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musical-chick-13 · 5 years

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you opened up the things I shut (cersei x melisandre)

Hello, @multifandomfix. It’s me! Your asoiaf rarepairs Secret Santa. (I’m sorry this is so much closer to the ending deadline/is a day after I said I’d get it to you; I might have gone a bit overboard in writing this because this thing is like 7000 words long, lmao.) Thank you so much for participating, I really enjoyed writing this! :D (I will also put this on ao3 for easier access, but I wanted to make absolutely sure I got this to you first.)

Lady Melisandre still mourns the loss of what she thought she had found at Dragonstone. Someone so committed to his goals, so willing to listen to her, that he would do anything. A man so concerned with justice and following what he believed to be the preordained will of the universe that he was willing to listen to her. Understand her.

Love her.

Feel something toward her that wasn’t disdain or abject fear. To give her a name other than that of “fanatic” or “lunatic.”

And as much as she loves the Lord, as much as she wants-needs-to do right by Him, she won’t delude herself into thinking that any of those other things were unpleasant or inconsequential.

Would he believe in her now? she wonders, If he were still here? She has lost her faith. Broken her own heart. She’s not sure she even believes in herself anymore, which is more terrifying than anything she has ever experienced. She has been the one earthly constant in her life, the only person she could trust, and the only thing aside from God she could every truly rely on.

But she will see this through to the end. It is her duty. She understands this. If she has no cause, she has no purpose. But even still, the thing she sees before she goes to sleep is the way Davos had looked at her after he found out what had happened to the little girl. And Jon. Everyone else at Dragonstone save Stannis.

“Terrible,” they called her. Mad. Poisonous. The manifestation of ruin itself. Poorly-hidden criticisms of every choice she had ever made followed her through every corner of Westeros, even now, especially now.

So when whispers turn to discussion of this Lannister lady, who they call “mad” and “loathsome” and “malevolent,” unable to make sensible choices if the world itself hung in the balance, it all sounds almost disturbingly familiar.

She can see the rage that underlies everything the Dragon Queen does. Perhaps she will shirk her family’s legacy. Perhaps she will not. All of that is in the hands of a far more powerful being than her. But Melisandre knows that she must be prepared should Daenerys succumb to the Targaryen curse.

Nothing the Lord wants is transparent anymore. And in light of the extreme strictures of conventional morality everyone else so desperately wants to hold her to, Cersei Lannister might be the most understanding ally she’ll be able to find.

The current queen of Westeros (well, half of Westeros, if she were to take to heart a somewhat-distant warning from her twin brother—which she was not) takes in her visitor. Hair as red as fire, a dress to match, a spidery necklace that Cersei suspects is much more than just a necklace.

She has heard of her, this fire priestess. Some foreign name that begins with an “M.” Previously aligned with Stannis. Cersei had never considered her worth any further investigation; she can only imagine what this woman wants with her now.

“Why are you here.” It’s somehow not a question. More a demand for transparency. She can’t afford to trust anyone anymore, and for all she knows this woman is here to try to assassinate her.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Wonderful…One of those.

After everything that had transpired regarding the Sparrows, Cersei hopes she never has to hear any mention of religion ever again.

“Lady…” she frowns.

“Melisandre,” the visitor supplies with an enigmatic smile.

“ ‘Lady’ Melisandre. I do not have time for riddles. Tell me why you are here or I will have my guard escort you out.”

Melisandre spares an uninterested, cursory glance at the menacing specimen in the corner, face hidden, armor dulled from a mixture of dust and blood. Others have cowered in fear in the presence of “Ser Robert Strong,” but this Melisandre person seems bored. Unbothered.

Intriguing.

Still, she elects to give Cersei an answer anyway. “I cannot know what the Lord wants. I assume it’s to bring the Dragon Queen and Jon Snow together, but I need to start forging down multiple separate paths in case I am wrong.”

Incredibly, (very credibly), this still doesn’t answer the question of why she is here.

Cersei’s skepticism must show on her face, because Melisandre continues, “Perhaps they are not the true heirs of Westeros. Perhaps the Undead will have to be defeated by another. I am here to make sure you are prepared in case these tasks fall to you.”

“And why would you assume the Lord’s” she practically spits out the word, “Plan would fall to me. Haven’t you heard what they say about me?” Cersei allows a restrained, yet feral grin to grace her countenance, “They think me mad.”

Melisandre echoes Cersei’s smile, “I think you are committed to your beliefs. And will do anything to uphold them. Even if they don’t align with mine, I can respect that. Sometimes, we must do what needs to be done. Not everyone is up to that task.”

For the first time in years, if not decades, Cersei feels a small knot of something-something that isn’t panic or rage-tightening in her chest. If she were less cynical she might call it security or validation.

“Very well.” Cersei isn’t willing to give her more latitude than that. Not yet.

“I will return.” And as suddenly as a leaf blowing away in the wind, Lady Melisandre is gone.

These three words stay on Cersei’s mind she retires to bed a few hours later. When she slips into sleep, the last thought she remembers having is There could be worse things.

Melisandre had a very incomplete idea of what to expect when she actually met the queen regnant in person. And upon arriving in King’s Landing and meeting Cersei’s eyes, she knows that will probably always be the case. Wrath colors her green eyes in a way that makes it clear exactly why people are so terrified of this woman. She does not tolerate nonsense. Will not accept half-hearted explanations. Under no circumstances will she bow to any will but her own.

She imagines that people must look at Cersei the way they used to look at her. Perhaps with even more vitriol. But underneath her rage, Melisandre can just make out fear, born of extreme pain and frustration. Something she finds within herself every time she’s unfortunate enough to be alone with her thoughts.

But in spite of all this, Cersei is committed. Committed to ruling and keeping herself alive in a way Melisandre has never seen anyone commit to anything. Not even Stannis.

Not even herself.

Lady Melisandre will, in all likeliness, have to seek out the Lannister queen again. She is almost looking forward to it.

In the meantime, she decides to investigate Cersei further. What exactly has she done? Why, precisely, do they call her “mad?”

She gets her answers very quickly. Everyone is quick to jump at the chance to criticize this woman. Melisandre, for once, might have found a woman more publicly hated than herself.

And this awakens a touch of uncharacteristic sympathy. Because nothing this woman has done sounds like anything Melisandre wouldn’t also be willing to do, given the right circumstances.

Melisandre thinks of Cersei, and all she sees is a woman dedicated to a cause and willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to accomplish it. Melisandre sees a woman broken by a prejudiced, violent world that explicitly refused to appreciate her. She could never truly hate a woman like that. To do so would be to hate herself.

So the first time Daenerys burns alive a valuable ally—a seemingly reformed, previously Tywin-Lannister-obsessed “bird” of the bald eunuch’s previous circle, with intel that could easily help her claim the throne and procure resources to protect the world from the Undead—Melisandre, as promised, returns to Cersei. Perhaps this action of the Dragon Queen’s was a simple misstep. A brief, uncommon lapse in judgment. But the time of reckoning is quickly approaching, and Melisandre cannot afford to place that much trust in her.

