seem to help as he tugs the zipper down, and she’s trembling and whimpering between his hands, a living flame as he palms her breasts and tugs gently at her nipples. She makes him feel weak, like he should kneel at her feet and kiss the ground she walks on… but strong too, like he could take on the world so long as she’s with him. It’s heady and intoxicating and he’s as lost as she is when they make it to the bed, half falling into the sheets, laughing and smiling... then moaning and sighing.

She takes her time exploring him. Tracing his scars and kissing the ones she finds. She uses mouth and hands, sweetly bold and innocent until he has to drag her up and kiss her before she undoes him completely. When he finally –finally- slips a hand between her legs and feels the damp heat there he moans into her mouth.

“Trust me?” he asks, voice an utter ruin. He can see the uncertainty in her eyes as he explores her folds with gentle fingers.

“Yes, Jon, I trust you,” she murmurs, clutching his shoulders, and Jon slowly slides first one then two fingers inside her, going slack jawed as her eyes roll back and she arches on a keening moan. He groans in response, head falling to her shoulder as he tries to reign himself in, fucking her gently with his hand as she writhes against him, feet tangling in the sheets.

He’s nearly mad with desire when she comes around his fingers, her cunt fluttering and clenching and he could swear he’s dying as she pants his name with desperate little mewls. He whispers all kinds of filthy nonsense into her ear as she rides her orgasm and holds onto him so hard he’s certain he'll have little half moon bruises on his back and shoulders.

She comes back to herself slowly, eyelids fluttering as he draws his fingers from her, making her tremble.

"Okay?" he asks and her smile is radiant.

"More than okay," she whispers back, and he groans in surprise and acute pleasure as she grabs his dick and pumps once, twice, three times experimentally.

"Sansa," he moans, arching helplessly into her touch, "We don't- you don't."

"Shhh," she says against his lips. "Trust me."

She presses him onto his back and straddles his hips. She's framed in moonlight and the warmth of the kitchen light; swathed in silver and gold, and she's the loveliest thing he's ever seen, flushed with her orgasm, hair a mess, trembling as she settles and slowly begins to lower herself onto him. Jon hisses as the wet heat of her draws him to the brink of madness, but he forces his eyes open, watching through his lashes as she bites her lip and arches. Watches as his dick disappears inside her slow inch by inch, whispering her name like a benediction; or a plea for mercy, maybe. When he's filled her completely she falls to his chest, trembling, and he draws her close.

"Tell me, Jon," she begs as he holds himself utterly still, using every ounce of his self control. God, she's so tight and wet, so fucking perfect. "Tell me."

"I love you, Sansa," he says, nudging her face to his, and kisses her with everything he wishes he knew how to say. Every stupid romantic thing she deserves to hear and which he's completely incapable of articulating.

She moves against him, unpracticed, but eager, driven by sensation. Jon catches her hips and helps her find her rhythm. She's a fast learner, and soon he's utterly at her mercy. He's not going to last long. He wants to make her come again, feel her tighten around him, but it's been too long and he's wanted her so much...he can feel his hold slipping with every grinding roll of her hips.

"Sansa," he grounds out, clutching at her like a dying man, "I won't last, I-"

She kisses him into silence and it's sloppy and filthy and she's so perfect- "Come for me, Jon, please, come for me."

That's all it takes.

Jon grabs her hips, driving into her hard as the tension in his balls tightens and coils in on itself before it bursts in a shower of sparks and he's all but chanting her name.

She's kissing his chest and running a hand through his hair as he comes down, breathing hard, certain he's had a heart attack. When he can move, he helps her roll to his side and draws her in close.

"Okay?" he asks as their breathing slows, smoothing her hair away from her damp face.

She hums in sleepy contentment, snuggling into his chest. "Perfect," she tells him, echoing his thoughts, and presses another kiss where his heartbeat has begun to steady. Jon doesn't think he's ever felt so content... so right in his life. He squeezes her tightly and, before he knows it, he drifts to sleep.

-

Jon has a nightmare that night for the first time since Sansa came back into his life. Gunfire rains down, buildings explode in the distance, and there are screams tearing through the night. A child cries, wailing like the world is ending, and Jon thinks it is. Wishes it would. There’s blood on his hands, so much blood on his hands.

He wakes sweating and gasping and knows down to the marrow of his bones that he’s alone.

There’s a note on her pillow and he grasps it in fingers that tremble.

Jon,

I haven’t loved you as long, maybe, but I should have. I should have.

But I can’t keep running from my problems and I certainly can’t drag them into your life. You’ve suffered enough. I need to sort some things out for myself, I have to or I will never be free of it all. This isn’t good bye… I don’t expect anything from you, I hope you can believe me. Trust me, like I trust you. I’ll come back, once everything is settled, once I have my life back, and I’ll be yours if you want me. Body and soul.

I love you, Jon.

S

[graceverse]

Tormund Matchmaking 101

In which Tormund effectively makes Jon share a tent with Sansa

Cold northern wind whipped through their camp’s main pavilion. It sounded like an open palm repeatedly slapping at the tent’s canvass. It was loud and distracting enough to ensure that Jon will not be able to sleep tonight. Not that he had any plans of sleeping. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

Perhaps it was one of the side effects of being brought back from the dead. Sleep would never come easy. Jon wasn’t sure if he was thankful for that. 

The shorter he slept, the shorter the nightmares. That’s one good thing, at least.

Jon refused to drink the jug of sour goat’s milk Tormund had given him earlier. He didn’t want to be drunk. He wanted to be clear headed, to be able to look at the same map – Stark pieces against Bolton pieces, facing each other in a battle field – in a different way. 

Maybe see a weakness on the other side that they had not seen earlier, had not considered. But he had walked around their battle plan for a solid hour or so and it remained as it had earlier: they were outnumbered.  The only advantage they had was the barely suppressed rage that was burning inside his chest. He wanted to defeat Ramsay as savagely and completely as possible.

Ramsay had threatened Sansa and Rickon. A woman and a child. Ramsay’s cowardice disgusted him on a level that he didn’t think was possible. He had lived at Castle Black with criminals – thieves, murders and rapists, the worst kind of human beings, and yet Ramsay seemed to be a man who was beyond redemption. In fact, Jon was certain that Ramsay did not want redemption. He was the kind of man Jon would have no qualms killing.

And he wasn’t especially planning on giving Ramsay a quick death. Not after everything he had done to Sansa – which, Jon didn’t know the details, but could sense in Sansa’s deeply sudden silences, her blue eyes dilating, her face turning into the sick yellow color of fear and horror. He knew that look. He had seen shades of it in Gilly’s eyes, in the children of the Free Folks who had been running from the Army of the Dead all their lives, in the Free Folks themselves who had seen their brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, friends and family savagely killed and then turned into the dead who were hunting them.

A part of Jon was desperate to know all of Sansa’s wounds, find a way to soothe her pain. But a part of him was also too scared to discover the agonies she had to endure. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see her standing at Castle Black, her cheeks smudged with dirt, her auburn hair in total disarray. He had never seen Sansa look so vulnerable and so painfully young.

It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t seen her in years, Jon knew that Sansa was now older, no longer the little Lady of Winterfell. He had could see, even in her tattered clothes, that she was now a woman grown, startlingly, wonderfully beautiful even in her worn-down state. And yet her face had that achingly gentle look of a lost child. It made Jon want to hold her close to him forever, to never let anyone hurt her ever again. She had hurt enough and it was up to him to make sure that she will never suffer at the hand of any man, woman, even a kingdom that threatened her safety. 

He was willing to fight endless wars for her.

It scared him sometimes, the depth of his feelings. She’s his sister of course and father and Robb would not only expect that he protect her, they would demand it of him. Jon felt that somehow, he had failed his father and Robb when he had been unable to ride South and fight with them. This was his chance to make himself worthy of the Stark blood running through his veins.

Protect Sansa. Save Rickon. Take Winterfell. Find Arya. Find Bran.

Jon closed his eyes and brought his hands to his face, fingers massaging his temple which was hurting like someone had hit him with a shield. He must not let his feelings take over; he must not feel too much.

