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weirwoodking · 3 years

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what do you think sansa's endgame is? and i'm not talking ships. like what do you think she'll be doing by the time the books end.

Anon, you accidentally made me write an essay.

So, to try and guess where Sansa could be at the end of the story, we have to look at where she’s heading currently.

She’s currently in the Vale, stuck under the control of Littlefinger. I think Sansa’s arc in TWOW will revolve around breaking free of his manipulation. There’s a line in Bran’s first ASOS chapter that seems to foreshadow this:

Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

—Bran I, A Storm of Swords

It’s hard to find the path back out, but not impossible. I do believe Sansa will return to “the wilds” that belong to her and her siblings.

George was asked once if Sansa still has skinchanging powers even though Lady is gone, and he said she does. We’ll probably see that aspect of her character start to make an appearance in Winds, especially since the presence of magic ramps up with each book. I think it would make sense if she bonded with a bird (such as a falcon or a hawk), seeing as she has quite a lot of bird imagery (particularly caged bird imagery) in her story. Sansa “flying free”, both literally and figuratively, seems like a logical step for her arc.

I do wonder how her connection with the “pack” will be handled. All of the Stark kids except for Sansa have the telepathic bond through their wolves, so I wonder what GRRM will do with Sansa there. It’s heartbreaking, that she doesn’t have that mental connection that the others do. I don’t know if that could somehow be reformed without Lady? There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Stark kids skinchanging powers (and the telepathic bond). Why did their powers only show up when the wolves did? How far do their powers go? How powerful could they become once they’re properly trained? How does the telepathic bond work? Is that a thing that other skinchangers can do? Is it there because of the wolves or is it through the kids themselves? Is it forever broken with Sansa because Lady is gone, or could Sansa reform that connection through another wolf that joins the Stark warg pack? Would it make sense narratively and thematically for GRRM to give Sansa another wolf?

Anyway, no idea what he’ll do with that. (Some sort of scene where Sansa is like “I don’t have a wolf anymore”, and then all the other Starklings crowd around her for a giant group hug and say “that’s okay, you’re still a part of the pack no matter what” is something I could see happening. It’s not like the other kids would treat her any less for not having a direwolf, she’s still their sister.)

A common speculation I see for Sansa’s endgame is that she could become the new head of House Arryn. And, well, the aesthetic of Sansa being Lady of the Eyrie/Lord Protector of the Vale/Warden of the East is definitely cool. The Queen of Birds up in a mountain palace with her flock all around her like a winged army? That’s some gorgeous imagery.

But...

I don’t think Sansa would ever willingly choose to stay in the Vale if she had the option to go home to Winterfell:

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.

—Sansa VII, A Storm of Swords

One of the largest themes in the stories of the younger POV characters (Theon, Jon, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon (even though he’s not a POV character)) is that of home. Just go on A Search of Ice and Fire and search for the word “home” in each of those characters’ chapters. I think Sansa will end up at her home, with her pack. We know she must return at Winterfell at some point, as she has the final part of this prophecy to fulfill:

"I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief," the dwarf woman was saying. "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow."

—Arya VIII, A Storm of Swords

The wolf howling in the rain is Grey Wind (or Shaggydog/Rickon, since it’s raining on Skagos when Jon dreams of his “black brother”), the clangor is the Red Wedding and the bells are the ones on Jinglebell’s hat when Catelyn sawed at his throat, and the maid at the feast is Sansa. And Sansa will “slay a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” That castle is obviously Winterfell, although the fandom has yet to concretely agree on who the “savage giant” is.

Evidently, Sansa will return to Winterfell, and she probably has to get there before winter really starts setting in, or else the journey would be nearly impossible in the deadly weather. So, probably at some point in the next book.

Now, I believe that there’s a big moment coming for Sansa in TWOW: the moment where she unrepresses/uncovers her memories. Sansa knows a lot of important things. She knows the truth about Jon Arryn, she knows that her hair net was used to poison Joffrey, she knows that Littlefinger was involved in the disappearance of Jeyne Poole. Sansa’s memory swapping/adjusting/erasing/repressing (whatever you wanna call it) is important to her character. It’s her brain’s way of coping with the trauma she’s been through.

I think that one of these memories coming to the forefront is going to trigger something big: Littlefinger’s downfall. I speculate that what will most likely come out in the open first is what happened to Jeyne Poole. Sansa finding out what Baelish did to her closest childhood friend could definitely be what turns her against him.

Warning, I’m going to mention the sh*w here for a second. George has said that he wrote Sansa and Jeyne’s interactions into season 1, and that he tried to build Jeyne as a character, but her scenes were cut by the showrunners. Clearly, George cares about her, her friendship with Sansa, and her value in the story, he was very upset about the deletion of her character and of Sansa’s friendship with her.* I believe the reveal of what happened to Jeyne will be a major part of Sansa’s story in Winds. She’s repressed her memories of Jeyne and her disappearance because it is, understandably, too much for her mind to handle thinking about.

The reveal of this memory could be a catalyst to the other memories coming forward, especially since they involve Littlefinger. I think Sansa will be a key part in wrapping up the political aspect of the story, she can reveal the truth of why the Stark-Lannister conflict began all the way back in book 1. She can expose Littlefinger’s lies and schemes. That’s where I think her narrative is heading, at least in TWOW.

I’m not sure what Sansa’s story arc will be in ADOS (I’m not sure what anyone’s story will be in ADOS, but Sansa’s is a bit more of a blank page than others). If the Littlefinger conflict gets wrapped up in TWOW, I don’t know where her story will go from there. Supposedly, she could be in Winterfell at that point. What will happen then… well, then it’s Long Night time. Sansa is not one of the “key five players” (Tyrion, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Jon), but I still think she’ll have an important role in the book. I think Sansa and Arya’s relationship is something that will be focused on a lot through both of their chapters in the final novel. We’re going to see Ned’s quote, “you need her, as she needs you”, really matter.

No matter where her arc goes over the next two books, though, I do think she’ll end up at Winterfell. And like I said, I don’t think Sansa would choose to leave her home again after returning. I think that her story will end with her staying at Winterfell with the other kids. The Stark children would never willingly leave each other after reuniting. Jon literally describes the separation from his siblings as “a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness.” And, of course, the iconic line Ned delivers to Arya: “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” I don’t see any of their endings being them as “lone wolves” again.

So, to answer your question, I think the endgame for Sansa will be her back in Winterfell with her family, where she belongs, where she is strongest. I do suspect, however, that there will be some sort of epilogue at the end of ADOS, possibly a “10 years later” or somewhere along those lines. Where she’ll be then, I have no idea. She’ll probably be involved with something politically by then, like ruling or advising.

*Based on what George himself has said about the show’s post-season 4 portrayal of Sansa, I don’t think her story will be similar in any way to the show’s very different version of her character (same goes for everyone). George is typically very mild when talking about the show, saying stuff like “they chose to go down a different path with the story”, but this is one of the only times he flat out criticized the show for how wrong it is. He was very upset the show cut out her storyline. He has also said that “every character has a different end” in the books. So take from that what you will.

#this got really long wow #but i feel like the most interesting and important parts of sansa’s story are going to be what she does in the next two books #not necessarily where she ends up at the end #imo #anon #ask #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #sansa stark #twow #ados

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the-great-bbe · 3 years

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Ready or Not!

Rhaenys crawls under her father’s bed. Mama was quite clear: they were playing hide and seek, and Rhaenys needed to hide her best from all the men looking for her. She stifles a giggle into her little hands. After the count of ten—ready or not, here they come!

or a quick little fanfic, about our favorite game of hide and seek :)

Lyrics of “The Hide and Seek Song” copyright by Headquarters Music.

youtube

Who wants to play a game? It’s time for hide and seek!

Mama kisses Rhaenys’s forehead. Egg sleeps in his cradle, despite all the noise coming from outside. It sounds scary out there, but Rhaenys is safe with Mama and Egg. Mama will never let anything bad happen to her, not even the nightmares that scare Rhaenys in the middle of the night.

“Let’s play a game, my sweet.” Mama’s hands are shaking, and her voice is high pitched. But everything must be fine, because they’re going to play a game. And not just any game, but hide and seek! “Listen carefully. Many men will try and find us, but we can’t be found by anyone. When the game is over, I’ll come get you myself, do you understand? You must hide very well, not even Balerion can find you.”

Rhaenys nods. “I’m good at this game, Mama! I’ll hide forever and ever and then we’ll have honey cakes after dinner.” Maybe if Rhaenys hides the best she can, Mama will let her have two entire honey cakes!

Mama kisses her again, and hugs her so tight that Rhaenys squeaks against her shoulder. “My little sunshine, I love you so much. Now hide. Hide!”

Rhaenys scurries off. Mama is really worried even if she didn’t say so. This game must be very important—perhaps Grandfather is playing too, even though he never plays games. So where should she hide? Maybe behind the barrels in the wine cellar, or in the gardens? No, beneath Papa’s bed! No one ever goes in his room anymore, and the space is so small that only she and Balerion can fit!

She tiptoes up the stairs, and closes the bedroom door so that it’s almost shut but not entirely. Closed doors are more suspicious in hide and seek, after all. Then she tucks herself beneath the bed, and arranges the heavy bedspread so that it’s not wrinkled. Rhaenys shimmies to the very edge of where the bedframe meets the wall, and waits.

She waits, and waits. She almost wants to go back and ask Mama for how long they’re supposed to play, and how many players. But instead she wiggles with anticipation. Mama was quite clear: they were playing hide and seek, and Rhaenys needed to hide her best from all the men looking for her. And Rhaenys is the very best at hiding! She stifles a giggle into her little hands. After the count of ten, or maybe a hundred—ready or not, here they come!

Rhaenys spies a shadow by the almost-closed door, and holds her breath.

-- Run, run, run! Time to run and hide!

Run, run, run! And now I’m going to find you, scurry off into the darkness.

Hurry, I’m behind you!

Don’t you speak! Hide and seek!

“Myrcella! Myrcella, where are you?”

Myrcella bites her lip. Joffrey is no good at being a seeker, he gets too angry and starts shouting for her and the servant children. And of course the servants come out, and Joffrey is so mean when he catches someone! But not Myrcella—she is the very best at this game, and she would rather fall asleep beneath this dusty old bed than let Joffrey win.

Mother tells her to let Joffrey win, to keep him from throwing a tantrum, but Uncle Tyrion says that it’s good for even the Crown Prince to be told no every now and then. She sniffles. One of the serving girls showed her this hiding spot, saying that no one ever looks under here since it’s so deep in Maegoir’s Holdfast and who can fit beneath a bed anyway?

Why does the Hand even have this room—maybe this is where Lady Lysa is supposed to sleep, instead of in Lord Littlefinger’s rooms. Myrcella isn’t supposed to know about that, of course. But she knows a lot. She knows that Joffrey isn’t going to be a very good king, and that Mother and Father should’ve never married, and that the mean old black cat Tommen wants to catch had another owner before. Myrcella heard Uncle Jaime speak about him once, and the person who owned the cat before. Uncle Jaime says many things about before Myrcella was born, but only when he is drunk and sad.

She twists a bit of string around her string until her finger turns purple. By now Joffrey must have found Sweetrobin and Tommen. She hopes that Sweetrobin cried and punched Joffrey in the nose. He gets to hit Joffrey without getting in trouble, since his father is the Hand. Myrcella is just a girl though, and must be a sweet little lady who lets Joffrey do whatever he wants. Last time she complained to him about cheating in games, he bit her ear. Mother wiped her tears and told her to bear it with a smile. Myrcella stopped complaining after that, but it still burns in her stomach.

Father says he won’t be like this forever, at least. Myrcella hopes so. She imagines him fully grown, but still the same way, and instead of twisting her arm he twists her neck. Just like Tommen’s kitten that bit him once. Joffrey let the poor little creature under Tommen’s bed, and Tommen screamed about monsters for weeks afterward. She sighs. There aren’t any monsters here that Myrcella doesn’t already know.

Myrcella hears footsteps down the corridor and holds her breath. Oh, if Joffrey finds her, he’ll tug at her hair and scratch at her arms! He’ll be so horrible, he always is! She’d rather die than be found by him!

Tiptoe through the cellar or crawl under your bed.

Anywhere you’ve fled, I am going to find you!

Stay inside the shadows, all you girls and boys.

Don’t you make noise, or I am going to find you!

“Are you afraid?” Myriame asks Arya, but she shakes her head. She refuses to be afraid. Not now, when they’re still hiding from the men who took Father away and locked Sansa in her room.

She shivers and Myriame pats her arm. She’s one of the serving girls—Arya heard Father call them Lord Varys’s little birds, once. Before everything went so wrong. But when Father was taken, a group of serving girls took Arya by the arm and hid with her in an alcove. They cut her hair, they dirtied her face, they shredded her fine dress and pinned a dirty pinafore to her shoulders. No more Arya Stark, just Nan. Nan, amongst Myriame, and Celia, and Delight, and Sera. Just another serving girl hiding behind curtains, nor beneath the bed.

“It will be alright,” Myriame whispers. “The only ones who go down here are us. Everyone else gets caught like Princess Myrcella. Those men won’t ever get us.”

Arya shivers. No one speaks of Princess Myrcella and how she disappeared without a trace. Did bad men steal her away like Father and Sansa? She dares to ask, “How do you know?”

But then their breath because there’s men outside their room. Their voices are harsh and drip with ill intent. One of them calls Sansa a whore and Arya wants to stab his eyes out with Needle. But then they enter the room and she squeezes her eyes shut and holds her hands over her nose and mouth. They can’t find her. They can’t! They’ll take her away from Father and Sansa, and who knows what they’ll do to Myriame!

There are four beds in this room, a servants’ dorm. Arya dares to peek. They check beneath one bed. Then another. One of the men cackles, “I can smell you, little girl! Where are you hiding?”

Neither of them dare to breathe. The man says in a high pitched mockery voice, “Ready or not, here I come!”

Arya burrows into Myriame’s side and waits to die. There is noise, yelling, shouting, terrible noise. Then there is heavy silence, only broken by Myriame’s breaths. Arya doesn’t dare open her eyes. Not for a second.

Myriame murmurs again that it will be alright, but Arya keeps her eyes firmly shut, counting the seconds.

Run, run, run! Creep up on my grave!

Run, run, run! Stalk the night away!

Scuttle off into the night! But what’ll be behind you?

Don’t you speak! Hide and seek!

Tywin barricades the doors shut in his wrath. How do two grown knights go missing in daylight?! And not just any knights, but his own—he needs Gregor Clegane’s bloodlust to scour the Riverlands, like a beast on a leash. And Amory Lorch is slime suited for the most unsavory tasks that Tywin cannot do. But they are gone, disappeared without a trace.

Just like his granddaughter Myrcella.

He sheaves himself onto his chair and pours himself a goblet from a blood red decanter. Years have passed, and still Cersei blames the Dornish. But even Tywin can’t point the finger at them, as there is no evidence at all. Myrcella simply played hide and seek one day, and was never found. Most likely some depraved monster of a servant took the girl for his own desires and threw her into the Blackwater, a fate entirely underserved for anyone of House Lannister. The fact that the girl was too sweet to harm a fly just makes the wound sting greater. Without her calming influence, Joffrey is an unhinged little bastard, and Tommen a spineless fool. What is Cersei teaching her children?

Not to mention she’s let both Stark girls escape! First Arya in the chaos after Eddard Stark’s arrest, then Sansa from a barricaded room! Last Tywin heard, they were both back in their mother’s custody at Riverrun. And Robb Stark is proving himself to be a wolf on the battlefield—he’ll have to deal with the boy himself. If he can stop him from overtaking the Riverlands and spilling into the Westerlands! Tywin could gouge his daughter’s eyes out for her folly. They will never get Jaime back, now that they’ve lost their bargaining chips!

Tywin hears footsteps lead up to his door and barks, “I am to be undisturbed!” He doesn’t hear them head back down the stairwell, and he growls to himself. Idiots, he is surrounded by idiots! He stalks to the door and swings open the door.

There is no one there. He blinks, then closes it. He turns back towards his chair, and the window is open. Cold sweat beads at his brow. He never opened that window, and yet the curtains blow in the wind.

A princess and two knights go missing in broad daylight without a trace. This must be the work of faceless Men from Braavos, paid to…to what? Myrcella is an obvious target, if less obvious than Joffrey or Tommen. But why Clegane and Lorch? Perhaps this is a Dornish ploy, as revenge for Princess Elia and her children—

Something falls over in his adjoined privy and Tywin swears he hears footsteps come up the stairwell once more. He steals into his bedroom without so much as a whisper, as one breath. He must hide. The wardrobe’s doors are swinging in the breeze. The Faceless Man will hear him close them, surely. But where else? His heart pounds in his temples and his vision swims. By the gods, are they already inside the room?

He looks down. It is insulting, but his only choice. Tywin squeezes himself beneath his bed and pushes himself towards the wall. The walls themselves are hollow, to allow the servants to attend without disturbing his betters. If he can find the trapdoor without alerting the assassin, he can survive this.

He is Tywin Lannister, the true ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. He will not die here! He holds his breath, and wills his numb hands to stop shaking.

Like a frog inside a skillet, a lobster in a pan.

You don’t understand that I am going to find you!

Be still as a mountain and quiet as a mouse, ‘cause any little sound,

And I will surely find you!

Joffrey is dead. Joffrey is dead! And the castle isn’t safe! Tommen scurries into an abandoned room deep in Maegor’s Holdfast. There’s just a trundle bed in the corner, boxes piled on top of each other in the center, and dust coating everything. Once, Myrcella showed him this room while playing hide and seek—but that was when she was still here. Even years later, no one understands what happened to her, or to Gregor Clegane, or Amory Lorch, or to Grandfather. Mother blames the wicked Dornish. Joffrey blames evil Northmen magic. But Tommen knows, he knows that it’s the monsters. He has seen them in the night! They are in the walls! They are beneath the beds!

Tommen told Margaery to run before he fled the wedding feast. He hopes she survives. But he can’t think of more than finding his hiding place. He’ll never make it out of the castle, not with the smallfolk starving and so angry at them. He’ll sneak out at night, before the monster goes feeding. And then he’ll head…somewhere. Anywhere but here!

