#jonsa spring challenge

[jonsa-creatives]

Jonsa Spring Challenge Master List

A big thanks to all that participated! And without further ado, here are all our fabulous entries...

Day 1 Fools

Jon you Damned Fool by @saracollinskay

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes

Fools by @junsnow

The Beach House by @castaliareed

A Fool and His Plans by @vivilove-jonsa

Fools by @winkydinkle

Two girls, one cup by @captainbee89

How are you feeling? by @amymel86

Fools by @thesleepysubwaytrain

One Small Hitch by @jonsaforlife

Day 2 Dialogue Prompts

A Misconception by @ludholtzjj

The Barrow Kings Hotel by @castaliareed

Gifted by @junsnow

Some Assembly Required by @myrish-lace-love

How are you feeling? by @amymel86

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes

Come closer, let me look at you by @azulaahai

Mistakes by @captainbee89

dialogue prompt: “And how do you propose we do it then?” // “Well, you thought wrong.” by @thesleepysubwaytrain

There Can Be Only One by @vivilove-jonsa

It’s All I’ve Ever Wanted by @winkydinkle

The Wedding by @jonsaforlife

Day 3 Starting Anew

Alive by @junsnow

You’re my Secret (my Beautiful Little Secret) Part II by @jonsaforlife

Bunker by @amymel86

Grand Opening by @castaliareed​

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes​

Day 4 Photo Prompt

Roses in the Wolf’s Den by @castaliareed

More than Wednesdays by @myrish-lace-love

Bunker by @amymel86

When Will I See You Again? by @jonsaforlife

Uncle Jon by @azulaahai

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes

Day 5 Babies

The Children’s Tower by @castaliareed

Babies by @winkydinkle

Requiem by @scullylikesscience

Escape - Reunion - Farewell by @jonsaforlife

Bunker by @amymel86​

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes​

Day 6 Song Prompts

Ice Dance by @zip00198704 along with this photo collage

Cold Bones by @jonsaforlife

Find a flask, we’re playing fast and loose byTaleWeaver

Sweet Home Winterfell by @captainbee89

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes 

 song prompt: Chopin - Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2 by @thesleepysubwaytrain

Day 7 Free Choice

Homecoming by TaleWeaver

In the corners of my mind by @amymel86

The Boss by @jonsaforlife

Spring Wallpapers by @melissa-blogs

Marry Me by @lady-and-lemoncakes

Once again - thank you so much to all the participants! 

Warning - Although every care has been made to ensure all entries have been included in this list, should one of your posts be missing, please do get in touch so we can amend the master list! If you want to make sure you are looking at the list of full works, please view the original post rather than any reblogs.

Much love!

Amy and Elle!!

[kittensjonsa]

For @jonsa-creatives‘ Jonsa Spring Challenge Day 6: Song 

Where’s My Love - SYML

Summary: Recovering from her traumatic abduction, Sansa finds herself in a unique but necessary situation - stowed away as a vital witness under the protection of the Federal Government and one handsome FBI Agent, Jon Snow, keen to do his job well. Despite their arrangement and trying hard to be unaffected by what is happening around them, Jon and Sansa find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other. Rated PG. TW: abduction, implied torture, PTSD

Cold Bones

What she thought was sweat, tasted like blood. 

Sansa flinched at the thought, desperate to pry her hands free of the chained cuffs on her wrists. She would break her own arms but what good would it do in escaping this hell hole? Her laboured breathing slowly turned into sobs as the fear finally gripped her. 

I don’t want to die. Not like this.

“There you are my queen,” Sansa heard the door creak open. Squinting at the sudden light pouring into the room, Sansa watched as a shadow approached her. Grunting, she sat up, moving further, backing into the wall as much as she could. If only the ground would swallow her, it was a fate she desired more than this one.

“Look at you, you’re hurt my precious. Hope I wasn’t too hard on you. Well, I will be but for now,” Ramsay’s voice trailed off as he dabbed at her damp forehead. The dull ache returned and Sansa felt the room spin once more.

“Well, that was just warm up. I’m preparing you for your destiny, Sansa. Do you not know how important you are to me?” Ramsay sneered as he seized her arms and forced her to face him. 

Sansa had no will nor the breath to say a word. Only a tear that rolled off her cheek and onto the dirty concrete floor. 

With her eyes shut and one final deep breath, Sansa muttered her last prayer.

Jon’s heart was pounding wildly as beads of sweat pooled on his forehead. He listened intently for further instructions and counted slowly in his head, his body bent low, taut and in position. Stealthily, Jon moved towards the door with his revolver pointed straight as Edd and Grenn crept closely behind. Jon swallowed the sharp cold air as he listened again for any voices behind the frame. He had to be in the right place. All the evidence they had led to this very location. His instincts had strongly agreed and that was enough for him. He knew it, he felt it. The sick bastard’s time is up.

A muffled scraping and squeak broke the silence and Jon quickly signaled to his squad. It was all he needed to take action. His ass is mine.

A rhythmic beeping kept drifting in and out of Sansa’s ears and her mind’s eye was shrouded in bright white. Am I in heaven? Am I truly dead, she thought. Mama, Papa.. my family.

“Shhh… I’m here my darling girl. Right here,” her mother’s hushed voice spoke, to her surprise. 

“She’s up… Oh thank God.”

“Sansa…”

Tears formed under her closed lids as soft familiar voices surrounded her and Sansa wanted to run, towards them, to those voices. Not the white light. Where are you? A firm warm grip on her hand gave Sansa the strength to open her eyes.

Tears blurred her vision but there he was, her father standing over her with eyes brimming. “Oh! My sweet girl!” 

For the first time in her life, God was real. And He had heard her.

“Mr Stark, I understand your concerns but for now I think that’s the best alternative.”

“But my daughter isn’t the criminal! She was the victim! You can’t do this to us, not after what she has been through. And all she needs now is her family. The last thing we want is the FBI surrounding her. She needs to be safe!”

Davos sighed. He understood perfectly how Ned Stark must be feeling but Davos also knew that if Sansa were to return home, more people would turn up dead. Including her. Until further evidence uncovered to prove the Boltons were behind the trafficking ring, Sansa was not out of the woods yet. A safe house is what she needs.

“With all due respect sir, her safety is exactly what we’re keeping. She is our only lead in the investigation and believe me, Mr Stark, she will be helping a lot of people. She will be saving lives. But it is also extremely dangerous for her right now. I’m sorry, Mr Stark. We will make sure we stay in contact with you to let you know that all is fine and well. Please understand, the Witness Protection Program is, unfortunately necessary, for Sansa. I promise you, she’ll be in good hands.”

Ned looked down, fighting back tears again. He was beyond exhausted. He almost lost Sansa once and now that she was found, he had to let her go again. “Catelyn would be devastated. She doesn’t deserve all of this. None of us do.”

It was a heartbreaking but the more time it took to convince them, the more dangerous the operation would become. There was no knowing what the Boltons were getting up to, now that their mastermind and heir to the crime family’s empire was shot dead.

Davos laid a hand on the shoulder of the sobbing father.“I promise you, she’ll be well taken care of. We have our best agents on the job. Jon Snow. He was the one who saved your daughter, Mr Stark. And he’s the best one to keep your daughter safe. Please, Mr Stark. For her safety and your family’s.”

Ned glanced again at Catelyn who was cradling Sansa’s head, stroking her hair gently. “Let us say goodbye to her, then. Please.” 

There was no more he could say. Nothing that could make it better. It was the worst part of his job. The hardest and he hated it every time it came up.

Davos could only nod.

Sansa limped to the bed and surveyed her surroundings. It was cozy and simple but it was cold. The whole house was cold, without her family. 

“I hope this would do. The clothes are in there if you need to change and I guess.. I’ll go prepare dinner. There’s a button at the bedside table and press that if you need help. Oh, and a panic button just here,” the young man dressed in a suit with a head of combed down curls pointed to the edge of the headboard. “You know, if anything comes up. Which I’m sure it won’t. And I’m Jon.”

Sansa smoothed the small crinkles of her bed sheet and sighed defeatedly.

 “Thank you, Jon.”

It was a pain to walk or move but thankfully the kitchen was just around the corner from her room. Sansa hadn’t changed from the dress her mother had helped put on at the hospital. She didn’t have the courage to remove anything covering her body. Not yet. It was too soon to see the scars. 

Soft rock music and sizzles filled the kitchen and a delicious scent wafted through the air. Sansa watched as Jon, now clad in a t shirt and jeans stir the pan, bopping his head along to the music, unaware she was standing right behind.

“It smells good here.”

Jon almost dropped his spatula at the sound of her voice. “Oh Miss Stark! Sorry I didn’t hear you.”

Sansa winced as she sat down gently on the nearest chair. Jon rushed to help only to be refused by Sansa. 

“It’s all right. I can manage. I can’t depend on you all the time. It’s not like you’ll be around the house all the time anyways,” Sansa smiled politely. Jon turned off the heat and grabbed some plates. He hoped she’d like stir fry. It was the easiest thing to make given the short notice. 

“Actually, Miss Stark, I won’t be leaving your side at all. The house, I mean. Wherever you go, I go. So yeah, I won’t be leaving unless we have to.”

Sansa frowned. “Wait… What do you when we have to? You mean, we’re stuck in this house? That’s it? Well, what am I gonna do then to spend the time?”

“Well, your doctor’s appointments that’s one,” Jon said warily as he poured iced water for her, “and we can go out if you’d like. I just need clearance. I have a computer if you need to do anything and some books if you’d like to read. But yes mostly we’ll be staying.. in.”

Sansa suddenly lost her appetite. She had been rescued from one dungeon but only to enter another. “I’m sorry, I’m not hungry now. I think I’d like to go to sleep. Thank you for dinner, excuse me Jon…” Sansa sipped some water and began to stand up. Her heart started to race and her palms sweaty. She wanted to go home. 

“Miss… It’s just protocol.. I’m sorry if it’s something I said, I didn’t mean to-”

“My name is Sansa! Don’t they tell you that in the case file? Aren’t you supposed to know who the hell it is you’re protecting? For fuck’s sake!”

Jon kept silent and sat back down on his chair.

“I just want to be with my family! I deserve that at least! Why won’t you people let me?” Sansa snapped and headed slowly to her room. It had barely been three days since she left the hospital and all she wanted was to go back home and lay in her own bed, in her own room. Her family would keep her safe but deep down she knew it was true, a nagging sense that she was still very much in danger. 

A few hours had probably passed as Sansa stared at the ceiling and the unmoving fan that hung from it, that a growl in her stomach pushed her to get up. It was already dark and the view from the windows was only darkness. Sansa could not remember what it had looked like earlier during the day but she did not care. They were in godforsaken nowhere. The view was the least she cared about. Sansa was about to walk towards the door when a gentle knock almost made her jump. Dammit Jon.

“Sansa? Is everything all right? May I come in, please?”

Sansa hesitated. She should apologize but her mood wasn’t any better than a few hours ago.

“Sure, Jon. Come in.”

The door opened to a smiling Jon holding a tray of food. “I figured you might be hungry. Please eat Sansa. It’ll make you feel better. Please? It’s edible, I swear.”

Sansa’s mouth broke into a smile and opened the door wider for him to enter. “Thank you Jon. And for just now.. I’m sor-”

Jon shook his head. “Ah, no please don’t apologize. Besides, I get yelled at a lot. You can ask my Captain.”

Sansa sat up on the bed and pricked on a morsel of the heated stir fry with her fork. “Oh, this is good. You’re a good cook, Mr FBI Agent. What else do they teach you at the academy?”

Jon chuckled. “Shooting, unarmed combat, profiling criminals. You know, your typical every day stuff.”

Sansa smiled as she chewed on another piece of broccoli. “Of course.” Jon watched as she ate, his shy glances darting back and forth. Well, at least he’s cute. Not too bad to get stuck with.

“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow Jon? Or is there a plan?”

Jon furrowed his brows, wondering what to say. There was no plan. Keeping her safe, supervising Sansa Stark at all times and reporting to Davos by midnight was his plan. He had to think of something in between seven thirty in the morning and midnight.

“Well, not much. No plans. We can play board games, cook and watch some dvds, I guess. Would that be okay for you? Your next appointment is next week, which I’ll be coming with you.”

Sansa looked away and took a sip of water. She felt sorry that Jon had to be stuck with her. It was all her fault. Her fault that she went against her intuition and met with Ramsay that night. But all she wanted to do was tell him to back off and leave her alone. She thought she was able to handle him by herself. And all this; alone and locked away in obscurity without her family by her side, was all because of her.

“Sansa? If you don’t like that we can do something else,” Jon chimed in, sensing her discomfort. 

Sansa bristled. “Anything but going out in public, right?”

“For now, yes. But it won’t be forever.” No. But my scars will be.

The days passed and eventually blended as Sansa often did not know what day it was apart from the radio that Jon turned on every now and then. Neither did she care. She was still trapped in the house anyway. For God knows how long still. Jon had kept details of the investigation safe from her knowledge. And appreciatively so, for any mention of the Bolton name would give her nightmares. 

Jon and her had settled into a comfortable routine, him staying awake while she slept, and him resting while she was awake. They took turns to cook for one another. Sansa even baked her specialty, lemon cakes - which Jon had secretly grown to love. Groceries and things she asked for were delivered once a week, and almost every other day there was a new book to read and a new board game. But a favourite of theirs was Scrabble and some days the games went well into the night, allowing her to rest well after. Her sleep had gotten considerably better since the first night she arrived.

Sometimes, they would even go for a walk as Sansa needed to make sure her legs were healing but it tickled her that she had to put on a ridiculous wig and a cap everywhere they went. 

“It.. suits you,” Sansa remembered Jon tell her as she had the wig on for the first time. 

It was strange seeing herself with dark almost raven like hair. She looked like another person entirely. Which of course, was the whole point. It was strange to Sansa that she was beginning to enjoy this whole new other life vastly different from her old one. She could be anything, say anything and Jon allowed her to be. It was liberating despite the circumstances. There was no one to tell her she was wrong, no one to tell her she was not doing a good job. There was no noise. It was just her in her own little protective bubble. And it worked wonders. She had her bad days, when nightmares proved too much and missing her family had often dragged her down but having someone she could talk to and spend time with, was a lifesaver. Sshe was beginning to trust again. After what she had gone through, this was a milestone. And for that Sansa was beyond grateful. It was one thing that came unexpected.

“Hey Sansa, did you ask for hair dye?”

Sansa peered into the cardboard box that Jon was unpacking. 

“Yeah. I got tired of wearing the wig. Thought I might just change it completely. I mean, it’s easier right?”

Jon read the label and handed the box to her. “You don’t have to but sure, if it helps.”

Her last appointment with the doctor was the following week and it saddened her that she may not be out and about again. It was nice seeing a familiar part of town again. Although, she was still getting used to being called Alayne. Her pseudonym that Jon gave her when they were about in public. Jon had addressed her a few times and Sansa had often missed it but he assured her it wasn’t a big of a deal. 

Sansa dabbed the sides of her face that was streaked with black dye as she unwrapped the towel on her head. Flipping her head back, Sansa gasped as she stared at herself in the mirror. Black hair with blue eyes, eyes she recognised but a face that wasn’t her own. “Alayne,” she whispered. 

“Sansa, dinner’s read-” Jon paused suddenly, slack jawed at the dark haired beauty before him.

“You dyed your hair.. umm.. wow,” Jon gulped as he stared at her. Longer than he was supposed to. Sansa tucked her hair shyly behind her ears and sat down at the table. Jon was still visibly staring as he sat down on his chair. It made her chuckle at his gaze transfixed on her. He likes it, maybe.

“Well, do you like it?”

