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whitecrownsblackthrones-archived · 2 years

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Since I made a post about the children Ann will eventually have, as well as Slane, it’s only fair I make a post about the children Sue will eventually have as well. So here they are, the children of the future Empress Suzanne -

Primrosa Lucifenia de’Lareryth Heart, Crown Princess of the Lareryth Empire

The sole child of Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart, & sole heir to the throne of the newly expanded Lareryth Empire. After marrying her arranged spouse, Seth de’Lareryth Heart & being crowned queen, Sue kills Seth 2 years later, as well as the only two other legitimate children of the former king & queen. Having failed to get pregnant by Seth before his death & no other legitimate child to pass the crown off too, Sue solely inherits the power of the Empire. Sometime later, after Seth’s death, Sue begins a ‘courtship’ with Arthur Rogue of Jailiam, in an effort to combine their shared vision of a uniting the 12 tribes of Jailiam under one banner. They’re very successful in doing this together, & afterwards, she ends up killing Arthur to take all he’s conquered under the Lareryth Banner, but not before getting pregnant from Arthur. Deciding that it would be best to have at least one heir on hand, Sue carried the pregnancy to term & was delighted to see she had a daughter that was her spitting image & affectionally names her daughter after her beloved mother, ‘Primrosa’. Sue would raise her daughter to be both tough, elegant & intelligent, giving her a military education similar to her own Camellian military upbringing, & allowing Primrosa to study anything she pleased. The Crown Princess proved to be no slouch, & like her mother, craved as much knowledge as she could get, so studied a incredibly wide range of subject, from math & science, to politics, to art & even forbidden magics. Primrosa also was shown to be a very excellent marksmen with varies types of guns, as well as a gifted magus, one of the most gifted of the era. She also holds the same attitude as her mother, sharing little time for fools & is very blunt & straightforward with her ways. She does, however, enjoy a bit of spotlight, & socializing(with the right people anyway). Despite some noble of the large Empire believing that Primrosa is unfit to rule such a large empire created by her mother, Sue herself firmly believes her daughter if more then ready to rule when the time comes.

Main Canon Daughter with Warlord Arthur Rogue. Faceclaim - Jieun from The Abandoned Empress

Errol Kingsford Chuuno, Crown Prince of Avalon

The firstborn of two children & heir to the throne of Avalon. [This particular child will be portrayed by the other party, so his personality will be decided by them]

Son with @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Cedric Islar from Lilian of Turin

Hera Rosa Chuuno, Princess of Avalon

Secondborn of two children, spare heir to the throne of Avalon. She is both very smart & intelligent, able to keep up with some of the brightest minds of the time in complicated conversations. Hera appears the part of a soft & dainty princess, but her heart beats with ambition. Knowing she is the spare heir, she intends to marry a Crown Prince somewhere so she can be in line to become a Queen, much like how her mother did.

Daughter with @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Kaira de Orsia from There’s No Use Hanging On

Rosarita Nox de'Lareryth Heart, Crown Princess of the Lareryth Empire

Firstborn of three children & the only daughter of Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Prince Consort Bowen Chunno(otherwise know as The Madman), heir the the throne of the Lareryth Empire. Of all the royal children, she is the most refined & the most magically gifted, able to be both elegance & charming, while throwing death threats & insults towards those she deems her enemies. She is one of the few people, along with her mother & father, who can keep her first brother, Lucas, calm & controlled when he is angry. Studying in her younger days a large array of subjects, including having military training, Rosarita’s best subject was undoubtably forbidden magics, making her a strikingly powerful magus.

Daughter with @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Roxana Agrece from A Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother.

Lucas Sangue de'Lareryth Heart, Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Secondborn of three children & the first son of Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Prince Consort Bowen Chunno(otherwise know as The Madman), he was originally the ‘spare heir’, but gave his position to his younger brother instead, officially making him last in line for the Lareryth Throne. Lucas is the chaotic combination of his mother’s assertive personality, his father’s borderline insanity, & both parent’s willingness to kill other people as if it was a mere chore. This makes the prince very statistic in his nature & nearly completely apathetic towards others, with exception to a select few, like his family. He can also be possessive of those few things he cares about, to the point of explosive violence, & seems to have issues with being violent all together. Despite being a prince, he acts nothing like one, with his behavior & speech being like that of a delinquent, lacking even the most basic of refinement & respect. His physical strength also appears abnormal, & while he is not quite at his father’s level, it’s clear a few Atomite genes were passed onto Lucas.

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Jeremy Agrece(Adult form) from A Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother

Jonas Finn de'Lareryth Heart, Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Thirdborn of three children & the second son of Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Prince Consort Bowen Chunno(otherwise know as The Madman), he is the official spare heir since his older brother’s stepping down from the position despite being so young. Despite his youth, Jonas appears like a very bright & intelligent child, studying a large array of subjects. His entire focus appears to be on his studies, rarely ever appearing in public or at social gatherings, which he holds a strong distaste for. He is blunt when speaking to others, but mostly appears to avoid talking to others if he can.

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Lloyd Cardence Valentine(young form) from Becoming the Villain's Family

Lawrence Shinpachi de'Lareryth Heart, Crown Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Firstborn of two sons between Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Oni Shinpachi, heir to the throne of the Lareryth Empire. His father’s last name was made to be his own middle name in the memory of the man his father was before his birth. Being the prefect picture of his mother, it’s unknown to the Lareryth Court exactly how Lawrence’s father is, but it is mostly believed that he is former King Seth de’Lareryth’s son. While this isn’t true, Sue & Oni decided it best to let the court believe such, so Lawrence’s claim for the throne couldn’t be argued. Lawrence himself was raised to be a kind but firm prince, to be chivalrous yet not let such a nature allow him to be pushed around. He holds true to his upbringing, & is quite the force to reckon with in debates of any nature, while also being a delight to have as a friend & within one’s social circle.

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Perez Brivacheu Durelli(Adult form) from I Shall Master This Family!

Kichiro Genji de'Lareryth Heart, Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Secondborn of two sons between Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Oni Shinpachi, spare heir to the throne of the Lareryth Empire. Born with his father’s brown hair & his mother black pearl eyes, he is considered one of the most handsome men of the Empire. Accepting of his position as simply a spare, & not really desiring any power for himself, Kichiro decided instead to decided to throw himself into knighthood. He proved to be an outstanding fighter very quickly, & rose through the ranks of the Lareryth military at lightning pace, by 15, he was already a Major General, & became a Lieutenant General the day after his 16th birthday. While he was a straightforward man, & could be frightening in certain situations, he was also a gentle soul, heading many charity originations & was a large part in aiding clean up & restoration effects in the many countries his mother conquered during her reign. He gained many metals & badges of honor for his efforts & is often called the ‘Great Knight’ or ‘Great Knight Prince’.

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Kassion from Today the Villainess has Fun Again.

Aiya Mizushima, Crown Princess of Mizuho

The firstborn of Akihito & Sun Fang’s many daughters, & heir to the throne of Mizuho. Despite being born a female, & having more of her mother's traits then her fathers, Aiya's birth was an exciting one for the Mizuho court, as it was their first child after a long wait. Despite her clearly intelligent nature, Aiya was at first denied the proper education that only men got at the time, prompting both Akihito & Sun to reform the educational system to allow females, as well as the commonfolk, to pursue the same level of education that only aristocratic men were allowed. She studied a large array of subjects, from math & finances, to politics & world culture, she was also still taught the ways of noble elegance & etiquette, with Sun passing on her knowledge of how to appear both lady-like & ruthless. Aiya was also later recognized as the Crown Princess to Mizuho after Aki & Sun fall to have a male child, so the rights of succession were changed to automatically give rights to the firstborn child of the reigning monarch, regardless of their gender.

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Joo Sehwa from When the Black Moon Rises

Taigenia Mizushima, Princess of Mizuho

The first of a pair of twins consisting of herself & Chōhisa, officially the secondborn daughter & the spare heir to the throne of Mizuho, she was named a feminized form of the name 'Taigen', which means 'great ambition', Taigenia would hold true to her name. Like her older sister Aiya, Taigenia was bared from having the education that she wanted, which her case, was to learn about war & battle. Rather then waiting for the education reform of Mizuho, Taigenia simply asked her parents if she could study war in her mother’s homeland of Camellia. Agreeing this, Taigenia spent 2 years in Camellia, undergoing it’s Mandatory Military program, & returned to Mizuho as a master of stealth & Cloak-&-Dagger style of attack. She serves as the royal spy to the Mizuho court, & is very defensive of her family, especially her twin sister, & has no issues with becoming physical with other people should they anger her.

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Xuanyuan Yu(Alternate version) from Mejaz Regulus in the World

Chōhisa Mizushima, Princess of Mizuho

The second of a pair of twins consisting of herself & Taigenia, officially the thirdborn daughter, her name is the combined version of two other names, ‘Chō’ meaning ‘butterfly’ & ‘Hisa’ meaning ‘long-lasting’, she is most called ‘Hisa’ by her family. Hisa was born very short & blind, making her be seen as a cursed child by the Mizuho court. For this, she was the most sheltered princess, & had difficultly learning certain subjects. She mostly took a liking to music & song, as it was the easiest for her to learn given it did not require sight. So, while being unable to read, write, preform math & understand science, she made it her mission to learn every musical art possible. She has mastered over 50 different instruments, with the most of them being in the stringed category.

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Shinobu Kocho from Demon Slayer

Bara ‘Rosa’ Mizushima, Princess of Mizuho

Fourth daughter & the second-to-last of Akihito & Sun Fang's children. Sun desperately wanted to name who she thought was her final child a name based her mother's, despite it being a very European name. They decided to call her 'Bara', in reference to Sun's mother's namesake flower, but her direct family addresses her as 'Rosa'. Originally born very small & thin, Rosa was a child that got sick easily, but would get healthier as she grew up. During her young years, she was often sheltered to keep her from getting sick, so took an interest in reading, as it allowed her to mentally escape to far away places; falling in love with reading quickly. This love carried over into Rosa's adult years, & she began writing stories & novels of her own.