Try as he might, Joffrey haunts his steps. His bloated purple face, the bile and blood spilling down his chin to pool in Mother’s lap. Mother screamed and screamed when he died, like the day when they couldn’t find Myrcella or Father. The monsters must have killed him too, like everything else in this castle. And now he is alone!

Tommen shrieks, and claws at his hair. He can’t breathe! They can hear him! They can smell him! He is next!

He crouches down on the bed in the corner. He wills himself to breathe but he’s too afraid. Joffrey is dead! Myrcella is dead! Grandfather is dead! Will they ever find his body?! Tommen chokes on his sobs and his entire chest aches. He hurts. It hurts. The fear, it hurts, make it stop—

He collapses to the ground. He writhes, and scoots beneath the bed, and muffles his screams into the dust and the dark.

Tick—tick—tock, are you ready or not?

Tick—tick—tock, listen to the clock!

Hasten off into the black, don’t waste another heartbeat,

Don’t you peek! Hide and seek!

Dragons roar from over Kings Landing, and Cersei sobs into her hands. She should be on the Iron Throne to meet the usurpers, but then they burned her Kingsguard at the gates and—and she panicked. She ran, and hid beneath a servant’s bed.

King Aegon Targaryen the Sixth, come back from the dead! With silver-gold hair and bronze skin and indigo eyes, thirty thousand Dornish spears at his back and that miserable little chit Shireen Baratheon as a bride with the Stormlands as her dowry! And Daenerys Stormborn, Queen Beyond the Sea, come to help her nephew claim his throne with their shared dragons! They each ride one, with one reserved for the sister that Lannister men murdered along with godsdamned Elia Martell! Cersei could scream, but then they’d find her.

She must escape.

If she makes her way back to Casterly Rock, then she shall be saved. No dragon can defeat the heart of the Westerlands! Cersei can still salvage this, even with all her family dead and her dreams scattered to ashes in her throat—

At least there is no valonqar. The prophecy took her children from her, but her neck is still her own.

At least she got to hold Joffrey as he died. Myrcella and Tommen had no bodies to bury. He was her first, and her last, and she prays that he found his siblings from wherever those wretched monsters stole them away.

Muffled footsteps creep from beyond the corridor and Cersei can’t breathe. A servant? A Dornish spear? A Dothraki? Daenerys? Aegon? A monster?

Bare feet enter the room, splattered with dirt and blood. One of Varys’s little birds? They skip to the edge of the bed, and a sweet voice rings out, “Found you!”

Swift as night and brutal as the Blackwater, a hand reaches under and grips Cersei by the hair. She screams as she is dragged out, and then she can’t scream because hands are at her throat and twisting—

Let the countdown begin!

10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1!

Rhaenys peeks out from behind the door. All is still and silent. Not even the flies are buzzing. She stifles a giggle into her hands. Aegon raises an eyebrow, and she explains, “Everyone always hides under the bed. A child’s mistake, it can be forgiven with time and wisdom.”

He shakes his head, before resting his chin on her head. “You’ll never need to hide beneath the bed again, I swear it.”

“I know.” She trusts her brother. She loved him before he could even remember her face, of course she trusts him. Him, and their aunt Daenerys, and their family in Dorne, and all her friends hiding in the walls—Rhaenys shall never be alone again.

Her family are in the throne room, and she shouldn’t keep them waiting. How happy they will be to see her! How happy she will be to see them! The weight of years of hiding bows her shoulders. It is time for her to stop hiding, stop seeking, stop this game and take her place in Aegon’s circle. He will be so proud to see how she’s survived. Mama would be proud. But Rhaenys…well, old habits die hard.

She shimmies beneath the bed and pulls Aegon down with her. He laughs and she lets the shadows become her. Just once more. Once more, the darkness becomes her. Rhaenys bares her teeth in a grin. What better tool for a new king than a monster who knows where everyone hides? Aegon survived the last game between them, and she’ll keep it that way.

She tells Aegon to count to ten, and he holds his breath.

A clock ticks somewhere.

There are many who covet the throne. And the countdown begins anew.

Ready or not, here I come!

#becky blue eyes #asoiaf fanfiction #horror fanfiction #rhaenys targaryen

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dany-is-my-queen · 4 years

Text

Born To Be Yours | Part IV

Sansa Stark x Fem! Baratheon! Reader (Daenerys Targaryen x Fem! Baratheon! Reader)

Season 1-8

Word Count: 1,696

Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.5 Pt.6 Pt.7 Pt.8 Pt.9

“Has he done this before?” Ned asked, referring to Cersei’s wounded cheek.

“My brother would have killed him.” She answered.

”Your brother or your lover?”

“Jaime and I shared a womb. We came into this world together, we belong together. Do you love your children?”

“With all my heart.”

“No more than I love mine.” She confidently said.

“And they are all Jaime’s, except for Y/N.”

“The hair gives her away. I used to have resentment against her. Being the only creation that we brought to the world. Y/N was the only time we really gave it a try. A man who didn’t give a fuck for me. He never loved me but he loves her.” The Lannister woman held a neutral tone.

“When the King returns I will tell him the truth. You must be gone by then. Take the rest of your children and go.”

“You should have climbed those steps. When you play the game of thrones you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” Lord Eddard Stark discovered the secret Lord Arryn died for. It wasn’t his territory anymore.

“I should have spent more time with you. Show you how to be a man. You can learn a big deal from Y/N. I was never meant to be a father. Everyone out!” Cersei looked suspiciously at Ned, Joffrey left the room retaining the tears, not processing what was happening.

“Except you, thanks the gods for blessing me with a daughter like you.” You held his hand tightening the grip. “The girl, Daenerys. You and Ned were right. Varys, Littlefinger, my brother. worthless. No one would tell me no but the two of you. You are much alike. So honorable. She changed my mind. Let her live. Stop it if it’s not too late.”

“We will.”

“And my son, help him. Make him better than me. Help your brother. He’s not ready. Give him your council to make wise choices.” You nodded sobbing.

“I shall always remember this strength you gave.”

“It comes from yourself. Now give me a moment with this fool. And Y/N, don’t be scared even in the face of danger.”

“His grace has had a change of heart concerning Daenerys Targaryen. Princess Y/N convinced him. Whatever arrangements you made, unmade them. At once.” Your father’s best friend declared.

“I’m afraid those birds have flown. The girl is likely dead by now.” You scowled.

“But if it’s not the case stop sending sell swords or assassins to do the job. Also if it’s possible send other birds to abort the mission. That’s a command, Lord Varys.”

“Yes, my princess.” This Targaryen girl will survive.

You once more found little Arya with his dancing teacher, you approached while she was off guard earning a slight hit on your arm.

“I didn’t see you there.” The small one exclaimed.

“We don’t need eyes to see what’s around us, boy.” Syrio reminded her.

“I’m sorry about your father, Y/N.” You sat on the stairs. “I miss Robb, Bran, Rickon and Jon so much. Unlike Sansa, I prefer the North.”

“I met Jon. He seemed to be a good brother, better than Joffrey that’s for sure.”

“He gave me a sword. I named it Needle. I don’t have it here, I’ll show it to you tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait.” You smiled.

“Do you have any bastard siblings?”

“Plenty of them. But it is highly unlikely we’ll ever meet.” You squinted, thinking about the possibility.

“Wish I had a sister like you, mine hates me.”

“I don’t think you hate each other. You just have different opinions, different preferences. You share more than blood. I see a lot of potencial in you. You cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.” She closed her eyes and proceeded with her classes.

This was crazy. Your mother locked you in your room. The King was dead. Everything was out of place.

“What‘s going on? Why you locked me up?” You shouted to Cersei. She frantically sighed.

“It was a precaution. We don’t know where your loyalty stands, Y/N. Your brother is the King now. Your friend’s father conspired to dethrone him and seize it from himself.”

“That’s insanity...-“

“The little bird was on her room. I haven’t seen the other.” Sandor entered with the redhead.

“Where’s Lady Arya?”

“We have guards looking for her. She won’t be able to hide forever.”

“Princess, what’s happening?” She anxiously asked. After your mother explained what her lord father allegedly did, she made her write a message to his older brother Robb, asking him to come to King’s Landing and swear fealty to Joffrey. You also learned from Lord Baelish that Renly and Loras flee the city before they took the Lord of Winterfell as a prisoner.

“My father would never do that! He is not a traitor” She spat once you two were alone.

“I know, my lady. It must be a misunderstanding.” You said trying to calm her nerves.

“Where do they took him?”

“To the dungeons, I suppose. Things are going to clarify.” The pretty little dove was completely bewildered, same as you.

That very night you went undercover to see the alleged offender.

“Lord Eddard. I brought you some water. Are you okay?” Holding a torchlight, you removed your hood kneeling to give him the canteen.

“Thanks for visiting me. I’m worried about my daughters. You know where they are?”

“We haven’t found Arya, we‘re still on the search. Sansa is alright, she’s under custody. I will protect her.”

“Thank you, Y/N.”

“Treason, my lord? I don’t think that makes sense. Why would you say my brother is not the rightful heir?” You raised an eyebrow.

“You are a clever young princess, I’m surprised you haven’t noticed yet.”

“About what?”

“I didn't know if it was appropriate to tell you.” He took another big gulp. “You are the only highborn child Robert had. Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella are your uncle Jaime’s bastards. Your mother confessed it to me the other day. They tried to kill Bran cause he saw them. Don’t say a word, not even mention it or you might face the same fate. Though you are the princess is better to be careful with your family.” He was speaking the truth. Deep down you’ve always suspected it, however it was hard to assimilate.

“Y-yes, I won’t say anything to anyone.” You promised. “If you bend the knee and say he is the one true heir to the crown, you might live.”

“Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say. You have a gentle heart, don’t let the wrong people take advantage of it.” The late hand cautioned.

You were in the Thorne Room. Your mother called Ser Barristan, he stepped forward facing the new King. A huge crowd was there. You stood beside the Stark girl.

“You served the Realm good and faithfully. Every man and woman in the seven kingdoms owns you thanks. But it is time to put aside your armor and your sword. It is time to rest and look with pride at your many years of service.” The lioness said.

“Your Grace, the king's guards is a sworn brotherhood. Only death realizes us for our sacred trust.” He replied.

“You let my father died. You are too old to protect anybody.” The boy on the throne yelled.

“The council has determined Ser Jaime Lannister as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.” Jaime wasn’t even here, that was stupid.

“A man who profane his blade against the king he swore to defend.”

“Careful, Ser.”

“I am a knight. I shall die a knight! Here boy, melted it out and add it to the others.” He threw his sword and left the room.

“If anyone else has other matters to set before his grace, let him speak now or go ford and told his silence.” The northerner squeezed your hand before speaking.

“Your grace.”

“Lady Sansa of the House Stark.”

“Do you have some business with the king and the council, Sansa?”

“I do. As it pleases your grace I ask mercy for my father. Lord Eddard Stark who was hand of the King.”

“Treason is...-“ Pycelle interrupted her.

“Let her speak. I want to hear what she says.” Joffrey declared.

“Thank you, your grace.” You didn’t peel away your glance off her.

“Do you deny your father’s crime?” Baelish inquired.

“No, my lords, I know he must be punished. All I ask is mercy. I know my lord father must regret what he did. He was king Robert's friend and he loved him. You all know he loved him. He never wanted to be hand until the king asked him. They must have lied to him. Lord Renly or Lord Stannis or somebody. They must have lied!” He was clearly nervous, how could she not be? You wanted to intervene and help but you remained silence, it wasn’t the place.

“He said I wasn’t the king. Why would he say that?”

“He was badly hurt. Maester Pycelle was giving him milk of the poppy. He wasn’t himself otherwise he never would have said it.”

“A child’s faith... such sweet innocence. And yet they say wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes.” Lord Varys commented.

“Treason is treason!” The old maester repeated.

“Anything else?”

“If you still have any affection in your heart for me, please do me this kindness your grace.” She pleaded.

“Your sweet words have moved me. But your father needs to confess and say that I am the king or there will be no mercy for him.”

“He will.” You hope so too.

“Mother, please.” She walked passed ignoring you.

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“You are Queen Regent. You know the consequences.”

“Joffrey, have mercy. If you order to have his head you’ll bring war here. The North will fight you. Thousands and thousands of innocent people will die. You can prevent it.”

“You won’t tell me what to do, little sister.” He immediately dismissed you.

#sansa stark x reader #sansa x fem baratheon reader #game of thrones fic #got #baratheon reader #house baratheon

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joachimnapoleon · 4 years

Text

The Flutist

This latest addition to my and @histoireettralala‘s ever-growing Trifecta AU was partially inspired by our love of the fact that Michel Ney played the flute, and partially by a scenario we randomly came up with one day regarding baby Louise Murat being fascinated with Ney’s red hair.

... Also, partially by my constant need for Marshalate fluff these days.

Enjoy! :)

***

[Age: 1]

Michel Ney can't remember the last time he's been stared down this hard by a baby. But he is prepared to give as good as he gets; blue eyes lock on to blue eyes. The contest commences.

He hasn't spent much time around this one-year-old who bears such a striking resemblance to her father. In addition to sharing his eyes (both in color and mischief), little Louise Murat has also inherited Joachim's dark, curly hair, rounded chin, and thickset lips.

His attention span, too, apparently, Ney thinks, as the baby quickly grows bored with the stare-down; the wide blue eyes shift upwards. Settling on Ney's hair, they widen yet further.

Murat, holding the squirming child, grins at Ney.

"You're the first redhead she's ever seen."

Ney can't help but smile.

A plump little arm stretches towards him. A stream of incomprehensible baby gibberish babbles forth.

"I think she wants to touch your hair," Murat interprets without missing a beat. "Is that okay?"

Ney chuckles. "Sure, why not."

Murat gently lowers baby Louise, guiding her wobbly steps--she has only recently started walking--across the narrow gap on the sofa between the two men. A moment later she latches onto Ney's shoulder, mouth agape in wonder as she continues studying the red hair intently.

"Bababababa," Louise says, staring Ney in the face.

"My, aren't you a talkative one," Ney replies. "Just like your Papa." He gives her a wink.

"She is indeed," Murat says proudly.

A tiny hand reaches towards Ney's hair.

"Gently, sweetheart," says Murat.

"It's okay," Ney reassures him.

Her face full of wonder, baby Louise pets and pats the strange red hair, narrating the exploration with a series of random coos and gurgles. Murat is smiling in delight; he pulls out his cellphone to take a picture--no, a video! Caroline and Aglaé will both love this!

Ney is beaming too--until Louise suddenly grabs a fistful of his hair and gives it a much sharper yank than he would expect from a one-year-old.

"AHHH-D-D-D-D-D" Ney grits his teeth, bending down slightly towards the baby to alleviate the pulling. He sees Louise opening her mouth wide and--Wait, is she trying to--

Yes. Louise is trying to eat his hair.

"JOAC--"

But Murat has already dropped the phone and is hastily reaching over to gently extract Louise's hand from Ney's hair, scooping the baby up into his arms. The little girl looks, for a moment, as if she is about to cry--she flails towards Ney, whining--but Murat is an expert at this sort of thing, and has her distracted and laughing again in no time.

Twenty minutes later, Murat has to take a phone call.

"Go on," Ney says. "I can keep an eye on her."

"Thanks."

By the time he returns, the reconciliation is complete: Louise is sound asleep, snuggling against (and drooling on) Ney's shoulder. She hadn't even tried to eat his hair again.

Murat reaches out tentatively. "Here, I can--"

--Ney shoots him an indignant look, unconsciously pulling the slumbering baby away from her father.

"Um. Okay then," Murat says, chuckling as he runs a hand through his hair. "Just, you know, make sure to give her back to me eventually."

"Do I have to?"

"Yeah. I've gotten pretty attached to her."

That makes two of us. He and Aglaé have four sons, but no daughters. He'd always hoped a girl would come along for them eventually, but it didn't seem to be in the cards. Now all of a sudden, tiny Louise Murat, with her wild curls and curious blue eyes and grabby little hands, has stolen his heart.

Either Ney's face is betraying his thoughts far more than he means for it to, or Murat is a mind-reader.

"Tell you what," Murat says with a knowing smile. "How 'bout if we share?"

"Deal."

***

[Age: 6]

Ney has been invited to a tea party.

Although he isn't entirely sure whether "invited" is the right word.

Actual invitations can be declined. But Louise has no sooner "invited" Ney to the tea party than she takes him by the wrist and begins dragging him up the stairs. He looks down at BunBun, being likewise dragged along by Louise's other hand. The giant, floppy stuffed rabbit has been Louise's favorite toy since Murat brought him home from a recent trip to an amusement park with Ney and Lannes. Apparently BunBun has been "invited" to the tea party too.

"Is there going to be room for both me and BunBun?" Ney asks.

"Yes," Louise says. "It's a big table. And you're my special guest!"

"I thought BunBun was your special guest?"

"BunBun lives here," Louise says dismissively. "You're my special, SPECIAL guest."

"Well then," Ney says, "I consider myself honored."

They finally reach the top of the stairs and Louise opens the door to Letitia's room, where all the tea parties are hosted.

Already seated at the table are Letitia, Mr. Bear, and Murat, the latter scrunched precariously into a pink plastic chair that is clearly much too small for him.

"Greetings!" Murat says with a broad grin. "I take it Louise invited you?"

"Indeed," Ney confirms with a nod. "I'm a special, special guest."

***

[Age: 10]

Ney's fingers flutter expertly over the keys of his flute; the cheerful notes of Bach's Partita in A Minor peal through the air. It is a difficult piece, but also a long-time favorite, and after playing it for so many years, he has little need to reference the sheet music in front of him anymore.

He had fallen in love with the instrument at twelve years old. The only boy in his school band to choose the flute, Ney had endured some teasing from his peers for picking what they considered a "girl's instrument," but it had never fazed him. In his eyes, it was their loss for not being able to appreciate the flute's beauty and versatility.

By high school he was the best flutist in his class, and his talents ended up earning him a college scholarship. In college, they helped him charm Aglaé, who played the clarinet in the college orchestra. And the rest was history; as far as he was concerned, Ney could trace all of his current happiness to learning to play the flute during his childhood.

