I don't know if you're looking for writing prompts atm ...but for next time .... a fluffy fic of jon attempting to make lemon cakes for sansa!
Okay, why the Hell not? Warning: the first major chunk of this is from the perspective of a sassy OC.
Mistress Githa, or ‘Missy Githa’ as she grew to be called once she reached a certain age, is one of the only surviving servants in Winterfell to have served since Lord Rickard’s days.
After many early years in the woods, with her Mum and Nanny, she’d known starvation. Things got better when winter ended and her Nanny and Mum were able to teach her their secrets, then send her off at fifteen, bonny, lusty, and clever, to White Harbour and serve the Manderlys.
She remained in their service long enough to learn her letters— Lord Manderly insisted all his servants learn to read and write so they might effectively spy on his guests. Then she made the mistake of letting Lord Manderly bend her over a barrel of onions. The Lead Housekeeper was the lord’s chief mistress, and made life Hell for any lass she saw as a threat, and Githa decided after her bend-over that the man wasn’t worth the risk, and got out before the trouble truly started.
When she started serving the Starks, it didn’t take her long to catch the young Lord Brandon’s eye, of course. And Githa had an advantage as far as bedmates went in that unlike her former mistress, she was never the jealous type. As opposed to sabotaging other young wenches who caught a lordling’s fancy, she encouraged them. And she was good at it. She came to Winterfell with family-old recipes that she came to… enhance over the years. As she got older, she did her best to look after the lasses of the court, eventually earning herself the unofficial position of court matchmaker. She curried enough favors and fed the court well enough to be made Head Cook to Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn.
But she never forgot what it was to starve. The sort of hungry that made you feel as if you’d swallowed a demon desperately trying to claw its way out of your insides. So she’s never had the slightest bit of patience for wasting or nicking even a speck of food. She was similarly opposed to withholding food (outside of circumstances she deemed appropriate).
This is something she reinforced to every Stark (with varying degrees of success) as she watched them grow.
She had only three great shames over the course of her service to Winterfell: the first is arranging and engineering the turncloak shit Theon Greyjoy’s introduction into manhood. The second is failing to get all the women of the household out when the stupid shit turned his cloak and sacked the castle. Of course, some girls — ones like Myranda, the kennelmaster’s daughter, were obstinate and refused to go. But considering the lass’s fate, Githa feels she should have hog-tied and dragged the poor, stupid thing out.
The third is not being about when poor little Lady Sansa was brought to be Ramsay Bolton’s bride. Githa had left a few of the older servingwomen back in Winterfell as scouts when she fled, including Lora, who had been the second eldest person in Winterfell after Old Nan. Lora, brave thing that she was, tried to get Lady Sansa out, and ended up flayed alive for her trouble. Thankfully, one thing Lora left behind was a certain recipe of Githa’s that the Boltons found that purported to be fertility enhancing. That’s because Lora mislabeled it. The pie was made to prevent pregnancy, rather than ensure it. Given that Lady Sansa was at the very least spared an unwelcome visitor to her womb, it seems the ruse worked.
Missy Githa returned to Winterfell upon the Boltons’ fall, and Lady Sansa, now Lady Stark, wasted no time in embracing her and re-appointing her to her old position. Lady Stark, much like her mother, was the best sort of lady to have. She stayed out of the way except to go over the books, inform the staff of pertinent developments, and make special requests and she always made sure that she gifted the kitchen with extra helpings once a week and after any large banquets. She’d also had special apartments right by the kitchen built for Githa.
Mostly, she stayed out of the way.
Githa wishes she could say the same of their new king.
Missy Githa loved Jon Snow as she’d loved all the Stark children, but she did find him sullen and snobbish in his own way. When he was not allowed at the family table, he made no secret of how degraded he felt to eat with lower members of the household, including servants, all while decrying how unfair it was to be seen as lesser. He was too much a child to realize the irony of this.
But he was always a good boy, otherwise kind to servants and highborn alike. But even before he was crowned, he spent his first few days home again barging into the kitchen to “check up on” things, despite acknowledging Lady Sansa as the true ruler of the castle. During the brief period in between his crowning and his departure for Dragonstone, he insisted on Lady Stark performing “check ups”, along with a food taster. —A practice that ceased the moment he left the North. But before then, despite having no training in the actual affairs of household upkeep, he butted into everything, effectively slowing down work since he required every manager and overseer to halt things to explain and demonstrate their process to him.
