#I like to think Tris and Theon adopt her

[dontbotherwiththepronunciation]

Hi!

I loved everything you already shared about the poll with us. I would be super interested if you could share some of the ideal endgame scenarios people envisioned and if they correlated with other aspects(specifically ship preference and liking house Stark)

Hi! I am extremely sorry for how long this has taken. Things have been busy and this took more time than I thought it would. In all truth there weren't that many correlations when it came to ship and preference. My biggest surprises were that both, in the Iron Islands and the North, people would prefer him to be in a non-ruling position, that the option "At the Wall" was so popular, and that the option of him becoming Bran's prophet was shown a lot more love than what I usually perceive in fandom.

To be honest I think this was the most entertaining ask I've gotten about the survey and it was nice to embark on a slightly more complex mini-project.

Other data for reference: The overall House Stark score out of the 109 people (that is counting my irls) who gave a punctuation was of ~6,22/10

Also fun enough out of the 1/10 voters six of them were my Stark-hating irls whom I dearly love for their extremist tendencies/j jdsghfjsdhf

Numbers regarding most and least liked ships (including my irls):

Also, once again, this is a mix of interpretations and ideas and please be mindful of not publicly shaming someone who can't defend themselves. If I could keep the bitterness down so can you. Bitch about it with your mutuals and friends (also me if you really need someone) but don't go around publicly mocking those who were kind enough to offer me their insight.

Shipping, pro/anti-House Stark views and other tendencies in preferred endgames:

King/Lord of the Iron Islands

Average House Stark score was of ~5,0/10 and surprisingly Thenye and Greysnow people were more present in this group (9/13 Greysnows and 10/23 Theynes) while the rest were lacking (8/46 throbbs, 3/14 thamsays, 1/10 theonsas and two other voters didn't pick any ships. Book vs Show people were distributed proportionately although when it came to themes, people who chose Nr. 4 Suffering, redemption vs irredeemability, accountability over past misdeeds were more inclined to pick this option (17/23 counting my irls).

hmphhhh…difficult things here. i know what i dont want but......was it you tereshkova who said satisfaction doesnt know its own shape, or was it đặng? nothing new you already know my ideas. more than anything id like to see him in environments that are stressful but emotionally cathartic. you told me about the fandom-cottage thing and….naaaahhhhh…i dont like it. if he has to have a life of idleness id want that to be unsatisfactory for him. i think having him as an advisor or ruler in the islands is still my favourite endgame but only if hes allowed to do things. his time with the starks and the boltons might make him reflect on ironborn culture and his own (exaggerated) views on it. politically he could try to adopt a more centrist position on old-new-way and hopefully make some reforms about the rape culture and thralldom. i want him to go on long walks at the beach late at night with jeyne, falia, wex, qarl and tris. i think he deserves real friends. oh and i want him to kill ramsay. rip you and your christian dogma but im different.

Puppet King/Lord of the Iron Islands

Average House Stark score of ~6,1/10 with no strong shipping preferences. Asha wasn't in the top 5 POV characters of many, but most of those who picked her were also inclined to this possible endgame, which I found curious and those who were particularly interested in many Theon & Greyjoy relationships were also majorly present in this group.

Non-ruling position in the Iron Islands

No tendencies at all. This answer was picked by more than half of those who responded the question and it was a complete mix when it came to ships and themes of interest. Something that was quite shocking to me though was House Stark's average score of ~8,9/10.

At the Wall

I would have expected Greysnow people to be more fond of this option yet only 6/13 picked it and it somehow still managed to be the second most popular one. The average score for House Stark was a high one too, ~8,4/10, and in all truth there weren't many remarkable things perhaps with that this group was composed mostly of people who first engaged with the books before the show (36/53), which was uncommon compared to the other answers and that half of the thramsay shippers (7/14) also picked this option.

Exiled/in Essos

There wasn't anything disproportionate when it came to ships but a tendency I found interesting was how many of the TCK's (11/15, counting my irls) were fond of this concept. This is also one of the few subsets in which Daenerys found a warmer welcome compared to Sansa (who was still loved but had less sympathisers than usual). The House Stark score had an average of ~4,9/10, which was lower than I'd have expected, and 17/26 voters (≈ 65,3%) were of the mind Theon could have adapted to the Iron Islands while only 6/26 (≈ 23%) were against that concept.

Bro I can’t fathom how you're twisting and turning with this question kkkkkkk (ノ_<。)ヾ(´ ▽ ` ) Purely wish-fulfilment and only wish-fulfilment I’d want him to go somewhere where the title of perpetual stranger won’t contradict his own perception of self. Somewhere where he can only be considered as a stranger but it won’t clash with a false sense of home. We’ve discussed Braavos and you made me curious with your talk of Lorath as places of escapism that are thematically meaningful and rehab and therapy away from war and toxic people would do him well. AND HE HAS TO TAKE JEYNE WITH HIM HE PROMISED HE PROMISED HE HAS TO KEEP ONE FUCKING PROMISE IN HIS LIFE

Advisor/Hand/Servant in Winterfell

House stark average score of ~7,2/10, responders were also fond of him staying in a non-ruling position in the North (23/26 voters picked that option too). This time there was a strong current of shippers: 14/26 voters picked throbb as their preferred ship (~30,4% of all throbb people) and 7/26 voters picked theonsa (=70% of all theonsa people). Unlike the previously mentioned option, it was Sansa who had the most sympathisers here with Daenerys being perceived as a villain by 7/26 of the voters and six being alright with her possible descent into madness. Sansa however had 15/26 voters rooting for her to become Queen in the North and only 4/26 voters being accepting of darker twists in her storyline.

Non-ruling position in the North

This is the group that gave the highest scores to House Stark and so we come to an average of ~9,2/10. Throbb were very much in the lead here (22/37) and surprisingly there was a concept that was often repeated by the throbb people who picked this option involving Theon staying in the North somewhere in a cottage in a semi-delusional state of mind and regularly hallucinating Robb as a positive presence in his life. Some mentioned Asha, Wex and/or Sansa as people who visited him but for some reason Jeyne was never included although the answers came from people who claimed to have read the books. Here's an example:

Someone had this post on tumblr where he gets to heal in a cottage in the North and lives alone but for Wex who takes care of him and Robb who is still dead but Theon hallucinates him and the two finally get to be in love and happy but he's not real and theon is lying to himself because not having robb at his side would make life unbearable how is he supposed to move on without him? how can he be happy when the only person who truly loved him is gone because of him? Sansa visits him and she is warm and kind and plays along because she understands his pain

Prophet of the Drowned God

I was mostly just surprised that it was such a popular option given how I haven't seen it explored a lot in the current fandom. Theon's religious arc is a personal point of interest for me since it mirrors Aeron's but I rarely see the fandom taking it into account. The House Stark average score reached ~6,5/10 and prefered ships were distributed properly. This whoever was the only case in which the Theon & Aeron and Theon & Euron relationships were picked more often than Theon & Alannys, still lower than Asha but significantly more popular in this group.

Sadly there weren't any answers that expanded on this more, but this possibility caught my attention.

he is the drowned God (i’m joking but am i)

Bran's Prophet

Average House Stark score of ~5,7/10 which was slightly below the total average. There weren't any strong shipping preferences although it was not surprsing but remarkable to see almost all those who had Bran as one of their favourite POV characters (9/10) pick this while only 4/10 were fond of the "Dies for the Starks/Bran" option. A majority of of those who picked this option got to interact with the books before the show (30/47).

Theon finding his place at bran's side, and bran forgiving him for his misdeeds. But i need it at the ultimate snail's pace.

Dies for the Starks/Bran

Only three out of the voters also marked the option of him becoming King/Lord of the Iron Islands, the vast majority preferred throbb as a ship (16 out of this subset.about ~34,7% of all throbb shippers) and the overall House Stark ranking was of ~7,1/10. Overall many on this subset rejected the idea that he could have fit into the Iron Islands had he returned sooner or never been taken and a surprising number explained that an endgame they'd loath would be him getting into a ruling position.

i don't want him to be given a position of honor or power. he is a fundamentally changed character who is highly traumatized and disabled both mentally and physically as well as being haunted by the ghosts of his past. there is no possible way for it to make sense that he is given power over a sheep farm let alone a kingdom

Dies by Stannis' hand

Sadly nothing really remarkable. No disproportionate shipping tendencies and an average score for House Stark of ~5,7/10. Those who chose this option weren't majorly from any specific demographies or tended to choose a specific option for themes. Slightly disappointing since I was curious. I did however find it interesting that out of those who chose this option, everyone also picked the "At the wall" possibility.

Stannis is going to kill him and I've made my peace with that.

Dies by Ramsay's hand

Not many strong tendencies. The House Stark score was on an average of 5,6/10 and out of the people who picked this alternative only 2/8 were thramsay people. The rest were two throbs, one theyne, one theonsa and the other two didn't pick any preferred ships. Opinions on House Stark differed greatly although in this case it wasn't tied to ships and the throbb and theonsa people gave it rather low ratings. Something that picked my attention is how the eight people here were also inclined to choose "Dies a traitor's death" as a possibility they'd be content with. Thematically I can imagine why but it still was surprising to me.

Dies heroically and publicly redeemed

Average House Stark score of ~5,8/10. There weren't any strong shipping tendencies. It didn't even strongly contrast with the "Dies a traitor's death with only a few people remembering him fondly" option since 10 of it's voters would have also been content with that option. There wasn't anything noticeable when it came to preferred themes either.

Dies a traitor's death with only a few people remembering him fondly

A significant number (11/14≈ 78% ) of thramsay shippers picked this option and the average score of House Stark in this subset was of ~3,1/10. Very fun for me to observe, I didn't think this option would show any clear tendencies but it did. When it came to chosen themes there was something interesting going on. Nr.3 (the most chosen one out of all voters) was only chosen three times by people who picked this possibility although there wasn't a clear preference for another specific set of themes.

It would feel deeply wrong to me if he died heroically and was lauded after his death. It feels like so much of his story is about accountability and living with your mistakes/regrets and and ending like that would completely undermine that message. I also hate the idea of him being in some sort of position serving the Starks because feeling beholden to them was the source of so much of his discontent and issues to begin with. I think the most satisfying ending would be one where Theon gets to be his own person, not who anyone else wants or expects him to be.

Here are some of the wish fulfilment answers that I am allowed to quote and either proposed less common endings or expanded on the common ones in case you are curious. The question on the survey was:

What would be your ideal Theon endgame? You can list more than one concept/scenario. It can be as unrealistic as you want. This is pure wish fulfilment.

listen i just want him to kill ramsay it'll be satisfying

Away! Free cities! Go live and be free, my beautiful damaged honeybee

Half of his ashes are buried with Robb and the rest are thrown in the sea

Asha's hand on the Iron Islands or in the wild north like Jon in the show

I'd like him to survive, but I'd like him to strike out as a common man. I'd enjoy it if he could abandon his noble origins and just be Theon.

Theon living a simple life in the North, maybe by the coast. Asha comes to visit sometimes. He can't use a bow anymore but he has a sweet old horse to keep him company.

him fighting at winterfell against the others and dying. history remembering his terrible deeds but the people who knew him remembering his acts of kindness and bravery.

i really want him to be a kind of diplomat between the iron islands and the north, moving between the two families and homes he has ever known. finally being a greyjoy and a stark

made to take the black, living out the rest of his days on the wall unrecognizable and quietly introspective, ignoring the imminent magic war. or some sort of prophet/mouthpiece of the old gods.

My ideal scenario is that Sansa is queen in the north, Asha is queen of the iron isles. Sansa/Theon is a purely political marriage alliance with Theon getting to live in Winterfell with Jeyne living there as well, and he gets to heal from trauma.

Puppet king or not even a king (but either way, Asha did use him with his consent so she could take the Seastone Chair), living in the Iron Islands. Healing, maybe with Jeyne, perhaps not. Not sure he seeks fatherhood, may be satisfied as an uncle. Possibly a prophet/diplomat to Bran's court on the Isle of Faces.

As horrible as this may sound considering he is my favorite character, I do wish that by the end of the series he's dead. Not in TWOW yet and definitely not by being executed by Stannis. I can't really say how I wished it would happen. The show version doesn't really feel exactly right for book Theon, but I still think it'd have something to do with Bran.

Get the guy to a place where he can belong. Get him to a place where he can have agency, and a purpose that he stands behind. Get him to a place where he can heal and recover as much as possible. I can also see him taking on a mentor role for children of some sort, seeing as he's haunted by the ones he killed/ordered to have killed to be placed as fBran and fRickon

I truly have no idea. Hair grows in black again 😂. Um vibing with Jon on the wall, or if Jon's not on the wall being some advisor or something for him. He could do something with Asha too. I'd like for him to talk with bran cuz it seems they've almost spoken through trees and such. I guess I'd be content if Theon was content I don't know what that looks like for him

I think it would be great if he died in a way that made him feel heroic but he was not remembered heroically. Maybe a death no one else knew about but which saved lives etc. I'd like to have someone offhandedly mention finding his body (ideally not even knowing who he is) and burying him an an unmarked grave. Nameless and landless for all eternity, not even the king of his own resting place.

My ideal Theon endgame is him returning to the Iron Islands eventually, and facing his sister/Euron again/at least once. I want his arc to entwine with Aeron's somehow, and I want more interaction with his seemingly prophetic abilities. I don't think I'd want him to stay in the Iron Islands, though. I'd like it if he eventually travelled abroad/was exiled to Essos, or another land removed from the conflict. Puppet king Theon with Asha is also great!

Idk tbh. My ideal endgame is he escapes with Robb when they are kids and go live in dorne or something lol Hmm. Actually tho. I think I would be very happy with him joining the free folk somehow. Becoming besties with mance. And then the white walkers end up being a physical manifestation of their society’s disconnection with nature and magic and suppression of different ways of life. And the free folk + bran + Daenerys, missandrei and co end up being instrumental in helping the threat end without reproducing even more violence. And Theon gets a wonderful wildling husband or wife and lives happily ever after cjvghxh

Maybe as Sansa’s king consort ? I think with all her shit marriage, this one would be her endgame, he would sometimes advise her and would aid Yara to make her peace known through the Iron Islands, maybe he would take a summer isle in Essos where he and his Queen could rest from time to time, leaving Winterfell under Jon’s command and they eventually retire there and die of old age back in the North where they belonged : Theon would die as : Theon Greyjoy Stark, King Consort of the North, Prince of Pike and the Iron Wolf. And how great it would be if Winterfell became a home to parent less children or batards, all children of Queen Sansa and King consort Theon

Alive, his hair grows in black again, he spends his life travelling across the Kingdoms for various propaganda purposes and makes meaningful connections with people of many ilks. Seer Theon who connects with the Gods of all places. Occasionally he returns to places that are significant to him as a matter of routine (the Iron Islands etc) and sees people he once knew. They're all older and scarred and only able to spend so much time in each other's company before the Pain sets in but they enjoy the spurts of connection they have. I would like to see Theon managing his chronic pain relatively successfully. The idea of him having a bastard from the before times is also appealing to me

I don't know!! I kind of hate them all. All my happy endings require no ramsay, and I don't want that. I think I'd want to know more about his post ramsay health and body to inform the answer... I'd like Asha to rule the iron Islands I think. I don't want theon to serve the starks. I don't want him to rule anything. Sometimes I think I want him to retire in a cottage but that's so sad. Consigned to a life of retirement and isolation at age 20 simply because of disability and trauma? Fuck that. I know people could visit him in the cottage but idk man. I want the narrative to leave him alone, but I want hope. He can't die. I don't need or even want him to have prestige, just security. He is 20 years old! He has his entire life ahead of him!! I really have no idea my friend.

I want him to live AND be FREE. He’s been stuck between options, he can choose one or the other or not choose at all and be punished either way - he must be given the agency he has always lacked. It could be an ending that a lot of characters need or deserve but for me: that’s Theon’s ending. After his arc it’s the one that suits him most. Like…. him realising that he struggled so much because he never knew what he really wanted, that he strived for something that would never satiate him, would never work out. And for all he’s been through and committed I can’t see him in a ruling position, or being another servant. No I want him to escape from all that. I want him to live, free to come to terms with his guilt and his suffering and that he survived his life being ruined, he survived death which means he should get to choose his new life

I would love to see him in power honestly, taking the lessons he learned and applying them. Will they be good? what has he learned about arrogance, cruelty and power? would he make a good leader? or would he just be repulsed by all those things? has he learned the right lessons? he has done a very brave and morally righteous thing but will he keep doing it in more complicated scenarios? what role hed play in saving the world from the ice zombies? would he help bran? Wouldn't it be awesome to see what he would do in the iron islands? how he would help it's people? will he keep on saving Jeyne? what will be their relationship? will probably never see any of this but something I'd really really like is that "no more fucks left to give" and "smiling through torture and broken teeth" attitude theon has on the sample chapter, seeing him interact with Asha and Jeyne would be amazing. Maybe even Dagmar and his mom...

Hmm. Some position of influence/power on the Islands (Lord Commander of the Iron Fleet, Asha’s Hand, co-ruler with Asha, something like that) and general social integration (having respect from people generally as well as managing to re-connect with old friends/acquaintances or making new ones to where he has a genuine social support network that’s not just 1 or 2 people). In my dreams, he’s also managed to recover/heal from his trauma and injuries both physically and mentally/emotionally to the furthest extent even remotely realistically possible. Which would still likely leave him with some PTSD/anxiety/etc issues but ideally at a highly manageable level and ideally his physical injuries would be compensated for as much as possible (perhaps even with some help from fantasy-magic-healing-that-mimics-modern-medicine lol) so he can still participate in normal activities from archery to dancing to fucking eating, even if with some unavoidable limitations/issues. (His hair is growing in black again after a while, you can fight me.) He’s got a close and mostly-functional relationship with Asha. I’m a little less hung up on the romantic aspect here, but if we’re talking like 100% wish fulfillment of the fuzziest sort… Married to Jeyne and still capable of procreating a child (even if they gotta get a bit creative about it), and Asha names said child her heir. (Listen. You said pure wish fulfillment was acceptable so…)

(if the last person I quoted here reads this: I am very happy you took me by my word. The more wish fulfilment people wrote for this question the better this was for my understandings!)

Also, if anyone has any other questions please feel free to send them. This took longer than usual because I was recently visited by a friend and there were some other personal impediments, but I try to get to them as fast as I can.

[barbreypilled]

I was looking through one of my old notebooks for blank sheets bc my city is still in lockdown and I can’t go to midoco but I found this drawing of Jeyne and R*msay’s hypothetical daughter from like May/June-ish and I thought she was kind of cute her name is Sansa Greyjoy she is rly rly sweet but she has those freaky ass Bolton eyes anyway

[daenystheedreamer]

on my theon kinnie bullshit again... anyway theon and asha rent a shitty apartment together and theon brings home these ugly little stray cats all the time and is like 👁👁 his name is bartholemeow the third.... asha look he’s so wet and cold and sad and she’s all -_- theon the landlord is going to kick us out and skin them alive but she lets him keep them for a while and then forces tris and qarl to adopt them

[mariedemedicis]

i still maintain that we would feel a lot different about balon if grrm had decided to have asha’s povs begin before balon died

[megsironthrone]

Meg’s Game of Tales: Tale 7; Part 2

*Familiar Characters are NEVER mine! Based on the original tale of Hans Christian Andersen. I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!!!* Here is part 1

Warnings: Part 2/2, Little Mermaid AU, angst, magic, fluff

Pairing: Theon Greyjoy x fem!reader

You felt light-headed as you sank down onto the ground, the warm sand digging into your new legs slightly. Gasps escaped your mouth, but you smiled through them. Melisandre's spell had worked and you now had human legs and the chance to meet the man you had saved. Still, something seemed off. You glanced down at yourself and it didn't take you long to realize it. All the humans you'd seen before had their bodies covered, much like your normal shells covered your top. You needed clothes.

         Glancing around, your eyes landed on what looked like a part of the ship that had broken apart in the storm. It felt a bit like clothing so you picked it up and wrapped it around yourself, tying the rope around you to secure the fabric against your body just as you heard voices approaching you. You ducked out of sight on shaking legs. Two voices met your ears.

         "I'm telling you, Robb, she was real. And the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. From what I could see from in the dark." You peeked out from behind you hiding place and held back a gasp of delight. There he was! He was walking alongside another male with curly auburn hair. He was beautiful too, but the first was who you'd done this for. "I think you hit your head too hard, Theon."

         As excitement coursed through you, you moved before you could stop yourself. Both men stopped short upon seeing you. They stared openly for a moment then a smile stretched over the lips of the man you'd rescued. Theon. "Hello!" You smiled at him and he asked your name. You tried to answer him only to be reminded that you had no voice. This just got a whole lot more difficult.

*time skip*

         Two days. Two beautiful days had passed and you were in love. Theon was confident and could be charming and funny. He paid close attention to you, even taking you around the kingdom. He talked a lot about himself, his kingdom, and his adopted family that lived in a kingdom across the sea. Not that you minded that he talked so much. After all, it wasn't as if you could speak in return and clearly Theon did not like awkward silences much. You did your best to make your feelings known and had hope that you would actually get the kiss you needed(and wanted) before the three days were up. That is until the morning of the third day.