Jon blinked, finally and looked away, flustered. “Umm.. yeah I do. It looks good on you, Sansa.”

Sansa raised her finger to object. “Ah uh, Alayne.”

Jon smiled. “Right. Alayne.”

The dinner was unusually quiet, especially on Jon’s part although there were many instances where she nearly caught him staring at her. For some reason, the air between them possessed a palpable electric charge. And for once, between them, tension filled the atmosphere. It was both unnerving and amusing at once. This had never happened before and Sansa wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Break the ice, she thought. The weird tension was making the room strangely warmer than usual. Just for fun. Fuck it, it’s been a while.

“You know, I’ve never watched p0rn.” Jon almost choked on his fish and coughed. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve never watched p0rn. Could we maybe get a DVD on one?”

Jon stared at her wide eyed, wiping his mouth, confused at the highly peculiar request. “Umm…. I guess that could be arranged.. if you wish.”

Sansa grinned slyly at the reaction she was getting. This is fun, this new persona. She could be anything and right now she wanted to be a flirt. It had been a while since she felt attractive, wanted or even beautiful. Ramsay had taken all of that away from her. But right here, right now with Jon Snow she was Alayne, the raven haired beauty armed with blood red lipstick and steely confidence. Sansa Stark could only dream to be like her.

“Although I would have to explain that to my umm.. captain.”

“Don’t. Tell him Alayne asked for it. Let’s just say, I’m curious.”

Jon chewed slowly on another piece of fish and sipped his water. 

What is going on right now?

He had no clue and he was not trained for this. PTSD? It was well documented that the disorder can cause changes in behaviour - but she was fine hours ago, he thought. What a 180. Nevertheless, he had to tread carefully. Maybe even hoped that it was just a prank Sansa was pulling. Though the stares she kept giving him had made him more uneasy than amused. It gave his cock something to wake up to. Great timing. Besides, it was hard to deny the bright red lips and the simple black dress she had on was doing things to him. 

Sansa decided to push it further. This, made her feel things. Why not?

“Maybe something on.. I don’t know, anal? With ropes and tying.”

Jon spat out his drink and stood up to excuse himself. He had to. And to take a deep breath. In the corner of his eye, Sansa was clearly smiling, almost giggling as her shoulders began to shake slightly but it was obvious she was struggling to keep her composure. Perhaps it is a prank, he thought. Haha, funny. Maybe he could play along too, if that’s what she wants. Hell, the night is still young and there’s nothing else to do. Inhaling another deep breath and smirking to himself, Jon returned to his seat. 

“Are you all right, Mr Snow? Don’t you like anal?”

Jon bit down his own laughter. “No I can’t say I do. I haven’t tried. Have you, Alayne?”

Sansa eyed him with a single raised eyebrow and Jon watched as the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. He’s playing along, how sweet. Let’s play, then.

“No but something tells me I need to be more adventurous.”

“Oh, is that right? Well, one shouldn’t be deprived of such… Adventures. And watching the DVD would help, how exactly?”

Sansa pursed her lips as Jon struck her with a question beating her at her own game. It was clear to her asking questions was his forte. He’s a bloody FBI agent, you idiot, of course he knows how to ask questions.

But Sansa would not give in. It was getting interesting, so perhaps… not just yet.

“Visuals. A how to video that tells me exactly what I should do to experience the pleasure it promises to deliver.” Sansa cringed at the line. Even the worst TV writers wouldn’t come up with that. She was losing and losing fast. 

Jon licked his lips and smiled. “Oh, I’m sure it will be pleasurable. You just need the right partner and the right tools.” 

He had to stop before he burst into laughter at the word ‘tools’. “Okay, Sansa, I’m sorry, please stop. I can’t.. oh my, that was hilarious.” 

Jon shook his head and happily returned to finishing his dinner when a hand crept up his thigh that made him jump. 

Sansa inched closer and licked her lips. “My name is Alayne. Tell me if you’re the right partner. And who the fuck is Sansa?”

Jon drew a sharp breath and grabbed Sansa’s hand that was almost pawing at his stiff cock. 

“Sansa, please don’t do this, I beg you. I’m not… I’m not here to take advantage of you. Not after what you’ve been through. Please… I’m here to protect you. Sansa, don’t make my job more difficult than it already is.”

Sansa glanced down at her plate and back to Jon’s gaze. His eyes had grown dark and it almost frightened her but she could not look away. His mouth were saying those words but his eyes were saying a different thing. It was just so… different from what she was used to. ‘No’ was always her line. To the men who groped and pawed at her, who thought she was something to be owned, who whistled at her and who tried all means to touch her without permission. 

But here was this man, who swore to protect her, looked after her and listened to her, held her tight when she cried out in the night waking up in bed in cold sweat And refused her because of his word and honour. It was admirable and in a weird way, turned her on instantly. She knew she wasn’t supposed to. They weren’t supposed to. But then again, who’s watching? 

“Why is it difficult, Jon? Am I difficult for you?”

Jon glared at her and shifted uncomfortably with her hand firmly in his, resting on the table. Jon squeezed her hand, the tension was a little too much now. Out with it.

“No. You’re not,” he paused as he tilted his head slightly away from hers. “I just… Being here with you, alone in this house, sitting with with you, laughing with you, holding you in my arms.. is difficult. Because… because I fucking want you. So much, it hurts inside. But.. but I can’t.”

Jon shut his eyes and released her hand. Covering his face, he was far too embarrassed and regretted his confession. So many things could go wrong, losing his job and his entire career for one. But Sansa.. he’s never met anyone like her. He’s never cared for anyone like the way he cared for her. He had even started missing her when he had to leave her at the doctor’s office and her therapist appointments. He had denied many times, too many to count. But every time he looked into those blue eyes and a smile that could light up the night sky, he knew he was in it, deep. No, his head reminded constantly but yet his heart said the opposite. And that was why it was so goddamned difficult. 

“Jon, look at me.”

He hesitated but looking up, Jon found himself nose to nose with Sansa. Shit.

“Sansa, please… I can’t.. we can’t.”

With a touch as light as a feather but burned right through him, Sansa cupped his face gently. 

“Kiss me.”

To be continued…

Okay fixed it and hope you enjoyed… whatever this is lol ( I tried but it’s 3 am and I’m stuck)

Till next time!

Elle xxx

[azulaahai]

“Uncle Jon”

a fluffy modern au jon x sansa fic based of the face painting photo prompt on this list for @jonsa-creatives​ spring challenge … (this is highkey stupid lmao I am sorry)

* * *

“That’s the last one,” Jeyne declared, relief prominent in her voice as the little boy she’d just painted whiskers and a pink nose on ran back to his parents. “It’s time to pack up. It’ll be getting dark soon.”

The yearly fair held to raise money for the Night’s Watch, an old, acclaimed charity organisation focused on protecting northern wildlife and keeping the wilderness reserve open to the public, was coming to an end. Sansa and Jeyne had volunteered at the face painting stand the entire day, and while Sansa had  surprisingly enjoyed herself quite a bit, her friend was right.

It was time to pack up.

Sansa got to her feet, helping Jeyne pack away the equipment.

“I’ll take these to the car -”, Jeyne said, gesturing to two bags, “- if you pack away the colors and take down the sign.” Sansa nodded, doing as she was told while her friend slowly made her way towards the parking lot.

“Excuse me?” a high-pitched voice asked behind her. Sansa spun around to find a dark-haired little girl looking up at her with big, brown eyes.

“Is this where you do the face painting?” the girl asked politely. Sansa bit her lip.

“Yes. Or it was, but now …” She hesitated. Sansa hated letting people down. “Well, the truth is, it’s getting late, and we were just closing up …”

“I'm too late, ain't I?” the girl asked, her lower lip beginning to tremble. Sansa looked around. Everyone was packing up around them, but Jeyne was still nowhere to be seen.

“You know what?” she said to the child. “If we hurry, I think we have time for one more face painting, don’t you?” The girl lit up, eyes sparkling as she literally jumped up and down.

“Yes! Thank you!”

Sansa smiled as she opened the palette of colours again.

“What’s your name?” she asked the girl.

“Elia.”

“Nice name”, Sansa said. “Mine’s Sansa.”

She was just about to ask what kind of a painting the girl wanted, when she came to think of something.

“Uhm, Elia?”

“Yes?” the girl said, beginning to look impatient.

“Where are your parents?”

“At home.”

“Are you here by yourself!?” Sansa asked.

“Nooo”, the girl said as she rolled her eyes, making Sansa press her lips together to stifle a smile. “I’m here with my uncle. There he is”, she said, pointing behind Sansa, who turned to see a man, surprisingly young and annoyingly handsome, hurry towards them.

“There you are, El!” he exclaimed as he came closer. He was wearing an adorkable t-shirt that said I am the watcher on the wall, his hair an unruly mess, and Sansa found him so irresistibly cute she had trouble breathing.

“I told you I was going to get a face painting”, the little girl - Elia - said with an amount of attitude that stood in such sharp contrast to her appearance that Sansa once more had to fight back a smile. Elia’s uncle seemed to have trouble to keep from laughing as well as he tried - and utterly failed - to frown at his niece.

“And I told you that it was too late to get a face painting”, he replied, in a mockingly sassy tone that had first Elia, then Sansa giggling before she could help herself. “Hi”, the uncle then nodded  in Sansa’s general direction, with a disarming smile that had her blushing. “I’m sorry. Elia, we’re leaving.”

“No, we’re not! She said she’d paint me!”

“Elia, come on - we don’t want to delay her.”

“I’m not going until I get a face painting.”

“Yes, you are”, the uncle said, but he didn’t sound so sure. Uncle and niece frowned at each other in silence for a moment.

“Really, uhm”, Sansa said, since she felt like she had to say something. “It’s fine. I can do a face painting, it’s no problem. I’ll make it quick.”

The uncle stopped frowning, turning to her with an apologetic expression on his face.

“Are you sure? We don’t want to bother you …”

“It’s fine.” Sansa looked at Elia again, who had a pleased smile playing at her lips. “What kind of a painting do you want?”

“I want to be a wolf”, Elia said without missing a beat. Sansa patted the chair, and the girl took a seat and closed her eyes as Sansa began working.

“Are wolves your favorite animal?” Sansa asked, giving the girl a pitch-black nose and beginning on an outline of the ears.

“Yes”, Elia said, sitting admirably still. “Uncle Jon loves them too.” Sansa smiled again, daring a glance in the uncle’s - Jon’s, his name was Jon - direction, and if she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought the man was blushing.

“I … uhm, I wouldn’t say love”, he coughed. “I’ve worked with the Watch a lot, with the wolf preserve, and I mean, you do get a little … attached.”

“Yeah”, Sansa agreed, switching brush to begin colouring, too shy to look up at him again, “I see your point. My dad’s been involved since I was little, and sometimes it feels like us kids are part wolf.”

“’Us kids?’ You have siblings?” He sounded genuinely curious. Sansa attempted to ignore the butterflies in her stomach as she answered.

“Yep. Four of them.”

“My god.” She could hear his smile, even as she focused on the face painting.

“I know. Full house.”

“I hear you. I have three half siblings, plus an aunt that is about my age.”

“Oh? That’s unusual.”

“It’s complicated”, he smiled. Sansa swallowed. “But I got some nephews out of the ordeal, and a charming niece.” He patted Elia’s hair.

“That’s me”, Elia said, making Sansa smile once more as she made a last stroke with the brush.

“There you go!” Sansa said, grabbing the mirror so that the girl could have a look. Elia opened her eyes, met her own eyes in the mirror - and let out a shout of joy, before beginning to loudly howl like a wolf.

Jon and Sansa looked at each other, and Sansa giggled in a way she hadn’t for years.

“Elia?” Sansa said, when she’d caught her breath a little, feeling wonderfully light-hearted. She could feel Jon’s eyes on her, a fact that made a pleased shiver crawl up her spine. The little girl looked up at her. “If you have time -” Sansa looked at Jon, who nodded. “- I know the horse-riding has probably closed by now, but my sister works in the stable, so if you run and tell her that Sansa’s sent you you can probably get to ride on one of the ponies, if you’d like?”

Elia laughed, adorably saying “thank you, thank you!” again before running away towards the stables. Sansa smiled again. Arya would like that girl.

“Hey”, Jon said now, and Sansa felt herself blush once more. God, she hated being a redhead. It completely destroyed your abilities to act relaxed. “Thank you. I mean, really. You saved the day. Thanks so much … uhm …”

“Oh”, Sansa said. “Sansa.”

“I’m Jon.”

“I know”, she blurted out without thinking, making her blush all the more furious. “Uncle Jon.” He grinned at that.

“That’s what I’m known as around here, huh? Uncle Jon.”

“Hello, uncle Jon. I’m Sansa the face panting lady.” She held out a hand. He shook it. He had a good handshake - her father always said you could judge a man on his handshake.

“So … uhm … Sansa the face painting lady,” he looked at the ground, adorably shy again. “If, I was, say … to find myself really, really needing a face painting … I’m talking acutely, a real emergency …” Sansa giggled again. “… could I, uhm, maybe call you up?”

“Yeah. But only if it’s really an emergency.”

He took out his phone, still smiling, and she added her number, accurately naming her contact “Sansa Face Painter”.

“I should go after Elia and she how much trouble she’s caused”, he said, sounding legitimately regretful to leave as he put his phone back in his pocket. “But … I’ll call? A strictly face-painting-related call, of course.”

“Of course. Please do.”

He turned and walked away towards the stables, and Sansa felt like doing a little happy dance.

Jon had only been gone a few seconds before Jeyne came back to the stand, eyes wide.

“Hi! What took you so long?” Sansa said in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, trying to conceal her blush.

“Uhm, I was trying to give you and mr Snow, the new head of the Night’s Watch org, some space!”

“What!? That was Jon Snow?” Sansa’s father had spoken very well of the new boss, but she knew his appointment had been a controversial one - mr Snow was young and inexperienced.

And, Sansa now knew, really cute.

“He didn’t present himself?” Jeyne asked suggestively, with a dorky wink that made Sansa smile for the hundredth time that day.

“Uhm, yeah, he did.” But Sansa decided to keep the fact that she’d now always think of the new head of the Watch as uncle Jon to herself.

For now.

[thesleepysubwaytrain]

Jonsa Spring Challenge - Day 6 || [AO3]

@jonsa-creatives

song prompt: Chopin - Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2

Sansa tries to sleep, she really does, but it’s three hours of tossing and turning before she gives it up as a lost cause. It’s the silence of her borrowed room, she thinks, thick and heavy and almost oppressive. Before, she would have had Lady beside her, would have been able to rest her hand on her warm back and feel the rise and fall of her breathing—but that was before.

She slips out of her room and downstairs, out to the back porch where she finds Jon, as she has almost every night for the past few weeks she’s been hiding out at Robb’s.

He hasn’t slept properly since the fire, he told her the first night she wandered outside. I see flames dancing behind my eyelids when I try.

It was an oddly poetic thing to say for a boy Sansa had to coach on how to talk to girls back in high school, but she was just grateful he said anything at all, and moved over on the swing set to make room for her.

He does the same thing now, and she hops onto the seat, tucking her legs under her. Jon doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at her, just waits as she stares up at the sky and inhales and exhales, until the ringing silence in her head and her hammering heartbeat fades into the gentle sway of the swing and the rustling of the trees and the faint sound of Jon’s breathing.

Only a few months ago, at 2AM on a Saturday night Sansa would have been out with Marg or Joff at a club downtown, would have balked at the idea of sitting still with her brother’s broody best friend at a little house on the outskirts of the city.

But it’s a different kind of stillness, out here with Jon. She never feels restless, or anxious; instead, as she turns to look at his profile under the dim gleam of the porch light, it feels like she’s breathing properly for the first time all day.

