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daceytheshebear · 8 months

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My Oak Leaf Dress post is getting some traction again years after it was first posted, and it got me wondering if tumblr might be more fertile groud to talk about some Arya Stark-centered analysis of mine I feel never got the attention it deserved in the westeros.org forum?

Okay, have you noticed that Arya's five chapters in AGOT have very very strong parallels to Arya’s five chapters in Feast/Dance? I've cataloged them and it blows my mind that more people aren't dissecting it. If we take into consideration that the AFFC and ADWD were supposed to one book, Arya has exactly the same amount of chapters as she had in book one, which is much less than she had in ACOK or ASOS. A pity in my opinion, as I love to read her, but I believe this is not a coincidence on Martin’s part as there seem to be several parallels between what Arya experiences in the first book and the last two. I’ll compare:

AGOT Arya I to AFFC Arya I

AGOT Arya II to AFFC Arya II

AGOT Arya III to AFFC Cat of the Canals

AGOT Arya IV to ADWD The Blind Girl

AGOT Arya V to ADWD The Ugly Little Girl

So, AGOT Arya I / AFFC Arya I: Both take place in a different setting from the other four chapters (Winterfell vs. Kings Landing for AGOT, the ship The Titan's Daughter vs. the city of Braavos in AFFC and ADWD). In both we have Arya directly interacting with two siblings, one who is two years older than her and whose place she would like to be able to occupy (Sansa with all her ladylike abilities, Denyo who is a cabin boy) and another who is older and more guarded and with whom she has important conversations about the ways of the world (Jon Snow and the talk about bastards and girls and Yorko and all the exposition about Bravosi culture). Quotes about Sansa and Denyo:

It wasn't fair. Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. Arya took after their lord father.

And

Denyo had taken her up to the crow's nest once, and she hadn't been afraid at all, though the deck had seemed a tiny thing below her. I can do sums too, and keep a cabin neat. But the galleas had no need of a second boy.

In both chapters we have adults who are not really happy to be in charge of Arya, who are associated with the color grey, and who frown at Arya with similar phrasing (septa Mordane and Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys). I'll give you the quotes:

Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. "What are you talking about, children?"

And

Arya turned to find Denyo's father looming over them in his long captain's coat of purple wool. Tradesman-Captain Ternesio Terys wore no whiskers and kept his grey hair cut short and neat, framing his square, windburnt face. On the crossing she had oft seen him jesting with his crew, but when he frowned men ran from him as if before a storm. He was frowning now. "Our voyage is at an end," he told Arya.

In one of the chapters Arya is said to be “too skinny to hold a sword” and in the other she is “too small to man an oar”. Both chapters end with Arya entering rooms where two authority figures await for her (septa Mordane and Catelyn in her room AGOT, the kindly man and the waif inside the House of Black and White in AFFC).

AGOT Arya II / AFFC Arya II: In both chapters a long time has elapsed between Arya I and Arya II. In both chapters Arya feels very isolated from people around her (in AGOT she is mourning Mycah, angry at her father’s men who let the boy be murdered and sad that even Sansa “wouldn’t talk to her unless their father made her”, in AFFC Arya takes the other servants of the HoBaW for mutes until she hears them praying, they never talk to her and Umma, who does talk, speaks in a language she can’t understand.

In both chapters we have vivid descriptions of rich food Arya eats, which is very rare in her story because she is underfed most of the time. In both chapters Needle is discovered (in AGOT Ned sees the sword, in AFFC the waif catches Arya training).

In both chapters she has a very important conversation about lies (Arya tells her father Sansa lied about not knowing what happened at the Trident, and Ned says to her: "We all lie" and later says that some lies are “not without honor”, meanwhile the kindly man says to Arya “All men lie when they are afraid. Some tell many lies, some but a few. Some have only one great lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it”).

In both chapters Arya promises to obey:

“This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience… at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up." "I will," Arya vowed. She had never loved him so much as she did in that instant. "I can be strong too. I can be as strong as Robb."

In AFFC the kindly man tells Arya

“Remain if you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. At all times and in all things. If you cannot obey, you must depart." "I can obey." [...] “It takes uncommon strength of body and spirit, and a heart both hard and strong [to be a faceless man]" I have a hole where my heart should beand nowhere else to go. "I'm strong. As strong as you. I'm hard."

In Both chapters Arya is said to be beautiful (a word that is not used to describe her in any other occasion). In both words Arya explicitly refuses feminine roles (in AGOT she tells Ned she doesn’t want to be a lady, in AFFC she thinks she wanted none of the placements the kindly man offers her, with courtesans where she would “sleep on rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when [she] walks” or “marriage and children”).

In both chapters Arya uses rocks to save a part of herself: in AGOT she recounts to Ned how she had to throw stones at Nymeria for her to stop following and be saved from the Lannister men who would execute her (we hope Arya will reunite with Nymeria again), and in AFFC she hides Needle behind a loose stone step to keep it safe for later (we hope she will retrieve it at some point).

Another plot-point that repeats between the two chapters is the introduction of a teacher. Arya II in AGOT opens in a dinner scene in the Small Hall ends with the introduction of Syrio Forel in the same Small Hall, where Arya begins to learn water dancing. Syrio says “now we dance”. Arya II in AFFC starts with Arya reciting her list, and ends after the Waif becomes Arya’s teacher on the braavosi language and the lying game (she actively compares what she is learning now with the lessons she once had from Syrio) and then Arya finally leaves the temple, reciting her list like in the beginning (so both chapters start and finish “in the same place”) and saying she is “so happy she could dance”.

AGOT Arya III / AFFC Cat of the Canals: Okay so in AGOT Arya II, Arya assumes a “fake identity” for the first time ever! Tommen and Myrcella mistake her for a peasant boy, and she acts the part. In her third chapter in AFFC this is taken up to the next level and this is the first time her chapter title changes when she takes the identity of Cat. Cats! Of course, Arya II in AGOT is that one chapter that is all about cats, she talks about pursuing them and she finally kisses Balerion. She then becomes Cat in her third chapter in AFFC, and reminisces about chasing cats in the Red Keep in that chapter!

There is a sense of expanding horizons in both these chapters. Arya leaves the Red Keep for the first time in AGOT Arya III, and walks back from the Blackwater all the way to the castle. In her third AFFC chapter, Arya is exploring the city of Braavos after having finally been allowed out of the temple. She is also very cheeky in both these chapters! Arya interacting with the guards of the Red Keep is hilarious, and very similar to how she acts when being her Cat persona.

Nightmares. Arya experiences vivid, terrible nightmares in both these third chapters (and in her third chapter in ASOS). In AGOT she hears her father’s voice becoming fainter and fainter in her dreams, which some have interpreted as foreshadowing for Ned’s death and as a sign that Arya may have precognitive abilities. In AFFC it’s her mother she hears screaming. Both these chapters also explore and detail the place Arya inhabits. In AGOT Arya III the Red Keep is heavily featured, and it’s described as an “endless stone maze”. In AFFC Cat takes us all around Braavos, which of course is a “crooked city” with all its buildings made out of stone.

Daenerys is mentioned!! Illyrio and Varys discuss “the princess with child” in AGOT Arya III, and tales of “dragons hatching” reach Cat in AFFC. Daenerys isn’t mentioned in any other Arya chapters.

Retelling overheard stories features heavily in both chapters. Arya tries to convey to Ned what she overheard and is casually dismissed. In Cat of the Canals, Arya is learning to actively overhear conversations and gather information and retells them to the kindly man with caution.

Bathing is also present in both chapters. Arya usually doesn’t really enjoy bathing in ACOK and ASOS, but both in AGOT Arya III and in Cat of the Canals, on the other hands, we witness Arya disrobing and cleaning her body of her own volition, getting rid of bad smells in almost ritualized cleansing. Compare the quotes from AGOT, Arya III:

She found herself standing at the mouth of a sewer where it emptied into the river. She stank so badly that she stripped right there, dropping her soiled clothing on the riverbank as she dove into the deep black waters. She swam until she felt clean, and crawled out shivering.

and AFFC, Cat of the Canals:

Down in the vaults, she untied Cat's threadbare cloak, pulled Cat's fishy brown tunic over her head, kicked off Cat's salt-stained boots, climbed out of Cat's smallclothes, and bathed in lemonwater to wash away the very smell of Cat of the Canals. When she emerged, soaped and scrubbed pink with her brown hair plastered to her cheeks, Cat was gone.

One of the most important parallels in this set of chapters regards the Night’s Watch. It is in Arya III AGOT that Arya for the first ever interacts with a black brother, when she meets Yoren. Although Arya isn’t aware of it, it was Yoren’s death that made it possible for Dareon leave Eastwatch and go to Braavos in the first place, as the singer was assigned by Jon Snow to take up the role of recruiter that used to be Yoren’s. Yoren had other roles as well, including that of Arya’s protector. The first encounter she has with each of the two black brothers show us just how much Arya has changed. She thinks of Yoren:

He was stooped and ugly, with an unkempt beard and unwashed clothes. [...] The old man in his smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not seem to stop talking.

While Arya can’t stop herself from rambling to Yoren, she has learned not to share all of her thoughts by the time she meets Dareon. This is the quote:

He is fair of face and foul of heart, thought Arya, but she did not say it

Also, in both this chapters she goes blind! “She was blind.” That sentence shows up exactly like that, word for word, in both chapters. Of course in AFFC she actually becomes blind, while in AGOT she is only in a really really dark room. But still. The wording! And structurally speaking, while the last pair of chapters starts and finish “in the same place”, now both of these chapters start with a more light-hearted tone to then plunge into really dark territory, literally and metaphorically, as Arya hears the threats to her family whispered in the dark in AGOT and kills Dareon to then goes blind in AFFC.

AGOT Arya IV / ADWD The Blind Girl:

Considering AFFC and ADWD as one long long book, Blind Girl is Arya’s fourth chapter. Arya’s fourth chapter in AGOT is the one in which she gets that all-important lesson when Syrio Forel tells her to “look with her eyes”. He also touches upon her other senses though:

“The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth."

Syrio says all that! And while Arya looks with her eyes in several moments of the story and this true seeing literally saves her life more than once, she never does explore her other senses that much… until she goes blind in ADWD. In The Blind Girl we get:

Hear, smell, taste, feel, she reminded herself. There are many ways to know the world for those who cannot see. [...] "You have five senses, learn to use the other four, you will have fewer cuts and scrapes and scabs"

Also, both chapters feature scenes where Arya in engaged in training with someone to improve her martial skills. While she practiced her needlework on her own all throughout ASOS, this is the first time she does so with someone else since Syrio in AGOT Arya IV! The way the two fights are described is incredibly similar, with the descriptions of rights and lefts and right and lefts, and the clacking sound of wood, her opponent “cheating” (coming from the “wrong” side) and there is a “sudden stinging” cut which catches her by surprise. It’s very very similar, go reread it if you don't believe me.

Another really important parallel regards skinchanging: in Arya’s fourth chapter in AGOT, Arya is helpless after witnessing the horrors that took place at the Tower of the Hand. The narration tells us “she was only a little girl with a wooden stick, alone and afraid” (the wooden stick here is her practice sword). And than, to escape, she pretends she is chasing cats… “except she was the cat now”. I kid you not, this is the exact wording used. She is the cat now, and that is what empowers her to keep going. In ADWD, when Arya is most definitely LITERALLY just a little blind girl with a wooden stick, she actually skinchanges into a cat for the first time, and that is what finally empowers her against her mentor/abuser. She “becomes a cat” in both chapters

Also, it is in The Blind Girl chapter that we learn that “the Sealord is dying”, which is comparable (both from doylist’s and watsonian perspectives) to Robert Baratheon dying, exactly what happens around Arya IV. Now a bit of a stretch: in AFFC "The Merling Queen has chosen a new Mermaid to take the place of the one that drowned. She is the daughter of a Prestayn serving maid, thirteen and penniless, but lovely." I propose the new mermaid might stand in for Jeyne Poole. While the new Mermaid is the daughter of a Prestayn’s serving maid, and we know Prestayn be a noble house, Jayne is the daughter of the Stark’s steward. Petyr Baelish, who is connected with the braavosi galley The Merling King, takes charge of Jayne, who is then a twelve year-old.The “Mermaids” are actually described to be “young maidens in the blush of their first flowering who hold [the Merling Queen’s] train and do her hair”. Of course, same as the Mermaids are being trained to become courtesans, Jeyne will be trained in a brothel to become Ramsay’s bride.