         You came down from your room with a smile on your face. Theon had planned a feast for that night and you were hoping to entice him into a kiss so you could confess your feelings when you got your voice back. That thought was enough to get you out of bed early and heading down to the kitchens. However, you stopped in your tracks when you saw the redhead hanging off Theon's arm.

         "Y/N, good morning!" Theon greeted, "I would like to introduce you to Roz. This is the woman that saved me." Your eyes darted to the woman who gave you a fake smile. You returned the gesture before looking back at Theon. The next words out of his mouth had you near tears. "We're to be married. Tonight." You tried to keep the smile on your face, but got out of there as soon as you could.

         You were still several feet from your room when you ran into a solid wall. "Are you alright?" Your eyes met Robb's and you tried to nod. You liked Robb. He was sweet and was visiting Theon from his own kingdom so you got to know him as well. "No you aren't." You shrugged a bit and Robb smiled a little.

         "It's her, isn't it? Roz?" You watched him warily. While you liked him, you weren't sure if your admission would get back to Theon. "I don't like her for him either. I know she isn't the one he's been looking for." You could practically feel your body getting lighter and your eyes getting brighter. Robb chuckled softly. "It was you, wasn't it?" You nodded eagerly.

         "Then I will help you. I think you're good for Theon. You make him stop and think before making rash decisions. Well except for this one." Robb linked one of his arms with yours, making you turn back the way you came. "Now, come along. We have a wedding to stop."

         You followed Robb through the halls of the castle in search of Theon. The two of you tried all day to get him away from Roz to no avail. She was stuck to him like a limpet to rock. By the end of the day, you were losing hope. As the sky began to darken, tears came to your eyes. Robb noticed and hugged you. "It'll be alright. Let's get to the ship. That's where the wedding is taking place. He won't be able to get away from us, alright?" You nodded.

         As soon as the two of you set foot on the ship, your eyes met those of Roz. You wanted to cry until you glanced next to her. At that, your eyes widened in fear and rage. Melisandre! You should have known Roz was merely a pawn. Melisandre had planned to sacrifice you to her god from the very beginning and she would do whatever necessary to make sure you failed. You were furious and made to confront her. The only thing that stopped you was Robb appearing again at your elbow. He flashed them both a smile.

         While the three of them made small talk, you glanced at the necklace laying on Melisandre's neck. Something about it called out to you. You looked into the jewel. It was different. Inside the gem, there was something swirling around. Magic, most likely.

         Theon approached the four of you, momentarily distracting you from your curiosity. You smiled at him before you caught sight of the sun getting lower in the sky behind Melisandre. Not quite sunset yet, but getting close. The wedding was about to start. You were almost out of time. Once again, your gaze was pulled to the necklace and suddenly, a brilliant albeit mad, idea popped into your head.

         You'd have to be quick, but something told you that if got the necklace from Melisandre, you could spoil her plans and maybe get your voice back. With that in mind, you took a step and pretended to trip on your dress. As you fell, you grabbed for the necklace. You nearly cried in relief when you heard it snapping from her neck.

         No sooner did you have the jewelry in your hand did you feel the magic flowing through you. Gasps were heard from everyone but no one was louder than you. Your voice instantly came pouring from your lips as you laughed. You looked up with a grin and nearly fell over.

         In the place of the beautiful sea witch you had known stood an haggard old woman. You watched in horror as her legs began changing back to their true form. Men and women alike started to scream and your eyes found Theon's. He looked confused.

         "Where am I?" You laughed again and launched yourself at him. "Theon!" He let out a noise of surprise as he wrapped his arms around you to keep you both from falling. "Y-You're speaking!" You pulled back a little and nodded. "Yes. And I have so much to tell you. I was the one who saved you. She," you stated, glaring at Roz, "Is merely an instrument of that creature there."

         Theon looked between you and Roz for a moment. Roz too looked confused. It was clear Melisandre had used her magic on them both. "Theon," you said again, getting his attention, "I need you to do something for me." He gave a nod. "Ki-" Before the words could be spoken, you gasped in pain.

         "You're too late. The Lord of Light demands his sacrifice," the now creaky, raspy voice of Melisandre spoke. Suddenly, your legs would no longer hold you. You felt yourself sinking to the deck of the ship. To your horror, your legs were gone, replaced once more by your tail.

         Without warning, Melisandre grabbed you and dove back into the sea. She moved much more quickly than an old woman should. Theon's cries became muffled as you were swallowed by the waters you'd once called home. Your heart sank knowing that, this time, there would be no coming back. It was all over.

            You shot up from the bed with a gasp. Bubbles escaped your mouth for a few moments while you took in your surroundings. "What is it?" came the rough morning voice of your husband. You glanced at the crystal eyes gazing sleepily at you from underneath his mop of curly hair. "I had the strangest dream. It felt so real, Theon. We were both humans!" You laid your body back on his and proceeded to tell him the rest of your dream as your tails wrapped around each other and the rest of the sea began to wake all around you.

(a/n: I hope this was worth wait! That’s it! Meg’s Game of Tales is officially, finally, finished! Thank you all for reading and for following!)

Tag: @eddiemunsonswife21​

[cellsshapedlikestars]

Hello!

I love all your work so much and I saw that you were going to be taking a break from your Bachelor universe so I wanted to throw some prompts your way to maybe help get some other creative juices flowing *waggles eyebrows*

1) switched at birth AU

2) Everyone already knows their dating AU

3) Law and Order (SVU AU)

4) you’ve got mail AU

Thank you anon, I'm glad you like my writing!

Now that I've finished my Bach fic, I've been at a bit of a loss what I want to do next. Maybe it's because I'm all out of new ideas, maybe it's because work has been absolutely hectic, but my creative brain is completely empty. So I figured, why not try to do one of these prompts?

Here's the thing: I have never seen SVU or You've Got Mail. And I'm pretty sure Switched at Birth is also a TV show I have never seen? When I saw "everyone already knows" my immediate thought was "oh! like in Friends!" but then I remembered I have absolutely read that fic somewhere?? Like someone already wrote that for Jonsa. (I tried to find it again but have had no luck.)

So I chose switched at birth as a concept - I'm not sure if you meant the TV show or not, but I just wrote whatever popped into my brain.

A warning: this turned out a bit more angsty than I intended, and isn't necessarily Jonsa? It is if you squint. A few other notes, Alayne is a completely separate person from Sansa, Lysa is not related to Catelyn, and Baelish never knew Catelyn either. Sorry if it's confusing and/or not at all what you were looking for!

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Sansa feels as if the world has dropped out from beneath her.

They all sit in the drawing room of what she can only describe as a mansion (and she knows that next to her, Father is likely seething. This is the kind of money he aspires to, but will never be able to reach. He will never have a name. Father is a Baelish, he could never be a Stark.)

She stares at the family sitting opposite and her heart sticks in her throat at the sight of them – the mother, the three sons, they all have the same copper hair that she does and she swallows against the rising tears.

This is what she could have had, she thinks as she averts her eyes, but she only manages to catch sight of the family portrait above the mantel. A father, a mother, siblings. She could have had all of this, if not for the slip-up of an overworked, underpaid nurse sixteen years ago. She could have been Alayne Stark. Instead she is Sansa Baelish.

Switched at birth.

Alayne sits with her family (that should be Sansa's family), and she doesn't look as out of place as she should. Her dark hair matches Mr. Stark's – matches the other daughter, Arya. Alayne fits right in.

Sansa sits with Father (no, not her father; the man who raised her) on the opposite couch and wonders if her Mother (no, not her mother) had known, somehow. Is that why Mother had always been so cruel to her? Why she always seemed to hate Sansa for reasons she could never figure out? Perhaps Mother had known, somehow, that Sansa wasn't hers. Sansa remembers reading fairy stories of Changelings – how the mother would know, insist the child wasn't hers, how no one ever believed her. Is that why Mother threw herself off the roof all those years ago?

“Well this is fucking awkward,” the girl, Arya, mutters, and it breaks the silence as Mr. Stark sighs and presses a hand over his face and Mrs. Stark begins to scold her for her language and impropriety. Sansa watches Alayne laugh, and she feels more than ever like an intruder. She may share the Stark blood, but it seems as if Alayne and Arya are more alike than not. And by the way the brothers are trying to hide their own laughter, it seems Alayne fits in with all of them.

Perhaps it wasn't a mistake to switch them, Sansa thinks bitterly. Perhaps the Starks are better for having Alayne.

….

She is forced to get to know the Stark family, though she does not think she wants to. She doesn't want to look at their life and wish it could have been hers – wish that Ned Stark with his kind eyes and calm voice could have been her father. Wish that Catelyn Stark with her smiles and her freshly baked cookies could have been her mother. Wish that she could have been surrounded by siblings and dogs and even two strange psuedo-adopted-but-not-really brothers that she meets later on named Jon and Theon. The Stark household is chaotic and confusing and Sansa tells herself she would have hated growing up here.

….

She isn't surprised to find that she's not sad Father isn't her real father. In fact, there's a sort of joy inside her that when she turns eighteen, she can be free of him. He is still her legal guardian, the courts have decided, but she has less than two years before she is free and they aren't actually related and so she doesn't have to feel guilty about her dreams of leaving him.

It grows inside her as the weeks and months go by – a hatred she has never truly let herself feel before. She hates him, despises him. She always has.

Catelyn Stark is insistent on getting to know her because Sansa is her daughter, but Sansa can tell that Father has no real desire to get to know his own real daughter. He does not care about Alayne – no, what he cares about is ingratiating himself into the Stark family. She wonders if the Starks can see it like she can. She hopes not – she doesn't want them to think she's only coming to these weekly meetings for their money and their name.

In all honestly, she's not actually sure why she keeps coming to these meetings. All they do is remind her that the Starks will never truly be her family. All they do is highlight how much Father cares about social climbing. These meetings are painful and every week when she finally gets home and takes a shower and gets into her pajamas and climbs into bed, she sobs into her pillow for what could have been.

…

“You know the party's inside, right?”

Sansa startles out of her reverie and whirls around, heart pounding, to find Jon Snow standing behind her, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket.

It's Christmas and the snow is thick on the ground and she's shivering in the thin wrap that she came outside with, her coat in a closet where Mrs. Stark had taken it hours earlier.

“Are you allowed to be smoking?” she asks instead of answering and he laughs, pulling one out of the pack and placing it between his lips.

“I'm eighteen,” he shrugs, speaking around the cigarette dangling out of his mouth. His hands come up and he lights it, with one cupped around the end against the cold winter wind.

“I can't imagine Mrs. Stark approves of smoking,” she sniffs, then shakes her head no when Jon holds the pack out to her in offering. She watches his mouth twitch into a smile for a moment, like he knew she wouldn't take one, before putting the pack back in his coat pocket.

“Seems you don't approve, either.”

“Well, I am her daughter.” She says it and means it to be a joke, but the words come out soft and it wavers at the end.

Jon watches her for a moment, then unzips his coat and shrugs it off and holds it out to her and she stares at it blankly, her mind not processing the gesture. He shakes the coat, like he's insisting she take it and she finally does, slipping it on and then closing her eyes at the immediate warmth of it.

“I get it,” Jon says after a while, when he's halfway down to the filter, clouds of smoke drifting up into the night sky. “I mean, not exactly, I'm not sure there's anyone who can understand... you know-” he gestures at her. “But I get what's it's like - to be a Stark, but not. They practically raised me, but I'm not... I'll never actually be one of them.”

“I used to read fairytales,” she admits, turning her face from him because it's easier to talk into the dark, snow-covered landscape than him. “About secret princesses, and the king and queen were always so happy to have their daughter back. In the stories, there was never another princess who already took her place. Who fit in better.”

Alayne is a perfect Stark, she thinks. Over the months, she's seen it – how Alayne plays football and hockey with her brothers and sisters, makes jokes that Sansa would never. She's nothing like Sansa, who always preferred reading poetry to playing outside, with perfect manners and perfect posture. Cold and reserved. She wishes she were more like Alayne – more like a Stark.

She hears Jon sigh and take one last drag of the cigarette before he puts it out in the snow. “You're a lot like Cat, you know,” he says finally, and she feels something twist painfully in her chest. “And Bran. I mean, I don't know you that well, I guess, but...”

She shakes her head because he's wrong. She's nothing like any of the Starks (though she's not a Baelish, either). Jon sighs again, louder this time, with more annoyance.

“You are,” he insists, and she finally turns to face him again and opens her mouth to argue, but he gets there first. “You'd see it if you let yourself. If you actually tried. Cat's... Cat is trying so hard. You should see how she gets before you come over. Everyone is freaking out about it but you won't even try to get to know them. And I might not get how you feel, but Alayne? Have you even tried to talk to her?”

That painful twist in her chest tightens, it swoops down into her belly and up into her throat. “I am-”

“Like I said, I can't imagine how it feels, you know? And I'm sure it's a lot, and you're allowed to feel how you feel, but the Starks are... they want you here, I promise. But if you don't want to be, if you don't want them in your life, maybe this should all stop, cause it's hurting them and I think it's hurting you. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to force it if it's not what you want.”

Her mind is blank, she can't think of a single argument, though she wants to argue. She wants to say that Alayne hasn't tried talking to her, either. She wants to insist that she is trying, but... but she's not. Not really. She's holding herself at a distance, she's already decided she doesn't belong.

“What if they don't like me?” The words slip out of her, unbidden, her voice barely a whisper. It wavers in the dark. (Her deepest fear – that if she lets them get close to her, they'll decide she isn't worth it, that they don't want her.)

She's not sure what response she was expecting, but it's not for Jon to smile – he does, gives her a little half smile and raises his shoulders in a shrug. “I don't know you that well yet, but so far I like you just fine. And I'm not even a Stark.”

“You seem like a Stark,” she tells him, and watches something flicker across his face and she doesn't know him well enough yet to tell what it is.

“I'm not actually related,” he says, though she already knows this. “Not by blood or anything.” For a moment he brings his hand up to rub at the back of his neck and he suddenly won't look at her and she wonders if she said something wrong. “We should go back inside,” he seems to change the subject and she hesitates, but then he holds out his hand. After a moment, she takes it, and follows him back inside, out of the freezing night air and into the warmth of the house. In the distance, she can hear voices and laughter, she can smell the cinnamon and pine in the air.

She could get lost here, if she let herself.

“There you are,” Mrs. Stark looks up as they enter the kitchen, and Jon lets go of her hand. Mrs. Stark narrows her eyes at Jon, then looks at the back door, like she guesses what he was doing out there and doesn't approve.

“I'm uh...” Jon starts, looking between Mrs. Stark and her, “I should get back to the party.” Before he goes, he turns back to her and she remembers she's still in his coat and she hurriedly takes it off, feeling heat high up on her cheeks as she does. “Try,” he says, voice too low for Mrs. Stark to hear. Then he takes his coat and leaves the kitchen – leaves her in the kitchen. Alone. With Mrs. Stark.

“Are you having fun?” Mrs. Stark's voice is light, but there's something underneath, a hesitance.

“I am,” she says back, wondering if she should make some excuse and leave. Wondering if Mrs. Stark doesn't want to be here talking to her.

(Try.)

“I wanted to thank you for inviting me,” she blurts out, and Mrs. Stark looks at her sharply. “I had some of the pumpkin pie, it was really good.”

It's such a stupid, nonsense thing to say, but Mrs. Stark looks pleased.

“It's a family recipe,” Mrs. Stark says, and then – a bit of hesitation - “I could teach it to you, if you'd like.”

Sansa's breath catches in her throat and it takes her a moment to say, “I like baking.”

“So do I. I could never get Alayne or Arya into it.” Mrs. Stark says it with a fond smile and Sansa feels something break open inside of her and she realizes, she knows, that she wants this. She wants to know this family, she wants to be a part of it. She doesn't want to take Alayne's place, she never could, but she...

“You could teach me,” she whispers. “Sometime. I'd like that.”

“So would I,” Mrs St- her mother, says with a smile that lights up the room.

[selkiewife]

For the commentary track meme!

Theon continues to carry Ice to executions as ten name days turn into eleven and then twelve. It is a great honor to squire for the Lord of Winterfell and Theon wants to make him proud. The others think it is an undeserved honor for the dirty Ironborn hostage ward. But he will show them that an Ironborn is as honorable as any Stark. He will smile like Dagmer to show them he is unafraid.

Mikken, the blacksmith, has told him that the Ice is forged from Valyrian steel, but it still feels as heavy as ordinary steel to Theon. Heavier, in truth. And as he trails behind the cold imposing form of Lord Stark on execution days, he wonders:

Who will carry Ice for him to his execution?

Mayhaps Robb? If he’s old enough… He hopes it won’t be Snow.

Will he have to carry it himself? Carry the sword to his own execution? That seems exceptionally cruel though, and Lord Stark is not an unkind man. He has even praised his skill with the bow and given him the rare smile once or twice.

Mayhaps he can persuade Lord Stark to drown him in the black pool in the Godswood instead of beheading him? The pool is freshwater, not salt. But it still might allow him to enter the Drowned God’s halls. Lord Stark already uses that pool to clean Ice, Theon has often spied him doing so after an execution. If Lord Stark drowns him, there will be no blood for him to clean from his sword or his hands.

The Greenlanders think that drowning is barbaric but the Ironborn know better. Drowning is horrible at first, but after a time, the waters calm and carry you as if you were safe inside your mother’s womb. And then you see your loved ones, calling you to the Drowned God’s halls, calling you home.

He resolves to ask Lord Stark to execute him by drowning if his father rebels again. Yet the words never seem to rise to his lips. Nor do his other questions for Lord Stark.

Questions like, what is the best way to place your head onto the block?

He notices that some men face the block head on, with their chins flush against the wood, so that the sword strikes the center of the back of their necks. But some turn their head to the side, with their ear against the block, so that the sword meets the side of the neck first. Why? Which is better? Many times he tries to ask Lord Stark, but the words won’t come.

One night he notices the stool in his room is shaped similar to the blocks used at the executions. He drops to his knees and pulls the stool toward him with trembling hands. But which way should he place his head? He tries both ways. First with his chin resting against the top of the stool. Then with his cheek resting against it. He reckons it is more comfortable the second way. He could almost pretend that he was drifting off to sleep.

@team-mom-wannabe asked about Don’t Lose Your Head from this meme

Ahhhh! Thank you so so much for sending this in!

Okay so this section (and really this whole fic lol) was the perfect unholy marriage between my angst about Theon having to grow up fearing that he may be executed at any point, and my own obsessive thoughts about death- and weirdly enough, death by beheading. (The rest is under the cut since it got long)

And I feel like I should tag @julie-slamdrews in this because she can attest to my obsession about beheadings lol. Ever since I was a child, executions like burning at the stake or beheadings fascinated and horrified me- so much that I would become fixated on them in an unhealthy way. And I dealt with this by acting out executions with my neighbor. So we would play, “Burned at the Stake” or “Guillotine.”

But getting back to Theon, this whole section of him carrying the sword and wanting to do a good job and make Ned proud vs. having these intrusive, obsessive thoughts about his own future execution was born out of my deep frustration that a lot of people still say that Theon was “adopted” by Ned. And I’ve said this before and I know I’lll have to say it again. But adoption should never end in decapitation. Seriously, what adoption do you know that would end in the adoptive parents killing their adopted kid if the birth parents did something wrong. Like???????????

And now look, I am not saying that Theon did not develop familial feelings with the Starks and they with him in some cases (such as Robb.) That is called just being human and trying to find humanity in a fucked up situation. But it doesn’t negate that it was a horrible situation for him to be in. And fearing death- fearing that your parents will not care enough about you to keep you safe (by not rebelling) or that the people you are growing up with would put you to death... That is a fucked up situation that is going to do a number on anyone.

And I know people say, “Well, that was just how it was back then, in medieval inspired Westeros.” And yeah that’s true. And with this section, I am kind of leaning into that idea. The normalization of fucked up things. In fact, Theon has normalized his situation to the extent that he is wondering about how to bring his concerns about his possible execution up to Ned in the most casual way possible.

I also wanted to show that it is completely possible that Ned made Theon carry the sword to make him feel special and to give him a special job. Which is heartbreaking in its own way. But, again, even though his intentions might have been good, it is still fucked up and it definitely fucked Theon up, whether he meant to or not.

The section where Theon wants to be drowned instead of beheaded is there to show that Theon really does come from a completely different culture than the north but also that he is already beginning to romanticize the culture he has been taken from. And also, Theon is already sort of trying to combine both cultures by desiring to be drowned in the Godswood pool. And then, this section also just shows Theon’s chaotic nature- that he truly believes Ned might think it’s a “win, win” to drown Theon since it would save him the messy clean up lol. I also personally could never imagine Ned drowning anyone lmao.

But there is a part of Theon that feels like he can’t actually ask theses questions. Partly because of how distant and stern Ned is and partly because Theon doesn’t really want to face this possibility himself- which is why Theon eventually turns to denial in order to not have to deal with these fears.

The part where Theon is wondering what is the best way to place his head on the block: This part comes directly from watching the Tudors and experiencing my brain melt over the fact that there were two ways beheadings happened on that show THAT WERE NOT EVER EXPLAINED lol.