There’ve been mad grumblings since he left, as Lady Stark was left with the actual business of ruling the kingdom during the king’s absence— the best thing King Jon has done. Life and work improved exponentially. Lady Stark was trained in Household and Court affairs, and she knew best how to judge good craftsmanship. With the king looking over her shoulder constantly, major decisions regarding what was technically her own household slowed to a snail’s pace, something intensified when the king insisted all able-bodied persons between ten and sixty drill with weapons for half a day, and Winterfell ended up woefully understaffed.
Once the king was gone, however, Lady Stark was free to go through with her own decisions without barriers and evaluate and appoint a proper household staff.
Lady Stark proved to everyone that she would have likely been the better choice overall as ruler of the North, handling the affairs of the whole kingdom in addition to her lands. Githa didn’t have to know much about statesmanship to tell, she merely had to observe the reactions from the lords and ladies around who did. King Jon might be a fine commander and they may be facing war, but that’s why you appointed such a man as a commander, not a king. How was he to keep the actual kingdom running if he was on a battlefield the entire time?
And the King was gone for much too long. His absence was extended in part thanks to him chasing an alliance with, of all people, the Lannister woman, going as far as to venture Beyond the Wall to capture a wight and bring it to the Red Keep to prove its existence to the Mad Queen. A mission which ended up resulting in one of the Targaryen woman’s dragons dying and being resurrected by the enemy as an Ice Dragon. All so Cersei Lannister could ultimately (and predictably) betray them.
There were grumbles, alright. Grumbles about the king being too close to the Targaryen woman, of leaving the North for a foreigner, possibly surrendering their independence to her. Of him staying away even after he got what he set out for— the dragonglass, and bringing in an Ice Dragon.
The war might be won now, but there are still grumbles. King Jon isn’t even Lord Stark’s son, as it turns out. And while he served well in the war, and the North is still independent, he’s still a Targaryen and everyone knows it was Lady Stark who brokered that deal, anyways. Lady Stark’s kept ruling, keeping those armies intact along with the rest of the North, for the past three and a half years. And she is a true Stark, and more responsible, they say, for the fall of the Boltons than King Jon was.
Githa doesn’t love the king any less for being a Targaryen. But she doesn’t think he has much business being king.
So even with war over and the king back, it’s no secret who is truly, properly ruling the North now.
Of course, not that Githa listens to such things. She’s not the sort to concern herself with politics. It’s not her expertise or place.
Githa’s place is the kitchen. It’s from the kitchen that she more or less keeps her eye on and maintains the whole whole court, really. After all, everyone eats, and war or peace, winter or summer, it’s food that will always be demanded. She leads all the cooks, all the maids, all the servers, and hears every word said over every table —- not that she would ever try to listen in, of course, but one cannot help what one’s staff report to you. The only one more important than Githa in Winterfell is Lady Stark, and that’s only because Lady Stark knows her place as well.
Githa thinks the King could do to follow their examples.
Especially now, when he’s in the middle of her kitchen, getting flour everywhere and yelping when the juice from the lemon he’s cutting squirts into the cut he’s acquired cutting said lemon.
Perhaps it’s growing up as a bastard —- half high-born, half common, or perhaps it’s learning that he isn’t really who he was that has gotten him all mixed up, but the man does not know his place. Or, more sadly, perhaps he’s like all too many other lads who return from years of battle, struggling to adjust to life where one isn’t constantly dodging arrows and cracking skulls. And perhaps that’s why Githa Ogg hasn’t taken her spoon to him yet.
It’s not that she’s afraid to hit a highborn. She’s taken her spoon to all the Stark children in her lifetime save for the current Lady Stark, as Lady Stark, even as a girl, was always too much a perfectionist to nick food from the kitchens. The rest, however… While Jon was never the worst —- Lord Robb and Lady Arya were in constant competition for that titles— she’d caught him at it as a lad. And the rules were the same for anyone caught nicking from her kitchen— they got a strike from her spoon. She’d even taken her spoon to Lord Eddard, after becoming Lord of the castle, once.