“The Dragon Queen has burned an informant.”

Cersei’s eyes narrow, assuming this is revelation of information is a test. Or perhaps she doesn’t believe her at all.

“Why?”

“He loved your father.”

The queen regnant closes her eyes for the briefest second, allowing herself some sort of internal sadness Melisandre knows she’ll never be able to dissect or understand.

“Why are you telling me this.”

“She isn’t prepared to do whatever it will take to get what she needs. I think you are.”

Cersei looks…almost surprised at this, with her eyebrows slightly raised, jaw clenched to reign in any sort of responsive noise that might wish to escape from her throat. But after a few moments studying Melisandre’s face, she concludes that her not-entirely-welcome visitor isn’t saying this to make a joke or bait her into a response, and her visage retreats to a neutral expression. Something passes between them. A flicker of what feels like understanding.

And Melisandre shivers, ever-so-slightly.

One of the handmaidens has been looking at her strangely. Coming entirely too fast when Cersei calls for her. Greeting her a bit too loudly. There are ugly, shadowy pockets of discolored skin under her eyes that can only be from lack of sleep. She even caught her trying to make off with an old piece of correspondence between her father and the not-so-fashionably-late Olenna Tyrell. An act she repaid by having one of her guards cut off several of the girl’s fingers.

Many would call her paranoid. She would call herself reasonably distrustful.

When she finds out the girl has run off in the middle of the night, her suspicions are all but confirmed.

Cersei does not want to seek the red woman out, but she sees no other option.

Meeting anyone was a thoroughly detestable experience. People with their small talk and shallow observations and empty, deceptive promises; men staring at her the way her girlish self had once wished Robert would; women considering her a traitor for daring to do what men had gotten away with doing for centuries. But Melisandre seems to be the first person Cersei has had the displeasure of meeting who didn’t immediately decry her as “mad” or perverse.

She knew better than to assume anyone was trustworthy. But if she was going to locate this treacherous girl, she needed someone who would not dismiss her on sight.

It doesn’t take her long to find Melisandre, as Qyburn’s spy network is vast and eager to please.

Melisandre doesn’t seem terribly surprised to see her. This annoys Cersei quite a lot.

“What do you need from me?”

“Why assume I need anything.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

And, like before, it’s not a statement of judgment. Just a fact. A genuine observation. It’s a nice change from the way people usually talk to her, if Cersei were in the mood for candor.

“One of my handmaidens has run off. Presumably to help your little friend in the North. I need you to find her.”

“Why not find her yourself?”

“If you think that I would leave King’s Landing and risk someone using my absence to usurp me, you’re much more boring than I assumed. Even being here now is dangerous.”

The woman in red looks…not amused, but some nearby emotion. Cersei doesn’t care enough to puzzle through what that means. She doesn’t know this woman, nor does she have any worthwhile reason to.

“And why would I do this for you?” Melisandre replies, after entirely too long of a pause to be considered polite.

“I wouldn’t doubt Senna knows plenty of information. She wouldn’t have left if she didn’t think she could be useful.”

“I understand why you want me to find her. What I want to know is why I would want to.”

If Cersei still had any hair to tear out, she would. She plasters a sickeningly patronizing smile on her face instead. She hates this world and everything in it. But she particularly hates how clever everyone always thinks they are.

“You said yourself you don’t know if the Targaryen girl is fit to lead. Do you really wish for her to have information that could easily win her a war when you don’t even know if you want her to win?”

Melisandre tilts her chin up marginally. She has almost immediately shifted from close-to-amused to impressed.

“You said you wanted me available in case the girl and the bastard fail. I can’t be of any use to you or your ‘Lord’s’ cause if the North destroys us in a single battle due to extra intelligence. Surely you know that.”

Cersei makes a point to slip the smile off her face. She allows herself to settle into the feeling of power she loves to revel in, the one that almost fills the void in her heart that has existed ever since she was born. Cersei is serious and will not accept a refusal, and it is necessary that this woman in front of her knows that. “Doing this means I and any resources I have will remain to provide you with assistance should it come to that.”

And, for some reason Cersei doubts even the gods themselves know, Melisandre smiles. “Very well. I will find her.”

Two days later, Senna the handmaiden is found dead in one of the castle’s stables. Seemingly trampled by a horse.

Cersei doesn’t know how Melisandre managed to get the girl back inside the city. Cersei doesn’t care.

It’s not until after this that she realizes she never once threatened violence or death if her not-quite-an-ally didn’t comply with her wishes.

She staunchly refuses to think about what that means.

Ch. 2

Melisandre does not like the feeling of doubting herself. It’s been there ever since Stannis’s death, and though the joining of Jon and the Dragon Queen had alleviated it to an extent, it is now back, stronger than ever.

Which is why she finds herself in King’s Landing again, seeking out a certain wrathful, green-eyed ruler.

“The Targaryen girl has destroyed several key food and weapons stores in the North in order to win a battle against a few underarmed loyalists.” There is no preamble this time. Like the woman in front of her, Melisandre has no time for meaningless greetings or stalling through cleverness.

Cersei’s eyes do not change, and Melisandre, for all of her gifts, all of her intelligence, all of her everything, cannot even begin to fathom what she is thinking. “I see.”

Her back is now turned, and she leisurely pours out a goblet of wine. Some part of Melisandre knows that she is simply executing a power play, as she herself has done so many times before, occasionally even toward the woman in question. That doesn’t make it any less aggravating. “If she had any concept of strategy, she wouldn’t have needed to sacrifice so much ‘collateral damage,’ as she calls it,” Melisandre continues.

Even though she’s facing front again, the queen doesn’t even so much as half-glance toward her. Melisandre appreciates her feigned stoicism. And her loathing of the queen’s desire to stroke her own ego is tempered by a rather vulgar admiration at just how good at this she truly is.

After another agonizing minute (Melisandre knows her expression is getting progressively more desperate, but she craves certainty and resolution too much to fix that), Cersei looks up. She asks, simply, “And?”

“The people will be left that much closer to starving and defenseless during the coming Winter. She has proven she does not care about fighting the Undead. Only about increasing her own power.”

“What do you expect me to do about it. Supply resources to my enemies?”

“I expect you to beat her.”

“Yes, that is my intention.”

Melisandre rolls her eyes. (If she doesn’t, she might laugh. But she doesn’t think Cersei is trying to be funny. Or maybe she is. That was quite a thought: Cersei Lannister, agent of comedy.)

Somehow, Cersei lets this gesture pass without comment before narrowing her eyes in suspicion. The expression makes her look tired. She probably is, given how many different groups of people are trying to kill her at present.

“Why have you come to me? You’re afraid this girl is a tyrant. People say the same about me.”

“Even knowing what I know, I doubt you would be that careless.”

“You know I burnt an entire religious cult by gathering them in a church where I was supposed to stand trial.”

Melisandre can’t help but turn one of the corners of her mouth up at that. “They were not real believers.”