AGOT Arya V / ADWD The Ugly Little Girl: Okay, so Arya V makes me sad from the very first line to the very last. The situation is hopeless, Arya is helpless. King’s Landing is unwelcoming and claustrophobic, the people range from rude to downright mean. The people of the city likely look at her with suspicious eyes, and as much as Arya has told us she loved nothing more than to be underfoot and mingle with the common people of Winterfell, the experience in King’s Landing is traumatizing, and it ends with her father beheaded. Oh joy. In A Dance with Dragons the waif describes how people will react to the ugly little girl Arya will become after she changes her face for the first time:

"Women will look away when they see you. Children will stare and point. Strong men will pity you, and some may shed a tear."

For reasons very different than a destroyed face, this sounds very similar to what Arya experiences in King’s Landing. I find the overall tone of The Ugly Little Girl chapter to be rather analogous to that of Arya V. Arya is in the HoBaW because is certain she has nowhere else to go. Life is easier now than when she was blind, but she doesn’t feel very comfortable – and yet goes through with all that is asked of her. Though not helpless anymore, she is more hopeless than ever before. She experiences physical pain and nightmares; she is questioned and constantly told she doesn’t have what it takes to be in the only place that has been a steady roof over her head in years.

Before undergoing her magical transformation in ADWD, Arya is given a tart drink. This is the quote:

She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.

In AGOT Arya V, we get this:

Arya would have given anything for a cup of milk and a lemon cake,

In fact, lemons come up very scarcely in Arya’s whole story. She only thinks about the fruit in her inner monologues in Arya V and The Ugly Little Girl, both times prompted from external stimuli (there is the lemon tart she could not steal moments before she wishes for the lemon cake in AGOT, and the magical tart drink she is given in The Ugly Little Girl). The word comes up a handful of times in A Storm of Swords while Arya is in the company of Lem Lemoncloak, but the fruit not so much.

Another parallel between this pair of chapters comes in the form of Arya’s target, the binder salesman. The man Arya targets for the faceless men in ADWD is described in a way that calls back to Petyr Baelish (pointed beard, thin lips) and Yoren (a hard face, mean eyes, crooked shoulders), both of which Arya encounters in her fifth chapter in AGOT.

Eddard Starks beheading is a moment full of similarities to Arya’s “defacing” by the kindly man. This is from AGOT Arya V:

The old man shook her so hard her teeth rattled. "Shut your mouth and close your eyes, boy." Dimly, as if from far away, she heard a… a noise… a soft sighing sound, as if a million people had let out their breath at once.

and this is from ADWD The Ugly Little Girl:

"Sit," the priest commanded. She sat. "Now close your eyes, child." She closed her eyes. "This will hurt," he warned her, "but pain is the price of power. Do not move."

And of course what follows her closing her eyes in AGOT hurts much more deeply than having her forehead slashed. In A Game of Thrones, Arya opens her eyes to finally recognize Yoren. He then giver her Needle back, and drags her to a doorframe where he cuts her hair to give her a new identity, that of Arry. This is the quote from Arya V:

As the blade flashed toward her face, Arya threw herself backward, kicking wildly, wrenching her head from side to side, but he had her by the hair, so strong, she could feel her scalp tearing, and on her lips the salt taste of tears.

and this is the quote from The Ugly Little Girl:

She sat unmoving. The cut was quick, the blade sharp. By rights the metal should have been cold against her flesh, but it felt warm instead. She could feel the blood washing down her face, a rippling red curtain falling across her brow and cheeks and chin, and she understood why the priest had made her close her eyes. When it reached her lips the taste was salt and copper.

That's it! If you are interested in a more in-depth analysis check my original post from (five!!) years ago .

#arya stark #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #a feast for crows #a dance with dragons #book!arya #arya stark meta #a game of thrones

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undeadlilies · 2 years

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Day 4 - Red

Sansa Stark Playlist

Just like most of her siblings, Sansa was born with tully red hair and blue eyes, a feature so recognizable that her time as Alayne Stone has her dying her hair brown. She was given a red rose from Loras, who only gifted other girls a white one. Blood seems to fall from everywhere even from Sansa’s body. Red hair, red roses and red blood are seen throughout her story but what could it mean?

“She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys.” - Arya I, AGOT

“To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. "Sweet lady," he said, "no victory is half so beautiful as you." Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry.” - Sansa II, AGOT

“The point of Ser Gregor's lance had snapped off in his neck, and his life's blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the one before. His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer's day, trimmed with a border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.

Jeyne Poole wept so hysterically that Septa Mordane finally took her off to regain her composure, but Sansa sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had never seen a man die before. She ought to be crying too, she thought, but the tears would not come.” - Sansa II, AGOT

“Madness took hold of her. Pulling herself up by the bedpost, she went to the basin and washed between her legs, scrubbing away all the stickiness. By the time she was done, the water was pink with blood. When her maidservants saw it they would know. Then she remembered the bedclothes. She rushed back to the bed and stared in horror at the dark red stain and the tale it told. All she could think was that she had to get rid of it, or else they'd see. She couldn't let them see, or they'd marry her to Joffrey and make her lay with him. “- Sansa IV, ACOK

“Sansa lowered her head. "The blood frightened me."

"The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn might have prepared you. You've had your first flowering, no more."

Sansa had never felt less flowery. "My lady mother told me, but I . . . I thought it would be different." - Sansa IV, ACOK

“That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb.” - Sansa VI, ASOS

“I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell.” - Sansa I, AFFC

#sansa stark #asoiaf #game of thrones #asoiafedit #gotedit #sansamonth2022 #sansaappreciationfest2022

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waitingforwinterwinds · 1 year

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A Clash of Kings - 45 CATELYN VI (pages 587-598)

Cat and Brienne remain in Riverrun while Edmure heads out to battle. They get to see his very effective Riverrun Defense System in operation.

Brienne asked," What should we do now, my lady?" "Our duty." Catelyn's face was drawn as she started across the yard. I have always done my duty, she thought. Perhaps that was why her lord father had always cherished her the best of all his children. Her two older brothers died in infancy, so she had been son as well as daughter to Lord Hoster until Edmure was born. Then her mother had died and her father had told her that she must be the lady of Riverrun now, and she had done that too. And when Lord Hoster promised her to Brandon Stark, she had thanked him for making her such a splendid match.

I feel like this explains so much about Cat. How shackled she's been by duty to her family, how deeply ingrained in her it is. Like I feel like she has a natural tendency towards the duty and loyalty and care, or she would have cracked under the pressure, but oh what pressure that would have been, and one she can never escape given the shape of the society she lives in.

"Did you see my girls? Are they treated well?" Ser Cleos hesitated. "I... yes, they seemed..." He is fumbling for a lie, Catelyn realized, but the wine has fuddled his wits. "Ser Cleos," she said cooly, "you forfeired the protection of your peace banner when your men played us false. Lie to me, and you'll hang from the walls beside them. Believe that. I shall ask you once more- did you see my daughters?" His brow was damp with sweat. "I saw Sansa at the court, the day Tyrion told me his terms. She looked most beautiful, my lady. Perhaps a bit wan. Drawn, as it were." Sansa, but not Arya. That might mean anything. Arya had always been harder to tame. Perhaps Cersei was reluctant to parade her in open court for fear of what she might say or do. They might have her locked safely out of sight. Or they might have killed her. Catelyn shoved the thought away.

Come on Cat, think, even Sansa's initial letter didn't mention her, not because she's dead, but because they never had her. I mean, yes, there are a lot of explanations and Cat can't know any of them for certain, but it's okay, Arya escaped she's... well I mean she's not safe safe, but she's not dead or in prison?

Stay hopeful!

"And the stars in the night were the eyes of his wolves , and the wind itself was their song."

It's a bop.

"There was always a singer at Evenfall Hall when I was a girl," Brienne said quietly. "I learned all the songs by heart." "Sansa did the same, though few singers ever cared to make the journey north to Winterfell." I told her there would be singers at the king's court, though. I told her she would hear music of all sorts, that her father could find some master to help her learn the high harp. Oh, gods forgive me...

*squints* hang on a sec, we'll be back to glare judgementally at Ned in a second. *pulls out GoT* ... yeah, no, that's what I thought. Arya I "Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells."

So I'm going to guess it's more a "Sansa's technically only an amateur musician by musician terms and she was promised a teacher to become a real pro" than a "teach her from scratch" type situation? Actually, if singers don't go to Winterfell often, who taught her? Mordane? Her mother? Was she self taught? Was it MVP Luwin?

Or GRRM forgot he wrote that line.

Right, now that's double checked, let's all glare judgmentally at Ned for a minute, cause don't think we didn't notice this promised harp teacher not materialise unlike Arya's 'dance' instructor.

... good job everyone! You may relax your brows.

...Oh the guilt Cat feels, someone hug this woman.

In the end the Mountain and a handful of his best had gained the west bank, but Edmure had thrown his reserve at them, and they had shattered and reeled away bloody and beaten. Ser Gregor himself had lost his horse and staggered back across the Red Fork bleeding from a dozen wounds while a rain of arrows and stones fell around him.

*twists a ribbon and adds some glitter glue before pinning it to Edmure's chest* I hereby present you with the Not As Martially Useless As You Could Have Been Award. Good job buddy!

I know, I'm very mean to him, he actually has a pretty good tactical and strategic mind from what we've seen this chapter, his preparations all up and down the rivers and his defenses of Riverrun which we saw last Cat Chapter. Unfortunately for him my strongest association for his character is the scene from the show where he fails to hit the funeral barge several times and Blackfish has to shove him out of the way and do it for him.

But if we are winning, why am I so afraid?

Because you've been paying attention. (a large amount of intuition is information you picked up without noticing being analyzed and pulling up flags in the background.)

Actually, now that it's come up, has anyone else noticed Cat's chapter have a strangely prophetic vibe to them? Like there's just a lot of lines and vibes that could be either coincidence of foreshadowing?

#a clash of kings #a song of ice and fire #catelyn stark #catelyn tully #a chapter a day reading #acok #asoiaf

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reginarubie · 1 year

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LF says: "Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.”

Given her current situation with the Lord Confessor (ch13), will Sansa be playing a similar game? If this question leads to a spoiler, feel free to tease us.

Thanks!

Ciao @slipmerfoot!

Sansa has seen first hand how politics and plotting is done by one of the best (one who has for sure caused one war of the two happening in the last thirty years of Westeros — and could’ve had a hand in starting the other one as well) players of the game. Of course she has taken his methods to heart and has coupled them with her character as resilient, determined, duty-oriented, clever and merciful woman.

So yes, Sansa is playing the game and laying it thick.

She has started this by reminding herself that everyone is your enemy and everyone is your friend — has gauged each side disposition to duty and which one was the better bet to make the North stronger then she gained their love (love is a surer route to loyalty than fear) — then she has started to move in the political environment and has started to use Rhaenyra’ perception of her intentions (what she wants) to move Rhaenyra — she topping LF “make them confused” she is actively working to have them focused on the wrong goal to make them feel confident that they have her in their grasp — she is also using the “a harp can be as deadly as a dagger in the right hands” lesson as well, as she feeding the Blacks the story needed for them to be overconfident and don’t realise her game; she is doing that whilst pretending to play in their hand (like she and Arya did when LF tried to pit them against one another).