He had hoped one of his sons would develop a liking for it as well, but so far they were all gravitating to--Ney grimaces inwardly--the brass section. Where did I go wrong?

Ney concludes the final notes of the piece, and is startled to hear applause. He turns to see Murat and little Louise, clapping happily from the doorway.

"That was so pretty Uncle Michel!" Louise exclaims.

"Incredible!" says Murat. "Why have I never heard you play before?"

Ney blushes. "I rarely play in public anymore. Thanks though, I'm glad you liked it."

"Well you absolutely should play in public more! Our friends would love to hear it! Isn't that right, darling?" he asks Louise.

"Papa is right! You play so good!" the ten-year-old says.

"Thank you, my dear."

"May I hold the flute? I've never held a flute before."

"Yes, of course!" Ney hands Louise the flute. The child studies the instrument in rapt fascination, running her littlefingers over the intricate keys and tubes.

"Next year she'll be old enough to play in the school band," Murat says.

"Oh yeah? Has she chosen an instrument yet?"

Murat looks down at his daughter, who is still captivated by the flute. He smiles.

"Possibly." ***

[Age 11]

The following year when Murat informed Ney that Louise had, indeed, decided she wanted to learn to play the flute for the school band, Ney had scarcely been able to contain his joy.

"Also," Murat began, "she's wondering if you'd be willing to teach her some of the basics, before her formal lessons begin next month?"

"Tell her I would be delighted to."

Sitting in the Murats' beautiful garden now, he has, so far, taught Louise how to put the flute together, what all the various parts are called, how to clean the instrument, how to hold it, and proper posture. Now, for the most important part: how to make the sound come out.

He shows her how to form the necessary embouchure--the positioning of the lips in relation to the blowhole of the flute--and demonstrates with his own flute: a clear, sonorous B-flat emanates through the garden.

Louise tries to copy his face, and blows into her flute.

PPHHHHHTHTHHTHTHTHHHHH.

She tries again.

PPHHHHHTHTHHTHTHTHHHHH.

And again.

PPHHHHHTHTHHTHTHTHHHHH.

Louise is dismayed. It isn't working! Is her flute broken?

She hands the instrument to Ney; he holds it up, arranges his embouchure, and plays another B-flat.

"Your flute works perfectly," he says reassuringly.

Louise tries again and again, over and over, but still fails to get any sound to come out of the flute. Ney can see that she is getting frustrated.

"Don't be discouraged," he tells her. "This is usually the hardest part for every beginner."

"Was it hard for you too?"

"Oh yes. It took me hours to do it right the first time. And multiple lessons. I was in total despair after a while, but then I just... did it. Somehow. And once I made that first note, I didn't have any problems doing it again. It was like something had just clicked, and now I could play the flute. So, don't worry. You'll get it eventually, I promise. We're not going to give up. Okay?"

"Okay."

A little over an hour later, the PPHHHHHTHTHHTHTHTHHHHH suddenly morphs into a resounding OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Louise lowers the flute, staring at Ney with wide eyes.

"Uncle Michel!! I did it!!! I'm playing the flute!!!!" she raises the flute again and, making the same embouchure as before, plays a full, crystal-clear note.

Ney turns away just for a brief instant, to wipe away a sudden, unexpected tear.

***

Ney makes his way towards the front row, his eyes finding Murat's curly hair in the dim light of the school auditorium.

"Glad you could make it!" Murat greets him. "Caroline and I saved you a seat."

"Thank you," Ney says, sitting down beside his friend. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Louise has been working very hard for the past six months, and tonight is her first concert with the school band. Additionally--and Murat had barely able to contain his excitement when he'd told Ney--she was going to be performing a duet with another student. The band instructor had been so delighted with the progress of both girls so far, that he wanted to give them a moment in the spotlight to showcase their developing talents.

"Is she nervous?" Ney asks.

"Honestly, I think she's more nervous about playing in front of you than anything," Murat chuckles.

Ney grins. "I can't imagine why. We practice together all the time!"

"Yes, exactly. She's worried she's going to mess up and disappoint you."

"No, that won't happen," Ney says firmly.

The concert begins. While the band of eleven- and twelve-year-olds performs its ensemble, Caroline dutifully records it on her phone, Murat sniffles and wipes his teary eyes with a handkerchief throughout, and Ney wallows in nostalgia, vividly remembering his own days playing with the school band. He smiles at the sight of Louise, so poised for her age, playing every song without missing a beat, as if she'd been in the band for years.

"My little princess," Murat wibbles during the break between pieces, falling apart into the handkerchief again. Caroline smiles and runs her fingers through his hair, but Ney can't help but notice her own eyes are glistening in the darkness of the auditorium.

"You should've seen him when Letitia played the Butterfly Queen in her first school play," Caroline tells Ney.

Murat gives a shuddering sob into the handkerchief at the memory; Ney, shoulders shaking, conceals his laughter behind a hand.

Now it is time for Louise's duet. She is introduced to the audience. Only the firm hand of Caroline on his forearm keeps Murat from springing up out of his chair to cheer for his daughter.

"Don't embarrass her, dearest," Caroline whispers reprovingly.

"Right. Sorry," Murat says sheepishly.

Louise and her companion begin playing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," with the band instructor accompanying them on thepiano.

Ney smiles. The Ninth Symphony has always held a special place in his heart, and now it is going to be even morespecial.

Louise hits every note perfectly.

The audience applauds after the girls finish their performance. Louise curtseys, lighting up at the sight of her parents and Uncle Michel in the front row. She gives them a wave before returning to her seat with the rest of the band.

Murat is a mess. But Ney is surprised to find his own face suddenly wet too. He fumbles through his pockets for a tissue. Damn it all. Probably should've anticipated this.

Murat hands him a handkerchief.

"I always bring a spare," he explains.

"Thanks." Maybe I should too. What is happening to him? He's slowly turning into Murat--a big, blubbery, walking catastrophe. Oh God.

After the concert, he stoops to give Louise a hug.

"Did I do good, Uncle Michel?"

"You were brilliant, my dear. I'm more proud of you than I can possibly put into words."

Louise is beaming. She hopes he'll come with Papa and Mama to all her concerts from now on.

"As your special guest?" Ney asks.

"My special, SPECIAL guest."

Murat claps him on the shoulder cheerfully.

"In that case," he says, "you might want to order some handkerchiefs."

***End***

#Trifecta AU #Papa!Murat AU #The Flutist #the second fluffiest fluff I've ever written #@histoireettralala

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esther-dot · 4 years

Text

Jonsa fic recs from 2017 -part 2

2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 (1)

the quiet balance of wolves by @sevensneakyfoxes (Words: 12,122)

“I’ve had endless men make promises to me, Jon. About safety, happiness… whether I would see his face again. I’ve never had one keep them until you.”

“Sansa.”

“Robb left me to the Lannisters, Tyrion abandoned me, Littlefinger bartered me off like a prize broodmare, Ramsay…” Sansa takes a deep breath. “Even when I was horrible to you, I knew you cared for me. Loved our family even though we often punished you for a sin that was never yours, regardless of who your parents really were. I took it for granted for so long, the depth of your forgiveness. You had no reason to protect me, but I knew riding to the Wall that you would.” Her eyes are glassy. “You’re all I have left, but that is not why I would choose you.”

Seasons of Wine by @geekprincess26 (Words: 1,399)

“Four years later, as summer faded into autumn, the Dragon Queen visited Winterfell again, and once again, Sansa drank wine at the welcoming feast. She heard the queen’s attendants whispering that the Lady of Winterfell must not be much accustomed to the wine, for her eyes shone and a flush covered her face after only one goblet, and she smiled like a fool over every word her husband the Lord Jon said. Sansa’s smile only grew, for she would never bother telling them that her eyes shone because she felt Jon interlace his fingers with hers underneath the table, and she blushed because she saw his adoring gaze from across the room when she was making her rounds to greet the queen’s courtiers, and she smiled when Jon spoke because his voice had called her out of her nightmares countless times until they began to lessen and fade.”

do you miss me the way i miss you? by @youcancalllmequeenjane (4,798)

“It’s only later, after Arya falls asleep in her crib and Jon dozes in the chair beside of her that Sansa wonders if she loves him now a little bit more.”

Take Me to Wife by @ladyjonquilinthenorth now @sansastargaryens (Words: 1,457)

“Take me to wife, Jon Snow”, she says in the godswood where he retreats to brood over a further course of actions, and kisses him shyly on the lips, the way she dreamed of doing, for so many moons. He tastes like comfort.

And home.

A Tantalizing Glimpse by HazelG (Words: 4,926)

„Don’t“, he said again, this time a warning in his voice, as if he dared her to disappear again, or else. And Sansa gave up. She leaned her head against his shoulder, held her nose to his neck and breathed him in and this time Bran saw goosebumps all over Jon’s skin. He saw – though Sansa couldn’t with her head on his chest – the conflicting emotions dancing across his brother’s face. Delight, digust, relief, fear – and then all of that disappeared and his arms came up around her and he held her to his heart with an abandon and passion that Bran had last seen when they had first met at Castle Black.

Bran always lost track of time in his peeks of what was, what is and what could be but this time he truly didn’t know anymore how much time had passed as he watched his brother and sister embracing and holding onto each other for dear life, looking so much like his father and mother had.

Not Yours (Envy) by @amymel86 (Words: 9,328)

"He doesn't deserve you."

His words were followed by a long silent moment, charged with something brewing beneath the surface. The air became thick with it - that something exciting, unknown and equally terrifying. Jon had spoken out against his family, against his brother, against the Crown Prince, against her betrothed. He watched Sansa's eyes follow the bob of his throat as he swallowed. Feeling some rainwater slowly trickle down the back of his neck, he licked his lips and was pleased by how her own tongue seemed to mimic his actions as they stared at one another.

"Doesn't he?" She whispered, eyes still intent on Jon's mouth.

"No....Not at all."

It is the truth.

"But he is a Prince."

"He's an ass."

Sansa tried to hide her smile by casting her gaze downwards.

"So I am to be the wife of an ass?"

"You shouldn't be" Jon breathed.

"Whose wife should I be then?" Sansa asked, her gaze flitting from his eyes and back down to his mouth, making a map of his features.

Mine.

#jonsa #my favorite jonsa fics #dot recommends #and there will be a 2017 part 3 #because i still haven't gotten through them all!#great year for jonsa fics #q

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apiratecalledav · 4 years

Note

Is there other stuff that makes you think hbo messed with gendrya?

Oh, man, I’m probably gonna be thought of as the Murray Bauman of the fandom…. But yeah, there’s actually quite a bit that makes me think that it’s possible. When season 8 first aired, I thought that maybe executive meddling shot them down for some reason, most logically to protect spinoff potential. They might have let the show “test the waters” but ultimately wanted them left ambiguous.

I thought it was… interesting… that Gendry and Arya had by far the gentlest, most amicable breakup in the entire series— and that it was over Gendry’s lordship that he straight up said wasn’t worth anything without Arya—when HBO UK made a cryptic tweet that made me wonder if someone high up was leery of the pairing/fan reaction. If they wanted the option for an Arya Stark spinoff someday, I could see why they wouldn’t want her to end in a relationship they thought might be poorly received.

I also thought that maybe since Gendrya went so far out of the show’s usual M.O. (to the point that it was one of the very few things about season 8 that I was wildly off about) that their thought process might have plausibly been something like, “Gendrya can’t be endgame? Well, fuck it. We’ll go all out and have them do pretty much everything else: Make out, spend the night together, save the world, say, ‘I love you,’ and get down on one knee to propose.”

I also thought that I was probably just a tinfoil-hat-wearing weirdo saying, “My OTP wasn’t definitively endgame! It must be a conspiracy.”

But I rewatched the whole season a little while ago and I noticed some things that I think are… interesting. Although, you should keep in mind that it was during two VERY long and VERY boring days at work where I had nothing to do.

I could just be shipper trash, seeing what I wanna see. Maybe not. I’m just saying that I’d believe it if something was up. From the way they portrayed Arya and Gendry, in general and especially in comparison to Jon/D-ny (I’ve anti tagged but if you don’t have blacklisting enabled, this is your fair warning), I could believe that the writers like the ship. And while Arya is certainly not the poster child for perfect mental health, there isn’t anything to suggest she would be toxic in a long term relationship. She isn’t selfish or cruel. I also don’t think that she hates herself the way that Sandor and Jaime did and that she believes she deserves to be “punished” or alone. She didn’t say anything to Gendry about not wanting to be a wife, just not a lady.

They’re consistently portrayed as a healthier/more favorable foil to Jon and D-ny:

In 8x01, D-ny swoops down on Winterfell and is cavalier as fuck about resources. She has no comment about food except that dragons eat “whatever they want.” The next scene, we see Gendry running to catch a chunk of dragonglass that was about to tumble out of the wagon. He tells everyone to be careful because they need every last bit of it. He then goes on to climb up the wagon, much like Arya did in the pilot episode. I think it’s even in the same spot. If not, it’s very similar.

Also 8x01, D-ny tells Jon, “keep your Queen warm” and while they are kissing, Jon keeps opening his eyes and freaking out because scary dragons are eyeballing him. And D-ny is pretty much like, “Don’t worry about it, it’s cool.” Even though she’s already made a few jokes about how if they decide to roast Jon then he’s shit outta luck and she threatened Sansa. Then the very next scene is Gendry and Sandor just before Arya finds them. Arya teases Gendry as well but she also defends him from Sandor, compliments him, jokes he should “keep close to that forge” if he’s cold and tells him not to call her Lady Stark. They laugh and banter and all awkwardness fades away and they’re both grinning like dorks. Arya actively wants Gendry to see them as equals; D-ny subconsciously wants Jon in his place.

Even as the dead are practically in their backyard, D-ny keeps obsessing about the throne. Meanwhile, Arya’s station doesn’t bother Gendry anymore because he knows it doesn’t matter. He also signed up to help Jon immediately without asking for anything in return.

Arya and Gendry each seek the other out in 8x02 but Jon spends a lot of it trying to avoid D-ny until the last moment

8x02 Arya and D-ny find out Gendry’s and Jon’s parentages. It makes no difference to Arya, she loved Gendry when he was a barmaid’s bastard and she loves him when he’s a king’s son. Jon’s bio father shatters D-ny’s whole world.

Most of Jon’s family (this includes Sam) distrust and fear D-ny. Jon and Sandor like Gendry and Sansa and Bran have no complaints at least.

Their ~love scenes~ have a few shots that mirror each other, too. But we see the buildup for Arya and Gendry, their conversation, their first kiss, undressing each other. We see Jon and D-ny and in the middle of things, during a montage explaining how they’re closely related and narrated by Jon’s little brother. Not exactly sexy. Then it cuts to Tyrion lurking nearby looking troubled and finally ends with an ominous shot of the Targ flagship in the dark and gloom. Meanwhile, Arya and Gendry are alone, not related, and are the sole focus of the scene. There’s not even music.

In 8x04, at the funeral, Gendry and Arya are initially a good distance apart. Then after they light the pyres, you get a shot of Arya with (an admittedly very blurry) Gendry visible over her shoulder. Meanwhile, Jon and D-ny stand together while lighting the fire and then they part.

Gendry’s “I love you” to Arya is enthusiastic and happy and D-ny’s to Jon is coming from a place of mourning at best and it’s straight up manipulative at worst. The words “I love you” are rare in this show. I can only remember Jorah saying it a couple of times, Littlefinger to Cat and Sansa, Joffrey pledging to wed Margaery, and Robb to Talisa. The only times it’s not sad or creepy are Robb and Gendry.

These two scenes are the most glaringly obvious. But to summarize, Arya tries to set Gendry “free” when his life changes in a direction she doesn’t want for herself and D-ny tries to put Jon into a corner and make sure his life CAN’T change into one that she doesn’t want.

So with that stuff in mind, I could buy that maybe they wanted Arya and Gendry to reunite in King’s Landing and try to save civilians together. Or maybe have Jon ask Gendry to take Arya as far away as he can before Jon goes to that throne room to do what he has to do. Hell, look at Arya’s final scene as is: She’s on a ship and then you see her Stark sigil on the sail against the sunlight… If Gendry was with her, that’d sure look like a happier version of D-ny and Jon’s scene from the end of season 7… While probably a bit too on the nose for GRRM’s books, I could see the show implying that Gendry and Arya are the second, more hopeful verse of the Song of Ice and Fire…

Other Season 8 Subtext-y things:

Marriage imagery; Arya under Gendry’s cloak. Bonus points for it being shown during these lines from Jenny’s song: “spun away all her sorrow and pain/and she never wanted to leave.” “She spun away and said to him, ‘no featherbed for me.’”

Pretty much all of Gendry’s scenes in season 8 are with Arya or he’s with Sandor, talking about her. The small handful of times he’s not with either of them, he’s with her siblings and other people connected to House Stark like Tormund and Davos and even Sam and Edd. After their “breakup” he virtually disappears. Pretty much the ENTIRE reason they brought him back was for Arya and to be tied strongly to House Stark.

Beric and Melissandre, who once wanted to sacrifice Gendry for “the greater good” and caused Arya to turn towards a darker path, sacrifice themselves to defeat the dead, not only saving Arya’s and Gendry’s lives but guiding Arya further into “light.” To the point where she literally ends the Long Night.

Gendry tells Arya that she’s beautiful and he loves her and gets down on one knee to ask her to marry him… Which is so wildly uncharacteristic for this show that I still can’t believe that it’s real. It’s by far the most traditional romantic moment in the entire series. I suppose it could just be fan service, but 8x02 would have sufficed on that front. Not to mention that “fan service” in this show has never been something so wholesome.

They could have done the proposal differently. They could have had Gendry say crap like, “Now we can settle down and live a boring, respectable life” or something else that would have been really unappealing to Arya. It actually would have been another connection to Robert/Lyanna, where Robert only loved his idea of Lyanna. But nope. They could have framed it as Gendry trying to do the honorable thing or “they’re gonna marry us off anyway, at least we like each other.” But nope.

Gendry could have been put off by Arya’s combat skills but he was turned on by it. She even used her “game of faces” voice on him and it didn’t send him running for the hills.