Cersei’s eyes move fractionally toward their usual position. Melisandre would say she looks almost…enchanted, if she thought the queen were capable of such an expression.

“I have executed many others.”

“Who have personally wronged you or your children. You have been willing to ally with others when needed. You would not kill potential informants on sight.”

“Has she done that again?”

“Many times, now. One came with a large supply of Dragonglass, the only thing we know can kill a White Walker. She incinerated all of it.”

The queen regnant blinks a few times. She looks almost pained with the thought that her greatest foe is nothing more than a naive child, play-acting at an overindulged fantasy. It’s all Melisandre needs to know that she has made the right choice in coming here.

“I have destroyed entire houses protecting my family.”

“And I burned a child alive.”

Cersei pauses. Takes a long, genuine look at Melisandre, eyes sweeping thoughtfully from the ground under her feet to the top of her red hair. And there is another moment of understanding. No hatred or fear or even disgust. Merely… acknowledgement, as Cersei would do the same if pushed far enough.

Melisandre’s gaze doesn’t quite falter under the queen’s eye. But it almost does.

“Why should I trust you,” Cersei responds at last.

“I’m probably the only person who won’t demand a marriage agreement from you.”

Cersei almost laughs at that. Or, at the very least, Melisandre can tell she wants to; the corners of her mouth relax, and her fiery-green eyes brighten just enough to be noticeable. And Melisandre finds herself smiling fully at the unexpectedly warm response.

When the queen speaks again, quite a bit of her characteristic venom is gone. “Very well. Return in three days. We’ll discuss this further. I have a council meeting to attend to.”

For the first time since Stannis, Melisandre allows herself the luxury of hope.

These meetings have become almost distressingly frequent. It seems as if every slight change in the political landscape, no matter how meaningless, is used as an excuse for her and the Red Woman to meet for discussion.

And as adept as Cersei has always been at keeping herself in denial to cope with the worst of the world, she knows it’s not only Melisandre’s doing.

Fortunately, the latest atrocity actually does necessitate a meeting. It seems the Stark girl has released a prisoner against the Targaryen “queen’s” wishes (indeed, she was just like her mother, it seemed). Things were mostly under control at present, but a small riot had broken out.

“The people are getting tense. This is not good.”

“Not good for whom? The more tense they are under her alleged ‘reign,’ the better for me.”

“Not if the Undead claim you first. Every moment she spends embroiled in political affairs is an extra advantage they gain over us. Not even you can survive them, though I’m sure you’d put up an excellent fight.”

And much to her own surprise, Cersei smiles. It’s not a very pronounced one. But a brief examination of herself reveals that the ends of her lips are unmistakably pulled up.

That hasn’t happened in quite a long time…

“Do you possess the tools to defeat her?” Her visitor presses.

“Yes. But I cannot guarantee there will be enough resources left to kill all of the White Walkers when I’m done. Nor can I guarantee the safety of the resources you already have.”

Melisandre nods.

“I had an idea about that, though.”

“Oh?”

It’s not lost on Cersei that this is the first time she is willingly sharing information with the woman across from her. But considering that her family had used wildfire as a weapon twice in the public eye, now, she presumes that letting someone know there was still more to use wouldn’t be giving away too much.

And it isn’t as if she’d tell her where it is. Age may have dulled her optimism, but not her discretion.

Mostly.

“I assume you’ve heard of wildfire?”

Melisandre’s face shines with recognition, then with something that Cersei thinks looks far too much like pride.

“I hadn’t thought of that. Do you think it would work?”

“Well, you would know better than I would.”

“It would likely kill the wights. But the actual leaders? The original Undead? Probably not. Only Dragonglass or Valyrian Steel can do that.”

“Or dragon fire.”

“Or dragon fire. But I assume you have an answer for that, too?”

She does.

“I wouldn’t have started this conversation if I didn’t.”

The fire priestess looks up at Cersei expectantly. And Cersei hesitates. This is the first time she has asked someone for a favor in…decades, at least, possibly her whole life. Everything else has been an order, a demand, or, in the case of her father, a plea. Never can she remember simply asking someone for something. She loathes it and never wants to do it again.

“You possess…abilities, do you not?”

And Melisandre, unanticipatedly, simply looks at the ground with something akin to self-reproach. “Yes.”

“Then perhaps you could use them. Change the nature of the wildfire, somehow combine it with Dragonglass-you’d only need a few pieces for that. Or, if not, use the fire to focus some sort of death charm.”

“All of which might not work.”

“Then what’s your idea?”

Her eyes drift toward the ground once more. This time, she doesn’t say anything.

As Cersei had thought.

She does not have time for this. She has a country to rule, wildfire to collect, and battle plans to oversee. “Well?” This time, she is forceful. Asking for the aid of her magic might be a favor, but asking for an answer to the question of that aid is not. She already has given far more chances than she’d care to admit to this woman, for some completely indiscernible reason.

“I’ve never done something on that scale. I don’t even know if I could.”

“You brought a man back from the dead.”

She hates how impressed she sounds when she says this.

But, apparently, this display of emotion that isn’t hatred or rage or grief moves her red visitor. “I’ll do my best.” And the accompanying smirk catches Cersei so off-guard she almost drops her wine goblet.

Melisandre takes her leave, and Cersei is left to wonder why her heart is beating so quickly.

Today, it’s some minor Northron lord who made an indecorous comment, which Melisandre tries to use as proof that the North is dividing further, but they both know is just an excuse to see Cersei.

The conversation has evolved into Melisandre talking about how she once tricked a man into handing over his horse. It’s a story she’s never told to anyone; she’d never thought it important, and it reminds her of a time when she was considerably younger (and thus very foolish and inexperienced), besides.

In truth, the only reason this is happening is because they are both far more drunk than they should be, but Melisandre imagines this is what “normal” women do (women who can just live, free of constant doubt and crisis of faith, women who don’t have potentially the fate of the country resting on their shoulders), and that feels…nice.

“And then he says, ‘When I mentioned things were getting too monotonous, this isn’t what I meant. Oh, he was livid.’ ”

Cersei chuckles, though Melisandre suspects that this, like everything else she does, even while under the influence of particularly strong wine, is carefully measured.

“What did you say?”

“I told him now that he finally had something worthy of telling his wife, perhaps she’d pay attention to him for more than two minutes because she probably wouldn’t let him out of her sight again.”

And Cersei abandons all pretense of restraint and absolutely cackles, slamming her free hand down on the table with an ear-piercing THUD. It seems that even in laughter, the queen is hard and fierce, not to be trifled with.

A thin, pink sheen wisps across her (admittedly stunning) cheekbones, and Melisandre thinks Cersei ought to laugh more often.

Perhaps they both should.

But, to quote the most cliché of expressions, all good things must come to an end, as Cersei’s expression, if not her body, suddenly sobers up completely. She is staring at Melisandre, but there is no feeling of familiarity, no understanding. It’s almost as if Cersei is studying her, and Melisandre, in her wine-induced fog, can’t make sense of why.

She gets her answer, though in a much less jovial way than she might have wanted.

“Why are you here?”