King Jon isn’t stealing, technically, she supposes. But he is most certainly wasting, which is just as bad (but not as easy to punish a highborn for).
He, like all the Starks, grew up with Githa’s recipes. Including some of the more… enhanced ones, even if they weren’t the same enhanced ones she served to wives who experienced a lull in the passion of their marriage or a maiden who sought not to become a mother in seeking her pleasures. But she’d given them ones for when they’d taken a sniffle or were refusing to sleep.
Githa was taught to read by the White Harbour Castle Maester — one of the good things one could say about Lord Manderly was that he was good about giving his folk the opportunity to advance, and that included arranging lessons for servant children. And not too long after Lord Eddard became Lord Stark, Lady Stark proposed she record her recipes in a book. And so Githa did.
And it’s this book, two decades old and not exactly in mint condition, that the king has open on the great wooden table in the middle of the kitchen, covering the pages in flour.
Stains are hardly alien to Githa’s book after twenty years in this kitchen, but the king’s technique in handling foodstuffs is doing the damage of a moon’s turn of banquet preparation.
There are, in fact, two copies of Githa’s book in existence: the Right One and the Wrong One. The Wrong One contained all the right recipes, but lied about what they were for. The source of the “Fertility Pie” that had kept Lady Stark free of Bolton seed finding purchase within her. Githa left the Wrong One behind deliberately, with instructions to Lora on exactly how to use it. She took The Right One with her.
Now the Wrong One is locked away in her cupboard — after all, a weapon such as that is far too dangerous to leave out for just anyone to find. And the Right One is on the center table, being pelted with ingredients.
There are more problems with this situation, of course. The king isn’t merely wasting ingredients or dirtying her book, he’s also wasting space and, most importantly, her time.
The King’s place, as far as Githa is concerned, is to sit in the Lord’s Chair and do as Lady Stark tells him until a new conflict carries him off to command their armies. Instead, he’s in her kitchen, attempting to bake.
As King, though, he of course must have the best table, best tools, best ingredients. And he cannot be attended to by just any worker. His royal presence requires the Head Cook herself, by right of deference.
Hence why she’s stuck nearby, only capable of devoting half her attention to her true job. Worse, his royal presence is disruptive beyond the issue of space. It sets the kitchen staff on edge and makes them act… inefficiently. Twice she’s had workers spill pounds of potatoes and onions onto the floor because they saw the king and instantly bowed while carrying an open sack or crate.
Another problem with the king came from the man himself. He was the sort who absolutely hated to feel dependent on others. To the point where his efforts at resourcefulness ended up becoming outright arrogance. He has never taken advice easily —- Lady Stark ended up being the one to assemble a proper council after he left since the new king refused to appoint proper advisors beyond her and his Hand, Ser Davos. He seemed to have even greater difficulty, as most men did, in taking advice from women. The only woman he seemed to listen to was Lady Stark herself, and only after years of her running his kingdom for him, and even so, the Lady has to employ her own special charms to get him to cooperate.
He can’t help being a man, Githa supposes. It’s their nature. It’s why she has only a few male workers in the kitchens.
But it’s even worse now. Because the king is a man on a very particular mission, and he is determined to do it on his own and not have Githa “do it for him.”
The problem with men, rulers, and most of all, men who are rulers, is that they often can’t tell the difference between being helped and being carried. Being served, well, that they understood all too well. But anything that involved another person displaying a greater understanding of anything… well… They had to be tricked into that most of the time.
Githa isn’t sure whether to blame herself for things coming to this or not. On one hand, the king has come here because he’s reached a point in a journey that Githa has surreptitiously helped him along. On the other, how could she possibly have predicted this?
The King truly does not know his place.
Lady Stark does. She wouldn’t dream of invading like this, of taking food into her own hands. She knows that until the food was literally prepared and put on a platter before her, it doesn’t belong to her. It is the domain and property of the cooks. She knows not to get in the way.
She knows that the last thing the kitchen staff need is to be responsible for allowing flour or sauce or crumbs to get on fine, high-born clothing. If that happened, it only ended up provoking conflict and tension between the kitchenfolk and the laundresses. For a common person, angering the launderers was every bit as risky as angering those responsible for your food. Their version of spitting in your ale was letting your shift out in the damp. When you’re a kitchen, you need your aprons and cleaning rags in good condition. That cannot be jeopardized. The inner politics of a household are delicate. And a meringue stain on a doublet of lamb’s wool could ignite a hidden war between the domestic departments, wielded with scrub-brushes, mildew, stale bread, washboards, shovels, spoons, and, most dangerous of all, time.