After watching that show, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out why some people held their head forward and some leaned their heads to the side to be executed. I was never able to find a good explanation, but a friend of mine mentioned that if you lay your head down so that the axe meets the side of your neck first, that would likely be an easier slice. I did notice that people were beheaded almost exclusively with the neck to the side in the later episodes of the Tudors. So maybe this was suppose to give a nod to the fact that the executioners of Tudor England eventually realized that this was a cleaner execution. This idea is also supported by the fact that the French swordsman wanted Anne Boleyn to be distracted so that she turned her head the right way for the cleanest cut. However, I never really found out if the way you hold your head on the block really matters. Theon didn’t really either though, since he couldn’t bring himself to ask so... it worked out lol.

The thing about Theon “rehearsing” his death was inspired by Catherine Howard who asked for the block to be brought to her cell the night before her execution so that she may know how to place herself upon it. But I also thought that would be such an incredibly Theon thing to do- to rehearse for his death and make sure everything was just so- so that people would say, “the lad died well,” afterwards.  💔

Thank you so so much for this ask! It was fun to try to explain what the hell I was thinking while writing this fic lol.

[mrsjadecurtiss]

A different ask! What do you think Roose actually feels about Ramsay? Just before the Red Wedding he talks very dismissively about how Ramsay could be executed for his crimes, but obviously he knows Robb's never gonna get the chance so maybe he cares more than that. But Ramsay (probably) killed precious Domeric? What does he actually feel about him and potential Walda baby(-ies)?

Thank you for your question :) I have divided my answer into points regarding the different aspects of your ask.

What do you think Roose actually feels about Ramsay?

In regards to the Roose-Ramsay relationship, some facts are important:

Roose did not raise Ramsay, and as far as we know did not interact with him in his childhood beyond the two times the miller's wife came to him after his birth. ("She was never to tell the boy who had fathered him." - Reek III, aDwD) All he knew about Ramsay was that he was his son, had his grey eyes, and was "wild and unruly" (the reason Ramsay's mom demanded a servant).

"Lord Bolton has never acknowledged the boy, so far as I know," Ser Rodrik said. "I confess, I do not know him." - Bran II, aCoK

Ramsay only came to the Dreadfort in 297AC (after Domeric died). This is extremely recent - for context, we have Dany chapters in aGoT taking place as early as 297AC, and the War of the five Kings starts at the end of 298 AC according to this timeline.

As a consequence, since Roose leaves the Dreadfort for the War of the five Kings, he assumed a paternal role for Ramsay in between 297AC and at most very early 299AC (The timeline has the battle of the green fork in January 6 and he'd need to travel to the south before that in the first place). This is only between 1-2 years depending on how early or late that year Domeric died (Shoutout to @blueagia who made me realize this timeline years ago).

Ramsay is violent and cruel, but not stupid (Roose even says he is “cunning” in Catelyn VI, aSoS). He was able to present himself as an ally to Theon in aCoK, and it stands to reason he might have given a salvagable impression to Roose at the beginning while he was testing the waters. Ned Stark is a just man who tried to execute the remote-living Jorah Mormont for slave trade; Since he never went after Ramsay, we can assume whatever Ramsay did during his time with Roose was discreet enough that word did not get to Lord Eddard, and so at the beginning Roose must have had no reason to complain too much about Ramsay's conduct either.

Eddard Stark had never had any reason to complain of the Lord of the Dreadfort, so far as Jon knew. - Jon VII, aDwD

"No tales were ever told of me. Do you think I would be sitting here if it were otherwise? Your amusements are your own, I will not chide you on that count, but you must be more discreet. A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my rule. Make it yours." - Reek III, aDwD

Roose gets a legitimization for Ramsay as part of his benefit from doing the Red Wedding, showing that back then he still had an intention of keeping him as his son and heir. However, returning from the war in the south shows Roose how bad Ramsay's political decisions are when left on his own, including:

Leaving Donella Hornwood for dead, horrifically abusing Theon who is a valuable hostage and a potential ally, being unable to keep good optics and alienating his allies ("Surely you misspeak. You never slew Lord Eddard's sons, those two sweet boys we loved so well. [...] How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we'd retain if the truth were known? Only Lady Barbrey, whom you would turn into a pair of boots … " - Reek III, aDwD), abusing his wife "Arya Stark" who is beloved by their Northern allies, and more...

We see in the aDwD Theon chapters that Roose is still giving Ramsay advice and counsel (see again the Reek III quote), however he also appears to be despairing of him:

"I know." Lord Bolton sighed. "His blood is bad. He needs to be leeched. The leeches suck away the bad blood, all the rage and pain. No man can think so full of anger. Ramsay, though … his tainted blood would poison even leeches, I fear." - Reek III, aDwD

We also see in later Theon chapters that he frequently holds meetings without Ramsay:

[Roose:] "The hall is not the place for such discussions, my lords. Let us adjourn to the solar whilst my son consummates his marriage. The rest of you, remain and enjoy the food and drink." - The Prince of Winterfell, aDwD

Lord Bolton was not alone. Lady Dustin sat with him, pale-faced and severe; an iron horsehead brooch clasped Roger Ryswell's cloak; Aenys Frey stood near the fire, pinched cheeks flushed with cold.  - A Ghost in Winterfell, aDwD

[Lady Dustin said] "Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that." - The Turncloak, aDwD

Implying he is losing faith in his son, or otherwise does not trust him or value his input when it comes to political situations; a bad omen considering heirs like Robb usually sit with their fathers in councils.

My impression is that Roose initially adopted Ramsay as an heir for the following reasons:

- Sentimentality, since Ramsay is a son of his own blood ("I should've had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well … but the babe did have my eyes." [...] "Now [Domeric's] bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay. Tell me, my lord … if the kinslayer is accursed, what is a father to do when one son slays another?" - Reek III aDwD). As a member of a patriarchal society, Roose was raised with the expectation that he will continue his bloodline, and so likely has the wish to be succeeded by his son.

- Practicality, since Ramsay is already an adult, so he doesn't have to raise and invest in another child for years ("That's for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House." - Reek III, aDwD). [Speculation: For a new son, he would also have to remarry, and both his prior wives are implied to not have liked him ("The two before her never made a sound in bed" - Reek III, aDwD) while he also doesnt speak of them with fondness - so he might also prefer to be single and raise his bastard instead of having to deal with yet another unpassionate/unloving marriage (considering he's middle aged and uncharismatic, a young new wife wouldn't be thrilled about him), until he finds a marriage that provides him a good benefit (like the Frey money + alliance).]

- The belief that, despite Ramsay being raised a peasant and having violent tendencies, it is possible to "educate him" so that he becomes a functioning member of society (see again my point about Roose counseling him). Roose possibly initially projects some of his own personality on Ramsay (Compare this meta i wrote).

During aGoT-aSoS he must have still thought Ramsay viable, which is why he has him legitimized by the crown. He has not known Ramsay closely for long; This explains why he kept him around even though he is so unfit as an heir (it takes time to fully realize that), but also explains why he is so dismissive of him, as that short time of knowing him as an adult would not make him fond of Ramsay the same way one might be fond of a child they raised.

Roose then realizes after the war, as seen in a Dance with Dragons, that Ramsay is not a fitting heir. What this means for the later books is open for now... Will he abandon Ramsay? Use him as a scapegoat? Or still try to salvage him? I personally believe he is starting to see Ramsay as a danger, and is starting to think about how to best get rid of him.

Just before the Red Wedding he talks very dismissively about how Ramsay could be executed for his crimes, but obviously he knows Robb's never gonna get the chance so maybe he cares more than that.

My belief is that Roose is fundamentally selfish and worried about his own skin. While he has the goal to establish Ramsay as a capable heir, he prioritizes his own safety and reputation. By distancing himself from Ramsay's crimes in front of the other Northmen, he can't be blamed for them; by using Ramsay as a scapegoat for Bolton crimes, he himself can wash his hands from the involvement and won't be hurt if any crimes come to light. If he keeps pointing attention at how Ramsay is wild/cruel/treacherous, then the northmen are more likely to suspect/blame Ramsay than the "peaceful" Roose. Also, even if he cared for Ramsay, he would never openly admit it because it's something that could be used against him (same reason as to why he generally keeps his emotions under wraps).

If you compare this scene from aCoK (where Ramsay is believed dead) with the scene you mentioned from aSoS, you can see that to prioritize his own safety and reputation he will sacrifice Ramsay; but he will also defend Ramsay ("Yet he is a good fighter, as cunning as he is fearless.") as long as it serves his interests, of course while still keeping an emotional distance.

One important thing about Roose is that he does not always say the things he actually thinks; When looking at his quotes it is not only important to look at what he says, but which intentions he has with his words and what effect he wants them to have on the person listening. Compare this quote by grrm:

Lord Bolton may well have all sorts of things in mind. Whether or not he would act on any of those thoughts is another matter. Roose is the sort of fellow who keeps his thoughts to himself. - SSM

But Ramsay (probably) killed precious Domeric

"Ramsay killed him. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison." - Roose in Reek III, aDwD

This is speculative, but I personally believe that case is not as clear-cut as it is made to look. Poisoning Domeric does not necessarily seem like Ramsay's style; i often see people in fandom suspect that his mother is actually the culprit. I personally suspect the first Reek of killing Domeric - we know he once stole perfume, meaning he knows his way around the castle, and he also got looked at by a maester implying he might know the maester’s chamber where poisons could be kept. He has ample reason to hate Roose, who let him live with the pigs and had him whipped and later sent him to live with Ramsay, but also seems to have interest in improving Ramsay's status ("She made him, her and Reek, always whispering in his ear about his rights." - Reek III aDwD). He is also known to be inseperable from Ramsay, so if Ramsay went to meet Domeric, Reek would come with him.

Either way it could be that Roose just didnt initially believe Ramsay killed Domeric since it looked like he died from sickness, and only later changed his mind on this issue - note that Barbrey Dustin, whom he is implied to have regularly spent time with shortly before the quote about Ramsay killing Domeric, seems to be a believer that Ramsay was the murderer, so she might be the one who convinced Roose; And maybe Ramsay's bad conduct during the time of the war aided to make Roose believe her. Changing his mind on this could influence his decision on what to do with Ramsay come the Winds of Winter.

Or alternatively, if we’re keeping closer to the text, he just thought the positives of keeping Ramsay outweigh the negatives of him being a kinslayer; however it seems odd that Roose, who is so worried about his safety, would adopt a man if his first act he knows of was this treacherous and dangerous. Then again he frequently verbally states that he does not see Ramsay as a threat, which can be read in different ways depending on if you take it as a literal statement or as a tool to enact dominance over his dangerous son.

"All you have I gave you. You would do well to remember that, bastard.” [...]

“I know what he said. You're to spy on me and keep his secrets." Bolton chuckled. "As if he had secrets. Sour Alyn, Luton, Skinner, and the rest, where does he think they came from? Can he truly believe they are his men?"  - Reek III, aDwD

What does he actually feel about him and potential Walda baby(-ies)?

I think he would like to have a son that continues his values and manages to be a capable heir to continue the Bolton line. Domeric was the ideal son, talented and competent, and Roose invested a lot of time and money in giving him a great education. Now that Domeric died and all of this is down the drain, and Roose himself isn't getting any younger, he wants to have a new heir in a way that's the most convenient for him. It appears to me like he is currently weighing the positives of each option (Ramsay or new Baby), and it might even be that he has already come to a decision, considering how he is starting to grow frustrated with Ramsay.

"I have become oddly fond of my fat little wife. [...] Ramsay will kill [all the sons she bears me], of course. That's for the best. I will not live long enough to see new sons to manhood, and boy lords are the bane of any House." - Reek III, aDwD

In line with my earlier point about Roose’ words also being about the effect and not just the message, I believe the line about him being ok with Ramsay killing his sons might be very calculated towards the fact that Roose knows Theon is to report everything he hears back to Ramsay. If Ramsay hears this, he is placated, because it confirms that he is still the main Bolton heir - which means that he does not have to think about harming Lady Walda (because the sons are no threat to his position), and he does not have to think about harming Roose (because he just has to wait until he can succeed him).

Of course all of this post is based off the first five books, so the interpretation may change once the next book comes out or through a different reading of the lines.

[a-libra-writes]

Imagine Dating the GoT Characters in Modern Times

okay im still working on that confession request, but this sucker just got away from me lol. couldnt help meself. this is a bit more casual than the others

if i missed any of ya favs, send my ask box a mail pigeon and ill add em!

In this preference, you'll be dating: Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Benjen Stark, Jory Cassel, Dolorous Edd, Tormund Giantsbane, Theon Greyjoy, Yara Greyjoy, Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont, Missandei, Grey Worm, Tywin Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Jamie Lannister, Sandor Clegane, Bronn, Petyr Baelish, Stannis Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, Margaery Tyrell, Brynden Tully, Edmure Tully, Brienne of Tarth, Ramsay Bolton, Roose Bolton, Oberyn Martell, Beric Dondarrion

NED STARK

He always worries so much after you, like if you’re unusually late getting home or you don’t call him back for some time. He won’t bother you about it because knows he worries, and he’s always ready to give you a warm hug when you finally get home. He’s very considerate of how you like things in the home and will fix anything immediately - although, you’re convinced he’s going to drop the AC in a lake if it acts up one more time. He has a picture of your wedding day that he absolutely loves and keeps in a safe spot in his wallet. The same picture is in frame on his desk, along with pictures of the kids. It’s the only decorations he has on the desk.

ROBB STARK

He’s convinced Grey Wind is starting to like you more because you’re the one who gives the goodnight treats. His favorite memories are the times when you both were able to get away to the lake or beach for a few days; he has a picture of you both on his desk at work. If you get him something you’d think he’d like, such as a scarf, he’ll absolutely wear it until it falls apart. Before you two moved in together, he really enjoyed calling you in the evening to hear about your day. Before you started dating, he’d send you pics of Grey Wind because you had the cutest reactions to them - soooo many emojis.

SANSA STARK

She loooves trying new things and hobbies with you, even if it doesn’t always end up so hot. The baking fiasco of 2018 shall not be spoken of, the pictures have been erased, it didn’t happen. She likes doing your make-up if you’ll let her, and she loves it when you two clothes shop together, mostly so she can dress you up. Lady is the most spoiled princess in the Stark family; you and Sansa have an instagram for her, she has her own rhinestone collar and custom bowl, it’s a whole thing. Sansa likes to brush her in the evening while she listens to you about your day or you both catch up with your fav TV shows. You two are way too invested in some of them and sometimes you stay up too late angry tweeting about it.

JON SNOW

You two were mutual friends for a while before you started hanging out exclusively more and more and finally someone asked if you were dating... At that point, you basically were. He really likes going hiking in the woods with you and Ghost, and some of his favorite pictures of you are from these trips - obvs they’re his phone background, and he gets shy if someone looks over his shoulder and asks if you’re his girlfriend. You both have gotten Ghost a nice dog bed and couch but he still likes to sleep at the foot of the bed, then promptly wake you both up at 6am for a walk. Jon was nervous but excited to introduce you to his family; he enjoys holidays with them much more because of you. He loves it when you text him cute things about your day or say you miss him.

BENJEN STARK

He caught your attention when you two began casually dating and he absolutely lit up when he talked about his nieces and nephews, and he showed you lots of pictures. It was just so cute. He absolutely loves it when you wear his shirts, especially the morning after - he will pull you back into the bed. He’s a total night owl but is very considerate of being quiet when you’re asleep. If you end up falling asleep after trying to stay up with him, he’ll carefully carry you back to bed. He works evenings too, so when he comes home early in the morning, he’ll cook you breakfast before staggering to bed (obviously he wants a good morning/night kiss as you get up and get ready).

JORY CASSEL

He’s an absolute sweetheart who will adopt all the dogs and fill up the house with them if you don’t stop him. When he’s playing with them or holding them, you like to take sneaky pictures because it’s just so cute and set it as your phone background. He always has the sweetest compliments for you, regardless if you’re dressing up or you just got out of the shower. The easiest way to fluster him is throw your legs over his lap while you’re wearing shorts or a skirt and just casually snuggle up. One day one of your dogs got out and you two were so beside yourself with worry, calling all the shelters and making posters and just stressing out together. The pup showed up a few hours later covered in mud and you both ran to hug her at the same time.

EDD TOLLETT

You’d actually been hanging out with him for a while because of your mutual friends, mostly Jon. You two had such an obvious crush on each other but wouldn’t make a move, so he and Sam did the trick where they invited you both out, then made an excuse and left you two alone. He’s the master of sending a meme in response to a text you sent two hours ago. He won’t admit how much he really likes it when you wear his shirts, either to bed or out on a date. They’re almost exclusively black metal band shirts with really weird art. You both tend to go to a lot of outdoor music festivals; he always wants to hold your hand so he doesn’t lose you in a crowd.

TORMUND GIANTSBANE

His beard and hair are still wild, don’t you worry, and he’s endlessly amused when it tickles you when he kisses you. His clothes are kind of a mess so you always try to straighten them out or iron them, which he really appreciates. Whenever he sees something cool, he has to immediately take a picture and send it to you. Sometimes he’s too excited about something, he just calls you or comes over. He’d totally want to go to nature reserves, zoos and parks for dates; he loves being outdoors and thinks you look best when the sunlight is on you. He’ll take so many pics on these dates but he’s a pretty bad cameraman (he tries!). He’ll go for the tallest rollercoaster at an amusement park and immediately regret it once the drop starts; he’s secretly relieved if you don’t want to go on one. 

THEON GREYJOY

Let’s be honest, he’s kind of a fuckboy so you don’t date him too seriously. He’s the one who gets attached first and starts exclusively dating you. He really likes collecting guitars and would be stoked if you’d play or sing along with him. He prefers outdoor dates, but sports bars and music clubs are fun, too. No matter what, he’d be giving lots of PDA and wouldn’t take kindly to guys hitting on you. He always finds the most bizarre food or drink recipes online that he wants to try, usually resulting in your kitchen being a warzone afterward. Yara totally bullies him on his insta, no matter how much he blocks her. 

YARA GREYJOY

She’s the definition of the types of girls your parents really didn’t want you to bring home but Here We Are. She has the most badass boots that she wears with an eyeliner with a wing so sharp it could kill a man. She loves pulling you close and being touchy with you in bars and clubs, especially when men are bothering you. Her diet 80% microwave so you have to cook actual food for her and make sure she eats. Family gatherings or phone calls always bother her, so you have to help calm her down afterward, usually with lots of making out. She’d like you to go with her when she gets tattoos so she has someone to chat and laugh with, and she’d subtly suggest you’d look cute with a piercing. She’ll kill the bugs in the relationship as long as you give her a thank you kiss, no matter what you’re in the middle of.

DAENERYS TARGARYEN

She absolutely LOVES Christmastime and wants to decorate the whole house, send a Christmas card with you and her three bearded dragons and wear matching Christmas sweaters (she can be surprisingly stubborn about that). Cuddling on the sofa and watching movies usually ends her falling asleep on you, and if you try to move her she grumbles and hugs you closer. The background for her phone is you looking very worried, holding her three bearded dragons after she posed them on you. She’d much rather wear your hoodies and shirts than her own, sometimes only that if she’s lounging at home with you. She tries to plan a really nice date at least once a month, preferably you two going on a little weekend trip to a musical festival or a beach.

JORAH MORMONT

He texts he loves you at least twice throughout the day. When you go out on dates, he’s always worried if you need a jacket or if you’ve had enough to eat. Heel is digging into your ankle and giving you a blister? This guy has band-aids. When he gets home early, he likes to cook a quick dinner that’ll be ready when you’re home. Watching kdramas with Jorah is great because he gets so baffled and ask you if this is what kids watch nowadays, but then he gets surprisingly emotional over the big confessions and love triangles. Walking through a park or boardwalk at sunset while holding your hand is maximum serotonin for him.

MISSANDEI

Her absolute favorite part of the day is the chat you two have in the evening while you take off make-up, wash your faces and fix your hair before bed. Sometimes you talk about your day, sometimes you listen to music or have a show on. She really doesn’t like phones or laptops in bed because she just wants to cuddle or be intimate. You introduced her to theme parks, and now she absolutely loves them. Missandei will find the biggest coaster and pull you toward it, she also would like you to win her one of those stuffed animals at the shooting games. She’ll put them on a shelf in your room. Sometimes she reads a book that bothers her so much, she has to stop everything, march in the living room and tell you all about it.

GREY WORM

You asked him out by writing your number on his cup at the cafe you worked out. You never got a text or call, but he suddenly showed up a few days later, totally blushing and asking you out. It was kind of adorable. He really likes keeping the apartment tidy and totally loves your baking. You didn’t think he had a sweet tooth, and he's been trying out different recipes to share with you. He can be pretty shy around your friends, so you hang with him solo. He has surprisingly strong opinions on movies, so movie dates always spiral into film theory discussions. He's so baffled by social media but he follows and likes everything you because your posts and pics are cute.

TYWIN LANNISTER

You two met at your company’s expensive party, he interested you right away and you had fun flirting and trading verbal spars. You weren’t sure how he got your number, but he’d end up calling you up for dinners and dates and so on. That ended up turning into trips and long stays at his manor and basically you ended up living there. Tywin enjoys giving you all sorts of expensive gifts and clothes, which he of course doesn’t see as a big deal because you deserve it. Eventually you’d bother him about what you mean to him, and that’s when he’d just outright ask if you’d rather be married. Quite frankly, he doesn’t care about his children’s thoughts on the matter. He really prefers the dates and vacations that are more relaxing, especially when he gets to see you smile at something you haven’t seen. 