“What?”

“You and I both know that you had no real reason to come today, so why are you here? What do you want?”

Melisandre should probably be a little afraid. Cautious, at the very least. She is not. It’s probably the wine.

“I wanted to.”

“No one ever wants to be here.” And Cersei looks sad. Broken. Melisandre knows that expression well: it’s the one that’s been on her face every time she’s looked in the mirror since Shireen.

“I…” But Melisandre doesn’t know what to say. For someone so good at giving speeches, inciting crowds into action, for a woman who could make one of the most powerful men alive follow her without a second thought, she cannot think of any words to reasonably continue this conversation.

After a few minutes pass, the best her hazy brain can supply is, “Your…brother…wanted…?”

“Don’t talk about him,” Cersei growls.

And Melisandre is, once again, silent.

(Although, not out of fear. This silence comes from knowing she’s touched upon a sore spot, and she has no reason or desire to keep prodding it further.)

“I know you’re only here to lay out some sort of trap for me. You should leave while I still allow you to.”

“What reason have I given you to distrust me?”

“Everyone has reasons to distrust them.”

She supposed that wasn’t entirely wrong.

“How do I know you aren’t trying to entrap me?”

Cersei scoffs. “What use would I have of that?”

Melisandre tries not to interpret this to mean that she is ultimately unimportant, but she is painfully unsuccessful.

“I know what my reputation is,” the queen continues. “And I know why I have it. I don’t regret any of the things I’ve done to earn it.”

“Neither do I,” Melisandre answers, softly, pained. She probably should regret a lot of things. But she can’t. She was only doing what she had thought was R’hllor’s will. The right thing.

Cersei closes her eyes, grips the table until her knuckles are white. It is now that Melisandre notices the dark circles under her eyes. Likely due to many sleepless nights. Broken faith and extreme responsibility will do that.

“If you distrust me so much, why didn’t you dismiss me? It can’t be because you have any sort of affection toward me. I was under the impression that you didn’t really like anyone.”

Cersei opens her eyes, and their normally brilliant shade of green is diluted with a scattering of unfallen tears.

“I liked my children.” A deep breath. “I loved my children. Every single thing I ever did was to protect my family.” And with that, the tears fall. Followed by many more.

Before Melisandre even has time to process what is currently happening, Cersei begins sobbing quietly.

This is not a situation she knows how to fix.

There was a difference between comforting someone like…Selyse, and someone like Cersei. Selyse would be placated by empty compliments, reassurances that everything was proceeding according to plan, a prayer. None of that would appease Cersei.

She considers leaving the queen to her onslaught of emotions, letting her stew in her bitterness. But some part of her whispers that that’s not fair.

And so she walks the few steps over to the table with the wine to gently pry the crying woman’s hands from her face, before letting her arms wrap hesitantly around her. Because that was a thing people sometimes did when other people were sad, and it seems like a good thing to do. And, well, she doesn’t have any other ideas.

And from the way Cersei immediately clings back and lets her tears fall unrestrained into Melisandre’s hair, punctuated by a breathy “Thank you,” heavy with so many indecipherable emotions, she realizes just how much this woman has needed a hug.

They stay like that for quite a long while. It is deep into the night when Melisandre finally leaves.

After that night, everything changes. There are no more pretenses for their meetings. No charade of discussing politics. Everything is more familiar, softened, easy. Many days they don’t talk of the war at all.

Cersei suspects this is what having a friend must feel like. She won’t pretend that it’s unpleasant, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before something happens. Or before Melisandre abandons her, like everyone else.

…But that doesn’t necessarily mean she can’t indulge right now, does it? It’s been so long since anyone outside of her family made her feel something that wasn’t excruciating disappointment.

The servants are starting to talk, crying out that “history is repeating” and “has she learned nothing from Stannis.”

If Cersei were capable of simple leisure anymore, she would be laughing almost constantly. Stannis, with his over-inflated sense of responsibility and one-sided justice. He never needed the Red Woman to cause his own ruin. He had only kept himself alive as long as he had because of Melisandre’s council, divorced from his obsessions with keeping the realm pristine and with drawing lines no one was allowed to cross

With everything Stannis pretended he was, he could never have truly appreciated her.

It is late, and she has met her visitor just inside the gate. They begin their walk back to the Red Keep, passing two stable boys who have just finished repairing one of the walls. The younger of the two looks at the woman cloaked in red, expression a mix between panic and barely-suppressed anger. They run away as fast as their small legs can carry them, and the older one whispers something about “the fall of House Baratheon” just before they vanish out of sight into one of the many dark alleys that adorn this part of the castle.

Cersei hears a sharp exhalation beside her, and Melisandre’s face, made at once both smooth and angular by the glow of the moon, looks how Cersei imagines her own had upon hearing of Tyrion’s escape.

“I think it best I should leave.” Her friend ally guest occasional conversation partner speaks tensely, almost as if she could shatter at the insult, were she too uncareful. She whirls around and starts moving back toward the gate.

“Melisandre,” Cersei says, and they both freeze. They both know this is the first time she has openly addressed her by name, without an accompanying title or epithet.

And the tension instantly slides off Melisandre’s face, as simple as a flame being extinguished by a puff of air.

Cersei looks at her inquiringly; Melisandre meets her eyes, nodding stiffly. They stroll back to their customary meeting spot, and Cersei feels a nervousness she can’t name creep up her neck and around her skull. She thinks she hears her escort of choice breathe observably louder than usual as they step over the threshold into the room. She isn’t sure what this means, other than it makes the dreadful feeling worse.

She tries to think of something to say, but her mind is blank. As if someone has burned away all the thoughts in it, or spilled an inkwell over any pages of conversation she might have pre-written, rendering them unreadable.

To give herself something to do, she decides to light a few candles. But she finds herself so distracted by whatever-in-the-Seven’s-name this is that she burns her finger, a small “Aarh” escaping her mouth, unbidden. Melisandre glances over in concern, and-upon realizing what has happened-gently walks forward to help. At this point, Cersei is scrambling to light a second candle. Quite ineffectively, as her finger hurts too much for her to use it for anything.

Red hair brushes over Cersei’s arm as Melisandre takes the candle and the stick used to light it. Their hands brush during this exchange, and for some curious reason, Melisandre keeps her head down, pretending to be fascinated by the tendrils of smoke peeling off from the candelabra as she transfers flame to the rest of the candles.

She pulls a handkerchief out of some fold of her dress (red, always red, like the color of Cersei’s house or the blood that runs through her veins), and, instead of merely handing over the scrap of fabric, gingerly winds it around Cersei’s injured finger with utmost care.

“There,” the Red Woman murmurs. Her hand is still on her makeshift bandage, curled around Cersei’s finger; her eyes are wide, her lips pressed tightly together, as if trying not to say something.

A minute passes and still neither of them lets go.