Her goal right now is making sure she gets the protection a name would give her, without the hindrance of a husband capable of terrible things and of using her for terrible things, with a side-dish of convincing Rhaenyra she has her in her grasp. If Rhaenyra and the Blacks are convinced of having figured Sansa out they won’t expect anything unusual from her.

Let’s feel free to tease you:

“Your Grace,” lord Strong begun, dragging his clubfoot on the floor, the metallic drag hissing like a snake “I have a plea to ask for before this esteemed court”

Aemond turned around, his gaze flickering on his mother’s and grandfather’s face. His mother seemed as surprised as he felt by it, as lord Strong asked for permission to come closer.

A tense moment of silence followed before his mother gave him permission “Permission granted, lord Confessor”

The man made a show of having difficulties moving to the raised pedestal under the watchful eye of the lord Hand to get a parchment to the queen holding court. The roll of parchment was closed with the seal of House Targaryen.

(…)

“The king wishes for it to be known that the Needle Rivers, commonly known under the name of lady Needle, is recognised as per his grace as trueborn and noble, to inherit her father’s lands and name as to ensure his name does not die out, as a gift for the queen consort and her beloved children, to rise their kin from bastardy to rightful lady. As of today and forever she is to be addressed as lady Needle Whent, the lands of her trueborn sister, sadly departed too early from this life, are now hers to administer as is the residence annexed.” his mother’s hands were trembling “she is to be expected to voyage to Riverrun to pledge her loyalty to the Lord Paramount of the Trident as her lord liege and to bend the knee to the Iron throne and the princess Rhaenyra of House Targaryen as its heir.”

(…)

Her eyes were cobalt black, starlit as she stepped forward. His eye followed her, unblinking as if she could turn into vapour the moment he closed it. She looked beautiful, she looked prepared, she looked determined and focused.

(…)

“I am honoured,” she added “but I am sure that in his immense wisdom the king will understand. I do not know my father’s name, my mother never spoke of him,” there was sadness for that in her voice, a lingering self doubt and hurt that made his heart tight “I cannot in good conscience accept a name, a title, lands and a lord as husband, when I would be stealing a right not my own”

(…)

“I would suppose,” he said “that this would be a good moment to expose this” he added, stepping closer to the lord Hand, the parchment was sealed with a seal Aemond did not recognise, not from that distance anyway and he felt his heart thundering in his chest as he saw her observing the scene in apparent surprise. But no, she was not surprised, her eyes had that gleam that usually they held when she was focused on her sewing. She was observing her plan fall into place. A plan he was unaware of, a plan he wasn’t included in. A plan which showed her true colours.

Had he had done wrong by having faith in her? Had he been reckless to think they were playing this game together?

Hope you enjoyed the teaser! Thank you for dropping by! As always sending all my love ~G.

#ask the hag #kissed by fire ~ kissed by steel #firesteel #aemond targaryen #aemond/sansa #aemondxsansa

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icefrye19 · 10 months

Text

Chapter Three : Ladies Duties

Winterfell 294 AD ( this chapter was written with the help of ProtonCoccus

As Lyarra was sitting next to Sansa and Arya along with Jeyne Poole along with other ladies sewing.

Her mother had always told her that it was important to learn to sew for one day she would have to mend her husband's clothes like that would happen " Lyarra scoffed at the idea of her being married.

Her father was clear on the matter that she would never marry and he was okay with that for anyone who could ever want to marry a highborn lady with freakish ice powers.

Her mother had said that it was just a little step back and not to let it interfere in her life but it did in so many ways.

"Why can't she just run with the wolves then?" grumbled Lyarra, after a whole day of watching poor Arya getting humiliated by the Septa.

She may be slightly better at sewing than her 'sister', but Sansa was practically the Maiden personified.

Despite her Tully looks, some of the smallfolk compared her favorably to the deceased Ashara Dayne.

As if they knew about the Dornish beauty. Both Lyarra and Arya would scoff at the idea;no one truly knew the Fallen Purple Star; all memories of her lost to the Summer Sea.

By far, the eldest lady 's favourite tale was that of Lyanna Stark, her aunt. She too, was a famous beauty. In fact, it was her abduction that cast the dragons from their keep and led to the early (and brutal) death of Dorne' s Sun Mamba, Elia Martell.

While Ashara Dayne was a mysterious lady, Lyanna Stark was the wild one. Fierce, willful and dead before her time.

Lyarra has snuck extra food from the kitchens that afternoon, wanting to go on an excursion with little Arya

The wild she-wolf wanted to help some farmer in finding a lost lamb; far too old to do the task himself.

The trio of nobles snuck past the castle 's western gate; Lady Catelyn Stark would never allow Arya out of the castle. In her eyes, her wild child should be a little more like her elder sister. Jory Cassel had accompanied the ladies at the behest of Lord Stark.

As for Lyarra, the food was for the local orphanage's residents. They had fallen on hard times those past few weeks.

As they were walking through winter town, Lyarra began to look around and noticed many women, children and men looking poorly and sick.

The storm that had taken place a few days ago had taken a toll on the town, it made her heat ache at what she was witnessing.

These were her people, it was her duty to take care of them.

As Lyarra passed out food and water along with some gold coins to the villagers while talking to some, getting to know them a bit more.

She always wondered about her people. What they thought of her family and how her people's living conditions were. She believed her parents treated them better than probably most houses did or at least that's what she hoped.

" Thank you my lady, " a woman said with a smile as she gracefully took the piece of bread.

" It's no problem " Lyarra smiled.

" Can you sing for us? " a child a few years her senior asked, coming towards her.

Tales of her singing spread across the land she was very talented in music and at playing the harp she would often visit the village twice a week and play the harp for them, sometimes sing for them.

" Of course " Lyarra replied before turning to Jory instructing him to bring her harp to her.

Lyarra settled the harp onto her lap and began to strum the strings gently, a song soon came to mind.

Jenny's song

High in the halls of the kings who are gone

Jenny would dance with her ghosts

The ones she had lost and the ones she had found

And the ones who had loved her the most

The ones who'd been gone for so very long

She couldn't remember their names

They spun her around on the damp old stones

Spun away all her sorrow and pain

And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

They danced through the day

And into the night through the snow that swept through the hall

From winter to summer then winter again

'Til the walls did crumble and fall

And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

High in the halls of the kings who are gone

Jenny would dance with her ghosts

The ones she had lost and the ones she had found

And the ones

Who had loved her the most

Lyarra strummed the last note, soon applause and cheers ranged out all around her.

" That was beautiful done my lady " another woman complimented.

The village folks began to throw roses at her and began to praise the words Ice Wolf.

It soon got dark and sadly Lyarra and Arya had to return to the castle before their mother flipped out as they made their way back to the castle that day Lyarra couldn't help but want to do more for the people.

Maybe her father would give her permission to visit more hopefully.

Later That Night

As the young ice-wolf was dining with her family she sat next to Jon and Arya and began to play around with the food on her plate.

Her mother sat next to her father and was sending nasty looks at Jon. It was no surprise her mother loathed Jon.

" Mother, when will Lord Domeric be here? " Sansa asked.

Apparently the Bolton's would come to Winterfell the next moon in talks of a betrothal between Lord Bolton only son Domeric Bolton and Sansa, he would bring along his bastard son Ramsay who was a nightmare she heard.

Rumors circulated across the North about Ramsay Snow cruelty, House Bolton was a strong fierce house but could be cruel in ways Lord Bolton was very heartless she heard.

" In a few weeks my dear " Catelyn answered.

" I can't wait to meet him. I bet he's so handsome " Sansa signed.

" Yeah, I bet he's ugly as a horse, " Arya chuckled.

" I heard that he could barely swing a sword right " Theon chuckled.

" Why are the Bolton's coming here anyway " Robb asked.

" it's important that we show them that they are welcome and everyone must be on their best behavior, " Ned told his children.

" I bet he's handsome as a knight when will we get married " Sansa questioned.

" Little red wolf me and your mother haven't agreed to the betrothal yet " Ned said gently.

" What of Lya will she be betrothal to one of the other northern houses? " Sansa asked.

" I am never marrying, " Lyarra said sternly.

" Don't be ridiculous Lya all ladies must marry " Sansa scoffed at her sister's words.

" Lya's leaving us " Bra asked in unison, his eyes widening at what he was hearing.

" I'm not little wolf " Lyarra reassured him.

" I don't want Lya to leave, " Rickon babbled out.

" Your sister is not leaving anytime soon " Ned reassured his children.

" Lya don't you want to marry a handsome lord one day " Sansa exclaimed.

" No " Lyarra scoffed at her little naive sister's words.

" Boy are stupid, I think ladies should be free to choose whatever they want to be " Arya exclaimed.

" Those are just silly dreams, you and Lya are ladies one day you'll have to marry " Sansa pointed out.

" I will not marry some brute man to take control of me , I want to fight besides father " Arya replied.

" Arya, you know ladies don't sword fight " Catelyn scolded.

" But they could mother, I mean Lady Mormont wears breeches and fights her own battles " Lyarra defended.

" That woman is barren you should follow examples like that " Catleyn signed.

" Cat " Ned said, holding his head with his gently looking at her to let it go.

Catelyn signed knowing her husband was right nothing would change her two daughters' minds they were more northern than Tully they took after their father after all.

" well Lya if you find yourself looking for a husband in the next few years I'll take you as my wife " Theon teased.

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chispas-and-broken-bindings · 2 years

Text

he he he...here is way more than six sentences, but I don’t care:

Jon, wake up. Wake up. I need you.

Go away, Sansa.

But I need you. Father is coming home today. We must meet him at the river with flowers to give to my lady mother.

Ask Robb.

He’s already told me no. If you say no too, then I’ll just have to find Theon—

Don’t ask Theon—just—just give me a moment to dress.

Thank you, Jon. It will be so romantic. We’ll pick asters for love, and daisies for loyalty, and forget-me-nots so my mother will know she was in father’s heart the whole time he was away. There is nothing sweeter than fresh picked flowers from your one true love.

Then why do we have to pick them? Shouldn’t father—

—Mother doesn’t need to know we helped. Father works so hard to be a good lord and husband, but he isn’t very romantic.

Everyone knows he loves your lady mother.

Of course father loves her now, but— but, wait—that’s not to to imply—

—that he has a bastard to make up for?

Jon…that isn’t what I meant—

It’s alright, Sansa. Just let me get dressed.

I'll make it up to you by showing you just what to pick when you fall in love. Goldenrod for good fortune, and geranium to show what a fool for her you are, and—

Save it. I’m never going to fall in love.

But why?

You know why. But don’t fret, little sister. Show me what flowers you like best and I’ll make sure your husband picks them for you one day.

Then we must do this again come spring, when the daffodils are blooming.

And what do they signify?

Unequaled love. I yearn for nothing less.

Then you shall have it, I’m sure.

You really think so?

You’re very good at getting what you want, Sansa.

But that’s a very big thing to want, Jon, and I will not have a choice—

Father will choose well for you. He’ll find you a handsome highborn lord who plays the harp and writes poetry in his spare time.

Oh, that would be lovely. But what if he doesn’t love me back?

Who wouldn’t love you?

#nothing sacred all things wild #my writing #six sentence sunday #flashback time #with bby sansa and bby jon #jonsa fic #jonsa

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ericanoelle · 1 year

Note

What if Domeric Bolton was betrothed to Sansa before he died?

Please note I am aging Sansa a bit for the purpose of this story.