TYRION LANNISTER

You and Tyrion discuss books like some people discuss politics. Actually, you both tend to have a lot of long discussions, but you both are so opinionated on books. He actually writes quite a bit and dedicates a lot of it to you. His favorite thing to do is make you laugh in public while you’re drinking something; he knows it drives you nuts and it’s adorable how much you sputter and look for a napkin. He blames you for Jamie’s love of ironic emojis, and he likes to send you screenshots of Cersei’s weird facebook rants. When he’s stressing over a writing deadline, he adores it when you give him a massage and help him calm down.

JAMIE LANNISTER

He’d often tease you about using so many cutest emojis in your text messages, so he started ironically using them. You’re positive he just picks them at random but he figured out that eggplant and peach REAL quick. When you first started dating, he tried to impress you with expensive gifts and dates, but he vastly prefers the lowkey cuddles at your apartment. His head in your lap, your pet curled around his legs and him reading off ridiculous shit Cersei posts on facebook … That’s the ideal. He was a nervous wreck when you met Tywin, although he was trying to play it off and be cool. 

SANDOR CLEGANE

He’s such a grumpy bear that a lot of people wonder how the heck you two got together. You both like to hang out at music bars and clubs, and he’s always got a protective arm around you, and as the evening winds down he likes to nuzzle your hair and receive any kisses you give. He sleeps in really late and grumbles when you pull him out of bed to get his ass outside. He’ll always take care of the yard work and grills the best barbecue. He actually really likes when you ask him what he thinks about an outfit, even if he just says it’s fine, because he likes the way you twirl and show off your backside. There’s probably a football team he’s obsessed with and he WILL text you angrily about someone getting a red card or missing a goal. 

BRONN

When you asked for his number, you were shook that he still had a goddamn flip phone. Even after dating for forever, he still has that damn thing. Your favorite date spot is live music bars, even if he starts to get overly affectionate and pull you in his lap. He has leather jackets and sometimes wears black cowboy boots with them and it just … works? He also probably rides a motorcycle but makes sure you have the proper clothes and helmet and actually obeys traffic laws when you’re riding with him. He’ll still flip off drivers, though. He doesn’t go to the doctor, his sick ass shows up on your doorstep half-dead and you force cold medicine down his throat while scolding him. He just likes being looked after, not that he’ll ever admit it.

PETYR BAELISH

You’re kind of surprised he asked you out, he seemed like a very wealthy, prominent person and you were a little worried. But on all your dates he’s nothing but a gentleman and he wants to go places you enjoy to know you better. Even if you both go somewhere more lowkey like a cafe or an art museum, he just has to impress you by picking you up in a nice car. He’s much more genuine in evenings at your apartment when you cuddle with him, or when you send sweet texts that he has trouble responding to right away because they’re just so nice. He likes to follow your social media just to see what you’re up to, and he has a picture of you on his desk, probably one where you’re wearing something he got you.

STANNIS BARATHEON

He’s on top of anything that needs to be fixed or dealt with around the house, sometimes without you even noticing they were broken. He’s very grateful when you plan dates for fun or for anniversaries, because he has trouble with such things. He also totally melts when you bring him coffee in the morning with a kiss, or take his coat when he comes home. Holidays are an absolute mess; last year he was THIS close to throttling Renly with a string of holly. You like changing his phone background to saucy pictures of yourself, because he already sucks at phones and now he’s bright red and it’s taking him five minutes to figure out how to change it. You were pretty bummed when he finally figured out how to set up a phone lock, so now you just text the pictures while he’s at home. It takes a few seconds before you hear him sputter and drop his phone in the other room.

DAVOS SEAWORTH

Admittedly, Davos is a little insecure about the age difference between you two, but he’s always very comforted when you hold his hand and kiss him in public. He always has interesting places to take you, and somehow he seems to know at least one person there. He always has a new story about how he lost his fingers and now it’s just an inside joke between you two. You think its hilarious how worked up he gets about his sports teams, and he cracks up when you yell at competitive cooking shows. Sometimes he needs your help deciphering Stannis’ weird, cryptic texts. He’s very weak when you’re dressing up to go out, especially when you slip on pantyhose and heels.

MARGAERY TYRELL

You didn’t realize how big of an influencer she was until she innocently asked for a selfie of the two of you. You were on a beach date and you kissed her cheek while she made a cute pose. Much later she showed you the pic on her instagram and holy shit is that’s 20k likes what in the seven hells. If it’s a sunny day, she absolutely wants to go out to the beach or an outdoor mall or anything. She likes to show you pics of outfits, ask your opinion, and buy it as a surprise if you really love it. If you both got a pet together, she’d basically treat it like your kid. She loves taking you with her on her family’s expensive vacations, and she can’t stop holding your hand and grinning the whole time.

BRYNDEN TULLY

Brynden is also worried about the age gap between you two, and it often bothers him when people mistake him for your father while you two are out. He loves talking about you to his nieces and nephew. He held off on telling his brother out of spite, because he knew Hoster was going to bug him about proposing. His favorite thing to do with you is go boating on the family’s lake, especially when you’re laughing as you try to keep your hat on. His absolute favorite picture is a selfie you took while you were in his lap, you’re making a silly face while he’s kissing your cheek.

EDMURE TULLY

He loves doing the silliest, most domestic stuff with you. Doing laundry together while joking around, picking out furniture to match in the living room, even adopting a dog or a kitten who would end up spoiled rotten. He’d actually fall for you quickly while you were dating and already think of your wedding and a family, but he wouldn’t want to pressure you at all. He has the worst bedhead and you have to grab him before he runs out to work and try to tame it. You both have the most ridiculous in-jokes and when you watch dramas, you both get way too emotionally invested and try not to cry in front of each other.

BRIENNE OF TARTH

She’s very shy about taking selfies with you until you encourage her and insist she’s adorable. She takes good care of her health and works out a lot, and she’s definitely want you to join her for the latter. She’s great with motivating and praising you! She likes dates where you two just wander around outdoor malls or museums, you just walk and chat about all sorts of things. You’re absolutely her phone background and lock screen, and when her dad calls to check on her she ends up talking about you a lot. You both like to put on cooking shows while you fold laundry or clean and you end up getting so distracted.

RAMSAY BOLTON

You weren’t totally keen on introducing him to your parents, then they suddenly came over while he was hanging out with you and he was such a Perfect Gentleman™ you almost got whiplash. He’s the reason stray dogs always hang around your backyard and porch, he leaves food out for them. He always frowns when you cover up his hickeys with concealer. He’s not the least bit phased by horror or slasher movies, but puts them on TV anyway so you can cling to him and hide your face. He’s absolutely the sort to threaten any male friends he thinks are too close to you, then play innocent when you confront him. He likes date spots that are a little more secluded, so he can grab your body and give you a deep kiss anytime he’s wanting you.

ROOSE BOLTON

In the morning, he always has to kiss you when he wakes up and before he leaves for work, no exceptions. He’s very private so those he works with are surprised to learn he’s married, but once you two are together at some company party it’s obvious he dotes on you. His kinks are even more pronounced now and he loves buying you things he wants to see you wear. He’d like to have a family with you once you’re ready. He’d be super into you sending him sexy pictures during the day, but he won’t respond right away or pretend the picture didn’t load just to mess with you. 

OBERYN MARTELL

He looooves surprising you with thoughtful gifts, weekend trips or even just flowers sent to your work with a loveydovey note that has all your coworkers teasing you. He hangs around at your apartment so much, you wonder why he just doesn’t move in. He will absolutely love any flirty texts or sexy pictures you send him over the phone, and he’ll respond in kind. When your relationship started getting more serious, he introduced you to his family and daughters, and fell even more in love with you because you were so kind to everyone. He always wants to take you places because he thinks you’re the cutest when you’re amazed by new things.

BERIC DONDARRION

A mutual friend hooked you both up for a blind date, which bothered you a lot, but Beric was so nice, genuine and apologetic that you decided to go through with it anyway. You’re grateful you live in a cold climate because he looooves the fireplace and snuggling with you in front of it. He’s not the best at cooking and would appreciate you teaching him, also you look super cute in an apron so that’s a bonus. Expect a ton of different outdoors and camping trips from him, also he’s the worst about getting injured and insisting he’s fine, even when there’s blood all over the bathroom sink.

[nanso]

Top 10 ASoIaF rarepairs?

I don't have 10 alas?? But before I list the ones I love the most. I'll begin by explaining let me  why I love rarepairs so much: 

And lord, I love messy characters. Seriously though - I like thinking about characters, particularly ones that haven't interacted a lot or at all, and finding reasons why they would or could have a connection. And I think writing about two characters as a 'rare pair' can become not just a game of indulgent fanfic but a new way to explore characters, their identity, motivations and overall place in the story. And fuck it if angst and tragedy doesn't make it a goddamn beautiful ol' mess. That said, here are the ones I like the most: 

Elia/Jaime - this is a pairing I like because 1) we know bits and pieces about Elia but not too much but her presence defines so much of the story in ways I don't think a lot of readers think about enough.  2) Jaime is the epitome of MESS and is a pretty shitty dude - but I don't necessarily see the point in 'shipping' people because they're both really nice. Where's the fun in that?  These two were locked away in King's Landing during one of the most fraught and traumatic (obviously more so for Elia than Jaime) periods for both of them - so it's honestly really weird that Jaime doesn't really think about her aside from the fever dream. I like to think of both of them being like "fuck. this. noise." while holed up in King's Landing and being bitterly sarcastic with each other. I obviously know nothing happened while they were in KL together but I like the idea of AUs where he's older and they connect based on their recognition of how shitty KL is and being bittery and angsty and hot together.

Jaime/Ned - there's a decent bit of character turmoil (on Jaime's part that is) within the books that makes me like this pairing - not to mention the scene outside the brothel in AGoT 👀. BUT I'd be a fuckin' liar if I tried to pretend that it wasn't influenced by bits that the show added that weren't in books (the Winterfell feast thing, the more extended fight outside the brothel). NCW and Sean Bean have some CHEMISTRY, is all I'm sayin'. And lord knows, I love - LOOOOOOVE - me the enemies-to-lovers trope. 

Cersei/Stannis - for the sheer chaos and absurdity. They are NOT well-matched whatsoever but like i said. I LOVE MESS. 

Aegon/Shireen - but only many years from where we currently are in canon, ie Shireen is older. I just think it's a lovely clash of interests but with tons of interesting exploration of relationships with their fathers (both biological and adoptive).

Theon/Robb - I can’t adequately express my thoughts on this cause I get in my feels about Theon - but if this isn’t MESSY, I don’t know what is. Anyways, I’ve read good fics about them that make me weep like a baby. 

I'll add more here as my thoughts come together - sorry it took me so long to respond! 

Put simply - I love rare pairs because not only do I like angsty romance but I think if you can find a way to see characters beyond your initial impression or fandom interpretations, you get to know them and all their shades and layers more deeply - and what's better than that? 

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 5

Okay, I know this chapter is excessively long, but I didn't want to break it up and lose the cohesiveness of it, so yeah, here it is. This one was fucking difficult to write, so I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

“A Violence Done Most Kindly”

Chapter Five: Herald of War

“It’s a promise, Sansa realizes.  If we fall, you fall.  Because she figures, one way or another, dead or alive, the North will come for those who abandoned them to winter.”  -  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

* * *

“I was under the impression this was a summit for peace,” Tyrion says.

           “It is,” Jon sighs.

           “And yet you’re asking us to go to war.”

           “A war against the dead is not the same as one against the living.”  Jon frowns with his explanation, harsh and deep.

           Sansa can see the frustration in the lines around his mouth.

           “You’re asking for quite a lot on faith,” Jaime points out, lounging quite comfortably in his chair.

           “And do you think I’d be here, inviting some of my house’s oldest enemies into my very home, welcoming their armies North, if I weren’t speaking the truth about this?” Jon barks.  His nostrils flare with his vexation.  He spares a dark look Theon’s way.  “Soon you shall all see the evidence of our claims.”

           Somewhere in the crowd of lords, a scoff is heard, an accompanying snort, a rush of heated murmurs.

           “Let’s say what you claim is true,” Tyrion starts, pacing away from his place beside Daenerys and toward the center of the room, glancing around the other gathered lords.  “Have you even a plan to kill them?  Do you even know how?”

           Jon’s eyes flick to the dragon queen, and Sansa’s gut clenches when he tells them, “We know that fire kills them.”

           Daenerys adopts a smug expression, leaning back in her chair as she eyes Jon.  “You need my dragons.”

           He clenches his jaw, nodding just the once. “Aye.”

           “You already know my demands,” she answers easily, eyes shifting toward Jaime.

           A cruel smile curls along Euron’s face while he sits beside Daenerys.  “Looks like you’ll be bending the knee, after all.”

           Jon ignores Euron with great effort, his hands bunching into fists at his side, and then slowly unfurling.

           Tyrion looks to Daenerys, something calculated in his gaze that Sansa can’t quite identify.  She straightens in her seat, voice echoing throughout the room. “Westeros will need more than just dragons to survive the Night King and his army.”

           Daenerys cocks her head at Sansa, an amused smile playing at her lips.  “’Just’ dragons, you say?” she asks in a tone that sounds nearly insulted.

           Sansa swallows tightly, words measured as she looks at the dragon queen.  “Your might is not to be disregarded, Your Grace, but this endeavor will take from all of us.”  She takes a breath, waits for Daenerys’ rebuke, but continues steadily when there is none – none but a look of mild intrigue.  She looks about the room.  “We will need food from the Reach.  And we’ll need the numbers of the Lannister forces.  We’ll need the forces of the Riverlands to secure safe passage of Northern refugees through the Neck and past the Twins.”  Sansa shares a glance with Edmure Tully, who nods in answer, jaw set. She allows a grateful smile to touch her lips, before she turns her steel-cut gaze back to the other lords. “We’ll need the Knights of the Vale,” she goes on, looking to Lord Royce, and then tentatively to Robin Arryn, an inclination of her head both affectionate and demanding, “The greatest mounted cavalry in the known kingdoms,” she says with a flattering flourish that has Robin beaming with pride.

           “We’ll need dragonglass for weapons,” Davos says. “And we’ll need every blacksmith you can spare working day and night to forge them.”

           Jon nods beside Sansa, a dark look to his face. He stands then, taking in the room. “And we’ll need more than that.  Carpenters and masons to help build the defenses around Winterfell.  Healers and cooks and seamstresses, before, during, and especially after the battle, which means they’ll need to stay in Winterfell while we send the other refugees south.  And we’ll need all our armies marching North if we expect to have any hope at defeating the dead.”

           “What do they look like?”

           Jon turns at Robin’s question, confusion drawing over his face.  “My lord?”

           Robin shifts excitedly in his seat, an inappropriate glee pulling at his features that sets Jon’s jaw to clenching.  “What do they look like, these wights you speak of?” he asks again.

           Silence reigns in the room.

           Sansa shifts in her seat toward him.  “Dear cousin,” she begins gently, “I don’t think – ”

           Jaime’s scoff interrupts her, his scornful chuckle swallowed up by the fist at his mouth.  

           Sansa sends him a glare.

           Sighing, Jaime’s hand lowers from his mouth, a sardonic glint to his eye.  “Not like anything you’ve ever seen before, I’m sure, boy.”  His eyes flick to Jon’s.  “If they even exist.”

           Robin’s face pinches at the insulting address but before he can wail his offense, Lord Royce stands from his seat, chest puffing out. “You will speak to my lord with the proper respect his station demands, Ser Jaime, or this summit will be at an end soon enough,” he nearly bellows.

           Jaime only leans back with an amused smirk, Tyrion sending him a desperate look that seems a plea for silence.

           “They look like the dead,” Jon sighs in aggravation, his temper flaring at the need for such an explanation, “In all the gruesome ways death can take a man.”

           Sansa can see how the frustration builds beneath his skin, rippling the cords of muscle at his neck when he swallows. “Now, can we continue?” he asks gruffly.

           Robin scowls at the answer, disinterested immediately.  “I only wished to know what they looked like,” he mutters.

           Sansa sends an urging look Arya’s way, and with a twitch of Baelish’s lips in her flesh mask, she leans over with a false face of appeasement to the young Lord of the Vale, a pat of her hand to his bunched fist.  “And you will, my lord, when you ride North and take the field alongside His Grace. You’ll look the dead in the eye, and – with the Knights of the Vale at your back, heralding your name – you’ll vanquish them from our lands forever.”  A gratifying smile plants itself along Baelish’s face, and Robin grins in response.

           “Yes,” he agrees, straightening in his seat. “Yes, I shall.”

           Lord Royce grumbles something under his breath when he takes his seat, eyes shifted toward Baelish in a mix of reluctant gratitude and poorly disguised mistrust.  

           “And why should I follow you North like a gullible child, Jon Snow?” Daenerys asks coolly, eyes nearly rolling (if such a motion could be queenly) at Royce’s outrage with the pointed barb.

           “My queen,” Tyrion tries, stepping toward her and then instantly stopping at the subtle motion of her hand to stay him.

           Behind Daenerys, and behind Jorah Mormont and the newly met advisor, Missandei, and the commander of the queen’s armies, Grey Worm, somewhere in the slants of shadows, Sansa catches the flicker of tense deliberation along Varys’s face at his queen’s words.  His hands stay linked through heavy, concealing sleeves, his lips pressed into a perpetual purse, eyes watching the hall pensively.  She shifts her gaze away from him before he can meet hers across the hall.

           She remembers all too well that he’s seen the work of the Targaryens firsthand – some being her own blood.

           Sansa pulls a steadying breath in, focus back on the quickly spiraling summit.

           “Why should I commit my forces North on the word of a bastard king when the people are crying for their rightful ruler to save them right here in the South?” Daenerys asks coolly.

           Sansa’s eyes flutter shut, bracing for the inevitable.

           Lord Glover pushes from his seat so violently that it scrapes against the stone and topples back with a loud clang.  “I would follow any son of Ned Stark to the depths of all seven hells before I swear to some murdering Targaryen whore!” he bellows.

           The room erupts into madness.

           Grey Worm steps forward, a cold wrath lighting his features, and the line of Unsullied along the wall at Daenerys’ back uniformly brace their spears to their shields in a motion of readiness, the heavy metallic clash setting the rest of the hall rising into an uproar.

           Jaime barks a laugh.  “Yes, the people are just clamoring for you, Your Grace,” he throws out at Daenerys with raised brows.

           “Ser Jaime,” Brienne hollers from her place behind Sansa, “This is hardly the time.”

           Several of the lesser lords push from their seats, Lady Mormont shouting for them to sit down and stop squalling like children. Jon braces a hand back at Lord Glover, keeping him from stepping further into the circle.  Davos and Tyrion call for order and are subsequently ignored. Northern and Riverland guards edge around the hall toward the swarm of incensed lords.

Jaime lets out another ragged laugh, arms stretching wide to encompass the chaos.  “This seems exactly the time, Lady Brienne!”

Daenerys shoots a deadly glare at Jaime, Ser Jorah at her elbow instantly. “I should take your head right here, Kingslayer.”

           “Please, Your Grace,” Edmure urges above the shouts from the arguing lords.  “This is a summit for peace.”

           Daenerys stands swiftly.  “Then you all should have remembered that before calling the dragon to your table.”

           Brynden swears at Sansa’s back.  “Oh for the love of – ”

Lord Royce advances on a particularly vocal lord from the Stormlands when he throws a casual insult at the young Lord Arryn.  False-Baelish slips back from the mob, staying at the edge of the ring of seats, Sansa always in sight.

Euron stands from his seat, a sneer along his lips.  “I think a little respect would do these Northern bastards some good.”

“Uncle,” Theon says, firm and reproachful.  He stands from his seat, but Sansa’s hand on his arm stays him.  He looks down at her with hesitance.

“Ah,” Euron laughs, a predatory glint to his eye, “This the Northern cunt that bewitched you?”

Brynden’s hand is on his sword instantly, Brienne moving similarly beside him.  “Call my niece that again, you pissant, and I’ll hang your entrails from your own ships’ bow.”

“You can always trust a Lannister to –”

“ – damn Northern pride will be the death of –”

“ – bloody Ironborn – ”

“And where have you cowards been all this – ”

“ – her and her foreign band of rapists and murderers – ”

“Enough!” Jon bellows, his voice echoing off the stone walls, a deep, resonant growl following the words.  “That is enough!”  There’s something wild to his form then, a murderous glint to his eye that settles anyone who catches sight of it into an instant stillness.  He whirls on the room, teeth bared.

At Daenerys’ raised hand, Grey Worm orders his men down, Missandei calling out similar orders to the Dothraki bloodriders alongside the Unsullied. Lord Glover rights his chair, dropping back down to it with a huff.  Lady Mormont glares the other Northern lords into silence.  The lords of the Stormlands slowly retreat to their corner, Robin tugging on Lord Royce’s sleeve to get him to sit back down.  Jaime sits just a bit straighter, his smile falling. Daenerys remains standing, chest heaving.  Beside her, Euron gives one last leer to Sansa and Theon before he slumps back into his seat, Brynden and Brienne finally unhanding their swords.  Slowly, the hall comes back around to silence, tense and perturbed though it is now.