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim -Tsubaki Fujiwara from Black Summoner

Mizushima Fuyuko, Princess of Mizuho

The Fifth & truly final child of King Akihito & Queen Sun Fang’s children. A surprise child born in the dead of winter, she was named as such, her name meaning ‘winter’s child’. Being born during such a time, she seems closely tied to winter’s magic, ice, snow, chilly winds & other seasonal magics. With her grand gift, she is a well practiced magus even at her young age. Being the only one in the family, besides her mother, who has any magic at all, she is often called a ‘witch’ by the Mizuho Court.

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Shouxie from Raven of the Inner Palace

#[Lore; Aesthetic; and Ideas] Musings #『A Royal Degree』Headcanons #『v!Long live the Queen』#{Future Crown Princess of the Eastern Empire} Primrosa Lucifeina de'Lareryth Heart #{Princess of Avalon} Hera Rosa Chuuno #{The Bloody Butterfly Crown Princess of the Future} Rosarita Nox de'Lareryth Heart #{Unhinged Prince of the Lareryth Empire} Lucas Sangue de’Lareryth Heart #{The Young Spare Prince of the Lareryth Empire} Jonas Finn de'Lareryth Heart #{Chivalrous Crown Prince of the Lareryth Empire} Lawrence Shinpachi de'Lareryth Heart #{Great Knight Prince of the Lareryth Empire} Kichiro Genji de'Lareryth Heart #{Crown Princess of Mizuho} Mizushima Aiya #{Spy Princess of Mizuho} Mizushima Taigenia #{Blind Princess of Mizuho} Mizushima Chōhisa #{Rose Princess of Mizuho} Mizushima Bara #so i had this half complete in my drafts #decided it was time to finish it #{Winter Princess of Mizuho} Mizhushima Fuyuko

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liroyalty · 1 year

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Children of the future Empress Suzanne in v!long live the queen-

Primrosa Lucifenia de’Lareryth Heart, Crown Princess of the Lareryth Empire

The sole child of Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart, & sole heir to the throne of the newly expanded Lareryth Empire. After marrying her arranged spouse, Seth de’Lareryth Heart & being crowned queen, Sue kills Seth 2 years later, as well as the only two other legitimate children of the former king & queen. Having failed to get pregnant by Seth before his death & no other legitimate child to pass the crown off too, Sue solely inherits the power of the Empire. Sometime later, after Seth’s death, Sue begins a ‘courtship’ with Arthur Rogue of Jailiam, in an effort to combine their shared vision of a uniting the 12 tribes of Jailiam under one banner. They’re very successful in doing this together, & afterwards, she ends up killing Arthur to take all he’s conquered under the Lareryth Banner, but not before getting pregnant from Arthur. Deciding that it would be best to have at least one heir on hand, Sue carried the pregnancy to term & was delighted to see she had a daughter that was her spitting image & affectionally names her daughter after her beloved mother, ‘Primrosa’. Sue would raise her daughter to be both tough, elegant & intelligent, giving her a military education similar to her own Camellian military upbringing, & allowing Primrosa to study anything she pleased. The Crown Princess proved to be no slouch, & like her mother, craved as much knowledge as she could get, so studied a incredibly wide range of subject, from math & science, to politics, to art & even forbidden magics. Primrosa also was shown to be a very excellent marksmen with varies types of guns, as well as a gifted magus, one of the most gifted of the era. She also holds the same attitude as her mother, sharing little time for fools & is very blunt & straightforward with her ways. She does, however, enjoy a bit of spotlight, & socializing(with the right people anyway). Despite some nobles of the large Empire believing that Primrosa is unfit to rule such a large empire created by her mother, Sue herself firmly believes her daughter if more then ready to rule when the time comes.

Daughter with Warlord Arthur Rogue. Faceclaim - Jieun from The Abandoned Empress

Errol Kingsford Chuuno, Crown Prince of Avalon

The firstborn of two children & heir to the throne of Avalon. [This particular child will be portrayed by the other party, so his personality will be decided by them]

Son with @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Cedric Islar from Lilian of Turin

Hera Rosa Chuuno, Princess of Avalon

Daughter with @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Kaira de Orsia from There’s No Use Hanging On

Rosarita Nox de'Lareryth Heart, Crown Princess of the Lareryth Empire

Daughter with @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Roxana Agrece from A Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother.

Lucas Sangue de'Lareryth Heart, Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Jeremy Agrece(Adult form) from A Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother

Jonas Finn de'Lareryth Heart, Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Lloyd Cardence Valentine(young form) from Becoming the Villain's Family

Lawrence Shinpachi de'Lareryth Heart, Crown Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Firstborn of two sons between Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Oni Shinpachi, heir to the throne of the Lareryth Empire. His father’s last name was made to be his own middle name in the memory of the man his father was before his birth. Being the prefect picture of his mother, it’s unknown to the Lareryth Court exactly how Lawrence’s father is, but it is mostly believed that he is former King Seth de’Lareryth Heart’s son. While this isn’t true, Sue & Oni decided it best to let the court believe such, so Lawrence’s claim for the throne couldn’t be argued. Lawrence himself was raised to be a kind but firm prince, to be chivalrous yet not let such a nature allow him to be pushed around. He holds true to his upbringing, & is quite the force to reckon with in debates of any nature, while also being a delight to have as a friend & within one’s social circle.

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Perez Brivacheu Durelli(Adult form) from I Shall Master This Family!

Kichiro Genji de'Lareryth Heart, Prince of the Lareryth Empire

Secondborn of two sons between Empress Suzanne Ying de’Lareryth Heart & Oni Shinpachi, spare heir to the throne of the Lareryth Empire. Born with his father’s brown hair & his mother's black pearl eyes, he is considered one of the most handsome men of the Empire. Accepting of his position as simply a spare, & not really desiring any power for himself, Kichiro decided instead to decided to throw himself into knighthood. He proved to be an outstanding fighter very quickly, & rose through the ranks of the Lareryth military at lightning pace, by 15, he was already a Major General, & became a Lieutenant General the day after his 16th birthday. While he was a straightforward man, & could be frightening in certain situations, he was also a gentle soul, heading many charity originations & was a large part in aiding clean up & restoration effects in the many countries his mother conquered during her reign. He gained many metals & badges of honor for his efforts & is often called the ‘Great Knight’ or ‘Great Knight Prince’.

Son with - @tetsuwan-atom. Faceclaim - Kassion from Today the Villainess has Fun Again.

Mizushima Aiya, Crown Princess of Mizuho

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Joo Sehwa from When the Black Moon Rises

Mizushima Taigenia, Princess of Mizuho

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Xuanyuan Yu(Alternate version) from Mejaz Regulus in the World

Mizushima Chōhisa, Princess of Mizuho

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Shinobu Kocho from Demon Slayer

Mizushima Bara ‘Rosa’, Princess of Mizuho

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim -Tsubaki Fujiwara from Black Summoner

Mizushima Fuyuko, Princess of Mizuho

Daughter with - @thelazyeditor. Faceclaim - Shouxie from Raven of the Inner Palace

#musings [lore and ideas]#headcanons [a royal decree!]#『v!long live the queen』#primrosa lucifenia de’lareryth heart {future crown princess of the eastern empire}#hera rosa chuuno {princess of avalon}#rosarita nox de'lareryth heart {crown princess of the eastern empire}#lucas sangue de'lareryth heart {unhinged prince of the eastern empire}#jonas finn de'lareryth heart {prince of the eastern empire}#lawrence shinpachi de'lareryth heart {crown prince of the eastern empire}#kichiro genji de'lareryth heart {knight prince of the eastern empire}#mizushima aiya {crown princess of mizuho}#mizushima taigenia {assassin princess of mizuho}#mizushima chōhisa {blind princess of mizuho}#mizushima bara 'rosa' {rose princess of mizuho}#mizushima fuyuko {winter princess of mizuho}#『v!culture swap』

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butterflies-dragons · 3 years

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Eugénie Grandet and Sansa Stark

Art credit: 1) Chinese Book Cover for "Eugénie Grandet" by Margarita Winkler; 2) Lady Sansa by Batata-Tasha

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

Channeling my inner Sansa Stark in order to avoid the terrible reality of late, I lost myself in some of the French, Spanish and Russian classics. Eugenié Grandet (1833) by Honoré de Balzac was one of them.

Eugenié Grandet is a book that Sansa Stark would love:

They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa VI

Eugénie (23) and Sansa (13) are kind, generous, eager to please and extremely romantic girls.

Although they are both dutiful daughters, they have a strained relationship with their fathers and at some point they defy them out of love.

The main different between Eugénie and Sansa, aside their age, is their education. While Eugénie is a provincial girl from Saumur with almost zero formal education, Sansa, a northern girl, comes from high nobility and has been educated to be the perfect lady and queen.

Eugénie and Sansa aren't exactly the same, but while reading Balzac's novel it's very difficult not to find them similar. Even Eugénie's house in Saumur resembles Winterfell and the North, the same way Eugénie's walnut tree from her garden resembles the Heart Tree from Winterfell's godswood.

I'm sure that GRRM knows about Honoré del Balzac, however I have no certainty if he has read Eugénie Grandet. But I would not be surprised to know that he did read the novel, and in that case I would even suspect that Eugénie inspired him, even a little, while creating Sansa.

It could all be just a coincidence, of course.

FAIR WARNING : EUGÉNIE GRANDET SPOILERS

Saumur / The North & Winterfell

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were, of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the town. This street—now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in certain sections—is remarkable for the resonance of its little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the narrowness of its tortuous road-way, for the peaceful stillness of its houses, which belong to the Old town and are over-topped by the ramparts. Houses three centuries old are still solid, though built of wood, and their divers aspects add to the originality which commends this portion of Saumur to the attention of artists and antiquaries.

(...) The whole history of France is there.

(...) The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

The vast and frigid realm of the Kings of Winter, the Starks of Winterfell, is generally considered the first and oldest of the Seven Kingdoms, in that it has endured, unconquered, for the longest. The vagaries of geography and history set the North apart from their southron neighbors.