He had already made that mistake with Sansa. He could still hear their heated argument echoing inside his head. He gritted his teeth. 

She was right. 

It scared Jon how easily Sansa could tell him such cold truths: Rickon will not live long, Ramsay will not make the mistake of letting Rickon live longer than necessary. Ramsay was only keeping Rickon alive to taunt him. The mere thought of Rickon at the hands of Ramsay was making Jon’s flesh crawl.

Worst, Sansa had not so subtly told him that she would rather die by her own hand should Ramsay win. Jon couldn’t get the image of Sansa, knife against her throat, backing away into a corner. He would not want to live in a world that would allow such a horrible fate for her. 

He had made it a point to order Melisandre to not to bring him back should he fail. Jon had a bad feeling that his command would be ignored. He would have to ask Tormund make sure he would not be brought back to life.

If he was without a head, perhaps that would make it more difficult? Or if he was burned into ashes, will the Red Woman still be able to pull him back from the dead? He’d have to ask Tormund to do both, just to be sure. It would be horribly gruesome, but Tormund would do what was necessary and he would understand.

As though he had called his friend’s name out loud, Jon was startled by the sound of Tormund drunkenly stumbling into the tent.

“Snow.” Tormund greeted him with a shit-eating grin.

“Are you certain you’d still be able to fight tomorrow?” Jon asked raising his eyebrows as Tormund gleefully hiccuped, before sitting in front on him.

“Aye, I’d fight like a great bear tomorrow. I’d bite off the head of that fucker, Ramsuck Boatbang.”

“Ramsey Bolton.” Jon corrected him.

“Aye,” Tormund leaned forward, stabbing Jon in the chest with his finger, “the bastard that hurt your sister.”

“Aye.” 

“Speaking of your sister,” Tormund paused to look around, “where is she?”

Jon tilted his head, unsure of where this question was leading. “In her own tent, why?”

“Bollocks that. I thought she’d be here with you.” Tormund shook his head in obvious dismay, “Is the big woman with her then?”

Ah. Brienne. Jon couldn’t help the chuckle escaping him, “Aye, I suppose she is.”

“Good then. Good.” Tormund was nodding off, already on the verge of sleep. “She’d be able to fight off those ugly Thenns.” He mumbled distractedly. 

Jon blinked. “Why would she– ” He sat up straighter, feeling his stomach nervously clenching. “Tormund, why did you come here looking for Sansa?”

“Eh? Oh!” Tormund made big circular hand gestures, “Heard a bunch of Thenns talking nonsense, planning on stealing ‘Snow’s kissed-by-fire-sister’.”

“WHAT?!” Jon had stood up so abruptly, his chair violently toppled off onto the hard packed frozen dirt. He didn’t wait for Tormund to say anything more, he stormed off, grabbing Longclaw on his way and hurrying outside. 

Tormund brushed off some fallen snow from his coat, smiling slowly, looking extra pleased with himself. Until he realized something. Letting out an oath, Tormund hurried out, shouting over the whipping wind that he’ll go over to the Thenns camp and Jon should hurry towards Sansa’s, where he should probably stay the night, “just to be sure, you never know with those ugly fuckers.”

Jon stopped mid stride and decided that that made more sense; he wordlessly turned around and walked past Tormund, who sighed with relief and shaking his head, muttered darkly, “what a bloody fucking idiot! Must I do everything?”

[qboo78]

Sansa Stark and why I love her (Queen in the North)

I love Sansa Stark. Lady of Winterfell. Queen in the North.

To be honest, I did not start the show feeling that way. I started the show loving Ned Stark though and I will always do. And Ned’s relationship with his daughters Sansa and Arya has always made me appreciate him even more since he shows his tenderness/gentleness when he is with his daughters. He showed his strength and bravery all throughout the show but his tenderness and gentleness will always be for his girls, Catelyn, Sansa and Arya. Hence, even though I did not like how Sansa is so focused on “adoring” the Lannisters, going to the South and finding Arya very annoying, I still gave Sansa a bit of leeway because of my love for Ned. Since Ned wants her safe and protected and alive then I also want her alive.

Then we were given that scene of Sansa losing her direwolf, Lady.

The very first horrible thing to happen to a Stark that we witness was to Sansa when she lost Lady and by Ned’s hand no less. In that moment, I felt like the show has shifted suddenly to a different point of view and me along with it. I actually tried to ignore the shift but i knew then that Sansa has earned my sympathy. I did not like her but I never wanted her to loose Lady, never that. But I knew I was now definitely with Sansa on her journey. The point of view that I am watching the show with has now shifted with Sansa, I can suddenly relate to her and realized something a bit more about myself in the process. Sansa reminded me of that time in my childhood where I also believe in stories, of dreaming of noble princes and brave knights of old and how it would be so sweet to be a princess in those stories. This reminder is not something that I welcome because I now knew that the world is not going to be like those stories, hence, me not liking Sansa lol. But, just like Arya saying to Ned “I don’t hate her, not really” I also acknowledge that I don’t actually NOT like her.

Since the point of view shift, I now experience GOT along with Sansa and felt the most horrifying and utter agony when we lost Ned. It was during that moment that I was angry with the show and wants to stop watching the show. In fact, I was jealous that Sansa can faint after what happened because sweet oblivion is always welcomed when faced with this kind of horror but all I could do is rage against the show for making me love a character and then losing him. I asked myself “who else do you want me to root for show when the hero that I thought of the story  was killed in the first season huh?!” and for some time my questions remain unanswered. As you can see, I tend to watch a show choosing a hero/heroine to root for so I can enjoy the story. I watched the show horrified for the Starks and praying and hoping that they will be safe, more so for Sansa and Arya, Bran and Rickon. I feel for them and I feel like them, rudderless, anchorless now that Ned Stark is dead.

Then, I was given scenes of Sansa not being afraid to talk back and brave enough to do this

Or people wanting to protect her... She inspires people’s protectiveness, she inspires people to be better...

Then, the show also displayed her being smart and clever even when she was just abused and beaten

And don’t forget her sass...

And I realized, wait a minute, her arc looks suspiciously like a heroine’s arc, and one I can’t help but be amazed with because her character development is just so satisfying and very well thought out... even when she was still in a situation where she remained a pawn, yet I am already rooting for her. I admire how she fought not with brawn but with her brain. And I really like that very much as I am also quite a geek and fought with words rather than doing physical fights he he he.

Then, because GOT is the show that loves to break our hearts, they gave us the ultimate horrifying thing that can happen to a woman and gave it to Sansa ( i heard that in the books, this never happened to Sansa and I know a lot of fans was filled with outrage for the show deciding to use this storyline for Sansa). Of course, I also wish for Sansa to not have to go through with being raped, in fact if the show will retcon that horrible storyline, then I will definitely be happy for Sansa. But unfortunately, we can’t have so many nice things when we watched this show, so Sansa’s story will now forever be someone who experience that most horrifying thing that can happen to a woman. But, at least, I am grateful for two things with that storyline...One, they did not explicitly showed to me the act so we only see it through Theon’s eyes and Two, I was given a Sansa even more stronger than ever (mentally)

more brave

still as smart

yet someone who can still find forgiveness and compassion in her

then there is the moment where she accepted Lady Brienne’s oath of fealty. Even when she just almost died and so cold and wet, GOT gave us this shot where she was shown like a queen amidst the snow backdrop

This scene is actually very important to me since this is when Sansa transformed from being a pawn to being a Queen!!! (If you play chess, you would know that is one of the goal of a chess player, it is a game changer for the play) And Sansa, in this scene with Lady Brienne, has begun taking her first step as Lady of Winterfell and Queen in the North. Finally, Catelyn’s act of wanting to save her daughter through Brienne has finally bear fruit and Ned’s sword now back to serving and protecting his daughter. This scene is just everything you guys! I can feel Ned and Catelyn here when I watched this scene and made me think “Yes! Of course, the Starks will live on through Sansa, Ned Stark and Catelyn’s eldest trueborn daughter, who has both Ned’s bravery and kindness and Catelyn’s strength of spirit and brains. She will take back Winterfell and avenge all the atrocities done to their family and the house of Stark” this scene has made me very sure that it will happen without any doubt at all.