Jon heaves a labored sigh, rubbing at his chin, eyes flashing dark with his fury. “How can you all sit here and squabble over such pettiness when the dead are practically at our door?  How can you call yourselves lords when you would trade your people’s lives for a crown – a crown that will mean absolutely nothing when the dead wash through your lands?” he bites out, gaze landing on Daenerys. “Because make no mistake, if we fall, you fall.  That isn’t a threat.  That’s fact.” he growls out, glancing at each of them in turn.

It’s a promise, Sansa realizes.

If we fall, you fall.

Because she figures, one way or another, dead or alive, the North will come for those who abandoned them to winter.

           “This is all very riveting, to be sure, but if you’re all done beating your chests, I have a question for the King in the North.”  Lady Olenna interrupts for the first time that afternoon, elbows resting on her armrests, hands wound together in a familiar nonchalance, as she stares insistently at Jon in the center of the room.  

All eyes turn to her in the tense quiet.

She clears her throat, settling more comfortably in her chair.  “This summit isn’t about trying to persuade us that peace is our best option, because we wouldn’t be here in the first place if we believed otherwise.  So you can save your thrilling little speeches, Your Grace.  Anyone unwilling to fight for the kingdoms has no claim to them.”

Mutterings begin among the lords once more, Daenerys slowly returning to her seat, hands curled like talons along her armrests, eyes landing on the Tyrell matriarch like flint to steel.

Jon nods stiffly to her, jaw clenched tight.  “And your question, my lady?”

Olenna huffs impatiently, shifting to tap the nail of her forefinger along her armrest.  “When your war is won, and the dead are defeated, will the King in the North acknowledge the independence of the other kingdoms, or is this alliance simply a ploy to seize power?”

The mutterings throughout the hall stop entirely, a taut silence blanketing the room.

Jon turns fully to Lady Olenna.

Sansa remembers suddenly, the way he looked that last night before the Battle of the Bastards – the heat in his eyes, the desperation lining his mouth (that mouth), the dangerous arch of his shoulders and unmistakable incline of his body, the way he shouted at her, pressed her, the way he instantly folded beneath her admission –

If Ramsay wins, I’m not going back there alive.  Do you understand me?

The way he’d wound his hands through her hair and stumbled her back, a growl at his lips, bracing her back against the beam of his tent, his breath panted against her mouth, her hands winding around his wrists, the ragged exhale that left him when he told her, when he demanded of her –

“Shut your mouth.”  Like a wounded, cornered beast.

She’d blinked at him wildly, indignation splashing across her face, breath hitched in her throat as he bore his whole weight into her suddenly, forehead braced to hers, fingers flexing in her hair.

Her throat was parched, her chest heaving.

“Shut that mouth of yours, Sansa, because I can’t – I can’t – ” And then he’d licked his lips, chocking back a sob, his mouth already so close to hers that she thinks she might have tasted his breath in that moment, shared the heat of him, felt the tremble of his mouth against her own just a moment before he kissed her, desperate and ragged and insistent.

Like trying to eat his own terror.

She’d known in that moment, and every moment after, that she’d never follow through on the promise – not so long as he lived.

His hand was hitching up her skirts, his groan filling her mouth, his own reckless promises painting her flesh, well before she’d finally recognized his demand as the plea it truly was.

Stay with me, his body had begged.

Yes, her own had granted.

           Sansa looks to Jon now, eyes easily catching the sharp line of his shoulders, and the clench of his jaw, and the evenness of his gaze on Lady Olenna.

           It must be so exhausting, she thinks, to live always on the precipice of death – to share an intimacy with it so violent that even to refuse it feels like a betrayal of the self.

           I’m not going back there alive.  She should have known not to say such words to him, after all.

           But perhaps that was the start of it, the catalyst to this dangerous dance between them.  He’s become so vibrant in her hands, so thrumming of life, so very not dead.

           She knows now, what it means to linger –

           Stay with me –

           She knows.

           “I never sought this crown.  And I’ve no intention to seek another,” Jon tells Olenna, low and resolute, his shoulders sagging with the weight of it.

           Never sought, no, but he’s grown covetous of it all the same, Sansa thinks.  And even still, Jon has made it clear where his interests lie.

           With the North, and with her.

           Nothing else can sway him.

           It’s the sort of truth that should trouble her, but she can’t find it in herself to be anything but covetous in return.

           “Well then,” Lady Olenna says, fingers linking together, a barely discernible smile crinkling the edges of her mouth.  “You might be the only one in this room who can claim as such.”  She chuckles, leaning back in her chair.  “I like you. Even if you are rather cross and sullen.”

           Jon blinks at her, mouth parting, but no words follow.

           Sansa ducks her head to hide her unexpected smile.

           “Highgarden agrees to the alliance,” she promises, eyes flitting to Sansa for the briefest of moments, “Granted this ‘evidence’ of yours makes itself known.”

           Sansa’s smile steals from her mouth instantly, eyes narrowing at Olenna.

           The older matriarch only shrugs, a hidden smile playing at her lips.

           “You’d follow this whelp?” Euron scoffs, leaning with one hand braced to his knee.  “Just because he can spin some pretty words?”

           Lord Glover almost upends his seat again, but Sansa’s instant narrowing of her eyes in his direction, chin lifted in a motion to heel, has him grumbling his acquiescence, settling back along his chair.

           Olenna grants Euron an unimpressed look, an amused huff leaving her lips.  “I owe you no justification, Lord – what was it?”  She pauses, considering.  “Are you even a lord?”  And then she waves her hand dismissively.  “Never mind, you’ve clearly already answered that.  I suppose even a dog may be allowed to beg for scraps at its master’s table.”

           Euron stands instantly, face screwed up in an ugly disdain.

           The room tenses.  Jon takes an even step forward.  Olenna smirks triumphantly.  Edmure frets uncomfortably.  Daenerys opens her mouth.  Sansa speaks.

           “Perhaps we should leave it at that today, my lords, my ladies.”  Sansa rises smoothly, hands clasped before her.  “I’m sure we each have much to discuss with our respective advisors.  I look forward to renewed talks tomorrow.”

           Jon glances to her, brows furrowed, his impatience warring with his exhaustion, before he nods imperceptibly.

           “I agree,” Tyrion interjects, turning to his queen.  “We have much to think on.”  His gaze is imploring, his mouth set into a thin line.

           Daenerys takes a deep breath, a dissatisfied expression gracing her features as she meets her Hand’s gaze.  Ser Jorah at her elbow is soft but firm when he addresses her. “Khaleesi.”

           She looks to him out of the corner of her eye, softening somewhat.

           The unexpected shift has Sansa blinking dumbly at them.  Words pass between the two, quiet and short, and then the dragon queen is rising swiftly from her chair, barely giving even the courtesy of a nod in farewell before she’s stalking from the room, her advisors in tow.

           Jon closes his eyes and releases a breath, frown deepening.

           In moments, the hall is all but cleared, and Sansa stays watching the silhouette of Jon in the afternoon sun breaking through the windows.  Her lips purse tight, her words stalling in her throat.

           His shadow stretches long, she finds.  Its edge peters out just before the toe of her boots.

* * *

           Jon finds his way to Sansa’s rooms that night, greeting Brienne at the door with a weary face and a sigh of exhaustion. “Will you announce me, my lady?”

           “Of course, Your Grace.”  Brienne tips her head in a motion of respect.  “Ah,” she says, straightening, voice dipping to a whisper, “My lady is in conference with your sister at the moment.”  Her eyes shift down the hall momentarily, watchful.

           Jon nods, voice low.  “I expected as much.  Announce me, Lady Brienne.”

           Brienne raps on the door, short and expedient. “His Grace to see you, my lady,” she calls through the door.

           “Come in,” sounds through the wood in Sansa’s familiar lilt.

           Brienne opens the door for him and Jon stills immediately upon stepping through.

           Seated across from Sansa in a similar armchair by the fire, leaning closely toward her, is Baelish.  For a moment, Jon’s vision goes white, a sharp breath sucked through his lungs, rage rising in his throat, until he remembers.

           (His slumped form along the snow beneath the wierwood, the wash of blood over his chin, the curl of his frozen, grasping fingers stiffened into claws.)

           Baelish is dead.

           The familiar face turns to him.

           Arya, he has to remind himself, the breath raking from him slow and measured.

           She cocks a brow in Baelish’s face that has Jon’s expression souring instantly, the unease branching through his chest.

           “Jon,” Sansa greets, grabbing his attention.

           He looks to her, shaking his head, shutting the door behind him.  “Sorry, I – I just – ”

           The eerie copy of Littlefinger stands with a sigh and a decidedly un-Baelish-like roll of the eyes.  “Please, Jon, you can’t have this reaction every time you see me like this.”  She plants her hands on her hips and Jon scrunches his nose up at the sight.

           Arya sighs dramatically, hands thrown up in the air as she stalks toward him and the door.  “Gods, what I would give to be back home and out of this skin.”

           The words sober Jon instantly.

           Arya stops just before him, catching the look on his face.  He doesn’t know if he’s any good at hiding it, but then, hiding never did him any good when it came to Arya.

           It’s hardly the first skin she’s worn, he realizes. hardly the first life she’s taken.  His little sister.  His Arya.

           Something constricts inside his chest dangerously like regret.

           Arya seems to see something in his face, because her expression schools back into a keen observation so naturally reminiscent of Baelish’s own attentive eyes that Jon has a difficult time separating the two. It only makes his chest clench tighter.

           A stilted silence passes between them, until Sansa is clearing her throat, standing from her seat with a soft grace that flutters her skirts about her legs.  “Keep clear of Lord Varys,” she warns Arya.  “We cannot know if your act will fool him well enough.”

           Arya turns back to Sansa with a single piqued brow.

           Sansa huffs.  “You’ll be careful?” she presses.

           Lifting her chin, smoothing her hands down the silk front of her robe, Arya nods her acknowledgement, the incredulous expression leaving Littlefinger’s face at the note of concern lining Sansa’s voice.  “As careful as a mockingbird.”

           It’s not the kind of comfort Jon thinks Sansa is looking for, if he’s going by the worried expression on her face, but it’s the only kind of comfort he imagines Arya capable of.  It’s just another piece of truth to mourn.

           Arya turns back to Jon, watching him for a quiet, tense moment.

           The steady stare of Baelish this close is unnerving, to be sure, but perhaps even more unnerving is the subtle recognition of Arya’s own stare through a dead man’s eyes.

           She looks to Sansa for a moment, and then turns back to Jon, frown deepening, brows furrowing.  “Do not disgrace her in our mother’s house,” she tells him quietly but firmly, a slip of her own voice threading through the words.

           Jon blinks at her, the image of Baelish throwing him even now.

           Sansa scoffs indignantly, arms crossed behind Arya.

           But Arya only has eyes for their brother.

           Jon nods, unable to curb the pain that etches across his face, the resentment.  “I wouldn’t,” he answers her.

           Arya nods just the once, lips pursed, thoughtful. “Tomorrow’s going to be another long day,” she says.

           Jon gives her a moment, expecting something further.  When she only stares at him, he rubs at his chin, words coming haltingly and unsure. “Yes, it will be,” he says finally, hesitant to say more.

           Arya’s mouth thins into a line as she clears her throat, a quiet affection coloring her words now.  “You should get some rest.”  And then she’s stalking from the room, shutting the door behind her without a further farewell.

           Jon stares at the closed door for many long moments.

           “She loves us,” Sansa says softly.  “She does.”

           Jon stays staring at the door, a sigh leaving him.

           “Perhaps she isn’t rather adept at showing it but – ”

           “Sansa,” he interrupts, finally turning to her, a hand rubbing at his mouth as he tries to shake off the lingering unease.

           She lifts her brows expectantly, arms uncrossing, the indignation having bled from her instantly.

           (She doesn’t stay mad at her sister for long these days, but Jon is too hesitant to name such a thing as hopeful.)

           He softens his features, catching the thrum of disquiet in her stiff posture.  “I know,” he tells her, attempting a smile.

           Sansa nods, lip pulled between her teeth.  She glances out the window, hands smoothing over her skirts.  “Well then,” she starts, looking back to him far more put together than she had been only moments before.  She motions a hand toward the now vacant seat across from her.  “Your Grace,” she offers.

           Jon takes the chair easily, shrugging off his cloak – her cloak.  He catches the way her eyes follow it when he sets it along the back of his chair and a flare of prideful possession streaks through him.  His hand curls along the furs before releasing reluctantly, settling across from her.

           Sansa takes her own seat gracefully.

           Jon leans his elbows along his thighs, hands grasped between his knees.  An exhaustive sigh leaves him.  “Arya has word about Meereen then?”

           Sansa nods, leaning back in her chair. “Baelish’s sources say the city has fallen into disarray.  Daenerys’ appointed representative, Daario Naharis, and the small council she established before leaving, have been slaughtered.  It’s chaos in the streets, last we heard.”

           Jon nods, gaze dark and considering.  “We can use that.”

           “It’s a fine line to walk.”

           He raises a brow in question.

           Sansa brushes at a wrinkle in her skirt.  “It can sway the other kingdoms to our side if they see that their alternative is incompetent when it comes to governance, but calling out such incompetence could also wound her pride enough to make her withdraw.”  She levels a meaningful look Jon’s way.  “And Bran was adamant we sway her to our side, as well.”

           Jon groans, shaking his head.  “She sees herself as a savior, he said.”

           “Yes.”

           He frowns.  “And how do we use that?”

           Sansa purses her lips, silence overtaking her for long moments while she turns the question over in her head.  He can very nearly see the moment illumination lights her features.  “Give her a target,” she says in answer finally.

           “I haven’t exactly kept the Night’s King a secret, Sansa,” he says exasperatedly.  “If ever there was a target for her, that would be it.”

           Sansa shakes her head, a huff leaving her.  “You’re thinking about this all wrong.”

           Jon’s frown deepens, head cocking like a reminder for caution.

           Sansa sits a touch straighter, her hands curling over her armrests in anticipation.  “She hasn’t gone to King’s Landing yet.  Why?”

           His brows draw down.  “Because her enemies are no longer there.”

           “Precisely.  And yet she claims the people are clamoring for her deliverance.  So why won’t she go?”

           Unclasping his hands, Jon leans back in his chair, huffing his frustration.  “I don’t fucking know, Sansa, I’m hardly privy to her council.”

           Sansa’s nostrils flare with her momentary annoyance. “Think, Jon.”

           “Oh, like I’m not trying to?”

           “Not very hard, it seems.”

           “Sansa,” he warns, a hot expel of breath.

           Sansa shakes her head, hand outstretched to stop his admonishment.  “Listen to me, Jon, please.  Just listen.”

           He gives her a spiteful look, but he does not argue further.

           “Starvation and anarchy are hardly foes she can burn into subservience,” she says.

           Jon blinks at her, the realization slow and half-formed.

           She continues.  “Her crusade for freedom across Slaver’s Bay only worked temporarily because, while crucifying the Masters and burning their ships makes for an intimidating show of power, it doesn’t solve any of the problems still plaguing the cities.  She’s not a ruler.  She’s a conqueror.  It’s what she does best.  So we give her someone to conquer.  We give her a body, a living, tangible foe.  We give her a target in the North and she will go North.”

           Jon stands swiftly, hand swiping over his mouth as he stalks to the hearth.  “Sansa, what exactly are you suggesting?”  He looks back at her with dark eyes, half-shrouded in firelight.

           She swallows tightly, rising from her seat as well. “We need Jaime Lannister.”

           Jon’s jaw tightens at the name, drawing in a deep breath.  “We’ve no indication he even believes us, let alone has any inclination to fight for the living.”

           “Brienne vouches for him.”

           Scoffing, Jon gives her an incredulous look.  “And that’s enough to think he’d join us?”

           Sansa steps closer, hands clasping nervously before her.  Jon eyes the motion with a sense of foreboding.  She makes it to the other side of the hearth, standing across from him, when she finally speaks.  “He knew I didn’t kill Cersei.  More importantly, he knew I couldn’t.”

           Jon stares at her, a tightness in his chest.

           He remembers when Bran told them the news, the raven’s scroll from King’s Landing slipping unread from his still-gloved fingers as the three of them met in Winterfell’s dawn-lit rookery.

           He remembers the harsh laugh that broke from Sansa, streaking through the silence with a brand of delirium so striking he actually took a step back from her.

           But she couldn’t stop, a hand braced to her chest, the other moving to steady herself along the rail, her eyes glistening, laughing and laughing and gasping, chest heaving, face screwed up in sudden pain, fingers curled around the rail, her other hand clutching the hook-and-chain necklace at her throat, and then she’s sobbing so instantly her body actually quakes with it, a laugh choked into a wail, and she’s sinking down suddenly, knees giving way, dragging her form down the rail, gasping, keening, howling.

           He’d been unable to do anything for long, immutable moments but stare – watching the wash of relief and grief and release rake through her like a storm.

           He remembers leaning down behind her and gripping her shoulders, pulling her back to his chest and holding her through it.

           When he’d looked up next, Bran was already gone.

           “That doesn’t mean anything, Sansa,” he grits out. It’s a lie, he knows.  Because it has to mean something.

           Sansa closes her eyes, breathes deep, and something shutters beneath her skin he hasn’t a name for.  It’s gone the instant she opens her eyes again.  “It means there’s still something he wants.”

           Jon steps closer, a growl brewing in his throat, the realization inking into color a moment too late.  “Sansa – ”

           “Tell him we can give him his sister’s killer.”

           Jon expels a harsh breath with a muttered curse, dragging a hand through his hair.  “Seven hells, Sansa, you can’t just – ”

           She closes the distance between them instantly, eyes imploring on his, the heat of the fire licking across their forms.  “I don’t mean giving up Arya.  I’d never – I couldn’t – ”  She stops, swallows, eyes shifting anxiously between his.

           Had she expected him to think that of her? Had she expected him to know her so little?  Jon’s shoulders slump at the thought.  He reaches for her arms instinctively, a familiar measure of comfort between them, his rough palms curling around her elbows.  “Sansa,” he breathes lowly, evenly, “Tell me what you mean.”

           She relaxes somewhat, face softening.  “He’s a remnant of a man, Jon.”  The words come out sad beyond measure and Jon doesn’t know what to do with them.  In the wake of his silence, Sansa reaches up, curling her fingers along the leather of his jerkin, eyes fixed to the motion.  “This grief has unmade him.  It’s plain for all to see.  He has nothing left.”

           Jon’s hands slip up her arms and then slowly back down, watching the curve of firelight dip across the bare edge of her collarbone.

           He doesn’t like to think about what that sort of grief would feel like – what that kind of loss does to a man.

           (He doesn’t like to think that he understands Jamie Lannister, if only a little, if only when his fingertips bare their mark on his own sister.)

           “He has nothing left but vengeance.”

           Jon blinks back up at Sansa.  “You mean to use it.”

           She nods, lips pursed tight.

           “And Arya…?”

           “We have Baelish’s spies, his face, his influence. Let us use it.  Let us offer Jaime Lannister a chance at the vengeance he craves.  Arya will be safest when she’s the one controlling the information he receives.”

           “And when he comes North with us, when he agrees to this alliance – ”

           “It will be the largest threat to Daenerys’ sovereignty.  She cannot take such an alliance lightly, especially when the other kingdoms inevitably fall in line.  She’d never allow such an alliance unless she had a hand in it, and she’d want to keep a watchful eye, work to dissolve it from the inside, rain fire and blood if she had to.  But she would go North.  She would not leave her enemies to treat with each other behind her back.  If we cannot tempt her empathy, then we must tempt her with this.”

           Jon heaves a labored sigh, thumbs brushing along the material of her sleeves, winding slow and unmeasured circles.  His eyes fix to the motion.  “Even if she helps us win against the dead, how can you be sure she won’t turn on us the instant the war is won?”

           Sansa sighs, hands uncurling from his jerkin, smoothing over his chest.  “I have to trust that Bran would not urge us to bring her North if he didn’t have the knowledge we’d need to protect against her.”

           The discontent brews in his chest, releasing itself in a gruff exhale.  “Such a risk…”

           “I trust our brother.”

           Jon clenches his jaw, his eyes roving her face, leaning toward her without realizing it.  He stops breaths away from her.  He lifts a hand to trace up her arm, along her shoulder, dipping down toward her collarbone.

           Sansa sucks a breath between her teeth, swift and quiet.  She does not pull from him.

           Jon’s eyes follow the trail his fingers make along the edge of her dress.  “The lords will not like an alliance with the Lannisters.  I’m not sure I like an alliance with the Lannisters.”

           Sansa huffs, and the sound almost makes him laugh, his smile a worn and weathered thing when it touches his lips.

           “They will follow you if you lead them,” she tells him, and it seems such a simple thing when she says it.  It seems such a simple, indisputable thing.

           His eyes flick down to her lips, his hand around her elbow dragging her to him, bracing her against his chest as his other hand slips back along the nape of her neck.  He revels in the mute gasp that leaves her parted lips, the flex of her throat beneath her swallow.  “You can be so sure?” he asks, not knowing why it should matter so much.  Not knowing and yet –

           Knowing exactly.

           “King Jon of House Stark” she’d called him.

           (How he wants to hear the words again – how he wants to watch them stain her lips when he takes her.)

           Sansa lifts her chin, baring her pale throat in the low firelight.  “They’ve followed you thus far,” she says.  “They will follow you further yet.”