They also could have easily had Gendry be too “tame” for Arya but nope. Her face at this part just kills me.

They made a thing out of Gendry being “forever loyal” to D-ny after she legitimized him but he had jack shit to say about her at the Great Council and was all too happy to vote for King Bran, even after Arya had turned him down.

A follow up to that other post in regards to a Gendry-ish looking guy grabbing Arya and asking if she’s seen his wife, Alanna: Magaery’s cousin with the same sounding name gets a GRRM-esque weird spelling: Allana with two Ls and one N. As opposed to the more traditional spelling that looks more like Lyanna….

One of the surviving lords at the Great Council is specifically from the Storm Lands. He’s probably who has had Storm’s End for the last few years and maybe he doesn’t deserve to get kicked out by a boy who doesn’t have any idea how to be a lord and doesn’t even want to be a lord without Arya. He even has a name: Lord Une. The Dornish prince doesn’t have a first name but this guy does?

Also, Une is a very unusual name. It’s not from the books and it doesn’t really sound Medieval Europe-y, either. Maybe there’s an inside joke or something? That’s definitely not a name you just pull from the air.

Arya lights Beric’s funeral pyre but if Sandor didn’t have issues with fire, I think he probably would have done it as Beric’s last surviving friend. It kind of gives us the sense that Arya can do what Sandor can’t—which of course, she ultimately does when she decides to leave Cersei while Sandor, who has missed so much being hurt and angry, can only have peace/forgive himself is if he stops Gregor forever.

In the very next scene after the funeral, we see Gendry and Sandor talk about Arya. Sandor basically says that normal, living people have emotions and hormones and it’s not a bad thing. Sometime later, we see Sandor scare off a girl who makes a pass at him. The next scene is Gendry and Arya. Arya also ‘rejects’ her love interest but it’s in an infinitely more thoughtful way. We already know that it’s easier for Arya to be close to other people than it was for Sandor. Arya just has a little bit more to go until she’s completely ready for something serious.

Episodes 1 and 2 establish a pattern of “Sandor then Gendry.” It’s how they arrive at Winterfell. It’s how they reunite with Arya. It’s how Arya visits them towards the end of 8x02. Sooo again, I could see at one point the intention was for them to reunite in King’s Landing. Possibly during that bit where it keeps cutting back and forth between Sandor and Arya; “hateful” Gregor grabs Sandor up to throw him around and “loving” Gendry lifts Arya to save her from getting trampled. Nora, the name of the kind stranger who does help Arya, is essentially the “female equivalent” of Gendry’s name.

According to the leaked outline of season 7, Gendry was originally supposed to be rescued by Benjen beyond the wall. In season 8, he has scenes with Jon, Sansa, and Bran, and even Edmure and Robin. ALMOST LIKE THEY WANTED HIM TO MEET *ALL* OF ARYA’S FAMILY. I’m pretty sure only Tyrion has met more Starks and Tullys than Gendry.

The “Ice battle” was at Arya’s childhood home and the “Fire battle” was at Gendry’s. And yeah, I think it’s pretty damn weird that a capable, uninjured soldier who has knowledge of King’s Landing isn’t there.

They gave them a reference to The Princess Bride: “As you wish.” Comparing them to a beloved couple from a modern classic is a good sign. Comparing them to most likely a childhood favorite? Even better. Comparing them to a couple where their other famous line is “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a little while.” And Arya and Gendry are still alive. Actually, it might be a coincidence but they do have a SHIT-TON in common with The Princess Bride. GRRM is a fan, too, so maybe it was discussed at some point. It’s certainly uncanny if it wasn’t at least partially intentional. But that’s a different post.

Sandor knows about Gendry and Arya and he doesn’t rip Gendry’s head off. Gendry basically got a blessing from Arya’s last legal guardian.

Their outfits reflect each other’s houses, Gendry’s clothes having some very Stark direwolf-like scratch marks and Arya’s scabbard is yellow and black aka Baratheon colors.

I haven’t listened to it yet, but apparently in the leaked audio commentary for 8x06, they talked about how Joe wanted Arya to notice how hot Gendry looked.

Other stuff that makes me think that the writers like Gendrya:

They gave them a lot of time and focus. Even in season 8 where they had very limited time. And objectively speaking, that time probably should have been spent with Arya and her siblings.

They had Arya befriend Gendry earlier and easier than she does in the books.

In behind the episode of 8x02, Benioff talked about how you choose to spend your last night on earth says a lot about you. The very first example he gives is Arya wanting to be with Gendry.

They are always depicted positively: They trust each other; they respect each other; they make each other laugh; they protect each other. Even during their “breakups” in season 3 and 8; they are honest and accepting of each other’s decisions. These two are young and inexperienced but they manage to be more mature and healthier than 95% of the other couples. Their relationship also doesn’t doom them the way that Robb and Talisa’s did.

They changed stuff from the books to make it– not more romantic per se given Arya’s age– but certainly shipping fuel that fit more into romantic tropes: How they meet, how Gendry discovers that she’s a girl, how Arya blatantly checks him out when he’s shirtless. Their long one-on-one and emotional “goodbye” scene where Arya says, “I can be your family.”

They changed/added lines to foreshadow “My Featherbed,” aka where Gendry is legitimized but gives it up for Arya: “I have a son, you have a daughter. We’ll join our houses” but leaving out how Robert specified Joffrey and Sansa. Changing “you’ll marry a king” and “no, that’s Sansa” to “you’ll marry a high lord” and “no, that’s not me.” Davos telling Gendry how he became a lord to help his son and it actually got Mathos killed in battle.

The main bullet points of season 8 were largely what I was expecting and I was at least in the ballpark about a lot of the details. Like did I predict King Bran? No, but I knew he belonged in the south because he named his direwolf Summer. I knew the king or queen would be a dark horse and I was fairly certain Tyrion would be Hand. The few things I didn’t anticipate still seemed to validate the main themes and messages I thought that GRRM was going for. Like King Bran. Now I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Who better to “end the game of thrones” than someone who doesn’t want to play and also can’t be plotted against?

Gendrya is the one major thing that tripped me up. Seriously. I would have bet my fucking car that if Gendry didn’t die, he’d walk away from a lordship and be with Arya on her ship, even if the nature of their relationship was ambiguous.

So I could believe that they wanted or at least expected Gendrya to be endgame since season 1 and someone told them no. It could have been GRRM but I must admit that I have a difficult time believing that.

I guess I could see GRRM having the point of their relationship be that Arya is upfront and honest about what she wants and Gendry respects her decision and doesn’t turn into a bitter/mopey drunk. Or that Gendry dies and Arya doesn’t wallow in it forever… But there’s so much that makes me think that Gendry is meant to be the “sweet” part of Arya’s bittersweet ending, and at least be her True Companion. Not to mention they’re still too young to really have a relationship in the books. Well, at least Arya is. And those particular parallels to Robert and Lyanna fall pretty flat in my opinion if they’re not romantically involved. I mean, come ON. How the hell could it NOT end with the possibility of Lyanna’s niece/ Jon’s sister and Robert’s son/D-ny+Rags cousin???

Possible HBO Shenanigans:

I thought it was kinda funny that HBO UK–not Game of Thrones but an official HBO account– made a tweet shortly before 8x02 aired implying that Arya is eighteen… when she’s more likely sixteen (lots of reasons, not to mention that Maisie has even said that Arya is sixteen.) And sixteen is the age of consent in the UK anyway. As far as I know, that was the only public attempt by HBO to quell controversy in an already hugely controversial season. Like, after The Bells, I don’t think anyone at HBO tweeted about “Ideally, good rulers don’t commit 2.5 times the amount of war crimes as the Night King.” So I do have to wonder if there’s a reason that they’re particularly invested and protective about Arya’s reception…

There was a huge shitstorm when Tommen and Margaery got married and pretty much most of that stuff was off screen. Sure, Arya’s a bit older and Maisie was in her 20s while Dean-Charles was still in his teens… but people do tend to get much more outraged when it’s a girl with an older guy than vice versa.

There was also a big shakeup when AT&T acquired HBO and they got a new CEO early in 2019, a couple of months before season 8 aired. The former CEO seemed to have been championing Bloodmoon, that prequel that got canceled recently. He might have been pulling more for a potential Arya show back when the season was still being written… the new people at AT&T also seemed extremely upset over what the budgets for GoT and Big Little Lies did for their bottom line.

While HBO has stated emphatically that there are no current plans for an Arya spinoff, they were sure to tack on a “right now, a sequel […] doesn’t make sense for us.” I do believe that this is something they want to have in their back pocket. There’s a lot of interest in the idea and if House of the Dragon does well, I won’t be shocked if five+ years down the line we get at least a movie or a limited series about Arya. It’s by far the easiest, since her character can be isolated from everyone else and there are tons of cool places to explore. Hell, if they were really desperate, they wouldn’t even need Maisie Williams to come back. They could just recast and say she’s wearing someone else’s face to hide from mercenaries or something.

GRRM gave an interview talking about how certain characters who have “a high Q rating” (popular) get pushed into more screen time. Bronn is almost certainly one of those characters. He’s always been a self-serving asshole, but the things that made him feel more like an affable rascal—his funny lines, his genuine and open fondness for Podrick—are all but gone in season 8. Not to mention that there’s the implied possibility he’s dying from some “pox.” In the outline for season 7, he’s much closer to “Season 8 Bronn.” Like, he was the one who was originally going to ask Jaime about Widow’s Wail and call Joffrey a “See-You-Next-Tuesday.” When Olenna said it, it was pretty funny. But coming from Bronn, it was a real dick move. I could believe that their “treatment” of Bronn in season 8 was a bit of a middle finger to him. The same way I could perceive Gendrya’s portrayal as being a “fuck you” if they weren’t allowed to actually be endgame.

TL;DR: Gendry and Arya are one of the very few healthy couples in the entire series, and it could be argued that they even get “special” treatment. Both of them lived and while Arya certainly has been traumatized, she is not a walking dumpster fire who wouldn’t be good for him. It would have been only too easy for them to be portrayed as incompatible or worse but they weren’t. Their breakup is over a virtual nonissue. So it’s not out of the range possibility that they were a victim of executive meddling.

And please spare me any “bUt D&D aRe ToO STuPId tO dO tHis.” I’m not campaigning for them to win Pulitzers any time soon, but the notion that they’re complete nitwits is just silly. They both have M.F.A.s from very good schools and their scripts/outlines that I’ve read have a lot of really clever and really well-thought-out references, ranging from history to poetry to literature to even The Rolling Stones.

I’m not saying that they intentionally did all this stuff but they certainly could have if they wanted to.

#gendrya #gendrya positivity #arya x gendry #gendry #arya stark #anti jonerys #anti daenerys #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire

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sailorshadzter · 4 years

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trust in me.

just a little pre battle w/ the night king angst. i had originally written most of a piece with the first several paragraphs, but lost the document. i finally felt like working on what had been salvaged!

It's snowing again.

Standing in the window in her room, she peers down into the courtyard as the snow drifts down from the gray clad sky above. Somewhere, a man shouts an order and several more scramble to do his bidding, the digging of trenches a tiresome, but entirely necessary process. Darkness will soon fall and tomorrow they will wake up one final morning before the battle will begin.

Battle. It's a sour word on her lips, but it echoes constantly in her mind. Sansa knows not what it means to fight a battle with a weapon, but all these months, no, years, she's been fighting a battle all her own. Now, surely, that battle will soon come to a close. The Night King will die and the world will know safety once again. Certainly there will be dragons and lions to deal with after this mess, but even they cannot compare with the fear the army of the dead brings. Daenerys Targaryen does not make her tremble nor weep, not like Cersei Lannister once could. Soon, the day will come where Sansa will face the golden haired Lannister queen and she will not feel fear when she does.

"Sansa?"

The voice is quiet, coming from her doorway. She turns, surprised to see him standing there. So lost in her own thoughts, she'd not heard him knock nor open the door. It wasn't until his soft vocals called out her name, a sound she would hear over any thought or noise. "Jon." Her features soften and he notices, his heart skipping a beat. Once, she had looked upon him with white hot rage, but now her temper seems to have cooled. Jon isn't certain he yet deserves that from her, but he's happy to see her smile all the same. "It seems the preparations for the battle are well underway," she gestures towards the window which she's been staring out most of the morning, turning back to face it as well, her long red hair a waterfall down her back.

"You weren't at the morning meal." Jon sees her shoulders stiffen but she does not reply, does not turn back to face him. "Nor did I see you at the evening meal," he goes on as he takes a single step closer to where she stands, wishing she might turn around and face him once again. "Lord Royce says you prefer to dine privately." He notes the lack of dishes within the room, though he supposes they could have already been cleared from her table, but he knows... He knows better. "Your people will do better with you well fed and healthy, Sansa..."

"My people will starve because of the dragons your queen have brought with her," she rounds on him, rosy lips spitting venom. "Your people. Our people." Her chest heaves, her cheeks blooms of color as she stares back at him, daring him to disagree. Daring him to speak even one word against her. "I dine privately to ensure there is enough food in the hall." What she means is when she dines alone, it is so her people do not see she does not eat. When she goes to bed hungry, she knows it is for the greater good. It is what's right. "While you have been..." She pauses, her pretty features twisted in anger, though her eyes a raging storm of anguish as they fall upon him. "While you have gone to bed with a foreign queen who means to do little else than conquer what does not belong to her, I have been here... I have been here protecting you and your crown. I have bloodied my conscious and my hands for the North, for you." Now that she's going, she finds she cannot stop. Every feeling, every thought, it's pouring out of her. "When Littlefinger tried to tear Arya and I apart, I had him executed. He was behind everything that's happened, from the very beginning." That man alone could be blamed for every last thing that had happened to the Stark's. Jon thinks of Littlefinger, the sorry excuse for a man he left behind at Winterfell against his better judgment. He thinks of him, bleeding at her feet, though nothing could atone for the sins he committed against her, against their family. "You left Winterfell to secure us an ally, instead you find a lover." Sansa scoffs when Jon shakes his head, opening his mouth to interrupt. "You needn't explain anything to me, Jon, I understand quite well what has happened. She is beautiful, I can't blame you for falling for her, but remember when you lay with her next... She will be the ruin of us all."

Jon finds himself silenced by her outburst, thoroughly shamed by the words she's spoken into the darkness of the room. He's quiet for several long moments as he tries to grasp the words to say to her, the ones that will make her understand. Words that will make her see that all along, all he's wanted was to keep her safe. "Sansa... I..."

Just the sound of her name upon his lips is enough to send chills down her spine. "I told you, I need no explanation." The last thing she wants to hear from him is the truth. The last thing she ever wants to hear him say is that he loves Daenerys Targaryen. "There's nothing you need to say." She's on the move then, pushing past him in hopes of crossing the room towards her bed, but Jon has other plans. His hand encloses around her wrist, catching her there, holding her still. When she turns back to face him, the look he has steals the breath from her very lungs. Before she can speak, he's pulling her into his embrace, warm and strong, as it always has been.

She only struggles for a moment, but the moment she yields to his embrace, Jon breathes a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry," is all he can say, over and over again, a soft mantra against her sweet smelling hair. She curls into him and for a fleeting moment, all feels right. All feels well. Though war looms at their door, Jon isn't sure that's the fight that terrifies him anymore. "It's all... It's all been for you." He whispers, still holding fast to her, though he feels her stiffen at his admission. "Everything I've done, every choice I've made since that day you showed up at Castle Black... All for you." Much like the anger she vented minutes ago, these feelings are ones that Jon can no longer hold in. Not when... Not when tomorrow may never come.

Hearing his words, she draws back, a warm heat rising into her cheeks as their eyes meet. "I... I don't..." Understand. But of course she does. The anger she wants so desperately to hold onto, it's fading.

"I would do anything to keep you safe, Sansa." He holds fast to her gaze, one hand tucking against the curve of her cheek, her skin soft and slick with tears. "I would make any pact, swear any oath, anything at all, so long as it means you're safe." Safe... How strange of a word, how foreign it feels on the tip of her tongue. "I didn't mean to hurt you." She's thinking of his words to her, I'll protect you, I promise. Words that all these months, she's held onto. Words that had given her hope, given her faith. And he has, hasn't he? "You just have to trust me."

"I trust you," she says softly, his thumb catching the last of her tears as they cling to her lashes. Jon could stay like this forever, if they could. But they can't. As he slides his hand away, she catches it, keeping it there against her cheek. Perhaps it's the way the moonlight frames her from where it spills in through the window, but she's more beautiful than he's ever seen. And perhaps it's the sheer fact that when the night falls tomorrow, he may very well be dead, or perhaps it's because he's tired of wondering what it will be like to do it... Jon kisses her.

It takes her but a moment to react, returning his kiss as his hands slide into her hair.

[ x x x ]

It's later, much later in fact, when Jon finally untangles himself from her limbs and her bed.

He dresses in the darkness, leaning over the bed after so he might brush his mouth across hers one final time, a hand gently touching her hair as she murmurs in her sleep. Tonight, there will be a battle with only one victor... And it must be him. The odds are stacked against them, perhaps, but he knows he must win.

He will win and he will come back to her, no matter the cost.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #i still think the old one was better #SIGH #my writing #i wrote this

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fortunatelylori · 5 years

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GOT: The exhausting march towards the dramatic TWIST

I think I’m going to shock people with this statement but ... out of all the season 8 episodes we’ve seen so far, episode 4 is by far my favorite.

Now don’t get too excited by the seemingly warm tone ... what I mean by favorite is that I hated it less than episode 1 through 3, which is about as high a praise as I’m likely going to have for this debacle that is season 8.

General impressions:

There are two reasons why I felt this episode was better than the last 3:

1. It was more focused, with 3 clear storylines: D*ny’s war for the crown (story A), Jon’s and his family continuing to be dead inside (story B), Jaime’s return to his sister-lover (story C). This kind of focus and definite structure should be a given. However GOT decided to go all yolo on our asses this season and as we’ve already covered in my other reviews, it’s gotten to the point where I’m genuinely shocked to see an episode that doesn’t jump from plot point to plot point like an enraged orangutan on ecstasy.