And to think these are just before Sansa has reunited with Jon... I am already 100% with her. #TeamSansaStark. #QueenInTheNorth.

Thank you GOT for giving me all these wonderful scenes about my queen, Sansa Stark. Thank you George R.R. Martin for giving me a heroine I could root for and someone who embodies the STARKS wonderful qualities. She is my hero that I never thought I will ever have in the show but then nevertheless the hero that we all deserved.

Thank you also for all the gifmakers... Gifs are not mine. Credit to the owners.

Please let me know who made the gifs and I will credit you in this post.

[googoobear-8705tml]

Promises, Plans and Stark Plots

Promises, Plans and Plots

  For those of us who believe that Jon and Sansa have or will develop romantic feelings for one another (whether we think they are endgame or not) finding evidence for our ship has required a lot of reading in between the lines, sometimes literally.  In the show-verse, season 7 episode 7 we see Jon consummate his relationship with Daenerys, much to our chagrin.  However, there is a possibility that it is not romance or even attraction at play in this; at least on Jon’s part. This META lays out my own theory as to why.

 Secret Stark Conversations

 We know from the scene with Littlefinger that Arya, Sansa, and Bran had at least one very important plot altering conversation, and we were totally left out on it happening. This leads me to something else I have suspected. If Sansa had a secret conversation with them, she almost certainly had a secret conversation with Jon before he left for Dragonstone. Somewhere in between his declaring the North was hers while he was gone, and him choking Littlefinger just before leaving they spoke to each other. Sansa would know that Jon would need a better plan than “Can we be friends, let me have dragonglass, and the help of your dragons and army?” Diplomatically it would not work. In Westeros and the real world, it is rare to get something for nothing. And Daenerys for all her very good qualities and “good heart” is still a taker and she would want something. The best solution? She can be Queen in the North if she with the King in the North and the best to forge and keep that alliance is through marriage.

 Lack of Marriage Discussion

It is suspicious that marriage, which has been spoken of frequently throughout the series and where we saw quite a lot of talk about alliance through marriage in season 6, is barely mentioned at all in season 7. It was the catalyst of Dany leaving her lover Daario, behind in Essos. Dany rejected a marriage alliance because she knew she wouldn’t get what she wanted first, and had a better deal available. But Jon doesn’t offer a better deal (The North) until she proves herself to him. And yet marriage still has not come up between them at least. It finally does in the last episode in a discussion with Sansa and Littlefinger no less. Littlefinger, who is being played for a fool. Sansa with her cool demeanor is sharing a concern with Littlefinger; a man she does not trust by her own admission, about the North’s power holder giving up his power. Does this make sense? No. Why? Because Sansa is NOT concerned that Jon is bringing Daenerys back to Winterfell. She is NOT concerned that he gave up power, she is not worried that he may marry her. Why? Because it is possible that she and Jon had a secret conversation and she with her political savvy told him to secure that alliance, by any means he had at his disposal. Jon by seducing Dany is securing his alliance. He made it by bending the knee, he has her emotionally and intimately invested in him, and he is bringing her back to his home in full view (something he suggested at Dragonstone for political reasons *I doubt this is Jon’s keen political insight at play), with his family and his people, where he has the advantage to keep that alliance.

 Jon WOULD DO THIS.

 This has been well established by others on Tumblr and elsewhere. But it bears repeating. Jon has done undercover lover before and in this last episode of the season he talks a great deal about keeping promises. He made a promise to the North and he is not breaking it. In keeping with that promise he is doing with Dany what he has to, in order to ensure their safety. The North is his heart and he left it with Sansa. Even as Jon is talking about honor and honesty in this episode, he also says he doesn’t always do the “right” thing or take the “right” or honorable step. Jon has sacrificed his honor for the sake of a greater good (when he infiltrated the Wildings and had a romantic relationship with Ygritte to complete the deception) even though he developed true feelings for her. Sacrificing honor for a greater good or purpose is a recurring theme in a ASOIAF. Ned did it, so did Jaime. It is not far fetched that Jon would be seen doing it again.

 Sansa and Jon May Have Feelings For Each Other

 In addition to the potential political payout and survival of the North, Jon and Sansa conspiring together to have Jon secure Dany; is a good way to keep Jonsa apart.  If they have feelings for each other now as far as they know they are half siblings and being who they are they would feel guilty. They know it would hurt and compromise the people around them and that it would never be accepted. In order to put an obstacle in between them and to help resist their desires, it is not totally unrealistic that Sansa may encourage Jon to pursue a woman he can have; indeed it is plausible.

 “How would these feelings develop?” the skeptic may ask, I propose this: Sansa and Jon have reunited under the assumption that on the small, unlikely chance their siblings are alive they will still never see them again. They are all they have in the world. They suffer the death of Rickon together. The feeling of being alone in the world increases for them both and they lean on each other for comfort; and realize it’s something more. They haven’t done much if anything at all but know if it continues and they fall into temptation it will destroy everything they went to war for. Their home, their security and their lives will be forfeit before the dead even strike.

  That Sex Scene; That “Romance”

 Was flat. From beginning to end. As a matter of fact we saw almost no beginning and no end.  We never see Jon and Dany falling in love. We had other characters tell us it was happening. We got no first kiss, no foreplay and no after glow. What we got was an awkward voiceover, a flashback montage of Jon’s parents (one of whom is established as Dany’s older brother ) telling us flat out that this is incest for even the most confused viewers (a thing that started The War of the Five Kings). Jon’s behavior is another give away. Their night doesn’t begin organically. He walks to her door as if it is something he HAS to do. Even in the middle of the act he seems forced. This should not suggest that Jon doesn’t care for Dany and is only using her because it is convenient. But it should suggest there is more under the surface than what we are seeing, just as Jon says to Theon earlier in the episode.

 Secret Conversations and Secret Love is what I think is under the surface.  

 Whoo that was a lot! I get if that was TL:DR  but if you did read and you think Jonsa is canon and possibly endgame please reblog!

[liesandarbor]

Sansa’s Psychological ‘Superpower’: Convincing herself shit isn’t quite as bad as it is

Throughout the main narrative and text of ASOIAF, we see Sansa Stark utilize defense mechanisms to survive being beat in front of the court (often enough that almost every member of the kingsguard had done it a few times), being touched by creepy old dudes often, and basically just suffering as a Prisoner of War.  We’re not here to chat about Sansa’s misgivings and mistakes (a young girl, age 11 in the start of AGOT), because there’s nothing to chat about with that - what I am here to chat about is Sansa’s “superpower”, and how it is basically the reason she’s alive.

(It’s not actually a superpower, she’s psychologically trying to ‘safeguard’ herself by pretending that s h i t  i s n ‘ t  b  a d, so just keep reading )

Sansa is often seen practicing Level III Neurotic Defense mechanisms, some such as displacement, denial, dissasociation, repression, rationalization  and projection  throughout the books, veiling her mind and intelligence with mostly the goal to survive.

We see her with the Tyrells beginning a secret betrothal to Willas, and in the beginning she is wary - as she should be, though this is just the beginning of her realizing that she is a pawn to move as pleased-

The words came tumbling out of her. "Yes. I will. I would like that more than anything. To wed Ser Loras, to love him . . ." 

 "Loras?" Lady Olenna sounded annoyed. "Don't be foolish, child. Kingsguard never wed. Didn't they teach you anything in Winterfell? We were speaking of my grandson Willas. He is a bit old for you, to be sure, but a dear boy for all that. Not the least bit oafish, and heir to Highgarden besides."

Sansa felt dizzy; one instant her head was full of dreams of Loras, and the next they had all been snatched away. Willas? Willas? "I," she said stupidly. Courtesy is a lady's armor. You must not offend them, be careful what you say. "I do not know Ser Willas. I have never had the pleasure, my lady. Is he . . . is he as great a knight as his brothers?"

 "Willas has a bad leg but a good heart," said Margaery. "He used to read to me when I was a little girl, and draw me pictures of the stars. You will love him as much as we do, Sansa."