           She’s a slight thing, even for her height – all spine and teeth – but she fills his hands seamlessly, his palms fitting perfectly to the mold of her.

           “Tell me again,” he whispers at her mouth, suddenly ragged with the need, suddenly quaking in his own skin.

           Sansa’s brows dip down in confusion, her mouth parting.

           Jon steps into her, walking her back, past the hearth, its flames spitting hot and unrelenting at their retreating forms through the shadows. Sansa stumbles when she hits the desk, one hand going out to steady herself along the ledge, the other still held at his chest.  “Jon,” she breathes, voice catching.

           “Tell me again,” he demands.  “King Jon of House Stark…”  It’s a heavy pant at her lips.

           Sansa’s eyes flash with understanding.

           He presses his hips to hers, pins her there against the desk.  He braces his mouth just above hers, his hand winding into her hair to keep her to him. “My name,” he tells hers – begs her, teeth clenching behind a desperate mouth.

           Sansa slides her hand up his chest and then along his neck, sinking into his hair.  “Your Grace,” she breathes at his mouth, fingers clenching at the nape of his neck.

           With a throaty moan, Jon’s hand leaves her arm and winds around her waist, fisting in the folds of her dress, digging into her hip with an urgency that sets them both to trembling.  “Sansa,” he pants against her.

           “My king,” she whispers darkly, and he groans in response, hand clenching in her hair, tongue wetting his lips, breath raking from him in ragged, unrepentant bursts – so close, so devastatingly close – and damn Arya’s warning, damn their disgrace – not now, not here – with her so warm and pliant in his hands and he leans in, eyes fluttering closed, a needy sigh already teasing his lips, the taste of her – just there – and –

           A knock at the door.

           Jon groans his frustration, lips half a whisper from hers, hands already fisted in her hair and her dress and the intoxicating, breathless whole of her.

           “Your Grace,” sounds Davos’ voice through the door.

           Jon pulls back from her, just slightly, just enough to meet her eyes.  “What is it?” he barks.

           Sansa hums quietly at his chest, nails dragging at the base of his skull.

           Jon closes his eyes to the lure, smothering his own impulses.

           A quiet shuffle sounds on the other side of the door, and then his Hand clears his throat.  “A raven from Eastwatch, Your Grace.”

           Jon glances toward the door, mouth parting. He looks back to Sansa in his arms, watches the shift of heat in her eyes dim to a familiar cold calculation.

           “Tormund,” he says softly, eyes still fixed to hers.

           She nods, seems to steady herself, head dipping low, breath easing into something slow and manageable, her fingers thrumming just the once along the nape of his neck to return his attention.  “Go,” she tells him, when they finally lock gazes again.

           Jon swallows thickly, hesitating, his chest still heaving, his mouth still aching for hers.

Her hand slips from his neck and he feels the loss instantly.  “Go,” she says again, almost reproachfully this time.

He growls his frustration – with Davos’ interruption, with Tormund’s sudden letter, with her own sense of practicality.  Jon curses beneath a sharp exhale – a heady, breathless thing – but he’s already pulling from her, already disentangling from her enticing heat.  He nods, lips turned into a harsh frown.

           She releases him first, but her touch lingers long after he’s left her side.

* * *

           The summit recommences the next morning. Everyone resumes their places from the day before, and Sansa has to admit to her surprise at every seat still being filled.  She half-expected to find certain lords (and queens) to have abandoned their efforts at peace.  There is hope yet, she finds.

           Or perhaps that is being generous.  Perhaps it is better to say that there are still demands to be made.  Perhaps it isn’t peace that keeps them here at all.

           It is of little matter, she tells herself. Jon will get them North, one way or another.  This she knows, because to accept anything less makes them as good as dead already.

           Sansa glances to Theon beside her, eyes searching. He shakes his head slowly, a grim expression on his face.

           No word from Yara, then.

           Sansa takes a deep breath in, turns back to the floor, to her brother making his way to the center once greetings have been properly addressed.

           “My lords and ladies,” he starts, and then to Daenerys, “Your Grace.”

           She nods appreciatively.

           Jon continues briskly.  “I’ll not waste any more time.”  He raises a hand, an unfurled raven scroll resting between his fingers.  “Last night I received a raven from Tormund Giantsbane at Eastwatch.  The army of the dead is already at the Wall.”

           Murmurs break out amongst the crowd, unsettling them. Tyrion steps out from beside his queen to reach for the scroll.  

Jon hands it to him for confirmation, not waiting to continue.  “I don’t think you all quite understand the level of this threat, the numbers we’re facing.”  His voice is low, gravelly, a strum of anger already lighting it.

           They’ve wasted enough time already, to have come to this.

           “The dead are quite literally climbing the Wall,” he stresses, pacing the room to look each occupant in the eye. “Thousands of them – hordes of them – climbing over each other, body upon body toward the top, cascading over the edge like a waterfall.”

           Sansa closes her eyes to the image, her throat tightening beneath the latent fear.  She smothers it well.

           “A fall like that may kill a man, but the dead feel no such effects.  They topple over the wall in a flood, resuming their march on the other side – on our side.  And they do not stop,” he bellows, looking around the room.  “The dead have no need for sleep, or food, or rest of any sort.  We’re losing precious time.  And we need to be there now.”

           Daenerys bends her ear to Tyrion when he returns to her side, something whispered between them that never makes it to air. Jaime sits straighter in his seat, eyes focused in a way Sansa hasn’t seen before.  Euron stews impatiently in his own seat.

           Jon gives the crowd a moment, but only a moment, and then he’s plowing on.  “The time has passed to argue the North’s sincerity.  You either believe me, or you don’t.  But that isn’t the point anymore.  So, let’s cut all the horseshit and talk about why we’re all really here, hmm?” His eyes grow hard.  “Everyone in this room wants something.  Now, some of those things are in my power to grant, but others,” he says, gaze flickering toward Daenerys, “are not – and neither should they be.”

           “If I may – ” Tyrion starts, never getting the chance to finish.

           “Theon Greyjoy,” Jon calls out, turning to the man swiftly.

           Tyrion stares dumbly at Jon as he ignores him.

           Theon blinks up at Jon, standing swiftly, a measure of uncertainty lighting his frame, even with his shoulders straight and chin raised.  “Your Grace,” he answers.

           “You and your sister want the North’s support for her claim as queen of the Iron Islands, and our acknowledgement of your kingdom’s independence.”

           Theon’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. Finally, he simply nods, hands folding behind his back.

           Jon eyes him darkly, and for a moment, Sansa thinks he may take it all back.  His word, his assurance, his trust.  She sucks a quiet breath between her teeth, wanting to reach for Theon and yet knowing that she shouldn’t.  She stays deathly still – hanging on a precipice.

           Jon’s eyes find hers for the briefest of moments, something passing over his gaze she can’t identify, but then he’s looking back at Theon, and she has to remind herself to breathe.

           “You shall have it,” Jon says finally, jaw clenching after the words.

           Euron scoffs across from them, moving to rise in objection when Daenerys’ upheld hand halts him.  She stays watching the exchange intently, lips dipped into a frown. Euron grumbles his reluctance as he retakes his seat.  

           “Your Grace,” Theon says, half question, half disbelief, his brows dipping low, and Sansa wants to hold him suddenly.  She resists the urge to the point of pain.

           Jon doesn’t forgive Theon, she knows, and he might not ever.  But she has never asked him to, and never will.  She has learned to lay her brothers down in the deep.  She has learned to let them rest.  Not because forgiveness comes easier to her, but because survival does.

           Sansa learned long ago to bury her loves, or they will bury her.  It started with Lady, and then never seemed to stop.  There are holes in her heart dug in the shape of graves, and she knows now that some unearthings can never be.

           She does not ask of Jon what he cannot give.

           “Lady Olenna,” he goes on, turning to the Tyrell matriarch.  Theon sits back down, hands fluttering over his knees in a motion to calm.

           Sansa blinks back the ache, focusing.

           Olenna cocks her head at Jon in expectance, a familiar, challenging smirk tugging at her lips.

           Jon nods to her.  “You want my assurance that I’ll not seek another crown – that the North keeps to the North and does not interfere with the sovereignty of the other kingdoms.”

           Her only answer is a purse of her lips, a lone nail tapping along her armrest.

           “You shall have it.”

           “And your proof of the dead?” she eggs on, smirk still steadily put.

           Jon releases a low chuckle, hand wiping down his mouth.  “And my proof,” he repeats, mumbling the sentiment as though to himself.  He shakes his head, not even sparing Theon a glance. “That’s seeming more and more unlikely as time persists.”

           Olenna steeples her hands together over her lap, considering, but Jon isn’t one to linger.

           “Ser Jaime,” he says, turning to the Lannister knight.

           A single, cocked brow is his only acknowledgement.

           Jon licks his lips, fingers flexing at his sides. “You want your sister’s killer.”

           A thick silence pervades the room.  Tyrion dips his head, shoulders bunching with his unsteady exhale.  Jaime stares unblinkingly at Jon, his one good hand curled stiffly over the armrest.

           Jon takes a breath, jaw grinding.  “You shall have it,” he promises lowly.

           Jaime stands swiftly, pushing from his seat with such a fervency Jon’s Northern guard shifts into a ready stance, the clang of their arms resounding in the room.

           Everything goes eerily still.

           Jaime stands staring at Jon, his face screwed up into a visage of quiet wrath, a dangerously still vehemence.  “What did you say?” he breathes out, the words slipping through bared teeth.

           To her credit, Arya does not flinch a single muscle in Baelish’s skin.  Sansa can see her watching the exchange from her place two seats down from the Protector of the Vale.  Somewhere behind Sansa, Brienne shifts, a barely-heard rustle of armor.  But it’s there all the same.

           Jon turns fully to Jaime.  “The North will pledge to search for Cersei’s killer and bring her to justice.”

           Somewhere behind him, Lord Glover grumbles a curse but Lady Mormont’s sharp gaze silences him.  Sansa sends the girl a grateful look and Lyanna nods in return, chin tilted high.

           Jaime takes a step closer, stiff and warring. “You know who killed her?”

           “No,” Jon lies easily enough, a trickle of pity lining his voice just enough to lend it some truth.  “But we will.”  A short pause.  “Lord Baelish,” he calls, turning to the mock Littlefinger.

           Arya offers a perfectly piqued brow.

           “You are a man of the world.  You must lend your efforts to Ser Jaime’s quest. Commit your resources to discovering Cersei Lannister’s murderer.”

           In Baelish’s skin, Arya takes an expected moment of silence, seeming to consider the request (or command, rather).  She doesn’t spare a glance to either of her siblings, only nodding slowly to Jaime, a twist to her lips with just enough reluctance to seem credible.

           Jaime exhales loudly, staggering back a step, eyes fixed to the false Littlefinger.  There’s a pleading to his gaze that strikes Sansa with its earnestness, its unhindered sincerity.  She tightens her hands over her lap at the sight.

           Jon glances to his Northern guard, motioning for them to stand down.  Jaime drops back down to his seat, glancing over to Tyrion.  They stare silently at each other, and Tyrion is the first to look away, a wet sheen to his eyes that Sansa does not miss.  It is hard for her to fathom anyone mourning the loss of Cersei Lannister, but then she remembers that day long ago in the gilded cage that was King’s Landing.

           “Love no one but your children.  On that front a mother has no choice.”

           It’s perhaps the most honest, the most vulnerable, that Cersei has ever been with her.  The moment wears at Sansa some nights, when she lays awake staring at the ceiling, an unspeakable sadness crashing through her.

           Perhaps Cersei’s greatest mistake was in loving all the wrong people in all the wrong ways.

           Sansa blinks back the sudden wetness at her eyes.

           It doesn’t matter.  It never did.  Because dead is dead, and there is no way to love that into un-being.  

She knows.  She’s tried.

(The muddy steps at Baelor’s Sept will always be the start and end of every nightmare she ever has.)

Jon sighs heavily, shifting to face Daenerys, brows dipping down in consternation.

Sansa turns away from Jaime, ignoring the way he stares blandly at the floor, eyes grievous, jaw tight.

“Your Grace,” Jon addresses, stepping closer.

Daenerys lifts an interested brow, a look of amused curiosity crossing her features.

He licks his lips, taking a steadying breath.  “You want the North – and others – ” he says, motioning toward the room, particularly to the silent, dwelling Jaime Lannister, “to declare you our queen, to welcome back a Targaryen reign – to bend the knee.”

Daenerys looks on smugly, back straight, a regality to her posture that Sansa imagines took years to turn from practiced to intrinsic.  

           Silently, Sansa waits for the break.

           “But I cannot give you that,” Jon says firmly, eyes never leaving the dragon queen.

           The room goes dead for many moments, and Sansa swears she can hear her pulse thrumming frantically in her own ears. She swallows back the trepidation, eyeing the room cautiously for any particular reactions.

           Most telling is Daenerys herself, of course. It takes her a moment, a perfectly groomed eyebrow twitching in displeasure, but the shadow that crosses her face can be called nothing but Targaryen in its darkness.

           Tyrion’s eyes widen, and he glances swiftly to his queen, then back to Jon, stepping forward as though to speak.  Daenerys beats him to it.

           “Just as much as you want me for an ally, Jon Snow, you would not want me for an enemy,” she guarantees evenly, a touch of calm to her voice that tells Sansa she is no stranger to voicing such threats.

           It tightens the ball of anxiety in her stomach.

           Euron smirks beside her.

           Ser Davos tries for diplomacy.  “Your Grace, please.”  He takes a deep breath.  “You’ve come to Westeros at an ill time.  We’ve barely survived the carnage that the War of the Five Kings rained across the continent, and our people are tired of war and subjugation.  A man just wants to till his own soil, to put food on the table for his wife and children, to swear to a lord that honors the protection of his own.  That is the kind of freedom the North – and Westeros – wants.”

           “And you think I cannot give them that?” she challenges, chest heaving with her indignant breath.

           Jon steps forward, standing partially in front of his Hand.  “What I think is that the last city you promised such freedom to has paid that price tenfold in blood.  So, you’ll forgive us our skepticism, Your Grace.”

           Her lips purse, nails digging into her armrests. “Come again?”

           False-Baelish rises smoothly from his seat before Jon can speak further.  “Your Grace, you must know by now the fate of Meereen?  Your last conquest?”

           “Know what?” she snaps.

           Arya lets slip a barely held smirk across Baelish’s thin lips.  “Daario Naharis is dead, Your Grace, as is the council you put in place before you abandoned the city.  The Masters have made war on their former slaves.  The streets run red with the blood of your promised ‘freedom’.”

           Sansa sometimes thinks Arya plays her part too well, or rather that she enjoys it too well.  Either way, it gets them a reaction.

           At first, Daenerys is stiff, hardly moving, her eyes widening only minutely with what seems to be a previously unknown revelation, her nostrils flaring in her outrage.  But then something shifts, a crease to her brow, a quiver to her jaw, the quick blinking of her violet eyes.  It’s gone but a moment after it passes over her face.

           Daario Naharis.

           Sansa’s eyes narrow at the dragon queen.  There was affection there.  Perhaps there still is.  Her heart clenches at the realization, a sliver of empathy bleeding out into the light.  She smothers it instantly.

           Daenerys clears her throat, the momentary exposure shuttered up with cool authority.  “Lord Varys,” she calls, glancing toward him out of the corner of her eye.

           He steps forward gracefully, head bowed.

           “Is this true?”  Her voice is low, a decibel away from being called a hiss.

           Varys glances toward Baelish, eyes narrowed in consideration, a thoughtful breath leaving him.  Eventually, he nods, his face shifting into one of remorse.  “I apologize, Your Grace, for not informing you early.  I thought the news would…detract you from your current goal.”

           Her spine snaps impossibly straighter.  “You are not responsible for deciding what it is I should or should not know, Lord Varys.  You will inform, and you will advise, but you will not omit.  You will not presume to think for me, do you understand?”

           “Of course, Your Grace.”  Another bow of his head, hands still hidden in his sleeves. He keeps his gaze from Baelish this time, flicking toward Sansa instead.

           She sucks a mute breath through her lips, face a blank visage, giving nothing away.

           He only looks just a moment, but it’s enough to prickle her skin with unease.

           “I suppose that’s what you should expect when you leave the running of state to a sellsword,” Lady Olenna throws out, shifting in her seat to a more comfortable position.

           Daenerys gives her an unamused look.

           Olenna rolls her eyes in the most ladylike fashion Sansa has yet to master.

           “My queen, we must continue to look forward,” Tyrion interrupts, stepping up to her seat, just at her side.  He raises his hand as though to settle it over hers on the armrest, perhaps in comfort, but a swift glance from her stills his hand mid-air. He flexes his fist, dropping his arm back to his side.

           Sansa watches the quiet exchange with interest.

           Tyrion clears his throat.  “Your vision takes time.  It takes patience, and endurance, and fortitude.  But Westeros can only benefit from such vision.”  He looks about the room, addressing the rest of the occupants now.  “You say you want freedom?  Well, sitting here before you is the Breaker of Chains.  You want a strong leader?  They call her Mhysa and the Unburnt.  You want a way to win against this ‘Night’s King’?  She is the Mother of Dragons!”  He pauses, takes a breath, steadies his voice.  “We’ve all had our failings – some of us more than most.”  He hardly dares to meet Jaime’s eyes across the way.  “There isn’t a person in this room who can say otherwise,” he says critically, voice hardening.  “But Daenerys is the queen we need.  Now – at the edge of this ‘Long Night’ – and always.”

           Sansa bristles at the words – even more so with the fervency with which he says them.

           This is not the man she remembers.  But then, none of them are who she remembers. Every person in this room is a stranger of sorts – even Jon.

           None of these faces filled her childhood.  It is not something she mourns.  It is just a truth.  Just the way of life.

           (She does not think she could have Jon the way she does now if he still wore the face from her childhood.)

           “You’ll forgive my reluctance to follow a Targaryen, brother,” Jaime says finally, “given my history with the last one I served.  A pretty face is not enough to save you from madness.”

           Daenerys flashes unforgiving eyes his way.  “Brave words from a murderer.”

           Jaime leans forward suddenly, face screwed into something ugly.  “And I’d murder him again, given the chance.”

           Daenerys steals a heated breath through her lungs, eyes darkening dangerously, mouth curling into a sharp scowl.  “Shall I just present my back to you now?  Would that be sufficient invitation?”

           “’Burn them all’,” Sansa says with a dark inflection, the words staining her lips in their heat.

           Daenerys snaps her violet gaze to her, sharp and focused, mouth tipped open as though to speak, but no words come.

           Jaime turns stiffly to her as well, but his gaze shifts quickly to the sworn shield at her back, and she doesn’t have to look at Brienne to know that she’s staring resolutely away from Jaime.  Sansa swallows tightly, meeting Daenerys’ incredulous stare.  “That’s what your father told him.”

           Murmurs break out across the room once more, and Jon swings his startled gaze to Sansa.

           (It’d been a moment of quiet confidence when Brienne admitted to her conversation with Jaime, his confession in the hot pools. She’d vouched for him, and not without reason.)

           This is the man who almost killed their father in the open streets, bringing him to his knees, and back into the Lannister fold, where he eventually lost his head.  

           Sansa swallows down the bile.

           This is also the man who killed the king who brutally murdered their grandfather and uncle, who would have brutally murdered more, had he not acted.

           She is tired of trying to understand Lannisters. She doesn’t want to anymore. She wants nothing to do with them, really.  But she’s played the game long enough to know that sometimes enemies make the best allies, when you know how to shift the board.  She won’t forget that lesson easily.

           Baelish taught it to her well, after all.

           (Some wounds linger, she remembers.)

           “Just before Ser Jaime here stuck a blade in him, that’s what your father said – with caches of wildfire buried beneath King’s Landing.  ‘Burn them all’.”

           Daenerys swallows thickly, eyes riveted to hers.  Her ire bleeds from her slowly, almost imperceptibly, if one wasn’t watching closely enough.

           But Sansa is watching.

           The murmurs around the hall grow louder, shouts interspersing the rush of whispers, a wave of agitation and confusion sweeping over the room.

           “Would you do the same?” Sansa asks her evenly, gaze a frost blue.

           Daenerys opens her mouth, stops, huffs her frustration, clamps her mouth shut tightly.  The words pry beneath her skin, Sansa knows.

           “Would you do the same, Your Grace?” she urges, not letting up.

           Chin raised, Daenerys blinks back the daze.  “I am not my father,” she seethes, voice a tremulous wind, something of pain seeping through.

           Sansa only stares at her.  Jon sighs, wiping a hand down his mouth, looking about the room.

           “Your Grace,” Ser Davos begins, an imploring look on his face, “You’ve given us no proof of that one way or the other.  But perhaps, this is your chance.”

           Daenerys throws a withering look at Davos, but she makes no comment.

           “The last Targaryen to sit the Iron Throne murdered our grandfather and uncle in open court, and then demanded that Lord Arryn of the Vale break guest right and kill our father, as well,” Sansa continues, back straight in her seat.  “King Aerys broke faith with his lordships first, and the Starks have more reason than most to refuse Targaryen rule, yet here we are, asking you for help, putting aside past grievances – justified grievances – because none of this will matter if we don’t stop the dead.  None of this will matter when we are the dead.”