It is often said that the North is as large as the other six kingdoms put together, but the truth is somewhat less grand: the North, as ruled today by House Stark of Winterfell, comprises little more than a third of the realm. Beginning at the southern edge of the Neck, the domains of the Starks extend as far north as the New Gift (itself part of their realm until King Jaehaerys I convinced Winterfell to cede those lands to the Night's Watch). Within the North are great forests, windswept plains, hills and valleys, rocky shores, and snow-crowned mountains. The North is a cold land—much of it rising moorlands and high plains giving way to mountains in its northern reaches—and this makes it far less fertile than the reaches of the south. Snow has been known to fall there even in summer, and it is deadly in winter.

—The World of Ice and Fire - The North

Robert snorted. "Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck. I've never seen such a vast emptiness. Where are all your people?"

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

The rising sun sent fingers of light through the pale white mists of dawn. A wide plain spread out beneath them, bare and brown, its flatness here and there relieved by long, low hummocks. Ned pointed them out to his king. "The barrows of the First Men."

Robert frowned. "Have we ridden onto a graveyard?"

"There are barrows everywhere in the north, Your Grace," Ned told him. "This land is old."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

Sewing and Embroidery

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet, to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it. In this spot the lives had flowed peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round of constant work from the month of April to the month of November. On the first day of the latter month they took their winter station by the chimney.

(...) Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and spent their days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of working-women, that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for her mother she was forced to take the time from sleep, and deceive her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long time the miser had given out the tallow candle to his daughter and la Grande Nanon just as he gave out every morning the bread and other necessaries for the daily consumption.

(...) In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father’s clothes.

(...) "and your cousin (...) who will spend her life in darning towels.”

(...) Her treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up; they were Charles’s dressing-case, the portraits hanging above her bed, the jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread upon a bed of wool in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble of her aunt, used for a while by her mother, which she wore religiously as she worked at a piece of embroidery,—a Penelope’s web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her finger that gold so rich in memories.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

Sansa's needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. "Sansa's work is as pretty as she is," Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. "She has such fine, delicate hands."

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Underestimated

"We will try to relieve the monotony of your visit here. If you stay all the time with Monsieur Grandet, good heavens! what will become of you? Your uncle is a sordid miser who thinks of nothing but his vines; your aunt is a pious soul who can’t put two ideas together; and your cousin is a little fool, without education, perfectly common, no fortune, who will spend her life in darning towels.”

(...) “Not at all, monsieur l’abbe. This young man cannot fail to see that Eugenie is a little fool,—a girl without the least freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a quince.”

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

"I … I had not thought, my lord." "Your Grace," he said sharply. "You truly are a stupid girl, aren't you? My mother says so."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

The king studied her a moment. "Perhaps you're not so stupid as Mother says." He raised his voice. "Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

. . . ah, you're still a stupid little bird, aren't you? Singing all the songs they taught you . . .

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

Sansa reddened. Any fool would have realized that no woman would be happy about being called "the Queen of Thorns." Maybe I truly am as stupid as Cersei Lannister says.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

The woman that calls Eugénie a "little fool" is Madame des Grassins, who despite underestimating Mademoiselle Grandet, wants her to marry her son Adolphe.

In a similar way, Cersei Lannister underestimates Sansa, believing her unworthy of her beloved son Joffrey.

Romantics

They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without fearing to displease the master of the house. Grandet was absorbed in the long letter which he held in his hand; and to read it he had taken the only candle upon the card-table, paying no heed to his guests or their pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a type of perfection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and refinement of his features. In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father’s clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean rafters, seeing none but occasional passers along the silent street,—this vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of delicate desire like that inspired in a young man by the fanciful pictures of women drawn by Westall for the English “Keepsakes,” and that engraved by the Findens with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the paper, that the celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew from his pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work, done in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at her cousin to see if it were possible that he meant to make use of it. The manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in which he took up his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as ridiculous,—all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed long dreams of her phoenix cousin.

(...) In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into a vague desire,—day of innocent melancholy and of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the veil of earthly things had come for Eugenie. —Eugénie Grandet * * * All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.

(...) It was a great honor to ride with the queen, and besides, Prince Joffrey might be there. Her betrothed. Just thinking it made her feel a strange fluttering inside, even though they were not to marry for years and years. Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold. She treasured every chance to spend time with him, few as they were.

(...) He took her by the arm and led her away from the wheelhouse, and Sansa's spirits took flight. A whole day with her prince! She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

The touch of Joffrey's hand on her sleeve made her heart beat faster. "

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I Sansa rode to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa's breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind … and the knights themselves, the knights most of all. "It is better than the songs," she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

She loved King’s Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet, harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not bear the thought of losing it all.

[…] They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life was over before it had begun.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Eugénie and her deep infatuation with her Parisian cousin Charles Grandet, reminds me a lot of Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

Charles was a prince in Eugénie's eyes, with all his dandy manners and Parisian refinement. Charles was the South and the pretty songs for Eugénie, the same way Prince Joffrey and even Ser Loras were the South and the pretty songs for Sansa.

Dressing well as a weapon

An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was up betimes and said her prayers, and then began the business of dressing,—a business which henceforth was to have a meaning. First she brushed and smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, preventing the loose tresses from straying, and giving to her head a symmetry which heightened the timid candor of her face; for the simplicity of these accessories accorded well with the innocent sincerity of its lines. As she washed her hands again and again in the cold water which hardened and reddened the skin, she looked at her handsome round arms and asked herself what her cousin did to make his hands so softly white, his nails so delicately curved. She put on new stockings and her prettiest shoes. She laced her corset straight, without skipping a single eyelet. And then, wishing for the first time in her life to appear to advantage, she felt the joy of having a new gown, well made, which rendered her attractive. —Eugénie Grandet * * * "Do remind her to dress nicely today. The grey velvet, perhaps. We are all invited to ride with the queen and Princess Myrcella in the royal wheelhouse, and we must look our best." Sansa already looked her best. She had brushed out her long auburn hair until it shone, and picked her nicest blue silks. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa I Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa II "I will need hot water for my bath, please," she told them, "and perfume, and some powder to hide this bruise." The right side of her face was swollen and beginning to ache, but she knew Joffrey would want her to be beautiful. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI Knowing that Joffrey would require her to attend the tourney in his honor, Sansa had taken special care with her face and clothes. She wore a gown of pale purple silk and a moonstone hair net that had been a gift from Joffrey. The gown had long sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms. Those were Joffrey's gifts as well. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa I I have to look pretty, Joff likes me to look pretty, he's always liked me in this gown, this color. She smoothed the cloth down. The fabric was tight across her chest. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

Here, while Eugénie uses the business of dressing to try to impress and gain the affections of her cousin Charles, Sansa uses the same resource as a shield against Joffrey's ill temper and to cover the bruises left on her skin by Joffrey's ill temper.

Complimenting someone's name

“Is anything the matter, my cousin?” he said. “Hush!” said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who was about to answer; “you know, my daughter, that your father charged us not to speak to monsieur—” “Say Charles,” said young Grandet. “Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!” cried Eugenie. —Eugénie Grandet * * * "I don't even know your name." "Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower." "That's pretty." He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. "Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?" —A Clash of Kings - Jon III "I . . . I could call myself after my mother . . ." "Catelyn? A bit too obvious . . . but after my mother, that would serve. Alayne. Do you like it?" "Alayne is pretty." Sansa hoped she would remember. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Kissing Cousins

“My dear cousin—” “Hush, hush! my cousin, not so loud; we must not wake others. See,” she said, opening her purse, “here are the savings of a poor girl who wants nothing. Charles, accept them! This morning I was ignorant of the value of money; you have taught it to me. It is but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother; you can surely borrow the purse of your sister.” —Eugénie Grandet

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,— “I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has managed my affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All my things have been sold; and he tells me that he has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of European curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell—perhaps forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—” “Do you love me?” she said. “Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling. “I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her. She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon’s den, in the darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted; she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the most unreserved of kisses. “Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,” said Charles.

(...) After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin. Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,—the one whose duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and fatalities,—they will understand the poor girl’s tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man’s love.

—Eugénie Grandet * * * How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?" —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy's kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. —A Feast for Crows - Alayne II "I don't want you to marry him, Alayne. I am the Lord of the Eyrie, and I forbid it." He sounded as if he were about to cry. "You should marry me instead. We could sleep in the same bed every night, and you could read me stories." (...) She put a finger to his lips. "I know what you want, but it cannot be. I am no fit wife for you. I am bastard born." "I don't care. I love you best of anyone. " (...) "You must have a proper wife, a trueborn maid of noble birth." "No. I want to marry you, Alayne." Once your lady mother intended that very thing, but I was trueborn then, and noble. (...) "The Lord of the Eyrie can do as he likes. Can't I still love you, even if I have to marry her? —The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Eugénie and her cousin Charles's brief romance is nothing like any of Sansa's experiences with suitors, but it reminds me a bit of Sansa and her little cousin Robert Arryn interactions.

Despite looking at his provincial relatives with disdain at first, after knowing about the financial disgrace and death of his father, Charles gets use to the humble and monotonous life of Saumur and especially gets fond of Eugénie's kindness and generosity.

In a similar way, despite the violent events from Sansa's snow castle chapter in A Storm of Swords, after the the death of his mother Lysa, Sweetrobin clings to Sansa/Alayne as a mother figure and later love interest.

Charles is nothing like Sweetrobin though, he is more similar to men like Harrold Hardyng and John Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

At the end, similar to John Willoughby's actions, Charles Grandet chooses to marry a girl he doesn't love to re-gain his high status in Parisian society and a nobility title, unbeknownst that Eugénie had become extremely rich, richer than him and his new bride combined.

Harrold Hardyng is not Sansa's cousin but Robert Arryn's cousin and heir. Harry consented the betrothal to Alayne only to gain the political support from Petyr Baelish.

And while cousin Charles's kisses mean love's kisses to Eugénie, cousin Robert's unrequited kisses remind Sansa of another forced and unrequited kisses from the past that left only trauma and fear in her.

But despite all her awful experiences from unworthy suitors, Sansa still longs to know kisses of love, and she associates those with Snow and she happens to has a cousin named Snow. More about this later.