She says, as she has every night, as she used to when she was a kid who loved nothing more than fairy tales: “Tell me a story.”

And Jon does. Sometimes it’s about her brother and some of their high school antics that Robb kept hidden from their parents. Sometimes it’s about one of the weekend hikes he goes out on with his friends at the station. Once, it was about Ygritte.

Tonight, it’s about his first time babysitting his best friend Sam’s son. He moves his hands a little as he talks, but it’s almost graceful, calm like the burr of his voice even as he rants about the complicated production of changing a diaper.

As she listens Sansa feels something in her chest unfurling, nestled against Jon’s side, close enough to feel his warmth, to feel the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. It feels entirely natural to rest her head on his shoulder, to feel him shift to let her relax against him, to close her eyes and let the quiet hush of his voice wash over her.

***

Robb finds them a few hours later, curled up asleep together on the swing set, and only goes back inside to grab a blanket to throw over them before heading out on his morning run.

[captainbee89]

@jonsa-creatives

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark Characters: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Robb Stark Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Miscommunication, innocent mistakes Summary:

She shrieked, dropping the still running hairdryer and scrambled for her abandoned towel as Jon covered his eyes.

“What are you doing in my room? And why are you naked?” he cried.

“What now?” Theon commented from behind him, peering over Jon’s shoulder just as Sansa managed to secure the towel around her and knelt to switch the hairdryer off. “Why, hellllloooooooo Sansa!”

Day 2 of Jonsa Spring Challenge ("What are you doing in my room and why are you naked?" dialogue prompt)

[saracollinskay-blog]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark Characters: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Robb Stark Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Jon and Sansa Are Not Related, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related, April Fools' Day, POV Theon, Fluff and Angst, Comfort/Angst Summary:

When a prank meant for Theon goes wrong, Sansa is caught in the crossfire. Will she be able to forgive Jon for his and Robb's blunder? Stay tuned to find out.

For the JonsaSpringChallenge. Day 1: FOOLS.

@jonsa-creatives

[sansa-of-oldstones]

Jonsa Spring Challenge - Day 7: FREE CHOICE

It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die. Honestly, that should be the summary of this entire fic. Everything comes full circle.

Part 7

Part 6

Part 5

Part 4

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

Also on ao3

@jonsa-creatives

-

Her mother helps her with her veil, and it feels like deja vu. It’s a different veil, a different dress, and different venue, but she has done this before. She was about to marry Waymar before Jon knocked on the door that day.

Jon and Waymar even look oddly similar. Or it isn’t odd, and subconsciously, that’s why she tried to make it work with Waymar. This is not what she needed to be thinking about today. She’s wanted to marry Jon for ever, and today that is happening.

“You look stunning.” Catelyn beams. “Stunning.”

“I feel anxious, and like I forgot something.” Sansa frets. “Robb has the rings?”

“He does.” Margaery assures her. “I put them in his suit pocket myself.”

“It’s going to be the wedding of your dreams, Sans.” Jeyne squeezes her hand. She is so grateful to have her friend in her life again.

There’s a knock on the door, and Arya snorts. “Who’s going to confess their love for you this time?”

“Not funny.” Catelyn shoots a truly terrifying glare at Arya, and opens the door.

“Lenna is ready to throw some flowers.” Robb smiles at his baby daughter, who babbles in response.

“I show her.” Little Ned nods in the arms of his namesake. “Mommy!”

The toddler wiggles free, and makes a beeline for her. He hugs her legs, and she lifts him up.

“Pretty.” He plays with her veil, and the little boy with Jon’s curls and her eyes reminds her how different things are this time around.

“Thank you.” She brushes her nose against his equally freckled one.

“Wagon!” He points, spying the wagon he is going to pull Lenna down the isle in. He was very excited about this when they practiced last night. Did he manage to pull the wagon where it was supposed to go? No. Margaery ended up holding a screaming Lenna, and her son ran around the church pulling the wagon, and making siren sounds.

“Are you going to pull Lenna down the isle toward Daddy and Uncle Robb?”

“M&Ms!” Little Ned nods, grinning. Sansa eyes Robb.

“Don’t look at me!” Robb puts his hands up in innocence. “Your future husband is the one bribing him with candy!”

“You’re kidding me.” Sansa groans. “Neddie, tell Daddy you’re not Ghost. He shouldn’t try to train you like you are.”

“Not Ghost.” He agrees, looking around. “Where Ghostie?”

“He’s at home, sweetheart.”

“I miss him.”

“I’m sure he misses you too.” Sansa tells him. “Jon seriously has M&Ms?”

“He wants everything to be perfect.” Her father laughs. “For you.”

“The sugar crash tantrum should be fun to deal with.” Sansa shakes her head. “That’s sweet, though.”

“Shall we get this show on the road?”

Sansa nods, and everyone takes their places.

Robb helps settle Lenna in the wagon before kissing Margaery, and heading to the front to stand by Jon.

“Remember, kid.” Arya musses Ned’s hair. “M&Ms.”

“M&Ms!” Her son yells, loudly. The door is still slightly ajar, and the guests hear him. They laugh, and so does Sansa.

The procession begins. Jeyne, followed by Margaery, then Arya.

“Go ahead, Neddie.” Sansa encourages. “Walk the wagon to Daddy.”

He takes off, and her father pats her arm affectionately. “You’re happy?”

“How could I not be?” She gets her first glimpse of Jon waiting for her the end of the isle, and their little boy stopping midway down the isle to throw flowers with his cousin. She wipes her eyes with a tissue.

“Neddie! The whole isle needs flowers for Mommy!” Jon calls to their son, and he enthusiastically begins throwing flowers all over place. Jon shakes his head with laughter, and Arya backtracks to guide him down the isle. She takes him to Jon, and brings Lenna to Margaery. She hides the wagon and the flowers while Sansa walks down the isle. The happiness on Jon’s face is priceless.

-

I am going to miss them! They’re so fluffy and fun! Thank you to everyone who read. Be honest? Should have had Ghost be a ring bearer too, right? Regrets.

[jonsa-creatives]

Spring is here! And so is the Jonsa Spring Challenge!

Jonsa Spring Challenge 2018

@jonsa-creatives​ would love it if you would join us in continuing to celebrate our love for Jon x Sansa by participating in our Jonsa Spring Challenge!

When is it? - The challenge will start on Sunday 1st April and last until Saturday 7th.

How do I participate? - Please use the prompts below for the corresponding days. Anything is accepted - fic, aesthetics, fan art etc.

Please make sure to tag @jonsa-creatives and use the tag #jonsa spring challenge. We will reblog your entry. Alternatively, you can submit your workhere and we will post it for you.

Can I post my entries elsewhere? - Yes! Please do make use of our ‘JonsaSpringChallenge’ collection when posting on AO3

PROMPTS

Sunday 1st April - FOOLS

Monday 2nd April - Choose a dialogue prompt from THIS LIST

Tuesday 3rd April - STARTING ANEW

Wednesday 4th April - Choose a photo prompt from THIS LIST

Thursday 5th April - BABIES

Friday 6th April - Choose a song prompt from THIS LIST

Saturday 7th April - FREE CHOICE

Any Questions? - Ask away!

[kittensjonsa]

For @jonsa-creatives’ Day 2 of the Spring Challenge - dialogue prompt:

 “It’s all I ever wanted.”

The Wedding ~ Jon x Sansa | A Dream of Spring (hc)

“"Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger..”

“I am hers and she is mine,”

“From this day, until the end of my days.”

“…I am his and he is mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”

Father was right.

He is indeed brave, gentle and strong. More and above and beyond what I could ever wish for.

It’s all I ever wanted. All I ever needed was Jon.

[jade-masquerade]

Jonsa Drabblefest Day 5: The Lady Bird and the Winged Wolf (Winterfell)

Written for @jonsadrabbles Day 5: Winterfell

Jon had taken as much food and drink as he dared from the Gates of the Moon, and Sansa sat with the wineskin tonight, sipping until she no longer worried that Littlefinger’s men followed in pursuit or that someone might take notice of a maid called Sansa taking refuge somewhere in the woods.

 The last few days brought them somewhere south of the Crownlands and far west of King’s Landing to the lands blurring the line between the Reach and the Stormlands, and she very much doubted the farmers tending their fields all the way out here had ever so much as heard of Ned Stark’s wanted daughter or his supposed bastard son.  

 Jon had chosen this spot well, precisely because a hot spring bubbled not far from where they tied their horses for the night. After the long journey south, such an amenity was a blessing, and when the wineskin ran dry, Sansa stripped down to her shift. “Are you not joining?”

“I’ll bathe after,” Jon said. For all his boldness before, he appeared apprehensive for the first time, even though she had reassured him the sight of his scars didn’t offend her in the slightest. 

“No need to wait,” she said. “Remember how Old Nan would bathe us as children?”

“That was… different,” Jon said. “You’re… you’re a lady now.”

“I’ve always been a lady,” Sansa said. “So good of you to notice.”

Jon relented though once she sank into the water, moaning with how good it felt on her sore muscles.

 “This reminds me of Winterfell,” she said, thinking of the hot pools in the godswood around which they’d played many a game of monsters and maidens.  

 He grinned, and that was all it took for them to be swept away with their memories, talking of Robb and Theon trying to best each other at swords, Arya slipping away from her lessons and Rickon similarly testing Lady Catelyn’s patience, sweet Bran practicing jousting to prepare for his dream of being a knight.

 Sansa retrieved a bar of soap she’d packed amongst her things, and as they spoke, she ran it through her hair again and again until the water started to blacken. The dye slipped from her hair, turning from mahogany to chestnut to auburn to copper, until even in the dim light of the moon it shone once again the color of weirwood leaves.

By the time the water ran clear again, their talk turned to the time he had scared her in the crypts, covered in flour from the kitchens, appearing as an apparition, one of the old Kings of Winter come back to life. Sansa laughed about it now, now that she knew there were terrors far more threatening in this world.

 She swam closer to him, so close she could see the grey of his eyes and the glint in them, too. “I don’t think you can frighten me anymore.”

 “No?” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, my lady?”

[fedonciadale]

A Thousand eyes and one - Part III - To hide a secret

So, I was tagged in the Jonsa 100 drabble challenge with the prompt “violent” and that gave me another idea for my Bran is Bloodraven AU.... I tag @darthprongs. I  must admit that this is more than a drabble.... This AU is getting a bit out of hand, but I love writing it, so you can probably expect some more parts in this AU....

Here it is, also on AO3.

The letter would have to be short so as not to raise suspicion. Sansa trusted Maester Wolkan, but Jon did not trust the Maester at Castle Black. He had been sent on the suggestion of Archmaester Sam, but Jon did not know where his former friend stood, or if he even knew the truth.

But she needed to tell Jon. They needed to act sooner than they had planned, maybe even before Arya returned. Sansa had tried to contain her despair for days.

“Shortly after you had left for the wall, merchants from across the Narrow sea visited Winterfell to trade their goods. They brought a root with a fresh smell and taste. They swear this “ginger” helps in cases of the flux, or even the bloody flux. I heard there was a problem amongst the Freefolk this spring. I do hope that you can prevent the spread of this nasty illness in time before it reaches our population in the North. I am surprised that I had to hear about this from a brother of the Night’s watch who passed Winterfell instead of getting a raven by you. I would have expected the Lord Commander to be more diligent in his duty to protect the lands south of the wall.”

Sansa scrutinized the paper. She hoped the tone was just right. Slightly annoyed, a hint of a command, and most of all, not friendly. Friendly would not do.

She wished she had succeeded in warging over long distances. But although she was getting better and trained daily, the Wall was to far away. Her connection to Ghost had broken, when Jon had reached Last Hearth. Sansa sighed. Even if she would manage to warg over this distance, it was not easy to communicate clearly while warging. The mind of wolves, even a clever wolf like Ghost was not meant to hold concepts or plans. It was only feelings, smells, sensations that were on the level of his understanding. Still, what she had to tell Jon might have been possible to convey in Ghost’s images. Instead Sansa would have to trust the code she and Jon had agreed upon.

She checked the wording of the scroll. Her cat looked at her with shimmering eyes and Sansa caught herself just in time. She had thought about what to write the whole night. She did not need to count letters. She had lain in the dark of her chamber and had thought up this message. All true and nobody would suspect that there was a hidden meaning.

Sansa wooed the cat to her side and petted her. She slipped into her mind, ever so lightly, just a brush on the cat’s brain, her touch so feeble, that there was a chance it could look like happenstance, in case it was not just the cat.

She felt an oppressive alertness, that clouded the cat’s mind. Sansa had no doubt that Bloodraven had no problems of mastering an animal’s mind to the patterns of his thoughts. She let her own touch trail away, continuing to pet the cat, letting her even look at the scroll.

Ghost is fully Jon’s but my cat is not fully mine. Is it that Jon is better at warging, or is it that Septon Barth has it right? Wolves, ravens, crows are the easiest? It is no use forcing this anyway. Best just take advantage of the spy.

Sansa stood, scooping up the cat. “Do you want a treat?” It’s not her fault.

The cat purred.

Sansa went all the way to the castle’s kitchen, probing the cat’s mind once more, just shortly before she entered the kitchen. The burden of Bloodraven’s dark presence was still on the animal’s mind.

I wish that monster had something else to do, just once in a while.

The kitchen staff began to buzz with excitement immediately, when their Queen made one of her rare visits. The cook Kira gladly gave the cat some cream. She was known as a quick and good mice catcher and was very popular. For a moment the cat was preoccupied with the cream.

Sansa took the chance. She sauntered along, touching the shelves here and there, and while the cat licked busily and thoroughly at the cream pot, she filched some liquorice twigs into her sleeves.

Stealing from my own kitchen. She could trust Maester Wolkan to make an inconspicuous refill.

Sansa was relieved. She would need the liquorice the next morning at the latest. She turned and saw Maggy from the corner of her eye. Did she see me taking the liquorice? Does she know what it is for?

Sansa remembered that it had been Maggy who had been close when she had first tried to warg Ghost. Is she one of Tyrion’s?

Best not take any chances.

-----

She rarely walked the godswood nowadays. She had lost her ability to pray long ago, and the tranquillity of the weirwood tree did not comfort her any longer. Even though she knew there were no weirwoods in King’s Landing she still felt observed. If she still had Lady, she probably could ward the place from other animals, but Lady was long dead.

But today, she sat at the weirwood. Maybe she wanted the Old Gods to watch, or maybe she just wanted to remember her father and his sense of justice for this. The trap was set. Sansa tried to make the best of it. She basked in the yet feeble spring sunlight and let the rays of sunshine dance on her hands, when a slight breeze touched the leaves of the tree and made them ripple. She probed the small animals around her and did not perceive any oppressive presence. She might be lucky today.

Sansa’s heart skipped a beat, when she saw Maggy approach. That she searched her out here was an indication, that she was a spy. She must have bided her time once she had learned about Sansa being all on her own. Sansa could have cried.

In Maggy’s hand was a tray and the small bowl was steaming in the fresh air. Sansa made herself smile, when Maggy approached. She tried to assess if the serving girl was likely to have a knife. Her own blade felt cool at the inner side of her arm.

“Your grace, I brought you some broth. It is still so chilly.” Maggy’s smile was all teeth, as if she had no care in the world.

“Did Cook Kira send you?”, Sansa asked. “How considerate!”

Maggy nodded, eagerly.

No, I am quite certain, Kira did not send you. Kira is very unlikely to pamper me.

Sansa took the bowl and feinted warming her hands on the bowl. She held her right hand over the bowl and dropped the two little balls, she had pressed between her fingers. Wolkan had assured her that they would unveil the most popular poisons and another plant she should not consume.