           Daenerys takes a heavy breath, the ire now dimmed in her eyes.

           Jon steps forward, dark eyes steady on Daenerys. “Make no mistake, Your Grace, that’s exactly what’ll happen if we don’t stand together – all of us, every single person here.”  He turns to take in the room.  “I can’t promise that we’ll win.  I can only promise that the North will fight regardless.  Now, I’ve come here to ask the same of you.  You’ve all heard my arguments, and you’ve made your demands.  But it’s time to decide.  I understand if you need your proof, but the North can’t wait any longer.  The dead are already at our door and we leave for Winterfell in the morning, with or without allies.”  He looks pointedly at Jaime, a barely discernible nod sent his way.

           Euron looks as though he’s ready to object when Daenerys’ upraised hand silences him in his seat.  He grumbles reluctantly, but she’s looking at Jon with an expression of serious consideration.  Sansa is too practical to call the feeling that brews in her chest hopeful, however.

           Another silence pervades the room, this one so stilted and heavy that Sansa can feel it in her lungs.  A shuffle of feet here, the creak of a chair there.  A cough, a grumble, the rustle of fabric as someone shifts in their seat.  It’s suffocating suddenly – this stagnation, this utter and useless stillness.

           Sansa wants to howl for it.

           “You won’t be leaving alone, Your Grace.”

           Sansa’s gaze snaps to her uncle, watching wide-eyed as Edmure Tully is the one to rise from his seat, hands tugging his jerkin into place, chin raised even while his jaw quakes.  He nods to Jon, swallowing tightly before speaking.  “The Tullys broke bread with the Starks once, not so long ago.”  His gaze shifts to Sansa, infinitely tender and resolute all at once.  “’Family, duty, honor’.  I’ll be damned if I’m the first Tully who disgraces those words.”

           Sansa’s heart swells.

           Just behind her, Brynden lets a gruff smile grace his features, eyes crinkling.

           Jon’s brows rise in surprise, but only for a moment, before his face softens into a weary gratitude, nodding stiffly.  An appreciative smile tugs at his lips as he allows himself the smallest sigh of relief.

           Sansa cannot hide her smile at the sight, glancing down to her lap.

           “The Vale is with you, Your Grace,” Lord Royce pledges as he stands, glancing down toward Robin, who looks up at him only mildly alarmed before he settles back in his seat at the nod of reassurance both Royce and Baelish give him.  “Aye,” the young lord croaks out, clearing his throat, trying again.  “Aye, King Jon, you have the Vale as well.”  Robin puffs his chest out with the words, shoulders pulled back in a show of confidence Sansa is sure he doesn’t entirely feel, but is grateful for, nonetheless.

           Jon turns to address the rest of the lords but never gets the chance.  The sound of boots thumping on the hard stone sounds just moments before a Northern guard bursts through the door to the hall, panting, eyes wide.  “Your Grace!  Your Grace!” he shouts, taking a large gulp of air after his apparent sprint.

           Davos stands swiftly.  “What is it, man?”

           “At the gate,” he says, bracing his hands to his knees as he tries to breathe.  “It’s – it’s Yara Greyjoy!”

           Theon jolts to a stand, eyes wide, and the room erupts behind him, Euron the loudest of them.

           It’s moments later that Yara breaks into the hall, blood dried at her temple, hair and coat still speckled with snow, kicking a shackled undead into the center of the room, its snarl chocked off by the leash around its neck.

           Daenerys stares on in dawning horror.  Jaime’s jaw sets, his eyes hardening.  Olenna blinks back the shock, glancing toward Sansa.

           “Good thing these fuckers hate the water,” Yara says, wiping a hand under her nose, a brilliant smile breaking across her mud-streaked face as she braces a boot to the back of the scrambling corpse’s neck. “So, when do we leave?”

* * *

           It doesn’t take long for Jaime Lannister and Olenna Tyrell to pledge to the North after Yara’s dramatic entrance, with the lords from the Stormlands following suit shortly after.  Daenerys makes a grand enough speech about fighting for the people, about burning the evil away, and Jon suffers through it as stoically as he can, knowing it’s a small price to pay to guarantee her forces come North.

           Euron Greyjoy, however, has different plans than his queen.  He takes one look at the wight and renounces his support, cursing all of them for fools, ignoring Daenerys’ call to heel when he turns his back on her and makes for his ships at the coast.

           They’re already on their march North when they hear word that Euron hadn’t even made it to Harrenhal, let alone Gulltown.  Daenerys Targaryen doesn’t take too kindly to desertion it seems, having burned him where he stood.

           Jon’s sure it’s as much a punishment for Euron as it is a warning for the rest of them.

           Do not betray the dragon, the warning says.

           Jon feels the sinking dread like a stone in his gut when they pass through the gates of Winterfell and the shadow of dragon’s wings blankets the courtyard, darkening the image of their brother’s face as Bran sits waiting for them in reception.

           He doesn’t have time to think about it though, because they throw themselves into preparations quickly enough, shoring up the walls, building trenches, forging weapons with the dragonglass Daenerys promises from Dragonstone.  Tormund and his people make it to Winterfell days later, and Jon’s war council lasts long into the night that first eve of their return.

Sansa takes to the crypts more often of late, and this is where Jon finds her in the short hours before dawn once the council has let out. He’s been hesitant to breach her solitude, her sanctuary.  She stitches black direwolves to her handkerchiefs these days, and it’s a likeness he wishes he could forget, but the severed head of Shaggydog is as haunting a memory as the arrow-riddled body of the young boy who loved him.

           The brother who loved him.

           Sansa stands before Rickon’s statue with her hands folded before her.  A ring of winter roses lays at the base, slowly wilting.

           She heaves a sigh, and it seems to take all of her, but her voice is steady when she tells him, “We’ll have to burn them.”

           Her admission jars him into movement, a hand coming up to brace at her elbow.  “Sansa.” There’s a question laced through her name he doesn’t know how to ask.

           She turns to him then, just slightly, just enough to catch his gaze over her shoulder.  

           He has learned, after many moons, how to read Sansa Stark’s grief – how to discern it by the lines of her face, the stiffness of her frame, the heady weight of her silence.

           His fingers curl more surely around her elbow.

           “If we want to survive the Long Night, then we will have to burn them.”

           Jon looks past her down the long tunnel of crypts.  It’s a shadow-drenched cavern of memory and stone and deep, still quiet that takes him – an ages-old memoriam of long dead Starks.  It’s a line that stretches far, and he remembers suddenly, that it’s a line he is never to join.

           King in the North he may be, but never a Stark.

           Jon grinds his teeth, the ache in his jaw an easy distraction.

           He’d hoped to be buried here one day.  A child’s dream, perhaps.  A foolish wish.

           Jon wants to laugh suddenly.  To laugh and laugh and choke on it – because what a joke.  The gods have ill humor, and he has little appreciation for it.

           Sansa reaches a hand to his side, fingers clutching at his furs.  He sends a baleful look her way.

“I’ll light the fires myself,” she says softly at his side, and he has to swallow back the tartness, eyes fluttering closed at the breath that stains his lungs.  “With Bran and Arya,” she finishes, voice softer than he’s ever heard.

He reaches a hand to the small of her back, dragging her against him.

She settles a palm at his chest where his heart lies, beaten and floundering.

           “I would not have you buried here,” she mutters against his shoulder.

           Jon grips at her dress, fingers bunching in the material at her back.

           “Not yet,” she finishes, mouth sliding against his throat.  “Not for many years to come.”

           He should take it as the hope it is, as the single, rare confession it is – that she isn’t ready for him to leave this world.

           But something too long festered flares to life at the words.  Something too darkly honed.

           The hand bunched in her dress draws upwards, dragging the material with it.  He presses into her, backing her up against the wall.

           Sansa looks up at him with a flicker of concern, hands bracing at his shoulders.

           He’s silent as he unfastens his cloak, letting it fall to the cold ground at his feet.  He pulls his jerkin free of his breeches, unlacing it with practiced ease.

           Sansa stares at him, breath hitching.  Her hands hover uncertainly in the air above his shoulders, her hips pinned to the wall by his.  “Jon.”

           His jerkin hits the floor alongside his cloak, his eyes never leaving hers. He pulls his tunic free of his breeches, hands moving to the laces at his groin.  Sansa’s hands fumble to stop him.

           “Jon, please, what are you – ”

           “I’m a Stark, aren’t I?”  It’s a guttural rush of air that leaves him.

           Sansa’s hands still over his.  She blinks furiously at him, mouth parting, cheeks heated at his stare.

           “You said it yourself,” he whispers, chest heaving.

           Sansa’s eyes shift between his, tongue darting out to lick her lips in her anticipation.  “Jon.”

           “You said it yourself,” he hisses now, accusingly, a bite behind his words he hasn’t a name for.  And then he’s rucking up her skirts, a hand gliding to the back of her knee, tugging it up over his hip.

           Sansa gasps, arching against the wall instinctively.  She pushes her skirts down frantically, chest rising and falling so fast she’s getting lightheaded.  “Jon, wait, this isn’t – this isn’t – ”

           His mouth finds her throat, his tongue reckless and heated against her flesh. Sansa’s head lolls back against the wall.  “Jon,” she pants, fingers stilling at his shoulders with a fierce grip.  “Jon, what – ”

           He grabs at her wrists, tugging them up above her head, holding them there with a single, calloused palm.  His other hand undoes the laces of his breeches completely.  “I’m a Stark, aren’t I?” he asks again, the heat of resentment and longing and regret flaring white-hot inside him.  It comes out a growl.  It comes out a desperation.

           Sansa’s chest heaves against his, tongue wetting her lips.  “Jon.”

           And he’s just so tired of hearing that name.  Just so fucking tired of it.

           He rucks her skirts up, tearing at her smallclothes, fumbling recklessly for the heat of her, that throbbing, sodden heat of her.

           Jon groans when his fingers find home.  He nips at her lips, catching her hitched breath between his teeth.  “This is where I belong,” he says without repentance, sliding into her on a hissed breath, his head dropping to her shoulder as he shudders against her, a deep-seated groan leaving him.

           Sansa’s sharp inhale sounds against his temple, her hips pushing up to meet him.

           Jon releases her wrists, grabbing for her thighs instead, hoisting her up against the wall as he thrusts deeper, drawing her legs around his waist.

           A sigh of contentment breaks against his ear, his name lost in the space between their pants, and he remembers suddenly.

           He remembers where they are.

           “Don’t stop,” Sansa moans breathlessly.

           He grinds his hips into hers faster, deeper, with a mercilessness that almost scares him in its intensity.  One of her hands reaches out to steady herself, bracing against the base of Rickon’s statue.  Jon looks decidedly away from the motion.

           He only fucks his sister harder.  

           The crypts fill with their ragged pants, their dark curses, the fumble of their forms against the crude stone.

           “This is where I belong,” he groans against her mouth, biting down on her bottom lip.

           Sansa cries out, nails digging into the naked flesh of his hips, drawing him deeper into her, and he feels himself breaking, crashing, barreling into her with a ferocity he’s never felt for anything – anyone – no one but her. “Mine,” he growls into her mouth, fingers bruising on her thighs, teeth etching their mark along her throat.  He braces a single, trembling hand against the wall at her back, the rough stone cutting into his palm as his thrusts grow frantic and uneven.  He curls his bloodied hand along the stone wall, nails catching on the rock, and he anchors himself amidst the tide.

           “Mine.”

           It’s a shadow-drenched cavern of memory that takes him.  A place of no light.  A hollow of stone so entrenched with the dead he finds a familiar home.

           Sansa does not let him go.

           Even when he spills inside her.

           Even when he mars her thighs with the discoloration of his need.

           Mine, he swears.

           The declaration clatters around the stone crypts like a herald of war.

* * *

{“Fire sows no seeds,” he tells her.  “It molds no stones.  It tills no earth.  How could it ever fashion life from death?”

           Sansa stops, looking down at her still brother, knuckles white where her hands grip at each other in their wringing.  She slinks slowly back to her chair, the wind rushing from her in something not unlike defeat.  She is just so lonely, suddenly – so desolate and worn and without him.  

Without Jon.

“You knew all along?” she asks almost plaintively, exhaustion echoing along her words.  “You knew the dragons weren’t…”  She stops, swallows, tries again.  “You didn’t bring them here to defeat the dead.  You brought them here because only the dead could defeat them.”

           Bran gives her a look that could only pass for calculating – foreign and jarring though it is on her brother’s tender features. “She was never the solution,” he answers her.}

[16ruedelaverrerie]

SOUND THE HORNS, RAISE THE ALARMS, it’s time for THE WAR ON STARK PROPAGANDA haha that’s a severe way of putting it, “Stark propaganda.” But it really is a case of emotional allegiances affecting the interpretation of narrative events; the first trouble is that the audience loves the Starks too much, and that Theon loves the Starks too much (for a given value of “love”).

It’s not like the show never points out that Theon’s position in Winterfell is one of hostage! But the centrality of the Starks to the show makes it really difficult to look at things through anything other than Stark-tinted glasses-- and because the show primes the audience to think of the Starks as generally good and noble and kind, it’s not easy to see that even those who are good and noble and kind are perfectly capable of inflicting harm on others. Just because Ned Stark seems like a really nice dude doesn’t mean he won’t take a child hostage. In fact, it is absolutely because Ned Stark is a... nice dude... that he takes a child hostage; this is a kind of niceness that has very strict limits on what kinds of mercy are allowed and when. Taking Theon hostage means that the Greyjoys can be kept in check instead of being eradicated off the face of the planet, but just because that minimizes overall bloodshed doesn’t mean that Theon can’t be rendered precarious and miserable by it.

Also, it’s extra hard to remember that Theon doesn’t need redemption when Theon himself is constantly looking for redemption. Even though the only real human connection he has with the Starks is through Robb, Theon does DESPERATELY want to belong to the family that he’s grown up in. So, you know, I get it! I understand why a lot of people would watch the show and think that Theon’s betrayal of Robb’s trust is tantamount to turning on one’s own family! That his taking of Winterfell is some sort of INTERNECINE CATASTROPHE!

But that’s a conclusion that comes from adopting the show’s viewpoint as your own. Again, I get it. When a text wants something, it tries to make you want it too. My concern is that reading against the text is a skill that we're not really given the chance to learn very well or practice very often, but that it’s such an important skill to have in order to be thoughtful, critical interlocutors of both fictional and nonfictional materials. Saying that Theon needs redemption is to take for granted a lot of assumptions that undergird GoT’s diegetic worldviews (some of which are also ASoIaF’s); that the Starks are “good,” that family must come first, that one has to pay for one’s wrongs with suffering and death. But none of these are inviolable truths! The Starks are just people, a family is nothing but a socially constructed unit, and punishment is not the only possible response to a misdeed.

The last point, especially. In a Renaissance revenge tragedy, things don’t end when vengeance has been served and everyone is satisfied with the state of affairs. They end because vengeance has snowballed freakishly out of control and there is no longer anyone left alive to pursue vengeance or be avenged upon. Suffering can never adequately pay for suffering. How the heck does Theon lying dead in the Godswood do anything to unstage the Red Wedding? What does Theon being flayed in the Dreadfort do to unkill the miller’s boys? To think of Theon’s story as a redemption arc is also to place his torture and abuse within that framework, and the rhetoric of “he got what he deserved” presupposes a moral economy that operates on the principle that punitive measures are necessary to right a wrong. But suffering can never adequately pay for suffering. I read the Reek section of Theon’s story as being in large part about the inherent failure of this sort of punitive moral economy; you may want to see someone punished, but the problem is that once you start punishing them, there’s no clear point at which to stop.

What’s so vile is that setting up Theon’s story as a redemption arc also made a lot of people react to trauma with a fantastic lack of compassion! This is why Peter Sagal can call late-season Theon a loser, and why a major-outlet thinkpiece can state with confidence that no one stans Theon. In a redemption arc, you serve your time and you stand back up and you finally do good; Theon’s inability to rise to the occasion in the aftermath of Ramsay was therefore a source of frustration for people who were expecting a glorious moment of redemption for Theon. Under this framework, his failure to fight Euron was a failure to seize that redemption when it was offered to him.

But why is violence the only way to answer violence? Why can’t Theon respond to his own wartime deeds in some other way that doesn’t involve more war? When I said that I wanted Theon to have a fleece blanket and a bowl of soup, it wasn’t that I wanted him to withdraw from the story or to cede control to Euron. It was that GoT has never been interested in imagining a truly viable alternative space to the theater of war, and I wanted to see what it would look like to turn some swords to goddamn plowshares without waiting for the current war to run its course. When I say this, people keep telling me that the world of GoT is a harsh one and the only way to survive is to fight. But literally there is nothing to stop anyone from imagining otherwise! That’s what fiction is-- the act of imagining otherwise. But all GoT wants to do is imagine the same thing over and over again; Sam wants to fight, little girls want to fight, everyone wants to fight because D&D have created a world in which there is nothing outside of fighting. Sansa tells the Hound her suffering did her good because she now knows how to fight better (not physically, but more shrewdly; more mistrustfully). Theon is worthless until he fights again-- and eventually dies fighting, because having regained that violent worth, his arc is ended and he is no longer needed for any further violent purpose.

I’m not a very good watcher of the show. I don’t think I ever cared who sat on the Iron Throne, I don’t instinctively understand the desire not to be spoiled for plot developments, and I’m mostly skeptical of spectacle. It’s probably the case that I’m not the person all this was meant for! So my opinion counts for very little... but here is the opinion that counts for so little, @hurlumerlu. These are my tangled feelings. There is also a side branch argument about how I find the redemption arc to be uninteresting as a narrative shape because it is too neat, but that’s a different aesthetic argument for another time.

 Oh my god I’m sorry @we-return-in-waves, just to get here you had to scroll past ten thousand lines of me wishing that someone would establish a women’s shelter in Westeros or something kl;dkhglk actually I’m sorry to @hurlumerlu as well, in fact I’m sorry to everyone for making the previous answer part of an askbox post and not its own separate entry. But I DON’T KNOW, I JUST STARTED DOING IT AND THEN I REALIZED THAT MY ANSWER WAS TOO LONG BUT BY THEN IT WAS TOO LATE AND ALSO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?? ME TYPING TOO MUCH = A PROBLEM THAT RECURS IN EVERY AREA OF MY LIFE EXCEPT FOR IN MY SCHOOLWORK, UNFORTUNATELY ENOUGH

Which is a segue back to your message. You are truly an infinitely better human being than I, firstly because you are generous enough to derive enjoyment from my shitty DBH posts; but secondly because you are disciplined enough to use fandom as a motivation! If I were you, I would just end up staring at a blank Word document for two hours, thinking but what if Gavin wins a Grand Prix and instead of celebrating like a normal person he just breathlessly yells NINES, MEET ME IN THE BACK into the interviewer’s microphone before flipping off the entire crowd and walking backwards offstage

Fandom hinders me from getting schoolwork done and schoolwork hinders me from getting fandom stuff done. It is a vicious cycle of no great consequence but I am despondent over it anyway. Thank you very much for dropping me this note, @we-return-in-waves! I do it all for you.

 No bruh you. What?

[sepedarodatiga]

Okay, here we go people, this is peak delulu, be warned! I’m getting more inclined to believe that Jon and Sansa has done the deed, the consummation has happened, the UST has become RST, the fuck plot that was promised has rolled and we weren’t told about it and we didn’t get to see it.

(If I’m wrong about this then I am a doomed delulu, but if I’m right…)

I made prediction that they will consummate their love specifically in 8x02 because I am sure that Sansa will become pregnant and that pregnancy is part of the story, not just an epilogue, therefore they have to consummate early on. Well that didn’t happened while I was SO SURE, so it occurred to me what if they hide the plot so they can make a surprise pregnancy as a plot twist and make people wonder who the father is, especially that Sansa was last seen close to Theon who was impossible to have fathered the child.

I tried to brush off that thought because, please, I could totally be wrong about the pregnancy prediction anyway and making this up would sound like I insisted too much on being right. But then I found this meta by @jonlovessansa who stated that yep the deed is done and this is how they hide it. It intrigued me greatly no doubt and I did a rewatch and found more clues based on the their method. Then I started seeing posts complaining about D&D way of secretive story telling and then, the leaks, specifically the leaks saying that a male/female pairing will have surprise. Plus the fact that with so little time left, how did 8x02 feel like a filler episode? The way Jon revealed his parentage to Dany also intrigued me. Why is he so dead sure and confident that he is Aegon Targaryen? Isn’t he supposed to be angsty about not being Ned’s son? Maybe because at that moment he doesn’t want to be Ned’s son, he wants to be Aegon Targaryen. So I decided to write this meta anyway and risked myself of great embarrassment if I turned out to be wrong.

So the way they hide it is by 1) Using characters stand in and 2) Using callbacks to past scenes.

The first is Cersei/Euron. What did they do in 8x01? Yes they fucked, because Euron didn’t want to wait until the war is over. That is exactly what I highlighted in my consummation meta. And they made Euron say that he will put a prince in her belly. This is the same episode Sam revealed to Jon that he is the true king. Then look at the similarities. This is what Euron said to Cersei when she rejected him.

And this what Jon said to Sansa when she berated him for giving up his crown.

And let’s not forget the twirl, people! And yes it also important that Sansa, Arya and Cersei did the twirl. I will discuss about Arya later because it is more important, but here is Cersei and Sansa.