Lissa, the Head Laundress, well, Githa had set her up with her husband, so she’d never order reactionary strike, but the lass who’d be tasked with cleaning the meringue stains might not be above causing mischief. Mischief that would escalate until both section heads had to be drawn in if only to keep their own people from rioting.
It’s not a thing a King would understand. It’s not a thing that highborn men are taught to consider. Running a household was never their destiny.
It’s why Githa always had less patience for little Lady Arya Underfoot than the others. Having a high-born might running this way and that under your nose did no favors when you’re carrying laden platters. And Githa has no time or patience for anyone in her kitchens who isn’t there to work a full day. Anyone else just takes up space.
But Githa knows what led to this, and the part she’s played as well.
What could she do? It’s not like her to meddle— never! No one could accuse Githa of meddling! Especially in the affairs of the highborn. And if there was ever a sort who needed meddling less, it would be Lady Stark, who was very nearly as clever as Githa, with a head on perfectly straight, a good heart, a body and face made of dreams, and proper schooling.
But… Well…
Githa doesn’t gossip, but she hardly can begrudge the lasses and lads under her from doing so. She knows as well as any how dull and depressing the work can get and how sometimes, any spare bit of observance can end up benefitting someone in the end. And she can’t help what they tell her, or say in front of her, or say close enough to her even when they think they’re not. Can she?
She serves the Lady of Winterfell, and it is her duty to do the very best and very most for her lady. Her place is in the kitchens. But she’s earned her place in the realm of hearts as well.
And it’s not meddling so much as… helping things along.
A duty, is what it is. Lady Stark still has years and years of youth ahead of her, as does the king. But there are few greater tragedies in the world than even a moment of youth wasted. Sure, the Lady would probably get around to it eventually… but months, perhaps years would be wasted by then.
With all the work and struggle the poor lass has been through, she can hardly allow that to happen.
People underestimated the power of commonfolk. They choose to believe that all power resides in the lords and ladies, gleefully slipping poison into an enemy’s cup. But a cook can poison even more easily. A servant is expected everywhere, never noticed, and therefore, hears whatever they like. And it’s the people who serve and assemble who make sure that the right people are accommodated in the right way.
Githa is as powerful as a person can be, in her humble opinion. If she wished to, she could have easily arranged for those dragons the Targaryen woman had to be fed spoiled meat.
But she’s not the sort to use her power that way. No, she’s a good woman. She makes love (lots of it) not war (except when circumstances force her hand).
The King fumbles about the table. Both he and said table are covered in flour. It reminds her of a prank he and young Lord Robb had played on the other children years ago. It involved Lord Robb bringing the children down to the crypts and Jon jumping out at them, covered in flour, pretending to be a ghost.
The only thing Githa hates more than a young moment wasted is food wasted, down to the slightest flake. Oh, how she’d given Jon Snow a beating for that! He’d coated himself in half a cake!
He has again, only this time, it’s not intentional. Githa has already arranged for one of her maids to grab his discarded clothes later on and give them a rinse before the launderers get their hands on them. It’s a mercy he’s not wearing gloves, given the amount of yolk on his fingers.
The king mutters to himself and he squints at the page. If she has to guess, she’d say he’s mixed up the batter and meringue again.
If the king were to take a break from squinting at the current page and perhaps turn a page or two, he might possibly discover Githa’s part in all this.
Just a few pages down from the lemon cake recipe were other things. Such as the Boar Tusk Surprise, or the Yams in Passion(ate) Fruit Sauce, or the Asparagus, Fig, and Spring Grass Salad, or the Honey Cinnamon Pumpkin tarts.
Or any other number of invigorating dishes Githa has made sure to serve the king and lady during their private meetings and suppers together.
Githa’s book was used by workers who didn’t know their letters, so of course every recipe came with appropriate picture diagrams. Including renderings of the finished products. She also made sure that The Right One was truly accessible, so many of the, well, enhanced dishes came with descriptions of their intended effects, in both symbols and text.