Shrouded in the half-light of the candles, Melisandre continues to keep her gazed fixed to the ground, and Cersei feels an increasing need for her to, instead, train her deep blue eyes on Cersei’s green. There is no practical reason for her to want this, other than an inkling that, should it happen, the strange and terrible feeling will lessen. Eventually, she is rewarded for her patience; Melisandre seems to resolve some inner conflict before looking into her eyes unwaveringly, taking her available hand and hesitantly tucking a lone, stray thread of hair behind Cersei’s ear.

Cersei’s breath catches, and she realizes just what that feeling is.

Melisandre nearly crashes her hand back down against her side in a rush to get it away from Cersei’s face. The skin around her eyes is taut, the rest of her face colored with trepidation. She looks…

…Afraid.

That was not an emotion she had ever thought she’s see on Melisandre’s face. She had somehow thought her incapable of feeling such a thing. A thrill rushes through her at the idea that, in a world containing the Undead, dragons, endless stretches of war and struggle and death, she alone was responsible for this expression gracing the Red Woman’s face.

She can tell Melisandre wants to leave, convinced she has crossed a boundary that cannot be uncrossed. And if it were anyone else, she would gladly tell them to get out.

But that isn’t what she wants.

It’s been quite a long time since she’s truly gotten what she wants.

So, before her conversation partner guest ally friend can so much as turn around, she frames her face between her hands and kisses her.

Melisandre responds enthusiastically, fisting one hand in Cersei’s short hair, the other wrapping around her waist in an effort to pull their bodies closer together.

Cersei thought kissing a woman would be…different…somehow. And it was. But not as drastically as she had assumed. It was an odd contradiction of having an intimate knowledge of what was effective (such as running her thumb over Melisandre’s cheek here), and being acutely aware that the body pressed against hers was of a different shape and construction than any of those she had previously allowed this close to her.

It’s intoxicating.

All she feels a heady sensation a thousand times more powerful than even the strongest wine, and everything, everything is Melisandre.

She is no longer foolish enough to believe in the existence of happiness. But perhaps this comes close.

It’s not as pronounced of a change in their relationship as last time, but it is, undoubtedly, a more meaningful one.

The remnants of stilted distrust have given way to a new openness between them, one punctuated by languid kisses and running soft fingers through the other’s hair.

Now, when Cersei’s eyebrows knit together while revising a battle plan, Melisandre can place a gentle hand there to smooth them out. When Melisandre experiments with fire, Cersei is there to tell her (bluntly, with a hint of irritation) when she is breaking her focus and to ask her what more she needs.

They have formed a cohesive unit; their plans to stop the Dragon Queen and the Undead have reached their final stages. Melisandre is practicing what magic she can, and when they are not finding solace in each other for a few precious moments, they are reviewing and re-reviewing war tactics. The end is near. For some, if not all of them.

“We attack tomorrow,” Cersei pronounces. Resigned. Resolute.

Everything that had happened over the past year had been building up to this.

Cersei’s newborn son has been sent away with one of the only knights the two of them have agreed she can trust. If God is kind, the boy will be tucked away in the far southwest, on the coast of an unmapped island, cared for and defended.

Everything is in place. Except for one small item of discussion.

“Absolutely not.”

“I am not asking you to spare anyone else. Just the girl.”

“Why should I spare Sansa? How could I justify that?” Cersei turns from the window she had been staring out of. The wind ruffles the top of her head and she looks graceful, poised.

(Beautiful.)

“We are not allowed to pay favorites in war, Melisandre.”

“She has been nothing but an agent of peace. Every single thing the Dragon Queen has done, she has been against. If we need anyone left alive on our side when this is over, it must be her.”

Cersei remains unconvinced.

“Her sole motive has been to protect her family and vanquish the Undead. Surely you can understand that.”

The barely-perceptible droop in Cersei’s shoulders indicates that she does.

“The world is not done with her yet. She simply wants to be left alone. She won’t disturb you if the North is safe. If you want to protect your child, sparing Sansa Stark will help do that.”

“Very well. I will spare her. Only. Her.”

“Promise me. For the love of this country—”

“I don’t love this country. I love you.” Her eyes drift wistfully out the window once more, mind temporarily lost in a dream of some other, happier, theoretical life. “I love my child. More than anything. More than my own life.” Cersei’s eyes shift back to the here and now, her gaze piercing, but almost as if in a show of bravado. She is posturing, trying to undo this show of vulnerability. And as Melisandre takes in her rigid back; clenched hands, with sharp, leonine nails digging into them; eyes fighting desperately to stay open instead of closing to indulge in some other, less ferocious emotion, she realizes that Cersei is afraid she’ll leave. Even now.

Extreme, non-pious emotions have never been something she wore well. But she cannot let this woman stand here and doubt her loyalty. She cannot let her think her trust and love have gone unrequited.

“I assumed I would never know what it meant to love something that wasn’t God. I never thought myself capable. You proved both of those things to be false. Thank you for that.”

The smile on Cersei’s face is sweet, tender, almost beatific in its loveliness.

When she turns toward the window again, her demeanor has changed into something almost unrecognizable. She looks oddly calm for someone about to end a war years in the making.

Melisandre takes a few steps and joins her, surveys the starless sky, feels the icy, uncomfortable breeze on her face.

And as Cersei quietly threads her hand through hers, Melisandre feels that strange sense of calmness wash over her, too.

For, whatever happened, they would face it together.

#cersei lannister #melisandre #cersei x melisandre #femslash #got #asoiaf #asoiaf rare pair exchange

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naryrising · 4 years

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what was the early asoiaf fandom like?

I started out in ASOIAF fandom around 1999, on Ran’s board, a forum for ASOIAF fans. That space was a decent discussion platform for theories/analysis/questions about the books, speculation about what might happen in future volumes, and so on, but was not a platform for fanworks. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) It was a pretty male-dominated space, although there were certainly other women participating there as well. I remember getting into multiple debates with dudes over whether Loras and Renly (and other characters, but they were the main topics of discussion on this front) were queer. (Note that this was before and then slightly after ASOS came out, in terms of how much canon evidence there was at that point.) I was in there fuckin’ citing my sources to make the case that no, there really were textual clues that indicated they were meant to be read as queer, and guys would be like “but nah, they’re knights, they couldn’t be gay, you’re just reading too much into things.” Mmhmm, sure Jan.

I stayed active on the board until I got an LJ in 2002, at which point that became my main source of fannish interaction, because there I found @redcandle17 (and various other folks who idk if they would want to be tagged or not, but are still mutuals, hi if you’re reading!) and got involved with the ASOIAF communities that were starting up there.

Early ASOIAF fandom was very unwelcoming to fanfiction. GRRM had said some things about how he didn’t like fanfic, and a certain segment of his fanboys took that to mean that they should harass anyone who wrote it. So LJ ASOIAF communities were tightly locked down in order to try and stop people getting access to the fic who might be prone to harassing the authors. Notafanficcomm was one - you can see from the profile that we did a great job of hiding it (the name was a play on GRRM’s LJ, which was called “Not A Journal”). For comparison you can see Westeros (which was a pretty popular discussion community) contains expressly in its rules “Fan Fiction and "Slash" posts are not welcome here.” So we kept quiet and did our thing in locked communities and tried not to attract too much attention, at least for a while.