You will know it some day / You may learn that one day

It was a death worthy of her life,—a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures. “My child,” she said as she expired, “there is no happiness except in heaven; you will know it some day.” (...) Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a spar, not a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they see themselves abandoned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the earth,—to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine; the motive of the crime is a great passion, which awes even human justice. Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence; they go their way dying, resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and recollecting, till they draw their last breath. This is love,—true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie’s love after she had read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven, thinking of the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with the prescience of death, had looked into the future with clear and penetrating eyes: Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death, that prophetic life, measured with one glance her own destiny. Nothing was left for her; she could only unfold her wings, stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer until the day of her deliverance. “My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “Suffer—and die!” —Eugénie Grandet * * * "Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow." —A Game of Thrones - Sansa III "Life is not a song, sweetling," he'd told her. "You may learn that one day to your sorrow." —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI The moment came back to her vividly. "You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow." —A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

This is a parallel but also a contrast between Eugénie and Sansa.

Eugénie's mother wasn't happy with her husband. Monsieur Felix Grandet was an awful husband and father. His only love was gold. That's why at her hour of death, Madame Grandet envisions a destiny of sorrows for her daughter, knowing well that not only the Cruchots and des Grassins coveted Eugénie's inheritance, but it was her own father, Monsieur Grandet, the most dangerous threat to Eugénie's welfare.

On the other hand, Catelyn Stark, Sansa's mother, was very happy with Eddard Stark. Ned was a good husband but a terrible father. Being aware of her good luck in her marriage, Catelyn said this to his firstborn son Robb: "We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky." —A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V.

Catelyn's words of hope to her son contrast to Petyr Baelish's words of sorrow to Sansa, not only because the bad omen, but because he is an active player in the sorrows that await Sansa and her family.

Strained relationship with their fathers

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun since Eugenie’s imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few moments watching his daughter’s movements, hesitating, perhaps, between the course to which the obstinacy of his character impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child. Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung, where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and the sedum,—a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden, engaged in watching his daughter. —Eugénie Grandet * * *

He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

Monsieur Felix Grandet and Lord Eddard Stark were awful fathers to Eugénie and Sansa. They both used their daughters for their own business but they never tried to understand the girls. They both could only watch them from apart not knowing how to approach them.

The severity of Père Grandet and Lord father Stark towards their daughters made Eugénie and Sansa defy them for the first time when they fell in love with Charles and Joffrey.

Ned was not the awful person that Monsieur Grandet was, though. Despite all his flaws as Sansa's father, he gave his own life in order to save Sansa from the same fate.

Melancholic Beauty

When his daughter came down the winding street, accompanied by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhabitants ran to the windows and examined with intense curiosity the bearing of the rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the impress of angelic gentleness and melancholy. (...) “Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure your liberty,” answered the old notary respectfully, struck with the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon her face. —Eugénie Grandet * * * Their litter had been sitting in the sun, and it was very warm inside the curtains. As they lurched into motion, Tyrion reclined on an elbow while Sansa sat staring at her hands. She is just as comely as the Tyrell girl. Her hair was a rich autumn auburn, her eyes a deep Tully blue. Grief had given her a haunted, vulnerable look; if anything, it had only made her more beautiful. —A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

Although it is a bit morbid to find beauty in someone's grief and misery, this image of our heroines being graceful while in disgrace got my attention.

This regard of Eugénie and Sansa comes from two men that wanted to reach them and gain their favor. Monsieur Cruchot, the notary, wanted Eugénie to marry his nephew, President Cruchot de Bonfons, while Tyrion Lannister, already married to Sansa, wishes to get her affections despite their forced marriage.

This is the point of view of two men that wanted to play the hero of a damsel in distress, but they are not the heroes that those fair maids wished for.

Love's kisses / Lover's kisses

Her imprisonment and the condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a map of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the wall? Did she not taste upon her lips the honey that love’s kisses left there? She was ignorant for a time that the town talked about her, just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it. Pious and pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance of her father. —Eugénie Grandet A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

While Eugénie's love to Charles gives her strength and dignify her in her tribulations, Sansa, in front of a beautiful winter scenery, feels soiled by her southern experiences. She feels that she doesn't belong in that pure, innocent world, as white as Snow.

Yet Sansa, defying her supposed maculated fate, embraces the beauty of the falling Snow that reminds her of home, and compared the sensation of the snowflakes brushing her face to lover's kisses.

The calling of the Snow at dawn was too powerful for Sansa to resist it. It was like the Snow telling her, you are wrong, you belong with me, let me kiss you to prove it.

"Jon Snow?" she blurted out, surprised.

"Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose."

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

No one will ever marry me for love

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

Only six individuals had a right of entrance to Monsieur Grandet’s house. The most important of the first three was a nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. Since his appointment as president of the Civil courts of Saumur this young man had added the name of Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself C. de Bonfons. Any litigant so ill-advised as to call him Monsieur Cruchot would soon be made to feel his folly in court. The magistrate protected those who called him Monsieur le president, but he favored with gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three years old, and possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni Fontis), worth seven thousand francs a year; he expected to inherit the property of his uncle the notary and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot, a dignitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom were thought to be very rich. These three Cruchots, backed by a goodly number of cousins, and allied to twenty families in the town, formed a party, like the Medici in Florence; like the Medici, the Cruchots had their Pazzi.

Madame des Grassins, mother of a son twenty-three years of age, came assiduously to play cards with Madame Grandet, hoping to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des Grassins, the banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife by means of secret services constantly rendered to the old miser, and always arrived in time upon the field of battle. The three des Grassins likewise had their adherents, their cousins, their faithful allies. On the Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of the family, well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply contested every inch of ground with his female adversary, and tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the president.

This secret warfare between the Cruchots and des Grassins, the prize thereof being the hand in marriage of Eugenie Grandet, kept the various social circles of Saumur in violent agitation. Would Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur le president or Monsieur Adolphe des Grassins?

(...) “If I had a man for myself I’d—I’d follow him to hell, yes, I’d exterminate myself for him; but I’ve none. I shall die and never know what life is. Would you believe, mamz’elle, that old Cornoiller (a good fellow all the same) is always round my petticoats for the sake of my money,—just for all the world like the rats who come smelling after the master’s cheese and paying court to you? I see it all; I’ve got a shrewd eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, mamz’elle, it pleases me, but it isn’t love.”

(...) She (Eugénie's mother) shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.

(...) (Eugénie) Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

“If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

It came to her suddenly that she had stood in this very spot before, on the day Lord Eddard Stark had lost his head. That was not supposed to happen. Joff was supposed to spare his life and send him to the Wall. Stark’s eldest son would have followed him as Lord of Winterfell, but Sansa would have stayed at court, a hostage. Varys and Littlefinger had worked out the terms, and Ned Stark had swallowed his precious honor and confessed his treason to save his daughter’s empty little head. I would have made Sansa a good marriage. A Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel might have suited, or one of his younger brothers. Petyr Baelish had offered to wed the girl himself, she recalled, but of course that was impossible; he was much too lowborn. If Joff had only done as he was told, Winterfell would never have gone to war, and Father would have dealt with Robert’s brothers.

—A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

“I will be safe in Highgarden. Willas will keep me safe.” “But he does not know you,” Dontos insisted, “and he will not love you. Jonquil, Jonquil, open your sweet eyes, these Tyrells care nothing for you. It’s your claim they mean to wed.” “My claim?” She was lost for a moment. “Sweetling,” he told her, “you are heir to Winterfell.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

“Yes. You are a ward of the crown. The king stands in your father’s place, since your brother is an attainted traitor. That means he has every right to dispose of your hand. You are to marry my brother Tyrion.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

“The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark.” […] “She must marry a Lannister, and soon.” “The man who weds Sansa Stark can claim Winterfell in her name,” his uncle Kevan put in.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

“How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?” The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now. “I … can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

As you can see, Monsieur Grandet's banker des Grassins wished Eugénie to marry his son Adolphe, while his lawyer Monsieur Cruchot wished Eugénie to marry his nephew President Cruchot de Bonfons. Both, the Cruchots and des Grassins, coveted Eugénie's inheritance.

In a similar way, the Lannisters, the Tyrells, Theon Greyjoy, Petyr Baelish, Harrold Hardyng, and even Lysa Tully in the name of his son Robert Arryn, coveted Sansa's claim to the North and Winterfell, with all the lands, money, armies and political power that come with the name Stark.

So, when I read these lines, 188 years after Balzac wrote them:

(...) and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

I couldn't help but think about Sansa Stark and one of the saddest quotes from the ASOIAF series:

It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love.

Walnut Tree / Heart Tree

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,— (...) I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—”

“Do you love me?” she said.

“Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling.

“I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.

(...) When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

(...) In the mornings she sat pensive beneath the walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with gray lichens, where they had said to each other so many precious things, so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles of their future home. She thought of the future now as she looked upward to the bit of sky which was all the high walls suffered her to see; then she turned her eyes to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the roof above the room in which he had slept. Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our fathers might have said, the tissue of life.

(...) Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood.

(...) At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes which had followed it.

—Eugénie Grandet

As you can see, Eugénie's walnut tree is the heart of her house in Saumur. In the old wooden bench beneath that immense tree, the cousin lovers Eugénie and Charles Grandet exchanged vows of eternal love. As Charles said later, beneath that walnut tree they got married.

Eugénie sat in that same wooden bench for years, remembering and waiting for her lover. Charles, on the other hand, forget his promises of eternal love, broke those vows and married another woman.

In a similar way, the weirwood trees are called heart trees, the weirwood from Winterfell's godswood is called the Heart of Winterfell, and godswoods are a sacred places for praying and meditation, under the weirwood tress lovers kiss and make promises, and heroes vows to protect the realms of men:

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. “The heart tree,” Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. Jon drew in a breath, and he saw Sam Tarly staring. Even in the wolfswood, you never found more than two or three of the white trees growing together; a grove of nine was unheard of. The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, bloodred on top, black rot beneath. The wide smooth trunks were bone pale, and nine faces stared inward. The dried sap that crusted in the eyes was red and hard as ruby. Bowen Marsh commanded them to leave their horses outside the circle. "This is a sacred place, we will not defile it."