The recipe the king was currently failing at, thankfully enough, was the non-enhanced lemoncake recipe. But it was in the back of the regular section of the book, with the desserts, mere pages from the enhanced snacks, appetizers, and entrees. Not that the non-enhanced version is any less than superb, certainly superior than the lazy, lackluster, half-formed bars of pastry that other courts served. These are the ones that Lady Stark yearned for all those years as she had to settle for the Southernors’ confectionary abortions. The ones with the cream centers and meringue toppings.
Some of the rivals Githa had back in White Harbour accused her of witchcraft. Some newcomers to Winterfell have done the same, only to be quickly silenced by the glares of more seasoned staff who had benefitted from the Head Cook’s artistry more than once. As such, those suspicions have always avoided the lords and ladies of the castle, and Githa prefers it that way. Lady Stark might be understanding, but she’s not sure the others will. Even poor Lord Bran, with his visions and such, was otherwise uneasy with anything that seemed supernatural.
Not that this was. No, this was science and art. Cooking. Just the right ingredients for the right job. No different than anything a maester might prescribe, aside from the fact that her products worked better.
She truly hopes that the king doesn’t turn too many pages.
It might be her own fault, though. She may have gone too far. Added a bit too much nutmeg here, introduced bananas a little too soon. It’s just that both the lady and the king were so restrained! Lady Stark was brutally purged of all the romantic ideas she’d fancied as a child years ago, and Jon Snow never had any whatsoever. He’d volunteered for the watch at four-and-ten, for pity’s sake!
She never expected them to take to things so passionately, is all.
Meeting them again as adults, she barely recognizes them as the children she knew. The only thing she does recognize is how perfect they are for one another. How that happened, she’ll never know. But it did.
She never expected that somehow, the king would turn out more starry-eyed, soppy, romantic, and fanciful than Lady Stark ever was a girl. She of course knew how he loved the Lady. Anyone with a decent pair of eyes and a lick of sense — that is, the staff and maybe Ser Davos, who was raised in Flea Bottom— could see it plain as day.
But she always read King Jon as the sort of man who shored up his passion and let it erupt only once the doors were closed, who kept his love like a secret, who didn’t care for grand gestures.
Those sort could and often did make for the best of lovers — generous in all the ways that ultimately count the most. But they didn’t.
They didn’t do things like grow sick of having their lady loves make them things and have nothing to make her in return. They didn’t do things like try to rectify this perceived inadequacy by tearing the kitchen apart to make their lady a platter of her favorite foods.
They didn’t do things like insist they make them themselves, because that’s the whole point.
Problem is, even if the king manages to achieve his goal and make them himself, they’ll probably be subpar, and he’ll likely have interrupted too much work and the preparation of the important, daily foodcrafting by then. So he’ll be presenting his lady with a subpar desert while explaining to her whole court why supper is late.
Or, rather, present his lady with a subpar desert and make Githa lie about why supper is late.
The Cook decides that she can’t take it anymore as she watches the king look back and forth between the two bowls of yellowish fluid. “The meringue is the darker, more orange stuff!”
The king spins around to face her. “I know that! That’s not what’s confusing me!”
“What, then?”
He scowls. “It’s nothing to do with your recipe, Missy Githa, it’s a private matter.”
Missy Githa looks around at the staff and barks at them to get back to work, which was code for ‘Leave’. They do. She waits until the final clatter of a door before facing her king. “I prepare your meals, Your Grace. I prepared the first meal you ever had that didn’t come from your wet nurse. Nothing’s too private for me.”
He groans and turns back to the table, gesturing for Githa to come close. She inches up to his side, spoon still in hand.
“The baking is easy enough, but for one matter,” he says, reaching into the pocket of his breeches. He shows her the contents of his palm. It’s a packet of herbs she immediately recognizes as a mix of tansy, mint, and wormwood.
“The… The lady I… Well, she hates the tea, you see,” he murmurs, “The taste is—”
“—Bloody distinct.” Githa knows all about it. Tansy tea is something always downed with a wrinkled nose.
“I want her to take what she needs in a more palatable form. Something that might kill the taste. Not to mention, something that looks less obvious. But I’m not sure how to work the ingredients in properly so it tastes right and does its job.”