2. It was centered around this woman:

Look at that face... Holy Shit! She’s going to give me nightmares!

Now, normally an episodes focused on D*ny would be bad news for me because I don’t particularly care for her, as half of my list of metas can conclusively prove.

However, since she’s the only character whose POV isn’t hidden and her scenes aren’t cut short or drained of any and all possibility of actual human emotion, she’s become the only character that I can watch without feeling frustrated, confused or on the verge of an anxiety attack. I actually like to know what the hell is happening on screen and what the character wants in any given scene. Call it a pet peeve of mine.

Although even D*ny, as well rounded a character as she is, suffers from the Ds oscillating trend this season. Last episode, D*ny stood her ground against the NK, committed herself and her armies to the defense of the realm and saved Jon’s life. This episode, she’s back in full Mad King’s daughter mode, with a pinch of Viserys on the side.

But that’s a quibble, honestly and you can always argue that Jorah’s death really pushed D*ny into a dark place in which the crown of Westeros and her war against Cersei becomes more important than her own humanity.

However, what isn’t a quibble is that death seems to have become a shorthand device the Ds employ to signal D*ny’s eventual rise as Queen of the Ashes. She loses Jorah in episode 3 and by the end of episode 4, she loses both Rhaegal and Missandei as well, leaving her in a seeming cliffhanger over whether or not to put the Red Keep to the torch as revenge.

The problem is that D*ny had been chopping at the bit to burn down King’s Landing since season 7 when she had to be talked out of doing just that TWICE. This episode Tyrion once again has to put the breaks on D*ny’s fiery fantasies.

youtube

This scene right here is a treasure trove of Mad D*ny clues. But let’s focus on two of them. Firstly, the impetuous to burn KL is stil there:

D*ny: We will hit her hard. We will rip her out root and stem.

Tyrion: The objective here is to remove Cersei without destroying King’s Landing.

That is not a happy face ...

As D*ny put’s it, they need the capital because otherwise Cersei can continue calling herself the queen of the 7 kingdoms.

That’s D*ny’s priority, folks: the acquiring of that stupid title.

And if she has to march her weakened army, her sick dragon/child for thousands of miles and burn thousands of innocent people to get that title, she’ll do it.

Considering this set-up, why exactly did we need Missandei and Rahegal to die? One day into Tyrion’s proposed blockade and D*ny would be roasting giant marshmallows in the Red Keep gardens.

In my opinion, the reasons for killing Rhaegal and Missandei are not tied to the dark!dany arc at all. Instead, Rhaegal gets killed because they want to make the D*ny/Cersei conflict as even as possible so they’re eliminating one of D*ny’s weapons of mass destruction.

And Missandei ... poor Missandei gets killed in order to shock the audience. There is absolutely no reason to kill her in this way ... If she was to die, the time for that would have been in episode 3. They have to actually push the suspension of disbelief in order to convince the audience that somehow Euron got a hold of this girl from an armada of wrecked ships, instantly knew how important she was, dragged her back to the Red Keep and then brought her up on that wall expecting .... what??!

Euron and Cersei are far too smart to believe D*ny will give up her war for Missandei so why kill her so publicly? To intimidate D*ny? They didn’t need Missandei for that. They could have just as well beheaded all of the hostages they took from the ships.

They kill Missandei because that’s the easiest way for the Ds to surprise the audience and for them to garner some sort of sympathy for D*ny when she eventually does end up going all Pablo Escobar on a city filled with a million people.

The other glaring Mad D*ny moment in the scene and one that plays straight into political Jon, is this:

Sansa: The men we have left are exhausted. Many of them are wounded. They will fight better if they have time to rest and recuperate.

D*ny: How long do you suggest?

Sansa: Can’t say for certain. Not without talking to the officers.

D*ny: I came North to fight alongside you. At great cost to my armies and myself. And now that the time has come to reciprocate, you want to postpone?

Jon: The Northern forces will honor their promises and their allegiance to the queen of the 7 kingdoms. What you command, we will obey.

I’ve seen a lot of people being angry at Jon for “taking D*ny’s side” in this conflict but in order to understand how this plays into political Jon, there are 2 things you need to keep in mind:

The first is exactly when Sansa intervenes in the conversation. She steps in directly after both Tyrion and Jon manage to convince D*ny not to burn down King’s Landing. D*ny reluctantly agrees to the blockade because that would mean having to wait to take the crown and as she puts it:

D*ny: The longer I leave my enemies alone, the stronger they become.

Now Sansa wants to delay her even further. This is not acceptable to D*ny.

In addition to that, I don’t think Sansa appreciates just how dangerous and volatile D*ny is. She doesn’t know about the men being fed to dragons, or the 163 crucified masters or how close she was to jumping on a dragon and burning down KL in the past.

Jon, however, does understand D*ny quite well by this point. I don’t buy his speech as him agreeing with D*ny at all in this scene and considering this is the face he puts on to silence Sansa:

I’d say this is a guy desperately trying to keep a bomb from exploding directly in the face of someone he cares very deeply about.

Narratively, I believe this is supported by the Sansa/Tyrion scene later on when Sansa is surprised to realize that Tyrion is actually afraid of D*ny. She simply hadn’t considered that people are scared of what D*ny might do.

As interesting as D*ny’s descent into madness is (despite Missandei’s useless death), it’s counterbalanced by the shit show that continues to be Jon Snow.

Watching Jon’s arc this season, and by extension all the Starks, is like banging your head against a concrete wall over and over again, without making a dent. It’s pointless, exhausting and painful.

At this point I don’t care if he’s in love with D*ny or Sansa, if he’s pol!Jon or idiot!Jon, if he wants to be king or fuck off beyond the wall. I genuinely don’t care anymore. What I do care about is being given access to Jon’s story enough to figure out what the hell he wants and what he’s doing.

It’s one thing to keep a character’s POV hidden for an episode but we’re going on almost 2 seasons now. And Jon isn’t a secondary character like Littlefinger where you can get away with hiding the POV because he’s not as big a part of the plot as a main character is.

But Jon is a main character and this effort to keep him enigmatic and mysterious isn’t only wreaking havoc on his arc but it’s also affecting the rest of the Stark family. Case and point:

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In case anyone is keeping score, this is actually the first and only scene all the Starks have together in 4 episodes, amounting to 5 hours of footage.

And just look where they decide to end this scene! Right when we’re going to see Arya and Sansa react to the parentage reveal and see what they and Jon discuss next. They gave us the mere bones of this scene and left us without the meat.

The important part of the scene, the emotional underbelly, the opportunity to see these people come together and support and embrace Jon as the Stark they still think he is, is taken away from us. Because that would chip away at the mystery surrounding Jon’s arc this season.

I’d argue depriving Jon and the Starks of the emotional bond they share is way too steep a price to pay for what is essentially a cheap thirll that becomes cheaper and cheaper by the minute considering they’re delaying whatever reveal they’re planning on making past the point of me giving a shit!

This episode did, however, give me the perfect visual way of describing Jon’s storyline right now. Jon is basically stuck between:

and

and he chooses neither.

He sends Ghost away (without patting him because having KH and the wolf in the same frame would be too costly for the overly expensive GOT) and refuses to ride Rhaegal because ... reasons.

So instead of seeing him choose between being a direwolf and a dragon, we’re seeing him do nothing, while looking overly enigmatically blank for 5 hours straight. I just .... I’m sooooo tired of this. Can this be over now?

PS: I’d discuss Jaime’s storyline this episode but I don’t want to say: I told you so ... Well ... ok, if you insist:

a little sour milk dribble on Tormund’s beard and a silly giant story isn’t going to make me forget that Jaime has arrived in Winterfell on the coat tails of a 20+ year toxic relationship with a woman who is not only his twin sister but is also currently pregnant with his baby.

Also:

Jaime: She (Cersei) has always been good at using the truth to tell lies. Don’t be too hard on yourself. She’s fooled me more than anybody.

Tyrion: She never fooled you. You always knew exactly what she was. And you loved her anyway.

Yeah … Imagine entering a relationship with a guy exiting THAT. Dealing with sour milk beard is mild by comparison.

(source)

Favorite scenes

The “If you love me, you’ll erase yourself” scene:

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There is something so deeply disturbing about this scene that I can’t help but be fascinated by it. The J0nereys relationship has always been toxic and this scene right here encapsulates just why:

In order to be with D*ny, Jon needs to give up everything that makes him who he is. In season 7, he was forced to bend the knee and suffer the ire of the entire North for it. Now D*ny is asking him not only to give up his claim but also lie about who he is and separate himself from his family in order to make sure that D*ny gets to be queen.

No one, not one person in this world, no matter how beautiful, rich, good in bed or seemingly in love with you, is worth you giving up who you are and removing yourself from your family (provided said family is not toxic, of course). And anyone that would ask you to do that, should be dumped on their asses pronto.

Jon can’t do that, unfortunately. Because he’s brought D*ny here to fight “his war” and pretended to be in love with her. And also because D*ny simply isn’t rational anymore. So he’s stuck apologizing for people liking him (just think about that!) and having to put up with her saying things like:

D*ny: It doesn’t matter what you want! You didn’t want to be king in the North! What happens when they demand you press your claim and TAKE WHAT IS MINE?

Except the crown isn’t D*ny’s. It never was. Logistically speaking, the crown belongs to Cersei right now. Legitimately, the crown is Jon’s. It’s D*ny that is actually taking what is his, not the other way around. Imagine making someone apologize for you doing that to them. That’s all kinds of messed up.

Speaking of which:

Jon: You are my queen! I don’t know what else I can say!

D*ny: You can say nothing! To anyone! Ever! Never tell them who you really are. Swear your brother and Samwell Tarly to secrecy and tell no one else!

You know what she sounds like? Like Tangled’s Mother Gothel convincing Rapunzel that she’s better off being her prisoner.

Yikes! She’s genuinely terrifying!

Also:

D*ny: Sansa will want to see me gone and you on the Iron Throne.

Jon: She won’t.

D*ny: She’s not the girl you grew up with. Not after what she’s seen. Not after what they’ve done to her.

2 things:

1. I hope every D*ny stan in the universe either denounces D*ny for victim blaming or closes their mouths about feminism, misogyny and pitting women against women for the rest of time. If you support this woman and consider her a positive role model, you are not allowed to discuss these subjects in public ever again.

2. Can you really blame Jon for taking D*ny’s side against Sansa in the council meeting? He already knows just what D*ny thinks of Sansa and what she’d like to do to her if she is given the opportunity. Hurting Sansa’s feelings is preferable to her losing her life.

The “This better not be unrequited love, Ds!” scene:

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This face right here ... this face:

It’s heartbreaking. And what really angers me about this scene is that it could have been all the more meaningful had the parentage reveal been played in full. Actually seeing Sansa reacting, hearing Jon’s fears or his anguish, would make her fighting for his crown when he refuses to do so even more powerful and romantically charged.

Still, this scene comes in direct contrast to the Jon/D*ny scene. While D*ny wants to force Jon to live a lie for the rest of his life, to humble himself and make himself small so she can have all the power and the love of the people, Sansa not only shoots down the possibility of her being the only one in charge of the North and holding steadfast to the idea that Jon will stay in Winterfell. She goes as far as tell Tyrion Jon is the rightful heir when she realizes that despite his supposed loyalty to D*ny, Tyrion is actually afraid of her.

She sees an opening to ensure Jon’s freedom and she takes it without hesitation.

If, at the end of all of this, Jon ends up going beyond the wall instead of staying with a woman who loves and values him this much, then Westeros truly is a cruel and horrible place and I’ll be sorry I invested so many years of my life to it.

Episode MVPs

Euron “Best General in fucking Westeros” Greyjoy:

Euron gets to be MVP this episode because in one fell swoop he destroyed D*ny’s fleet and brought down one of her dragons. What can I say ... Competency really turns me on.

Too bad Cersei doesn’t love him. If these two actually cared about each other, they could be the McBeths of Westeros. Nothing could stand in their way!

Lord “What an Icon!” Varys:

What can one say about this glorious man? He is MVP for the second time in 4 reviews and somehow I think he’s not done yet.

Varys and Tyrion got down to some realpolitick this episode. But Varys had some truly outstanding lines, like:

Varys: How many others know?

Tyrion: Including us? Eight.

Varys: Well, then it’s not a secret anymore. It’s information. If a handful of people know now, hundreds will know soon.

It’s so rare to find a man that understands gossip so well!

Varys: I’ve served tyrants all my life. They all talk about destiny.

As a person born under a communist regime, I concur, Varys.

And my personal favorite:

Varys: You know where my loyalty stands. You know I will never betray the realm.

Tyrion: What is the realm? A vast continent, home to millions of people, most of whom don’t care who sits on the Iron Throne.

Varys: Millions of people, many of whom will die if the wrong person sits on that throne. We don’t know their names but they’re just as real as you and I. They deserve to live. They deserve food for their children. I will act in their interests, no matter the personal cost.

If this show doesn’t end with a 7 foot, cockless statue of Varys presiding over the whole of Westeros as the ICON that he is, what was even the point?!?!?

#got8 #got8 spoilers #got 8x04 #got8 review #sansa stark #jon snow #dark!dany #lord varys #jonsa #euron greyjoy #braime

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megsironthrone · 5 years

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Obsessed

When Petyr Baelish becomes unnaturally obsessed with the reader, he will stop at nothing to have her.

So, I’ve been a lot of research into the minds of criminals for my novel and from that, this fic was born. I do not own Petyr Baelish. He belongs to George R.R.Martin.

WARNINGS: OBSESSION! JEALOUSY! KIDNAPPING! ATTEMPTED MURDER! STALKING OF A SORT! MANIPULATION! AND ASSAULT(WHAT COULD BE CONSIDERED ABUSE) PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!! Oh and it’s long.

Pairings/Characters: Yandere!Petyr Baelish x fem!reader, Ros

Petyr glared from his window of the brothel. You were passing through once again, but that’s not why he was glaring. No, it was the person you were with. Petyr didn’t want to see you with anyone else. He wanted you to be his and his alone. He wasn’t sure when this obsession began but he knew he had to have you. You were going to be his. No matter what.

Petyr left the window, already plotting his next move in his head. He swept passed the whores he employed and their patrons. He had one goal in mind. Outside the brothel, Petyr let his careful gaze search for his prey. He found you quickly and almost smiled. Until he saw Jory Cassel place a kiss to your cheek. The sudden surge of jealousy that coursed through Petyr was too much. He had to do something and fast. But what?

The brothel keep knew he couldn’t attack Jory right there without provocation. That would only lead to Ned Stark having him beheaded or thrown in the dungeons. If that happened, you’d be lost to him forever, just like Catelyn. He had to play this one smart. Get Jory away from you without casting suspicions on himself. A smirk grew on his face as a plan formed in his mind. He knew just what to do; he only needed to bide his time.

He wouldn’t have to wait long. When Ned started asking around about Robert’s bastards and Catelyn had taken Tyrion Lannister prisoner, Petyr got his chance. He would use Jaime Lannister and the gold cloaks to rid himself of Jory Cassel and take you for his own.

*time skip*

Just as Petyr predicted, Jaime took care of Jory Cassel for him. The Stark’s guard was now dead and Petyr was free to pursue you. Except you wanted nothing to do with him. When news of Jory’s death had reached you, you shut yourself away from the world. You refused to see anyone except Ned and his daughters and Petyr was getting impatient. There was only one course of action left. He was going to take you whether you wanted to come or not.

"Just bring her to me, Ros,“ he ordered the redhead and continued, "Bring her to me, unharmed, and you will only have the finest patrons from now on.” Ros simply nodded and went on her way. She knew better than to argue with him. He helped her rise from the whore of Winterfell to one of the most sought after companions in King’s Landing. She would always do what he said.

Ros returned a few moments later, with you in her arms. The glare on Petyr’s face was enough to kill. “What. Happened?” he seethed. He was quickly losing control, seeing you unconscious like that. “We were set upon by a few gold cloaks, milord. They hit her hard before I could stop them.” Petyr wasted no time in taking you from Ros and carrying you to his chambers. You would rest there for now.

"What’s so important about her?“ Ros asked, having followed Petyr. Petyr whirled on the whore and grabbed her throat. "I told you to bring her to me unharmed, Ros.” Ros tried to explain again, but Petyr let her go and shooed her away. “Out. I wish not to be disturbed for the rest of the night.” Ros didn’t have to be told twice.

Petyr turned back to you and sat next to you on the bed. He ran his fingers over your face and through your hair. He took his time memorizing your features so that, even when he wasn’t with you, he could still see your face clearly. Not that he’d be away from you often anymore. He had you where he wanted you and that was where he would keep you from now on.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take you long to wake up. A slight groan made Petyr put some distance between you. He didn’t want to scare you right away. Your (e/c) eyes opened slightly. “Where am I?” you whispered. Petyr cleared his throat. “You are in my establishment, my dear Y/N.” You blinked as you moved to sit up. “How did I get here?” Petyr took a moment to decide what to say. Should he make himself out to be a hero? Or should he tell you at least part of the truth of what happened? He wouldn’t get the chance to make a choice.

"Wait. That redhead I was with. Ros? She’s one of your girls! Y-You…" you trailed off, giving Petyr a chance to take back the upper hand. “She is. I sent her to you as a friend. I heard what happened to Jory Cassel and wanted to know that you were alright.” Your eyes narrowed.

"I don’t believe you, Lord Baelish. You never do anything for anyone unless it benefits you. You had her kidnap me!“ you cried, jumping up. It was obvious to Petyr that your head was still swimming when you swayed and plopped back down on the bed. "I assure, Y/N, that I care only for your well being,” Petyr cooed, his voice akin to honey. You glared again.

"I. Don’t. Believe. You,“ you said again, putting emphasis on every word, "You’re a snake, Littlefinger. You’ve always been a snake.” You stood again on steadier feet and made for the door. Petyr’s hand shot out as he grabbed your wrist. You looked at him with pure venom in your eyes. “Let me go.” You wrenched your hand out of his and tried the door. Locked.

Petyr’s smile was predatory as you turned to face him. “You will let me out. NOW!” Petyr stalked toward you. You could only compare him to a lion stalking its prey. “You are safer here than in the Keep, Y/N. I have the means and power to protect you now that Jory cannot. Don’t you think he would want you protected?”

