#texts: margaery charming

[farity]

Devil in the Details, part 2

No smut, just a fluffy little ficlet. My brain is gone after these couple of weeks (school). I need to organize the main fic post, too.

You made small talk with a couple of your friends by one of the curtains leading to the backstage area, checking your phone furtively. Aemond had asked you to go to the event together, but the idea of being photographed terrified you, and you'd agreed on meeting there instead.

"Oh. My. Motherfucking. God."

Margaery Tyrell, the prettiest girl you had ever met and your dear friend, was staring at her phone. She looked up at you and turned the screen so you could see it.

Getty Images was the premier photo service for any and all editorial and news events, and the gala night of the King's Landing Literacy Center was definitely a society event.

On her screen was the newest batch of pictures, taken mere moments before, of the Targaryens arriving at the event. And the one she'd clicked on was of Aemond. Wearing green chaps and a cropped jacket to match.

"What the actual fuck? Alicent is going to get an ulcer!" she laughed, and you had to smile.

Aemond looked amazing, of course, he could wear a fucking rubbing bag and look striking, but this was next level. And considering how Alicent had reacted to him wearing leather gloves that went up to his biceps, you knew she was going to flip out.

You texted him quickly. Chaps? Really?

"There's Baela," Margaery said, "I'm going to say hello."

You nodded and looked around, but although you caught sight of Aegon and Daeron, you didn't see Aemond anywhere.

A moment later, you were being pulled behind the curtain and as you opened your mouth to scream, a familiar voice rasped in your ear. "It's me."

You whirled around and then Aemond was kissing you, his hands on your ass, the scent of his cologne warm and spicy. You sank into him, sliding your hands up the smooth leather of his jacket. When he pulled back, he brushed his nose against yours. "You look incredibly beautiful."

"You look like you just stepped out of a magazine," you replied, reaching up to caress his cheek.

"Come on," he said, tugging on your hand.

You raised an eyebrow. "You just got here."

Aemond smiled. "Do you really want to stay here?"

Your stomach rumbled before you could answer, and Aemond ran a hand through your hair, "have you eaten today?"

"It's been a few hours."

"Well, that won't do," he said, leading you through the kitchen area. Hundreds of small plates with unrecognizable bits were laid out on prep tables, and Aemond pulled you closer. "Let's go get some real food. But first, I need to get rid of these."

* * * * *

"Much better."

Aemond smiled at you, the green leather chaps and jacket now safely in the backpack he'd asked his stylist friend to put away for him. He ran his hand through his hair and you decided that it didn't matter what he wore. Whether it was some outrageous getup to annoy his mother or the black button down and slim trousers he wore now, you thought he looked great.

"So, what did she say when she saw you?"

He opened the car door for you, waiting for you to be safely in before closing it and walking around to the other side.

"Oh she didn't say anything, but I'm sure she will call tomorrow to read me the riot act. What do you want to eat?"

"I'm dying for a cheeseburger after that movie," you laughed, remembering the very disturbing movie you'd watched together the previous week.

You remembered being incredibly charmed when he casually told you he'd gone through his stuff and cleared out half the closet for you, if you wanted to bring your stuff over. It wasn't official and he hadn't asked yet, but you knew he really wanted you around all the time, and you'd find little things here and there he had bought thinking of your comfort at his place.

It had only been a few weeks since that first night together but your lives had meshed together, and when he spoke of future plans that included you, you realized it felt natural and that you wanted the same.

* * * * *

"Happy?"

You turned to Aemond. "Yeah, that was a good burger."

He smiled, squeezing your hand. "I meant with me." He looked at you, his expression almost shy. "Are you happy with me?"

You reached up, running your fingertips through his hair. "Yes. I'm very happy with you."

He nodded. "Good, good." He grabbed your face in his hands, kissing you gently. "I am incredibly happy with you."

You leaned into him, sighing into the next kiss.

"Would you move in? With me? Stay here?"

You smiled up at him. "I would love that."

* * * * *

[inthehoneymoonwithconnorrk800]

MY DARKEST DESIRE (joffrey baratheon x dark! reader)

Joffrey Baratheon x yandere! Reader

PART 1 OF 3

*I am sorry for the inappropriate use that this text can present in English, I have translated it on google.

TW: NON-CON, emotional manipulation, unhealthy behaviors. Obvious divergence from the canon. That's right, I'm hungry and I want Joffrey to suffer, so here goes.

You were the only daughter of Petyr Baelish.

How did he decide to take care of you? Easy, you were related to the Tullys: your mother was a member of that honorable house that in her youth fell in love with the charming Petyr, that was the only reason he took you under his care. He didn't love your mother, but having you was a point of power over that family, and obviously, it gave him a certain prestige that your father didn't intend to waste.

You couldn't blame him.

Since you were little he had taught you how cunning surpassed honor, and he had made you part of his strategies through innocent father/daughter games. Who could suspect that under the table was an innocent girl listening to conspiracy plans?

You grew up through power plays, secrets between nobles, and making connections at a young age. At your age, you already conspired with your father in the death of Jon Arryn.

You were like his only partner in crime. He told you about his plans, you fulfilled his wishes for influence in other houses, you told him your suspicions and you confessed what you wanted most: to help him be on the iron throne.

Now you were on a walk with Lady Margaery, both of you were alone and politely, you stroked her hair. Anyone would say they were friends with her, but you only saw her as a lever for power. You had known her since her arrival in King's Landing, wearing your classic mask of fear of King Joffrey's violence and your feigned kindness to any maiden in the Red Keep. So you tricked Sansa, the poor redhead who desperately needed someone kind in her life, into the mercy of the Arryn according to your father's plan and she was safe there.

"Everything okay, lady?" Margaery's lovely voice snapped you out of your thoughts.

You ignored the strange pressure in your chest when you thought about the Stark's future.

"That's right, my rose." You gave her a seductive look, Margaery tried to hide her blush by pretending to pick some other flower.

But you knew her well. You knew of the Tyrell ways, of his trickery, and of Margaery's purpose: to become queen. You became close to the future queen according to your plan: to become someone trustworthy (by advising her, joking with her and sharing your false worries like not knowing whom to marry) … and she responded with gradually spontaneous smiles, answering your jokes with wit and offering you the possibility of marrying Loras, as if you were humble in the first place.

Little by little, you became friends with her (getting petting, talking with Loras like they were old friends, as well as having intelligent conversations with Olenna, the true Tyrell mastermind). Secretly, you took advantage of everything you could to learn more about the Tyrell through oral data that the young woman gave you. And then came the hardest step to do: seduce her.

When you were thirteen, your father took you to one of his brothels. You knew from a young age what he was working, but you had never seen what happened inside. There he showed you the prostitutes, how the pleasure business worked, the nobles who requested his services and in the company of women of pleasure, he taught you how to please a man or a woman, or even tactics that would make anyone submissive of Dorne.

And you did your duty.

Over several moons, you meekly began to make advances to the ambitious Tyrell. At first, she feigned innocence and even mild rejection of your advances, but thanks to your parents' spies, you knew that she spoke positively about you whenever she could with her grandmother. You mentioned it to your father and he proudly admitted that having you was positive. That was the best, even though you were cunning, cruel and calculating, you loved the love that your father gave you. So encouraged, the caresses turned into kisses and these into sexual acts. You pleased her, you pretended to be an angel by her side, and you sweetened her with words of always being by her side, helping her when she is queen. However, you only executed the steps to bring the Baelish name closer to power.

“At a good time I see them. “the hoarse voice of the Tyrell matriarch was present, you made the classic bow as the protocol said,” Don’t bother, girl. Hey Loras! Come here, help your grandmother.”

You coldly thought how to fully gain the trust of the queen of thorns.

"It's nice to have you around."

"No way, little girl! I know you will join us soon.”

You smiled, if only they knew…

—

You notified your father of the progress with the Tyrells. His smile appeared on his face when you told him everything you achieved during these last three months. You didn't see him because he was in the Eyrie, courting Lady Lysa.

"You know this is the hardest part, right?"

You nodded. It wasn't just about cajoling the Tyrells, you had to influence the littles Baratheon.

After a short dialogue, you left in the direction of the palace.

You politely greeted the nobles who were around and decisively went to where King Joffrey should be.

"Isn't this place a bit dangerous for a young woman?"

Inwardly you frowned, the Spider's sweet words irritated you. You had known him for as long as you could remember, your father's rival, the same man who had given you your first candies simply to separate you from your father.

“I am touched by his concern, Lord Varys. And at the same time, I am amazed that you are here. I'm at the request of a maid, you know.”

"The king has grown braver" he replied with his classic wide eyes.

"Such bravery will shed blood."

You bowed your head to say goodbye and left. You quickly mentally replayed all his gestures and words.

You concluded that Joffrey was in a bad mood, a mortal danger to anyone who came near. Better you should go to Tommen, though that meant daringly dodging the queen regent. You faked a downcast look when you entered Tommen's playground, luckily his mother wasn't near him, but that didn't mean anything safe, there were guards everywhere and he was surrounded by other young nobles.

You chattered with false joy until you approached the shy Baratheon, you couldn't blame him. The fact of growing up with a beast eager for pain had reduced his extroversion, making him closed and even tender, for a moment, you felt remorse, but you discarded those annoying thoughts thinking of making your father happy. That was the most important thing.

“Do you like salmon chunks, your grace?

Tommen blushed. You knew why, his cat Sir Pounce especially enjoyed that fish, and Tommen fed it secretly because if he did it in public, Joffrey would show his cruelty. You knew this from your own spies in the kitchens, and besides, you served dinner from time to time when Tommen was feeling blue to eat with the others.

"Yes, I like it a lot”

"I'm glad. Tonight we will prepare various dishes and with your confirmation I could make some extra dishes of cooked salmon along with chicken and cream of duck with herbs for you”

"I would like that, thank you, Lady Baelish."

"You're welcome, your highness."

Under shy and polite smiles, you walked away. You were not to give suspicion to your alleged lover Margaery Tyrell or the others.

Tonight could be the beginning of another step for the father's plan.

@yandere-stan @yandere-daydreams @megsironthrone @letsasoiaftogetherftogether @missglaskinkin @witchthewritertchthewriter @a-libra-writesa-writes  @agent-whiskeys-sweetheartweetheart @ladywinterwitchinterwitch @anxiousnerdwritings

[westerosoliviapope]

It's Handled (Scandal Westeros - Episode One)

“Breaking news out of the Capitol at Harrenhal. Tonight, The People’s Council begins deliberations on Prime Minister Robert Baratheon’s removal from office. The twice-elected PM is answering to charges of abuse of power and misappropriation of government funds, allegedly to silence two women with whom he fathered children outside of his marriage. The investigation, led by the Prime Minister’s brother, Attorney General Stannis Baratheon, has yielded a trove of documents and testimony, which will be examined and debated in the lower legislative body during a historic late-night session…” 

Brienne Tarth’s drink is too strong. 

You’d think she’d be better at this, having grown up with military men, but other than the occasional beer, she never developed a taste for alcohol. What she needs right now is a frosty Motte Wheat. Even the fancier restaurants in the Stormlands serve it, but here? At the Hightower Hotel in Oldtown? She doubts it. Besides, she looks ridiculous enough with her thick-as-a-castle-wall body squeezed in the sapphire shift dress she’s wearing. No need to remind her date how manly she looks by chugging beer. 

Speaking of her date… She checks her phone again. No text. No call. And he was due 10 minutes ago. Maybe she should text him… No. She doesn’t want to appear desperate. Fifteen more minutes. Then she’ll get the hell out of here and drown her sorrows at the Quill and Tankard. 

She tries to focus on the evening news but finds herself people-watching instead. Immediate mistake. The women, in their simple, elegant dresses and perfectly coiffed hair, are effortlessly chic. While the clothes are understated, there is easily $250,000 in watches, bags, and shoes in the restaurant. It’s like sitting in a room full of Margaery Tyrells. 

She takes another sip of vodka soda and winces at the sting. 