So, I had to do some research on Domeric Bolton because it had been awhile since I've read the books. Domeric was Roose Bolton's legitimate son, Ramsey's bother and Roose's heir. Ned and Roose would have made the betrothal when they were very young, hoping to med the feud between Bolton and Stark. Much like Brandon and Catelyn, Sansa and Domeric would have spent time together once the betrothal was made. Domeric was said to be a good horsemen, played the harp and was very well read. He would have been a few years older than Sansa but they would have gotten along very well. Domeric would spend time at Winterfell sometimes and I think given that Domeric is a Bolton, Sansa's personality would have been less naive.

When Sansa is about fourteen, Roose comes to Winterfell to announce that Domeric had died. He says a fever took him and Sansa is distraught. She had known Domeric and thought he was going to be her husband. However, Roose is able to get Sansa alone for a moment and lets slip that he believes that his bastard son, Ramsey killed Domeric. Now, Roose is VERY against kin-slaying so he wouldn't outright kill Ramsey, but he isn't above planting it in someone else's head.

I imagine that Sansa, during her grief, would have found a way to poison Ramsey. I think she would want him to die the same way her beloved Domeric did. Not sure how she pulled it off but I think it would have taken some plotting (maybe a year or two) but lets say she did and no one, except maybe Roose, suspects her. Seeing that this is what Roose wanted, he says nothing.

When Sansa is about seventeen, Jon Arryn dies. When she hears that it was a fever that killed him, she is suspicious but says nothing. The events of the King's visit to Winterfell all happen and Sansa and Joffrey are betrothed to one another. Unable to stop comparing Joffrey to Domeric, she finds that while Joffrey is more handsome and next in line to be king, she finds everything else about him lacking. She is rather cold to Joffrey and they get off to a bad start.

It does not take long for Sansa to notice his cruelty especially to her.

When they arrive in King's Landing, Petyr notices Sansa right away. Not only because she looks like Catelyn but he pinpoints that she isn't exactly as noble as her father. Since Sansa and Joffrey are about seventeen, their wedding date has been set. However, Joffrey has become abusive and while Sansa is good at hiding bruises, she begins to confide in Petyr...even telling him that she was responsible for Ramsey's death. I think that Petyr also tells her that he had Lysa poison her husband. She also tells him that she figured out about the affair between Cersei and Jaime, and wants out of the marriage. So, the come up with a plan and during so, they begin sleeping together.

At the wedding between Sansa and Joffrey, Ned giving Sansa away, with Catelyn and Robb attending the wedding, she poisons Joffrey's wine at the feast with the Strangler that she got from Petyr. He dies and both Robert and Cersei are there to see his death. Even though Robert didn't care for Joffrey, he still believed that to be his son. He would go on a rampage to find out who killed him.

Robert would try and arrange for Sansa and Tommen to be engaged but Cersei would be convinced that Sansa is cursed, as two of her betroths have died. The prophecy of a younger and more beautiful queen ringing in her ear, she tries to pinpoint the murder of Joffrey on Sansa, which both Ned and Robert claim that she is innocent. Fearing that Cersei was on to her, Sansa tells Robert that she learned of Cersei's affair with Jaime, and while she does not know who killed Joffrey, that is why she is trying to pin it on Sansa- to cover her own tracks. This leads to Robert falling into a rage. He kills Cersei, Jaime and the kids, despite Ned pleading for Tommen and Myrcella to be spared. This angers Tywin, obviously and war begins.

In the midst of all this, Petyr is VERY proud of Sansa in starting this war and their affair continues.

After the war and the dust settles, Tywin having lost because there is not many kingdoms that would be willing to back him, especially if Robert is still alive. Robert announces that he is going to marry Sansa, which doesn't fit with Renly's plans on having Robert marry Margaery but once the king makes up his mind, there isn't much anyone can do. Ned, who also opposes the match isn't able to do much.

Sansa is less than thrilled but Petyr tells her that it would be best for her to go along with the marriage, for now because she discovers that she most likely is with child, Petyr's child. Sansa marries Robert and the marriage is consummated. Given that he wouldn't hate her as much as Cersei, I don't think he would be as cruel to her or force her into anything. Plus, she is Ned's daughter and that would mean something.

So when she announces that she is pregnant, everyone suspects that its a wedding night child. However, both Sansa and Petyr know who the real father is. Ned and Catelyn stay for the duration of the pregnancy, as does Robb, simply because he has caught Margaery's eye. Those two marry when Sansa is about seven months along and go North.

Sansa gives birth to a little girl and seeing that the child has dark black hair, everyone assumes that the child is actually Robert's. They name the girl Princess Jocelyn Baratheon. Soon after, Ned and Catelyn go North, leaving Sansa with Robert. Her marriage isn't all that bad. He does come to her bed occasionally and does get her pregnant. She gives him a son about a year and a half after Jocelyn is born. They name him Prince Steffon Baratheon. Robert and Sansa stop sleeping together but they still dine together on occasion, as Robert would like Sansa more than his first wife. Robert, of course, sleeps with everything that walks.

Meanwhile, her affair with Petyr continues. At Steffon's one year birthday celebration, Sansa discovers she is pregnant again, but knows that its not Robert's- who has stopped coming to her bed now that she gave him a son. So, her and Petyr devise a plan that during the celebrations, Sansa slips him a poison, much like she did with Joffrey and Ramsey but this one mimics a heart attack.

Since Robert's death is ruled a natural death, no one suspects Sansa; especially when she announces that she is pregnant. I think some people would raise eyebrows, given that two other men she was betrothed to died and some of the kings guard would know Robert didn't come to her bed anymore but they also knew that they dined together often enough that its possible they had sex.

Steffon is named King despite being no older than a year. Sansa is named Queen Mother and his Regent, along with the Small Council. Ned is appointed Hand of the King, which he accepts because its his daughter and grandson. Plus, with Robb acting as Warden in the North, having his own wife and children, he is more comfortable leaving the North in his hands. That and he doesn't suspect murder this time and if more focused on actually ruling. Stannis isn't too pleased with this, as he had been hand during Sansa and Robert's mariage, but to make up for it, Sansa gives him Storms End, stating that it was rightfully his to begin with. Renly isn't too thrilled with the outcome but decides there isn't much he can do, since its clear that at least Steffon is Robert's son.

Sansa gives birth to another girl, whom she names Alayne. When Steffon is about six, Ned states that he doesn't want to be Hand of the King, wanting to retire North. Sansa of course accepts this and appoints Petyr as hand. Given that Petyr and Ned became "Good friends" during his time on the small council, with both Robert and Steffon, its not surprising.

Its not until Steffon is around fourteen that Petyr and Sansa marry. By this point, I think Ned and Catelyn both would have passed away from natural causes and Jocelyn probably is betrothed to someone, possibly someone from the Reach or even Dorne. No one is really surprised at the marriage, as it became obvious that the pair were close, and given that all three of Sansa's children looked towards Petyr as a father figure. I think Sansa beleived that she was done having children, as she would be around thirty four but she has a surprise baby, a boy, that they name Symon Baelish.

#Petyr Sansa #what if

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oathkeeperoathbreaker · 2 years

Text

Giddy

The servants kept the cups filled all night, yet afterward Sansa could not recall ever tasting the wine. She needed no wine. She was drunk on the magic of the night, giddy with glamour, swept away by beauties she had dreamt of all her life and never dared hope to know. Singers sat before the king’s pavilion, filling the dusk with music. A juggler kept a cascade of burning clubs spinning through the air. The king’s own fool, the pie-faced simpleton called Moon Boy, danced about on stilts, all in motley, making mock of everyone with such deft cruelty that Sansa wondered if he was simple after all. Even Septa Mordane was helpless before him; when he sang his little song about the High Septon, she laughed so hard she spilled wine on herself.

Sansa II, A GAME OF THRONES

Such folly. He leaned against the battlement, the sea crashing beneath him, the black stone rough beneath his fingers. Talking gargoyles and prophecies in the sky. I am an old done man, grown giddy as a child again. Had a lifetime’s hard-won wisdom fled him along with his health and strength? He was a maester, trained and chained in the great Citadel of Oldtown. What had he come to, when superstition filled his head as if he were an ignorant fieldhand?

Prologue, A CLASH OF KINGS

Sansa found herself possessed of a queer giddy courage. “You should go with her,” she told the king. “Your brother might be hurt.” Joffrey shrugged. “What if he is?” “You should help him up and tell him how well he rode.” Sansa could not seem to stop herself. “He got knocked off his horse and fell in the dirt,” the king pointed out. “That’s not riding well.” “Look,” the Hound interrupted. “The boy has courage. He’s going to try again.” They were helping Prince Tommen mount his pony. If only Tommen were the elder instead of Joffrey, Sansa thought. I wouldn’t mind marrying Tommen.

Sansa I, A CLASH OF KINGS

“He hasn’t sailed against us,” Tyrion managed. “He’s laid siege to Storm’s End. Renly is riding to meet him.” His sister’s nails dug painfully into his arms. For a moment she stared incredulous, as if he had begun to gibber in an unknown tongue. “Stannis and Renly are fighting each other?” When he nodded, Cersei began to chuckle. “Gods be good,” she gasped, “I’m starting to believe that Robert was the clever one.” Tyrion threw back his head and roared. They laughed together. Cersei pulled him off the bed and whirled him around and even hugged him, for a moment as giddy as a girl. By the time she let go of him, Tyrion was breathless and dizzy.

Tyrion VI, A CLASH OF KINGS

He was just a man, and his face was just a face. A young man’s face, ordinary, with full cheeks and the shadow of a beard. A scar showed faintly on his right cheek. He had a hooked nose, and a mat of dense black hair that curled tightly around his ears. It was not a face Pate recognized. “I do not know you.” “Nor I you.” “Who are you?” “A stranger. No one. Truly.” “Oh.” Pate had run out of words. He drew out the key and put it in the stranger’s hand, feeling light-headed, almost giddy. Rosey, he reminded himself.

Prologue, A FEAST FOR CROWS

His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. She had been giddy as a maiden when she learned that Stannis had abandoned Dragonstone, certain that he had finally given up the fight and sailed away to exile. When word came down from the north that he had turned up again at the Wall, her fury had been fearful to behold.

Jaime II, A FEAST FOR CROWS

Seventeen and new to knighthood, Rhaegar Targaryen had worn black plate over golden ringmail when he cantered onto the lists. Long streamers of red and gold and orange silk had floated behind his helm, like flames. Two of her uncles fell before his lance, along with a dozen of her father’s finest jousters, the flower of the west. By night the prince played his silver harp and made her weep. When she had been presented to him, Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy. The prince is going to be my husband, she had thought, giddy with excitement, and when the old king dies I’ll be the queen. Her aunt had confided that truth to her before the tourney. “You must be especially beautiful,” Lady Genna told her, fussing with her dress, “for at the final feast it shall be announced that you and Prince Rhaegar are betrothed.”

Cersei V, A FEAST FOR CROWS

In life the girls had been breathless and giddy, whispering to each other as they went, as excited as they were afraid. The dream was different. In the dream the pavilions were shadowed, and the knights and serving men they passed were made of mist. The girls wandered for a long while before they found the crone’s tent. By the time they did all the torches were guttering out. Cersei watched the girls huddling, whispering to one another. Go back, she tried to tell them. Turn away. There is nothing here for you. But though she moved her mouth, no words came out.

Cersei VIII, A FEAST FOR CROWS

For a moment Theon felt almost giddy. They never looked. They never saw. We walked the girl right by them!

Theon I, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

#characters are rarely giddy in asoiaf #no one was giddy in asos #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf

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sherlokiness · 5 years

Text

Bold of me to assume that Sansa will eventually put those harp lessons to use then sing the song of ice and fire while playing it.