When they entered the grove, Samwell Tarly turned slowly looking at each face in turn. No two were quite alike. "They're watching us," he whispered. "The old gods."

"Yes." Jon knelt, and Sam knelt beside him.

They said the words together, as the last light faded in the west and grey day became black night.

"Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow," they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. "Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

The woods fell silent. "You knelt as boys," Bowen Marsh intoned solemnly. "Rise now as men of the Night's Watch."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VI

Robb bid farewell to his young queen thrice. Once in the godswood before the heart tree, in sight of gods and men. The second time beneath the portcullis, where Jeyne sent him forth with a long embrace and a longer kiss. And finally an hour beyond the Tumblestone, when the girl came galloping up on a well-lathered horse to plead with her young king to take her along.

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

In contrast to Eugénie, who fervently clung to her walnut tree that became the symbol of her vows of eternal love to Charles, since Sansa left Winterfell, she only found godswoods without a weirwood tree:

The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned’s cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon’s breath surrounded the girls where they lay. “I dreamed of Bran,” Sansa had whispered to him. “I saw him smiling.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard V

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home. The Eyrie was no home. […] When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. Only the wind answered her, sighing endlessly around the seven slim white towers and rattling the Moon Door every time it gusted. It will be even worse in winter, she knew. In winter this will be a cold white prison.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

But despite the absence of a weirwood tree, those empty godswoods became a metaphor of Sansa herself, lost in the south and longing to come back home:

A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But Sansa Stark has started her journey back home, she is going back North to take back her heart:

But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, “I’ll tell you what I told Lord Tywin. That girl was always praying. She’d go to sept and light her candles like a proper lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She’s gone back north, she has. That’s where her gods are.”

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne II

A veil of courtesy / Courtesy is a lady's armor

She appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion. The news of Charles’s return and his foolish treachery had spread through the whole town. But however watchful the curiosity of the visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. Eugenie, who expected scrutiny, allowed none of the cruel emotions that wrung her soul to appear on the calm surface of her face. She was able to show a smiling front in answer to all who tried to testify their interest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She hid her misery behind a veil of courtesy.

—Eugénie Grandet

What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady's armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, "I'm sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

Courtesy is a lady's armor. You must not offend them, be careful what you say.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

"Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

A lady's armor is her courtesy. Alayne could feel the blood rushing to her face. No tears, she prayed. Please, please, I must not cry.

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Agency, richness, power... And loneliness

At the end, life gives Eugénie her revenge, especially against the people that always coveted her vast wealth.

Eugénie was at last free, independent, rich and powerful, but she was very lonely. Her only comfort was the company and loyalty of la Grand Nanon:

Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of being heard and understood,—Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant, but a humble friend.

—Eugénie Grandet

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

La Grand Nanon was often compared to a loyal dog and she was in charge of the wolf-dog that protected the old Grandet House in Saumur.

Nanon did everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the Loire and brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went to bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the property of her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur his most absurd exactions.

(...) Like a watch-dog, she slept with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.

(...) Nanon went to bolt the outer door; then she closed the hall and let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark was so strangled that he seemed to have laryngitis. This animal, noted for his ferocity, recognized no one but Nanon; the two untutored children of the fields understood each other.

—Eugénie Grandet

La Grand Nanon and the wolf-dog remind me of the Stark children's direwolves, of course. Loyal companions and protectors until the very end.

After the deaths of Monsieur et Madame Grandet, only Nanon remains to Eugénie. Then, thanks to the new financial independence of Mademoiselle Grandet, La Grand Nanon became rich as well, and she even got married to her old suitor Antoine Cornoiller.

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her cousin drank. “Nanon, we are alone—” “Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling, I’d go on foot to find him.” “The ocean is between us,” she said. While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet’s estates. Madame Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps she never looked as well in her life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her indestructible features which made a good many people envy Cornoiller.

Eugénie became so rich that she was considered a Queen and the sovereign of her own court:

It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry during the period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well known. Consequently the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided by the old abbe, contented themselves for the time being with surrounding the great heiress and paying her the most affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was filled with a party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of its mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime minister; above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain have said much to her. If the heiress had wished for a train-bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was a queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never emanates from noble souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus still further belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being of the persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle Grandet’s house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froidfond) outdid each other in expressions of admiration. This concert of praise, never before bestowed upon Eugenie, made her blush under its novelty; but insensibly her ear became habituated to the sound, and however coarse the compliments might be, she soon was so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any new-comer had seemed to think her plain, she would have felt the reproach far more than she might have done eight years earlier. She ended at last by loving the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet of her idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated as a sovereign and to see her court pressing around her every evening. Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of the heiress.

Later, after knowing about Charles's betrayal, Eugénie chooses to marry President Cruchot de Bonfons under certain conditions. It was a sham marriage, only in name, but never consummated:

(...) “Monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie with a noble composure, inspired by the thought she was about to express, “would it be a sin to remain a virgin after marriage?” (...) “Monsieur le president,” said Eugenie in a voice of some emotion when they were left alone, “I know what pleases you in me. Swear to leave me free during my whole life, to claim none of the rights which marriage will give you over me, and my hand is yours. Oh!” she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, “I have more to say. I must not deceive you. In my heart I cherish one inextinguishable feeling. Friendship is the only sentiment which I can give to a husband. I wish neither to affront him nor to violate the laws of my own heart. —Eugénie Grandet

And even when President Cruchot de Bonfons was waiting to Eugénie's early death, he was the one that died and made his widow even richer by adding the Cruchot's fortune to the already vast Grandet's fortune:

Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally abolished his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize any of his ambitious ideas. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur. God, who sees all and never strikes amiss, punished him, no doubt, for his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with which, accurante Cruchot, he had drawn up his marriage contract, in which husband and wife gave to each other, “in case they should have no children, their entire property of every kind, landed or otherwise, without exception or reservation, dispensing even with the formality of an inventory; provided that said omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and assigns, it being understood that this deed of gift is, etc., etc.” This clause of the contract will explain the profound respect which monsieur le president always testified for the wishes, and above all, for the solitude of Madame de Bonfons. (...) Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the president desired her death that he might step into possession of their immense fortune, augmented by the property of his uncle the notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had lately pleased God to call to himself. The poor solitary pitied the president. Providence avenged her for the calculations and the indifference of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which she spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life to a child would give death to his hopes,—the hopes of selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president cherished as he looked into the future. —Eugénie Grandet

But Eugénie's vast riches were an empty victory for her. The avarice of her father marked her life.

Due to the frugal life style imposed by Monsieur Grandet, Eugénie was never attached to money and gold like her father was:

In spite of her vast wealth, she lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never lighted on her hearth until the day when her father allowed it to be lighted in the hall, and it is put out in conformity with the rules which governed her youthful years. She dresses as her mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. She carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious did she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth. Pious and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age, Christian schools for children, a public library richly endowed, bear testimony against the charge of avarice which some persons lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much of their embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

“I have none but you to love me,” she says to Nanon.

The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many families. She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of benefactions. The grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of her education and the petty habits of her early life.

Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world but not of it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother, has neither husband nor children nor family.

—Eugénie Grandet

Eugénie was meant to be a wife and a mother, she wanted to love and be loved, but life only gave her sorrows and riches.

This sad ending reminds me a bit of Show Sansa's ending. She was a Queen of an independent Kingdom, but she didn't get any of her siblings with her at Winterfell.

But, unlike Eugénie that only knew the likes of Charles Grandet, the Cruchots and the des Grassins, and even if Sansa doesn't know it yet, there is someone who despite being offered Sansa's claim, had chosen her over Winterfell and the North and the name Stark:

“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

Unlike Tyrion, Willas, Theon, Littlefinger or even little Robert, who pursued Sansa’s claim over her, Jon Snow chose Sansa over her claim. Among all the high lords interested in becoming the Lord of Winterfell by marrying Sansa Stark, the bastard Jon Snow refused to despoil his sister Sansa of her rights, even if her claim is the one thing he has wanted as much as he had ever wanted anything.

Jon Snow is not some fancy suitor from the South like Charles Grandet was to Eugénie, like John Willoughby was to Marianne Dashwood, like Joffrey, Loras and even Harry were/are for Sansa/Alayne. Jon Snow has Stark blood, he was raised by Ned Stark, he worships the old gods, and he knows very well that you can't make false promises in front of a weirwood tree:

Jon said, “My lord father believed no man could tell a lie in front of a heart tree. The old gods know when men are lying.”

—A Clash of Kings - Jon II

So, there is hope.

The end.

[This post is very personal and was written during somehow convulsed times. So, if you have come this far, thanks for reading.]

#sansa stark #jonsa #eugénie grandet #honoré de balzac

31 notes · View notes

ocular-intercourse · 4 years

Note

9, 10, 17, 19, 40, 48, 70, and 73 (and the one what's their room like but i forgot the number...) for Noor 👀

thank uu <3

9. Do they have any artistic talent?

Hmmm I’d say they do not have artistic talent, or maybe rather that they don’t really care about having artistic talent, but they DO have artistic, uh, training? It’s part of their education, they are expected to be a warrior, but also to be refined, so they had just as much of an education to be a scholar and be versed in the fine arts, so they are perfectly capable of drawing or making music, but there’s no heart in it, it’s more the fulfillment of a duty

10. What is their favourite room to be in, in the house they live in? / 48. What does their room look like?

I’ll put these two together cause I’d say their room is actually their favorite place in the palace. There are many beautiful places there, full of art and history, and they certainy spent a lot of time exploring the palace when they were younger, but their room is the one place that is truly theirs, full control over the interior design and the company they keep there. They are not often left alone, they don’t particularly like being alone, but when they need to be that’s where they can demand to be truly alone. Their room is on one of the upper floors of the palace, rather large, clean and open, literally, the climate in the capital is either warm or mild and on two sides the room are just columns leading to the open air/a veranda, more of a lavish rooftop garden. The view goes less over the city, it is more sheltered towards nature/mountainsides. Their bed is pretty much the center piece, a large canopy bed, probably the most comfortable thing you could imagine, the headpiece against the middle of the wall on the right side when you enter. There’s large closets to the left of the door, a lovely vanity table to the right of the bed, the side of the room that leads to the garden, to the left of where you enter, is lowered with a couple of steps and there is a, uh, I guess in modern houses you’d call it a conversation pit? that is hidden from the entrance area via some screens next to the closets. The ‘wall’ straight ahead from where you enter is just glassless windows with decorative banisters and columns with light flowy curtains if you want to cover them. To the left of the bed is a door that leads to a private bath for the prince, there is also a door for servants to discreetly enter and prepare baths and stuff through there. The upper area of the room is very bright, mostly white and golden, the lower room is much warmer, the conversation pit filled with pillows in red and orange, a low table, there’s usually tea and baked goods there, for the prince and their company to lounge about, it also leads straight to the garden where it’s pretty much more of the same, beautiful flowers and green, benches and chairs, birds and other small animals, an area simply designed to relax in.