Oh they break their boys’ heart!

After they have sex, other than putting a prince in her belly Euron brought up two of Cersei’s ex: Robert and Jaime. While Sansa had two husbands. This will become an important parallel later.

Okay so there’s that. Let’s wrap that one up and put a nice little bow on it. Next character parallel is Arya/Gendry.

This pair had their own twirl in 8x01 and done the deed in 8x02 and it’s closer to become the stand in for Jonsa, because I think the timing is matched. Before I discuss Gendrya, I need to point out how 8x02 is filled to the brim with callbacks to Jon/Sansa reunion in Castle Black. I’m sure you all have watched the reunion a thousand times so I don’t have to do a screenshot comparison, right? Here goes the list.

The hug and the soup in front of the fire between Theon/Sansa

The return of Edd and Tormund who was present during the reunion. Jon welcomed and hugged them in the courtyard plus Tormund asking about Brienne bringing back to the hug in Castle Black’s courtyard.

The group drinking in front of the fire and Tyrion complaining about the quality of the drink.

Tyrion and Bran in front of the fire just the two of them

Arya asking for Sandor’s drink, like Sansa was asking for Jon’s drink. Sandor remembering the past that Arya used to never shut up and Arya saying she’s changed, like Sansa apologized for her behaviour towards Jon in the past. Sandor saying that he fought for her. Then Beric comes and they brought up his resurrection. Jon was just being resurrected when the reunion happened and Sansa asked him to fight for her for Winterfell.

Battle plan strategy meeting.

Missandei and Greyworm “where will we go” and Greyworm promised to protect her.

Sam giving her father’s sword to Jorah because Jeor Mormont was like a father to him. Like Sansa giving the Ned fur to Jon in memory of him. Ned is Sansa’s real father and an adoptive father to Jon. “I will wield it in his memory” is Jorah’s “I made it like father’s as close as I can remember”.

Now Gendrya. Callbacks to the reunion also happened during Gendrya’s scene.

Gendry came to give a weapon he made for Arya, like Sansa gave the incest fur she made for Jon. “This will work” is Arya’s “ I like the wolf bit”.

Gendry said that Arya wanted him to come to Winterfell and now he’s there, like Sansa and Jon saying how they want to go back to Winterfell

The connection that can be made between Gendrya and Jonsa during their fuck plot:

Gendry revealed his parentage to Arya

Both Gendry and Jon has a sexual encounter with the Red Woman in this was brought up in their conversation.

Arya also asked how many women Gendry’s been with other than the Red Woman. The answer is three: Ros, Ygritte and Dany. Oh oops, that’s Jon. Yep just like Euron brought up two of Cersei’s ex while Sansa had two husbands.

And again the theme “we’re at war and we might die” that I highlighted shows up in their scene.

Arya was the one who initiate it. I’ve seen many jonsa wanted for Sansa to initiate her intimacy with Jon. I think this is what happened because of this next parallel

In 8x02 there is one other important callback to a scene in 4x09. It was when Jon, Sam and Edd talked.

They were talking about the same thing and in the similar setting. Little Sam and Gilly and whether has Sam had sex with Gilly or not and how they were going to die in this battle. This is important because back in 4x09 Jon asked Sam that if Gilly had offered would Sam break his vows?

I think that this foreshadows that he is going to do it no matter the consequences because they are probably going to die. And he’s going to do it with redhead. Sansa will offer just like Arya offered Gendry. The fact that 8x02 made a callback to this scene tells me that this is what happened during that time and instead of showing or telling it to us, they put all of this cryptic clues.

What do you guys think?

[stormcloudrising]

A Match with Someone Brave, Gentle and STRONG

April 6, 2019

Ok, the title of this post is not a direct quote but if you are familiar with the books, you know the one to which I refer.  However, here is the correct wording of the quote.

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you're old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me." 

A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Before you read much more of this brief essay, I advice you to watch this theory video by Joe Magician.  I think it’s one of the best and most important fandom theories that I’ve seen in ages.  In it he shows all the book evidence and comments from GRRM that points to the extinct House Strong from the Riverlands being an ancient branch of House Stark. The video is about 30 minutes but I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed in watching it all the way through. And this is true even if you are not a Jonsa stan because truthfully, the theory is that good. 

There is a second companion video by Crowfood’s Daughter that discusses Ser Duncan the Tall but for now, I want to discuss what Joe Magician proposes in his video and how it my pertain to Jon and Sansa by posting some book passages.  These excerpts will have greater meaning after you have watched the video and so I again advice you do so first.

Good...you’ve watched the video...hopefully!  Now that you see how House Strong might have been a separated branch of House Stark, you most likely can see the additional importance of Ned using the word “strong” in his promise to Sansa.  If you’re like me, you are also probably wondering if GRRM dropped any clues using the word that suggests we are meant to see Jon as the “strong” candidate who will marry Sansa.  Well the answer is of course yes.  There are actually quite a few book clues that point in this direction.  Let’s look at some of them.

This first excerpt is from AGOT and occurs when the Lord Commander tells Jon that his father was executed in Kings Landing. 

"Lady Stark is not my mother," Jon reminded him sharply. Tyrion Lannister had been a friend to him. If Lord Eddard was killed, she would be as much to blame as the queen. "My lord, what of my sisters? Arya and Sansa, they were with my father, do you know—"

"Pycelle makes no mention of them, but doubtless they'll be treated gently. I will ask about them when I write." Mormont shook his head. "This could not have happened at a worse time. If ever the realm needed a strong king … there are dark days and cold nights ahead, I feel it in my bones …" He gave Jon a long shrewd look. "I hope you are not thinking of doing anything stupid, boy."

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

The strong king that the realm needs is of course Jon.  This next passage is about Ghost after he is injured by Orrell’s Eagle on the Skirling pass.

As if in answer, Ghost struggled to his feet.

"The wolf is strong," the ranger said. "Ebben, water. Stonesnake, your skin of wine. Hold him still, Jon."

A Clash of Kings - Jon VII

As Jon himself tells us, Ghost is a part of him, which means that Jon is also part of Ghost.  This fact is brought home to the reader in several ways including Melissandre’s vision Jon switching from wolf to man and back again.  Mel’s vision is of course a portent of Jon’s eventual death at the hands of his men and him warging into Ghost just as he dies.  The attack on Ghost by Orrel’s eagle is a similar omen as it presage the future ambush on Jon by the same bird as well as the neck wound he suffers when he is killed by his men.  

Here is another instance when strong is associated with Jon and the Starks of Winterfell...this time by Maester Aemon

Grenn gave Pyp a strange look. "He doesn't know."

"Jon," said Maester Aemon, "much and more happened while you were away, and little of it good. Balon Greyjoy has crowned himself again and sent his longships against the north. Kings sprout like weeds at every hand and we have sent appeals to all of them, yet none will come. They have more pressing uses for their swords, and we are far off and forgotten. And Winterfell . . . Jon, be strong . . . Winterfell is no more . . ."

"No more?" Jon stared at Aemon's white eyes and wrinkled face. "My brothers are at Winterfell. Bran and Rickon . . ."

A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

These next three excerpts are extremely important.  I make this statement because the memory of something Ned said to Jon occurs in three of his chapters and so the words obviously have had a strong (no pun intended) impact on his thinking.  It’s also important because of one of Jon’s dreams that I will reference shortly.

All the same, Jon found himself hoping that Styr's fears proved well founded. If the gods are good, a patrol will chance by and put an end to this. "No wall can keep you safe," his father had told him once, as they walked the walls of Winterfall. "A wall is only as strong as the men who defend it." The wildlings might have a hundred and twenty men, but four defenders would be enough to see them off, with a few well-placed arrows and perhaps a pail of stones.

A Storm of Swords - Jon IV

"Yes." Jon Snow glanced up at the Wall, towering over them like a cliff of ice. A hundred leagues from end to end, and seven hundred feet high. The strength of the Wall was its height; the length of the Wall was its weakness. Jon remembered something his father had said once. A wall is only as strong as the men who stand behind it. The men of the Night's Watch were brave enough, but they were far too few for the task that confronted them.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon II

The raven flapped its wings. "Kill, kill."

Sigorn's father, the old Magnar, had been crushed beneath the falling stair during his attack on Castle Black. I would feel the same if someone asked me to make common cause with the Lannisters, Jon told himself. "Your father tried to kill us all," he reminded Sigorn. "The Magnar was a brave man, yet he failed. And if he had succeeded … who would hold the Wall?" He turned away from the Thenns.

"Winterfell's walls were strong as well, but Winterfell stands in ruins today, burned and broken. A wall is only as good as the men defending it."

A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

The possibility that House Strong was an ancient branch of House Stark adds additional emphasis to Ned’s words to Jon about walls needing strong men to defend.  It suggests that the magic in both the great Wall and Winterfell is tied to the Starks in someway.  This is an idea that has been popular in the fandom for ages but Joe Magician’s theory backs it up.

Winterfell “fell” to Theon because Bran and Rickon were still children.  Bran was injured and the two had not yet grown into the “strong men” they need to be to defend their home and the realm.  Things might also have been made easier for the Greyjoys because Theon is an adoptive Stark and so he can be considered an adoptive strong who instead of manning the walls, opened the doors to the enemy.  The Starks/Strongs were defeated from within.

You need “strong” men to defend the great Wall and the wall of Winterfell or in other words, you need Starks to defend the walls and protect the realm. The Wall protects the realm from the Others and strong men (Starks) have defended it for thousands of years.  If the Great Wall falls, Winterfell is the last major defense to stop the Others from making it to the southern part of the kingdom. The Starks defeated the Others at Winterfell during the last Long Night and the strong men manning the walls will likely have to do so again.

In a way, the duality of the Starks and their direwolves is mirrored in the Starks and the Strongs.  The Starks are the Strongs and the Strongs are the Starks.  This brings me to Jon’s dream that I mentioned earlier.

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared.

The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut. He hacked down Donal Noye and gutted Deaf Dick Follard. Qhorin Halfhand stumbled to his knees, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. "I am the Lord of Winterfell," Jon screamed. It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off. Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly by the shoulder. He whirled …

… and woke with a raven pecking at his chest. "Snow," the bird cried. Jon swatted at it. The raven shrieked its displeasure and flapped up to a bedpost to glare down balefully at him through the predawn gloom.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

The word strong is not used in the passage describing Jon’s dream but it doesn’t need to be for one to see how Ned’s teachings have taken root in him. He is the last man standing but he is a Stark, which means that he is also a Strong and so even though he is alone, he will defend the Great Wall and the wall of Winterfell. Note how he also sees himself as the Lord of Winterfell defending the wall.

One of the clues that pointed Ned to the truth about Cersei and Jaime was the blond hair of their three kids as well as Jon Arryn’s last words, “the seed is Strong.”  Lysa took it to mean that her husband was talking about Sweet Robin but as Ned discovered, he was talking about the Baratheons always producing black hair children...including all of Robert’s bastards.

Varamyr knew the truth of that. When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell's, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.

A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

A man’s seed is his gift to his future generations and so Varamyr’s thought that the “gift was strong in Snow,” has similar meaning to the “seed is strong.”  The strong seed of Jon’s ancestors is why he and his siblings are wargs.

There are many other instances in the books where the use of the word “strong” can now be seen to have double meaning because the knowledge of this probable connection between House Strong and House Stark.  And it is not just in scenes with Jon.  The inferences can be seen with all of the Stark children.

Now, I’m sure that there will be those who will argue that Ned’s quote points to Gendry as the “strong” character who will marry Sansa and to that I would simply say...NO!  That argument is really not worth much more discussion than NO.  Yes, the phrase absolutely identifies Gendry Mya and Robert’s remaining bastards as being from his loins.  However, Gendry is not a point of view character and so we only get a brief mention of his arc from Arya’s point of view.  And his arc is never at anytime tied to Sansa.  

The daughter of Winterfell is not going to marry a character that is basically off the pages for most of the books.  She will marry an important point of view character and the one who fulfills this role and whose own arc is closely tied to Sansa over and over is Jon Snow!  The End!

[potteresque-ire]

Theon Greyjoy ~ The Dead Who Didn’t Die

This is my second review post on Game of Thrones! Thank you so much for asking about Theon Greyjoy, @lordhellebore and @lsdandkizuki​, and I apologize for this taking so long (RL news has kept me emotionally occupied * sigh *). As I mentioned before, I watched GoT in one go while Season 8 was airing. This puts me in a relatively rare position of neither having time to build up expectations nor selectively remembering things that would support one fan theory versus another. The same disclaimers apply: YMMV, haven’t read the books so the meta is strictly based on the show, haven’t read the many opinion pieces out there and so my viewpoints may overlap etc etc. 😊

Due to its length, this post has also been cross-posted on AO3. 

===

I was thinking…what do I want to say about Theon? He had a beautiful character arc; he showed that characters can undergo significant transformations (Theon did twice) and still be plausible and sympathetic, as long as the writing supports the development.

Then I thought of his mottos of the family he was born into, and being held as a ward in. We do not sow. Winter is coming. And I thought, oh.

No wonder he had such a difficult journey finding out who he was. No wonder everyone, including and perhaps, especially himself, couldn’t fathom for so long that a person could be both a Greyjoy and a Stark. We do not sow was all about seizing the moment, abhorring foresight and preparation. Winter is coming was all about the reverse. No wonder Theon assumed that choosing his birth family equated with destroying his adopted one. Theon’s background was one of conflict—and I love details like this, when even the family mottos reinforcing the idea that Theon lived in the grey (huh) at the start of his journey, and this grey was volatile because the elements—the Greyjoys and the Starks—were never meant to mix.

The most difficult part to watch about Theon was, of course, the torture he suffered from Ramsey. While I found the physical torture to be about 50% necessary (too long for my taste), I really liked the ultimate treachery Ramsey pulled on Theon: the fake escape, the fake hope instilled that his sister was waiting, the fake horse ride that led straight back to the St Andrew’s Cross. Not that I endorsed Ramsey behaviour (this should go without saying, but…Tumblr), but I liked how drawn-out and psychological this torture was; how, whether by intention or accident, Ramsey had found the precise thing that’d break Theon. The strongest, most unbreakable prison is the one we build in our minds, and Ramsey successfully, convincingly constructed one with that fake escape. It was the opus of a grand if terrible scheme: Theon had done unspeakable damage to his adopted home; Ramsey started with physical torture that broke his resolve and pride, let regret—of betraying Rob and attacking Winterfell—take its hold; the escape then worked upon that regret, which was itself already a powerful form of mental torture, by convincing Theon that not only there was no way out, there was no one there for him, not even his birth family—which was the chronic wound in Theon’s psyche, from the moment he’d been sent to the Starks as a hostage and pretty much abandoned there. The black and white that’d made the grey, the grey that’d made Theon had separated, and Theon was left in a void that allowed Ramsey to sculpt him into whatever Ramsey pleased. Without the escape sequence, I don’t think I’d be as convinced with Theon becoming Reek; and if I’d been convinced then, I’d be less convinced with Theon’s second transformation, after his true baptism in the sea (after failing to overcome his PTSD to save Yara and jumping into the ocean).

I identified with Reek and sympathised with him, even if he’d destroyed Winterfell and killed two innocent boys and many others. I connected with him more than with the more heroic characters of the show. If I had to give a cause, I’d say this—I’m no Gryffindor. I’ve said this before on Tumblr. But I’d clarify here the guilt I feel when I say it:  I feel guilty because I could’ve done more for people who could use a voice, not because I was born with less courage than to my liking. I felt this was true for Theon as well; while his mistakes had led him to Ramsey, it was not his fault to break, especially not with the things he’d gone through. Not everyone was born with the iron spine told in the legends, and Balon Greyjoy, who turned his own humiliation into hatred for his youngest son, the rightful heir of the Salt Throne, was more a coward than Theon ever was. It was heartbreaking to watch Theon cowering, their every facial muscle twitching with fear; it was even more heartbreaking to see him unable to dig that razor into Ramsey’s neck and Ramsey knew it. To see anyone assumed so confidently that they shall not rise again, to be announced dead before they truly were.

What is dead may never die. I wondered then if Theon’s fate would be a reflection or irony of that.

I rooted for Theon to prove Ramsey wrong. I rooted for him to escape his psychological prison if just so he could pay his dues for his crimes. No one deserved this kind of death sentence. Our corporal beings die but our spirit is meant to live, through the memories of who we are; memories built from our own history, in the minds of those who’ve crossed our paths in our life’s journey. Ramsey experimented death in reverse for Theon; he tried to kill Theon’s spirit while keeping his body alive.

It made sense to me then, that Theon the Human would rise again with Sansa’s appearance. That she and their shared childhood memories would revive him, even if they hadn’t shared kind words with one another before Theon grabbed her arm and they jumped from the tower. It also made sense that Theon would be the one to guard Bran in the Battle of Winterfell. Theon was the personification of the Three-Eye Raven’s power over the Night King. He rose because Sansa kept his history; mankind could only live if the Night King couldn’t destroy its history stored in the Three-Eye Raven.

I also liked that Theon’s second transformation—from Reek back to Theon Greyjoy—wasn’t a simple path. I liked that he freaked out amidst the bloodshed on the ship and abandoned Yara with Euron. It felt realistic to me, that his healing—or perhaps, his scarring—was prone to setbacks, as is true for many in our world who have experienced trauma. I didn’t see the relapse as Theon’s weakness; I saw it as a testament to the depth of his wound. His recovery might have been more uplifting to watch, more fitting to the often (over?) positive portrayal of recovery and healing in our culture if the show hadn’t given him these hardships. But that would’ve been an insult to him, to his newly gained humility and iron will, which made him stand as both a Greyjoy and a Stark in the end.

Theon’s end. As I mentioned above, I found his guarding Bran in the Battle of Winterfell to be thematically significant and I liked that. GoT characters often died unexpectedly deaths, so the best to hope for was for their deaths to be meaningful and Theon’s was. Of all the GoT characters, I think of his journey as closest to what fandom calls a redemption arc; it was also a satisfying arc, in that I felt the show actually believed in it (unlike that of Daenerys). I often hesitate on using the term redemption, because I’m not sure if I believe that good deeds in the present can truly cancel out past trespasses when the trespasses were not against God but against fellow men. Redemption, to me, is real only when the wronged party chooses to forgive, which may be true for God but is certainly not a given among humans. Theon’s redemption arc was complete to me not when Sansa gave him the pin, but when she and the Starks trusted him with guarding Bran. That decision said a lot about Sansa’s heart and her capacity to forgive, but said as much about Theon who carried out the task honourably in the face of bloodshed. That night, he overcame his demons. He might not have lived defending a wolf — there’s never a guarantee in their world or ours that good people are rewarded with longevity — but his iron born spirit would be remembered. He fought as one who didn’t sow because he was meant to give his all, every moment, even when winter came.

Review 1: Daenerys Stormborn, First of Her Name

[gizkasparadise]

Gizka i wanna read ur gendrya fic bc 1) you're excellent 2) arya was my favorite GoT character for the five minutes i tried to be into it. My problem is that I can't sit thru the other 80% of GoT/asoiaf just for that good arya content. How much of canon do I need to consume to understand fic?

ONE OF US ONE OF US

tbh not much -- most of my stuff is just from s8 (which LOL i started after not having watched in like 10 years, although i did catch up)! My Main Fic is an AU from 8x5, so if you’re feeling it, 8x1-8x5 would probably be fine. Here is my ultra cool summary of what to know for s8:

-The Night King is the main zombie of an army of zombies that’s out to fuck up humanity as we know it. their first pit stop is Winterfell, where The Whole Gang (-cersei because she was a dick and didn’t want to help) is gathering for a Dramatic Last Stand

-The only thing that kills the zombies is fire, valyrian steel, and dragon glass. Gendry is like. the only dude who knows how to make weapons out of dragon glass, so he’s on his way to Winterfell for the first time to help after helping Jon with some other Zombie Shit. him and arya haven’t seen each other since they were kids  

-Bran Stark is no longer Bran Stark because he’s been possessed by a tripped-out forest god that knows All of History. he’s now called the 3 eyed raven

-Jon’s been named the King of the North and has left the Night’s Watch

-Dany made it to Westeros with her armies and banged Jon on a boat. tyrion and varys are her advisors now and tyrion does a terrible job (cha cha with my bias in there). one of her dragons was killed by the Night King, so he’s got a ZOMBIE DRAGON. she agreed to help winterfell/Jon out if he’d bend the knee and accept her as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

-which Sansa is NOT HAPPY ABOUT because she wants an Independent North and thinks Jon’s thinking with his dick. she’s the Political Sibling now. Theon Greyjoy and her Went Through Some Fucking Traumatic Shit together but long story short Theon helped rescue her and is now back on Team Stark and a very sad boi

-Jaime has spent the last 2-3 seasons being a shitty thot but now he is on his way to be a thot for the forces of good

-Arya’s been training for the last (uh....5?) years to be an ultra cool Assassin

-Sandor has murder-adopted Arya after their shared Murder Roadtrip, this remains true even though the last time she saw him she left him to die because brienne FUCKING WRECKED HIM

I also recommend watching 5.8: Hardhome, not because you need to but because it was a really cool battle :D

& as an arya fan you gotta watch 8x3 even if you decide not to watch the rest. you gotta. it’s essential.