#who else can play the harp #george let her play the harp #and sing a song #that's why she went south #for harp lessons #rhaegars harp #lmao #of sansa #brushing out ghosts coat #and singing to their children #so sweet and sad #ice and fire boy and nothing so sweet #jonsa

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elegantwoes · 2 years

Text

A friendly reminder that nobody in ASOIAF embodies the concept of ladyhood more than Sansa Stark:

Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys (A Game of Thrones, Arya I)

Sansa strives to be the perfect lady.

Sansa, of course, had named her pup, "Lady." (A Game of Thrones, Arya I)

Names her direwolf Lady.

A true lady would not notice his face, she told herself (A Game of Thrones, Sansa II)

Says she should act like a true lady. The counterpart of a true knight.

Sansa felt that she ought to say something. What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady's armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, "I'm sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord." (A Clash of Kings, Sansa I)

And you who doesn't know this iconic quote.

"Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please." (A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII).

Let's not forget this moment where Tyrion said her ability to charm nobles at court is worthy of a queen:

She is good at this, he thought, as he watched her tell Lord Gyles that his cough was sounding better, compliment Elinor Tyrell on her gown, and question Jalabhar Xho about wedding customs in the Summer Isles. His cousin Ser Lancel had been brought down by Ser Kevan, the first time he'd left his sickbed since the battle. He looks ghastly. Lancel's hair had turned white and brittle, and he was thin as a stick. Without his father beside him holding him up, he would surely have collapsed. Yet when Sansa praised his valor and said how good it was to see him getting strong again, both Lancel and Ser Kevan beamed. She would have made Joffrey a good queen and a better wife if he'd had the sense to love her. (A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII)

Sansa is, for all intents and purposes, the ideal westerosi noble lady.

#Sansa Stark #some of you are getting too comfortable in disrespecting my girl #Don't think for a second that what Sansa worked hard for can be taken away and applied to your fave

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orangeflavoryawp · 2 years

Text

Jonsa - “Rosemary (For Remembrance)”

Aliiiiiight, my first Alayne piece. Be gentle guys, I’m fragile. Mostly book canon, but you know, creative license and all. I was feeling Shakespearean.

“Rosemary (For Remembrance)”

"'My daughter, Alayne Stone,' Baelish repeats, motioning toward her, almost daring in his tone.

Jon's eyes slip back to Sansa's." - Jon and Sansa. What winter means in a world that teaches them to forget.

Read it on Ao3 here.

* * *

Jon arrives with winter.

He comes to the Vale on a ragged horse, behind a train of Baratheon banners. Stannis disembarks just ahead of him. They are greeted at the gate.

Sansa keeps her head down amongst the party. She is a proper bastard, after all.

He passes her without ever having seen her.

She wonders if perhaps this isn't more cruel than kind. But she doesn't really recognize the difference between the two these days. So, she follows her false-father through the door, always three steps behind, and her throat closes up when the heavy oak shuts behind her.

Like the harp string that had snapped clean in two beneath her fingers just the day before.

An omen, maybe. Or perhaps a warning.

She hears Ghost's howl past the rocks and ravines, and thanks whatever gods remain that he is not with Jon. He would recognize her, otherwise.

Her heart clenches at the reminder of Lady, her hands smoothing over her skirts as they tremble in recollection.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Jon's back is still all she sees as she follows the procession inside.

* * *

He is staring.

"Lord Snow?" Baelish asks, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips.

Jon tears his gaze from Sansa., blinking abruptly. "Sorry?"

Baelish's smirk blows full-wide.

Sansa folds and refolds her hands before her, the introductions stalled. Stannis frowns at the interaction. Sweetrobin tugs at her sleeve, impatient.

"My daughter, Alayne Stone," Baelish repeats, motioning toward her, almost daring in his tone.

Jon's eyes slip back to Sansa's. There is recognition there – recognition she cannot afford him to voice, no matter Baelish's goading. She only hopes he understands that.

"Your daughter," Jon says dumbly, the words seeming to linger upon his lips.

There's a sourness to them.

But Sansa's smile is practiced, coming to her like muscle memory, and she curtsies prettily, a lock of dark hair falling from behind her ear. "Welcome to the Eyrie, my lord. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Jon keeps staring, licking his lips hesitantly. "Yes," he barely breathes.

"Alayne, I want to play," Sweetrobin whines at her elbow, a frown marring his face.

She softens at the young boy, assuring him with a hand atop his head. "Shortly, my lord. We must settle your guests first, should we not?"

He huffs petulantly.

Stannis lets out a gruff exhale, shaking his head. "I would speak with you, Lord Baelish."

Littlefinger motions him further into the main hall, and Stannis barks at Jon to follow, nearly startling him out of his reverie.

Sansa turns to leave with Sweetrobin's hand tucked into her own. She feels her brother's eyes on her back all the way to the door.

* * *

She keeps a sprig of rosemary on her dresser top.

It smells like dusk on the mountains, like a clouded sky over Winterfell. It smells like wet bark and yesterday's snow and the kitchen fires in the evening.

Sansa places it gently in the drawer, and shuts it away. She leaves her chamber in a grey wool dress befitting a bastard daughter, and makes her way downstairs for dinner.

Alayne Stone wouldn't know the smell of rosemary anyway.

* * *

Dinner is a tense affair. Jon cannot stop sneaking glances at her, a perpetual crease to his brow, jaw clenched as though grinding words he barely manages to keep from voicing.

At some point, Baelish comments on his staring, praising him for his eye for beauty, and Sansa catches the faint pink in Jon's cheeks when he stutters an apology.

Sansa knows this is not why he stares.

(He is looking for the sister in her that no longer is.)

She quietly spears another piece of venison with her fork.

"Your attentions are flattering to my daughter, I'm sure," Baelish begins, lowering his wine glass from his mouth. "But perhaps it is safer not to admire the flower one cannot pick, hmm? You are a man of the Night's Watch, after all," he says pointedly.

Sansa's knife stills over her plate, hovering a moment as she swallows, before she lays it gently atop the table to instead reach for her napkin. Her eyes stay fixed to her plate as she dabs at her mouth.

Beside her, Harry rests a hand over her knee beneath the table. "Well said, Lord Baelish."

Jon's silence is nearly palpable – a stilted, stifling thing.

And Sansa has no more appetite.

* * *

"Goodnight, Lord Snow," Sansa offers demurely once she's shown him to his quarters. She turns to leave.

"Sansa," he croaks out.

Her steps do not falter.

"Sansa," he calls out again, a roughness to it.

She does not stop. Not when he calls a third time, not when she hears the wavering 'please' as she rounds the corner, not even when she feels the first threat of hot tears lining her eyes.

Not until she's braced against the other side of her chamber door, a hand bunched in her collar, a sob hitched in her throat.

Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.

(Oh, how she'd dreamed of him. The last piece of home she'd had. The last piece of herself.)

Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.

She dreams of him still, but it's 'Alayne' he calls her now, and she wakes in the morning to find her pillow soaked with tears.

* * *

He corners her in the library, in the gardens, in the hall leading to her chambers.

(He calls her a dead name. She gives him a dead smile.)

He stalks away when her polite denials make his frustration bleed into anger.

Jon, Jon, Jon, she says to herself, over and over, so as not to forget.

(His will never be a dead name to her, this she swears.)

Jon, Jon, Jon – always in her dreams.

* * *

"I don't see why Stannis brought this man of the Watch with him," Harry grouses. "And all this talk about undead – completely ridiculous!" He scoffs. "I don't see how Stannis could be taken in by such nonsense."

"You don't believe Lord Snow's claims?" Sansa asks.

Harry stops in his walk beside her. "Of course not."

She furrows her brows, lips pursed. "From everything I've heard, Jon Snow is an honorable man. What reason would he have to lie?"

Harry scoffs again, and the expression seems cruel on such a face. "Honorable? Why? Because he's Ned Stark's boy? And yet even Ned Stark got a bastard on some unknown woman. Jon Snow is the very blemish on Ned Stark's honor. He can hardly claim to be above it," he sneers.

Sansa swallows back her biting retort, chest heaving with her indignation. She turns away from him.

Harry seems to notice. He slips a hand through her elbow, turning her back around with a soft hushing sound. "Come, my love. I was not speaking of all bastards when I said that."

(It is hardly the wound he thinks it is.)

It only makes her resent him more for it.

"Then what did you mean, my lord?" she asks, careful not to seethe the words.

He gives her a charming smile, one hand going to cup her chin. "He is still a man, after all. And you do not know how men can be, bastard men especially. Truly, it is what I find rather lovely about you." He smiles sweetly at her, but the way his touch dips along her jaw and then edges along her bared collar bone speaks of anything but sweetness.

Sansa sucks a dry breath through her teeth, unbearably still.

His eyes drift down to where his touch lingers, the curve of his lip turning mean. "But I've seen the way he looks at you, even if you have not. And I will not have it." He glances back up at her. "You are spoken for already. Remember that," he bites out.

She swallows thickly, her revulsion curdling in her gut, but she keeps it at bay, managing to offer up a responding smile. "Of course, my lord."

It wouldn't matter to tell him why Jon really looks at her. She can't reveal herself as his sister anyway.

But she wonders why such a thing doesn't bother her like it should.

* * *

"He died up at the Wall, you know? Stabbed by his own men," Mya whispers to her one day, their arms linked together as they watch the men sparring from the edge of the courtyard.

Sansa stiffens beside her, gaze swinging sharply to her. "What?" she says breathlessly.

Mya shrugs. "That's what the rumors say, at least." She purses her lips in thought, eyes roving the crowd of men casually, lighting upon Jon with a quirk of her brow. "Looks well enough alive to me, though."

Sansa glances to where she's looking, catching sight of Jon as he rolls the sleeves of his sweat-dampened tunic to his elbows before grabbing a sparring sword from the rack and facing his opponent.

Sansa wets her lips as she watches the spar unfold, every graceful arc of Jon's sword seeming to tighten the air in her lungs, every misstep making her clench her jaw in unease, every glimpse of his barred teeth and his darkened eyes as he parries and slashes making her gut twist uncomfortably, unfamiliarly.

"Rather striking, isn't he?" Mya muses beside her.

"Yes," she breathes instantly, without realizing the word has left her.

(Like Bran's secret smile and Rickon's laugh and Arya's stubbornness and Robb's regality.

Or perhaps... perhaps like something else entirely.

Striking, like what she loved once.)

Jon stands at the edge of the ring, panting, a rueful smile sent his opponent's way as he nods the end of their spar, before turning to replace his sword, another duel already beginning in his wake. He runs a hand though his drenched curls, some still plastered to his forehead, when he glances up and meets Sansa's eyes. He lingers beside the weapons rack, chest still heaving, hand still gripping his sword hilt, eyes never leaving hers.

Striking, she thinks.

(Like what she is afraid to love anew.)

* * *

"Is your business with Lord Arryn and my father nearly finished, then?" Sansa asks Jon as she dutifully serves him his mug of ale.

Jon frowns harshly at her mention of Baelish, but he has stopped voicing his anger at the sentiment. She feels it regardless. She does not know why she asks this of Jon.

(She knows precisely why she asks this of Jon.)

Stannis and Baelish have since left the table, and Sweetrobin waits for Sansa to sing him to sleep.

"Eager to see me leave, my lady?" he nearly scoffs. "Easier to continue your lie that way, I suppose." He grumbles into his ale, a sigh leaving him that sounds more of sorrow than ire.

It softens her, her hand reaching for his shoulder and then –

She stops, remembering herself.

(No one's sister.)

She retracts her touch before it ever lights upon him, clearing her throat softly. "I'm no lady, my lord."

Jon peers up at her, leaning back in his chair, his ale forgotten. And then he blows a heavy breath through his lips, a hand wiped over his mouth as he shakes his head. "Gods, Sansa, aren't you... aren't you tired of pretending?" he asks exhaustedly, face so marred in pain she nearly keens at the sight.