Later, there got to be some bigger comms - westerosorting was a fun one, where members would be sorted into various houses based on questionnaires they filled out (I was House Tully) and then there would be competitions where members of each house would submit works in various challenges to earn points for their team. Some were serious, some silly, it was all in good fun.

Of course there were also fanwork exchanges. asoiaf_exchange was a popular one that ran about twice a year for six years. The rules were not too dissimilar from what you might find in other exchanges - you could request a certain number of pairings or characters, and you’d be matched up with someone who offered to write or draw one of those pairings or characters. Matching had to be done by hand of course, because AO3 didn’t exist yet in the early days.

I would say that the circles I was in were largely but not exclusively female, probably by and large in their 20s or 30s at the time, and were generally more sympathetic to female characters than I saw in other contexts such as on earlier forums/boards for instance. It was pretty rare to see the bashing of Catelyn, Dany, Sansa, etc. that would be commonplace on other fannish platforms (and in general these communities tried to moderate discussion so bashing and flaming were often cracked down on if they did happen). Even Cersei had a lot of fans and defenders.

The most popular pairing, by a long shot, was Sandor/Sansa (aka Sansan). It was not considered even remotely a controversial pairing by the vast majority of people - even if they might not prefer it, they didn’t go around calling people who did like it pedos or declaiming about the evils of age gaps or whatever nonsense happens today. Jaime/Brienne was very popular as well, although there was a bit more tension there with people who shipped Jaime/Cersei - although again, I don’t remember any big dramas that escalated to calling people perverts for shipping incest or anything like that, it was more like “I think Cersei is bad for him and Brienne would be better!” “But I like their trash fire relationship!” Renly/Loras was of course a popular slash pairing, also Rob/Theon, and to some degree Stannis/Davos. Rhaegar/Lyanna was pretty common too, and Oberyn was extremely popular with a variety of pairings. But on the whole Sansa was the fandom bicycle - just about anyone could be paired with Sansa and folks would be willing to read it.

I was initially reluctant to move my ASOIAF fic over to AO3, even though I had an account from 2009, because of the stigma against ASOIAF fanfic that had led most of us to be very cautious and paranoid about sharing our writing publicly. So it took me a couple of years to trust that I could crosspost my ASOIAF works there and it wouldn’t be a huge disaster. Apparently May 2011 was when I bit the bullet and moved everything over.

I started falling away from the fandom around the time the HBO show was getting started. I looked at some of the casting choices and immediately disliked them (sorry, Theon isn’t blond) and made the decision based purely on pettiness not to watch the show - a decision I feel immensely vindicated by, fwiw. To this day I haven’t seen a single episode. The show’s rise in popularity also meant that the flavour of the fannish communities were changing - new fans were starting to come in who weren’t familiar with the books, and it made for a different environment. It got harder and harder to find works that were specific to the books and weren’t incorporating elements of the TV show’s canon (there was a lot of cross-tagging and it sucked). I felt like it was no longer the fun small community I’d been involved in, it was becoming this huge behemoth thing that didn’t bear any relation to the fandom I’d originally been part of. My last ASOIAF story was posted in early 2012, but even that was on request - someone had prompted Jon/Ygritte when I’d asked for story suggestions at some point, and I didn’t want to let them down, but my heart wasn’t in it. Really I’d left it behind in 2011, with the start of the show fandom.

#asoiaf #fandom history

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tinfoil-throne · 6 years

Text

It is our pleasure to announce the first Tinfoil Throne Secret Santa!

What’s all this about tinfoil?

This is a Secret Santa exchange for GOT/ASoIaF fans who are interested in rare pairs, crack theories, and everything else strange and unique. We’re spreading some cheer this holiday season by sharing gifts (fanfic, fanart, gifs, edits, videos) featuring less-common ships or cracky/AU scenarios.

For more information, click here!

Before joining, please ensure that you have read the rules. You can join here.

Sign-ups will close on November 24.

We are thrilled to be hosting this event, and hope you join the fun!

#game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire

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acourtofhopeanddreams · 6 years

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ASOIAF RARE PAIR WEEK - DAY 2

The big green monster lurking in the hallway (Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark)

For weeks Theon had tried to find the right words. And now he finally believed he found them, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen was hugging and holding another guy.

Theon bit his lip and looked away while he casually leaned against his locker. For weeks he had been trying to gather enough confidence to ask the most beautiful girl he had ever seen out. For weeks he had tried to find the right words. And now he finally believed he found them, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen was hugging and holding another guy.

And the worst of all: That guy was more handsome, more charming and way more popular than Theon would ever be. He had the kind of smile normal people couldn’t have without paying some dentist millions of dollars to bleach their teeth. He had the blond curls normal people only saw on commercials for shampoo. He wore expensive suits that made him look years older, wiser and most of all richer. And to top it all of: He was also kind and nice to everyone he met.

“Theon?” Robb furrowed his eyebrows while he interrupted his best friend’s thoughts. “How can you pull a face like that after you made it into the rowing team?”

Theon let out a mocking laugh. “Rowing…” He rolled his eyes. “As if rowing can even compete with swimming or horse riding.”

“Why would you have to…” Robb followed Theon’s glance and stopped mid sentence. “O, that’s why it’s important to you.” He curled his lips up into a smile and elbowed his best friend in such a way that Theon let out a soft ouch. “You’re not gonna let Loras ruin your chances with my sister, are you?”

Theon sighed. “Does she ever talk about me?”

Robb didn’t answer, but that in itself was already more than enough information for Theon.

She didn’t want him. Of course she didn’t want him. She could get Loras Tyrell! Heir to the biggest flower imperium in the world! A reincarnated prince charming, with the locks of a king and the smile of a lover.

“I can’t ruin my chances with Sansa.” Theon let out a frustrated groan. “I don’t have any to begin with!”

Robb wrapped an arm around his best friend’s shoulders and shook his head. “You're being dramatic, Theon. Sansa and Loras are hanging out with each other for months now and nothing happened. She’s still as free as a bird and as long as she’s still free, you, the friend she’s known ever since she was still in her diapers, still stand a chance with her.”

“You only say that because you’re my best friend.”

“I say that, because I like the thought of my best friend marrying my sister. Call me weird, call me the odd one out, but I know that you’ll be good to her. She deserves someone like you.” Robb placed an hand on Theon’s chest and then he stepped back. “Come on, bud, gather all that courage and go to her to ask her out.”

“With Loras Tyrell watching me and laughing his ass of because I’m even trying? I don’t think so.” Theon wanted to turn around and walk away, but Robb reached for his shoulder and forced him to stand still.

“You’re coming up with excuses to not talk to her for weeks now! It’s always something.” Robb’s glance met Theon’s. “You obviously need a good friend to give you a little push into the right direction.” He pushed Theon literally towards his sister and when Theon refused to walk further, Robb pushed him again and again. “Ask her out now, or wonder forever what could have been if you’d been just a little braver.” Robb leaned in and his lips were almost touching Theon’s ear. “Good luck.” He stepped back and nodded to his sister. “Sansa, Theon wants to talk to you.” He raised his eyebrows and Theon was on the brink of strangling the Stark boy with his bare hands.