-ASOS, Sansa I

So we get, in typical Sansa fashion, her processing this new escape, this new loop-hole.  Ser Dontos is taking too long to get her out of the capital, she wants nothing more than to fix/fill the hole of emotional and physical abuse suffered at the hands of her beautiful, golden King, and the Tyrells have offered her the perfect scapegoat.  --- also, don’t forget to look at that immediate reaction when she is offered Willas:  I must not offend them.  A reflection on the abuse suffered- she immediately fears what will happen if she offends them, and worries about watching her only escape fade away. 

It only takes a meeting with Dontos in the godswood to cause her to second guess these emotions, to which we see her immediately transfer all of these feelings elsewhere.

 But she had not forgotten his words, either. The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?

Sometimes she would whisper his name into her pillow just to hear the sound of it. "Willas, Willas, Willas." Willas was as good a name as Loras, she supposed. They even sounded the same, a little. What did it matter about his leg? Willas would be Lord of Highgarden and she would be his lady.

-ASOS, Sansa II

Willas is close enough to Loras.  Margaery said he was kind.  She could live with that. She convinces herself that a crippled leg won’t deter her from “having true happiness” or a ‘close enough’ to true happiness (which, funnily enough, isn’t the only crippled leg that she will have to think about, but we can come back to that as an after thought).  

"You are very beautiful, my lady," the seamstress said when she was dressed. 

“I am, aren't I?" Sansa giggled, and spun, her skirts swirling around her. "Oh, I am." She could not wait for Willas to see her like this. He will love me, he will, he must . . . he will forget Winterfell when he sees me, I'll see that he does. 

-ASOS, Sansa III

Sansa’s hopeless desperation at wanting to get out of the Lion’s Den manifests itself in several ways throughout the main narrative. We see her utilizing tools for survival, tools to protect herself from getting further hurt- we see her displace the negative emotions and events, we see her justify actions from others in her mind, anything to ease that good ol’ perfect-dream-life ideaology into place.  

We see her hopes dashed in front of her eyes as Cersei tells her she is to marry Tyrion- not even an hour before the ceremony.  Every single built up thought she spent normalizing Willas in her eyes, every defense and wall she built up to cause herself to accept that this was the only good card she had to play, destroyed in front of her.  And Sansa’s 12-year-old mind knew something had to have been wrong.  She comments on Cersei letting her have a beautiful new dress, she wonders, she pushes those thoughts away and smiles, she thinks it’s all for Willas.  Her rose, her romanticized rose who will make all of the pain of King’s Landing disappear. 

I don't want any Lannister, she wanted to say. I want Willas, I want Highgarden and the puppies and the barge, and sons named Eddard and Bran and Rickon. But then she remembered what Dontos had told her in the godswood. Tyrell or Lannister, it makes no matter, it's not me they want, only my claim. "You are kind, my lord," she said, defeated. "I am a ward of the throne and my duty is to marry as the king commands."

-ASOS, Sansa III

She’s young and naive, but she knows and is continually learning how the game is played. Sansa knows her head rolls when she doesn’t comply, she chooses self-preservation over fighting.  

Even in her wedding bed, Sansa pushes out of her mind to find some way to rationalize being with Tyrion.  She swallows her pride, as she has done for the whole fucking 3 books, but I digress, and tries to find some sort of love for him.

Look at him, Sansa told herself, look at your husband, at all of him, Septa Mordane said all men are beautiful, find his beauty, try. She stared at the stunted legs, the swollen brutish brow, the green eye and the black one, the raw stump of his nose and crooked pink scar, the coarse tangle of black and gold hair that passed for his beard. Even his manhood was ugly, thick and veined, with a bulbous purple head. This is not right, this is not fair, how have I sinned that the gods would do this to me, how?

-ASOS, Sansa III

Our next glimpse of Sansa in ASOS has us rejoining her after her whole family pretty much gets the crap murdered out of them, and we do not get to have her exact initial thoughts and reactions to the Red Wedding.  We see her normalized, stuck into her marriage and life, going about her every day life as it has been now.  And we begin to receive a much more honest, bitter and #WOKE Sansa after her third chapter.  Sansa IV shows Sansa beginning to pull out of some of her most internal struggles and psychological defenses.

She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. Tyrion was a bad sleeper and often rose before the dawn. Usually she found him in the solar, hunched beside a candle, lost in some old scroll or leatherbound book. Sometimes the smell of the morning bread from the ovens took him to the kitchens, and sometimes he would climb up to the roof garden or wander all alone down Traitor's Walk.

and 

But first came breakfast in the Queen's Ballroom, for the Lannisters and the Tyrell men - the Tyrell women would be breaking their fast with Margaery - and a hundred odd knights and lordlings. They have made me a Lannister, Sansa thought bitterly.

and

Sansa was tempted to beg off. I could tell him that my tummy was upset, or that my moon's blood had come. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed and pull the drapes. I must be brave, like Robb, she told herself, as she took her lord husband stiffly by the arm.

-ASOS, Sansa IV

and here is where Sansa breaks. You see, Sansa V is where her traumatized, 12-year old brain can no longer take anymore of her repressing, pretending, pushing thoughts and blames and abuse onto anything and anyone, like a sponge that’s been thoroughly soaked, Sansa is completely conflicted and distraught from Joffrey’s death.

Sansa felt as though she were in a dream. "Joffrey is dead," she told the trees, to see if that would wake her.

He had not been dead when she left the throne room. He had been on his knees, though, clawing at his throat, tearing at his own skin as he fought to breathe. The sight of it had been too terrible to watch, and she had turned and fled, sobbing. Lady Tanda had been fleeing as well. "You have a good heart, my lady," she said to Sansa. "Not every maid would weep so for a man who set her aside and wed her to a dwarf."

A good heart. I have a good heart. Hysterical laughter rose up her gullet, but Sansa choked it back down. The bells were ringing, slow and mournful. Ringing, ringing, ringing. They had rung for King Robert the same way. Joffrey was dead, he was dead, he was dead, dead, dead. Why was she crying, when she wanted to dance? Were they tears of joy?

She found her clothes where she had hidden them, the night before last. With no maids to help her, it took her longer than it should have to undo the laces of her gown. Her hands were strangely clumsy, though she was not as frightened as she ought to have been. "The gods are cruel to take him so young and handsome, at his own wedding feast," Lady Tanda had said to her.

The gods are just, thought Sansa. Robb had died at a wedding feast as well. It was Robb she wept for. Him and Margaery. Poor Margaery, twice wed and twice widowed. Sansa slid her arm from a sleeve, pushed down the gown, and wriggled out of it. She balled it up and shoved it into the bole of an oak, shook out the clothing she had hidden there. Dress warmly, Ser Dontos had told her, and dress dark. She had no blacks, so she chose a dress of thick brown wool. The bodice was decorated with freshwater pearls, though. The cloak will cover them. The cloak was a deep green, with a large hood. She slipped the dress over her head, and donned the cloak, though she left the hood down for the moment. There were shoes as well, simple and sturdy, with flat heels and square toes. The gods heard my prayer, she thought. She felt so numb and dreamy. My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. Her hands moved stiffly, awkwardly, as if they had never let down her hair before.

-ASOS, Sansa V

The progression of hysterics that Sansa finds herself in the midst of during her flight from King’s Landing shows us a lot at once- she is having a whole flashbang of emotions happen at once.  One, her abuser is dead.  The stem of a large amount of torment she had gone through is completely gone.  Destroyed.  She’s free.  She’s finally free from the threats of rape and being beaten by the King.  but her conditioning is still kicked in.  She struggles through her own thoughts to find how she really feels- something she hasn’t been allowed to do over the last year.  

I don’t plan on delving in to AFFC right now to continue how Sansa’s behaviors and mechanisms have progressed/regressed/changed, however we see as we peruse Sansa V that her torment isn’t over yet.  She’s fallen right back in hand with someone who isn’t as physically dangerous to her (at the moment) as Joffrey was, but someone who’s skilled in psychologically manipulating others, who can prove just as dangerous- especially with someone in such a weak and easily swayed psychological mindset who has endured so much continuous trauma- Littlefinger.