Sansa slowly let the broth slosh in the bowl and watched the little balls dissolve. If they did not show anything, she still would not drink the broth. It might mean that Maggy was innocent, but no colour more likely meant that the little serving girl was skilled with unusual poisons.

There it was. One of the balls let out a thin trail of blue, that slowly raised to the surface of the liquid. It looked as if there was a dying fire in the bowl, that let out a thin finger of smoke.

Tansy, it means tansy. Sansa felt a cloud of sadness descend on her.

Sansa listened closely and she thought she heard the girl’s breath going faster than the short walk to the Godswood could account for. She frowned into the bowl and that caught Maggy’s attention.

Sansa’s heart raced. I can do this. I must do this. Not just for me.

She handed the bowl to Maggy, hoping to occupy the maid’s hands, if only for a moment. She willed her own hands to stop trembling and be nimble and swift.

Maggy stared into the bowl.

“What is this?” The maid’s voice wavered.

Sansa had rounded the maid. She had drawn the knife and held it at the maid’s back, hoping that a casual observer would not see anything amiss.

“Tansy,” she whispered into Maggy’s ear. “Why would you put tansy in my food?”

The maid gasped, her breath faltered.

“Your grace,” she whispered.

Sansa could see tears forming in her eyes, threatening to fall.

“I should kill you on the spot, but I may let you live, if you tell me enough. And don’t move. We are both just looking at the broth.”

Sansa risked a brief look around. At least no big animals were around, and small animals might not grasp what was happening. She let her mind scatter through the clearing trying to pick up animals’ minds.

And he has to be preoccupied elsewhere at least once in a while or he wouldn’t need human spies.

The maid was breathing so fast, that Sansa feared she would faint, and tears were streaming down her cheeks now for real.

“Calm yourself girl,” Sansa whispered.

Interrupted by suppressed sobs the girl told it all. Thankfully it turned out, she was one of Tyrion’s spies. She had no idea about Bloodraven and his magic. Sansa learned that the girl had a communication system with Tyrion, but it was irregular, because Tyrion did not trust Maester Wolkan not to read raven messages. That came as no surprise to Sansa.

Sansa pressed the point of the dagger a bit deeper into the girl’s back. Now, these questions were important.

“Why did you want to give me the tansy?”, she asked.

“I had my orders. If I only had the suspicion that you might carry a child, I was ordered to act accordingly. I suppose, they want the North back in the Seven Kingsdoms after your death.”

Sansa resisted the temptation to place a hand protectively on her belly.

“Why did you suspect?”

“You don’t wear your choker any longer.” The girl eyed her sideways and Sansa wondered if the tears had been a ruse.

“The throat becomes thicker, just a tiny bit, when you’re pregnant, enough to make a choker uncomfortable.”

Sansa had to steady her hand.

That girl was too clever by far. Do I have to kill her? She took care not to tell me, how she communicates with Tyrion. Her knowledge could be useful.

There was so much at stake. Could she risk the girl spilling her secret, a secret she herself hoped to keep for as long as possible? Use her or kill her? What would father do? What would mother do?

“But you were not ordered to kill me?”

The girl shook her head. Why? He doesn’t want me to have children, but he does not want me dead?

She looked at the trembling girl.

Use her or kill her? Will she try to contact the Hand about this? If I kill her, how do I explain her absence? Will her silence raise suspicions?

“Why do you work for him?”

The girl was silent for so long, that Sansa wondered if she was working on an elaborate lie.

“My brother is in the dungeons at King’s Landing.”

The leaves of the weirwood tree trembled. Sansa thought she could hear a wolf howling, far, far away.

She had her answer then. Her dagger made a whispering noise when she sheathed it. I can’t become like him. Maggy’s shoulders sagged in relief.

“Don’t betray me again. I will kill you, if you do. I can’t make promises, but when this is over, you might see your brother again.” If he still lives. If he even exists.

Maggy nodded.

Sansa turned around to face the girl again. She raised her palms to show the girl that the dagger was gone. She could not coerce the girl and hope for collaboration. She would have to use her hope. She would have to observe her to learn how she communicated.

Her heart beat against her rib cage, her mind screamed at her not to take such a risk. Her legs felt weak. She quickly checked her surroundings. No big animal was near. She extended her senses, brushing the minds of a hedgehog that was about to wake from his winter’s sleep and a badger. There was nothing unusual about them. She wished there was a wolf nearby. They made her feel safe.

She tried to sound confident and was surprised to hear no waver in her voice.

“You will begin earning my good will by writing down how you communicate with the master of whisperers. You will slip this sheet under the accounts on my desk. You will continue to make regular reports exactly as I tell you. Be prepared to get my orders in strange ways. Destroy any written order you get.”

Sansa waited until Maggy had left. The excitement had ebbed away and if she concentrated, she could feel the queasiness in her stomach grow. With a sigh she took the liquorice out of her pocket and began chewing on it.

She should feel joy about the child that grew in her womb. The child that she had conceived despite of drinking moon tea. The whole North should celebrate that the Queen expected.

Instead her worries had multiplied, and the urgency of their plans had increased.

She wished for Arya. Her heart ached for Jon. She was alone though and had to be strong for all their sakes. She would not let Bloodraven win

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 8

See?  I told you I wouldn’t leave you long without an update.  ;)

“A Violence Done Most Kindly”

Chapter Eight: Sowing Seeds

“The road is too long.  It winds too sharp.  And Sansa cannot see the end from her vantage point, cannot calculate the curve.  She discerns it through faith.  She travels blind, but for her hand in Jon’s.”  -  Jon and Sansa.  Stark is a house of many winters.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 fin

* * *

It’s a tomb, Sansa discovers.  One long, torchlit, communal tomb.

           She glances down the length of the crypt corridor where she sits and waits with the rest of the fear-rattled refugees, echoes of the battle raging above them, around them, resounding through the walls in an endless, harrowing nightmare.  The ground shakes at their feet, the dirt rattling loose from the walls and ceiling with the thunder of thousands of undead feet barreling through the army above them.

           At some point, Tyrion makes to reach for her hand, a measure of comfort – but for her or himself, she cannot tell.  In the end, he never lights his touch.  His hand stills mid-reach for her, fingers curling back into a loose fist that returns slowly to his side as he opens his mouth, voice a strangled hope. “We must take heart, Lady Sansa. Our loved ones will prevail.  Have faith.”

           “Your queen just tried to ransom all our lives – yours included – for a paltry, hollow crown,” she hisses, the terror making her voice tremble even as she glares.  “Do not speak to me of faith when yours has been so misguided.”  It’s a searing rebuke, her hands bundled tightly in her lap, the fabric of her dress clutched between white knuckles.

           Tyrion blinks pained eyes at her, glancing down to his feet.  He does not deny her – does not challenge her accusation. He simply hangs his head, a tremulous sigh leaving him.

           She watches him quietly, a faint memory teasing the back of her mind – Jaime’s return to King’s Landing after his stay as Robb’s captive up North. She’d watched them from behind the door of her and Tyrion’s newly shared chambers, watched their embrace in his solar, Jaime kneeling down to one knee, Tyrion’s face buried in his shoulder, each of their hands (the ones left, at least) bunched in each other’s tunics, before they pulled back reluctantly, hesitant, shaking sighs racking both of them, Jaime’s good hand reaching up to trail the scar over Tyrion’s face, a question in his furrowed brow, an apology in his salt-tinged eyes.

           But Tyrion had smiled at him, ruined face a mask of ill-kept pain.  “Welcome home, brother,” he’d said, voice breaking.

           Sansa had retreated before she could witness more, before the stain of Robb’s name could light her tongue in abject resentment.

           Looking at him now, this wreckage of past mistakes made flesh, she remembers suddenly the pain of losing a brother.

           The pain of losing many brothers.

           Sansa swallows tightly, the anger bleeding out of her face, brow smoothing out, lips softening in their frown.  She clears her throat gently, looking down to the bunched fists at his sides when she tells him, “Ser Jaime is like to survive the night.  He’s a good fighter, after all.”  She doesn’t know what compels her to say it.

           “Was,” he corrects, a sad sort of humor coloring the words.  He releases a wounded chuckle, eyes finally rising to meet hers.

           They stare at each other for long moments.

           He’d been kind to her, she knows, at a time when the world offered little kindness at all.  But he’s been mistaken in his affections before, and now they host a dragon in their den, owing in no small part to his own imprudent devotion.

           He was never meant to play the knight in her tale, like her favored songs had promised.  She sees this now, in a way she hadn’t when she was still a child, looking for the best in people, holding their small mercies to her heart like precious gems, mistaking lions and hounds for men.

           “But you’re very gracious, my lady,” he says finally, the gratitude choked off at the end, breath hitching with his dread.  He offers her a tentative smile.

           She finds it in herself to return it, in what small measure she can.

           And then a crashing weight falls upon the ground above them, rattling the stone statues.  The crypts go dead with silence.

           Sansa glances up at the suddenly tranquil walls, her heart swallowed down instantly.  Nothing breathes for what feels like an eon, the telltale sounds of battle ceased, the shaking of the corridors stilled.  She does not chance a breath, a word, even a hope.  She flits her gaze toward the heavy stone door they built to barricade the crypts, eyes unblinking in the shadowed hall, torchlight flickering about her like a threat.

           Long minutes pass, almost an hour of suffocating, uninterrupted silence, and then something bangs at the door.  A single, resounding clang.

           Sansa jolts to her feet, chest heaving with her terror, hand already fumbling for the dragonglass dagger fixed to her belt.

           Another clang.  Heavy, terrible scratching.  The slight push of the door in the sodden dirt.

           Sansa’s breath comes quick and shallow, the uneven hilt of her dagger digging into her palm even through her glove, her fingers flexing in their hold, feet planted in readiness.

           The door pushes further in on them, slow and grating, something grunting on the other side.

           Several somethings.

           More thuds against the door, more scratching, the sudden stream of light through a crack in the threshold, and then the muffled sound of a word.

           A word.

           A name.

           “Sansa!” it calls, stifled by the cold stone between them.

           She drops her dagger instantly at the recognition and it clatters to the floor, sharp and resounding in the still corridor.  A small crowd gathers a few feet behind her, too frightened to follow further.  She rushes to the door, gripping at the jarred open edge, sunlight striking her knuckles, a sob already raking through her, the tears sudden and hot on her lids, and she heaves.

           The door breaks open to a blaring dawn, several men – living, breathing men – tumbling through the threshold when the door finally gives from their combined strength.

           Sansa stumbles back, eyes wide, blinking back the blindness, adjusting to the light as she braces an arm over her eyes, searching, needing, frantic, and then –

           “Sansa.”

           That voice again.

           She blinks against the harsh light, his silhouette coming into focus.

           Edmure Tully hobbles through the threshold, one hand holding his side, his other arm lame and bloodied and likely lost, one eye swollen shut beneath a stream of blood.

           She stares at him, mouth parting, lungs clenching.

           A sigh of relief rushes from him, the pain of it clear when he winces.

           It breaks from her like a flood.  She launches herself at him, arms thrown about his shoulders, the sob dragging from her without restraint, and Edmure grunts from the assault, stumbling back from the weight of her, a cry of pain blunted at his lips just before the first wail breaks from her.

           He stills in her embrace, blinking beneath the gush of blood from his temple, until he tentatively folds his good arm around her waist, holding her to him, a cough sounding at her ear, wavering beneath the force of her, weak and trembling and barely standing.

           But alive.

           Sansa whimpers against him, clutching at his soiled tunic, tears smearing into the blood along his neck, the shadow of the crypts at her back, the blinding breach of sunlight at his.

           At the threshold between life and death, light and dark, day and night – they stand.

           Dawn creeps slowly past their forms, illuminating the stifled corridor behind her.

           Not a tomb, she realizes, but a sunlit garden, a place where the dead may offer new growth.

           A place of promised life.

           Winter has always been the herald of spring, after all.

* * *

           They say the dead all dropped at once – an instant, resounding wave, the weight of so many corpses tumbling to the earth at once quite literally shaking Winterfell to its foundation.  

The men keep fighting, swinging at air, even crossing blades themselves, feverish and feral and frenzied, their blood rioting in their veins, hardly noticing the fall of the dead, so lost in their own desperate will to survive, fighting, and panting, and fighting still, the smell of blood and shit all around them, shapes in the shadows, the frantic, blade-gripping, adrenaline-rushing fear still coursing through them, until gradually, man by man, breath by breath, a slow-dawning stillness overtakes them.

For every man standing, there is a litter of corpses at his feet.

An unearthly calm washes over Winterfell, the living barely that.  And then –

And then.

A hesitant, slow rise of voices.  A growing eddy of shouts.  Triumphant.  Glorious.

Crying, and laughing, and shouting.  Hands over blood-drenched faces.  Knees in the dirt. Heads thrown back.  A quaking, resounding exhale.  Blades falling from grimy palms.  Boots squelching through the putrid mess.  And still, a roar of exultation.

“The King in the North!  The King in the North!  The King in the North!”

Jon slips into a coma so deep, they’d thought him dead upon first entering the room.

Davos tells her that he and Jon’s personal guard were the ones to find him – laid out on the floor of her chambers, barely breathing, a pool of blood beneath him, her brother sitting calmly in his chair, blood-drenched dagger still held in his grip.

“Help him,” Bran had said, so quiet it was almost a whisper, almost never there at all.

It takes five men to hold Tormund back from lunging at Bran, shouting his vehemence so vile and hateful the spit flies from his mouth, even as he kicks out, foot catching the wheel of Bran’s chair, jostling him so hard he nearly tips over and crashes to the blood-soaked rug himself.  Bran stares dumbly at the space Jon’s body once occupied, red-steeped palm now empty of the blade that pierced his flesh, hanging limp in his lap, hardly even acknowledging Tormund’s wrestling form inches from him, the wildling’s heated shouts filling the dawn-touched chamber.

Davos tells her that his guard has been sworn to secrecy after taking Jon from the room, only the most trusted of men – those of them left after the battle.

Bran retreats from her solar and into her bedchamber, closing the door behind him in silence once Tormund is dragged from the room.

She stands staring at the closed door, eyes blinking owlishly.  Davos seems of a similar state beside her, perhaps still reeling from his own unexpected survival.  Perhaps still trying to process the scene before them.  Her eyes travel back down to the blood-stained rug that was once her parents’.  

She’s going to be sick.

Sansa reaches a trembling hand for the table edge beside her when the vomit rises suddenly, without warning.  She retches violently, bent double with the force of it, hand slipping against the table edge, trying to find purchase as she heaves and heaves, emptying herself out from the very pit of her.  Her face bursts red with the effort of it, tears springing to her eyes, sickly bile streaming from her lips when she stumbles to her knees, legs finally giving out.

“My lady,” Davos cries, urgent at her side, his blood-slicked gloves slipping over her elbow when he tries to steady her.

She takes a breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes flitting to his red-darkened gloves.  She stares at them, eyes focusing and refocusing, throat raw and burning.  “I have to find my sister,” she says blearily, a ragged whisper breaking across her chapped lips as she struggles to get to her feet.

It’s many hours before she finds Arya.  Sansa walks through the halls in a faint stupor, having left the chamber without another word after Davos’s recounting, unable to look at the dark blossom of blood staining the rug, the bile still fresh in her throat, and she stumbles from the room, a hand steadying herself along the threshold, ignoring Davos’ concerned calls at her back, wondering from the room in a haze.  She sifts through the corpse littered halls, the ends of her skirts dark with mud and blood and worse, tripping over cadavers, her low heels catching in cartilage, trembling hands gripping at the walls for balance, lungs heaving beneath the foul air.