Realization dawned on you. Petyr could see it in your expression. “It was you. You had him killed.” Petyr was standing right in front of you now. Your back was pressed into the locked door as tears formed in your eyes. “You monster,” you whispered. Petyr chuckled. “There are much worse than I that deserve to be called monster, Y/N. I simply wish to protect you. I couldn’t do that with Jory in the way.”

"Let me go. Please,“ you whimpered. Petyr shushed you while reaching out to tuck a strand of (h/c) hair behind your ear. He leaned in and whispered, "You cannot leave. I won’t let you.” He could feel you shaking so he was surprised when he felt himself being pushed away. Your hand came up and slapped him across the cheek. “I demand you let me go this instant!”

When Petyr denied you again, you flew at him. You attacked him with every ounce of strength you possessed. With every hit you demanded that he let you go. Petyr finally caught both your wrists in his hands, stilling your movements. His eyes were flashing with rage; a rage that only you had been able to bring out of him. “This is your last chance, Y/N. You will obey.” Shrieking at the top of your lungs, you brought a knee up into his stomach. He let you go and you turned tail.

You barely made it back to the door when you felt his hand come around your throat. He pulled you away from the door and practically threw you on the bed. He stood over you, panting and enjoying the fear in your eyes. Fear made people listen. Fear made people obey. “You’re mine, Y/N. I have made it so.” You shook your head in defiance.

"I will never be yours. This obsession of yours is sick.“ Petyr stared down at you for a moment. Didn’t you understand? Why were you being so uncooperative? But what you said next completely made him lose control. "I cannot wait to see them behead you for this. You’re mad!”

Once more, Petyr’s hand made it way to your throat. If you wouldn’t be his, you wouldn’t be anyone’s. After a moment, however, he decided he couldn’t look at your face. He grabbed a pillow and placed it over your face. You thrashed and tried to call out for help. Petyr simple held you still. He wasn’t going to let you leave alive.

When you had stopped fighting Petyr began to lift the pillow just as the door burst open and Petyr felt himself being dragged off of you. To his surprise, it was Ros that approached you. She leaned over you and whispered something that Petyr couldn’t hear. He was too busy fighting off the guards holding him and screaming at Ros about how she betrayed him.

"The girl?“ one of the guards asked when Petyr quieted down. Ros shook her head. "I-I don’t know. She’s not breathing.” Another guard scooped you up in his arms and carried you out of the room, prompting Petyr to start crying out again. He continued to call out your name as he was escorted to the dungeons of the Red Keep.

Petyr had no clue how long he was down there. Long enough to start hallucinating. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured your face. He saw you accepting him. He saw kisses and caresses. He heard your voice. He could smell your unique scent. It was intoxicating to him, but he knew it wasn’t real because he couldn’t reach out an hold you.

"Littlefinger,“ a sharp voice cried, snapping out of his latest fantasy, "You got a visitor.” Petyr arched a brow. No one ever visited him. He looked up and, through the bars, he could see the face he’d been dying to touch. “Y/N,” he whispered as he got up to move closer. He was stopped by the chain attached to his ankle. “They’ve decided to execute you tomorrow,” you told him. There was not one bit of emotion in your voice as you said it.

"At your behest, I imagine.“ You held your head high. "Oh, Y/N, you look so radiant. So powerful. It’s why I chose you.” You didn’t respond the way he wanted. “I merely came to tell you that I will be standing there watching when the sword comes down on your neck, Littlefinger. I will watch as they take your head and after that? I shall never think of you again. Your memory will fade from my mind and then I will think on this no more.” With that, you turned on your heel and left him alone again.

Petyr watched you go, a smirk on his face. He would find a away to escape his fate, as he had done many times before. And when he did, he would take you again. He would take you as far from King’s Landing, from Westeros, as he could. You would be his in the end. It was only a matter of time. After, when Petyr Baelish became obsessed, he never rested until he got what he wanted.

#game of thrones #petyr baelish #petyr baelish x reader #petyr x reader #tw: kidnapping #trigger warning: kidnapping #tw: attempted murder #trigger warning: attempted murder #tw: stalking #trigger warning: stalking #tw: assault #tw: abuse #trigger warning: assault #trigger warning: abuse

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renlyisright · 4 years

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Season 7 Episode 7 - Hey, We Won at Scheming, Who Would Have Guessed

Welp, I finished the master’s thesis before I finished the show. I can’t exactly say that I have grown up with these characters because most of them have stopped growing up for death-related reasons. Well, there’s the Stark kids who are still alive, and their careers are all on up-swing.

In this final episode of the season, we visit the ruins of the dragon pit, and they make me wonder just how large it must have been when the dragons were still super large.

The truce meeting is about to start, but Daenerys has brought her army to stand near King’s Landing, just in case. Both the Unsullied and the Dothraki. Euron’s massive fleet is protecting the Blackwater, against Daenerys’ fleet of… five ships.

The negotiators are allowed entrance, and are brought to the third hill of King’s Landing, and the one tourist attraction we haven’t seen yet, the Dragon Pit. Which is a big place, but sadly a ruin. Being a large pile of already-cut stone right in the city with no current use never helps any historical building, those stones can be put to a much better use.

As this meeting includes almost everyone of any importance, and also some sidekicks, there’s more reunions. Tyrion says that he missed Bronn. Bronn seems to have his business in order, bringing Cersei’s enemies to her and thinking of retiring with his reward if the negotiation ends with heads on spikes. But if Daenerys wins in the end...

Everyone arrives to the arena, and the Hound begins the game by threatening the Mountain. There’s clearly a duel being set up between these two death-cheaters, but as at any time either of them can be killed by, well, anything, I’m not holding my breath for a super smackdown between them.

Daenerys arrives fashionably late, and brings her two dragons to the dragon pit, and… how big exactly this place must have been in the beginning? Drogon’s wings almost cover the middle of the arena by themselves.

As Daenerys, Jon and Tyrion predicted, their enemies just laugh about the matter before seeing the evidence. After that, they present a bit of theater, as Cersei later reveals. Euron proclaims that he’s moving his fleet to the Iron Islands, away from the Dead, and Cersei gives a practised speech of accepting the truce.

So did they have intel of the evidence, or did Cersei make plans for the low-odds-event that the thing she has ridiculed every time it has come up is actually true. If so, that’s remarkably good planning, from her.

The showing of the evidence was quite a show, Jon used the one wight they had in great detail for everyone to see. Qyburn was especially interested… well, he has practised getting one almost dead man up and running, so searching this body for any clues for advancing the scientific understanding of life and death must intrigue him… Let’s hope he doesn’t create a new White Walker in the middle of the Red Keep.

Cersei asks Jon to promise to go back to the North and stay there. Jon can’t promise that, so the negotiation ends, just like that. Tyrion and Daenerys say that Jon should have just lied and not been so Neddy. But just because others do something universally agreed to be bad, it doesn’t mean you should too. Anyway, Cersei walks out and Tyrion goes to speak to him alone, as he matters the least if he gets killed.

But he doesn’t, even after coaxing Cersei to kill him for what he did. Cersei is too shocked to give the word, and it could also be that she simply can’t give people what they ask from her, it’s completely unnatural to her. She blames Tyrion for killing Tywin, which opened them for their enemies and brought about the dead of the rest of the kids. The legacy of Tywin Lannister… you know, if the only thing keeping everyone from attacking your family is their fear of you, that does not a good legacy make. The legacy of Ned Stark was the North supporting first Robb and then Jon out of respect to him, the legacy of Tywin Lannister was everyone piling up on the Lannisters once he was out of the way.

The result of Cersei and Tyrion’s discussion is that Cersei proclaims to join them in the fight against the Dead, while expecting nothing good to come to herself for that decision. Yes, what did we speak about lying just now?

Speaking of Ned Stark’s legacy, Jon and Theon talk about it. Theon betrayed his memory, but, as Jon says, he was more of a father to Theon than Balon ever was. And so they can use that bond to reconcile, and Jon can encourage Theon to take charge and take the lead of Yara’s men.

Symbolism, Theon is starting to change his weaknesses into strengths. This is symbolised by allowing the Ironborn he is fighting to kick him to the nuts, to no effect. Yes, this is symbolism speaking.

The man says to Theon “Stay down, or I’ll kill you”. When Theon has the upper hand, he bashes his head in with a rock for that mercy. I would say that the Ironborn have a specifically violent way to solve disputes, but… nope. Not specifically, not at all. But Theon gets to be the leader of the pride, and gets to go against the Ramsay-placeholder enemy to confront his trauma. Someone should invent better therapy methods.

In Winterfell, the winter continues to fall from the sky. Littlefinger tries to chaos things up, but his time’s up. There’s no room for him anymore in this new magical and thriller-pace world.

I read A Dance With Dragons last winter, and while I liked most of it, like the writing style, the characters, seeing more of non-royals, and the new locales, the ending was a disappointment. Or rather, that there wasn’t an ending. There’s more books to go (and I hope to get to read them), but this one just… stopped when the page count went over 1000. It had the same problem as the fourth one, people spent a lot of time going from one place to another, so that when they arrived the book was almost over (or in Victarion’s case, it was over), and the end result was just a list of cliffhangers. Like, imagine ending A Clash of Kings just before Blackwater, or last season before the Battle of the Bastards. It felt like the arc of the book was incomplete, and I wasn’t given a reason to care about the new side plots, like which of them will actually matter and which just padded the book until it had to end early?

The funny thing of course is that this show has now the opposite problem of jumping from one set piece to another without build-up or showing of the journey. And when you can’t keep up with this new world, you lose the game of thrones.

Littlefinger schemes a wedge between Sansa and Arya. He doesn’t want a trained assassin in the same castle as he is, now that he has supported Sansa to ladyship and is perhaps looking for a way to make her a queen as well… that was his weakness, stick to just getting power and you’d have much easier job, but no, you have to include getting a specific woman into your plans and that’s when you make mistakes. But it doesn’t matter anymore what he schemes, as magic has entered Winterfell.

Bran can cheat. He can see the past, and apparently can see exactly where and when he wants. So he traced Littlefinger’s steps, and found out all his betrayals. Many of them Sansa already knew, so the rest mustn’t have come as a shock. So the Starks, who value honesty and honor, now can see if they are betrayed or lied to. Once Jon gets to Winterfell, Bran can tell him what Cersei said after they left. Political intrigue, a corner block and most of the wall of the show, has suddenly become useless. The Littlefingers of the world can’t scheme anymore against the Starks. They have Won At Scheming.

The dagger, the dagger, is revealed to be originally Petyr’s. As I said earlier, the only way the revelation could matter anymore would be if it was someone’s who is still living, or someone’s whom we’d never think to order Bran’s assassination. And here we are, it was the Chaos Man. I’m not sure if the dates add up, how did he know of Bran’s fall so that he could hire the assassin, when he was in King’s Landing at the time? Maybe he wasn’t? And why use his own expensive dagger and lie that it was Tyrion’s, when a simple Lannister knife would have worked much better?

In the book the answer was different. Tyrion figured out that it was Joffrey, who stole his father’s dagger and gave it to the assassin. He never confirmed it with anyone, and anyway Joffrey died moments later. I can fully well believe it from Joffrey. But it’s been so long since Joffrey died that at this point one more evil deed to his name wouldn’t mean much. So the culprit is now Littlefinger, and wow, listing all his schemes like that tells how without him the status quo would likely be just where it was in the beginning. He has a lot of blood on his hands. Daenerys and the Dead would still be wild cards, though.

And so the king of the ash heap, Petyr Baelish, dies in the dark main hall of Winterfell, in the middle of the mess he’s spent years to create, without achieving his goals, without any allies and with absolutely nobody going to miss him.

As I have said, for being such a dark and gritty show, the villains don’t get any better ends than those who try to do better, and their legacies are usually worse.

Speaking of both the villains and those who try to do better, Cersei informs Jaime that nope, we are not going anywhere, she used the neat trick called lying. Euron went to get mercenaries with elephants (ooh!) from Essos.

This is enough for Jaime, who storms away, after telling Cersei to have the Mountain kill him for it if she so desires. In the end, she doesn’t, even after threatening him with that. But after listening to her lie and cheat for years, Jaime just says “I don’t believe you” and leaves. See, consequences.

Poor Cersei, losing everyone’s trust and being entirely alone at the end of the episode. Only her massive armies to keep her on the throne. Which is a funny thing, now that I think about it. She has managed to antagonize everybody, but because she has killed everyone in King’s Landing who has criticized her, she gets to still rule, because there is no one else in the city to take the crown from her. She’s taking advantage of the fact that no new important characters are going to be introduced at this point. Euron was the last one, in the season 6 of 8, and even he feels like he exists only as a mid boss so Daenerys’ invasion isn’t too easy, to be killed once fleets don’t matter anymore.

Of course Cersei takes advantage of the fact that her enemies are scary. New Targaryen invasion, with the Dothraki and Unsullied. Nothing like the good old rulers we have here in Westeros, who may blow up the most holy building on the continent to escape a trial and kill the servants of the main religion, but are at least… from the same continent?

It’s still weird that the Seven is the main religion, when it has been the most useless one in actual action. Did they ever do anything? When the Old Gods were driven from the South, were the Seven doing anything to support their believers? Well, did the Old Gods? Does the Drowned God? Well, if Euron’s fleet’s speed is a boon from the Drowned God, that would explain a lot.

The winter comes to King’s Landing as well. Snow will be next season’s color. Along with darkness, but if the scenery gets any darker I won’t see anything on screen.

A song of fire: Sam arrives at Winterfell, safe and sound. He must have found out about his father and brother on the way, but it’s not mentioned. He meets with Bran, and by giving him a hint of where to look, Bran sees the wedding of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. So they were legally married, and their child, Jon, is not a bastard, but the legal heir to the Throne, Aegon Targaryen. Boom. And there’s him and Daenerys being all Targaryeny.

Bigger thing than the heir business, is that Rhaegar is no longer sullied by the rape, which is the main thing he is remembered for. “He was a noble and great knight from the stories, a great prince, and a rapist whose horribleness brought about the rebellion.” But was that lie better than the truth? Or did someone, last generation’s Littlefinger, spin the story for the worst so a proper war could get started?

Anyway, has Daenerys fought all her battles so that she can give the throne to the rightful heir, who is not her, the Breaker of Chains?

A song of ice: Sansa and Arya talk, and remember their father’s words of working together: The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Legacy.

In the Eastwatch-by-the-sea, bad things happen. A dragon is a nuke option, and the Night King uses it gladly. Its power seems to be enough to destroy the Wall and remove the spells as well. And so the dead march to the lands beyond the Wall, bringing a new night with them.

After all the hype of the Wall, it couldn’t even put up a fight when the dead finally arrived. Beric Dondarrion and Tormund try to run to safety, and I can’t see if they succeed. But I’d presume that there would be a clearer shot if they died. And, well, we are talking of Beric Dondarrion here. He could always play dead.

But guess who from the Night Watch survived the apocalyptic event of the onslaught of the dead and the destruction of the Wall? And did it just by not being where the attack happened? My favourite watchman, Dolorous Edd. How does he do it?

By the way, Night Watch, Long Night, Night King, connecting these took too long for me.

#renly is right #game of thrones

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orangeflavoryawp · 5 years

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Jonsa - “Ghosts in Our Bed”

So this started as a simple little gift fic for @a-world-where-cocoa-is-purple who provided me with some much needed support when I was in a rough place, and then this fic somehow evolved into... this. It’s a beast of it’s own at this point. A sort of self-challenge where I attempt to cover Jon and Sansa's story from Season 6 to Season 8 but set ENTIRELY IN BED. Yeah, you heard that right. Slight AU. Political Jon is a thing, and because of that and other factors, Jon is not put on some stupid trial for killing Dany at the end of Season 8.

Ghosts in Our Bed

"They will take their time. They will learn to wean the frost from their bones." - Jon and Sansa. She comes to his bed one night and somehow never leaves.

* * *

Castle Black is bleak and cold-stoned and strangely hollow. This is not the North she remembers.

Ramsay’s North was not her North, after all, and she thinks this when she grips at Jon’s back after slipping beneath his furs.

“Sansa,” he protests, voice sleep-muffled and deep, grabbing for her wrist at his waist.

She presses her forehead to the place between his shoulder blades and something like a sob breaks from her lips, cracked and thin.

He stills in the dark beside her.

“Just… for tonight, Jon, please.” Nightfall is a terrible, rending thing these days and she misses the warmth of Theon beneath the moonlight since their escape.

(Jon is a different kind of warmth, but warmth all the same, and she thinks maybe this is what brothers are for.)

He hasn’t the heart to turn her away, and she knows this, uses this.

Jon sighs, his grip loosening around her wrist. “Just for the night.”

She keeps her face at his back, her tears unseen.

They should have known it would never be just for a night.

* * *

“Sansa,” he warns the second night, stiffening at her warmth creeping beneath the furs.

She settles easily into the space beside him, tucking herself into his side, a crook of comfort she makes her home.

She doesn’t answer him, doesn’t move to leave.

He should refuse her, he knows.

(He pretends not to see the wetness dotting her lashes.)

“Sansa,” he tries again, one hand going to her shoulder.

“Sleep, Jon,” she mumbles into him, fingers gripping at the furs. “Sleep.”

Jon takes a deep breath, glances past her to the crevice of moonlight drifting through his closed window.

Her breathing evens out far sooner than his, and he finds his hand still at her shoulder come morning.

* * *

“You don’t have nightmares anymore,” he says to her one night, watching her profile in half-shadow. It isn’t an accusation. It isn’t relief either.

(And maybe that’s cruel of him.)

The sliver of space between them is a living thing all its own.

“No,” she says on a sigh, eyes still closed, hand coming up to brace against his chest like muscle memory. “But you do.”

The revelation startles him into breathlessness.

* * *

Jon has stopped chafing beneath the looks his brothers give them when Sansa retires to his room for the night.

(They are not brothers after all, not with the gashes still vibrant and grotesque on his chest, so why should it matter what they think he does with his sister behind closed doors?)