“Hey Theon.” Sansa smiled and she turned towards him. Her red hair was glowing in the sunlight and her voice was even prettier than the most beautiful music Theon could imagine. “What did you want to talk about?”

Theon scratched the back of his neck. All the words he had rehearsed at home were now stuck in his throat and all the flair and jokes he had prepared for this moment were all of a sudden forgotten, gone, erased from his memories as if they hadn’t even existed.

“He’s probably intimidated by your good looks. You should go shopping with Margaery more often.” Loras was the one to interrupt the silence and Theon felt his cheeks heating up.

He should have been the one saying that. He should have told Sansa that she looked pretty. He should have asked her where she had gotten that dress and how much it suited her. But he had not said anything like that. He had not said anything at all and once again it was Loras Tyrell stealing all the fucking glory.

“No, I shouldn’t!” Sansa replied, but her words came out like a chuckle. Her laughing made the butterflies in Theon’s stomach lose complete control. “She always makes me spend way more money than I have!”

“If you’d just accept our offer to let us give you presents once in a while, that wouldn’t be a problem.” Loras leaned a little towards her and Theon shook his head and turned around.

He was only the third wheel in this conversation. They probably didn’t even notice him walking away. And they most certainly didn’t even care.

“Theon?” Sansa yelled after him. “Where are you going, I thought you wanted to ask me something?”

Theon stood still and he took a few deep breaths. At the very end of the hallway he noticed Robb giving him two thumbs up and he sighed before he turned back towards the strong and fierce redhead who kept him up in the middle of the night without even knowing it.

“Come on. We’ve been friends ever since we were in cribs next to each other! It can’t be that hard to ask me anything?” Sansa walked towards him, but Loras Tyrell stayed behind.

Maybe Robb was right. It was now or never.

“Sansa…” Theon faced her and he knew that the veins in his neck were visibly beating. His heart was hammering in his chest like an absolute maniac and the adrenaline and stress hormones rushed through his veins. “Would you want to go out with me?”

He had prepared this entire speech, filled with compliments and witty remarks, with all those little inside jokes only Sansa would understand because she had been part of all the memories Theon cherished.

But the words were gone and forgotten and trying to make up that entire speech here right now would only make the humiliation when she said no worse.

“What?” Sansa stared at him and Theon felt his cheeks heating up.

“I know…” Theon interrupted her before she could say anything else. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m just a childhood friend, the best friend of your brother. I’m no dating material. I’m not handsome and charming and rich and…” He paused. “I hope you and Loras will be happy.”

Sansa frowned her eyes and she exchanged a look with Loras before her giggle echoed through the hallway. “O, Theon…” She closed the gap between them and took his lips between her fingers before he could interrupt her again. “Loras and I aren’t dating and we never will. He’s…” Sansa stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips and she waited until Loras nodded before she continued. “Not really interested in marrying me or any other woman on this planet.” Sansa let Theon’s lips go.

He froze for a moments and he let the words sink in. “So…You and Loras…”

“He’s the brother of my best friend and he’s amazing to talk to, but no, there is really nothing between us and I promise there will never be. Apart from that…” Sansa stepped back. “I already had found my prince charming long before I met Loras Tyrell.”

Theon looked at her, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything.

“My prince charming invited me to play every game he and his best friend played, no matter how bad I was at said game, or no matter how good I was. My prince charming always defended my honor. He never spoke bad about me and when someone else did, he told them to shut up and be nice.” She cocked her head slightly. “My prince charming loved me when I wasn’t even old enough to walk. He loved me when I said my first words. And he still loves me now I’m grown up.” She reached for Theon’s hands and their sweating palms touched each other. “And now he finally asked me out and I couldn’t be happier.”

Theon didn’t dare to ask her to repeat that last sentence. Again and again and again. Until he had heard it that often that maybe he’d believe it. But his heart skipped a few beats and the butterflies in his stomach were now attempting to break out. “Is that…a yes?” He stammered and Sansa pressed a soft kiss on his cheek.

“That's a ‘yes and I thought you were never gonna ask it’, dumb ass.” She stepped back and shrugged. “Are you free tomorrow night?”

Theon nodded.

“Then you can pick me up at seven.” She smiled once more and then she turned around and walked back to Loras. “Loras? Can I borrow your credit card? I have a really important date and I need a new dress.”

“Of course, Sansa.” Loras linked his arm with hers.

Theon only woke up from his trance when Robb slammed him on his back.

“And that, my friend, is how you do it.”

Theon allowed himself to be happy for two seconds. Then he started panicking again. He had a little more than 24 hours to plan a memorable perfect first date. And he had no idea where to start.

Written for day 2 of @asoiafrarepairs for ASOIAF Rare Pair Week using the trope "Jealousy"

#asoiafrarepairs #asoiafrarepairweek #Theon Greyjoy #Sansa Stark #game of thrones #game of thrones fanfiction #got #sansa stark fanfiction #theon greyjoy fanfiction #Robb Stark #loras tyrell

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jonryatrash · 7 years

Text

Bael, Rose(s) of Winterfell, and Prophecies

So this meta is written in response to @bloomray and laney’s conversation that you all should read here before reading what follows. It’ll make more sense that way since this adds on a few things to B’s post.

Preface of Sorts

So first, a quick confession. I’m real hard pressed to find any evidence in ASOIAF of Jonerys. I’m sure it exists; I’m sure shippers can point me to something somewhere, but everything mostly feels like a stretch. And hey, that’s okay because god knows you don’t have to ship stuff that’s even remotely canonical. To each their own and all that. What does annoy me, however, is leveraging certain lines and selectively reading without a lot of context in order to prove canonical foundation. For me, the line that gets stretched the most is this one from the House of the Undying prophecies:

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.

Somehow, blue flower = Jon and sweetness = romance, and hence Jonerys is endgame. As bloomray pointed out in her post (and as other meta writers have as well), sweetness has a lot of negative connotations to it in ASOIAF, particularly in Dany’s narrative. Bloomray already outlined that in her piece, so I’m not going to rehash that here other than to say that perhaps the sweet smell could be the sweet smell of decaying flesh from the Others and Wights Beyond-the-Wall that Jon’s narrative is tied to? Just a thought.

Anyway, what I’m most interested in is the blue flower part in this post. Laney came up with the initial idea of the blue flower alluding to the tale of Bael the Bard, and bloomray expanded upon it in her post.

For this post, I want to talk about framing and the context surrounding the places where we hear about the tale of Bael the Bard to understand how it might fit into Jon’s narrative and, by extension, what GRRM is trying to get at in the HotU prophecy.