The thud of a blood-red Celine bag landing on her table pulls out of her thoughts. On the other side of it, a woman with olive skin and flowing dark hair settles on to the stool across from her. “I’m sorry,” Brienne says. “I’m saving that seat for…” 

“Garrett Flowerson,” the woman fishes an iPhone out of her bag and taps the screen, showing a photo of the man Brienne is expecting. “This broad-shouldered, square-jawed Prince Charming—that seems to be a thing for you—who swiped right on your profile. He's not coming.” She flips Balayaged-hair over the shoulder of her tan trench coat and waves down a server. 

Gods. He has a girlfriend who found his profile... For the first time in a while, she's grateful to be bigger and taller than most women she meets. This one, tall as she is, is willowy. Brienne can take her if it comes to that. “Look, I’m sorry if I…”

“A glass of Dornish Red for me,” the woman says to a server who has materialized out of nowhere. “She'll have a Motte Wheat with an orange garnish.” 

This woman knows what beer she drinks? What in seven hells? “His profile said ‘single,’” Brienne says. “I didn’t know…” 

The bag is pushed aside and the woman finally looks at her, blinking big, black eyes and pursing wine red lips. “Oh,” she drawls. Brienne hears the hint of a Dornish accent. “Sweetling. Garrett Flowerson doesn’t exist. And this isn't a date.”

For Brienne, this is a bridge too far. 

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” she hops to her feet. “Or what kind of sick game you’re playing with me—” 

“Oh wow,” the Dornishwoman’s eyes grow wide. “Apologies. You're tall in photos but in person, it's truly marvelous. Anyway. Before you go all ‘girl fight’ on me, you'll want to have a seat. This isn't a date because it's a job interview.” 

Before Brienne can stutter that she’s not looking for a job, the woman continues. 

“Yes, you think you have a job toiling away in Renly Baratheon’s hometown office drafting your earnest, well-meaning policy proposals while praying his pretty new wife doesn't catch those longing glances you cast his way with those big baby blues of yours, but… that's not a job. It is a waste of brainpower for a woman who graduated fourth in her class from the Military Academy at Storm’s End. Not to mention pathetic, which is a bad look for a woman of your...” she pauses her dizzying monologue to give Brienne a once over, “...stature.”

“Who the hell are you?” Brienne asks as a server in a stiff-collared white shirt places a mug of Motte Wheat on the table in front of her. 

“Now you ask the right questions.” The Dornishwoman holds out a slender hand with black lacquered nails. “I'm Nymeria. And I'm here on behalf of Sarella Sand to make you an offer you can't refuse.” 

“Thee Sarella Sand?” Brienne asks once she can manage words and shake Nymeria’s hand. “Offer? I thought you said this was an interview?” 

Nymeria smirks over the rim of her wineglass. “I did say that, didn’t I?” It’s the slowest she’s spoken all night. 

Sarella Sand. Westeros’s top political consultant. Brienne’s followed her work since Sarella helped her father get elected to the Storm Lands seat on the High Council. She’d met Sarella at his swearing-in but... “I don’t understand. Why would she…” 

“I enjoy foreplay as much as the next girl, Brienne, but I'm not asking if you want the job because we both know you do. No matter what you say, you want more for yourself than busting your ass in the name of some Ken doll you diddle yourself to when you go home at night. So, Cinderella. You can keep scrubbing Renly’s floors hoping someone will make you the belle of the ball or you can let Fairy Godmother Sarella make you a warrior in a suit.” 

This is insane. A woman she’s never met, sitting in front of her, reading her biography and inner thoughts, dangling the opportunity of a lifetime. Common sense tells Brienne she needs more time. To do research. She should at least go to the restroom and search Nymeria on Beacon to see if she is who she says she is. 

But Brienne’s answer doesn’t come from the common sense part of her brain. Something higher, or perhaps deeper inside, speaks with such conviction that she’s shocked when the words come out of her mouth. “I want to be a warrior in a suit.” 

“Excellent.” Nymeria hops up and pulls out her phone. “There's an Uber outside waiting to take us back to the office.” 

“Now? But it’s 10 o’clock.”  

“Rule number one, Brienne: warriors don't sleep. Now, off we go.” She nods toward the door. “And stand up straight when you meet Sarella. Warriors don't slouch, either.” 

“Do me a favor,” Sarella Sand says, inspecting Jon’s appearance as the piss-scented elevator they’re riding descends. “Take your hair out of that ponytail.” 

She’s surprised his brow can furrow any deeper than its default, but he manages; his gray eyes narrow with suspicion as he frees his wild mane of black, neck-length curls. “Why?” 

“You need to look pretty for our Qohorik friends. Button up your coat, too.” 

“You’re serious? You want me to look ‘pretty’ for a bunch of Qohorik mobsters?” 

“If I wanted ‘scary,’ I would have called Obara,” she says, fluffing his hair. “No one will expect these luscious locks to take out a room full of people in the blink of an eye.” 

Per usual, Jon Snow eyes her warily but does as she asks, buttoning his black pea coat and flipping up the collar. “It took the Old Lion long enough to come up with the money. You’d think he didn’t want his son back.” 

“He’s not used to negotiating with people who threaten him. He’d rather drop a nuke on Qohor than pay a dollar.”

The elevator doors open into an underground garage. “You’re sure about this?” Jon asks before they step out. 

Adjusting the belt on her off-white coat, she takes a deep breath and stares straight ahead. “Of course,” she answers. “But keep your trigger finger ready in case I’m wrong.”

There is no sound but the echo of Sarella’s stilettos as they march through the empty garage toward three men in black leather jackets. 

“Good evening,” she chirps in perfect Qohorik. “I believe you have something that belongs to my client.” 

The tallest of the three mobsters steps forward and speaks in the Common Tongue. “And you have the $8 million we requested?” 

Jon tenses at her side. 

“We agreed to $5 million.” 

The mobster strokes his long, dark beard. “That was before we assessed your client’s considerable worth. If he shits gold, what is another $3 million? Say in… six hours? If this is challenging, we can start sending the package home in pieces. For incentive.” 

Sarella puts a hand on Jon’s arm. Easy, she says without saying it. Steeling herself, she steps forward.

“Here are your options, Mr. Hoat. You could walk away from this deal. But you, Mr. Urswyck, and Mr. Utt will be placed on every no-fly list from Westeros to the Summer Isles in the next two hours. Your Pentoshi bank account, number 9-0-2-4-7-8, where you keep that 32 million dollar emergency fund could just…” Sarella snaps her fingers, “… disappear. You could receive a call that the Black Forest Nursing Home in Qohor has mysteriously burned to the ground, leaving your lovely mother—Mrs. Elda Hoat, I believe—dead before her time. Or you can take this $5 million, catch your flight to the motherland within the hour and be sleeping under warm goat furs before the sun goes down.”

The mobsters grew increasingly uncomfortable as she spoke, especially when she called each of them by name. They’re used to operating as a single faceless unit—The Bloody Mummers. Not flesh and blood men with names and loved ones. 

An achingly slow moment crawls by. 

She senses Jon’s readiness. He’ll draw and drop all three men with clean shots to the head before they pull their weapons. All she’ll have to do is drop, tuck, and wait out the noise.

Thankfully, that isn’t necessary. 

Hoat nods and Urswyck pops the trunk of a black sedan parked behind them. A pair of long legs swing over the opening, struggling to find their purchase before landing on the concrete. “Walk,” Urswyck barks and the captive, abnormally gaunt with a potato sack covering his head, limps in Sarella and Jon’s direction. 

Her face remains impassive, but she exhales gently through her nose. Next to her, Jon’s shoulders relax and he tosses a duffle bag of cash that Utt retrieves. 

“Pleasure doing business, gentlemen,” Sarella says, nodding at the Bloody Mummers as they get in their vehicles. 

“That stuff about the nursing home,” Jon asks. “Was that real?” 

“The information, yes. The rest...” she replies. “… sounds like something Tywin would arrange.” 

He wipes a hand over his bearded chin and shakes his head. “Fuckin’ hell, Sarella.”

“One more favor.” She looks at Jaime Lannister’s covered head and bound hands. “Free our friend from his confines? I have to call our client.” 

“You’re pushing it.” 

“You’ll get all the Bear Island Private Reserve Scotch and porcelain-skinned women your heart desires,” she teases. “And I’ll throw in some steaks for that wolf you call a dog.” She reaches for her phone while Jon lifts the potato sack and pulls a ball gag out of Jaime’s mouth. “Sarella Sand for Tywin Lannister,” she says into her phone. “Yes, please tell Mr. Lannister that the situation is handled. He can retrieve his package from my office.”

“Uh,” Jon calls ominously. “You might want to take a look at this.”

A shaggy, tired-eyed Jaime Lannister raises his right arm. “By ‘this,’” he says, his aristocratic tone coated with a thick layer of gravel as he waves what looks like a bandage-covered stump, “he means my missing hand.”

She expects the offices of Sphinx Consultants to look like the rest of corporate Oldtown—sterile and nauseatingly contemporary. Instead, Brienne walks into a remodeled brownstone with dark-stained hardwood floors. She follows Nymeria through the foyer into a long hall that breaks into three rooms: a lounge with a kitchenette and brown leather couches, Sarella Sand’s office, and a conference room where Brienne hears the hum of news coverage under what sounds like a lively conversation. 

“Cool as a fuckin’ fan, she threatens the fucker with Reins of Castamere Part Two,” she hears in the thick accent of the North. 

Unsure of what to do, she stands in the doorway while Nymeria shrugs off her coat and hangs it in a nearby closet. 

“I come bearing fresh meat,” Nymeria announces, drawing the attention of the four people seated around a conference table littered with YiTish food cartons and chopsticks. Brienne recognizes one of them, Randyll Tarly’s son, from his brief time at the Military Academy before he transferred to the Citadel. 

“Everyone, meet Brienne Tarth, daughter of High Councilman Selwyn Tarth and the newest member of the team. Brienne, meet everyone,” Nymeria gestures toward the table. “Our curly-haired pretty boy with the hot accent is Jon, resident ex-cop and investigator. The lovable teddy bear with the round cheeks is Sam, researcher, and hacker extraordinaire. The lady in leather with the permanent scowl is my dear sister, former special-ops Obara. And of course, you know our fearless leader...” 

Sarella Sand, as poised as Brienne remembers from their brief introduction years ago, stands, a curious expression sweeping over her teak-toned face. “You’re slouching,” Sarella says. “You’re too tall to slouch.” 

Right, Brienne thinks, adjusting her posture. “Thank you so much for the opportunity. It means the world to me that I—“

Sarella turns toward the 60-inch monitor showing the Prime Minister’s removal hearing. “Did my sister give you her speech about being a Warrior in a Suit?” 

“That's why you sent me,” Nymeria sits at the table next to Jon. “I'm an excellent closer.” Motioning toward the TV, she asks “Have they started voting yet?” 

Sarella shakes her head. “They’re still doing floor speeches.” 

Sam looks up from his laptop. “Any chance he gets off?” 

“I’ve seen Robert work political miracles,” Sarella says. “But all the charm in the world won’t out of this one. Not with those women lining up at Varys' doorstep with stories for the Daily Whisper.”

“You think Renly votes against removal?” 

Obara reaches across the table for a carton of rice. “Not a chance. The Baratheon brothers don't give a shit about each other. It’s every Stag for himself.”

“Well,” Sarella says. “No better way to clean the dirt off of your name than marrying the Republic’s darling. Between Margaery and PM Olenna*, the Tyrells may as well be Targaryens.” 

Nymeria looks around the table. “Hey. Where's the Golden Boy? I thought we picked him up tonight.” 

“It’s...” Sarella pauses. “Complicated. He’s in the basement with Qyburn.”

At this, Nymeria sits up straight. “'Complicated' is an understatement if we called that creep. What the fuck happened? And does his father know?” 

Until now, Brienne’s been so overwhelmed by her surroundings that the conversation flew over her head. But as she thinks about what she’s hearing… Reins of Castamere, Golden Boy, his father… “It can’t be,” she whispers. 