He brushed back a strand of her hair. "You are old enough to know that your mother and I were more than friends. There was a time when Cat was all I wanted in this world. I dared to dream of the life we might make and the children she would give me . . . but she was a daughter of Riverrun, and Hoster Tully. Family, Duty, Honor, Sansa. Family, Duty, Honor meant I could never have her hand. But she gave me something finer, a gift a woman can give but once. How could I turn my back upon her daughter? In a better world, you might have been mine, not Eddard Stark's. My loyal loving daughter . . . Put Joffrey from your mind, sweetling. Dontos, Tyrion, all of them. They will never trouble you again. You are safe now, that's all that matters. You are safe with me, and sailing home."

-ASOS, Sansa V

Littlefinger takes Sansa at her most sensitive and whisks her away.  Most people follow the Hades/Persephone parallels ( "Thank you, my lord." Pomegranate seeds were so messy; Sansa chose a pear instead, and took a small delicate bite. It was very ripe. The juice ran down her chin.), but there is so much more to be gathered.  Littlefinger took a bird with a broken wing, thinking that this would be easy and simple to manipulate and succeed with.  But Littlefinger doesn’t understand that Sansa Stark has already started waking up.  She’s already started to come out of her defense mechanisms.  Slowly but surely she has been chipping away at dealing with the truth.  She has begun to accept that she was a pawn, begun to accept that she was easily manipulated, and come to the truth that no one will want her except for her claim.  

Which is the rebirth of Sansa Stark.  Where will her plot lead? There’s still a long road ahead for Sansa’s arc and plot, and a lot of learning for her to do.  No, she is not a master player of the game, and no, she is not a supreme manipulator (yet).  It is going to take all of TWOW, further betrayal from Littlefinger, and Sansa using everything that she has observed from Littlefinger and her own wits to get her to the point of “And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow. “ 

But she will get there.   By the age of 13, Sansa has suffered sexual, emotional, verbal, physical and pretty much any line of abuse that you could muster into thought.  She has survived it.  She kept herself in her own head, created fake situations and thoughts to displace the pain of the memories (unkiss comes to mind), but Sansa Stark has woken up and the wolf bitch is comin’ home.   

Sansa’s love life is one that’s up for debate consistently in the ASOIAF world, and while I don’t want any of her ‘love’ life to be the focus of this essay (I wouldn’t consider any of her political marriages to be love, despite her convincing herself to love Loras), I do love the chemistry, energy and connection between Sansa and Sandor, the only one of her male ‘suitors’ (wouldn’t really call him a suitor, but we’ll leave it for now) who gave her a choice and did not attempt to manipulate her for his political/regular gain.

And, just for some good ol’ crackpot fun, Sansa did convince herself that she could love a lame man in ASOS.....

On the upper slopes they saw three boys driving sheep, and higher still they passed a lichyard where a brother bigger than Brienne was struggling to dig a grave. From the way he moved, it was plain to see that he was lame. As he flung a spadeful of the stony soil over one shoulder, some chanced to spatter against their feet. "Be more watchful there," chided Brother Narbert. "Septon Meribald might have gotten a mouthful of dirt." The gravedigger lowered his head. When Dog went to sniff him he dropped his spade and scratched his ear.

-AFFC, Brienne

TL;DR: Sansa Stark used defense mechanisms because she is a prisoner of war who has suffered mountains of abuse, and she protected the shit out of herself by doing so.  The first 4 books for Sansa Stark were about survival: the next 3 are going to be about taking back her agency and her power of choice, and bringing parts of the realm back together.

[rafecameron]

I’d Do It Again (Robb Stark)

Prompt: May I request a one shot or I imagine when reader is a low born girl, or friends of a not so high and important house, and she and Robb are so in love that they marry each other in secret, and when Ned and Catelyn discover, the things got crazy! Choose whatever you want to do with, just please, write all the Starks alive in winterfell. Would be lovely to see a little bit of Jon and Robb brotherhood too! - Anonymous

Word Count: 4107 (omg I didn’t expect it to turn out so long! Sorry lmao!)

Robb couldn’t focus on his break fast, he was too excited to get out of the castle and finally get to see the woman he loved. It had only been a week since he last had the chance to see her but it felt like an eternity, every minute he couldn’t spend with her seemed like an hour and he found himself fidgeting at the table out of excitement.

“Robb,” His mother looks over at him from the opposite side of the table, “You’re not eating.”

“Sorry mother. I don’t feel hungry this morning.” Robb states giving her a reassuring smile, “Perhaps I will have an appetite by lunch…May I be excused?”

Lady Stark pursed her lips as she looked over her son, she knew her children well enough to see straight through them, much to their despair. “What are your plans for today Robb?”

Robbs reply catches in his throat as he tries to come up with something on the spot, “I was…Just going into the woods mother. I thought maybe a nice ride, perhaps a spot of hunting…It’s a nice day after all.”

His mother raised her eyebrow at his response, “Robb. If you’re going to see that girl again-“

“I’m not.” Robb interrupts quickly, “I’m just going for a ride.”

“Then take your brothers with you.” Catelyn smiles looking over at her two youngest, “I’m sure they would like to spend some time with their big brother.”

Robbs face is void of emotion as he nods his head, “Whatever you say Mother. Come on Bran, Rickon.” He stands from the table and then his eyes find his bastard half brother, “Jon, you should come too.”

Lady Starks features gave away her annoyance at the mention of the bastards name but she refrained from replying, instead she stood from the table, bid them all good day and then hurried from the room.

“What do I do now?” Robb whispers to Jon as he follows his excited brothers out into the courtyard.

Bran and Rickon were running to the stables, Lady Stark rarely let them leave the castle walls without the company of their father so it was a rare treat to be allowed to go for a ride with their older brothers.

“Could you not arrange another day?” Jon asks as he grabs his horses reins, “Maybe tomorrow, or the day after?”

Robb sighs and shakes his head, “It’s too late for that. She’ll be there now.” He chews his lower lip, accepting the reins handed to him by the stable boy, “I have to go. You’ll have to take Bran and Rickon.”

“And what if your Lady mother comes looking for us? Or they tell her you went off?” Jon looks over to his half brother in concern, “I wouldn’t know how to cover for you. She doesn’t like me as it is I can’t dishonour her with lies.”

“I’m not asking you to lie. She doesn’t need to find out, but if she does you can tell her I ran off and you tried to stop me.” Robb holds Jons stare with pleading eyes, “Please Jon. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.”

Jon studies Robbs face before letting out a final sigh and nodding, “Okay. But if she finds out, you ran and I couldn’t catch you.”

Robb smiles and pulls Jon into a tight embrace, “I owe you. Anything you want.” He grins as he pulls back.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Jon laughs and then mounts his horse.

Bran and Rickon were waiting impatiently by the gates, their horses pacing up and down as they waited for their brothers to be ready. Once all four brothers were ready they made their way into the woods that stood close by to Winterfell. There was rarely anyone occupying the woods other than the people of Winterfell so there was never any worries of trespassers.

“Right, I want you both to stay with Jon, okay? Do as he says, and don’t tell mother I left you.” Robb says as they move far enough into the woods away from any spying eyes of Winterfell.

Bran frowns, turning his horse to face Robb, “What are you going?”

“Nowhere important.” Robb replies and shares a quick look with Jon before his eyes return to Bran, “Just do as Jon says, okay? I wont be gone long.”

Bran pauses for a moment, his gaze suspicious before he nods his head, “Okay.”

Robb nods and turns his horse quickly, running off through the woods as fast as his gelding would take him. He was already late and he didn’t want her thinking that he had changed his mind, or have her worrying something had happened to him.

They met in the same place every time, by the large oak tree just on the out skirts of her town. It was only a fifteen minute ride away from Winterfell, less time if you ran like now. At first as he approached he didn’t see her and feared she had gone back home, but as he neared the tree he spotted her sat on the ground with a book in her lap. He smiled as he slowed his horse to a walk and slowly made his way up to her, she hadn’t spotted him yet.

He could just sit and watch her all day, the simplicity in her beauty as she sat reading in the sun light was something he could never get tired of and he almost felt bad for ruining it.