17. Do they have a best friend? If so, who, and what makes them their best friend?

I think for the most part they have a hard time distinguishing between actual friends, and the people that are just friendly towards them, cause that’s pretty much everybody. So I think Noor kinda just goes from actually believing everybody is their friend to rare moments where they don’t really feel like anybody is actually seeing THEM, not just their title. They themselves tend to be friendly to everybody, especially the people that surround them a lot, so they have been known to make friends with their personal servants and retainers that Noor themselves genuinely sees as friendships while the other end might just see it as courtesy. Friendships that are more on the same level, two of them of note, are with other nobles living in the palace, going through the same education and everything, who are not among the nobles that serve Noor as chamberlain or stuff cause I imagine those relationships would be a little, eh, uneven. They are wards of the empress, daughter and son of sister-nations that are loyal to the empire. I imagine Noor would actually be too naïve to see them as chesspieces that ensure the empire’s station, they’d just believe ‘who wouldn’t want to come live in the capital, the imperial palace, and get the highest education available!! yay, I’m so glad we can offer this to you!! welcome friends!’ and the others would just eventually get roped into their enthusiasm cause they learn that the prince is actually just a genuinely nice person and maybe they should try to adapt to Noor’s view on things. It’s also just a good connection to have I guess, but they are definitely much less interested in political reasoning than their parents are. I don’t have names for them yet, but a big thing that makes the friendships so important to Noor is that these two are among the few people that don’t touch them with silk gloves, they give them shit when needed, make fun of them, call them out on their bullshit, treat them like an actual human being and not this weird elevated near deific royal persona. They are also two of the few people Noor can truly be themselves with and show their flaws around, with other people they are too occupied with being the perfect prince to not let anybody down. They get all the hot Noor trying to seduce their teacher facts from the very beginning and are highly amused at their distress.

19. What does their relationship with their family look like? Are they close? Distant? Ect.

Their only family left is Noor’s mother, the empress. Their relationship is both close and distant, I’d say. Noor is very much the apple of her eye, she would do anything for her child and protects them with all she’s got. She adores Noor from top to bottom, though she knows that some of their features she loves will be things that will make ruling difficult for them in the future, and the part of her that wants the best for both the empire and her kid wants to break them in to these things, she knows she’ll eventually have to push that, but she can’t quite get herself to do it quite yet. She still has time, its custom for the rulers of the empire to be near immortal and only give up their crown when they feel it’s best for their people. Noor gets to be a child for a while longer, cause she knows how taxing their future will be. Noor on the other hand adores their mother just as much, she is, after all, the empress!, leader of the empire and everything she does and has done is so incredibly impressive and inspiring to them. But Noor is also very blind to the uglier decisions their mother has to make here and there, and if they had more of a close insight into everything she’s deciding they would most definitely lose a lot of their respect for her, or rather they’d just be awfully disappointed cause they thought higher of her. I guess even Noor is not immune to empire propaganda, the mother they know is less the person she actually is and more the person that gets presented to the people. That’s where the distance comes in, Noor can’t quite manage to see her as a regular human, they are not quite aware of that and they would absolutely hate it cause they themselves hate being seen as prince first, human second. They are getting along very well, but if they’d sit down and honestly talk about who they really are it would probably create a bit of a rift.

40. If I wanted to draw them, what would be distinct physical features that I would have to know to draw them correctly?

It’s three things, really, the curvy red hair, the heart shaped face and mouth, and the two beauty marks, one above their right eyebrow, one below the left side of their mouth. Other than that they are slender and pale and prefer presenting female over male, they are amab though, when it comes to their body build. I draw them with the angled bob, though they actually liked having very long hair better, but it kept getting in the way in dangerous situations. Oh and the big blob eyebrows of course, idk I liked the idea of them being my oc with the biggest eyebrows as a little contrast to their finer features.

70. What do you, the creator of this OC, like most about them?

Ah. They are just good, they are so good. They are unbound optimism, striving to do the right thing, always. But they are also too stubborn to admit that that is maybe not entirely possible in life. They also, either consciously or subconsciously, ignore a lot of things that would influence their world-view if they would chose to accept them. That makes them shallow in many things, maybe they just subconsciously try not to dig too deep to avoid having to deal with difficult realities and decisions, they’d rather just accept the pretty outside view and keep believing in the good in the world. That makes them a little selfish maybe. I like this duality, they just want to help and they have the drive to do so but they don’t have the foresight to figure out the crux of the matter and are oblivious to the real problems. It’s all a consequence of their very limited view of the world. They live in this little bubble where everybody is nice to them and agrees with their decisions, and makes things possibly for them, and they only get shown how their actions positively affect people and they seldom get to stick around long enough to get a good look at the consequences of their actions. I guess I just like the idea of a person that is so morally good and wants to help but is also just a very big insufferable brat about it.

73. What attracts them to another person?

Hmmm. Competence. Drive? Seeing someone believe in a (worthwhile) cause and fight for it, succeed at it. Honesty. Not necessarily someone always saying the truth, but a person not wearing a mask, playing a role, but being themselves in one way or another. Mystery. They get intrigued by things they just can’t figure out, out of pure stubbornness or maybe just because they can speculate and fill the blanks with the things they want to believe about the other person. (oh that gyo thing makes sense now huh) They also like the idea of being in the exclusive club of people solving a thing not many people know about. They are also attracted to dominant people, maybe because they will have to become one eventually when they want people to respect them as a leader. (though they already are a dominant person, but more in a spiteful childish kind of way) Also they grew up with their mom as a role model so uhm that was formative I guess. (cue gyo realizing that he reminds noor of their mother and not knowing what to do with that fact… especially with that age gap OH NO god making myself cringe)

#ocs #mangosandchili #noor #gyoverse

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igneacor · 5 years

Text

NEW BACKGROUND ! TAILORED TO MCU ! featuring original elements of world-building

“At the time of her birth, the capital’s High Court was graced by the Lords of the Six Banners, having ridden in from every region in Vanaheim. Having recently been reunited in peace by Hand of the illustrious King, all six clans arrive to observe, in respect, the birthing ceremony, conducted by priests in the main hall to assure the blessing of the newborn. It was a grand occasion, celebrated with great expectancy, pride and a sense of reinvigoration.” - excerpt drawn from a tattered book unearthed within the Palatial Archives of Great Vanirs.

After many a miscarriage, Queen Ju-Ou (Asgardianized: Joaurra) of the Ula-Nan Clan gave birth to Princess Se-Van (Asgardianized: Sevlyn) in a largely fortified summer palace south of the capital. In attendance were the queen’s ladies in waiting, as well as her father himself, King Ren-Gar of the Hatagin Clan (Asgardianized: Ralegar) as well as members of the Hoifa Guard and his personal retinue. By birthright, she is second in line for the Antler Crown, before her brother, Prince Ren-Jagar (Asgardianized: Ralgar).

Days before her birth, the queen had a circlet made, weaved out of a rare breed of red passionflower that sprung from the vines on her balcony. The midwives placed it upon the princess’s head, and henceforth she was nicknamed Khosat Qin, or Lady Passion.

EARLY EDUCATION

As a young child, she showed a promising, quick wit that was dangerously unbridled without discipline and form to temper it. Her formative years were spent in relative freedom, surrounded by the two things she loved most in the world: old books and fine horses. Her mother made her a voracious reader and skilled rider by encouragement, but her wildness was regarded as a lack of refinement, a trait most expected of a princess. At the age of 7, her father decided to send her beyond the border to the city of Oyatara, to gain the best formal education the fine ranks of nobility may offer. Her mother protested at first, claiming she was better off under the tutelage of the humble vaettir folk, whose volvas would better teach her the intricate ways of galdr and seidr, as well as keep her humble and grounded, far from what she feared to be arrogant and exclusionary education. Her father then agreed to send along a volva preacher to accompany their daughter in Oyatara, so that she may learn and heed both worlds of their natures.

Her education comprised of linguistics, history, arithmetic within the modern institutions, and beyond that, she learns the earthly ways of spells, incantations and old magic from her volva preacher, a woman of sweet wit who quickly becomes her second mother. By the time she approached adolescence, her time spent in the region of the nobles has moulded her into a sophisticated and well-read woman, though her natural penchant for wildness seems to be stamped for eternity into her make-up, for many of her tutors still regard as a troublesome rebel, often chided for her occasional bouts of imprudence and impulsiveness. Despite this, she is scholarly and well-liked by her peers, though some only regard her kindly for her royal blood.

As a quick-witted teenager, her education took a focal turn to language arts as she took a personal interest in the Aesir-Vanir war and the historical colonization of Vanaheim by the Asgardians. This led to a desire to rediscover the roots of her culture, as she understands that her realm now is an amalgam of the two worlds. She took a particular interest in deconstructing the modern Vanir language to its prototherian form, and much of her academic life was dedicated to revising the language, calling it Proto-Vanir. This personal route of hers soon sparked a nationalistic political ideology to restore the original, unalloyed culture of her homeland.