She opens her mouth but doesn't trust her voice, so she turns away, licking her lips. "It is late, my lord, and you are confused. Perhaps you should r– "

The scrape of Jon's chair is loud and ringing in the room. He stands swiftly, a growl brewing in his chest. "I'm not confused."

"My lord –"

"And you're not Alayne," he says vehemently.

Sansa takes a resolute step back, hands bunched in her skirts. She swallows thickly. "I think it best I leave, my lord."

He grabs for her wrist before she can fully turn away. "Sansa, please," he gets out tightly, pulling her back to him, and she stumbles into his chest with the momentum of it, her free hand going to his shoulder to brace herself.

She blinks up at him, face close to his, her mouth parting in her surprise.

He doesn't let her go. "No more lies."

She frowns at the demand in his voice, her chest heaving with her indignation. "Though I may be just another bastard girl to this court, my father is Lord Protector of the Vale, and you will unhand me."

"Your father is Eddard Stark," Jon hisses at her, his breath hot on her cheeks, ale-spent.

She doesn't admit to the quake that lines her skin at the name, at the reminder. She doesn't admit to the whimper she smothers in her throat.

(Her father's head rolling down the steps beneath a chorus of jeers and shouts. The mud caking his brown locks, his pale skin marred in blood and filth.

The rending cry that welled in her throat and then never seemed to truly leave her.)

Jon clenches his jaw, eyes shifting between hers. He reaches his other hand around her back, holding her to him in what she supposes he thinks is comfort.

(It is not.)

She tenses beneath the touch, her wrist burning where he still holds her in his other calloused hand.

"You are Sansa Stark of Winterfell," he swears to her, fingers flexing over her wrist.

She sucks a sharp breath through her teeth, her ire rising as threateningly as her grief. "My name is Alayne Stone," she bites out, voice shaking. Her eyes narrow on him, her teeth clenching. "And you take far too many liberties, my lord." She pushes at his shoulder, trying to extract herself from his hold.

He tugs her back. "Sansa."

"This is unseemly, my lord," she presses, pushing at his shoulder again, harder this time, a flare of panic flickering in her gut.

"Sansa, just listen to me," he pleads, stumbling after her when she shoves at him, his grip tightening over her wrist.

"Alayne," she cries, voice cracking as she yanks them back, hitting the stone wall behind her, and he follows, pressing into her with the momentum, before he pulls himself back from her, just enough to be proper, both hands reaching for her face now.

"Sansa, if they hurt you... listen to me, if they hurt you –" he whispers harshly, eyes tearing, throat constricting, and it makes her lungs tight. Makes her want to wail and wail.

His hands are warm on her cheeks, and she thinks she hates it.

(Hates it because she doesn't want to want it like she does.)

Jon licks his lips, takes a steadying breath. "Sansa, whatever they did to you...I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have been there. But I'm here now. Your brother's here now."

Alayne Stone has no brothers.

The reminder echoes loud and shrill in her mind.

Jon pulls his touch from her face, but keeps his proximity, hands going to brace against the wall on either side of her head, his eyes shifting between hers desperately. "Talk to me," he pleads.

Sansa squeezes her eyes shut.

She just doesn't know anymore. She doesn't know which is safer: the truth or the lie. She'd be a fool to trust Baelish completely, she knows this. But he's gotten her this far. He's saved her from certain death. And she is learning at his side. Oh yes, she is learning. It is not a game to be played only halfway, or half-heartedly. It is not a role she can set aside only partly through the play. She has donned the name Alayne Stone, and too many things would be ruined if her ruse were discovered now. Too many people hurt. Too many lives changed. Too many homes lost.

Even if she wants to fold herself into her brother's arms and truly claim him as such –

What would be the cost?

(Baelish would not suffer a stone in his path. He would not suffer Jon – not if he convinces her to reveal herself too soon.)

Alayne is safer. Alayne has no brothers – either dead or at threat of death. She has no sister. And no mother. She has no claim to a husk of a home. Or a kingdom as old as memory.

And she is not loved.

(Which means she cannot be abandoned.)

Yes, Alayne is safer. Alayne who does not know the scent or worth of rosemary.

"Sansa," he whispers brokenly, the warm huff of his breath at her cheeks.

Her eyes slip open. She bares her teeth. "Alayne," she corrects.

Jon leans closer, face hardening. "Sansa," he says firmly.

"Alayne," she hisses, panic rising in her throat, catching there with her frothing anger.

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

His eyes flick between hers, so close, so grey, so...

So ardently hopeful.

"Sansa."

She bites off the whimper at her tongue.

He licks his lips, a hesitantly triumphant smirk etching across his face, his arms slowly lowering. "San–"

She surges forward, crashing her mouth into his, silencing him.

Jon stumbles back with the force of it, grunting in surprise, and she follows, gripping at his shoulders to steady herself, her mouth pressed firmly to his, and he's quiet finally, so blessedly quiet, and he's not saying that damn name anymore, he's not saying anything, and she could sob with it, she finds, sob and sob and sob.

She gasps instead, finally pulling back, and his hands are already at her waist, but she isn't sure whether he's pushing her away or grabbing her back, and they stumble apart when she releases him, her back hitting the wall behind her when she raises the back of her hand to her lips, keeps it there so he cannot see her trembling mouth, stares at him wide-eyed and rigid.

Jon's mouth opens, closes. A croak leaves him.

(But he isn't saying her name anymore.)

Sansa swallows thickly, lowering her hand. She licks her lips and pulls her shoulders back. "Alayne," she tells him for the last time, and then she's striding away, leaving him there in the empty hall.

He does not move to follow, and she is grateful for it.

She does not think she could say it again and still believe it anyway.

* * *

Sansa slams the door closed behind her, scrambling for her vanity, throwing open a drawer and grabbing for the rosemary stuffed into it. She presses it to her nose, inhaling sharply, eyes closed on her half-spent tears.

Like dusk on the mountains.

Like Lady's fur damp from a wash and spiced buns at the breakfast table and fresh hay in the stables.

Like all the things they tore from her.

Like remembrance in a world that tells her the only way to live is to –

(forget)

* * *

She passes Jon in the hall, her arm hooked through Harry's. Mya is similarly on her brother's arm. They stop a moment to share pleasantries, though Jon is gruff and straight-backed, as always, and maybe she had expected different.

A stilted silence, perhaps. An adamant attempt at not meeting her eyes. An awkward shuffle of his feet.

But he is none of this.

He still looks at her intently. Still looks at her like she is... she is...

(But she is not. And it is best to remember this.)

She doesn't admit to looking back at him when they pass.

* * *

"Come in," she answers when the knock at her chamber door sounds, expecting Mya, or perhaps her false-father or Harry.

It's Jon's face that peers in, and she scrambles to close the door before he can get in but he pushes his way through, shutting it firmly behind him, successfully blocking her from escaping.

She stares up at him, hands still mid-air from their attempt at shoving him through. She backs up a step, breath stilled in her chest. "What are you doing here?" she whispers tremulously.

Jon stares at her a moment, frown deepening, and she's reminded of the wild kiss she'd given him, the way she'd pressed into him desperately, just for silence, for peace, for silence, and maybe – maybe –

Maybe for more.

She swallows thickly, her cheeks tinging pink. "What are you doing here, my lord?" she asks again, voice wavering.

He takes a step toward her.

She resolutely does not step back, though her eyes drift to his boots.

"When I... when I died..." he manages in a rough voice.

Her eyes snap up to his.

"I was trying to get to Arya."

She blinks at him, her brows furrowing. "I'm sorry?"

"Our sister, Arya. I thought she was being held by the Boltons."

She keeps the tremor from lighting her skin, only barely.

Our sister.

Wonderful, beastly, exasperating Arya.

Her eyes wet instantly without her bidding. "What?' she breathes out.

"But it wasn't her," he tells her, taking her hands, urgent now. "It wasn't her, Sansa. I've learned the truth since then. I don't know who they posted up in place of her, to draw you, or me, or any loyalists out. All I know is that Arya isn't in their hands."

Sansa draws a hand from his grip to place over her mouth. And she couldn't fight it even if she tried. She couldn't keep the farce going like this when such a well of emotion is building in her throat.

Arya.

She couldn't pretend even if she'd wanted to. And then –

Her breath hitches, brows drawing sharply down. "When you... when you died?" she asks, voice shrill.

Rumors are rumors. And just that. Sansa has grown familiar with whispers after all these years. She has learned not to give weight to most, and to never dismiss any. But to hear it from his own mouth. To know the truth of it so openly, so plainly, so painfully.

To know she had lost all her brothers. Every one of them.

It makes her sob anew.

Jon pulls her hand to his chest, holding it there. "Sansa, please don't cry."

"Oh gods," she says, her voice muffled in her palm. "Why did you...? I mean, how...?"

She isn't even trying anymore. Alayne is a forgotten shroud.

(To know that any of them may still live, to know that her and Jon and Arya were somewhere in the world, alive, under the same sky, to know her mother and father hadn't closed their eyes on every dream of theirs – it nearly brings her to her knees.)

"I tried to rally what forces I could to retake Winterfell," he says defeatedly. "To save her. But after I let the freefolk south, after our losses, after everything," he stops, chuckles darkly. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by their unwillingness to follow. I'm not a son of the North anymore anyway. Just a brother of the Black. And not even that, now." His head drops, another rueful chuckle leaving him, his hands tightening over hers held at his chest.

She doesn't know why she hasn't pulled away yet.

Sansa stares at him, breathless at the thought that strikes her then. She blinks heatedly at him, chest rising unevenly. "You would do that?" she asks, voice cracking. She swallows thickly, eyes tearing. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts. She heaves a wounded breath. "You would do that for Arya?"

Jon peers up at her, eyes flicking between hers thoughtfully. And then his eyes darken, his hands lowering from his chest, releasing her own. She steals it back cautiously.

He sighs sadly, a quirk to his lip. "No," he tells her.

Her confusion blossoms across her features.

And then he smiles warmly, so like their father, stepping toward her, one hand going for her cheek, and oh – oh, it's warm, and – her mouth parts on a sharp intake of breath, watching him with unblinking eyes.

"I would do it for both my sisters," he says surely.

She breaks. Cleanly and acutely. The hand over her mouth spreads over her crumbling face, like trying to hold back the tide. Her sob catches in her throat.

His other hand goes to cradle her face, her cheeks braced in his calloused palms as he holds her to him. "I'm looking for one of them, you know," he says teasingly, warmly. "Her name is Sansa. Have you seen her anywhere?"

Sansa laughs, broken and tear-laced and decidedly unladylike. She wipes her hand over her nose.

Jon cocks his head as he smiles at her. "Is she in there somewhere?" he continues.

"That's not fair," Sansa manages through a hiccup.

Jon braces his forehead to hers. "If this world has taught me anything, it's not to always play fair."

Sansa shuts her eyes on an exhale, turning to bury her face in his shoulder, unable to keep the tears at bay.

He wraps his arms around her, and she lets herself be held.

Perhaps for the very first time.

* * *

They meet in the rookery, often at dawn. The world is different then. She can watch the ravens coming into the tower, sun glinting off their dark wings. She can pretend the snowfall off the high walls is the snow of home. She can be Sansa, and not Alayne, cherishing whatever precious bit of time she has left with her sole remaining brother.

"Come North with me," he asks of her, not for the first time. "When I leave with Stannis – come back home with me."

She looks out the window, lips pursed tight. A raven settles along the ledge, fluffing its wings, head cocking curiously.

It's a circular argument. One they've had several times by now.

"Baelish won't let me go just like that."

"I won't be asking his permission."

"It's not that easy."