“I was scared you would be gone.” He calls as he gets closer to her.

Her eyes met his instantly and the smile that graced her lips was breathtaking, “I almost was.” she replied as she closed her book and stood quickly making her way over to him.

Robb jumped down from his horse and closed the gap between them in three swift steps, pulling her into a tight hug as he lifted her from her feet, spinning her round and making her squeal.

“Robb!” She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling her head from the crook of his neck to give him the biggest grin she could, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” Robb sighs and places a quick kiss to her lips, “My mothers trying her hardest to stop me from seeing you.” Robb informs her with a sad smile, “She doesn't give in easy. I’m just lucky father is away at the moment, he’s yet to find out.”

She sighs and wriggles from his arms, placing her feet back on the floor and walking back over to the tree to take up her previous seat, “I don’t want to get you into any trouble Robb.” She mumbles as she places her book back into her lap and looks up at him, “I would hate to see you fall out with your family for me.”

“If I fall out with them it will be from no fault of my own.” Robb states as he follows her lead and sits beside her under the large oak, “Is it such a terrible crime to fall in love? A crime bad enough to break up a family?” He shakes his head and looks up at the sky through the leaves, leaning his head back against the wood, “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. That way at least I could see you.”

She frowns and whips her head round to look at him, “Don’t ever say that. You need your family and they need you. You couldn’t bare to lose them I know you couldn’t.”

Robb looks over to her and smiles, “You’re right. I would be lost without them. But I would be lost without you too.”

“We just have to enjoy the time we have.” She smiles and leans over to cup his face in her hands, “It may not last forever, but we will have the memories for life.” she presses a deep kiss to his lips, one which they held for a long while.

“I don’t want just the memories, I want you for life.” Robbs eyes flicker from her eyes to her lips and then back again, “Marry me.”

Her eyes go wide and she quickly shakes her head, “No Robb, no…That’s not allowed.”

“Marry me (Y/N)” He says again, wrapping his arms around her waist and quickly pulling her onto his lap, “I’m being serious. No one needs to know. They can’t do anything once we’re wed.”

“They can kill me.” she laughs, only half joking, “Robb that would never work.”

“They would never do that, and if they tried I would run away with you.” Robb grins as he squeezes her waist, “Please, say yes. Say yes and we’ll do it right now.”

She opens her mouth to disagree again but is interrupted by the sound of fast hooves running their way. They both snap their heads in the direction of the noise and Robb lets out a curse as his half brother comes running towards them.

“Robb!” He calls, slightly out of breath from working his horse so hard, “You’re mother came to check on us, she wants you home now. She’s not happy.” He comes to a stop close by.

Robb looks from his brother back to her with a desperate expression, “Say yes (Y/N).”

Her eyes move between both the brothers, “Robb, we can’t.” she clambers out of his arms and too her feet backing away, “You’ll get in trouble, and I’ll be hated.”

“Robb. She wants you home now. She’ll have my head as well if you ignore her.” Jon cuts in with a pained look, “Don’t make her angrier.”

“I can’t come back now Jon.” Robb replies quickly, “I’m not leaving this spot until she agrees to marry me. I will stand here for a week if that’s what it takes.”

Jons eyes widen and he looks over at (Y/N) quickly, “Is he being serious? Robb, you need to think about this. Your mother is already on the war path just from you meeting up with her.”

“I don’t want anyone else Jon.” Robb states, eyes not leaving hers, “I’ll stand here for a week.” He repeats.

She chews her lower lip, looking again between both the boys before nodding quickly, “Yes, okay, yes Robb I’ll marry you.”

Robb looks surprised at her sudden answer but grins none the less and rushes forward to hug her tightly, “Now, lets do it now.” He grabs her hand and starts pulling her towards her town, “There must be someone here who can marry us.”

“Robb-“ Jon begins but is soon cut off by his brother.

“You’re either with us or you’re not Jon. I’m doing it either way.” Robb stops walking and looks back at his brother, “I’d like you to be there.”

Jon sits atop his horse looking at them both, weighing up his options before nodding his head. He climbed down from his horse and tied it up beside Robbs on a low branch and then followed after them.

“I’m going to regret going along with this.” Jon sighs but follows none the less, shaking his head at his brothers stupid rash decision.

“I couldn’t let him stand outside for a week Jon.” She sighs and shrugs her shoulders, “Besides. I may as well marry the man I love before I’m killed, it seems his mother plans on doing that anyway.”

“She’s not going to kill you.” Robb says once again, “I hope to get to my father before she does, maybe I can talk him round.”

From the corner of your eyes you see Jon shaking his head and you know he’s right, there will be no talking Lord Stark round. He couldn’t agree to his first born son, heir to Winterfell, marrying a commoner.

There was only one person in the small town eligible to marry two people and she lead them straight to him. He didn’t need much persuading when Robb offered him gold and soon they were both stood together by a small weirwood tree getting wed. Jon stood by, watching quietly though the look his face held described how she felt inside. Sure, she loved Robb and wanted to marry him, but that didn’t mean it was the right thing to do. But anyone you asked would tell you that Robb was a hard person to say no to.

The wedding was short and sweet and within fifteen minutes the two were wed. “Now no one can stop me seeing you!” Robb grins as he holds her close to his side as they walk.

“And how are you going to tell your parents?” Jon asks with a raised brow, “Your mother will kill me for letting you do this.”

“I didn’t give you much of a choice.” Robb laughs, “I’ll find a way to tell them.” he stops beside (Y/N)’s small house and turns to face her, “I will see you tomorrow, wife.” he smiles.

She can’t help but giggle and blush, nodding her her, “Goodbye, husband.” she smiles and presses another quick kiss to his lips before rushing off inside.

Jon shakes his head as his brother reaches him once again and they start their walk back to their horses, “You’re an idiot Robb Stark.” he chuckles.

Robb grins and throws an arm over Jons shoulders, “I don’t care what my parents say, I’m happy, and if I have to run away and leave everything behind to be with her, I will.”

The ride back to Winterfell was silent. Robb was busy thinking of his new wife and Jon was busy thinking of ways to explain this to Lady Stark in a way that would allow his head to stay attached to his shoulders.

When they reached the castle Robbs happy mood was soon vanished. Upon entering the courtyard Jons eyes widened and the colour drained from Robbs face at the sight of Lord Stark storming towards them across the grounds, Lady Stark was stood close by, watching on with her arms folded.

“Where have you been? You’re mother has been worried sick!” He scowls at his eldest son as he walks closer to him.

Robb climbs from his horse just in time for his father to grab him by the shoulders and shove him up hard against he wall and hold him there, “What do you think you’re playing at?! Leaving your brothers alone in the woods while you went gallivanting off. What were you doing?”

“They weren’t alone!” Robb argues, looking desperately over at his half brother who was doing well at avoiding his eyes, “Jon was with them! I wouldn’t leave them alone.”

“What were you doing Robb?” Lord Stark persists with a glare set on his face. When Robb didn’t answer he huffed and shoved him against the wall again before letting go, “Your mother has told me everything. You will not see her again.”

“But I have to see her again!” Robb argues as his father turns and begins to walk away, he was ignoring the pain shooting down his back from being thrown against the wall.

“You will do as I say Robb.” His father shouts back at him without looking to him.

“But we’re married!” That wasn’t how Robb had wanted the conversation to go, but if it was the only way to get his father to stop walking away and possibly listen to him then that was how it had to be.

His father stopped walking and spun round once again, if Robb had thought the look on his face had been scary before it was nothing compared to what it was now. “What did you say?” He asks, starting to advance on his son again.

Robb suddenly regretted blurting out his news so soon and started to shrink against the wall again.

“Boy, you better be lying.” His father continued as got closer. He reached him and grabbed his shoulders once again, “Do you have any idea what you have done? You stupid boy!” He shakes Robb by the shoulders, “Why would you do something so childish?! And why would you let him?” He turned to glare at Jon.

“It wasn’t his fault. He tried to stop me.” Robb sighs and looks down at the floor, “I wouldn’t listen to him. He told me it was a stupid idea, so did she, but I wouldn’t listen.”