Arya stands dazedly at the end of the corridor Sansa has made her way through.  She blinks unsteadily up at Sansa, a dark bruise swelling up her right cheek, her eye nearly closed from the enflamed skin.  Her tunic is torn at the shoulder, a garish wound stretching over the exposed flesh.  She hardly seems to notice the bleeding.  The fingers of her left hand are bent at an unhealthy angle, broken surely, and Needle shakes in the grip of her other palm.

Sansa stands staring at her, one hand gathered in her trailing skirts, mouth parted on a sharp inhale.

Arya swallows, eyes focusing in the filtering daylight through the hall’s sparse windows.  She blinks.  Blinks again. Seems to recognize her surroundings a moment before Sansa breathes her name.

“Arya.”

And then she’s sprinting, Needle dropped to the floor with a sharp clang, bounding over corpses, slipping along the blood-slick stone, steadying herself, never slowing, breathless, gasping – “Sansa!” – a whirl of soiled leather and crimson-stained skin slamming into her, bundling her in her fierce grip, arms tight around her waist, sob buried in her chest, broken fingers digging painfully into the back of Sansa’s dress, stumbling them back along the ruin-washed floor, breath ragged and worn and desolate when it leaves her small, battered form.

It takes hours to find her.

It takes hours still to let her go.

* * *

Sansa makes her way through the ruined halls of her home, passing straggling soldiers, weaving through the wreckage to the main square.  She breaks into the harsh daylight, but it’s greyed since dawn, a haze of ash and snow blanketing Winterfell.  Arya follows the trail of her soiled skirts as they pick their way around corpses, walking over limbs and debris.

The words she needs to tell Arya about Jon are still lost to her, a vacant, empty wandering having overtaken her instead. Arya keeps her always in sight, a silent shadow at her back.

A blood-curdling wail streaks through the air and Sansa stills, whipping her head to the sound, catching sight of Daenerys staggering across the courtyard toward something, arms outstretched, mouth tipped open in a harrowing, anguished scream.  Missandei is steady at her side, an arm around her waist, holding her frail body up lest the winter wind take her and fling her about like this choking ash.

Distantly, she recalls Davos’ brief mention of the dragons’ fates.

She follows Daenerys’ tear-filled gaze across the courtyard, eyes landing on the form of a mortally wounded Grey Worm, dragging the dead body of Jorah Mormont over the stone and guts and toward his queen. His boot catches on a piece of debris, and he lurches forward, dropping to one knee, half sprawled over Jorah’s body. Daenerys makes it to them then, falling to the ground gracelessly, ignoring the putrid slush of human filth beneath her knees, eyes only for her bear, a desperate, bone-rattling cry ripping from her as she bundles his cold form in her hands, dragging him into her lap, rocking with him, sobbing, tear tracks etched across her ash-grey cheeks. Misssandei takes Grey Worm into her arms similarly and from where Sansa stands, she can see a handful of words tearfully exchanged between the two before Grey Worm convulses - once, twice, a last, jerky spasm – and then finally going still in Missandei’s arms. She bends her head low to touch her forehead to his and Sansa never hears what parting words she grants him, what farewell or peace.

Daenerys’ cries echo around the courtyard, and even still, exhausted, bloodied soldiers mill about as though she were just another corpse beneath their feet.  They pass her like shadows, unbent to her anguish.

It is just another death, after all.

Sansa turns from the sight, the bile returning sharp and pungent along her tongue, but she swallows it back this time, braces a hand to her ribcage, as though to keep the sickness in, as though to anchor it there with her wrath and regret and remorse.

It festers quietly and unobtrusively, settling low in her stomach.  

She turns from the sight of the grieving dragon queen, her pity too marred and eroded by a sharp resentment to taste like anything but ash on her tongue.  Eyes narrowed, jaw tight, she continues on – aimless.

Somewhere between the eastern corridor and the ruined door to the Hall of Lords, Daenerys’ faraway wails finally peter out into silence. Sansa takes a deep breath in, pushing the broken door open with all her might, Arya pushing beside her, and the wood creaks open, splintered beneath the crush of a giant’s maul.  More bodies flood the hall before them, but there are more living here than dead, and somewhere along the far wall, Sansa catches sight of Brienne seated along a step, elbows braced along her knees, her head in her hands, sword tarnished and copper-streaked on the floor beside her.

Sansa makes her way toward her sworn shield quietly, stopping before her and squatting down, braced on her haunches, hands anchored to her knees.

Brienne looks up then, face a ruin, hair matted and dark – no longer that brilliant, sun-lit blonde that had fascinated Sansa once upon a time.

Sansa offers an exhausted smile – half-formed and fleeting as it is – her hands going to Brienne’s cheeks, cradling her face in her palms.

“Jaime’s dead,” Brienne says evenly, without prompt.

Sansa blinks at her, nodding slowly, throat tight suddenly.  She wants to say she’s sorry.  She wants to say how she knows she cared for him, even against all reasoning.  She wants to say at least he died with honor. She wants to say so many things, but she isn’t sure yet how much she means any of them.  And so, she only has this:

“He kept his oath.”  It’s a small comfort, she knows, but perhaps it’s the only kind of comfort they may have.  The only kind Brienne would accept.

Brienne nods, sharp blue eyes blinking back the wetness.  And then her eyes trail to Arya’s form, half hid in shadow at her sister’s back.

Sansa brushes her thumbs over Brienne’s cheeks, the weight a lighter load, instantly – the words easy on her tongue.  “Thank you for keeping her safe,” she chokes out.

Brienne swings her gaze back to Sansa, the edges of a hesitant smile spreading beneath the pads of Sansa’s fingertips.  “She is half your mother’s heart, after all,” she says in answer.

Sansa nods, mouth trembling when she whispers out, “And half mine.”

Brienne reaches up a hand to curl tenderly along Sansa’s wrist, the breath raking from her – exhausted and battered.

Sansa leans forward, bracing her forehead against her sworn shield’s, eyes fluttering closed at the contact.

It’s only once Sansa parts from Brienne, glancing about the hall, that Arya finally speaks.

“Where’s Jon?”

The answer lodges in her throat like a knife, splitting her from ear to ear, choking her beneath a rush of blood.  Her heart hammers out a staccato of sour notes.

Arya stares up at her, just a girl.  Just a lost, wounded girl.  “Where’s Jon?” she asks again, voice infinitely small and hesitant.

Later, when Arya flees from the hall after Sansa tells her, she finds she cannot follow.  She cannot go to him.  She cannot look upon him.

Not yet.

“Stay with her,” Sansa commands Brienne, voice hollow.  “Make sure she doesn’t kill Bran.”

Brienne looks up at her, horrified, standing swiftly. “She wouldn’t.  My lady, she…”

Sansa swings a deadened gaze her way, lips pursed tight.  “She would.” She swallows thickly, eyes drifting back toward the broken door of the hall.  “That boy isn’t our brother anymore.”

Brienne only stares at her a moment longer, nodding without another word, picking her sword up off the stone and following her charge out the hall.

Sansa’s legs finally give out and she drops down to the step Brienne had previously occupied.  She stays there for well on an hour, perhaps two, eyes unseeing.  No one comes looking for the Lady of Winterfell. No one comes looking for the living.

She wonders if it will ever end, or if this is the disillusionment Jon spoke of once before – how war makes a home in your heart and never truly leaves.  She wonders if her father hadn’t also known this.

She wonders if he would have taught her such, of if he’d have let her continue on in the sort of ignorance he never spared his sons.

Sansa sighs.

And so it goes.  

So it goes for many hours that first night, soldiers falling where their exhaustion takes them, sleeping in thresholds and corridors and neighbor to corpses.  At some point, Sansa passes the open door to the kitchens, three famished, too-young soldiers tearing into one of the store’s preserved hams.  She hasn’t the heart to scold them.  The moans of the survivors have turned into a low hum at the back of her mind, never truly reaching her.

In the end, she simply doesn’t know what to do.

It’s Missandei that jars her into movement, coming upon her with Grey Worm’s blood still warming her dress, dark circles already settling below her eyes.  “I need bandages, cloth, clean water,” she says, voice even in a way that seems a disconnection to the tear-filled gaze she sets upon her or the trembling of her hands bunched together over her skirts.

Sansa stares at her, blinking when she recognizes Lord Varys standing just behind the other woman, face a haunt.  “Lord Varys,” she says in surprise, not knowing what else to say.

“My lady, the wounded are many – too many,” he says, sorrow lining his words.  “We need your help.”

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it just as slowly.

Missandei’s mouth trembles, tears brimming along her eyes, though they do not fall.  “Please,” she croaks out.

Sansa blinks at the word, something filling her she hasn’t a name for, and it all comes barreling into her – Edmure’s bleak smile, Davos’ gaze on his boots, Arya’s stony silence –

Bran’s eerie calm – the way his hands hadn’t even shook when he wheeled himself into her bedchamber and closed the door.

She heaves a breath, a hand over her eyes, lungs quaking in her chest as she smothers the sob.  “Yes,” she chokes out, shaking her head.  “Yes, of course.”  She sniffs back the tears, doesn’t let them fall.  Her hand drops from her face and she squares her shoulders, nodding fervently at Missandei.  “Of course, come with me.”

It was wrong of them to call it the Long Night, she finds, arms covered in blood up to her elbows by the time dawn breaks once more across Winterfell.

(Wrong, because it isn’t long – it’s endless.)

And so it goes and so it goes.

Jon is right – it never truly leaves them.

* * *

They never find the Blackfish’s body.  

Sansa asks Edmure at some point, when she finds voice enough to ask the question.  Edmure stares at her with heavy eyes, sitting still for her as she wraps the bandages around his waist.  She stops at his silence, blinking up at him.

He cannot hold her gaze, turning to stare at the far wall instead.  “Saved my life, the old bastard,” he gets out on a gruff exhale, eyes wetting instantly.

Sansa swallows, returning to her wrapping with a renewed focus.

Pack it away, bury it deep.  Take a breath and hold it tight.

She does not cry, mutely winding the roll of bandage round and round his waist, staring at the fresh patch of blood already peeking through the white linen.  Her brows furrow in frustration, the air scraping along her throat with her huff.

Later, she tells herself.  She will grieve for him later.

There is work yet to be done, and Sansa means to do it.

“Your parents would be proud.”

She ties the bandage off with a tight knot.

They never find his body, but then, there are many bodies they never find – Alys Karstark, Lord Royce, Randyll Tarly, Podrick Payne, Edd Tollett.  Sansa remembers each of them anyway.

Building the pyres is slow, agonizingly long work, and there are too many bodies mangled beyond recognition.  The fires burn day and night, needing to be relit several times before the many bones are finally turned to ash.  Smoke clogs her lungs, stains the grey walls with a permanent dark haze, the scent sinking into her flesh until she is rife with it – the dredges of their dead, come to live again in her skin.

Days pass in this manner, and Sansa forgets to sleep, too occupied with the running of a kingdom she never intended to inherit.

Jon remains unconscious, his body like ice to the touch, breath barely discernible.  Ghost is found perpetually curled at the foot of his bed, whining long and low into the night.  Sansa braces her hands to her ears and tries to drown it out.

Bran stays locked in her bedchamber, refusing food, and she has taken to sleeping with Arya when exhaustion finally takes her. Her sister spends that first day after the battle pacing the length of her solar, glaring at the closed door, never even bothering to bandage her wounded shoulder.

“Bran, get out here,” she seethes.  

Silence.

She kicks at the door, howls her rage, sobs and sobs and sobs for her brother to just open the gods-damned door, Bran, how could you, how could you and Sansa flees the solar, braces herself back against the wall in the hallway and tries to breathe.

Arya keeps a steady vigil at Jon’s side while Sansa attends to the wounds of the North, finding much needed support in Lady Olenna and Lord Varys and, surprisingly, the young Lord Arryn. Daenerys keeps to her chamber, only ever retreating from its sanctuary to retrieve a flagon or two of wine from the kitchens, her salt-white, fire-dimmed silhouette casting lingering shadows in the corner of Sansa’s eye.

Davos is true to his word, the harrowing truth behind Jon’s condition never leaving that bloodied chamber.  But word spreads of Jon’s true parentage.  The wounded soldiers, in their beds of straw lining the corridors, whisper it through the halls.

A Targaryen.  A trueborn one at that.

An imposter.

Sansa comes upon one such whispering horde of Northmen just when Lord Glover, with his one missing eye and half-burnt face, grabs a loose-lipped soldier by the collar and drags him up, snarling in his face. “And what Targaryen ever died for the North?” he bellows in the man’s sheet-pale face, shaking him.  “What Targaryen ever bled for us the way Jon Snow has?”

The man splutters in his grasp, hands clawing at the fist at his throat.

“I know no king but King Jon of House Stark,” he roars, spit flying in his rage.  “And I swear, on the old gods and the new, that I will gut the man who besmirches his name, do you understand me?”

The man in his grasp nods sharply, gulping his fear down, sighing in relief when Lord Glover drops him back to the floor.

Sansa stands at the end of the hall, watching with a lung-tingling fascination.

Lord Glover seems to notice her then, dipping into a slight bow at her presence, a hand at his chest.  “My queen,” he says, and Sansa’s breath catches in her throat at the address.

She stares at him, eyes unblinking, hands bunching in her skirts.

He does not move until she nods her dismissal, and then he’s sweeping from the hall, his cloak billowing in his wake. She does not notice the curious stares of the soldiers.  She watches the space he once occupied, heart thrumming in her chest, throat parched.

“My queen.”

Sansa retreats from the hall without further word.

A new whisper begins, this one voiced in reverence.

The White Wolf and the Red Queen.

It spills over the castle, past the walls, echoing from ear to ear – until they are lore, as entrenched in the Northern spirit as snow is to winter.

“I’m sorry he could not be laid to rest at sea,” Sansa tells Yara one morning, the faint pink of the sunrise casting slants of ghostly light across the pyres, now barely embers in the snow.

She holds tight to her chest the memory of Theon’s last embrace, that night before the end.

She holds tight.

Beside her, Yara digs her booted toe into the cinder-lined snow, watching it crest and break before her.  “Still,” she says, voice hoarse, “he did not die away from home. For that, I am grateful.”  She glances up at Sansa with the words.

She dares not speak, throat tight with unspoken yearning.

Yara nods at her, a hard smile breaking across her lips.  “The Drowned God takes even his wayward sons, after all.  Theon is at peace, perhaps for the first time in his miserable life.”

Sansa winces at the words, though not from offense. It’s a willowing regret, memory washing over her.

(His trembling hand in hers as they leapt from the height of Winterfell’s walls.)

Yes.

Peace.

Give him peace, gods, please, if you’ve any mercy left in you – give him peace.

Sansa’s eyes flutter shut, heart carving a hollow between her ribs.

“My brother respected you, cared for you in a way I may never understand, but – ”

Sansa opens her eyes to watch Yara in the slow-brimming light of dawn.

Yara swallows tightly, turning to her fully.  “I wish to honor his faith,” she promises staunchly.  “I swear to you now – queen to queen – the North will have the Iron Islands’ friendship, from now until the waves take us.”

Sansa stares at her, a visage of her lost Theon, in the lines of her nose and the clench of her jaw and the curl of hair sweeping across her brow.  Something aches in Sansa that feels jarringly like the beginning of a long, quiet grief. She releases a shaky breath with her words.  “I would gladly trade it to have him back – even for a day.”

Yara offers a tender smile, something like gratitude passing through her eyes.  “I know. That’s why you shall always have it.”

Sansa nods, feeling the lingering heat of the spent pyres at her side.  Like a promise.

“I would have died to get you there.”

           Yara extends her hand, salt-grimed glove open and waiting.