Sansa herself seems immune to their glances, but all the same, something constricts tightly in his chest at the thought, and he finds himself turning fully to her in the night.

She is already facing him, mouth parted in sleep, curled fist beneath her chin. Such a small, fierce thing. Jon reaches for her fingers, unfurls them gently. She groans in her sleep, brows scrunching together in discomfort, but she doesn’t bunch her fist again.

Jon pulls his hand away, eyes roving the plane of her open palm, tracing the barely discernible stretch of lines etched into her skin.

He wonders suddenly what that palm might feel like against his bare chest, without the obstruction of his cotton tunic between them.

When he wakes on their last day at Castle Black, he finds her leg pressed between his, her arm flung languidly around his waist, her breath pooling in the column of his throat. Somewhere between their bodies that palm is braced to his chest, and he remembers, all at once, that some scars never fade.

(They will always be his brothers, he realizes – even when he wishes they weren’t, even when the reminders of his past life linger beneath the pads of her fine-boned fingers like marks of living weirwood.)

Jon disentangles himself from Sansa and turns his back to her in the filtering light of dawn.

* * *

The cot he keeps in his tent is small and uncomfortable, but while they tour the North in search of support, it is the last thing he considers – until her weight dips beside him, the creak of the cot jarringly loud in the still night.

“We can’t. Not here. Not anymore.” His eyes flit to the entrance of his tent, the wind tugging threateningly at the flap. Just outside are dozens of Northern soldiers.

“I can’t sleep without you anymore, Jon,” she says simply, already curling into him, already yawning in her exhaustion.

“Then learn how,” he says brusquely, pushing at her shoulder.

She opens her eyes finally. That damn Tully blue.

(His own eyes have always been Stark grey, and sometimes that feels more cruel than kind.)

“I don’t want to,” she answers hotly, staring at him in the dark.

He releases a huff of breath, his incredulity staining the air.

But she is already closing her eyes once more, already sighing into him.

And he is already letting her.

* * *

“Sixty-two Mormonts,” Sansa says, an incredulous laugh escaping her lips as she stares up at the ceiling of the tent.

Jon rubs at the space between his eyes, lying similarly beside her.

Sansa muses quietly, face closing off.

Jon eyes her warily in the dark, nudging her with his shoulder. “Hey.”

She sighs, lip caught between her teeth. “They’ll be slaughtered, you know. We all will.”

Jon sucks a breath through his teeth. “Sansa.”

She turns to him suddenly, the loud shift of fabric jarring in the silence blanketing them. “You know that, don’t you?” There’s something like desperation hanging off the edge of her features, but it’s a kind of desperation Jon doesn’t recognize. It isn’t the kind he knows. It’s something sharper, something keener.

She doesn’t tell him what Ramsay did to her, and he doesn’t think she ever will. But he sees it in the way she pulls her sleeves over her wrists and keeps Brienne always in her peripheral and never sits with her back to a door.

Jon heaves a somber breath, pulling the fallen furs up over her shoulders, his palm smoothing over them when he’s done. “We’re not done yet. More will come – you said it yourself. The North will answer.”

“But would they answer us? A bastard son and a traitor daughter?” Her eyes dip down to his chin, unable to keep his gaze. Her breath comes short and shallow, an anger heated through her that Jon is beginning to understand. “Neither of us is Robb.”

“No,” he answers her truthfully, his hand sliding down from her shoulder to rest between them, caught in a copper curl. “No, neither of us are.”

Her brows scrunch together, her gaze still lowered, and it’s a strange visage that greets him in the moonlight. This is not his sister, suddenly – not her at all. He remembers silk dresses and haughty laughs and an indifference to him so strong it couldn’t even breed dislike between them.

Simply apathy. Simply distance.

But distance is a foreign sensation these days – when her warmth permanently lines his furs and her breath stains the space between them and he knows the feel of her by dark, by faded moonlight.

“They will come,” he finds himself saying, a strand of her copper hair pooling beneath the pads of his fingers, like ink in water. “If we call them, they will come.”

The truth is, he isn’t sure he believes it. Not really.

But he needs her to. He needs her to believe it more than he ever thought possible.

(Her silk dresses have given way to ones of practical wool, her haughty laughs mellowed into mere smirks, her indifference a comfortable mask when they greet the Northern lords throughout their trek.)

Sansa looks at him and he realizes suddenly that he has never been good at faking sincerity. She swallows thickly, nodding to him in mild acknowledgement, and then turning her back to him, tucking the furs beneath her chin. “I understand.”

Her hair slips from his grasp. “Sansa – ”

“We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, Jon. You should get some sleep.”

He stares at her back, fingers curling into a fist.

Sixty-two Mormonts. A slaughter, perhaps, yes. But he knows no other way.

* * *

“Do you think it will be enough?” Jon asks softly, fingers thrumming uneasily along the furs at her back.

Sansa opens her eyes to stare into the empty space of his tent, her back to him, her hands curled into the furs.

Lord Glover’s words still reverberate through her mind.

House Stark is dead.

Sansa stiffens at the memory, a flush of defiance blooming beneath her skin. And Rickon, Rickon, Rickon. It’s a drowning murmur sunk deep into her bones. Her grief has already begun, already settled into her like snow stains cloth.

She lays in silence long enough that Jon thinks she is asleep.

His hand releases her hair and curls tentatively around her waist. “I need it to be enough.”

Sansa thinks of the hot wax she sealed her letter to Littlefinger with – red and thick and blood-like. She doesn’t respond to Jon’s touch, voice stalled in her throat.

He nuzzles against the nape of her neck, the scent of his ale-spent breath wafting through the still air, and she wonders if he would touch her like this if he didn’t truly expect it to be the last time.

“I can’t go back alive, either,” he admits to her beneath the cover of exhaustion, hand splaying out over her stomach, an anchor to keep them both – or to drown them.

She catches the whimper behind her clenched teeth before it can taste air.

* * *

It isn’t a cot, or a bed, or even a pile of furs they find themselves atop now.

(She’d found him in the kitchens of all places after the battle, after leaving Ramsay to his hounds.

Jon had been leaning back against the table, eyes on the ceiling, hands trembling as they braced against the wood.

“Jon,” she’d said, locking the door behind her with a loud clack, and it was all that needed saying.)

The stone is cold beneath her back but Jon is warm as he wraps around her, blood-drenched and soiled, his hair plastered to his forehead, the grime ripe on his skin. She wraps her hands tighter around his shoulders, smothers his cries in her breast, drags her cloak about them in a fit of cold.

“I’m sorry, Sansa, I’m so sorry. I didn’t… Rickon, he – ”

“Hush,” she commands, lips planted at his temple. The salt of his sweat is still sweet beneath the dirt. “We’re home now.”

His fingers dig into the small of her back, his breath rattling from him.

The banners of flayed men are already burning in the courtyard.

Yes – home.

(The crypts have gained another stone statue by the end of day.)

Jon holds her tighter.

* * *

“Jon,” she whispers gently, hand reaching for his back. He shuffles the furs higher along his shoulders pointedly. Her hand retracts. A heat suffuses her, ripe and pungent. Her tongue clacks against the roof of her mouth. “I don’t regret it.”

He keeps his back to her.

She takes a breath. “We won because of the Vale. And the Vale rode for me.”

“Littlefinger rode for you,” he corrects her, his voice muffled and low. Something like anger lines his tone, and it rattles her further. She reaches for his shoulder, tugging him roughly back, forcing him to look at her.

Jon lands exasperated eyes on her, huffing his frustration when she drags his attention back to her.

“What difference does it make?” she hisses.

“It makes all the difference,” he near shouts, bolting upright in the bed, looking down at her with dark, aggravated eyes. He snaps his gaze from hers, stares out at the far wall, takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair roughly.

Sansa stares up at him, still and transfixed. Slowly, she sits up herself, the furs tumbling down her form.

Jon glances just once, just a moment, and maybe it should matter that she’s here, in her brother’s bed, in nothing but a shift. Maybe it should matter that her skin is flushed and the furs are too warm and the space between their bodies is practically non-existent at this point.

Maybe a lot of things should have mattered – a lot of things that inevitably didn’t.

But still – still she reaches for him, her hand curling around his wrist tentatively. “Jon.”

The breath rakes from him like the last gust of winter. He shakes his head, grinding his teeth, but he doesn’t shake her touch from him.

Sansa takes heart, steeling herself. “I would do it again, Jon, if it meant saving you.”

Jon looks at her finally, jaw tight, frown deep. “You shouldn’t,” he says lowly, like a warning.

Sansa blinks at him, her fingers fluttering around his wrist. She tugs his arm toward her. He lets her. She bundles his fist in her lap, fingers wrapping around it tenderly. “Even still – I would.” She keeps her gaze on his hand in her lap, her fingers sliding deftly over his knuckles – split raw and red from his beating of Ramsay, the skin a dark, bruising promise between them. “Just like you would,” she says on a hush, voice catching in her throat. She looks up at him.

The words lay untouched between them, pillowed in her lap, curled into their own furs, bleeding into the bed beneath them like wronged ghosts.

He has no rebuke. Not to this.

Because she’s right. Because he would. Because he had.

If it meant saving you.

Jon swallows tightly, looks away. He does not pull his hand from her grasp. He looks up at the ceiling, pulls a single, long inhale through his aching lungs, releases it like the unfurling of a fist.

They stay like this for many moments, until Sansa’s brows furrow in thought, her eyes latched to his bloody knuckles, her fingers brushing the skin lightly. “It will scar,” she says softly, a quiet anguish coloring her words.

Before he can say anything else, she is lifting his hand to her mouth and bracing her lips to his ruined skin.

Jon stares at her, mouth parted, chest heaving.

She pulls away slowly, eyes lifted to his.

Let it scar, he thinks.

If it meant saving you.

The words clatter around his skull in recognition.

* * *

“King in the North, hmm?” she asks impishly, smiling up at him, secure in familiar furs.

(He’d been so adamant she take the Lord’s chambers. It hardly matters now though, when they’re both gracing the bed.)

He scowls, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “It should be yours.”

She chucks him beneath his chin. “It should be ours,” she corrects.

Jon watches her with dark eyes, steady in shadow. “Ours,” he repeats, the word foreign on his tongue.

Sansa’s hand stills at his chin, her fingers curled just beneath his beard.

She pulls back.

He holds her fast.

He holds her.

* * *

“You’re not making this easy,” he chuckles into her shoulder, fingers smoothing over her waist like instinct, like he’s always shared his sister’s bed.

Sansa stops his touch with a firm hand.

He blinks up at her. She wears the same face she had earlier that day, when she’d told him he was good at his, good at ruling.

Jon frowns, wondering how sincere those words were.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she reminds him. Her tone is sharp and unforgiving, and some part of him resents her for taking up the tone she uses in the Hall of Lords when they’re here in his bed.

He stares at her, throat tightening, resolve steadying. He presses into her, watching her eyes widen at the move. It’s a heady feeling that branches through his lungs.

“Then how is it supposed to be?”

She opens her mouth, parched and silent. She closes it instantly.

Jon shifts beneath the covers, angling himself over her, staring down at her with his arms braced on either side of her head. “How is it supposed to be?” he repeats, time distilled in the space between their lips.

She stares up at him, chest heaving. “Not like this,” she manages in a whisper.

And she’s right. She’s so utterly right it pains him, strikes him with a ferocity he’s never experienced before.

Not like this, he reminds himself as he leans in, as he braces his lips tentatively against hers.

He tastes the air she sucks between her teeth in surprise.

(Like cloves and snow-soaked oak.)

Jon stills, blinking down at her, his mouth braced just above hers.

Slowly, so slowly he thinks he imagines it, her hands anchor along his hips.

“Not like this,” she breathes in admonishment, even as she leans up to kiss him.

Even as he dips down to meet her.

* * *

It seems inevitable, the way their bodies meld together. Like stone and mortar.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he hisses as she spreads her weight over him, her hair curtaining him in a copper dream.

(It’s something he should have said moons ago but now – now it rings faintly hollow.)

She levels her mouth to his, fingers anchored at his shoulder. “Then send me away.”

Jon stays deathly still, breathing heavily.

Sansa kisses him.

The sound that leaves him is half-whine, half-groan. His fingers dig into her hips of their own accord. “Sansa.” Her name breaks from him in a heady gasp, splashing against her lips.

“Send me away,” she repeats, rolling her hips into his meaningfully.

Jon growls, surging up and flipping her over, bracing his weight above hers.

Like stone and mortar. The line of their bodies is seamless. No air.

His hand curls into hers, pressing it further against the pillow at her head, his chest heaving against hers. “You know I won’t,” he accuses. It’s a damnation they share, he thinks, especially when she arches against him in relief.

His mouth finds her throat.

(Like cloves and snow-soaked oak, and this �� this – is his downfall.)

For all her cold and stiffness, for all her icy veneer – Sansa is blessedly warm beneath his palms.

Home is Winterfell. Home is stone and mortar, yes, but home is also Sansa.

Inevitable.

* * *

“Don’t go,” she commands between pants, fingers spreading up his chest to anchor herself atop him.

Jon’s fingers curl around her hips like moss molding to stone. “I must,” he grinds out, rocking into her, gaze fixed to hers.

She sinks a hand into his hair and tugs, ignoring his surprised grunt, staring down at him with cold-cut eyes. “Don’t go,” she hisses again, moving quicker.

“Sansa,” he tries to reason in his haze.

She dips down to him, staggering their rhythm for a moment when she can’t keep his gaze any longer. “Don’t go,” she snarls, voice cracking, a muffled sob breaking against his sweat-slicked skin. She smothers her quaking ‘please’ with a bite over his collar bone and he is lost to her.

Later, when he drags her weight up his chest and presses a kiss so hard to her mouth that he can taste the sob behind her lips, her hand slips from the tangle of his hair like a passing season.

She disentangles from his embrace, her hair curtaining away her gaze when she drags her legs over the bed. With her back to him, she is almost his sister once more.

(Almost, but never quite.)

“You’ll go,” she croaks out in resignation, no question in the words.

Jon raises to his elbows, following the line of her back in candle-fed shadow. “I have to.”

Sansa looks up at the ceiling, a dry scoff leaving her. “’Only a king can treat with a queen’,” she near spits, repeating his words from earlier that day.

Jon swallows thickly behind her, silent.

“Kings,” she muses incredulously, and the image of Robb is instant behind his lids at the word. “Northern fools, all of you,” Sansa whispers softly into the night.

Jon reaches for her. “Sansa.”

But she is out of reach now, standing swiftly from the bed and grabbing for her cloak on the bedside chair. She leaves him there, still sweating beneath the furs, muscles still bunching beneath the memory of her heat.

Even when he leaves for Dragonstone the next morning and she offers a perfunctory wave from atop the ramparts, her voice trails him like an echo.

Northern fools, all of you.

And maybe so, Jon thinks, the taste of her still lingering on his tongue.

Maybe so.

* * *

Sansa spreads a slender arm across the empty space in the sheets beside her, suddenly chill, suddenly hollow.

Even dead, Baelish’s whispers follow her to bed.

Young and unmarried.

Sansa pulls her arm back, nails dragging across the linens.

He’s been gone for just so long.

* * *

Jon does not stay – cannot stay.

Daenerys slumbers nude next to him. But the comfort of sleep has only ever been found in the shape of Sansa’s arms and, tainted even as he is now, he will not stain that memory further.

Jon slips from the bed, pulling his breeches over his hips, bile souring the back of his throat. He walks from the room without a last look to the dragon queen behind him, betrayal anchoring like a shadow in his wake.

* * *

“Get out,” she seethes, nails digging into her palms when she curls her fists atop her lap.

Jon settles next to her at the edge of the bed. “Sansa, please.” He brushes her hair over her shoulder.

The sensation should be familiar. Instead, it’s faintly disturbing.

(Had he brushed her hair back so tenderly? That white, treacherous hair?)

“How dare you,” she manages through clenched teeth, finally looking at him.

The ruin of his face should be satisfying, but it’s only distressing. He looks so worn, so old suddenly, so ragged and somber and eroded with dread.

His knuckles brush over the back of her hand tenderly and she stifles the whimper clawing up her throat, settling for wrath instead – heated and sharp and familiar. “How dare you crawl back to my bed smelling of another woman’s musk.”

His face hardens then, throat flexing beneath his control. “I don’t regret it.”

Her scoff hits the air like a howl. “What?”

“I would do it again, if it meant saving you.” He repeats her words back to her, hand sliding over her bunched fist.

She pulls her touch from him. “That’s not fair. That’s not fair and you know it.”

Jon’s frown pulls harsher along his lips, tugging deeper. “You told me to be smarter.”

“I told you not to go at all,” she reminds him, the words like ice – nearly tangible in their bite.

Jon dips his head down, eyes lingering on her still clenched fists. “If it keeps the dead from our door. If it keeps them… from you… ”

Sansa stares at him heatedly, chest rising and falling so quickly it’s making him lightheaded.

Jon swallows back that slice of shame. “I would do it again,” he manages, the sickness already lining his throat, already tasting air. His lungs are full of it. This ripe, bitter shame. And even still –

Jon looks at Sansa.

(Her eyes are the bluest he will ever allow them to be and yet he finally understands how some things may be worse than death.)

“Please,” she manages through a tight draw of air into her rattling lungs. “Get out.”

He stands from the bed, mouth opening as though to say more, but nothing else seems to matter. So he nods his farewell, sweeps from the room with the barest rustle of furs.

Sansa falls to her side along the bed, muffling her sob into the pillow.

She understands, she does. She understands but…

There is a dragon in their den of wolves, and Sansa is left choking on the ash.

* * *

“You have to stop goading her. Stop defying her,” he urges, voice firm, slamming the door behind him.

Sansa bolts upright in her bed, legs swinging over the edge, hands fumbling uselessly to clasp her robe closed. “Excuse you, Jon, but I haven’t given you leave to visit my chambers so leisurely.”

He stops just at the edge of her bed, his knees brushing hers. He takes a deep breath. “You used to.”

Sansa looks away. “I used to do a lot of things I shouldn’t have, it seems.”

Something like a growl brews in his chest and it drags her attention back to him instantly. “You’re on dangerous ground here, Sansa. Don’t provoke her further.”