Bael the Bard’s Song

First, let’s talk about where Bael appears most significantly in the text. The only places that Bael isn’t just name-dropped in passing are Jon VI in ACOK and Jon I in ASOS. The former is where the story is laid out, and the latter is when it is revealed that Mance infiltrated Bobby B’s visit to Winterfell. It may be worth noting, in passing, that Bael is never mentioned in ASOIAF outside of Jon’s POV. Thus, I think it’s fair to say that the story of Bael is meant to tell us something about Jon.

So the story itself:

“North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark’s own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, the new ones he’d made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. ‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.’”

“Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o’ the winter roses be plucked for the singer’s payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished...and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain.”

[...]

“Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o’ Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o’ Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast.”

“Bael had brought her back?”

“No, They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says...though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what’s certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose be’d plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is--you have Bael’s blood in you, same as me.”

-Jon VI, ACOK

Alright, so there’s that--the tale itself. And the similarities to Rhaegar and Lyanna are definitely there within the story itself. Singer, Winterfell’s daughter, a son born to a dying line (Targs), etc.

Perhaps Jonerys shippers read the similarities between the tale and Rhaegar/Lyanna and make the blue rose a connection to Targaryen bedding Stark. I say bedding here because (1) I don’t believe Rhaegar/Lyanna were ever married, (2) the power dynamics make consent very challenging in this relationship, and (3) as Ygritte says, maybe the Rose of Winterfell did love Bael like the song claims, but in Bael’s songs everyone is in love with him so it’s hard to say what the nature of the relationship was.

Winter’s Rose v2.0 - Lyanna Stark; Or, Why This isn’t About Jonerys, but Jon’s Parentage

Now that we have access to the tale itself, I want to talk about what surrounds the tale. As I said in my preface, I think what frames the tale tells us a lot about how we’re supposed to read it both in the context of the chapter and ASOIAF as a whole.

Let’s look at what comes almost directly before the tale first. Ygritte and Jon share the following exchange:

“You said you were the Bastard o’ Winterfell.”

“I am.”

“Who was your mother?”

“Some woman. Most of them are.” Someone had said that to him once. He did not remember who.

She smiled again, a flash of white teeth. “And she never sung you the song o’ the winter rose?”

“I never knew my mother. Or any such song.”

“Bael the Bard made it,” said Ygritte. - Jon VI, ACOK

And then what follows shortly after when Jon is tasked with beheading Ygritte:

He raised Longclaw over his head, both hands tight around the grip. One cut, with all my weight behind it. He could give her a quick clean death, at least. He was his father’s son. Wasn’t he? Wasn’t he? - Jon VI, ACOK

The tale of Bael the Bard is bookended with mentions of Jon’s (1) maternity, and (2) paternity. Naturally, when Jon references being his father’s son, he’s talking about the man who passes the sentence swinging the sword. But it takes on such a beautiful, double meaning for the reader in the midst of mentioning his mother, telling the tale of Winterfell’s daughter (the Winter Rose) being abducted by a singer, and then Jon questioning his paternity.

The blue rose is meant to represent Lyanna. Of course it’s tied up in the great Rhaegar/Lyanna debacle, but it’s first and foremost about the Rose of Winterfell. Jon is associated with the blue rose through his mother. Yes, through the crown of roses Rhaegar bestowed upon her, but even more significantly through this legend---Winterfell’s daughter and her bastard son who return to Winterfell while he’s still a babe at her breast.

We know Jon will be important in the War for the Dawn, just as Dany will be. It’s only natural they meet. They are, after all, the last surviving big-name Targaryens. But to see that her seeing him in a vision means that they’re going to have a romance or bang? Well, need bloomray and I remind you that Dany also saw a man with a wolf’s head being paraded around (Robb Stark). No one is pairing Dany with a resurrected Robb Stark. We can’t assume anyone she sees in the vision is meant to be her lover.

Into Every Generation? Winter’s Rose v3.0 - Or, I’m Shipper Trash Always and Forever

GRRM loves his sets of three, almost as much as I love Jonrya. The parallels between Lyanna and Arya have been written about a thousand times over. We’re meant to see those two as freakishly similar, from looks to personality. It’s in canon. I don’t think I need to rehash any of that here.

Likewise, bloomray already addressed a bit of the Jonrya parallels to the Bael story in her post. To briefly reiterate, on Jon’s behalf, Mance as Abel (read: Bael) goes to Winterfell in an attempt to save fArya and bring her home to Jon. Jon is the legend’s Bael by proxy, and Arya Winterfell’s daughter who Jon intends to spirit away from Winterfell. (Note: the 3.0 legend plays out by proxy on both ends, because Mance is Jon and Jeyne is Arya, but whatever).

Now, surely you’re thinking that I’m reaching here. Look, at little, yes, but let’s look at the framing of Bael in Jon I in ASOS. Jon goes to meet Mance, and it’s revealed that Mance was present during the King’s visit way back in AGOT. Then:

“Bael the Bard,” said Jon, remembering the tale that Ygritte had told him in the Frostfangs, the night he’d almost killed her.

“Would that I were. I will not deny that Bael’s exploit inspired mine own...but I did not steal either of your sisters that I recall. - Jon I, ASOS

So here Mance likens both Sansa and Arya to the Rose of Winterfell from the initial tale. We’re invited to read all Stark daughters as the Rose of Winterfell. GRRM through Mance is putting Sansa and Arya in the same position as he put Lyanna. If anyone is the Rose of Winterfell/Lyanna Stark in the blue rose image and backstory, it’s Sansa and Arya.

But there’s more. We see the tale appear in two important moments where Jon begins his decent into “breaking” his vows. Except he breaks his vows to play the long con on Mance & co. Sure, he bangs and falls for Ygritte (who reminds him of his little sister, which, weird), but he never truly things to break with the Night’s Watch.

Except he does in ADWD for Arya, Winter’s Rose and Daughter of Winterfell. He tries to steal her from Winterfell, to take part in a war with the Boltons, and thus really and truly breaks the vow that he’s been able to (TWICE befre) resist breaking about taking no part in the affairs of the realm.

But, you say, either Sansa or Arya could be the Winter Rose. Yeah, maybe, except let’s look back at the original story:

“Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious.”

Sansa flowered in AGOT. Who is expected to bloom and become a woman in TWOW? Arya Stark. Just check out “Mercy” if you need any proof that she’s using her body sexually as a weapon. And who is the most precious to Jon? His heart, the girl he broke his vows for, the girl he gave his dick to in AGOT. ARYA F-ING STARK.

Conclusion

The beautiful parallels are there, my dears. Maybe v3 is too much to ask of you, and that’s totally okay. It makes a lot of sense to me, especially since ASOIAF up to this point has been basically an ode to Jonrya. Their love is about canonical as it gets. Platonic? Meh, if you must, but you have a lot of weird sexual thoughts to explain away if you think that’s just brother-sister stuff.

I would invite you, however, based on the context surrounding the tale of Bael and in light of everything @bloomray said her post, view that prophecy in the HotU not as Jonerys as canon, but as a not-so-subtle nod to Jon’s parentage for the reader to put the pieces together.

#asoiaf meta #jon snow meta #jonrya meta #anti j*nerys #my asoiaf meta

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