She wants to run. To find a bathroom where she can take a deep breath, gather her thoughts, and mentally prepare for what she knows will come before the night ends. Then she hears Nymeria’s rant about her pathetic crush on Renly and wasting her potential. Was Jaime Lannister so different? 

No, Brienne thinks. One more smirking pretty boy, distracting her from what she can accomplish, who she can be if she keeps her eye on the prize. A prize she didn’t even know she craved until she stood in that room watching one of the most brilliant women in Westerosi politics discuss pillars of the republic as if they were pawns on a Cyvasse board.

“Brienne,” Sarella calls to her. “Can you go downstairs and check on our guest?”

“Yes—” she has to stop herself from saying “ma’am,” despite how much this feels like her first day at boot camp. The day she met the man she’s about to see for the first time in years. 

“Warrior in a suit,” she repeats to herself, walking toward the stairs that lead to the basement. “And he’s just another Ken doll.” 

Yeah, a voice in her mind spits back at her. The Ken doll you fucked that one time.

“In a historic turn of events that should shock no one in the Republic, the People’s Council has voted 126 to 74 in favor of removing Prime Minister Robert Baratheon from office; finding him guilty of abuse of power and misappropriation of government funds. While the measure was expected to pass, several councilmen from the Southern coalition, including representatives from Golden Tooth and Ashemark, who pledged ‘no’ votes, joined the ‘yes’ side after a harrowing speech on the floor from Councilman Robb Stark of Winterfell.”

“You’re here late,” Sarella says from her desk, where her shoeless feet are propped up while she scrolls through her phone. “I thought you had plans with that blonde from your gym? Val, right?” 

Plopping down on the couch in her office, Jon shrugs. “Change of plans.” 

“I know she’s no silver-haired princess, but…” 

He groans. “One time, I compliment a speech about ending slavery and you won't shut up about it. Maybe I’ll keep this popcorn and Dornish Red for myself.” 

“More than once,” Sarella approaches the couch with two wine glasses. “But if you’re going to have a crush, you can’t go wrong with Princess Daenerys.” 

Rolling his eyes, Jon changes the subject. “Your new girl is too innocent. You can see her heart bleeding in 'er eyes. Sure she’s cut out for it?” 

“We need a little heart around here. You all are getting too cynical. Though something seemed off between her and Lannister. Did you notice?” 

“I was too busy making sure his man Bronn didn’t steal anything on his way out.”

The two settle into silence as pundits across Westeros laud Robb Stark’s speech:

“Some of these lines were just incredible. This one, in particular: ‘Few people can attest more honestly to Prime Minister Baratheon’s greatness than I. My father served with him; named me in honor of his glorious feats. But we must let go of our attachment to the past to save the future of our great republic. That future cannot flourish in the face of lies, avarice, and corruption. My fellow Councilmen and women, that future can only be secured with Robert Baratheon’s removal from office.’ I mean, the hair on my arms is literally standing up. These are the kind of remarks that make political careers…”

“The fucker was made for TV.” Jon grabs a fistful of popcorn. “We just didn’t know it until you came along.” 

“I was a hired gun. Wyman saw the potential and the district agreed,” Sarella sips her wine, eyes never leaving the screen. “Jon. Why are you here buttering me up when you could hook up with a hot blonde?”

He pulls out his phone and taps the screen. A photo of him and an auburn-haired, blue-eyed man flashes across it. “Because someone needs to talk to you.” 

After three rings, a heavy Northern accent comes through the speakers. “Snow.”

“Stark,” Jon greets. “Hardly recognized your voice. I’m too used to seeing you on TV sounding like a proper southron cunt.” 

“Says the man who left us to live with the proper southron cunts.” 

“I’m sitting with a certain Dornishwoman who may take offense to that.” 

“Sarella?” 

“Yes, I’d like to speak with the rising star of the People’s Council. Can you put him on the line?” 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Jon points at Sarella. “Don’t open any texts from Val. Matter fact, don’t open any texts at all.” 

“Your cousin is afraid I’ll see one of his women’s nudes, Robb.” 

“Making up for those years as a virgin in Winterfell, I see.” 

Jon shakes his head. “I’ll be in the lounge.” 

Sarella turns off the speaker and presses Jon’s phone to her ear. “Hi.” 

After taking a deep breath, Robb replies. “Hi.” 

“Good job tonight.”

“Your line edits made all the difference. Thanks again.” 

“Theon’s turning into quite the speechwriter. Soon, you won’t need me.” 

“I’ll always need you.” 

She walks toward the window and sits, watching the stars twinkle over the dark waters of the Honeywine. “You wore the navy suit tonight. Smart.”

“It’s my lucky one. I’m sure you know why.” 

Sarella is silent. 

“Do you remember the first time I wore it? The debate at Wintertown?” 

“How could I forget? It was the first time I thought we could actually win.” 

“And after? When you peeled it off of me in the hotel room?” 

Closing her eyes, she exhales. “Robb.” 

“Gods,” his voice drops an octave. “You make me love the sound of my name.” 

She bites her lip and considers her reply. It would be so easy to... “We’re not doing this tonight, Councilman. Definitely not doing it on Jon’s phone.” 

She hears the smile in his voice before he speaks. “Where, Ms. Sand, would you like to do it?” 

Sarella peers at the street below, watching an Uber pick up a woman from the neighboring front stoop. “I hired Selwyn Tarth’s daughter today. She was slaving away writing policy on Renly’s staff and we told her she’s wasting potential pining after a man she can’t have.” She pauses. “When are you proposing to Roslin?” 

“Sarella…” 

“You’re running for governor of the North or Prime Minister after Randyll Tarly’s interim ends. You need a wife and asked Jon to call so you could break the news, so… When?” 

“Next week. I’m stumping for my Uncle Edmure in the Riverlands. It’ll be the day after his campaign event.” 

“I’m sure Catelyn is thrilled.” 

“Aye,” he snorts. “I’m starting to think she’s the one proposing. You know this thing is a mummer’s farce. We can still—” 

“We could,” Sarella says. “But we won’t.” 

“You weren’t some campaign fling, Sarella. It was more than—” 

“—I know.” She nods as if he can see her. “Listen, I need to give Jon his phone. But… thank you.”

“For?”

“Making sure I heard this from you and not the Daily Whisper.”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen. We were... You deserve the dignity of hearing it from me.”

“The ever honorable Robb Stark,” she grins. “Goodnight, Councilman.”

“Call me back on your phone? It’s late. I… want to see you home safely.” 

“What if Roslin—” 

“I’ll handle it. Just call me back.”

Sarella doesn’t confirm or refuse before ending the call and staring out of the window. There’s a twitch in her nose and wetness pooling behind her eyelids when Jon’s phone buzzes in her hand. A text from “Val W.” with an eggplant emoji makes her laugh out loud. 

Saved by one of Jon’s hot blondes, she thinks, blinking back her tears. She's a Warrior in a Suit, after all. And Warriors in Suits don’t cry. 

[margaritaflores]

TEXT 🎀 MARG2

Rita: I know our names are somewhat similar but they're spelled differently and mean completely different things. ALSO WE LOOK NOTHING ALIKE. HOW DID SOMEONE MISTAKE ME FOR YOU????? 😡

Rita: It's official, you have to change your name!

[snowjon]

tbh i bet margaery would have known what to do

[kingsansa]

Russian!Jon au— I wait for you patiently

Dance to this

word count: 496 tags: hockey player x figure skaters, hooking up, getting together

She googled him after Beijing out of pure curiosity. 

The top searches were only mildly interesting at best and basic at worst. Jon Snow contract—he was on his fifth year out of six with the Watch, go moles—Jon Snow net worth—a whopping 30 million—Jon Snow fights—a 15 minute long youtube video compilation with half a million likes and a sequel that was just as popular. 

He was born in Krasnodar, Russia, according to his Wikipedia page, but is also a citizen of the UK, thanks to his Scottish father. He’s 25 as of December 27th of last year—her nose scrunched upon this realization—a Capricorn. 

Nevertheless, she persisted. No one could ever say that she wasn’t an unbiased woman of science. 

He had an instagram with a million followers that she knew for a fact that he did not run judging from the clumsy way he slid into her dms alone—an accidental like and unlike on a picture a good three scrolls down her profile from early last year after barely following her for a full day. 

It’s kind of charming. 

It comes as a surprise to her, that she finds him charming. 

He screenshots flight times and ticket prices rather than asking her when she can come see him. He’s categorically mute until nine in the morning. He pretends not to speak English around people he would prefer not to talk to. He adds obviously to statements that aren’t obvious at all.

He strongly dislikes nearly all of her friends and tells her so, but only after she presses him. He met Margaery back in Beijing too—she is the scorpion that asks the frog for a lift across the lake. He met Edric when he came to see her compete in Zurich—he wants to sleep with you. He takes me for a fool. Jeyne, he likes okay, says ‘she is strong willed woman’. She doesn’t think he means it as a compliment. 

She regularly watches hockey now, because he likes to ask her if she saw him play. He calls her between flights and bus rides, in locker rooms and tubs full of ice, listens to her complain about her day with an attentiveness so quiet that she sometimes thinks he’s fallen asleep, but he only ever did once. When he can’t call, he texts. ‘How are you?’ is ‘I miss you.’ ‘What are you doing?’ means ‘I wish you were here.’ ‘I wait for you patiently’ means ‘I can’t wait to see you.’

He refuses to teach her Russian, speaking it around her sparingly. Malyshka, he murmurs into her hair to stir her, right before he carries her to bed. Says it over the phone when she’s complaining about something so fiercely that her eyes sting. Murmurs it into the inside of her thigh right before his mouth finds her heat and she has to push at his head because she can’t take it anymore. 

Sansa doesn’t find out about any of this on Wikipedia. Obviously. 

[mkstrigidae]

Current WIPs and Fic Concepts

I promised I would do this yesterday, and then I forgot!!! (I was very sleep deprived). Anyways, here are a bunch of the WIP premises that I have in my 'unfinished drafts' folder. Most have at least a few pages written for them, but I love them all! ☺️💕

- A Santa Clarita Diet AU (Jonsa) Takes place in sunny southern California, where a shitty dinner at a mediocre restaurant turns into a huge problem for Jon and Sansa when Sansa's heart stops beating. Although she seems fine, Jon is flabbergasted several days later as he watches his wife- who alphabetizes their pantry and refuses to let anyone wear shoes in the house- rip the throat out of one of the sleazy new partners at their law firm, eating half of him before anyone processes what's going on. Hilarity ensues as Sansa's inhibitions and filter disappear, Arya ropes an extremely confused Gendry into helping figure out what the hell is going on just because he moderates the zombie forum on reddit, and Jon tries to deal with the fact that the woman he loves more than anything is now a humanitarian. He really could use a drink. (This one is actually mostly complete, but i need to refine a few things- i really love it. It's as gory and irreverent as the show, so viewer discretion advised, but it's a BLAST to write).

- A Thor/MCU AU (Jonsa, Steve Rogers/Sansa)- Asgardian prince Aegon is banished to Midgard after one too many arrogant decisions, and is promptly hit by a van containing Dr. Sansa Stark, Dr. Barristan Selmy, and Margaery Tyrell- two astrophysicists studying wormholes and Sansa's best friend and pseudo-intern. Marg yells at him, he yells back, Sansa tases him, and Barristan didn't sign up for the kind of heavy lifting that getting a 200+ pound slab of muscle into the back of a van takes. And then Aegon's younger brother, Jon, shows up, in the middle of an identity crisis because, apparently, he's adopted. He wasn't intending to stay, but he's rather drawn to Dr. Stark and her brilliance, and against her better judgement, she starts to trust him, and maybe even like him. This story is in about three parts so far- the first is based on 'Thor' and the second on 'The Avengers' and are fully Jonsa, and the third started as a family bonding story between the Stark kids and Tony (Ned and Tony are second cousins, and Ned was really supportive of Tony in rehab without expecting anything in return), and accidentally turned into a Steve Rogers/Sansa Stark story, which is a pairing i am HERE for. A lot of this one is written, but it needs some fill in before publishing, although it's one of my favorites that i've written to go back and actually read.