POLITICS AND COURT LIFE

It didn’t take long for a particular bias to be instilled in her, as well as a growing dislike for Asgard, her godfather Odin Allfather, and her Asgard-influenced capital- the city of Umnok Tuman. She rides back to her capital with her volva every now and then to visit her family, which usually means following them on diplomatic trips to other realms, states, and cities. Her father makes it a point to teach his children about the complex realities of a mobile court. These trips often mean she had to endure the golden palace of Asgardia, and tensions are almost always at an incline whenever the two courts meet. It is, however, generally established, that their relationship is amicable. It is here she has fraternized with the princes of Asgard, and rumours abound of her complex, untold relations with one particular prince ( @sjalfvili). There often times where she has to stay at the Asgardian court and participate in Queen Frigga’s household as a maiden of honour, a position her father favours to elevate her politically with the strongest realm in the nine.

At Asgardian court, upon visitation Sevlyn would be assigned tutors to improve her Asgardian and refine her phonetic understanding of runic descriptions. Frigga is known to have taken a personal approach with the Vanir princess’s education, often indulging the girl in extraneous lessons such as deportment, conversation, dance, and music. She excelled in all areas but was known to be reproachful of her tutors and what she would describe as “ an achingly profuse sense of artifice” amongst her Asgardian counterparts. It would occur to her tutors that Sevlyn, with all her acumen, severely lacked political intelligence.

“The Vanir princess proved in presentation to be a graceful creature replete with nurtured intellect and charming roguery- but more salient that all said qualities combined is her provocative tactlessness that effectively diminishes her favourability at Asgardian court. One may argue that her liberal insistence to identify with her homeland is almost isolationist, dangerous- an outlook poisonous to the controlling nature of Asgardian politics. In this manner, as fair and impartial I can be with judgment, it is most regrettable, but expected, that she will not be the ideal intermediary her father hopes she will be between the sister realms.” ---- Passage extracted from a letter written by relations master Ragnbjorn Olafson to the Vanir ambassador.

Her father tried to arrange for her a debut at pageantry in court in order to attract possible suitors, but her quick-wittedness was, however, considered “a misapplication of talent” to which she asserted that her self-regard “is not subject to the opinions of oafs dressed in gold”. As a result, her flinty determination was often misconstrued at court, leaving her with little to no political engagements. She did, however, manage to establish close relations with the echelon of commissioned, middle-class artists, incurring the friendship of royal portraitist and printmaker Kafi Dolfrison, as well as academics such as court historian and martyrologist Aisla Alfirrdottir. Despite this, her personal relationship with the queen is known to be respectful and even affectionate. The same sentiment appears to extend to both royal sons, and select members of the court.

THE JHUN-KAI CONSPIRACY

(detailed story here)

The deposition of the Hatagin clan from royalty began on a fateful, stormy night in the Yuan Bulganji, a residential palace tucked away in the fringes of the capital meant for formal ceremonies. A celebration had been arranged by the crown to honour the achievements of the Jhunkai Clan, one of the most prominent houses in court serving under the declaration of the Six Banners and the Crown. Unbeknownst to the royal family, a fate-sealing betrayal awaited them. Over the years, Four (clans) out of Six Banners had grown dissatisfied with the rule of the Hatagin Clan, particularly with the King’s apparent reliance on Asgard and acknowledgment of Odin as the superior, and overseeing ruler of the nine realms. Orchestrated by the Jhunkai Clan, they engaged in a long-running plan to purge all Asgardian identity from the realm, to revise and remake the world as they know it and topple Asgard from their position as Helm of the Nine.

The plot was a success and resulted in a nigh-complete annihilation. King Ren-Gar and Queen Jo-Au were brutally assassinated in the White Hall of the Bulganji Residence, with the exception of the adolescent crown prince, who survived the ordeal when a palace maid hid him behind the altar. Those who physically engaged in the offense were the armed mercenaries employed by the Azhavat Clan.

Amongst the slaughtered was almost the entirety of the esteemed Hoifa Guard as well as significant members of the Khangai and Ukko clans who chose to remain faithful to the crown.

The orchestration of the assassination, by clever, private collaboration between the Three Banners: Jhunkai, Kofan, and Kadupul, was intentionally pinned on a picture-perfect scapegoat: a group of rogue Asgardian diplomats having bought the military services of the Azhavat, effectively damning and betraying one of their own. The Jhunkai seizes the throne as a result, with Kofan and Kadupul trailing behind as powerful noble houses, second to royalty. The crown prince is decidedly submitted into the custodial care of the Jhunkai, and slowly groomed to become the next King of Vanaheim through their extreme doctrine. While Asgard denounces any involvement with the “rogue Asgardians”, tensions are surely heightened, slowly brewing a second Aesir-Vanir war.

The leaders and employed mercenaries of the Azhavat clan are executed, the women and children exiled from the capital. Asgard is blamed for the deposition and the Vanir are stirred to pursue independence from their Asgardian Protector, Odin Allfather.

Sevlyn was still serving in Asgardian court during this time and by fortune, was spared of the violence. Odin her godfather was now her legal guardian, and it was declared that she was meant to stay within Asgardia. However, the newly crowned boy-king Ral-jagar, her brother, whose reins are unknowingly controlled by the Jhunkai, orders her return. To reduce any further restraint on their relationship, Sevlyn is sent back as desired by the Vanir.

PRESENT DAY

It has been years since the deposition, and Sevlyn, now a fully grown woman, carefully navigates through a den of Vanir wolves in a new court that she barely recognizes. Her brother, the King, whom she is sworn to serve, is invested in the project of completely removing Asgardian influence. While the princess harbours still the same urge to champion her identity and realm independence, her heart is torn between two worlds. Her years at Asgardian court has tempered her prejudice- and she questions the truth she is told back home.

#still being added to tbh #but i want to post this just as a trial and see what yall think #if yall are interesred #long post tw #HIGHKEY LISTENED TO JENNY OF OLDSTONES

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loveiscosmicsin · 7 years

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Hey if it's alright Ignoct and the letter V. Have a nice day and happy belated New Years.

Send me character(s) and a letter and I’ll write you a minific!

For @deepwolfwolf: IgNoct, letter V. An Abandoned or empty place. Happy Belated New Year’s to you, too! I hope you enjoy my writing and thank you for your patience! Anything you request isn’t a bother to me at all. Also, please, anyone, give me song recommendations for IgNoct. I’ve been making a playlist on YouTube. I really like “Dernière Danse” (Last Dance) by Indila for this couple.http://lyricstranslate.com/en/dernière-danse-last-dance.html

Art that inspired me, please don’t click on them until after you finish reading!: https://mobile.twitter.com/FFikaika_/status/816753648260681729

@ruebird’s http://ruebird.tumblr.com/post/157210311094/stars-are-their-thing

@ravitae’s http://ravitae.tumblr.com/post/157747269898/ignoct-may-i-ask-for-one-last-dance

@letshareapapou then drew this after reading the fic https://twitter.com/Letshareapapou/status/855947679796404224

This is also posted on my Ao3 as Look How The Stars Shine For Us if you prefer reading fics off there.

Your shoulder blades Your eyes ablaze The way you throw your head back When you’re losing faith But finding hope It lights your face That helps me cope Through all of this without a kiss And I get through all of this without a kiss

From the atlas Take me far Leave me reckless Off the map Turn the paper Don’t bring me back- “Atlas” by Shannon Saunders

V. An abandoned or empty place

“Sure ya wanna head out all on your lonesome?” Cidney asked as she pulled the service truck to a stop.

“Yes. It’s nearly time.” Ignis answered before turning to face the head mechanic. “Will you be all right waiting?”

“Now don’t ya worry about lil’ ol’ me.” The plucky blonde’s cheerfulness was nearly palpable and a paper bag crinkled as she stroked it. “If you don’t need me, I’m finally gonna chow down on these purdy sweets an’ listen to some tunes ‘til you get back.”

“I see,” the strategist smiled, pleased that she had been anticipating his renowned memory lane pastries far more than she alluded. He knew now that bribery was unnecessary. “You have my thanks.”

“Ain’t no trouble. It’s nice to be away from the garage for a spell.” The sound of rubbing leather was soft as the woman adjusted her seat. “Sure is gorgeous out here.” Cidney whistled sharply. “Not a single cloud in the sky and the wind won’t be picking up. Perfect weather for stargazing.”

Ignis had his hand on the door handle, but made no move to turn it. “Indeed.” He agreed, distant. He had requested for the mechanic’s assistance, there was no turning back now or he would surely regret it.

Cidney’s hand was on his shoulder, giving it a firm, but playful shove. “Well, best get movin’. Give my regards to His Majesty.”

At the mechanic’s encouragement and behest, Ignis’ feet landed flatly on solid earth and the door shut behind him. The strategist had his doubts but entrusting Cidney, an unlikely confidant, was a wise choice. She understood how important his date was and needed little persuasion to take him there.

Sediment crunched under his shoes and loose rocks evaded him as he walked towards his destination, a cliff overhanging Duscae. It was a brief journey that required moderate exertion on Ignis’ part but worth it when he was blessed with the sight of a young man seated on a blanket. The older man intended on surprising him, but a snap of a twig betrayed him.

“You finally showed,” the raven-haired man said over his shoulder, his eyes seemed to encapsulate Ignis on the spot. “Thought I’ve been stood up.”

Ignis pursed his lips. “And since have I ever done that, Noct?”

“Got me there.” Noctis chuckled softly before noticing something was off. “What’s that look for? Forgot something?”

“I, ah, no,” Ignis patted his pockets, an obvious lie. “It’s nothing.” He couldn’t believe he had forgotten it.

“Okay,” Noctis snorted, darting glances from the strategist’s face and his pants as the brunet sat down. “Have it your way.”

Ignis sighed, holding up a paper bag and thermos he had been carrying. “I believe these would keep your interest more effectively.”

Noctis studied his face for a moment longer before claiming the bag. “Knew I smelled something tasty.” He grinned, tossing the sweet in the air and catching it. “Haven’t had these in a while. They’re really for me?”