"Then we make it that easy."

"And Harry? Sweetrobin?"

"Don't you want to go home, Sansa?"

She always silences at this part, and she imagines he knows why. Even still, he always asks it. And even still, it always hurts.

Jon huffs his frustration, a hand wiped anxiously over his mouth as he stalks away, along the rookery's walkway, and then back, stopping before her again.

Sansa turns away, hands folded neatly before her.

"Winterfell belongs to you," he tells her – exhaustedly, almost sadly.

Even if she believes it, even if she knows it's true, what does it matter?

The raven has gone from the window, the snow still trampled from where it had landed.

What does it matter?

* * *

"I see the way you are with Sweetrobin," he says suddenly, catching her by surprise in the corridor when she leaves her young cousin's room. She startles at the low timber of his voice, eyes meeting his instantly as he pushes from his lean on the wall where he had waited for her.

The Lord Arryn had been temperamental at dinner, to say the least, and it had taken longer than she'd expected to settle him to sleep afterward.

"Jon," she says, a hand at her stomach to calm her nerves.

He cocks his head as he watches her, a slow, barely-there smile etching along his lips. "Much like your mother was with the lot of you."

Sansa's hand slips from her stomach, chest tightening at the memory of her mother.

Jon looks down, a soft, sorrowful chuckle leaving him. "I'm glad though," he says, voice rough. He swallows thickly, glancing back up to her, his eyes wet.

The image stills her where she stands, lips parting on a halted breath.

"I'm glad that even in this lie of yours, no matter what's been done to you, no matter how they've hurt you – " And here his voice cracks, but he swallows it back, clears his throat, tries again. "I'm glad some things will always remain the same."

She steps toward him, closing the distance between them, a hand reaching for his wrist. She feels the steady thrum of his pulse beneath her fingers and peers up into his face, a longing she hasn't the words for taking root inside her.

He smiles at her, nodding. "You've always been kind."

"Jon," she says, because she needs to say something. Because it means something to hear that.

Because she doesn't know how to explain to him how scared she truly was when she thought he might not recognize her.

Her thumb curls over his wrist, settling into the hollow of his palm.

* * *

He never mentions the kiss she'd given him. He so decidedly avoids speaking of it that she starts to wonder if she'd dreamt it.

(And then she starts to dream of more.)

* * *

She follows him to his chambers after the spar, noting the tear in his tunic. She huffs her impatience with him, trying to convince him to let her mend it. He brushes her away easily, citing any other seamstress in the castle that could do it. She huffs again, her determination flaring, and starts to tug his tunic up.

"Sansa," he chides, scrambling to keep her hands down.

"Let me," she urges, still tugging.

"Sansa!"

"Jon."

"San– "

And then she stops.

Jon gulps, stiffening at her sudden halt, eyes roving her face.

She frowns sharply, brows knitting together.

"Sansa," he breathes out, staring at her.

Tears prick her eyes instantly.

Deep gashes of red. It's all she sees. The skin around his once-fatal wounds is pink and enflamed, as though recently delivered, though no blood comes from them.

It's eerily like looking upon the wounds of a corpse. No life left to stitch the skin closed. Death's visceral and cruel taunt, just a whim away from finishing the job.

His chest heaves beneath his labored breaths and it's the only thing that keeps her sane, keeps her from letting her bottled sob to air.

Her lip trembles but she manages the words, though they feel like shattered stone in her throat. "Have they not yet healed?"

Jon sighs, tugging the tunic back down over his chest, hands covering hers where they bunch shakily in the material at his waist. "They never heal," he tells her lowly.

She glances up at him, the tears hot and insistent now. Her knuckles are white where they grip his tunic. "How could they do this to you?" She does not know how she manages the words. Only that they feel like choking. She pulls in a sharp breath, her cry breaking along her throat. "How could they do this to you?" she whispers brokenly. "Those you trusted most. Those who were supposed to protect you."

His face shutters closed, unknown to her. A darkness comes over his features, and it scares her and saddens her in equal measure. She wants to curl into him. Wants to wrap her arms around his neck and tug him to her. Wants to cry. Or let him cry. Wants to howl like she hears Ghost do past her window at night.

"I guess our family's no stranger to betrayal," he gets out, voice strangled.

And now she truly does cry. Her hand slips up to his chest, resting over where she knows one of his wounds lives, the one over his heart, the one she knows was the killing one.

(As though they each weren't killing ones in their own ways.)

"You didn't deserve this," she chokes out, tears blinding her vision.

Not him. Not Jon. Good, brave Jon.

Never him.

The injustice of it blooms an anger inside her so intense she's nearly light-headed with it, a heated gasp leaving her, her teeth gnashing as she shakes her head.

"Not you," she moans, her hand curling over his chest.

She feels his calloused fingers under her chin and glances up with the motion.

He's staring at her, breathless, eyes flicking between hers.

Suddenly, rosemary smells like sweat-dampened tunics. Like the leather tie he uses for his hair. Like the lingering acridity of blood.

And all these things are too familiar now for her to ever pretend otherwise.

* * *

"Do you think he's here to free you?" Baelish asks her on a hiss, incredulous, his precarious control waning.

Sansa offers him a steady gaze. "Do you think I could be called 'free' as I am?"

It's far more pointed a dig than she ever would have dared before, and she imagines he will make her pay for it, one way or another.

But winter feels endless, and so do the days without Jon.

And she's tired of looking in the mirror, watching herself brush locks of dark hair she doesn't recognize anymore.

She's tired of fleeing as Alayne, instead of standing as Sansa.

(She only needs to know what it is she should stand for.)

* * *

Sansa barely manages to stop Jon from lunging after Harry when he finally leaves the otherwise empty dinner hall.

"Jon," she snaps. "Jon." She grabs for his arms, tries to steady him.

He's panting with his rage, a hand wiped violently down his mouth, teeth clenching as he sways under her touch. He turns back to the table with a growl, a hand wiping over it, sending the goblets and plates crashing to the floor beside him.

Sansa pulls her hands from him, watching with her breath caught in her chest. "Jon, please," she whispers hesitantly.

Jon stalks from her, stalks back, another heated breath building in his chest. "I'll kill him. I'll kill him, Sansa. The way he speaks to you, the way he touches you – " He bites off his snarl, turning from her. He wipes another hand down his face, trying to calm himself.

Sansa stares at him, her skin warm, her gut clenching. "Jon, listen to me, please. He's not worth it."

He snaps his gaze back her way, eyes riveted to her.

She cannot know what it is he sees when he looks at her, but he looks for a long time – enough to even out his breathing, enough to ease the clenching of his jaw. He looks with an intensity and a steadfastness that has her nearly swaying toward him, a hand settling on the edge of the table beside them to keep her balance.

Jon lowers his gaze then, blinks hard at his boots. He takes a deep, steadying breath. When he looks back up at her, none of the intensity is lost. It's only quieter. Only more finely honed. "I don't understand you sometimes," he says on a disbelieving exhale.

She cocks her head at him, unsure.

He shakes his head, looks up at the ceiling, leaning back with both hands braced along the table edge behind him. "I don't understand how you're not... hateful. At least to people like him. To people that deserve it. After everything you've been through..." His voice wavers at the end, his throat flexing with his control, and he glances back down, meeting her eyes.

Maybe it's forgiveness he needs himself. Maybe it's validation. Acknowledgement. Reassurance, perhaps. She cannot know. And doesn't think that she ever truly will.

All she knows is this:

"I can hate."

Jon blinks at her, the arc of his frown evening out, a look of hesitance etching across his features.

She swallows back the bile, stuffs the memories down, down, down, where they cannot land their hooks, where they are only shadows, playing on the light of her mind. Where she lets her nightmares live, if only to remind herself what she will never allow herself to become.

"When I think of Joffrey, and how he laughed at Father's death. When I think of how he made me look upon his head, up on that ghastly pike, I – I know I can hate. Deeply." She pulls her lip between her teeth, her arms winding around her frame. "But I don't want to be hateful."

Not like Cersei. Or the Hound. Or her Aunt Lysa.

"I won't live like that," she tells him.

I won't let the world unmake me.

Jon straightens from his lean along the table, turning fully to her.

She clears her throat, remembering herself, hands rubbing along her arms self-consciously a moment before she lowers them, folding her hands before her in some measure of grace she still struggles for.

Jon steps toward her.

She blinks wide eyes at him, his proximity sending her mind whirling, and she stumbles back a step unconsciously.

Jon stills before her, jaw clenched tight, eyes roving her face.

It feels like he's looking for something he'd lost. Looking for something she's afraid she might not be able to give.

"Jon.." she whispers, voice quaking already. She clamps her mouth shut, the words dying in her throat.

She has tried her best not to be hateful, yes, but she has also tried not to yearn and not to want and not to dream, and she has failed, so utterly, and she is just so tired of hurting for it. So tired of falling just short.

Like Ghost's howl that sounds too like Lady's. Like the beat of raven wings at dawn. Like a brother she doesn't want to call 'brother' anymore, even when he is her last.

(Maybe not hateful, but wrong, she thinks.

And perhaps that is worse.)

"I'm not the girl you remember," she says brokenly, the words finding their own way to air. She barely manages not to tremble in their wake.

Jon narrows his eyes at her.

It feels like peeling her skin back, revealing all her gruesome, little insides.

(Oh, but yes, she still dreams.)

"You're exactly the girl I remember," he tells her, and he sounds so sure she almost believes it.

(She wants to believe it.)

"You just think I want you to be someone else," he says.

Sansa stills, her world narrowing down to a pinprick focus: the warm brush of his fingers when he sweeps a strand of hair behind her ear, the slow rise and fall of his chest, so close to hers, the way his eyes flick to her lips, far longer than would ever be considered proper.

"I don't," he breathes out, a surety the likes of which she has never heard from him coloring his voice.

And she's back there suddenly, back to that need for quiet, for peace, for Alayne.

(Which is safer – the truth or the lie? She cannot know.)

"When I kissed you, I – " she blurts out, voice catching in her throat, lip caught between her teeth. Her eyes wet without her bidding. "I'm sorry."

Jon's brows knit together, a harsh look crossing his features. He works his jaw before he finally speaks. "I don't want your apology," he says, the words terse and low.

Her stomach falls, her heart lurching, and she steps into him, hands going for his arms, desperate like she's never been before. "Why?" she croaks out, needing him, she finds.

Needing him.

As a brother. As a friend. As her last link to home. As the thing she is learning to love in herself.

(As his own.)

As whatever he is willing to give – whatever. Because she will take what she can get, if it means he stays in her life. If it means he stays...

She doesn't admit to the whimper that nearly leaves her when she considers the alternative.

"I don't want your apology," he says again, voice rough, "Because then I'd have to apologize for this as well."

Sansa gasps as he snakes an arm around her waist, yanking her to him, her hands bracing along his shoulders to steady herself. They nearly knock noses with the motion, stumbling along the edge of the table with their carried momentum.

"And I don't want to," he pants out raggedly, just before he's crushing his mouth to hers.

She grunts at the unexpected kiss, fumbling for him, the heat of their desperation making them a mess of limbs, of hands held tight to faces, and bodies pressed fervently together, and gasps etched into the air between them. A clacking of teeth, and someone's groan, tongues hot and wet in each other's mouths, and then his hands at her waist, gripping her tightly, walking her back, and her stumble into the table, one hand reaching blindly out behind her to steady herself, the other tangling in his hair, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip, his groan filling her mouth, and the keen that leaves her, the way she arches her back, his hands hooking beneath her thighs suddenly, hoisting her up, the clatter of glassware behind her as he drops her recklessly atop the table, pressing into the space between her thighs, yanking her back to him with a groan, hands along her thighs, rucking up her skirts, his teeth at her lips, and her pants, her pants, her pants –

Breathing him in and breathing him out.