- A Star Wars AU (Jonsa) where Sansa and Arya are Alderaanian princesses who are off planet when Alderaan is destroyed- Sansa as a senator and Arya as a pilot, both working for the rebellion, and jon is a smuggler who does not know how all of these people got on his ship and why two princesses are sassing him. His copilot, Tormund (yes he's a wookie), thinks it is hilarious. I started this one just the other day, and it's already thirty pages long, most of them involving Sansa and Arya sassing people. Dany is a leader in the rebellion, Roose Bolton is the emperor, and Barbrey Dustin is a disgruntled former jedi trying to live in peace on a remote planet until another Stark crashes into her life and harangues her into teaching again.

- A witches/magic AU (Jonsa) where the Starks run an apothecary and spellcasting supplies shop. Jon had been completely in the dark about magic before his mother confessed to being born into a family of witches. He finds himself traveling to her hometown, trying to understand her world more clearly, and what it means for him. On the way, he develops something of a crush on the red-headed shop clerk who brews the best headache potions in town. Featuring lots of magical shenanigans, this is one of my favorites in the folder :)

- A 24 hour diner AU (Jonsa) where Jon is a local mob boss, and Sansa works the late shift at Seaworth's diner to buy textbooks for the PhD she's working on in botany. Sansa's running from memories, and Jon has a soft spot for the red-headed waitress who always remembers how he likes his coffee.

- An East of the Sun, West of the Moon AU!!! (Jonsa) This is one of my fav fairy tales, and of course i couldn't resist Jon as a direwolf striking a deal with the starks!

- A Roomates AU (Jonsa)- Arya, Jon, Tormund, and Sam have been renting the same house together off Winterfell's campus for years- but when Sam moves in with his girlfriend, they need one more person on the lease. Sansa, about to relocate to Winterfell for grad school, finds out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her and that her housing plans have fallen through, all on the same day. Needless to say, she's a bit upset when she calls Arya to relay the news. There's a simple solution here, if Arya and Tormund can stop teasing Jon about his crush for five minutes. (any excuse to write tormund and arya roasting jon, tbh).

- A Fae AU (Jonsa)- When Sansa, a baker living in the city, washes her face in an enchanted spring on a camping trip, she gains the sight as a result. Suddenly able to see the fae underworld all around her is disorienting and terrifying. Sansa tries to conceal it- afraid of what might happen if the fae around her know that she can see them- but slips up, and catches the attention of Jon Snow- one of the lords of the unseelie court.

- A nuclear winter wasteland AU (Jonsa)- (?? I don't even know how to describe this premise, haha) where the Starks are living and running the Free Winterfell settlement in Siberia after a worldwide nuclear meltdown. Before the fallout, Sansa was one of the world's preeminent researchers in plant genetics and pathology, and works at the settlement to create newer, disease and radiation resistant crops to distribute for free to other settlements, aiming to break up the monopoly that Lannister Corp has on the market. Jon is a scavenger, searching throughout Siberia for his sister Rhae who disappeared several years previously. When he runs across Arya Starkovna, helping her fight off another band of radiation ravaged scavengers is just instinct- he doesn't think twice about it. In thanks, she brings him to the Winterfell settlement, where her brother Robb offers Jon sanctuary and resources, in exchange for serving as a bodyguard for Sansa when she travels to other settlements. Sansa is not particularly thrilled by this arrangement, but given that multiple parties seem to want her dead, she doesn't have much of a choice but to accept his company.

- A reincarnation AU (Jonsa)- of sorts. Robb is an archaeologist who finds a strange set of runes at a site up north, and immediately calls in Jon Snow- a historian and expert in said ancient language, as well as an old university friend of Robb's. When he arrives though, Robb shows him their most valuable finds- two mysterious ice blocks, with what appear to be perfectly preserved bodies from over a thousand years ago. No one could ever have imagined that either of them were still alive, but when the ice melts, revealing two very alive girls, the entire crew is instantly buried in NDAs, and given an assignment from the Westerosi government to figure out what the hell was going on. Sansa and Arya wake up, extremely confused about the world they live in, trying to adapt and mourning all that they've lost, even as the people around them wear familiar faces.

- Soulmates AU (Jonsa)- (Yes, another one, I love this dumb trope) Trauma surgeon and medical resident Sansa Stark is having a very bad day, and ends up meeting her soulmate during what she thinks is a mugging gone wrong. Fortunately, he’s not the one mugging her, just an intervening bystander, but she ends up slightly shot nonetheless. Sansa’s fretting about bleeding on the upholstery in his car, but Jon is a bit more worried about her injuries than the blood stains. He’s a bit confused when she threatens him if he takes her to a specific hospital, nearly has a nervous breakdown when she insists on doing her own triage, and is very charmed when she insists on ice cream after taking pain meds at the hospital. On Sansa’s part, she’s a little less concerned about being shot, and a bit more concerned about whatever weird first impression she’s making to her soulmate while high as a kite on pain pills. (this one just needs some tweaking to be postable- I'm not sure if it's going to be a oneshot or a series, but i love what I have already)

- A Demon/Archivist AU (Jonsa)- where Sansa works in the university's historical archives in Oldtown, and is learning to restore old texts with her fellow student and friend, Alleras (Trans Sarella is an amazing concept). When Joffrey Baratheon shows up with a pile of old books from his family's library to donate, Sansa is eager to get away from his sleaze, and accidentally takes one of the books home with her in her rush to leave. Unbeknownst to her, it's more than it appears, and when she leaves it open overnight, she accidentally summons forth Jon- an ancient, powerful, and extremely annoyed demon who is under a curse, and now hers to command. As Jon and Sansa try to get used to this new normal, the Lannisters (unaware that Joffrey had donated the tome) try desperately to find the book and it's owner, wanting Jon's power for themselves, and putting Sansa in considerable danger unless she can figure out how to break Jon's curse. Fortunately, she's a pretty good researcher, even if Jon is initially a bit of a grump. (This is based on a total wish-fulfillment mary-sue type premise for something I wrote when I was thirteen, and I revisited it and wanted to see what it would look like if i took it very seriously, and i am really enjoying it so far. It's a love letter to the terrible, heartfelt writing i was doing in middle school that created the foundations for my writing today, and so much fun).

The one that I am MOST excited about though:

- A Pacific Rim AU!!!! (Ned/Cat, Gendrya, Braime, Sansa/Jon Umber)-Twins Sansa and Robb Stark have always been completely in tune with each other, and when your parents are Jaeger pilots and your mother invented the neural handshake, what option is there but the Jaeger academy? Sansa studies to be an engineer, but ends up copiloting the Jaeger 'Winter Wolf' with her twin brother, after they lose Ned Stark to cancer. When Robb is ripped out of the conn-pod and killed by a kaiju while he's still connected to Sansa, she barely manages to kill the creature before stumbling back to shore, traumatized, grieving, and swearing that she'll never pilot again.

Unfortunately, the Kaiju don't stop just because Sansa does, and when the end of the world is imminent, Marshall Catelyn Stark orders both her daughter and former pilot Jaime Lannister (who lost his twin and copilot, Cersei, several years previously) back to Hong Kong for one final stand. Forced to face both her demons and an irate Arya, furious that Sansa had abandoned the rest of them after Robb's death, Sansa and Arya have to figure out how to pilot Winter Wolf together before the apocalypse comes for them all.

Featuring Marshall Catelyn Stark (commander of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, inventor of the neural handshake, former Jaeger pilot, and BAMF), Sansa x Jon Umber (Yes i know it's a rare pair but i've always kind of loved the idea of them, even though we know so little about him), Kaiju parts dealer and smuggler Petyr Baelish, bickering kaiju biologist Dany and theoretical mathematician Jon Snow, LOCCENT officer Theon, lots of snark, lots of angst and heartfelt conversations, and a weird friendship between snarky-grieving-asshole Jaime Lannister and kind-quiet-grieving Sansa Stark, who are the only two people in the world who know what it's like to lose a copilot and a twin in the drift.

Thanks for reading guys!! There are more, but some of them I just don't know how to explain quite yet, haha. I'd love to hear what you guys think about these!

[cellsshapedlikestars]

vegas, baby

for the @jonsadungeonsanddrabbles New Year event

Prompt: Luck or Lies

read it on ao3 here

...

Coming to Vegas had not been his idea, but here he is, half drunk and gambling all his savings, every last dollar he has.

(Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, he's not that irresponsible, but as someone who spent their whole childhood dirt poor, the amount of chips that are currently piled on the table in front of him is too much.)

It's all Aegon's fault, really.

He and his half brother aren't close, necessarily, but since they discovered the other's existence after twenty two years of lies by their shared father, they've both been trying. It's hard, though, to forget that they knew nothing about each other until Jon showed up to the reading of their father's will and discovered there was a whole other family he'd kept a secret (or, Jon supposes, he was the secret and they were the real family).

So now Aegon's getting married and Jon is, somehow, the best man despite only knowing Aegon for a tense five years, and so he is obligated to be here for the bachelor party in Vegas (because of course it's Vegas. Jon can't imagine Aegon having his bachelor party anywhere else).

It's not all bad, he decides. Sure, he doesn't know any of Aegon's friends and Vegas absolutely is not his scene and he's gambling a good chunk of his savings, but the redhead currently plastered to his side seems to render all of those points moot.

She's also drunk, he's pretty sure. She'd lost all her chips rather quickly (he's honestly not sure she even understood the rules of blackjack) and it was adorable, really, how hard she'd laughed when they took the last of her money. Then she had slipped off the stool to make room for someone else to join and, instead of leaving, sidled up to him and told him she'd be his good luck charm.

“I literally just watched you lose all your money,” he says to her as she leans against him to look at his cards. “Not sure how you're good luck.”

“I'm great luck,” she gasps, mock offended. “I can't be a good luck charm for myself, that's not how it works.”

He's not about to start arguing that luck doesn't actually exist (not because she's drunk and arguing would be pointless, but because she feels real nice pressed against him and her dress is really tight and what's the point of arguing, really?)

When he wins the next round, she squeals into his ear and presses a kiss to his cheek that he's sure leaves a lipstick mark from the way she giggles and then thumbs at the spot as if to wipe it off. And he keeps winning, mostly (though he does lose the round when her hand finds his thigh under the table and he accidentally hits when he means to stay).

“See, good luck,” she says when he collects another pile of chips. “You should buy me something pretty as a thank you.”

“I should?”

She hums in affirmation, “or at the very least, you should buy me dinner.”

“It's two in the morning,” he tells her after checking his watch.

“It's never too late for dinner. Or too early.”

It honestly has been hours since he last ate (one of the cheaper options at the steakhouse Aegon took them too) and he really could go for more food. And as much as he's enjoying her attentions, she should probably get some food in her to combat the alcohol a bit.

He takes his winnings and cashes out and they find a place on the strip that's still open and he watches her sit on a low wall and devour a cheeseburger like she hasn't eaten in years.

“Won't your friends be worried? Or, whoever you're here with?” he asks after she finishes.

She rolls her eyes. “I can't handle her tonight, honestly. I told her she's being ridiculous. But I guess I am with a stranger...” she trails off like she realizes where she is for the first time and she frowns. Then she takes out her phone and holds it up and says hold still and then snaps a picture of him. “If... I'm... murdered...” she mutters as she types, “this... guy... did... it...”

“So why are you in Vegas, possible murderer?” she asks after she's sent the text.

“My brother's bachelor party,” he tells her and steals one of the fries that came with her food and she tries to slap his hand away even though he bought it. He's entitled to a fry, at least. “You?”

“Funnily enough, my friend is stalking her fiance to make sure he doesn't cheat on her,” she rolls her eyes again. “I told her this was insane, but here we are. I mean, if Aegon was gonna cheat, he could easily do it in New York, right?”

Jon chokes on his fry and manages to sputter, “Aegon?”

“Her fiance,” she nods.