Githa’s face splits into a grin. Her anger towards the royal sot melts away. If anything, she’s touched. It’s not many men who will exert the time and effort to help their lady with family matters.
The Cook takes the packet from him and tosses it in a nearby fire. The king yelps.
“Forget that,” Githa says, “I’ve got an alternative that taste as nothing and works much, much better.”
“But the tea is what the Maesters—”
“—Maesters are a bunch of stupid men in baggy dresses who spend more time with their heads in books written by other stupid men in baggy dresses than actually near a woman’s body proper. They don’t know a thing. Moon tea wears at the walls of the womb, causes cramps, longer and more painful bleedings, and can fail. No…” Githa leans over and begins flipping through pages. “I’ll help you, but only on the condition that you not bother me. Do that, and I won’t say a word about this.”
The king nods. “Very well.”
She finds the proper page. “There we are. My Fennynel Syrup. Got a vial of it in the back of the larder. You add two drops to every cake. Tasteless, gentler, but more effective. I left the recipe behind for your more loyal household when the Boltons took over. They used it to keep that Bastard from breeding the lady. Have her eat one at least an hour before you… engage.”
“Thank you, Missy Gytha,” he says, sounding so much like he did as a boy, when she handed him a treat.
Githa glances at the table and is surprised to see properly whipped cream prepared. Interested, she sticks a finger in the meringue bowl and brings it to her lips. It’s perfect. She tries the batter. Heavenly. She looks at her king in wonder. “Everything’s perfect so far.”
The king blushes. “I’m glad to hear it.”
She takes this opportunity to grab him by the ear as she did when he was a lad. “Just so we’re clear, Your Grace, you’re going to do right by our Lady Stark, correct?”
“Who said anything abo—OW!” He yelps when she twists his ear.
“I’m not stupid, Lad, and I’ve been watching you lie since you could first speak. You were never good at it. You think I don’t know what’s happening? Now answer me!”
He whimpers, but doesn’t fight her off. “I swear, Missy Githa! I have the best of intentions! But I promised that we’d wait until she was ready to marry again! And she’s not said a word!”
“Have you been asking her every day?”
“Well, no, I—”
“Get on it, then! You ask her every day, tell her you love her every hour, and if she holds out another month, get her something shiny, you hear?”
“Yes, Missy Githa!”
“Good!” She releases him. “I’ll put these in the oven for you and place the syrup. You get out of my kitchen and get to your king-ing, you hear?”
“Yes, Missy Gytha!”
“AND GIVE YOUR CLOTHES A RINSE BEFORE THROWING THEM TO THE LAUNDRY!”
~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~
Jon:
The cake nearly falls from her fingers and mouth as her eyes widen in horror.
“You made these?”
“Well, I made the batter, meringue, and cream,” Jon says, “It was Missy Githa who baked them and put them in the heart shapes.”
“You… You actually put these together, though? Meaning you… You went into the kitchens?!” She lowers the cake, swallows what made it to her mouth, washes it down with Arbor gold, then gapes at him. “You made all this… in the middle of Missy Githa’s kitchen.”
Jon smiles. “Technically, it’s our kitchen, and I am king.”
Sansa purses her lips and gives him a look. It clearly says, We both know the reality of things, why bother claiming any different? There are no kings in any kitchen where Missy Githa presides. They’ve known that since they were in nappies.
He relaxes his shoulders. “She did eventually order me out. But she helped me first. These are your new alternatives to Moon Tea.”
Sansa looks down in the plate in surprise. “I always heard rumors, but… really?”
He nods. “Truly. Oh, and she did in fact twist my ear.”
“Of course.”
“And gave me orders. From now on, I’m to ask you every day if you are ready to marry me.”
Sansa stares at him from across the table. “So she knows—?”
He shakes his head, chuckling. “Of course she does.”
Sansa cups her brow. “Oh, Gods. And you’re saying these cakes…”
“…Are laced with a syrup designed to prevent any unexpected visitors, yes.” He thinks for a second, then grins at her. “Oh, I was also instructed to tell you every hour that I love you.”
Her face melts and she rises. Sansa walks over and falls into his lap, wrapping her arms about his neck. “My Love, you invaded Missy Githa’s kitchen for me. I don’t need to be told.”
“Well,” he says, leaning into brush his lips against her neck, “I want to anyways.”
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