Lord Stark shook with anger as he glared down at his son, his teeth grinding together as he tried to control himself, “We will talk about this in the morning. I can’t even look at you right now.” He turns away and storms back into the castle, taking Lady Stark and his onlooking daughters with him.

Robb doesn’t look up from the floor even when Jon wraps his arm around his shoulder and pulls him in the direction of the castle, “Come on Robb. Father will be calm by morning and he will listen to you.”

Robb only hoped that his half brother was right and let him lead him into the castle and to his bed chambers.

“Thank you, Jon.” Robb says stopping his brother from leaving, “Thank you for being there for me, I know no one else is.”

“They are,” Jon smiles, “They will be.” He hugs his brother and then bids him farewell.

Robb spent the remainder of the day in his room, refusing to come out to eat even when the maids tried their best. He couldn’t bare to face his father, not when he was so angry at him. Robb fell asleep early and didn’t wake up till dawn the next morning, he was still anxious to leave his room but his stomach was grumbling angrily at him for not feeding it the day before.

He dressed and slowly made his way to the dining hall. His family were already seated and the room became quiet as his presence was noticed. He sat at the table, looking down at his plate as the maids quickly filled it, not daring to make eye contact with anyone, not even Jon.

Robb didn’t want to eat any longer, he wanted to run back to his room and pretend everything was okay, but he couldn’t do that. He was a man now and he had to act like one, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

“Father-“ Robb states but his father quickly cuts him off.

“After breakfast, Robb.” His father quietens him and continues to eat.

Robb nods his head and picks up his fork. He manages a few mouthfuls but spends the rest of the meal pushing the food around on his plate, waiting anxiously for his father to be done.

Robb spared a quick daring glance at his mother and was met with a cold glare, making him retreat and look back at his plate.

“May we go, father?” His sister Sansa asks quietly.

He looks up as his father nods and all of his siblings quickly jump up from the table and run from the room. The maids cleared away their plates and then they were left in silence again.

“Robb-“ his father begins but Robb can’t be patient any longer and cuts in.

“I love her father. I know it was stupid, I know it was childish and I know I shouldn’t have done it but I love her, more than anything and I’d do it again given the chance. I’m sorry, truly I am and I understand if you want me to leave his family.” he rambles, shaking his head as he stares down at his hands.

“Robb.” His father says again making him look up and finally meet his eyes, “We are not pleased with you. But you are our first born son. You are the heir to Winterfell. You will not be leaving this family. I cannot put into words how angry and disappointed I am with you for going behind our backs, but what is done is done and a vow such as that should never be broken. You will bring her here for us to meet. She will live under our roof and you will live out your married life with her. For your sake Robb, I hope you have made the right decision.”

Robb stares at his father for a moment in shock before looking to his mother, she still looked mad but managed to give him the smallest of smiles, “I promise you will love her as much as I do. I promise I will make you proud of me again.”

His father nods his head and waves his head, “Off you go then. Bring her back here, don’t be long.”

Robb chews his lower lip, glancing between them both again and jumping up, running from the room and out to the courtyard. He ignored his siblings shouts asking what happened and grabbed a horse. He didn’t even bother to saddle it, instead he jumped atop and sped it out of the castle grounds. He made it to her house in record time and almost broke the door down as he banged on it.

She opened it with a confused frown, “Robb? What are you doing here so early?” She asks.

“I told my parents.” He grins. “They were angry…But they came round, finally. We’re to spend our married life together, you’re to live with us.”

She looks up at him wide eyed, “What?…Live with you? Robb, that’s…”

“We’re married (Y/N),” He smiles, “And now we get to be together every day of our lives. My family will grow to love you as I have and they will be thrilled that we’re married. Quickly, get your things and I will take you to your new home.”

“I don’t have many things Robb.” She laughs softly but turns to go inside.

Robb follows her inside and watches her gather her belongings into a small sack, “I will have to return and tell my brothers where I have gone…They won’t be happy, but they will have to deal with it.” She says as the holds her bag and walks back over to him.

“They can visit you in your new home.” He smiles, kissing her and taking the bag from her hands. “Come on.”

He takes her hand and leads her back to his horse, helping her climb on top before climbing on behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist as he eggs his horse on to move. They rode slowly to the castle, enjoying being just in each others company before getting the the hectic castle.

“What if they really don’t like me?” She asks, worrying at her lower lip as she watches the castle get larger the closer they got.

“They will love you.” Robb reassures her, “You already know Jon. My other siblings are easy to get along with… Sansa might need some work, but she’ll come round.”

She nods her head, still worried but keeping quiet as the castle grows larger and larger and before long they were riding through the large gates into the courtyard. Robbs parents were waiting for them and her heart almost beat out of her chest as she saw them stood there. Robb squeezed her waist reassuringly before helping her down from the horse and leading the way over to his parents.

“Mother, father.” Robb smiles, “This is (Y/N). The woman I love with all my heart, I beg you to give her the chance she deserves.”

“I’m sure we will get along just fine.” Lord Stark says as his eyes stay fixed on her before pulling her into a quick hug, “You are welcomed in our home Lady (Y/N). You will share Robbs quarters. Get settled in and we will see you in the dining hall for lunch to get better acquainted.”

She chews her lower lip and nods her head, “Thank you, Lord Stark.” She bows her head and then catches his mothers glaring eyes. “Lady Stark.” She whispers, curtsying before allowing Robb to hurry her away. “Your mother hates me.” She whispers as Robb pulls her along the corridors to his bed chambers.

“She will come round.” Robb says, squeezing her hand as he pulls her into his chambers and shuts the door, grinning at her, “I love you, (Y/N).”

She looks up and meets his brilliant blue eyes and can’t help but return his grin, “I love you too Robb.” she leans up and kisses him quickly, “I can’t believe this is real. I promise to be a good wife, and to make your family proud.”

Robb nods his head, “I don’t doubt you will, My Lady.” He grins before leaning down and kissing her again. Their quick marriage may not have been the right thing to do, but they were both more than happy they had done it, and would do it again if faced with the choice again.

[dialux]

Out of curiosity, how would you handle a writing a fic where Jon is a girl and still having Jonsa happen? Would fem!Jon go to King's Landing with Sansa, Ned, and Arya? Or stay back at Winterfell with Bran, Robb, Rickon, and Catelyn??

tbh, I see Jon (let’s call her Jonelle here, for readers’ sake, though really Ned would probably name Lyanna’s daughter after like Branda or Arya or some other Northern name lbr) as marrying fairly early in this world- probably to a guy like Lord Torrhen’s bastard son. Or someone in the Neck to keep her secret Targ-heritage safe. Or Ramsay but pls lets not do that to ourselves. Catelyn likely wants her out of Winterfell, girls tend to mature quicker than guys, and Jonelle can bind the Starks to another family without too much fuss.

But let’s say that Ned’s as avoid-until-it-smacks-you-in-the-face-prone as he is in canon, and Catelyn softens a little towards this girl who doesn’t really represent as much of a threat to her trueborn children, and Jonelle remains in Winterfell until Robert Baratheon rides North.

I would probably imagine that she’d come with Sansa as a lady-in-waiting, because I’m still side-eyeing GRRM for not giving Sansa anyone as a lady and I will continue to do so until and unless he gives a really fucking good reason for that.

(also a jonelle who stays in the North would just, like, either a) go south with robb and get killed at the rw; or b) escape with bran/rickon and go north to do badass things beyond the wall and also fall in love with ygritte; or c) get killed trying by either theon/ramsay when they inevitably take winterfell. i’d like to say that she could hold the castle on her own, but nope, not happening, not even in my wildest dreams, so we’re gonna assume she goes south.)

Jonelle’s a bastard, right?

So she’ll be at the back of the tent when Robert asks Sansa what happened with Joffrey and Arya and Nymeria. She’ll hear Sansa’s soft, quiet whisper- I didn’t see- and Arya’s scream, she’ll hear Cersei’s sentence, her father’s answer. And Jonelle’s as righteous and angry as Jon ever is, and so she doesn’t hesitate to turn around and leave, to use Robb’s parting gift to her- a sharp-edged Valyrian steel imitation dagger- to smash open Ghost’s and Lady’s chains and chase them away.