“Margaery is your friend?”

She looks up at him in surprise and then, after a few moments of shocked silence, “Aegon is your brother?”

“Half.”

She gasps, eyes going wide, “you're the secret brother?” He can only nod. “That means you're the best man,” she deduces.

“Sure am.”

“Well, best man, I'm the maid of honor,” and she sticks out her hand for him to shake.

“I guess I should have tried to make it to the engagement party,” is all he can think to say. He could have met her months ago.

He takes her back to her hotel and at her door, she leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek (for good luck, she whispers). As he turns and walks down the hall, she calls after him, “I'll see you at the wedding, best man!”

He cannot wait.

[agentrouka-blog]

Do you think Emilia Clarke would’ve made a good Margaery? She really doesn’t look like how I picture Dany and she kind of has the Tyrell look.

Hmm..! I had to think about this.

This is how Marge is described physically:

Inside was a miniature painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young girl with doe's eyes and a cascade of soft brown hair. Renly had seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid was Loras Tyrell's sister Margaery, he'd confessed, but there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. "No," Ned had told him, bemused. (AGOT, Eddard VI)

And...

Renly was one-and-twenty, the girl no older than Robb, very pretty, with a doe's soft eyes and a mane of curling brown hair that fell about her shoulders in lazy ringlets. Her smile was shy and sweet. (ACOK, Catelyn II)

And..

She was sixteen, brown-haired and brown-eyed, slender and beautiful. (…) When Margaery Tyrell smiled, she looked very like her brother Loras.  (ASOS, Sansa I)

The text makes no mention of her height, and Emilia is quite short, but it could work. She has the wrong eye color, but that didn’t stop Natalie Dormer.

I do think she could have pulled it off. She has the kind of vivacious charm and confidence that Margaery exudes. But she would have to really reign herself in. Emilia is very very expressive.  

In my head, Margaery is closer to a very young Morena Baccarin. Intelligent, sweet, vivacious, but in a placid, superficial way that is very much aimed at pleasing and reflecting the person in front of her. 

[scoundrels-in-love]

For the prompt-- A-14, B-10, C-9!

Hi dear, I only took ages to get this done! But I really had fun with it!!

Tracing fingers over skin + Kitchen + To start a new habit

Also on AO3 because I got severely carried away.

It starts like this:

It’s been three days since her game with Margaery and some unknown number had woken her up with a text of a screenshot of people discussing that of course the brute beat the delicate flower to dust. She blocked the number and deleted the text without even reading beyond the third line, but the sleep has been chased off and the sun is sneaking golden fingers above the horizon, so she rises to wring the stone in her chest until it yields. 

Not unusually, Jaime is down in the courts before her doing his warm up stretches, and she jogs past him without a glance because the last thing she wants to think about is the way power comes to him in sleek lines and deceptive ease.

Brienne does her own stretches and begins training, but it feels sloppy and her body jerks in response to her instincts and thoughts instead of the controlled fluidity she’s more used to having. At one point, she sends one of the tennis balls straight for Jaime’s head and he bats it down before she manages to shout a warning, which is somehow both a relief and a disappointment. She swings at the next ball with more force.

"Hey Stork," he calls, and she tries to ignore Jaime approaching her with intent and grace she really would pay to see dismantled, just fucking once. 

Her glower at the nickname feels like it’s doing her no favors, but she can't help it. He hasn't stopped calling her that since the unfortunate day she sunburned her legs, turning them that undelightful lobster - or stork - red and had to play a game, the color vivid against the stupid white of the uniform. (It hadn’t been the worst thing she had heard that day, by far, but she still would like to have left it within that day.)

"I really can't bear to watch anymore," he informs her, tossing her the ball, and she's so close to just snarling at him. 

"Then don't look," she bites instead. 

"Believe me, I've tried," Jaime says and there's something wry and a little mocking in his face. If she was any more gullible, she'd almost think it was self-depreciating. But she isn't and she begins to turn away, unwilling to let him brighten his day by mocking her appearance.

And then she's snapping back to glare at him, when he speaks a moment later.

"Are you playing to win or to apologize?" he asks, tilting his chin up just so and looking at her through his unfairly long lashes. It looks like an almost exact copy of Cersei's subtler seduction looks, but this one doesn't even try to hide the sharpness and it's way too early for her armor to be impenetrable.

 She doesn't owe him a response, but she gives it anyway. (As one always does when it comes to Lannisters.) "To win," she says and feels her nostrils flare a little.

"Then why do you apologize constantly?" he asks and steps into her space, menacing and golden like a midday sun in the middle of drought.

"With your posture, the way you hunch, how you hold your racket - all of it is just screaming 'I'm sorry you have to look at me, I'll make myself small'. It wasn’t like that last year. And I've seen you play angry, you’ve still got it." He moves around her and taps the back of her neck, her shoulder, her elbow, her wrist as he speaks. She straightens up automatically, adjusts her arm though her anger had already sprung her back ramrod straight, as if being an inch taller could pull her heart out of his maw's reach.

He looks satisfied almost, at the way she's towering over him now, and she doesn't want to tell him of Hyle and his buddies, doesn't want to speak of old scars that were opened up with a scalpel of cruelty.

"Play angry, if you must. But stop apologizing."

"Playing angry isn't my style," she tells him and sees the prisms in his eyes shift, catch light at an angle, almost like a hurt, before it settles. 

"Maybe it should be. No publicity is bad publicity and all that." 

They both know it's a lie, though Lannisters money have managed to make it as close to truth as can be. After all, he's still playing, despite the grave injury Aerys sustained. Still going for the stars, not caring if anyone says he bought them or beat them into submission.

But he isn't done with her either: "And your cool calculations obviously aren't very objective about yourself these days."

She wants to tell him that just because his default setting is egomaniac, doesn't mean a realistic vision of self is wrong but he is already leaving, tossing "see ya, Stork" over his shoulder.

She's left glaring at his retreating back and training furiously, she's left having him tap her shoulder or her elbow every morning when he passes to or from the court he’s training on, though there's no need anymore. Enough that when she goes back to Tarth for the summer, every morning seems to be missing something. 

And later, there isn't a pleasant little shiver racing beneath her skin where his tap slips down her arm in passing, almost like a caress.

There isn't.

***

It starts like this:

Jaime never looks small, but he almost does so now, staring at the Mountain across the court as they approach. It's not the way the other man is both wider and taller, it's the way Cersei's machinations are there, breathing and twisting before him.

She's moving more hurriedly before she realizes, wading through the crowd that unwillingly parts for her, toward him and catches him just before he steps out. Her hand feels hot and clumsy and heavy, but she reaches out nonetheless.

She squeezes his shoulder, mouths "play angry" to him in passing and sees a flicker of surprise across his face, as if he isn't expecting her support or her understanding of the phrase now. As if she didn't stay up working herself to exhaustion by his side, just so he wouldn't be alone and she could convince him to go to the dorm when she did, too.

Then he smiles, an echo of his old, victorious grin, but somehow sharper for all the little space it is given, and nods.

He wins. (7-6 tiebreaker)

"Thanks," he tells her later. "I guess storks do bring good luck after all."

"Since when have you become so humble to credit a win to luck?" She rolls her eyes at him, sipping iced coffee as they look over the sea lapping at the pier, glittering in the afternoon sun.

"Oh, I do know how to give credit where it's due," he laughs, but it's soft and warm and he's like a sunset beach. Her heart constricts because none of this lingering warmth and last gilded wave crests are for her.

And yet, she continues to dig her toes in the sand, doing the same shoulder clasp gesture before each of his matches. Because that's what friends do. And they are friends, bros even, and leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek like a favor of a lady, like Sansa might to Margaery or Cersei used with Robert, isn't in the cards for her. She swallows the thought whole as swiftly as stork might a frog when it leaps into her mind.

Swallows it again and again with increasing frequency. Even when last week he stepped up to her as she wished him luck, eyes warm like green candles, and briefly grasped her arm as if to hold her, as if to pull her in and if she was any more foolish she would have wondered if he thought of it too. But she's not that foolish and she isn't left reeling with waves lapping at her feet, uncatchable no matter how she may want to hold onto them.

She isn't.

***

It starts like this:

It feels fresh and tender, like first leaves unfurling, this shift between them, but with every kiss and smile, every morning spent watching the sun competing with her fingers in a quest to cover his skin with tender touches, her faith that it will endure and reach toward the sky becomes stronger.

It had started long before either of them thought it had, never ends and starts each day anew still, something new and something old bleeding together into a color that shifts and grows more vast with a thousand little things.

"Did you ever notice how we came up with all these ridiculous reasons to touch each other?" he asks her that morning as she's making breakfast and he's just set their cups of coffee on the table.

"What do you mean?" She is a little distracted by his fingers stroking up and down her bare arm, but she doubts she'd guess at his meaning even otherwise.

"The taps, the good luck wishes, the way I'd hand you coffee and brush fingers against yours, shoulder bumps in the hallway, the way we high five with only each other… All of these, just so we could touch for one moment."

"I wished you luck earnestly and with no ulterior motive," she defends, but it sounds a little thin even, or especially, to her ears. "Well, I waited for it every time with that intent, so."

She'd argue about the taps, but he's already confessed to calling her stork because he couldn't stop thinking about her legs to point they might as well be permanently painted red in his vision and that Stormlanders consider the birds sacred still, a blessing to any household.

"You are not a Stormlander," she had laughed, oddly pleased he knew this of her home region. 

"Never let it be said I don't appreciate learning some truths," Jaime had told her, between pressing soft kisses to her knuckles and then her mouth.

There had been so much tenderness and reverence in the gesture, and just a touch of teasing in his eyes, like she truly was both his blessing and his lucky charm. (If there is any man that'd flirt with his luck as much as danger, then it's Jaime)

She isn't so foolish to think it is true, but she knows enough that he does believe it, with his whole heart. And that's enough for her.

"Where are you going with this?" Because Jaime loves talking just for sake of talking, has for years now that he knows he's allowed to, just to unravel his thoughts,but there's intent in his eyes and his fingers, ghosting up and down and around her arm and then her back, still.

"We should start new touching habits, just because we can." 

"Like what?" She can’t say she’s not curious and warmed by the thought all at once, these little things he wants to build their life with. Things she hadn’t thought she wanted, sometimes, but finish that sloppy, once-impossible blueprint of a dream life perfectly. 

"We could make room for it in our lunch breaks. Do you know how often I wanted to kiss you when we ate lunch together?" She doesn’t, but she can estimate, based on her own experiences and it’s a number she doesn’t quite want to confess to.

Luckily, that’s not Jaime’s goal. He stands up and steps behind her, wraps arms around her waist and rests his chin on her shoulder. A sense of content radiates from him, like he’s somehow a cat that has found his perfect sunbeam to nap in.

"We owe it to our past selves, you know. And future ones, too." 

Only Jaime would turn a suggestion to lazily make out at lunch as a daily routine into something poetic and be completely serious about it. The shift from relaxed contention to something more trickles in the little space left between their bodies. 

"And this is good, too. Just me getting touch you while you cook." He brushes her hair a little to the side and presses a little kiss to the back of her neck, making her shiver as if she’s been thrown from cold water straight into the sun - it’s still so much. She doesn’t think it’ll ever be truly less, even if it’s different.

"You're just saying so you don't have to prepare food," Brienne says instead, because it’s not the words that do the talking between them, half the time. 

"Oh no, not at all. I'm all for being touch appreciated, any time." His grin is audible and she feels it press against her shoulder where he’s mouthing kisses now, having slid the strap of her tank top down. 

"I think we should appreciate the breakfast now." Because gods know if they don’t, it’ll be a while before they return to thoughts of food. She extracts herself from his arms, much to his soft protesting, and begins plating the food.

"What about later?" He is smirking, eyebrow quirked, and his eyes are full of light. Fondness bubbles in her chest, because there was a time when she hadn’t known he was capable of being this plainly open and joyful. When he hadn’t known. She treasures evidence of the shift, like every beautiful sunrise.