“Your queen planning to flay me, is that it?”

“Sansa!” he bellows, hands gripping at her arms, face inches from hers.

Sansa jerks back, pushing at his chest. “Get off me, Jon.”

They struggle for a moment, and then Sansa’s leg bucks out against his, stumbling him, and they’re falling back along the bed, and Jon is fumbling for her hands, grasping at her wrists as he holds her down. “Sansa. Sansa.”

“Get off,” she howls, tears springing to her eyes, tugging uselessly at his firm grasp.

“Sansa.” It’s a harrowed whisper above her lips, his body quaking with his need. “I’m sorry.”

She bucks against him, a strangled sob escaping her throat. “Don’t.”

He sighs against her mouth, trying to still her, knees bracketing her hips. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It hurts,” she blurts out, voice a tremulous gasp of air, eyes squeezing shut. She stills her struggle against him. “It hurts, Jon, it hurts so much.”

His head dips to her shoulder, breath a hot, tremulous exhale at her throat. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, over and over. As though it means anything. As though it matters.

“It hurts,” she sobs at his temple, arching up into him.

And then he’s kissing her, all heat and snarl and breathlessness, catching her bottom lip between his teeth, gasping into her mouth with all the fervency and desperation her absence has bred in him. His hand leaves her wrist to ruck up her shift, already palming at her thigh, already kneading into her flesh like a lonesome wolf. “I’m sorry,” he pants against her lips.

She bunches a fist in his collar. “Shut up.” She’s already unlacing his breeches when he releases her other wrist, already sliding her knees to brace against his hips.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mutters into her mouth, breathless and dangerous and needy.

He slips inside her effortlessly. Sansa sucks a sharp breath through her teeth, nails digging into his back.

Jon hisses beneath the sensation, pulling out almost entirely before plunging back in. “I’m sorry,” he pants into her skin, a mantra, a prayer.

Sansa tugs at his hair, reveling at the hiss that leaves him, pulling his head up so that her teeth catch at his chin. “I said shut up,” she growls into his skin, hips rising to meet him.

Jon ruts and ruts and ruts, lost to the rhythm, mindless of their moans reverberating off the stone, mindless of anything beyond the heat of her, the wrathful clench of her fist in his hair, her teeth at his throat, her tongue against his pulse.

She takes him, and takes him, and takes him. And he lets her.

He’s taken far too much already.

* * *

She finds him slumbering lightly atop his furs, one arm drawn up over his eyes.

“Jon.”

He reacts instantly, shooting up to a sitting position, drawing his legs over the edge of the bed. “Sansa,” he says in greeting, uneasy, unsure.

Sansa steps into the space between his legs but keeps her hands at her sides.

Above them, just past the stone of their walls, soldiers stand ready for the Long Night. The dead march on them even now, perhaps hours away, perhaps only minutes, and it’s a faint flame that warms Winterfell in the dark night, a bare heat that brings her to his door before he leaves her (perhaps for good this night).

He looks up at her, still – so unbearably still she wants to shake him.

(The dragon queen stands atop their ramparts with hair like winter – a frozen flame unbefitting the still, quiet snow of their home.)

“Tell me it’s me,” Sansa whispers to him, voice trembling.

Jon’s brows furrow together in confusion, his eyes steady on her as she stands before him.

Sansa moves her hands to her shoulders, dragging the fabric of her robe from her shoulders until the material pools at her feet.

Jon’s breath hitches, his shoulders stiffening, a bow of tension lancing through him.

“Tell me it’s me,” she says again, fingers going to the front laces of her shift.

Jon’s hands find her hips, fingers splaying up along her sides, thumbs brushing just underneath her breasts before winding back down, his touch reverent, worshipful. “It’s always you,” he tells her, voice a deep rumble, a ragged exhale between them.

The laces of her shift slide open beneath her delicate fingers. “Tell me it’s us,” she urges, pulling the material down, letting it fall past her shoulders, baring her breasts in the faint candlelight of his room.

Jon sucks a sharp breath through his teeth, one hand already gliding up to cup a breast, fingers firm and greedy, tugging a moan from her lips. His lips part, watching the way her head lolls back.

“Tell me you want me,” she demands, fingers reaching for his shoulders, dragging up and along his throat, past his jaw, tangling in his curls.

Jon tugs her to him with a growl, catching her as she stumbles, looking up at her with a faint possessiveness. His fingers dig into the small of her back, and she trembles, lips parting.

“I always want you,” he admits to her, his hand gliding slowly down from the small of her back, over the curve of her ass, further still, cupping the back of her thigh, tugging her toward him until she plants a knee along the bed, half in his lap.

Sansa takes a steadying breath, lifting her shift up over her knees to more easily straddle him. “Tell me – ”

Jon huffs impatiently, a snarl catching in his throat when he drags her down to his lap, making her stumble as she braces her knees on either side of him along the bed, splaying a hand at her back, his other already digging into her thigh. He pushes his face up into her throat, teeth snagging on the skin and swallowing her pulse back behind his frantic tongue. “You,” he breathes into the sweat-slicked column of her throat. “You, you, you, Sansa.”

She gasps beneath the lash of his tongue.

“Always you. Only you,” he promises, one hand tugging her shift up with impatience, fingers reaching for her smallclothes only to find none. He groans at her jaw, nipping at the skin, mouth searching for hers, desperate, heady, greedy.

She unlaces his breeches with practiced ease and then she’s sinking down on him, both of them sighing into each other’s mouths, wet and hot and frantic.

“Say my name,” she demands, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, keeping him to her chest as she rolls her hips in that achingly familiar urge.

Jon grunts against her lips, tongue darting out to taste her. “Sansa,” he pants heatedly, bucking up into her. “Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.”

“Again,” she insists, breath catching, nails dragging along his shoulder blades.

Jon mouths at her breast, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. “Sansa.”

“Again,” she gasps. “Again.”

“Sansa,” he growls into her skin, dragging her up and down his length with a fervency he’s never felt before. “Sansa, only you – only, nngh, fuck – fuck.” His thrusts grow erratic, his teeth catching at her throat, his hands tearing the remainder of her shift from her, her scar-riddled back open to his palms. “Gods, Sansa, only you. Only ever you.”

Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.

Her name filters through the room like a prayer, like a dark chant, the hordes of the dead coming down around them and yet here – here in this room, in this heat and this yearning and this reckless, need-fraught embrace – here is peace.

Cutting and sharp-tongued and so, so soothing – in only the way wolves can soothe.

“Say my name.”

He doesn’t.

He howls it.

* * *

Jon doesn’t wake for three days. Sansa keeps his side when she can, when the dragon queen isn’t fretting insultingly over his war-torn form.

Dawn comes, and so does the relief – slow and blood-stained as it is. The Night King lies in shards of ice across the floor of the godswood.

Jon is just so tired.

He wakes to Sansa’s face in the furs at his shoulder, her hand in his, her slumber a lulling hum in the stillness of her chamber.

Her chamber, he realizes, eyes glancing around, catching the wide set of the bed.

Sansa stirs to wakefulness beside him.

He reaches for her, catches her bewildered face in his palms and ignores the pain when he leans forward, catching her lips beneath his, soaking her in, tasting the sharp relief of her parted lips and her tentative tongue and drowning in her sigh when it breaks against his eager mouth.

“Sansa,” he breathes against her, barely managing to pull from her long enough to meet her tear-filled gaze with his own. “I called for you.”

Sansa blinks at him beneath furrowed brows.

In the dead dark, in the hollowness of dreamlessness, he had called for her.

Say my name.

And he had. Again and again and again.

Jon smiles up at her, brilliant and blinding and breathless. “You answered,” he sighs out in relief, leaning in to kiss her again.

Sansa folds her hands around his own over her cheeks, molding into the kiss like a familiar embrace. Like she’d always known his feel and his taste and the way his breath filled her mouth with the ache of longing.

Like the morning light was made for them.

Sansa.

And she’d answered. In dark and dawn.

She’d answered.

* * *

Theon is still burning in the pyre outside when Jon links his arms around Sansa, anchoring her back to his chest, letting her drag the pillow to her face and sob into it unseen.

His body aches, and there are dragons still outside the door, but for now…

For now he will be the stone to her mortar.

* * *

“Daenerys knows?” Sansa asks tentatively, fingers thrumming against his chest in something like comfort.

Jon curls his arm tighter around her waist, eyes dark on hers. “Of my true parents?”

Sansa nods silently. It is all she can do.

Inside, she wants to rage. Rage for that agonized, lonesome boy he used to be. Rage for the cousin she should have had since the beginning.

She loves her father, always will – but lies can cut as sharp as truths, and Sansa knows this intimately. It’s carved its lesson into her flesh, made a map of its presence across her winter-pale skin.

And Jon should be able to love their father – their father – without guilt or remorse or resentment lingering beneath the memory of such love.

Yes – inside, Sansa wants to rage, but Jon has seen enough war in this life, and so she will give him peace.

She will be his peace, if he asks it of her.

Jon’s gaze flutters to her lips, brows furrowing in thought. He draws smoothing circles at the small of her back. “She knows.” The words are clipped, a tight exhale.

Sansa shuffles closer to him beneath the furs. “Jon, she may – ”

“Enough,” he exhales, shaking his head, fingers stilling at her back. It isn’t vehemence that stains his tone, only exhaustion. “I don’t… I don’t want to speak of her. Not here. Not… in our bed.”

“We’ll have to eventually, you know that.”

He shuts his eyes, breathing deeply. “Please, Sansa, just… just give me tonight.”

Sansa regards him quietly, keeping her retort along her tongue. Her hand moves up from his chest to trace her fingers along his lips. He sighs beneath her touch, opening his eyes once more. “You have to tell Arya,” she says instead, swallowing back the trepidation.

Jon takes a steadying breath, never answering.

Sansa curls into his chest, fingers still at his lips. “Jon.”

“I know.” It’s a ragged exhale that leaves him, and oh, how the war tears at them still.

(Always will, she realizes suddenly.)

“She’s your sister,” she reminds him, and the words are easier than she expects.

Jon’s jaw tenses, his teeth grinding. He watches her in the shadow of her bedroom for a moment, before his hand returns to its motion at her back, fingers dragging along her bare skin. “And you?”

Her response is a curious raise of her brows.

Jon’s hand smooths up the expanse of her back, and then languidly back down, trailing the unconscious arch of her spine beneath his touch. “Are you my sister?”

Her mouth parts at the words, chest constricting without warning. “Is that what you want?”

Somehow, she finds herself afraid. More than Joffrey’s acidity or Littlefinger’s touches or Ramsay’s brutality – more than crypts like prisons and dragon queens with the promise of fire in their eyes – Sansa finds she is terrified beyond words.

But then he’s pulling her fingers from his lips and pressing his mouth hesitantly to hers, the trembling bow of his kiss lighting the air in her lungs instantly. He pulls away almost too soon, something of trepidation in his eyes. “I haven’t wanted that for a long time now. I don’t… don’t think I ever will again.” He stares at her in the dark, waiting for her answer, and she finds she’s always known it.

Her arms wind around him and pull him to her, her sigh braced at his neck, her eyes fluttering closed. His hand at her back splays firmly against her, keeping her close. “Thank you,” she whispers into his hair, voice cracking.

He chuckles – actually chuckles. “For what?”

“For telling me in the first place. For letting me share this with you.”

Jon stays silent as he holds her, but she can sense the faint tightening of his arms that signals his worry. She leans back to meet his gaze once more.

“Thank you for trusting me with this part of you.” Her hands frame his face tenderly.

Jon’s laugh is soft and disbelieving as he shakes his head. “I trust you with all of me, Sansa. Whatever made you think I didn’t?”

The breath catches in her throat, mouth parting as though to speak but nothing comes. The tears are hot and instant at the corners of her eyes. She drags him to her and kisses him.

Perhaps she was wrong.

Perhaps they can be each other’s peace.

(Perhaps they already are.)

* * *

“If I asked you to stay, would you?”

Jon stares up at the ceiling beside her. “Don’t ask me to stay.”

Sansa frowns, face quivering. “Would you?” she presses.

Jon links his hand with hers, a calloused thumb running along her trembling knuckles. “She will burn them all, Sansa, you know that.”

“Maybe some of them deserve to burn.” She knows it’s cruel, even as she says it, but she can’t fathom the idea of losing him again. The South has never been kind to Starks, King’s Landing especially, and this time, there is a dragon queen driving them back to war.

Jon turns to look at her, lips a thin line. “Sansa,” he says in admonishment, but something in his gaze tells her he understands.

She tears her eyes from his, looking up at the ceiling again, lip caught between her teeth. “We have to stop her,” she admits reluctantly.

He sighs beside her. “We do.”

“Why must it be you?” she asks on a quivering breath, hand turning in his until their fingers of interlocked.

“Because I could not ask it of anyone else.”

Sansa clenches her teeth, tongue pressing almost painfully to the roof of her mouth. She nods, even as she threatens to break. “I know.” Her chest rises and falls with tight, shallow breaths, the fear curling into her lungs like frost. “I know, but it hurts all the same.”

“I’ll come back to you. I always do.” Another brush of his thumb over her knuckles.

Sansa stares quietly at the ceiling for many long moments, throat flexing with her control. And then her eyes slip shut, the sigh dragging from her lips like the scrape of steel against a whetstone. “I won’t ask you to stay,” she begins, turning to meet his eyes in the faint candlelight of her room. “But then, you have to stop making promises you can’t keep.”

Jon opens his mouth to answer her but she presses a hand to his lips in a motion of silence.

He stares at her, everything and nothing passing between them.

She keeps his gaze, keeps his hand in hers, keeps her heart to his. “We both know how this ends.”

Jon pulls her hand from his mouth, turning to her along the bed. “Sansa – ”

“So be with me – here – tonight. Be with me. Be… mine.” She takes a breath, keeps it tight to her lungs. “If only for tonight.”

His hand slides into her hair like wind through the weirwood branches. Outside, the godswood is glistening beneath new snow – winter has settled seamlessly into the hollows of Winterfell, and Sansa finds she still yearns for summer. For warmth and light and green. For kisses like sun.

“Yours,” Jon breathes against her mouth, like a promise he intends to keep. “Always.”

Sansa doesn’t reprimand him that one.

She likes to think it’s the one promise she can always trust.

* * *

Sansa lies awake long into the night.

Arya’s knock at her door goes unanswered.

She stares into the flickering light of her bedside candle until the wax melts down to the base, until the light of dawn creeps through her shutters and lights upon her half-empty bed like an accusation.

Sansa rises stiffly, dragging her robe over her shoulders.

Even in his absence, she is still – and always will be – his.

Even when his scent has long since gone from her pillow.

* * *

Jon doesn’t realize she’s even entered his temporary chambers in the ruined King’s Landing until she’s wrapping her arms around him and settling along the cot at his back.

He gasps her name into the soot-filled air, stiffening under her embrace.

“I’m here,” she whispers into the nape of his neck. “I’m here.”

He hadn’t returned to her. He hadn’t kept his promise.

The realization catches along his throat like ash.

(But she’d come for him – just like she had when they first reunited at Castle Black, just like she had when he woke to her comforting touch after the Long Night. She always comes for him, he realizes suddenly.)

Jon releases a single, lung-scraping sob into the scratchy wool blanket he clutches in his fist. “I killed her,” he admits, and the bile at the back of his throat doesn’t answer any of his questions or ease any of his pains.

“I know,” she answers softly, a delicate hand smoothing back his curls.

“I killed her,” he says again, as though it will be easier the more times he says it.

“Because you could not ask it of anyone else,” she says into his back, hands tightening over his chest, voice firm.

He tries to turn in her embrace. “Sansa.” It’s more a choke than any iteration of her name that escapes his chapped lips.

Sansa keeps him to her chest, hands urgent but gentle as they ease him back. “Rest, Jon. You have to rest.”

“I’m so tired,” he admits, not even realizing the words are ready upon his tongue. It’s truth all the same. His bones are weary from war. His hands are permanently creased with blood. And he is just so tired.

“Rest, Jon.” She fits her form to his, settles her warmth along his back.

“Why are you here, Sansa?” he asks beneath the weight of unshed tears, body trembling.

She is silent for many moments, long enough that Jon almost eases into sleep without her answer.

But then she’s pressing her lips to the back of his neck, her leg moving to cover his, her hands tightening in their hold over his waist. “I’ve come to take you home.”

He doesn’t know if the North wants him still, with this Targaryen blood of his, with these kinslayer hands of his, with this stained crown of his.

But Sansa’s hands are warm at his chest, and her breath is steady at his back, and this is all he wants, he realizes suddenly – this is all that will ever matter to him again.

Home.

Like stone and mortar. Like the grey expanse of Winterfell beneath snow-heavy clouds. Like copper hair and sharp-tongued retorts and unforgiving looks.

Sansa is a demand all her own. A demand to be forthright, a demand to be constant, a demand to be true. And he will answer her. Until the end of his days, he will answer her.

(When next she asks him to stay, he does.)

They come for each other, after all.

And he will answer.

* * *

Sometimes Jon wakes retching in the middle of the night. Sometimes Sansa grasps for him in the dead of her sleep. Sometimes they linger in the wake of each other’s nightmares.

But they linger still. Always.

Peace is a hard-won dawn, but even in winter, the sun always rises.

They will take their time. They will learn to wean the frost from their bones.

“Queen in the North, hmm?” he asks her with a raised brow, hands folding around her waist.

“It should be yours,” she offers him, eyes searching.

Jon’s mouth parts, words stalling in his throat. And then his disbelieving chuckle lines the air as he draws her closer. “It should be ours,” he corrects her, reiterating her words from those many moons ago.

Sansa smiles against his mouth, her hands settling on his shoulders. “It is,” she assures him.

Between them, shadows still play their parts, horrors still land their hooks, but more often than not, they sleep through the night. More often than not, they wake to summer.

The ghosts in their bed have long since fled – giving way to the living.

Jon and Sansa greet each day anew, letting the dawn wash over them like a promise.

“Yours.”

Like a promise kept.

They should have known it would never be just for a night.

#jonsa #jon snow #sansa stark #jon x sansa #jon and sansa #game of thrones #got #got fanfic

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