           Sansa does not let it stay empty for long.  She reaches forward, clasping arms with her fellow queen.  “Sail well,” she tells her, a gentle hope lining the words.

           Yara smiles at her, fingers gripping at her forearm, head bowed in respect.  “What is dead may never die.”

           Perhaps such words might have been a haunt in moons past, the threat of the Night King still a visceral, immediate thing.  But now, the words are heartening.

           Now, they sound like a plea that’s been begging her lips for freedom.

           Now, they are a promise.

(She doesn’t want to be a Red Queen if it’s only to a dead king.)

* * *

She visits Jon on the third day.

           She finds Arya sitting outside his door, sharpening Needle.  It seems a pointless task, but she does not tell her so, because then –

           (Sansa ignores the quiet reminder at the back of her mind that whispers ‘Daenerys’ over and over, like a chant, a mantra.  A dragon without wings is not without teeth, after all.)

She stares down at Arya, watching as her sister stills the whetstone over her blade, eyes a blank mask when she blinks up at her.

           “Will you let me through?” she whispers with an exhaustion she has not let herself feel until now – until she is at his door, merely paces from him.

           Arya cocks a brow her way, leaning back in her chair.  “Took you long enough.”  There’s a sharpness to the words – an accusation.

           Sansa swallows tightly.  She just wants to breathe.

           (She’s been trying to catch her breath since she first saw the stain of his blood along her furs.)

           She just wants to breathe.

           “Will you let me through?” she asks again, the words a strangled whisper.

           Arya narrows her eyes at her, jaw clenched tight.  She nods finally, gaze drawn down.  Sansa slips into the room beneath the whisper of her wool skirts.

           The door slips shut behind her and she’s left staring at him as he lies there, tucked beneath furs, so peaceful she might have mistaken him for asleep any other time.

           She takes a step closer, trembling.  A short, stunted breath leaves her.  Another step.  She feels the horror branching through her lungs – slow and indelicate.  She makes it all the way to the edge of his bed before she manages to breathe his name.

           “Jon.”

           He doesn’t answer.

           “Jon,” she tries again, this time louder, this time with the irrational belief that were she only louder, he would hear her and wake.

           He stays still atop the bed.

           That slow-branching horror, it sinks its hooks, brittles her bones.  It roots her there before him.  She sinks to her knees mindlessly.

           He’s so pale.  So sickly pale his skin tints blue.  

           Sansa blinks, brows furrowing.

           That blue…

           It’s frost, she realizes, a trembling hand reaching out to brush against his temple, feeling the sheen of thin ice beneath her fingertips.  She pulls her hand back instantly, a small gasp breaking over her parted lips.  

           There’s a winter in his veins, freezing him in this moment, keeping him suspended in this hopeless halfway point between life and death.  She fumbles for his pulse, two fingers pressing into the cold flesh at his throat.  His heartbeat wanes, sluggish and faint – barely even there at all.

           She licks her lips, hand retracting.  She takes a moment to look at him, eyes traveling over his scar-lined face, the unruly thatch of beard at his chin, the broad expanse of his chest when she pulls the furs down, riddled with the evidence of his betrayal – twice borne now.  Beads of blood dot the edges of his never-closing wounds.  Sansa frowns at the sight.

           There’s a cloth and clean water at the bedside, and after several moments of staring at the gashes, of trying to discern the motion of his breath, she reaches for it and sets about cleaning him.

           The blood will run again, she knows.  It is a perpetual stain, a constant reminder.  But there is something soothing about dragging the wet cloth across his flesh, wiping the filth from him.  Her eyes catch along the tangle of his dark curls lining the pillow now, brows furrowing. She finds a brush and sets to work, moving on to his beard next, taking a delicate blade to the overgrown hair, cleaning him up as best she can.  She tucks him beneath the furs once more, changes his woolen socks, calls for lukewarm broth from the attending servant girl that Arya sends in.  When the woman returns, Sansa sends her out with an appreciative smile and gentle nod, setting the first spoonful to Jon’s mouth and dabbing up the lost broth that trickles over his chin with a fresh cloth beneath her steady, fine-boned fingers.

           Arya does not come to collect her that evening, and Sansa wakes to find she has fallen asleep against the bed, knees still folded painfully stiff beneath her, Ghost nudging her to consciousness with a wet snout.  She clenches a hand in his fur and buries her face in his neck, breathing him in.

           He smells like Jon, she finds.  Like soiled snow and leather and figs.  She holds him to her for many long moments.  And then she finds the will to face another day.

           She returns after the work of tending the wounded and rebuilding Winterfell is done, after meeting with the remaining Northern lords as they try to contain the aftermath.  They’ve taken to following her rule in Jon’s absence, an unspoken act, perhaps bolstered by such vocal allegiance as Lord Glover’s and Lady Lyanna’s.  Jon’s lineage becomes the insignificance of yesterday, when there are too many walls to rebuild and too many mouths to feed and too many wounds to stich closed.  After all, there is truth to Lord Glover’s words.

           “What Targaryen ever died for the North?”

           They still call him King Jon in their whispered tales, in their fervent pleas to the old gods to heal his ailing body, to halt his perishing.  The stories are vague, blurred at the edges, no one truly knowing the way in which Jon Snow defeated the Night King, only knowing that he had.

           And perhaps that is enough.

           Sansa leaves a tray of food outside Bran’s door each morning and returns to it untouched each night.

           She will not do more.  She cannot do more.

           Not when Jon’s hand sits like ice against her small palm and the bandaged linens round his chest stain with fresh blood each morning.

           Sansa curls her vehemence back behind a still tongue, tasting its tartness with the kind of steely resignation that comes from having buried so many dead already.

           The pyres never seem to stop burning, the sky a permanent grey haze. Sometimes she finds herself staring over the ramparts at the ash-covered hills, the tainted snow of her home.  But yearning is not building, and she has grown used to busy hands.  She does not stare long.

           There is a kingdom to restore.

           She says goodbye to Lady Olenna at the gate, after her half-moon stay in Winterfell following the battle.  The older woman takes her hands in hers, a jarringly public and informal gesture of affection that makes Sansa’s chest grow warm with fondness, with the aching wonder of what might have been.

           “Take care, dear girl.  I fear this winter has only just begun.”

           Sansa nods, eyes falling to their joined hands.  “I think you might be right.”  She doesn’t let the weary sigh leave her, but she thinks Olenna might have heard it anyway.  She blinks back up at her, gaze sure.  “But we are not alone anymore.  Keep sending that grain up North, Lady Olenna, and we stand a far better chance.”

           Olenna pats her hand, a wrinkled smile tugging at her lips.  “Then I shall, Your Grace.”

           Sansa opens her mouth to object to the address, unable to keep her features from showing her startle, but Olenna only shushes her, patting her hand one last time before withdrawing.  She eyes the shadow that Daenerys casts from her perch atop the ramparts, watching the farewell in stiff, darkened silence. ��“Take heed, Your Grace,” Olenna whispers.  “This world has not seen the last of dragons, it seems.”  A glint passes through her eyes as they resettle on Sansa’s.  “I wish you good fortune in the wars to come,” she says pointedly, head inclined toward her.

           Sansa does not glance upward at the indication, already feeling the dragon queen’s presence like a hand at her throat, cinching ever tighter.  But she nods her understanding, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her lips.  “Thank you, my lady.”

           Edmure Tully leaves but a few days later himself, his lame arm bandaged to his side, his Tully armor both a comfort and a haunt.  His bow is reserved, the quirk of his smile an affectionate thing when he rises back to his full height, head high.  “You know, you’re quite unlike her, in many ways, and yet, exactly like her in all the rest,” he says suddenly, a thoughtful expression gracing his features.

           Sansa cocks a curious brow up at him, a startled laugh lining her lips with earnestness.  “Oh?”

           “Like Catelyn,” he says, as though it ever needed clarifying.

           Sansa beams up at him, a hand braced to her chest as though to stem the warmth.

           His face takes on a somberness, his eyes a soft-hued blue that makes her ache with memory.  “I miss her, still. I miss her always.”

           Her mother’s brother, she reminds herself.  Her brother.

           She thinks she knows a little something about brothers – the needing of them.

           And the losing of them.

           She reaches out to grasp his gloved hand in hers, a tender thumb running over his knuckles.

           Edmure releases a soft laugh, a flicker of pain crossing his brow when he looks down at the motion, but then he’s smiling again, that Tully blue a familiar comfort now.  “I’m glad I shall not have to miss you, niece,” he tells her.

           Sansa reaches for him, and he goes to her.  They hug in the snow-veiled courtyard, gently and ardently.  She says goodbye to both her uncles, in the hollow of her heart, in the silence of prayers she has learned to always keep inward, in the kind of faith that has only ever been born of blood.

           Her gods wear familiar faces now.  She keeps them close to her heart.

           (Family is the only faith that’s ever seen her through, after all.)

           “I can’t say I’ll miss this dreadful cold, cousin,” Robin tells her upon his own farewell, shrugging his cloak tighter about his shoulders in a motion of discomfort.

           Sansa takes pity on him, moving to adjust his furs with sure, practiced hands, tightening the cross-straps over his chest and smoothing her hands over his startlingly broad shoulders.

           Not a child anymore, she finds.  But then, none of them have had that luxury for quite some years now.

           The recollection makes her softer, makes her worn heart clench just a touch tighter. “Then I shall have to make you a fine, new cloak when next you visit, my lord,” she says, her voice bright in a way it hasn’t been for far too long.

           The excitement that lights his face could not be masked even if he’d tried.

           It’s a small, endearing bit of honesty that brings a smile to her lips.

           “Will you?”

           Sansa nods fervently.

           Robin beams at her, chin lifting, standing just a bit straighter than he had before.  And then a touch of sadness wilts his smile.  “I’m sorry Lord Baelish won’t be able to join me.  I know how much he must have meant to you.”  He worries his lip.  “Arya told me he died in the battle.”

           Sansa returns her hands to his shoulders, smoothing over the edges of his cloak with a motherly touch.  “He died in service to the North.  I could not ask for more,” she tells him, voice steady, not a quiver to be found.

           Robin nods, brows furrowed, face caught somewhere between pride and regret.  And then he offers a comforting smile, dipping into a slight bow in farewell, turning almost fully before –

           He stops, glances back at her, opens his mouth with a line of hesitation worrying his brow.  “Your Jon,” he begins, and Sansa blinks at him, breath tightening in her chest.  “He’s a brave one, isn’t he?”

           Sansa resists the urge to fold the young lord into her embrace, settling instead for a grateful smile and a soft sigh.

           “I should like to get to know him better, when he wakes.”

           Sansa lets the breath flutter from her, a catch to her voice.  “I’ll see to it, my lord.”  She watches the billowing of his cloak when he leaves then, the familiar banners of the Eyrie disappearing behind the main gate with the afternoon sun.

           She returns to the council chambers that same day to find Tyrion waiting for her, standing swiftly from his chair at her presence.

           Brienne eyes him disdainfully at her back, but Sansa only gives him a blank stare.

           He worries a hand at the edge of the chair for a moment, seeming to contemplate his words.  A stilted silence breathes between them, and then he takes a step toward her.  “Your Grace,” he begins, and never gets to finish.

           “’Your Grace’?  Not ‘my lady’?  Not ‘Sansa’?” She keeps the bite tame in her words, the snap of her jaw cushioned by restraint.

           It is still strange and new, this quiet acceptance the Northerners have granted her, this title born of war and its necessities.  Davos is as insightful and stalwart a Hand to her as he was to Jon, and none of the great houses seem eager to dispute her choice, or her rule.  She wonders still, in the back of her mind, if they’d have chosen her in any other circumstance.  Or if she is simply the default now, the only Stark left worth following, with Bran sequestered in her chambers as though in self-imprisonment, and Arya slinking through Winterfell’s shadows in a grief so furious she seems more wolf than human these days.

           (Even still, she remembers the way Lord Glover had looked at her that first night in the hall, and the way Ser Davos inclines his head in deference, and the way silence blisters in the room upon her arrival, fierce and humble in equal measure.)

           Tyrion clears his throat, gaze shifted toward the table so that he does not look at her when he says, “I think by now it’s rather clear you were never my lady. Especially now that you are…”  He clears his throat again, eyes flicking back toward hers.  “Now that you are his.”

           She does not offer a rebuke, but neither does she offer confirmation.  She simply stares at him.  The room seems smaller suddenly, the air tight in her lungs.

           Tyrion’s hand falls from the chair and he takes another step toward her, looking up at her with a plead in his eyes she cannot discern.  “But that’s not why I’m here.”

           “And why are you here, Lord Tyrion?” she manages through pursed lips, tongue sharp behind her teeth.  

           (She was there when they presented Jaime’s gold hand to him after the battle, in the filtering light of a red-hazed dawn.  He’d stared at it with salt-tinged eyes, lips trembling as he bit his tongue to hold the curse, or perhaps the wail.  Eyes fluttering closed, breath raking from him like a gale, he’d finally spoken.

           “Melt it down,” he’d choked out, and then turned instantly, stalking away with a shake to his shoulders that had Sansa bracing a hand over her mouth, the sigh tumbling from her in its wounded release.)

           “I’ve come to offer my services,” he says, fists bunching at his sides.

           Sansa cocks her head at him, eyeing him carefully.  “Has your queen finally decided to rejoin the council?  To venture outside her self-imposed isolation?  Tell me, is she tired of living like a mere guest in a castle that should be hers?”

           Tyrion swallows tightly, his voice hoarse when he replies, “Daenerys is in mourning, but – ”

           “And we are not?” she scoffs.

           “But I am not here for her,” he finishes gruffly.

           Another silence pricks at them, the air bristling with unease, and Sansa tries not to notice the trembling of his fists or the downward tilt of his mouth or the anguished, lonesome look in his eye.

           The last of his name.

           And yet he’s here –

           (not for ‘her’).

           Sansa will not turn away council for spite.  She will not let her people suffer to keep her burning resentment alive. She will not place pride above peace.

           “Please,” he tries again, blinking up at her with barely concealed tears, a face so instantly aged and worn she’s surprised she hadn’t seen it before. There’s a weariness to him that wasn’t there before.  “May I – may I be of any help?”

           “I won’t ever hurt you.”

           Sansa has taken to distrusting such promises in her experience, but there’s the same earnestness in his words now, and she understands what it means to want to believe in simple sincerity – to need it even, especially in an insincere world.

           Sansa finds herself nodding stiffly, just as the door behind her swings open. Lyanna Mormont stops in the threshold, eyeing the two of them in stilted concern.  “Your Grace?” she asks cautiously, hand clenching on the door handle.

           Sansa takes a deep breath, motioning toward a seat at the table.  “Lord Tyrion will be joining us for a time,” she tells her.

           Gratitude lights along the scar-addled lines of his face, a shaky smile pulling at his mouth.

           She does not ask after his queen.  She does not invite the dragon back to the table.

           And he does not urge her to such.

* * *

           Sansa consults with every healer and maester and wildling witch left in Winterfell. Nothing seems to affect Jon.  No collection of herbs seems to make the right salve, no pressure of practiced hands seems to ease the bruising or the wounds, no incantation seems to invoke the gods’ mercy enough to wake him.

           Sansa visits him daily, sleeping either at his side, or with Arya.  She begins her day with him.  She ends it with him, as well.

           She enters the familiar chamber now to find Tormund standing in the middle of the room, staring down at Jon, still as the morning light.

           “Tormund,” she greets, hesitant, making her way around the large man to stand at his side.

           He grunts his acknowledgement of her, never taking his eyes from Jon.

           She bundles her hands before her, fingers clenching and unclenching.  She eyes the clean bowl of water at the bedside table. “Did you come to help me wash him?” she asks tentatively, needing to broach the silence and yet not knowing how.