"Maybe there are few habits I'd like to establish, too," she smiles and cups his cheek briefly before placing a kiss on his cheekbone. 

After all, there is time for it, time for them.

[madamebaggio]

Tags Masterlist

Hello, my dear friends.

I hope you’re all well and safe wherever you are.

I’ve spent the last few days updating all my tags here, so now we get this masterlist.

I’ll put it on my bio as well and probably it’ll get updated if new stories appear.

You can always find posts by character or ship. The new tags are mostly to help in case you want to check a specific string of posts (for example: you can still search #Sansa x Arthur, but maybe you’re looking for something specific like #every piece of my heart and all the posts related to that story).

I’m also adding the links for AO3 (for those stories that are there -not all of them are) and separating by ship. If a ship you like doesn’t have a tag, it’s because there’s just one story with them (like Sansa and Geralt, all their posts are related, so they don’t have a special tag; you can find them as #Sansa Stark x Geralt of Rivia).

Let’s get this show on the road. (let me know if you have any doubts)

Sansa/Arthur

#camelot ranch (Sansa meets Arthur when visiting the Tyrells’ Ranch)

#hen party at camelot (Dany has her hen party at Arthur’s pub)

#jumanji au (You can find it here as well)

#i wont believe in songs ( My work “I won’t believe in songs (Unless they’re sung by you)”)

#good girls go to heaven (My work “Good Girls go to Heaven (Bad Boys bring Heaven to you)”)

#theres no way  (My work “There’s no way (that’s not going there)”)

#till sunday (Sansa tries to seduce Arthur, he tells her to wait until she actually wants to sleep with him)

#artie rescues sansa (two adventures of Sansa (one in modern AU) being rescued by Arthur)

#changeling sansa (Inspired by the works of Nalini Singh, in which Sansa is a shape shifter)

#10 things i hate about you au #please come find me (Both tags are related to my work “Please, come find me”)

#accidental family (A one night stand gives Arthur quite a surprise a few years later)

#hero sansa (Sansa is a hero and Arthur is more of an anti-hero)

#im not marrying you (Sansa and Arthur really don’t want to marry each other)

#love potion (Arthur accidentaly drinks a love potion)

#action hero arthur (Arthur is an action actor that loses a bet and has to act on a rom com)

#who fell in love first (Sansa and Arthur tell their children about how they fell in love)

#the mummy au (Snippets of Sansa and Arthur in the Mummy verse)

#romancing the stone au (Snippets in this verse)

#john wick au (AU where Sansa is the manager of the Continental)

#fair game au (Arthur is a police officer and Sansa is a lawyer)

#great pickup lines (My work “Do you have a band-aid and other great pick-up lines”)

#every piece of my heart (My work “Every Piece of my Heart (Belongs to you)”)

#summer loving (My work “Summer loving (happened so fast)”)

#a text misshap (Sansa texted Arthur by accident, but got a date out of it)

#fooled around and fell in love (My work “Fooled around and fell in love”)

#a steely haven (My work “A Steely Haven”)

Sansa x Tommy Shelby

#a happy occasion  (Thomas is planning on marrying Ada to Robb Stark)

#pretty horses (My work “Of all your pretty horses before (You should know that I can love you much more)”)

#loving her was red (My work “Loving her was red”) 

Jonsa

#kiss with a fist (Kiss with a fist)

#the same way i like my coffee (The Same Way I Like My Coffee)

#youre finally home (You’re Finally Home)

#those stark boys (Those Stark Boys - obs: this is a Sansa/Jon/Robb)

#a whisper in the dark (A Whisper in the Dark)

Sansa/Eomer

#a million years ago (A Million Years Ago)

#the horse lord and the stark wolf (The Horse Lord and the Stark Wolf)

Sansa and others

#prince charming galahad (Modern AU where Sansa meets and adorable Galahad)

#godless underneath your cover (Sansa x Maul)

#tormented willas (One version of Willas Tyrell)

#polite willas (Another possible Willas)

#awkward willas (Final Willas lol)

#agent sansa stark (Sansa x Bucky)

#dont stand so close to me (Modern AU Sansa x Vortigern)

#my fair boss lady (Sansa x Raymond Smith)

#stark blue (Sansa x Bucky x Steve)

#vampire hunters (Starks are vampire hunters)

#maybe theyre seeing something we dont (Theonsa modern AU)

#hidden scars and wolf tattoos (Sansa x Jax)

#the night is young (The Night Is Young (and so are we) King Arthur 2004 crossover with Margaery and Brienne as well)

#my delirium ((Even if you’re the reason of) My delirium - Sansa x Oberyn x Willas modern AU 

The Crackship Fleet

#the first fleet

#cuddly september

#first meetings in october

#sharing beds in november

#december kisses

#late prompts

#angst march

#alternate april

#kissy june

Crossovers Series

#sansa stark crossovers

#susan pevensie crossovers

#margaery tyrell crossovers

#king arthur 2004 crossovers

Darcy Lewis

#commander testosterone (Darcy and Rumlow flirting)

#darcy bakes for the defenders (Darcy is bribing the Defenders with cookies)

#shockstrike (DarcyxJackxBrock)

#the adventures of cameron klein (Cameron Klein tries to survive Darcy and friends)

#is a cult cult (Darcy and Rumlow are pretending to be married)

#what if fanfic (Darcy x Jarvis)

Lotty/Éomer

#if i close my eyes (Work can be found here)

#lothiriel the dreamer (series of possible ways in which Lothiriel and Éomer could have met)

#lothiriel the innocent

#lothiriel the judicious

#lothiriel the ambitious

#lothiriel the mischievous

#lothiriel the valiant

#lothiriel the bold

#not tha kind of princess (“Not that kind of princess”)

#pretty awesome in pink (“Pretty (Awesome) in Pink” modern AU)

Matt/Jess

#something to talk about (can also be found here)

#flirty matt series

#not a date but kind of

Gretel/Nuada

#why dont we kill each other slowly (Can be found here)

#about elves and witch hunters (snippets related to their ship in the Fleet)

Others

#the spring that thaws winter (here)

#rose and king (Marge x Roan, also related to their ship on the Fleet)

#dark in my imagination (here)

#when words are not enough (here)

#the iron lady series (here)

#the gentle lady series (here)

#all i see is red (“All I see is red” Agent 47 x Scarlett)

OMG! I thought I’d never end this... lol

I hope I didn’t forget anything... But let me know if you noticed any tag missing.

Enjoy it ;)

[ddagent]

If you are soliciting holiday themed prompts, how about one involving Hallmark Christmas movies? Perhaps Jaime unabashedly loves them and Brienne claims to hate them but secretly loves them too. I hope you feel better soon!!

This is legit not at all what you intended, but when my brain went there I couldn’t say no. I hope you enjoy!

Tyrion texted him just after Jaime had finished his last class of the day. 

Fancy a drink? i’m buying

Jaime sighed; considered his brother’s proposal. Did he really wish to spend an evening in a bar in King’s Landing so close to Sevenmas? The place would fill up with office parties earlier than expected; drunken men and women lurching in every direction – often onto Jaime himself. No, he had better plans for his evening. 

Sorry Ty. I’m Webflix and chilling, if you know what I mean.

He had barely packed his papers into his briefcase before another text came through. 

You’re going to watch Sevenmas movies with ice cream, aren’t you?

Jaime flushed, unused to being so transparent. But, yes, his idea of Webflix and chill was sitting at home on his sofa, with a tub of ice cream and the latest holiday movie to be put on the streaming service. Whilst his siblings scoffed at such movies, Jaime loved them. The scenery, the story, the romance. He got swept up in all of them: a busy woman going back to her childhood home; the daughter of the Great Giant teaching a cynical executive the Sevenmas spirit. And tonight, Webflix had finally released one that was right up his alley. 

The Knight Before Sevenmas, starring Jaime’s favourite television actress, Brienne Tarth. 

He’d first seen Brienne in a thriller that Tyrion had made him watch on the streaming site. She’d played a detective; bearing down upon the criminals with her height, comforting the families with her soft, blue eyes. Jaime had become enraptured with the tall blonde. Then, two Sevenmas’ ago, she had begun to star in festive flicks. The sarcastic sister of the single father lead. The best friend who encouraged whatever brunette beauty to run after her love. Sadly, Brienne Tarth was always the knight, never the squire. 

But he had a good feeling about The Knight Before Sevenmas. 

Finally home, Jaime showered, re-heated some leftover spaghetti, and ate it whilst marking a few essays. Then, he grabbed a tub of mint choc-chip and settled himself in front of the big television. Webflix booted up, and Jaime clicked play. 

“Here we go.” 

The film began in ancient Westeros, just after the Battle of the Five Kings. Ser Robert Storm, played by that pretty boy Renly Baratheon, was competing in a melee. Jaime scoffed. “Highly inaccurate.” 

He won, of course, receiving a purse full of gold he could use to help a small village. Brienne Tarth – sorry, Jeyne Hunt – was one of his travelling companions. She mooned over her knight; Brienne’s big eyes staring with unadulterated affection at a man who would never love her back. Jaime had read the description: Robert Storm goes back in time and winds up in modern-day Westeros, meeting Alyce - played by Margaery Tyrell. He knew these movies. He knew Brienne wouldn’t end up with Renly. 

Jaime sighed and dug his spoon into the ice cream. “Hopefully you’ll meet a nice hedge knight, Jeyne Hunt.” A thought struck him and he grinned; yelling at the screen. “Ride to Casterly Rock! I’m sure one of my ancestors would be more than happy to marry you.” 

But, as often happened in these movies, Brienne’s character did not end up with someone who could love her. The man she loved remained in the future with a wooden Margaery Tyrell; he left Brienne with his sword and helm and hoped she would continue on his good work. Bastard didn’t even have the decency to knight her first (’Any knight can make another knight, Renly’). Of course, Jeyne Hunt didn’t have to get married and produce heirs if that was what she wished. But the fact that yet another one of Brienne’s characters didn’t have any romance upset him. 

Upset him enough to take to his caw account. golden_lion posted:

Hey @webflix, how bout giving Brienne T some love in your next movie? She’s a beautiful woman and deserves some romance.

He clicked the submit button, and scrolled through to another Sevenmas movie. Jaime did not give another thought about his post; it wasn’t the first time he had used social media to vent. However, a few days later, someone slid into his DMs. No image. No followers. No posts, even. But their handle caught his eye. oathkeeper14. He grinned. He liked someone who knew their history. As he read their message, he kept smiling. 

Dear golden_lion,

My friend and coworker Margaery showed me your post. I don’t really use social media, much to my agent’s chagrin, but I thought you deserved a reply. When I first read your post, I thought you were mocking me. No one has *ever* referred to me as beautiful. But it’s nearly Sevenmas, and Margaery persuaded me to give you the benefit of the doubt. So, in answer to your unasked question, I am happy to play secondary roles. No one, not even myself, would think it possible for me to play a romantic lead. But I did enjoy filming The Knight Before Sevenmas. I liked fighting with a sword. 

Merry Sevenmas, golden_lion. 

Brienne Tarth

Jaime’s thumb hovered over the reply button. What should he even say? He thought about it during his next class whilst his students took a mock exam paper. And next, through a tedious department meeting. Finally, back in his office, he knew the perfect thing to say. 

Brienne, 

I think you are more than capable of playing a romantic lead. Perhaps an audition might change your mind. Dinner, next week? I’ll be the charming history lecturer with a bad break-up, and you can be the compelling actress who makes me want to fall in love again. 

If not, Merry Sevenmas.

Jaime Lannister

Three dots appeared on his screen. Jaime leaned back in his chair and smiled. 

[margaerycharming]

TEXT 🥊 CHARMINGS

Margaery: Okay, so, there's a big BEAUTIFUL looking cake in the kitchen. DO NOT TOUCH IT. Don't even look at it! I was baking it with a friend FOR a friend and if it's damaged in any Elle-way whatsoever, I'm putting itching powder in your bed or something even worse! That is all, please return to your regularly scheduled Elleing.