Noctis moaned into the first bite, his dark eyebrows raised as he savored the pastry. He dove back into the confection with a vengeance and quickly devoured it. Sugar and Ulwaat jam coated the bow and corners of his lips and he wiped at them with a sleeve.

Ignis sighed as he took Noctis by the wrist and folded back a cuff. “Do mind your manners, Noct. I brought napkins for a reason.” Something metallic glittered in the moonlight. “You’re wearing it…”

“This? Saw you fiddling with it and thought it’s meant for me. You didn’t have to get me anything, Iggy.”

“I had to get you something. It’s a charming accessory that would meet your refined tastes at the very least.” Etro knew Ignis tried in vain countless times in persuading Noctis to wear a watch.

“I think we both know that I’ve worn too many of those to last a life time.” Noctis replied with a snort. “One family ring’s enough. But… I’ll keep this bracelet. Kinda forgot it was on me anyway.”

Ignis was unwilling to not let this go until Noctis admitted he liked it. “And because it suits your fancy?”

Noctis threw his arms behind his head, a light blush dusted his cheeks. “Yeah, that too.” He flipped the lid on the thermos open and took a sip. His eyes lit up before downing a gulp, exhaling sharply. “Whoa, it’s Ebony and it’s exactly how I take it.”

“If you can call it that. If you ask a connoisseur, they would say your taste buds are forever ruined to appreciate a perfectly good cuppa.”

“Well, you’re the one who prepared it, Iggy.” Noctis pointedly jabbed a pastry in the strategist’s direction. “Broke your own rules there.”

A float of sweet cream accompanied by several dollops of sugar was how Noctis took his coffee. Far too sweet for human consumption. He hated the way coffee tasted, but drank it because of the sophistication appeal, proclaiming it was a step up from the Purple Phoenix and trendy energy drinks. Diluting the bold flavor of Ebony coffee went against Ignis’ incorrigible creed. Having his coffee black was the only acceptable way in Ignis’ world. But despite all that, Ignis would vehemently prepare a cup that Noctis would approve of and drink it whenever he thought of him. It would’ve been a waste to dump it down the drain otherwise.

After Ignis nibbled on his first pastry and Noctis wolfed down on second, the younger man rose to his feet and dusted crumbs off his clothes before offering a hand. “Can I have this dance?”

“Without music? This is rather daring of you.”

“We’ll improvise.” The king paused before cursing, “Dammit. Forgot my phone. We’ll just go without it. Are you going to take my hand or not?”

Ignis took the hand and let the younger man guide him away from the blanket.

“I don’t trust myself after last time,” Noctis rested his palms on Ignis’ waiting hands. “You lead.”

When he was the Crown Prince, Noctis was required to excel at all forms of dance and despite having mastered agility in combat, he was utterly helpless in the ballroom. Ignis must’ve made a poor teacher because Noctis never quite improved, but he was relaxed and there were least cases of foot injuries under his guidance. It had been years since they had last danced together.

Ignis secured Noctis’ right hand and placed his other hand on his upper back. “Don’t look at your feet. Focus on counting your steps and you’ll do fine.”

Noctis gave him a sheepish grin, his stance spoke volumes of his uneasiness. “As if I can keep my eyes off you, Ignis.” He put a hand on the strategist’s shoulder.

Their starlit waltz was a simple one though in the beginning, they were like stiff figurines going through steps that they had done numerous times. Ignis was educated in both lead and follow designations and could alternate on cue. He could read immediately on Noctis’ face that he regretted suggesting this activity. Worrying on his next step was throwing him off rhythm, he wasn’t trusting his partner. Ignis decided to switch it up, no longer their postures were restrained, they were in a more loose position.

Noctis’ eyes widened at this. They were deviating from the strict protocol, but Ignis wasn’t done there. Side to side, backwards and forwards, they maintained a synchronized rhythm that suited the both of them. The strategist lifted a hand, signaling the king to turn, circling a halo around his head. Noctis laughed as he turned, returning to Ignis afterwards.

As the two danced, Ignis felt all the years they had together weigh heavily upon his shoulders. The strength of their unspoken bond became more profound in their movement. Their gazes had a million words to illustrate just how they revered each other in the highest regard.

Ignis brought Noctis close after a tighter and swifter turn. He smiled as he leaned in close. “I’ve underestimated you. Your footwork has—”

“Improved?” Noctis asked, hopeful.

“Worsened.” Ignis informed with a smirk. “Though you rightfully earned a gold star for effort.”

“Yeesh.” The king groaned, throwing a betrayed look. “And here I thought that I could impress you for once.”

So that’s why Noctis took the initiative. It must’ve been difficult for him to ask.

“Oh, but you have in so many ways. Be it in a room full of people or simply the two of us, I’d always pick you in a heartbeat.” Ignis swayed his hips and concluded the dance. “You’re my partner of choice.”

“Well, likewise,” Noctis bowed to demonstrate his appreciation. “You make me look good.”

“And just that?” Ignis asked, studying the exhilaration and delight in his king’s features. They both knew that it wasn’t the only reason.

Noctis smirked, but offered no reply as he swept his bangs back. “What I wouldn’t give for another moment with you.”

“I’m curious. What would you give?”

“I…” Noctis began before a red light streaked across the sky. “It’s starting.”

It was a meteor shower, an vast array of light shot out from all directions. For once, they were in perfect clarity because the two men were far away from the city lights and the moon couldn’t drown them out.

“Whoa, that’s gonna be a night to remember.” Noctis said lying on his back, he was in awe of the universe.

Ignis made an amused sound. “You say that every year.”

“Anticipation makes the wait feel longer.” Noctis argued as he marveled at heavens above. “Besides, can’t you agree with me for once?”

But Ignis was directing his attention to the man at his side. “The night sky pales in comparison to your radiance, my king.”

Sitting up, Noctis’ gaze met Ignis’, a slight quirk in his eyebrow. “Are we still looking at the same ‘night sky’ here, Specs?” He articulated with a smirk and a nudged the brunet’s arm with his shoulder.

Warmth from Noctis’ body permeated to Ignis and the brunet drummed his fingers anxiously on whether to curl them around Noctis’ stationed hand or keep them to himself.

Noctis rested his cheek on Ignis’ shoulder. “Promise that we can do this again soon?”

“Of course,” Ignis choked out, his heart thundered against his rib cage. “but I thought routine would bore you a tad.”

“Routine’s not that bad.” The king replied as he glanced at Ignis. “Gladio wakes me at the crack of dawn for training and would surprise me with fishing right after that. When Prompto says we’re going on an adventure, he really means the rooftop of our old high school for movie night. And us…” He pointed out to stars, drawing lines with his finger, connecting the dots. “Stars are our thing. Look, they’re shining for us right now.”

Noctis’ grin was the last thing Ignis saw.

Darkness crept in the advisor’s vision, ending a pleasant, but short-lived reprieve. The brunet inhaled deeply as he removed his visor. He tilted his head toward the heavens, determined to force his ruined eyes to see what needed to be seen.

Noctis is Ignis’ other half that he had longed for.

And now Ignis was alone because where Noctis had gone was where the living couldn’t follow.

“That’s right,” Ignis voiced, moving constellations in his mind just so they formed a familiar visage. “If nothing else, you and I… We still have the stars.”

There was sorrow in Ignis’ heart that he only saw stars in his dreams. But when the inevitable dawn arrived, his memories became fleeting as the wisps of smoke from a extinguished camp fire. Ignis had seen the wonders of the universe, but the warmth of Noctis’ gaze was a spectacular wonder found no where else.

Conversations had played repeatedly in his head: one prior to leaving the Crown City for the first time, the pilgrimage to the Disc of Cauthess, the ultimatum on blind loyalties, and the final night before Eos was to be liberated from its plague. For ten years, light was consumed by the Starscourge and ashes rained, smothering crops and contaminating bodies of water. Stars were fondly recanted as phenomena of legend, children born during that time never would’ve known their glory. Humanity had to create their own flickering lanterns in the darkness to survive.

The four warriors of the tragedy, in their youthful naïvety, never knew that it took just one man to herald the Light.

All that time, Ignis thought his sworn duty was to guide a young king to his fullest potential. It should’ve been obvious when King Regis never pressed the issue of leadership and he chose to simply place Noctis in his chamberlain’s care. Ignis was a fool. Noctis never became the ruler he was meant to be and Ignis never quite expressed the truth within his heart. Duty had outweighed emotion and irrationality, above everything. If only they had more time together.

Ignis loved Noctis.

In his heart, Ignis was bound to meet Noctis many times just as they would have to part ways afterwards. Time was endless and infinite. It had to be.

Perhaps in another universe things could’ve gone differently. Somewhere, Ignis was together with Noctis again. In that imagined world, there was a Ignis Scientia and a Noctis Lucis Caelum who were able to marvel at the same sky, find themselves in the same constellation, and share visceral sentiments of peace and melancholy that was beyond comprehension. Their world. They would discuss their reality of lost possibilities and endless adventures, maybe go as far to planning trips to space one day. The nightly conversations, entertaining and far-fetched as they were, remained dreams.

Noctis wasn’t a dream. He existed. He lived. Ignis could see him and if he reached out to touch him, it would be the closest he would ever get. Noctis was Ignis’ home. Ignis would never let Noctis go unforgotten, true love never diminishes in remembrance. There had to be some way to commemorate him.

Remembering wasn’t difficult when Noctis had his own constellation in the sky. It was named after him, its appearance more evident after a meteor shower.

Galaxies were ever-changing, steadily drifting in course but the patterns remained the same should the strategist pinpoint the stars’ coordinates. Wherever he was, Ignis hoped that Noctis could look down and see the world he saved.

Maybe in a not-so-distant future and in another life, they could celebrate such a victory.

“Thank you, Noct, for bringing the stars back and… Happy Birthday. Shall we witness our first sunrise when the time comes?”

#IgNoct #Ignis Scientia #Noctis Lucis Caelum #FFXV spoilers #FFXV #Final Fantasy XV #Final Fantasy 15 #Final Fantasy #FF15 #FF #Noctis/Ignis #Ignis/Noctis #Noctis and Ignis #Ignis and Noctis

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