Her lungs full of him.

Her lungs full of rosemary.

* * *

They make it to his chambers, somehow. Again and again. They find their solitude in passing moments. She lays along his side one night, her hand dragging half-heartedly along his bare chest.

"How did Lady die?' he asks her.

She knows he's held this question beneath his tongue for weeks now. For months.

Sansa only sighs, her hand trailing the edge of a particularly garish wound along his chest.

He doesn't even flinch anymore.

"Like too many good things do," she says, her fingers halting along the edge of his heart-wound. She waits, teeth grinding in her silence. She spreads a hand over his scar-hewn chest.

"Unjustly," she bites out in answer, blinking back the salt-sting of tears.

* * *

He finds her on the ramparts, just past the kitchens. She's holding a sprig of rosemary to her nose, a faint smile on her face.

The crunch of snow beneath his boots alerts her well before he greets her.

Sansa opens her eyes to him, hand lowering back to her side, the comforting herb tucked between her fine-boned fingers.

"I was looking for you," he tells her, not accusatory.

She offers him a slight nod. "And you found me."

Jon notices the herb in her hand. It's not the first time he's seen it, after all. "What is that?" he asks her softly.

She turns the herb around in her hand for a moment, eyes fixed to it. "Rosemary," she tells him. She looks up at him, her throat inexplicably tight. She smiles sadly at him. "For remembrance."

Jon only hums an acknowledgement, glancing back out across the ramparts.

The snows fall here, too, and Sansa is glad for it. Everyone thinks winter means death, barrenness, everything warm and vibrant stripped to the root, made to wither in the cold.

But Sansa knows better.

Winter means preserving.

It's the saplings kept buried beneath the soil and snow, waiting for sun. It's the ice stores where they keep Winterfell's elk meat when their salt has run low. It's the frozen-over creeks and rivers that make crossing possible where it hadn't been before.

It's the stillness of cold, everything easing into a momentary, frozen halt. It's the world making itself a memory.

Sansa fingers the edge of the rosemary in her grip, a sigh leaving her. Her lips part on the exhale.

For remembrance.

"I guess some things are better off forgotten," he mumbles beneath the wind, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

Sansa doesn't argue the point. He's not wrong, after all.

"Some things," she agrees, keeping her gaze across the ramparts.

He peers at her out of the corner of his eye. If he'd expected her to disagree with him, he doesn't say it.

The silence is far more comforting than she expects.

She sighs, tucking the rosemary back into her dress pocket. "But not all," she says surely.

Because winter comes regardless. And the world makes itself a memory.

Jon turns fully to her now.

(So, she will make her own.)

* * *

She settles into his lap, arms wrapped around his neck. "Say my name," she tells him, face buried in his shoulder.

His breath comes heavy and labored, hands anchored at her hips as he guides her over him. "Sansa," he pants out, hot breath dampening the line of her throat, teeth nipping hungrily. "Sansa, Sansa, Sansa."

She rocks into him, breath hitching. "Again," she hisses.

Jon growls into her skin, pressing their bodies closer, sighing when her nails dig into the nape of his neck. "Sansa," he pants out raggedly. "Sansa." Like a prayer. Or an oath. "Sansa."

Like remembrance.

He whispers it into her skin, at the hollow of her collar bone, between the valley of her breasts, at the crook of her elbow, along the curve of her wrist.

Again and again and again.

Sansa.

Until remembrance becomes a root.

Until there is no tearing it out again.

* * *

"Ask me again," she tells him.

It is a circular argument. Until it suddenly isn't.

(She only needs to know what she stands for.)

Jon looks at her, just looks at her.

(Him.)

Winterfell belongs to you.

"Ask me again," she urges, a hand to his cheek.

Jon softens at the smile she gives him. "Come North with me."

* * *

Jon leaves the Vale on a ragged horse, behind a thunderous wind that leads him North, toward Winterfell. Alayne stays at the gate.

(It's Sansa's hand he takes instead, as she rides beside him, a sprig of rosemary stuffed between the folds of her dress.)

Jon arrived with winter, after all.

And winter means preserving.

#jonsa #jonsa fic #jon snow #sansa stark #rosemary (for remembrance)#my writing #alayne stone #got fanfic #jon x sansa

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jackoshadows · 2 years

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Because I see this fundamental misunderstanding so often on the Arya Stark tag...

In the world of ASoIaF, Lady is not defined as someone wearing dresses, singing songs or wanting romance, marriage and children. Considering how wives are often treated and that marital rape is a thing, I doubt many of the Ladies of Westeros are that desirous of marriage and children. Even Sansa realizes that all this marriage for love/romance is a whole lot of bs and that other houses/characters are after her for her claim.

GRRM has the titles rather simple and in some instances it’s not very clear, but this is what I understand it to be. Please do correct me on this, if I am wrong.

Lady is a title for noble/high born women/girls in Westeros, just like Lord is a title for noble/high born men. Apart from Dorne of course, where we get prince/princesses. We don’t have Dukes or Dauphins or Earls or Viscounts. It’s Lord Stark and Lord Manderly despite Ned being from a Great House.

The highborn girls, irrespective of age, are addressed as Lady. So it’s Lady Sansa Stark and Lady Arya Stark even when Catelyn was still alive. Highborn boys before taking over from their fathers seem to be addressed as Master. Waymar Royce is referred to as a Lordling once - this could be derogatory.

In the books, Catelyn chastises Edmure being called ‘Lord’ when Hoster Tully is still alive and Theon Greyjoy says that he can be Lord only after his father dies.

In the books, Roose Bolton is Warden of the North, Lord of the Dreadfort and Ramsay Bolton is Lord of Winterfell, - marrying Arya Stark to legitimize this claim/title - Lord of Hornwood and Castellan of the Dreadfort.

Jon Snow refers to Shireen Baratheon as ‘Princess’ because he considers Stannis Baratheon to be the One True King of the 7 Kingdoms.

As per the Worldbook asoiaf app, Arya is labelled princess and Bran and Rickon are princes now that the North (Apart from the Boltons and supporting houses) have declared they no longer hold fealty to the Iron Throne. Sansa did not get this title probably because of her marriage to Tyrion Lannister and Robb Stark’s decree.

That’s why Jon Snow is mocked as ‘Lord Snow’ - because he’s low born.

“That is a longsword, not an old man’s cane,” Ser Alliser said sharply. “Are your legs hurting, Lord Snow?”

Jon hated that name, a mockery that Ser Alliser had hung on him the first day he came to practice

--------------------------------------------------

“And the grumkins and the snarks,” Tyrion said. “Let us not forget them, Lord Snow, or else what’s that big thing for?”

“Don’t call me Lord Snow.”

The dwarf lifted an eyebrow. “Would you rather be called the Imp? Let them see that their words can cut you, and you’ll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.

And my personal favorite:

“Lord Snow, he likes to call himself.” Ser Alliser was a spare, slim man, compact and sinewy, and just now his flinty eyes were dark with amusement.

“You’re the one who named me Lord Snow,” said Jon.

Lord/Lady is not about the characteristics/personality of a character. There is no right or wrong way to be a Lady. There’s no rule that says that Ladies should wear dresses and play the harp and be good at sewing. No single character owns the word ‘Lady’.

This holds true for Northern Ladies as well. Catelyn Stark was a good Lady of Winterfell, not because she sang and played the harp or fought with a sword, but because she was a very capable, strong and intelligent leader whom Ned trusted enough to take over when he left for the south as Hand of the King.

Again, this is Maege Mormont, Lady of Bear Island in the North:

Maege is a short, stout, grey-haired woman, and a fierce warrior. She dresses in patched ringmail, and her favored weapon is a spiked mace.[3][4] She is dedicated to the old gods, and loyal to House Stark. According to her brother, Jeor, she is stubborn, short-tempered, and willful.

Remind us of anyone in house Stark?

Maybe an older Arya will even grow up to like dresses once she is confident enough in her appearance to know that she looks good in them. But a lot of her dislike for dresses also stems from it not being an easy or practical attire to do activities she likes - running around chasing cats or being able to fight.

What Jon Snow admires in Lady Alys Karstark is her bravery in getting all the way to the wall and agreeing to a marriage with the Magnar of the Thenns - he compares the Lady to Arya Stark and calls her ‘Winter’s Lady’.

Arya is brought up to believe that there is only one type of Lady and that she does not fit there because she’s not like Sansa. Hence her dislike specifically for things she is told she’s not good at and therefore not being as good as Sansa according to Septa Mordane, her mother, her sister and her sister’s friends. She does not want to be a Lady as defined by the Septa.

Arya loves flowers, likes purple and green and playing with babies, is good at managing a household, can clean and cook and even sewed her own clothes, is kind and compassionate, cares for people, sees the good in everyone even in the lowest of the low often shunned by Westerosi society.

The patriarchal, male dominated Westerosi society does not like women wielding swords or fighting. The text demands that we critique this considering we have characters like Arya and Brienne calling out the double standards and wanting to not be put into boxes based on their genders.

With characters like Daenerys Targaryen and Arya Stark most assuredly having active, leading roles in the next two books, I think the status quo will change or begin to change by the end of the books.

The current, new generation of main characters think differently to the status quo - Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Bran Stark, Tyrion Lannister - are all characters who straight off admire proactive female leaders, war commanders, fighters and in the case of Jon Snow puts them in positions of power. Some of our central protagonists - Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen - as leaders are involved in reform and changing how things are usually done. Other protagonists - Arya, Brienne - have shown a desire and a need for things to change. Bran and Tyrion admire characters like Meera Reed/Arya stark and Daenerys Targaryen respectively.

One of the things Jon Snow wants to do is integrate the Freefolk into the North and eventually Westeros. Considering the women of the Freefolk, why wouldn’t there be a gradual and eventual change in how Westeros sees the role of women in society?

Note, because I just know some folks are going to make strawman arguments about why this is Sansa hate because she’s a ‘girly girl’ or a character who likes singing, dancing and all that. This post is not saying that Sansa is the wrong kind of Lady or that those qualities are wrong or that Sansa is not a Lady because she likes singing or dancing or that Sansa does not want to be a Lady because she will have to marry and it will make her unhappy or that Sansa cannot be a Lady because she loves to sing and dance or that Sansa is the wrong kind of woman to be a lady etc - things that are often written about Arya on the character tag.

My post is saying that maybe in the Westeros that our heroes/heroines leave behind in this coming of age tale, all types of Ladies can co-exist in positions of power - a Lady Arya Stark, a Lady Sansa Stark, a Lady Daenerys Targaryen, a Lady Meera Reed, a Lady Arianne Martell, a Lady Margaery Tyrell and so on and so forth. GRRM has given us a variety of female characters and we all have our individual faves and who we would like to succeed at the end.

PS: No need to love all the female characters the same - they are all very different, flawed, complex characters and to each their own. Proclaiming loudly and repeatedly that one like all these very different female characters the same because they are female does not make one a feminist. Quite the opposite.

tl;dr - Essentially, according to the world and characters GRRM has written, Arya Stark, as Ned and Catelyn’s trueborn daughter, is Lady Arya Stark - that’s a honorific applied to all highborn girls. She has qualities that fit a Lady of house Stark and there is every chance that by the end of the book, the current patriarchal Westerosi status quo will begin to change to normalize girls like Arya, Asha, Daenerys, Brienne etc. as leaders or otherwise

GRRM has always said that it’s a coming of age tale for our protagonists and I think that changing societal status quo norms are part of that.

Edited: Edited to change and provide the right links/description of Maege Mormont as kindly pointed out by @patate-i-et-patate-a

#Arya Stark #Jon Snow #Sansa Stark #Daenerys Targaryen #Bran Stark #House Stark #Westeros #Titles #asoiaf #GRRM

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