[westerosoliviapope]

Warrior in a Suit | Scandal Westeros

Recently re-read the first episode of Scandal Westeros and man, that first scene still goes so hard.

I need to watch some more Scandal episodes to recapture this vibe and tone.

“Breaking news out of the Capitol at Harrenhal. Tonight, The People’s Council begins deliberations on Prime Minister Robert Baratheon’s removal from office. The twice-elected PM is answering to charges of abuse of power and misappropriation of government funds, allegedly to silence two women with whom he fathered children outside of his marriage. The investigation, led by the Prime Minister’s brother, Attorney General Stannis Baratheon, has yielded a trove of documents and testimony, which will be examined and debated in the lower legislative body during a historic late-night session…”

Brienne Tarth’s drink is too strong.

You’d think she’d be better at this, having grown up with military men, but other than the occasional beer, she never developed a taste for alcohol. What she needs right now is a frosty Motte Wheat. Even the fancier restaurants in the Stormlands serve it, but here? At the Hightower Hotel in Oldtown? She doubts it. Besides, she looks ridiculous enough with her thick-as-a-castle-wall body squeezed in the sapphire shift dress she’s wearing. No need to remind her date how manly she looks by chugging beer.

Speaking of her date… She checks her phone again. No text. No call. And he was due 10 minutes ago. Maybe she should text him… No. She doesn’t want to appear desperate. Fifteen more minutes. Then she’ll get the hell out of here and drown her sorrows at the Quill and Tankard.

She tries to focus on the evening news but finds herself people-watching instead. Immediate mistake. The women, in their simple, elegant dresses and perfectly coiffed hair, are effortlessly chic. While the clothes are understated, there is easily $250,000 in watches, bags, and shoes in the restaurant. It’s like sitting in a room full of Margaery Tyrells.

She takes another sip of vodka soda and winces at the sting.

The thud of a blood-red Celine bag landing on her table pulls out of her thoughts. On the other side of it, a woman with olive skin and flowing dark hair settles on to the stool across from her. “I’m sorry,” Brienne says. “I’m saving that seat for…”

“Garrett Flowerson,” the woman fishes an iPhone out of her bag and taps the screen, showing a photo of the man Brienne is expecting. “This broad-shouldered, square-jawed Prince Charming—that seems to be a thing for you—who swiped right on your profile. He’s not coming.” She flips Balayaged-hair over the shoulder of her tan trench coat and waves down a server.

Gods, Brienne thinks. He has a girlfriend who found his profile... For the first time in a while, she is grateful to be bigger and taller than most women she meets. This one, tall as she is, is willowy. Brienne can take her if it comes to that. “Look, I’m sorry if I…”

“A glass of Dornish Red for me,” the woman says to a server who has materialized out of nowhere. “And she’ll have a Motte Wheat with an orange garnish.”

This woman knows what beer she drinks? What in seven hells? “His profile said ‘single,’” Brienne says. “I didn’t know…”

The bag is pushed aside and the woman finally looks at her, blinking big, black eyes and pursing wine red lips. “Oh,” she drawls. Brienne hears the hint of a Dornish accent. “Sweetling. Garrett Flowerson doesn’t exist. And this isn’t a date.”

For Brienne, this is a bridge too far.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” she hops to her feet. “Or what kind of sick game you’re playing with me—”

“Oh wow,” the Dornishwoman’s eyes grow wide. “Apologies. You’re tall in photos but in person, it’s truly marvelous. Anyway. Before you go all ‘girl fight’ on me, you’ll want to have a seat. This isn’t a date because it’s a job interview.”

Before Brienne can stutter that she’s not looking for a job, the woman continues.

“Yes, you think you have a job toiling away in Renly Baratheon’s hometown office drafting your earnest, well-meaning policy proposals while praying his pretty new wife doesn’t catch those longing glances you cast his way with those big baby blues of yours, but… that’s not a job. It’s a waste of brainpower for a woman who graduated fourth in her class from the Military Academy at Storm’s End. Not to mention pathetic, which is a really bad look for a woman of your...” she pauses her dizzying monologue to give Brienne a once over, “...stature.”

“Who the hell are you?” Brienne asks as a server in a stiff-collared white shirt places a mug of Motte Wheat on the table in front of her.

“Now you’re asking the right questions.” The Dornishwoman holds out a slender hand with black lacquered nails. “Nymeria. And I’m here on behalf of Sarella Sand to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Thee Sarella Sand?” Brienne asks once she can manage words and shake Nymeria’s hand. “Offer? I thought you said this was an interview?”

Nymeria smirks over the rim of her wineglass. “I did say that, didn’t I?” It’s the slowest she’s spoken all night.

Sarella Sand. Westeros’s top political consultant. Brienne’s followed her work since Sarella helped her father get elected to the Storm Lands seat on the High Council. She’d met Sarella at his swearing-in but... “I don’t understand. Why would she…”

“I enjoy foreplay as much as the next girl, Brienne, but I’m not asking if you want the job because we both know that you do. No matter what you say, you want more for yourself than busting your ass in the name of some Ken doll you diddle yourself to when you go home at night. So, Cinderella. You can keep scrubbing Renly’s floors hoping someone will make you the belle of the ball or you can let Fairy Godmother Sarella make you a warrior in a suit.”

This is insane. A woman she’s never met, sitting in front of her, reading her biography and inner thoughts, dangling the opportunity of a lifetime. Common sense tells Brienne she needs more time. To do research. She should at least go to the restroom and search Nymeria on Beacon to see if she is who she says she is.

But Brienne’s answer doesn’t come from the common sense part of her brain. Something higher, or perhaps deeper inside, speaks with such conviction that she’s shocked when the words come out of her mouth. “I want to be a warrior in a suit.”

“Excellent.” Nymeria hops up and pulls out her phone. “There’s an Uber outside waiting to take us back to the office.”

“Now? But it’s 10 o’clock.”

“Rule number one, Brienne: warriors don’t sleep. Now let’s go.” She nods toward the door. “And stand up straight when you meet Sarella. Warriors don’t slouch, either.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22562950

[shipping-receiving]

Fictober 2019 Day 16: “Listen. No, really listen.”

Rating: T | Word Count: 2607 Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones Relationship: Jaime Lannister / Brienne of Tarth Tags: Alternate Universe – Office Notes: Part 1 – Tumblr / AO3 | Part 2 – Tumblr / AO3

(read on AO3)

//////

This is a mistake, Brienne thinks for the hundredth time since she woke up this morning, as she waits for Jaime at the ferry terminal. Why the hells is she bringing him to Tarth? It’s too soon. She still has no clue what exactly is happening between them that would make this too soon, but she just knows it’s too soon.

Fine, so it’s the fourth straight weekend she’s been showing him around the Stormlands. She’d started off with Storm’s End, of course. Brienne isn’t that much of an expert on the castle’s history, beyond what they had to learn in high school, but Renly was a distant descendant of House Baratheon—not that the Great Houses still existed, or held castles—and he had told her a few good stories that had been passed down through generations.

“You’re close to Renly, then,” Jaime had commented, when she told him about her source.

“Oh, I guess so. But we’re just friends.” And then she had winced, because why the fuck did that last part matter?

Jaime just smiled at her appreciatively, like it actually did matter. “Good to know,” he had said. Again with that phrase. But he didn’t say much else after that on the subject. That first weekend, she found that Jaime was talkative, even funny, when he wasn’t just greeting her with her name at her cubicle. But he was also talkative in a way that seemed as if he was trying to avoid having to talk. Really talk. Not that Brienne expected them to really talk this first weekend, even if they had been doing that dance in the office for weeks. In real terms, she was still just his employee.

There were a handful of other great castles left standing around the Stormlands that were all worth visiting, but for the second weekend Brienne had thought it was best to shift gears. She drove them to a charming small town about an hour out of the city, thinking it would be a nice place to spend the day, and it was, mostly. When they found themselves walking through a farmers’ market, however, it had suddenly felt far too domestic. It’s just the second weekend of sightseeing, Gods, not even a second date. They hadn’t even had a first date. Storm’s End didn’t count if there was no written or verbal agreement between both parties on its date-ness. Nothing had even changed, in the office. The dance continued, that was all. Fine, so they were texting more often, and Brienne was extremely glad that she sat with her back to Margaery. That woman had an eagle eye for people who smiled at their phones too much.

Brienne might have brisk walked through that farmers’ market a little too quickly as she thought these thoughts. Jaime was in no such hurry, though, and seemed keen to indulge some kind of latent obsession he had with sampling cheese. At least, she had assumed it was just about sampling cheese. By the time he had reached her at the end of the market, he was carrying six different blocks of cheese in his arms.

The third weekend, Brienne thought she should pick something safe. Safe and undomestic. They could go to the art museum. Art museums are safe. Art museums are educational. Art museums are sometimes even puzzling, but they had interesting objects in them, and they’d be spending all their time looking at those interesting objects, and reading words that described those interesting objects. Except it just so happened that Jaime quite likes art, in a way that Brienne found refreshing. He could speak reverently about sculptures she thought were quite confusing, and even, frankly, hideous. But he also had no qualms about making fun of serious old paintings, especially the ones with more anatomically questionable depictions of the Seven.

Art museums are not safe, Brienne decided. Jaime was opening her mind and making her laugh and Brienne was starting to really feel things inside her. They weren’t even on a date. There was no written or verbal agreement between both parties.

Then, at the end of that afternoon, Jaime had asked her if they could do something different next weekend, experience more of the region’s unspoiled nature, maybe. “Oh, let’s go to Tarth!” she had said, without even thinking. “We can take the first ferry out in the morning, and the last ferry back at night. It’ll be a long day, but doable, I think.”

“Your father still lives on Tarth, doesn’t he?” was Jaime’s first question, and Brienne progressed to a full-blown blush in record time. She hadn’t really thought about that—Jaime said ‘nature’ and she just immediately thought ‘Tarth’—but there was something in Jaime’s voice that told her he was amused at her suggestion.

“... He does,” she replied. “But he’s busy next weekend.” He wasn’t. “And I just saw him last month.” She sees him almost every month, actually, so she was due for another visit. “We don’t have to see him.” That was just making it weirder than it had to be.

“Of course,” Jaime said, and he wasn’t just sounding amused, he was also looking amused. “I was just asking. I’d love to go to Tarth.”

And so they are going to Tarth. Jaime shows up at the ferry terminal just a few minutes past their agreed time. It’s a clear day in the Stormlands, rare even for this time of year, so they sit on the upper deck of the ferry, and can’t speak much above the strong winds of Shipbreaker Bay. Brienne tries her hardest not to formulate any opinions on how the wind is having its way with Jaime’s loose white button-up shirt, although he seems to have forgotten that those first three buttons aren’t just for decoration. He’s rolled his sleeves up past his elbows, and she tries her hardest not to formulate any opinions on his forearms, either.

As they disembark the ferry, they walk past a signboard that says, grandly, WELCOME TO TARTH, and in cursive script below, The Sapphire Isle. Jaime points at it and remarks, “They’ve been calling it that for centuries, haven’t they?”

“Yeah. Maybe even for millennia. It’s for the blue of its waters.”

“It’s not a reference to the eyes, then.”

Brienne looks at him quizzically. “What eyes?”

“Your eyes.” He lifts a finger pointlessly in the direction of her face. “The Tarth eyes. I assume it’s a family trait. They’re very blue.”

“Oh. Um. Thank you?” Why did she thank him? He was just stating a fact. She does have very blue eyes, and they are a Tarth trait. The one trait she’s always been glad she inherited.

“You’re welcome,” Jaime says, anyway, with that half-smile of his.

They spend the rest of the day on the western coast, mostly, where the ruins of Evenfall Hall still stand. The island isn’t particularly big, and it’s easy enough to take the bus along the main roads, and explore the island from there. Her childhood home, where her father still lives, is on the eastern coast, so she can sidestep the intimacy of showing Jaime that part of her life. Her father did turn out to be busy this weekend, anyway, so she doesn’t have to feel so guilty about coming to the island without telling him.