           He slides his intense gaze her way and she swallows back the words, unable to look away.  He heaves a heavy sigh, a hand wiping down his mouth and along his rough beard.  The motion is so reminiscent of Jon that she nearly takes a step back at the way it knocks the breath from her.

           “Let him rest, little wolf,” he tells her.

           She blinks at him, confusion marring her features.  She glances back to Jon’s unmoving form, before returning her attention to Tormund.  “I…”

           “He deserves the mercy of a clean blade.”

           The panic is instant – sharp at her throat.  Her hand comes up to grab at the hook-and-needle chain lining her collar.  “No,” she croaks out, breathless, staggering beneath the suggestion.

           Tormund turns fully to her, eyes the darkest blue she’s ever seen from him.  “He’s done his part.  He’s won the fight.  Now let him rest.”

           “And were you not there when he rose from death the first time?”

           Tormund grumbles, but doesn’t answer.  

           She takes a daring step closer to him.  “Were you not there?” she asks harshly.

           “Aye,” he grinds out.  “I was there.”

           Sansa stares at him balefully, her hand unclenching from her chain and sliding back to her side.  “You didn’t let him rest then either.”  It’s nearly an accusation.

           “Things were different.”

           “Yes, he wasn’t still alive.”

           Tormund levels her with a frustrated glare.

           “I can’t let him go.  I can’t.”  Her breath catches, her hands gripping at her skirts.  “Not like this.”

           Heaving a sigh, Tormund glances back to Jon’s still form along the bed.  “You know he never was the same – after that death business.”

           Sansa softens at the admission.  She feels the unexplainable urge to rest her hand upon his wide arm.  She resists it – just barely.

           “He was never the same,” he breathes out.

           “I know.”

           “No,” he says, near on a growl.  “You don’t.”

           Sansa blinks at him, mouth pursed into a tight line.  Something rattles in her chest she cannot recognize.  

           He turns back to her.  “You can’t know that.  No one can. He won’t talk about it – about wherever the fuck he went when those bastards closed his eyes for good.  So, no – you can’t know that.  You can’t know how he’s changed because you don’t know where he’s been.  None of us do.”

           She remembers Jon’s heavy breath pooling in the dip of her collar bone as he braces himself above her.  She remembers the quiver that racks through him when she settles her touch at his chest. She remembers the mournful way he mouths her name as her fingertips graze his scars.

           And she remembers how he takes her mouth with his before she can ever ask, his hand stilling her at the wrist.

           The thing is, she’s done quite the same when he’s tried exploring her own scars.

           Ramsay was a form of death himself, after all.  

           She’s never told Jon the depraved things Ramsay used to whisper in her ear when he took her like an animal, or how he brought her to begging by knife-point each night, or even how she miscarried during her escape to Castle Black – staining her saddle with blood, Brienne’s firm, mindful hands pulling her from the horse, cradling her in the snow as she cried out from the pain, a rending, terrible wail that shook the frost from the trees while Theon watched on with quiet, horror-filled eyes.

           (No, never that.)

           Something in her died on her way to him.

           Something in her has been dying ever since.

           Sansa gulps back the memory, frigid in her own skin, a winter’s gale passing through her like a howl.

           She told him to come back – demanded it even – because she has had enough of dying.

Because a collar is just another kind of violence.

Because she has finally learned to bare her teeth.

(Because wolves were never meant to be tamed – even by death.)

“Maybe it’s selfish,” she says, chapped lips parting on the words.  “But I won’t let him go,” she repeats.  “Because I think he deserves to be fought for.  I think he deserves it more than anyone.”

Tormund stares at her for a long time, just watching her, and she has to wonder what he sees.  He’d been there, after all, the day she’d arrived at Castle Black.  He’d been there – watched how she’d flown herself at Jon, arms going wide, sob raking from her instantly, trembling in his hold, face buried in his neck, rocking with him, back and forth and back and forth and –

He’d been there when she’d poured herself into him, never to return.

“Don’t take too long, little wolf,” he tells her finally, a gruff sigh leaving him as he turns for the door.  “The dragon queen won’t sit still forever.”

Sansa watches him go, catching sight of Arya in the threshold as Tormund drifts past.  They share a nod of familiarity, and Sansa is a sudden stranger, the show of acknowledgement a window into lives she’s closed herself off to – either willfully or not.

Have they shared a pint as easily as they’ve shared this nod?  Have they shared stories or laughs or hands?

She wonders, suddenly, at all the moments she’s missed in her single-minded rule, at this life her sister has built for herself, this life that Jon has built for himself, all the people and all the trials and all the joys that they’ve known.

She’s never shared her darkest parts, no, but she wants to now, suddenly.  She wants to know what it means to be seen – wholly and cleanly.

Arya stands before her.  Jon lays behind her.

And she wants them to know.  She wants them to know everything – all the horrid, rancid details, all the gruesome little workings of her insides – peeled back and emptied out.

(Perhaps this is what living means – perhaps this is what she demands of herself, as much as she demands it of Jon.)

She stares at Arya and her perpetual hold on Needle at her hip.  She stares at Tormund’s back as he stalks from the room.  She stares and stares and stares – vacant and longing.

(Tired of unkindness.)

Sansa makes her way from the room, silent and stiff. She finds herself at Bran’s door.

Before she can knock, the door swings wide – open for the first time since he’d retreated that bloody, unforgettable night, as though he’d been waiting for just this moment.

“Sansa,” he says, and he’s her little brother again – though his cheeks are gaunt and his eyes are hollow and there is nothing fond in his voice at all.

Her chest clenches from the harrowing sight of him. “Bran,” she exhales softly.

He sits staring up at her, hand still held at the door.  And then he wheels back, inviting her into the darkness of the room, shadows playing on them like taunts.

She thinks of their trek south.  She thinks of the summit.  She thinks of the beat of dragon’s wings shadowing their journey home. She thinks of the dragon queen, her white-sheened brilliance like a threat, even now, her mourning a fire-brewed thing.

She thinks of the start of it all.

Sansa takes a seat before Bran, the fire crackling at her side.  She licks her lips.  She finds her words.                                   (At the beginning.)

                                                 She will start at the beginning.

                                                                  Sansa clears her throat, eyes a dark demand, breath rising like wind-swept embers in her chest. {“Why did you bring her here?” –

* * *

Daenerys becomes a haunt – a silver, shadowy thing Sansa hardly ever sees outside the dim veil of sundown.  Sometimes, when she takes to the halls at night, she finds the dragon-less queen just lingering in a threshold, as though she has suddenly lurched to a stop, caught halfway between one place and the other, forgetting where it is she means to go.

The war has left widows of most of the North – wives who have outlasted their husbands.

But there is no such word for mothers who have outlasted their children.  

Sansa knocks on Daenerys’ door just the once – short and solid.

“Come in,” Daenerys beckons with a voice like ash.

Sansa enters her chamber smoothly, offering a polite curtsy and closing the door behind her.  She finds Daenerys lounging in a cushioned chair near the window, holding a near-empty wine glass loosely in her hand.  She sneers at Sansa’s entrance, a jarring expression for a face otherwise perfectly poised, a model of regal disinterest when she turns back to the window.  “And how is my nephew?” she asks coolly, fingers curling around her glass.  At Sansa’s silence she turns a single, raised brow her way, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.  “Come now, I know you’ve just come from his chambers.  You practically live there now, don’t you?”

Sansa smooths her hands over her skirts.  “He is much the same, Your Grace.  Nothing we’ve attempted has yet to wake him.”

Daenerys scoffs, taking a swig of wine.  “Such a doting sister.”  She seems to catch herself, lip curling as she turns fully to her. “Or should I say cousin now?”

“Jon is…dear to me, Your Grace, no matter the relation you attach to it.”

“Yes,” she says, emptying her wine glass.  “Dear enough to fuck, it seems.”

“Your Grace – ”

“Let’s not pretend, shall we?  It’s a rather tedious affair at this point.”  Daenerys arches a challenging brow at Sansa, tipping her empty glass back and forth.

“She burnt the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen when the khals refused her rule.  She burnt the slaver ships when they denied her their fleet. She burnt Euron Greyjoy when he rescinded his allegiance.”

Sansa blinks, remembering Bran’s words.

“She destroys what she cannot have.  House words have never rung so true.  She will take what is hers, with fire and blood.  Or fire and blood will take it instead.”

Sansa draws in a deep, steadying breath, lowering herself to the seat across from Daenerys.  Her hands fold together over her lap with certainty.

Meereen will be the last city she lays ruin to.

           Sansa catches sight of the flagon of wine on the side table.

           (The last, she vows.)

           Sansa grabs the flagon, offering it to Daenerys.

           After a moment of contemplation, Daenerys extends her hand with the wine glass expectantly.  Sansa begins to pour as she speaks, “If we’re not pretending anymore then I gather it’s safe to say you’re not particularly interested in Jon waking.”

           Daenerys throws her head back with a stunted laugh and Sansa stops pouring, replacing the flagon, her hands shifting seamlessly back to her lap.  Daenerys bites off an indignant scoff when she looks back to Sansa, eyes flashing.  “You’re much too smart to think I’d ever cross an ocean with an army such as mine only to sit second seat at the table.”

           Sansa doesn’t answer her, but she doesn’t need to.

           Daenerys’ eyes harden on her, taking a sip of wine like a threat, never blinking from her when she swallows.  “I did offer him an alternative.  He refused.”

           “It’s only an alternative when it’s a choice, not a threat.”

           Daenerys purses her lips, the fingers of her free hand thrumming along the armrest.  “I didn’t relish the idea of harming my own blood, no, but I’d have done it if it meant stability for the throne.”

           “I believe that.”

           Daenerys eyes her critically, shifting in her seat.  “And you understand why I must.”  A long sip of wine.  A thrum of silence between them.

           It is said like a statement, but even Sansa hears the question in it.  She offers a perfunctory smile.  “I understand why you believe you must.”

           Daenerys’ cheeks tinge a harsh pink, her nostrils flaring.  “It is not belief.  It is fact.”  She takes a large gulp of wine.

           “You’ll pardon me, Your Grace, if I hold such a fact up to speculation.  You did, after all, base your entire campaign for the throne on the misguided ‘fact’ that you were the last – and rightful – Targaryen.”  Sansa cocks her head thoughtfully, reclining in her chair.  “We’ve since seen the truth of that,” she finishes calmly, no hint of smugness to the words, though the boldness of such a sentiment is inherently unspoken.

           Daenerys narrows her eyes, her jaw locking, a cold, even calm blanketing over her. And this is it.  This is the dragon queen in all her bereaved splendor. This is grief made sharp – made fire-licked.  “You would do well to hold that tongue, my lady, before I have it cut out.”  It’s such a soft-spoken threat, her voice lilting as though it is a secret shared, a hidden joy.  Daenerys’ lips curl with her dark smile, stained with wine.

           Sansa glances to the slowly emptying glass in her hand.  

           “So eager to defy me,” Daenerys muses, all hint of grief gone.  “Treason is an easy crime for you, isn’t it?”  She is fire again – the small, blue flame at its origin.  A quiet destruction.  She looks off into the corner of the room, taking a drawn-out sip of wine, a needful distraction.  A sigh leaves her when she finally lowers her glass – a sound not unlike the exhaustion of bruised hearts.

           Sansa thinks of Jorah Mormont then.  The quiet bear at Daenerys’ back, and the way she always inclined her head at his words, the way her smile seemed a tender, girlish thing in his presence, the way her hand reached for him in the end, with desperation and yearning and loneliness.

           So much loneliness it was painful for Sansa to watch.

           “You love him so?  That you would risk such treason to speak to me thus?  That you would give your life for his claim?”  Her eyes slip back to Sansa like a demand.

           “For his claim?  No.” Sansa shakes her head softly, a sad sort of smile tugging at her lips, and she knows now that there is no keeping it any longer.  There is no way to stop it spilling from her, in waves and waves and earnest, fierce waves. “But for him?”

           There is no keeping this.

           She imagines Daenerys sees the truth of it in her face, because she is nodding slightly, jaw quivering, a heavy breath drawn through her lungs.  “And you think I haven’t loved like that myself?” Her eyes are wet suddenly – jarringly.

           If Daenerys is trying to hide the regret, she’s doing a poor job of it. And for a moment, Sansa wonders what they might have been in another life.  In another time.

           (When they’d not crawled over leagues and leagues of heartache too ripe to ever call it finished –

           Leagues and leagues of it and –

           The road is too long.  It winds too sharp.  And Sansa cannot see the end from her vantage point, cannot calculate the curve.  She discerns it through faith.  She travels blind, but for her hand in Jon’s.)

           What they might have been – Sansa wonders – in another life.

           But they have only this life.

           And she will not waste it.

           “I think you’ve loved,” she answers her in a whisper, and it’s not a truth that’s hard to see.  

           Daenerys does not take her eyes from her, hand tightening over her forgotten wine glass.  She is a haunt, yes – still a visage of mourning – but fire does not die so easy.

           (Sansa reminds herself that fire sows no seeds.)

The words lodge in Sansa’s throat, scraping their way out – a wreckage of sorrow lighting her tongue.  “I just don’t think you’ve ever loved anything so well as your throne – so well as yourself.”

Daenerys looks upon her with barely held contempt, her chin tilting high, eyes blinking back the wetness.  “You’re treading on thin ice, Lady Sansa,” she warns.

           “But it is my ice, and I will tread it how I will.”  

           Her North.  Her home.  Her Jon.

           (Even if she burns for it – this she will not surrender.)

           Daenerys takes a last, violent swig of wine, emptying her glass and nearly slamming it on the side table as she stands.  “You would be dead without me,” she hisses, a harrowing glint of shadow lighting her pale features.  It is almost a plea.

           Sansa only shakes her head, her eyes sharp under the firelight, hands still held primly in her lap.  “I would be dead without a great number of people – mainly Jon.  And Arya, and Bran, and Theon.  But not you.”

Daenerys blinks wildly at her, mouth parting with no words to follow.

Sansa stands as well, her height lending an air of assurance to the words.  “We would be dead without your dragons, Your Grace, but hardly without you,” she corrects, something of compassion seeping into her tone, remembering –

           There is no word for mothers who outlast their children.

           Yes, she has loved.  But so have they all.

           “I’m sorry,” Sansa says.

           (Daenerys will never know what for.)

           A scoff leaves the queen’s lips.  “Sorry?”  She’s practically shaking with the indignation.  “Sorry?”  Her face twists into a mask of disdain.  “You will be,” she promises, voice a tight whisper.  “You will all be sorry.”

           Sansa does not wilt in the face of her wrath.  She simple waits.  She simply watches.  

           “Father will know if you do.”

           “My armies will sweep through this land and lay waste to all who defy me.  I will retake that which is mine by right, and you will learn to properly cower before your queen,” she sneers, a shadow-crept wrath etching over her face.  “You think you have won, because my dragons are dead.  Because my children are dead.  But I was a queen before I was ever a mother, and a queen I will stay. They heralded my name like prophecy, they knelt in reverence, they bled for me, because I demanded it, and because they knew it was right.  Westeros will tremble before me, dragons or not, because I am the last true Targaryen.  I am the fire, and I am the blood.  And you will know my wrath.  You will know that I carry the greatness of Old Valyria in my veins.  You will know – ”

           Daenerys chokes on her own vehemence, a cloud of blood spraying suddenly from her lips as she jolts to stillness, eyes wide.

           (Words were not the only poison Baelish taught her.)

           Sansa tucks her hand back into the folds of her dress, the powdered drug between her fingertips a weight she has learned years ago.