Nobody ever knows how the direwolves escaped.

Months later, when Sansa’s crying in her rooms from the humiliation and shame and pain, Jonelle presses rough, damp wool to her wounds and leans down, catches her chin, whispers, they’re alive, I swear to you, they’re alive and well and sometimes I dream of a wolf running through the woods and I know that we’ll meet them soon.

But before that, she learns how to shrink.

Jonelle’s never known it, never had to learn it.

But she learns how to twist her shoulders, duck her head, fade into the stone walls and tapestries. She teaches herself, because there’s something terrible inside the city walls and she doesn’t know what but she knows it’s something. 

This proud daughter, this fierce daughter- she’s spent years tussling with Robb when his ego becomes too large, years fighting and learning and becoming, and here, now, she has to become something less. But Jonelle’s a survivor, so she learns it: before she has to, before she even knows it. 

(It does her a lot of good when they kill her father. They come for everyone else, the septas and the guards and even little Arya, but Jonelle’s hair is in the same braids as the rest of the maids and her eyes are just as downcast, and nobody, not even Cersei Lannister, realizes who she is.)

(It doesn’t save her father. It doesn’t save Sansa, either, and Jonelle fists her hands in her skirts when she sees the blood staining her sister’s skirts, dripping down her back- fists her hands and bites her tongue and lets the hatred swamp her because she can’t help.)

(She’s never really hated herself more.)

When the Tyrells offer Willas and the Reach to Sansa, she looks so lost- she wants to go, that’s true enough, but she’s also so afraid, and she doesn’t want to leave Jonelle behind.

You’ll go, Jonelle tells her, hands seizing around Sansa’s bird-thin wrists. You’ll go, and you’ll live, Sansa, and you’ll have sons to name Eddard and Brandon and Rickon. You’ll offer them everything.

It doesn’t happen, of course; Sansa marries Tyrion, and she doesn’t weep when she goes into their bedchamber but Jonelle still stays outside, hair covering her face, feet aching, heart bursting in her chest from all the pain Sansa must be feeling- 

Tyrion leaves the room, and Jonelle steps forwards, fluid, out of the shadows like an avenging wraith, and presses a knife to his neck. 

(She doesn’t have to bend much. She’s a small woman, Jonelle, but she’s her mother’s daughter before that: flash, and fire, and rage like the roar of an avalanche.)

If you ever hurt her again, she tells him, knowing the shadows don’t let Tyrion see her face, I will gut you like a fish. 

She leaves, then, and when she speaks to Sansa next- they’re careful, always, to make Jonelle seem like a normal maid, not anyone special at all- Jonelle sags in relief to find out that Tyrion has at least taken her threat seriously.

At Joffrey’s wedding, Jonelle sees Joffrey choke, sees Cersei scream- then she’s turning, searching for Sansa, and she sees it: a flash of red, a glint of purple. She doesn’t hesitate to follow, nor to knock the man out with a well-placed elbow the way that Robb taught her. They grip each other’s hands, then, and don’t even pause, don’t even question it- they flee.

It’s on the road that Jonelle starts to fall in love.

(Not really- that’s been happening for years. When Sansa’s only tears under Joffrey’s knights’ mailed fists were of blood, when Sansa laid gentle hands on Joffrey’s arms to twist a horrific sentence to something less unkind, when Sansa refused to break to a world determined to tear her apart- well. Jonelle’s been falling in love for years. It’s only on the road that she realizes it.)

(She refuses to tell anyone. But Sansa’s beautiful, like a sunrise turned to life, like the glare of fire across a forging blade. Every day, it becomes more and more difficult.)

They find berries in places; Jonelle sneaks into a shanty once and steals a knife, and she spends hours trying to sharpen it into something properly useful. They set traps; they scavenge foods; they avoid other people. 

Sansa’s hair lightens in the sunlight, turning even brighter, until it’s almost difficult to look at. Both of them tan, turn lean- hunger gnaws at the edges of their bellies every day, and most nights. It’s still a better life than under Joffrey’s thumb.

A month later- maybe, time seems to pass differently in the woods- Jonelle wakes to a scream. She rolls, unsheathes the knife, and comes up standing all before she opens her eyes.

She opens her eyes, and comes face to face with a pink, slobbering tongue.

The white fur and red eyes sink in a heartbeat later, and Jonelle gasps in shock, dropping the knife, before throwing herself at Ghost. Sansa’s not two feet away, sobbing into Lady’s fur, and- Jonelle can’t help it, she starts to laugh.

What? Sansa asks, and Jonelle waves at Lady’s neck. 

Ribbons, she says. They’re torn, ragged, worn. But the silk still clings to Lady’s fur. Your ribbons, Sansa, they’re still there.

It doesn’t take them too long after that to meet Nymeria, nor a wolf-pack large enough to feel like an army. After that- it takes even less time for them to march north, to take the Twins. Jonelle enters, twists her lips, slumps her shoulders, watches beneath lowered lashes as the Freys ignore her, and when all of them are sleeping, she lets the wolves in. 

She kills Walder Frey herself, with a stolen farmer’s knife. His blood is still on her hands when Sansa steps forward and kisses her.

Jonelle’s brain shorts out- it’s lightning, flaring through her veins, terribly wrong and terribly right, like the blood yet staining her palms. She kisses back, then, one hand sliding up to cup Sansa’s head, bloodied hands on bloodied hair, their kiss made up of teeth and tongue and heat.

(Neither of them know anything different.)

(Neither of them want anything different.)

It takes them time- precious time- but they march further north, and at the Neck they meet with Howland Reed who tells Jonelle the truth of her parentage. Sansa kisses Jonelle that night, harder than ever before, and when she slips a hand over her breast it sparks a heat in Jonelle’s stomach that makes her quake.

Please, she says, breathes, please, Sansa-

They fumble, fingers skipping over furs and cloth, sighing into each other’s mouths, necks- one memorable time, thighs- and dawn comes far too early for either of them. But dawn does come, and they do rise, and when they ride out for Winterfell, they do it together, hands entwined.

When they take Winterfell, Jonelle kills Roose Bolton and the other lords who betrayed Robb herself, a sword heavy in her palms. Sansa insists on letting Theon go, though, when she hears that Bran and Rickon are still alive, and Jonelle doesn’t gainsay her.

That first week, they find Robb’s armor.

Jonelle shakes when she sees it, goes white and trembling as a leaf. Sansa guides her out of the room, her hands flattened on Jonelle’s neck, and drags her into an embrace.

I know, she whispers, muffled, into Jonelle’s neck. I know, Jon, I know it hurts.

He’s gone, Jonelle says, chokes. Robb. He’ll never come back.

No, Sansa murmurs, lifting Jonelle’s chin, eyes warm and soft and kind as a still forest pool. But we’re here, and so long as we live, we’ll never forget him.

Sansa melts the armor down. She gifts it to Jonelle, months later, when Jonelle goes to ride a dragon to burn an army of the dead down. They both cry, when she wears it for the first time, but then Jonelle licks the tears away and, soon enough, that turns into kisses, strokes, caresses- until they’re quivering like lambs. 

Years later, Sansa sits the cold throne in Winterfell. Arya comes and goes, a shadow to even Jonelle, the person who knows her best. Bran is beyond the structure that was once the Wall, becoming whatever he wishes to be; Rickon’s refused to accept the throne, content to rest with the Mormonts, and so Sansa and Jonelle remain in Winterfell, alone and together as they’ve been from almost the very beginning.

You won’t ever leave me, Sansa says, once, the tip of her lip curling upwards, warm and edged as a hearthfire, as the sword-sharp crown in her hair.

Jonelle stands beside her, always, close enough for Sansa to place a hand over her arm, in a maidservant’s gown when she needs to look unimportant and in Robb’s armor when she needs to look invincible.

Never, says Jonelle, cries Jonelle, swears Jonelle. Not for a hundred lifetimes.

This is the only oath Jonelle Snow ever swears.

It’s one that she keeps.