In the late afternoon, Brienne brings Jaime to a secluded meadow in the northwest. It’s close enough to the sea, and they’ll be able to watch the sunset in an hour or so, too. She used to go there as a kid, she tells Jaime, when she wanted to be alone. She doesn’t tell him that it was to get away from the cruelty of the other kids.

They lie in the grass, and look up at the sky. There is an intimacy in this, though it’s not the same intimacy of him seeing her childhood home, of meeting her father. Brienne pushes away the thought that this might be even more intimate than those things.

“Listen, Jaime,” she tells him. It’s what she used to do when she came here as a child. Just close her eyes and listen to everything except her own thoughts.

He does, for a while. “It’s nice,” he says eventually. “It’s quiet.”

Well, those are certainly adjectives. She shouldn’t have expected more from a man who spent most of his life in the city of King’s Landing, with all the noises of the urban environment that people there learn to ignore. “No, really listen,” Brienne urges. “Close your eyes and listen.”

Jaime stays silent for a long time. Finally, he speaks again. “I can hear the grass rustling in the wind. Birds, talking to each other in the trees back there. The waves, that’s distant, but I can hear it, I think. And your breathing.” Brienne’s eyes fly open at the last one, but Jaime just continues. “No traffic. No fingers typing away on keyboards, or pens scratching on paper, or the whirring of copy machines. And coffee machines, I suppose.” She hears the smile in his voice, at that little rhyme.

“No arguments,” he says, the smile disappearing. “No expectations.”

Brienne turns over to lie on her side, facing him. Somehow, those words give her the courage to ask the question that’s been on her mind since the stairwell incident. She’s going to hope he talks. Really talks. She wants him to talk to her. She wants to listen.

“You were supposed to go back to King’s Landing, weren’t you? Why did you decide to stay?”

“Long story,” he says to the sky. “My family—it’s complicated. My father wants me to take over the company, some day, even though my brother is much better at all of this.” Tyrion, if Brienne remembers correctly. Nicknamed the Imp as much for his quick wit as for his height. “My sister isn’t too happy about my father’s decision, not that she wants my brother in the running at all. Just her and her new husband.” Jaime says this bitterly, and Brienne is reminded of that strange intensity she heard in his phone call with Cersei. “She was pushing me for it, at first. She’s my twin, you know, and we used to do everything together. She thought that she’d be able to gain control through me, if my father won’t give it to her.”

He turns toward her now. “I don’t want any of it, Brienne. I’m good at my job—I don’t enjoy it, but I’m good at it, and I’m not sure what else I could do, anyway. But I don’t want control of the entire company.” He picks at the grass between them. “Cersei finally got that in her head. So she went and found someone with more ambition. But my father doesn’t want her husband to inherit the business, even though the man even offered to take the Lannister name.”

Jaime sighs, and he seems to be somewhere quite far away. “It’s a mess, back in King’s Landing, Brienne. I don’t even know how long I can stay in the Stormlands, before my father finds a way to force me back.”

He lies there for a while, still facing her. Then, all of a sudden, he sits up. “I’m sorry,” he says, without looking back. “You probably didn’t want to hear all of that.”

Brienne shifts herself so she’s sitting beside him. “I don’t know if I can give you any advice at all, Jaime. But I’m happy to listen, whenever you need to talk.” She nudges him with her elbow. “I’m not just a tour guide, you know.”

He smiles that half-smile again. “Hey. Can I ask you a question, too?”

“Of course.”

“How did that whole thing get started? About you thinking I look average?”

Not this again. “Why are you so obsessed with that?” Brienne laughs.

“I’m just interested in the backstory, that’s all.” Jaime’s whole demeanour is shifting. Brienne can see the familiar self-confidence return, a bit of that arrogance he saves for the office, though she’s realising now that it might just be something for him to hide behind. “I was surprised to hear it. I happen to think I’m quite good-looking.”

Okay, she was feeling quite sorry for him a minute ago, but now she can’t help but roll her eyes. “Who are you? Who even says that about themselves?”

“Answer the question, Brienne,” he grins.

“Everyone was talking about it, okay?” she groans. “Your looks. All day, every day. It was too much. I was just really annoyed one morning, because of…” She doesn’t really want to get into the details of that morning, actually. “Bottom line, I just didn’t want to hear it anymore. So I said it to shut people up. Then it got out of hand.”

“Because of…?” he probes.

Alright, fine. “I don’t have a chauffeur to get me to work, Jaime. I take a bus, then a train, then the shuttle. I missed all three of those that morning. And then I was all sweaty and gross and I passed you in the hallway and you gave me a look—”

Oh fuck. Brienne had said too much. She hadn’t wanted to talk about the look.

“Oh.” There’s a glimmer of recognition in Jaime’s eye. “I remember that.”

He does? “You do?”

“Yeah. I think so. You were all flustered, I remember, and your hair was a mess.”

Oh great, that’s why he remembers. “Thanks a lot for that.” Brienne hides her head in her knees. “I don’t really need the recap, Jaime.”

“Don’t interrupt while I’m reminiscing, Bridget,” he teases. “I remember it because it was the first time I thought, ‘She has nice eyes.’”

Brienne just starts laughing into her knees out of shock.

“I’m serious!” Jaime insists.

“That was your takeaway?” She lifts her head. “I looked like a disaster, Jaime. I distinctly remember going to the bathroom right after and thinking that I looked like a disaster.”

“As I recall, you were wearing that blue blouse that matches your eyes. They were all wide, and your cheeks were all flushed and it just, I don’t know, made them stand out. I guess that’s why I gave you a look.”

He can’t possibly mean what he’s saying. “You basically said I was ugly at the office party, Jaime,” Brienne reminds him. Or perhaps it’s more of a reminder to herself.

Jaime holds both his hands up in surrender. “Again, I’m very sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” she says, lightly, and nudges him again. “I punched you already.”

“I was drunk, anyway, not that it’s an excuse.” He lies back down on the grass. “Pissed off about my family as usual. And, I think, a little hurt that the tall one with the nice blue eyes thought I only looked average.”

There’s something in those words that makes Brienne want to fly into a panic, even after all the dancing, even after the past four weekends. No, she refuses to jump to any conclusions. It’s a much better option to just—stand up abruptly.

“Where are you going?” Jaime asks from the grass. “Can’t we stay here a while longer?”

Brienne looks at the sky, and sees the sun making its way towards the horizon. She thanks it silently for giving her a reason to walk away from this place, this small patch of meadow where Jaime’s spilled one too many truths for today. She doesn’t want to think of them as truths, really. Not that last part. Not yet.

“Get up, Jaime,” and she offers him her hand. “Or we’re going to miss the sunset.”

[rainhalydia]

Because I need to hear my boy praised: fandom ASOIAF; ship: Throbb; character: Theon Greyjoy

Hi, anon! Great to know I’m being recognized as the local Theon-apologist, you’re absolutely right in your assessment!

001 | Fandom: ASOIAF

Favorite character: Theon Greyjoy

Least Favorite character: tough call, but I guess Littlefinger in terms of who I hate the most. In terms of who doesn’t work that much as a character for me, Garlan Tyrell

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Throbb is the OTP, then in no particular order: NedCat, Sansan, Asha x Qarl and Jaime x Brienne

Character I find most attractive: Theon is my type to a T, physically. Personality wise, probably Asha.

Character I would marry: Oddly enough, Renly! He could go off with Loras and leave me to be a powerful lady and he’d probably be okay with recognizing any bastard I could get as his.

Character I would be best friends with: Sansa. Playing harp and doing crafts are my ideal bonding activities. My sense of adventure also begins and ends with stealing stuff from the kitchen.

a random thought: the world building is seriously lacking more of a merchant class and artists, but it’s something that’s only really noticeable when you’re a hardcore fan. I feel like people reading casually won’t miss it because Martin’s writing is just that good.

An unpopular opinion: Probably very unpopular, but I’m not bothered in the slightest with all the rape and sexual violence towards women in the books, except for maybe the Dothraki. With the Dothraki, it feels like a way to signal how violent they are as a society, but it’s too caricatural to work for me. They rape people in the middle of a super important wedding, come on! But with the rest, I find it sadly plausible. ASOIAF also deals a lot with sexual violence towards men, in a more nuanced and respectful way than most media, so I feel like sexual violence is a theme in general, not just something thrown in for shock value or to degrade women.

My Canon OTP: Throbb is canon probably Ned x Cat.

My Non-canon OTP: Asha x Alysane.

Most Badass Character: There are so many! I guess Tyrion wins because he’s going to ride a dragon with no magic

Most Epic Villain: Euron Greyjoy

Pairing I am not a fan of: Robb x Margaery, Sansa x Margaery, Robb x Jon

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): the Dothraki as a whole are very under-developed when compared with the rest of the cast, though Irri and Jhiki arguing over Rakharo is a breath of fresh air.

Favourite Friendship: probably Arya and her Riverland gang

Character I most identify with: Theon and Sansa, maybe Sam

Character I wish I could be: they’re all much braver than I am, but I’ll pick Brienne

002 | Ship: Throbb

When I started shipping them: I don’t really remember? It was on my second read of the series, because I barely remember the first read. ADWD was already out, so after 2011 for sure... If we’re talking about a moment in the books, when Theon thinks he should have died with Robb.

My thoughts: They’re really, really good together. It’s surprisingly balanced for the circumstances they’re in. Even if you don’t ship them, their affection for each other is plain in the text and it drives me up the fucking wall when people say they didn’t like each other. They did! Theon still does! They’re important to each other!

What makes me happy about them: How much they loved and trusted each other. That they really knew each other, in ways other people mostly didn’t.

What makes me sad about them: I mean, theirs is a tragic story, so everything? But especially that Robb died thinking that Theon killed his brothers, and that Theon knows Robb died thinking that about him. That there will be no reconciliation.

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: With the caveat that everyone can do what they like, Robb is not a goody two shoes, his patience is not endless, he has a temper and he thinks Theon is awesome and it’s not a fucking favor on his part being friends with him. Theon, on his side, mostly fools everyone with his cool persona, except for Robb, Asha and the rest of his family.

Things I look for in fanfic: Theon being a charming asshole is my number one priority. I can roll with most scenarios, though.

My wishlist: Let’s see... my favorites things ever for Throbb are friends to lovers, mutual pining, secret relationship, preferably with smut.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Jeyne W. is alright, but I can’t help thinking Robb is gay, so Robb x Olyvar. For Theon, Theon x Jeyne P.

My happily ever after for them: They reunite in the afterlife after Theon dies of very old age.

003 | Character: Theon Greyjoy

How I feel about this character: I love him! My problemaic squid son! He does not deserve a tenth of the hate he gets!

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: In order of preference: Robb, Jeyne, Kyra, Patrek Mallister.

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Dagmer, Asha and Wex. The Thramsay dynamic is terrible but interesting, if done well. I wish Theon had never gone through any of that, but at the same time, where would his story even be without it? And he could have been real friends with Patrek if they had time.

My unpopular opinion about this character: He owned the Starks, including Robb, nothing. He did nothing worse than other characters fighting a war until he killed the miller boys and raped Kyra - not to say his actions were good or anything, but they’re about the same as other characters’, including fan favorites. It’s awful but understandable that he didn’t visit his Mom. He’s actually pretty competent as a warrior, but he doesn’t think long-term when making plans. And probably most unpopular of all in my corner of fandom: though he has all the identity issues and belonging issues, he’s actually very ironborn, and his ironborn upbriding, while terrible and abusive even by in-universe standards, actually helped him survive being a captive for so long.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish someone who loved him had gone to met him when he arrived on Pyke and that Asha hadn’t pulled that “prank” on him. I wish him to live to an old age with people who love him, to get his teeth fixed as much as possible, and to do something important for the Iron Islands.

Favorite friendship for this character: Robb and Wex. I love Asha, but she’s such an older sibling that they’ll always have that dynamic first and foremost to me.

My crossover ship: Super out there, but probably Olivier Mira Armstrong. Theon will drink that respect women juice if he wants to or not!