           Daenerys snaps wild eyes to her emptied wine glass in recognition, lips flecked with blood.  She stumbles, blinking furiously, hands grasping for air she hasn’t the lungs for.

           Sansa does not turn away, even when the dragon queen collapses to the ground, gripping Sansa’s skirts between white knuckles, choking on her own blood.

           “I would give my life for his, yes,” Sansa offers demurely, lowering herself to the floor, a tender hand on the dragon queen’s elbow just before she starts seizing.  “But first, I would give yours.”

           It’s an ugly, inglorious death that takes her – the blood seeping from her mouth like a wound, fingers gnarled into trembling, grasping claws, eyes red-rimmed and hateful when she finally gasps her last – small and infirm and less than a queen.

           It is not a dragon’s death.

           Daenerys’ eyes slip shut, and instantly – like a dark, thieving mirror – with Ghost’s distant howl breaking against the night, somewhere across the castle –

           Jon finally wakes.

* * *

           {“There is a price.  Only death pays for life.”

It is an echo of years past.  An echo that rings unfamiliar to Sansa’s ears, but in the dark hour, in the hollow of night, it comes to her –

           “Some say the witch’s magic still lingers inside me.”

           Sansa’s eyes go wide, her mouth parting.  Bran offers what might have passed for a smile once on her lost brother’s face.

           “Because she is needed.”

           There is an old sort of magic to sacrifice, after all – a violence done most kindly.

           And fire sows no seeds.

           So Sansa will sow her own.}

[captainbee89]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Gilly (ASoIaF)/Samwell Tarly, Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling, Jon Snow/Ygritte (past) Characters: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Gilly (ASoIaF), Samwell Tarly, Ygritte (ASoIaF), Robb Stark, Jeyne Westerling, Theon Greyjoy Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Jealous Sansa Stark, House Party Summary:

"You're a fool if you think Ygritte will go along with this!"

Day 1 of Jonsa Srping Challenge.

[sankta-arya]

let the reason come in the common tongue of you loving me (1)

Written for Jonsa: A Dream of Spring, Day 2: traitors/bastards

Sansa is Queen Consort to Stannis Baratheon, Jon is her Sworn Shield

Second chapter on Sunday!

Queen Sansa of Houses Stark and Baratheon doesn't smile. The people at court have all witnessed an indulgent nod from her, a small quirk of her lips, or even a slight softening of her eyes, but none of them can recall ever seeing a true smile on her face. She doesn't need to smile, heads turn whenever she walks by. With her long auburn hair, fair skin, striking blue eyes and tall, willowy frame, she makes a breathtaking sight wherever she goes.

She's ever courteous and kind, never cold or harsh; it's near impossible to find a fault in her, yet the people of King's Landing whisper it's such a shame that the young and beautiful queen never smiles. Some call her the Ice Queen, and claim it's her frozen Northern blood. They say she and her stone-faced, teeth-grinding King are well suited. Others blame her sadness on him, fearing her youth and beauty are wasted on such a dour and mirthless husband. Some even remember the first time she came to King's Landing, and all of the grief that befell her all those years ago.

The boldest men, too far into their cups, boast they could melt her frozen mask if she let them. Jon supposes it's a good thing his true parentage is a well kept secret, otherwise some might suspect he's the only one who can make her thaw.

He scarcely remembers why he decided to come south all those years ago. It was right after the war, and he was tired of fighting and being cold all the time. Sansa was the last of his family, apart from Bran, who ruled Winterfell and the North now. His brother claimed he didn't need him, but Sansa begged him not to let her go South alone.

He told her he'd put an end to her betrothal, that they'd find another way to appease Stannis and ensure him of the North's loyalty. "After everything, you deserve to be happy."

"No, Jon," she said. "No one will ever marry me for love. It's quite all right. But... Don't make me go down there alone."

Now he's the Queen's Sworn Shield, her ever faithful shadow, and he supposes that's fine, it's a role that has always suited him, and he's had quite enough of being the hero in this story. He never meant to become the villain, the scoundrel who's threatening the fragile peace of a war-torn Kingdom by defiling and dishonouring his King's wife, a woman he once called sister.

All of his life, he's been told that bastards are born from lust and lies, making their nature wanton and treacherous. His entire life has been a lie, his entire existence built on greed and misplaced desire, protected by deceit and treason. Perhaps it should come as no surprise it's a traitor he's ended up becoming.

All of his life, he's been trying to fight those unfounded accusations, to prove them wrong, to be good and true, but he's made a botch of it every single time. He's been fighting a losing battle for years, and perhaps it's only natural he'd find some relief in finally giving up.

He had looked at her too long and too often, he'd breathed her in when he shouldn't have, found too much comfort and joy in her company. He had held her too tightly when she might be in danger, assisted her too eagerly when dismounting her horse. He'd dreamed of her, of touching her soft, auburn hair and her luscious body, of tasting her skin, her mouth, and her cunt; of burying himself deep inside of her as she was writhing under him, of her rose-tipped teats bouncing as she rode his cock.

Too often he had spilled in his hand with those images still fresh in his mind, but even that could be forgiven. He has been a sinner in thoughts his entire life, always wanting things that were never his to desire, but he'd only ever harmed himself with his greed. This time it's different.

He still recalls the day, early Spring, a crisp and clear morning, the chill of Winter not quite vanished, but they were of the North, and Sansa wanted to have a stroll through the gardens. Danger still lurked everywhere, even within the walls of the Red Keep, and Stannis wouldn't let her go anywhere without him or another trusted guard.

She reached out to gently brush her fingers over the delicate petals of one of the last winter roses, leaning in to smell it. She turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow. "Do you need to walk quite so close to me, Jon?"

"Apologies, Your Grace," he murmured, resting a hand on the pommel of his sword. "Have you grown sick of my company?" he added.

She let out a peal of laughter, and he couldn't help the answering smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"I can't remember the last time I was truly alone," she mused. "I have ladies and maids for everything, he won't even let me sleep by myself."

She had three bedmaids, and Jon never stood alone when he guarded her door at night.

She closed the distance between them. "Do I really need your protection here?"

He averted his gaze from her twinkling blue eyes. "This is the King's command."

"This is the King's command," she mimicked him. "And what if there was true danger here? Pray tell me, Jon, what could one man do against a band of brigands set on seizing the Queen?"

He took a deep breath, wondering if he was imagining the challenge in her teasing tone. "You'd be surprised what I could do, Your Grace."

"I told you to call me Sansa when we're alone," she reminded him, walking backward as she tilted her head. "Would I?" she asked, and then tripped over the hem of her gown.

Instinctively, he reached out, grabbing her by the shoulder and slinging his other arm around her waist to steady her.

She huffed and smiled up at him, bracing her hands on his chest. "You caught me," she whispered, a blush rising on her cheeks.

He gulped. "Of course. It's good to see you smile... Sansa."

She pressed closer to him, glancing up at him through thick eyelashes. "You make me smile, Jon," she confessed in a breathless voice before she kissed him.

Even that one sweet, almost chaste kiss could have cost them their heads, but he still had a chance to mend that, to step back, disappoint her, and make the right choice. He did no such thing.

He's become a sinner in deeds now. He's taken what he wants, though she was never his to desire, many times. It's what dragons do. They don't care what is theirs and what isn't, they take what they want. He's tried to resist it, but he never stood a chance.

The Queen doesn't smile, but Sansa smiles for him. She laughs and kisses his face. She moans for him and whimpers his name on a broken sigh. He's acted out all of his foul, deprived dreams with her, and more, but still he can't get enough. He was raised as a Stark, so he knows it's wrong, but he's a bastard dragon, and that must be why it feels right.

[sansa-of-oldstones]

Jonsa Spring Challenge - Day 2: dialogue

I chose “Don’t make it weird.”

Part 2 of Marry Me Series

Part 1

Also on a03.

Sorry it’s a little late. My head hurt all day, and two certain characters got a bit carried away. NSFW, obviously.

@jonsa-creatives

-

It’s been hours since they went to the hotel tavern to wait for Sansa and her parents to finish discussing the end of Sansa’s engagement with her fiancé and his family. EX fiancé, Jon smiles, and sips his beer.

He had been so close to never knowing what those lips felt like against his own. Close to never knowing how smooth her skin is, and what it feels like have her body respond to his. It was intoxicating.

He’s looking forward to becoming thoroughly inebriated by Sansa, and is growing shamelessly impatient. He’d had a taste, and he desperately wants more.

He’d repressed his feelings for her for so long, they’re all bubbling to the surface. It’s a fucking nightmare, but not. It’s difficult to describe.

He prays to the old gods and the new that she’ll be up for continuing what they started earlier. She might not be, and that’s okay.

She might think it’s disrespectful to spend the night in another man’s bed hours after calling off a marriage, but that’s her call to make.

It’s just that he cannot get her out of his head. The sounds she was making. Her long legs and those shoes. He didn’t know he has a high heel kink, but he’s pretty sure he has a high heel kink. He resists the urge to text her, and ask her to wear the heels. Something is very wrong with him, and it started the second she kissed him. It flipped a switch, and he’s gone down a rabbit hole.

He busies himself playing pool. Theon is kicking his ass, but he doesn’t care. He’s just killing time until Sansa gets here.

“Jon!” Rickon grumbles, forcefully placing his bottle on the small table near them. “He just pushed the cue ball! You knock that shit off, Theon!”

“Make me.” Theon smirks, lifting his arms and the cue. “It isn’t my fault he’s distracted.”

Rickon squares up, and Theon backs off, realizing this is no longer the small boy they used to rough house with. Rickon is built like a damn NFL linebacker.

“That’s what I thought.” Rickon puffs out his chest. “Take your shot, Jonny.”

“How long could it take to call off an engagement?” Jon sighs, missing another shot.

“Knowing the Royces,” Robb shrugs, “we could be waiting for a while.”

“You don’t think she’d change her mind, do you?”

“That isn’t happening.” Robb reassures him. “She’s had her mind set on you for decades. She used to tell everyone she was going to marry you.”

Jon remembers this Sansa. She was all ribbons and curls then. She used to follow him and Robb around, and Jon didn’t mind. He enjoyed the company. He met her at Robb’s birthday party, but it was Sansa who commanded his attention.

“Do you like my dress?”

“I picked out these shoes!”

“I can do a cartwheel!”

Months later, she made him a card for his sixth birthday, that he still has. He’s never had very many friends, and she was the first person, besides his parents, that cared enough to make him something like that. When he asked her why she took the time to do it, she told him he’s her best friend. The feeling stuck with him.

He knows it doesn’t take much for a four-year-old to say you’re their best friend, but Sansa has proved the words to be true over the years. She’s always been there for him. When he totaled his car. When his mother was sick. Countless other times. Not that Robb wasn’t there for him. It’s just different.

He isn’t able to pinpoint the moment he realized his feelings are far from platonic, but it was sometime around his senior year of high school. She’d turned fifteen a few months earlier, and when she wore a purple bikini he’d never forget, he noticed. He’d always been fond of her, but that was when he started feeling things he worried he shouldn’t. He should have made a move when he took her to prom, or any other time they were alone.

Sansa walks into the tavern, and nothing else matters. He makes his way over to the bar while she orders a drink.

“How’d it go?” He eyes her carefully, trying to discern how she is feeling.

“Miserable.” She sighs, downing a shot. “I feel like the worst person on the entire planet.”

“You’re not.” He rubs between her shoulders, and with just that minimal contact, back down the rabbit hole he goes. He pushes a bit of her hair away to lean in a whisper. “Want to get out of here?”

He cannot believe himself. He’s embarrassed. He sounds like a fuckboy.

He will remember the look she gives him for the rest of his life. She surveys him up and down, narrows her eyes, and nods. It’s the damn sexiest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s eternally grateful his room is an elevator ride away. “Think we can sneak away without any of them noticing?”

“I doubt it.”

“Jon!” Theon shouts. “Are we playing or what?”

“I forfeit.” Jon waves, taking Sansa’s hand.

“Ow ow!” Rickon and Arya call obnoxiously. “Bow chicka bow wow.”

“It’s about fucking time!” Bran joins in.

“Here’s to my room being nowhere near yours!” Robb holds up his pint glass.

“Don’t make it weird.” Jon hears Margaery beg Robb before Sansa leads him out into the lobby.

They don’t make it to the elevator. They find a secluded corner, and pick up where they left off. He hasn’t felt this way, ever. His mouth is all over her body. The parts that aren’t under her dress, anyway. His hand takes care of those that are, for now. He can’t wait to take off the silky panties he feels getting wetter and wetter. He considers not waiting. She starts to moan, and he kisses her, deep and slow, to muffle the sound. No matter how much he loves it, other people hearing her was probably a bad idea.

“This is a bad idea.” He laughs, breathless.

“What?” She looks hurt, and he realizes why. She thinks he means they’re a bad idea, not groping each other in public.

“Doing this here is a bad idea.” He clarifies, and she is relieved. He squeezes her hand, and they find their way to the elevator.

“You’re a tease.” She groans, and he kisses her. A soft kiss. A I’m so happy this is finally happening kiss.

“Says the one who used to prance around in her bikinis.”

“I should feel offended and objectified,” Sansa sighs, “but I used to ogle you without your shirt on all the time.”

“You can tease and ogle me all you want.”

She tugs at his shirt, and kisses him until they arrive at his floor. His room is blissfully close to the elevator. They find it quickly.

He closes the door with his foot, and she pulls his shirt over his head. She admires his upper body, grazing his skin with her fingertips, and he slips the panties he wanted gone while they were in the lobby down her legs. She unzips his pants, and he kicks them and his shoes off. He slides the dress off, and his hands and mouth explore her body as they fall onto the bed. Her lacy bra does not stay on long. His hand finds her clit, and he eagerly licks and sucks her breasts and nipples.

Each moan and sigh send him closer to the edge. He’s nearly sent over the edge when she slips his cock from his boxer-briefs, and starts moving her hand agonizingly slow up and down the shaft. He takes her hand, placing it above her head. He bends her legs, and positions himself to so he’s able to properly do what he’s wanted to do all night. He’s gotten quite a few complements on his skill, and he’s hoping to have Sansa screaming very soon. He starts slow. If she was going to call him a tease, he’d show her a tease. She quickly changes his pace, pulling his hair, and bucking her hips against his tongue. His fingers dig into her ass as she climaxes, and he smirks up at her.

He lays next to her, and she pulls his boxer-briefs down, keen to return the favor. She does, and he’s barely conscious when she’s finished.

He massages and kisses as much of her body as he can for a long while. She straddles him, sliding his cock into her folds. She rolls back and forth, and Jon leans up to take one of her nipples in his mouth again.

“Jon...” The cry is too much for him to handle, and he pushes her down onto the mattress. He thrusts into her, and they both find their release for the second time of many that night.

-

I do not usually write smut. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but they got carried away, and I went with it. So, that’s why this took forever. Also, tumblr was being a pain in the ass when I tried to post. I’ll try to post part 4 in a timely manner.

[lunaathorne]

I'm still shook like this Twitter user @/weirwoodthrone (if anyone knows her/his Tumblr please tell me) made a list of some personal favourite Jonsa reads, with beautiful moodboards for each fic. And I see two moodboards, and read the summaries and I'm like "Wowza I've read this fic it sounds so familiar,"...... and then my DUMBASS realises welp, those are my fics!!!! (Fics in question were Reverdie and Belles-Letres, written for the Spring Blossom challenge!)

It may sound silly and hysterical, but I'm so grateful to all the Jonsa fam who read my works and make such pretty edits or leave comments, because I'm not the best at writing fics OR making edits, and I look up to so many in this part of our fandom, and to know I've touched you enough for you to do something like that......I swear I'm crying!!! Sorry for sounding ditzy, it's the truth!!