#he ends up slipping and nearly going off the edge until eyrie grabs a hold of him

[impossible-rat-babies]

first OC thought of 2024 is brought to you by HW we love to see it !

[7deadlycinderellas]

If the summer of our lives could just come again, ch22

Ao3 link

The Eyrie

Watching Robin trying to shoot a bow, Sansa is filled with a mix of annoyance and sympathy. She sees bits of Bran and Jojen in his jerky movements (though much less in his whiny voice). Though, she thinks, watching him slip his elbow and send the arrow soaring far too high, even Jojen’s a better shot than him.

“You’re dropping your elbow,” she says in an even voice from across the training yard. “Pretend you have a fence post under holding it up.”

The master-at-arms helping Robin ignores her words, before instructing him to do much the same as she said. His arm still wobbles.

Silently putting aside the hood she had been stitching rabbit fur lining into, Sansa quietly makes her way to the chambers her and Catelyn had been put up in and retrieves her bow. She returns to her spot and continues her sewing until the master-at-arms leaves, dismissing Robin.

Before the boy leaves, Sansa stands, nocks her arrow and looses it. She hits the target with ease.

Robin looks at her funny.

“How’d you do that?”

“Practice,” Sansa tells him, with an eyebrow raised.

“They don’t teach girls to shoot.”

Sansa bristles. Some people clearly do. All the things Arya used to complain about are becoming more and more understandable. She tries to guide Robin’s words in another direction.

“Like I said, all you need to do is practice and you’ll get better. You might not be great but you will get better. My younger brother has a bad leg and can’t stand up for long periods of time, but he loves to shoot from horseback. My sister shoots like she was born with a bow in her hand. All of our brother’s learned as well. I didn’t want to be left out.”

She looks at Robin askance. He’s paying attention, but barely. Sansa does not envy his future advisors.

“Do you ever feel left out, Robin?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re supposed to be Lord of the Vale someday. But do your mother ever ask for you to help her with petitions? Does she ever teach you anything about what you will be expected to do? Have you even left the Eyrie much?”

Her questions are pointed, and as she guessed, Robin’s face falters a little.

Sansa takes the opportunity to sling her bow over her arm, take the hood she was sewing and leave.

When she re-enters the keep proper, Catelyn is helping Lysa with her hair, and Lord Royce is going over paperwork for the arrangements so that the guests might be accomodated.

“May I be of any assistance?” she asks the older man.

He shakes his head,

“There’s no need my lady, you and your mother are guests. Where have you even been getting off to?”

“I insist,” she says, with a smile. He finally passes her the stack and she starts sorting through them.

She chatters a bit with Lord Royce, talking about her excitement for the wedding.

“I had to miss my own sister’s wedding, I’m glad to see this one. It’s been so hard, since Mother and Father…”

She trails off, deliberate, turning her head just enough to see Lord Royce take note of her words. She smiles, changing the subject.

“Are all of the houses of the Vale going to be present?”

Lord Royce nods, and Sansa notes he looks a bit put upon.

“They’ve been chomping at the bit for Lady Arryn to remarry for years. She hasn’t done well by herself.”

“I noticed, she doesn’t seem happy at all. Do you think she is? She must love her son at least, she keeps him so close.”

Just as expected, she sees Lord Royce wince.

She hears much the same when she goes amongst the other lords and ladies of the Vale as she assists in greeting their arrival at the Eyrie. They speak of eagerness to see Lysa remarried. There are other things they speak of too. Distrust of Petyr Baelish among them.

“They all speak of his low birth,” she tells Catelyn quietly, as they return to their chambers to dress. The wedding is in the evening, and it’s barely midday. Lady pads behind the two of them as they walk and talk quietly.

Catelyn sighs.

“I understand, and I’ve come to hate myself for it. They seem him as seeking power, as obtaining his position through deceit and under-handedness.”

They’re right, Sansa thinks. And in her mother’s face, she again sees the shadow. The shadow of these things that she would have assumed of her own goodson.

“Do you think you can do as I asked?”

Catelyn nods, her face faltering, if only a little. Sansa reaches out and squeezes her mother’s hand.

“It’s not lying, none of it. Not really.”

Sansa is dressed in her finest gown, green edged in gold, Catelyn in a similar one, though more subdued.

When they enter the hallway off the side of the High Hall, Lysa is already in her dress and cloak. Sansa can spy Littlefinger off on the other side, finishing his last preparations. And in the middle, Sansa notes, the Moon Door.

Why in the world did that thing even exist? Sansa wondered. Was hanging not enough?

Sansa smiles widely when she approaches her aunt Lysa.

“You look beautiful,” she tells her, reaching out to touch the edges of her cloak. What even to call it? She wonders, it’s not a maiden’s cloak. Westeros could really use better traditions for second marriages.

Lysa nods, and so Sansa prattles on.

“You must be so excited, I can only imagine, and you’re marrying a man you’ve known nearly your whole life.”

There’s a flicker in Lysa’s eye, a flicker Sansa feels herself quake when she recognizes the spark. She saw it just the instance before Lysa had grabbed her before, and squeezed far too hard. Good, she knows that spark.

In the corner of her eye, she sees Catelyn leading Littlefinger over by the arm. She sees Lysa see the two of them.

“Mother spoke so often of the three of you being close as children. It must be so good to not have to be alone after your husband’s untimely death.”

Lysa’s eye begins to twitch. She grabs Sansa’s arm a bit roughly, but she can take it.

“Come niece,” she says stiffly, on edge, “Let us join the ceremony.”

Sansa stands and she sees as Catelyn tilts her head up to kiss Littlefinger on the cheek. She watches, seemingly in slow motion, as Lysa’s face contorts, she watches as she rushes forward, grabbing at her sister violently. She watches her mother’s face twists with shock. She watches as Littlefinger’s eyes go wide and he tries to separate them. She hears shouting, from all three of them.

They are too close to the moon door, Sansa thinks. Far too close. It’s not open yet, but she suspects it will be.

She sits on the ground, Lady at her feet, and waits.

 Over the Wall

Bran had scrawled more on the back of the note. Jon reads it to himself when they’re back in the cave and supposed to be sleeping.

It should hurt, he thinks, learning that his brothers in black had decided he was dead. But, he reasoned, it had been years. It had been three to four times longer than he’d spent with the Night’s Watch at all since he’d disappeared.

And it made what was coming easier to take, what he knew was coming as soon has he took the note from the raven’s leg and read its contents.

The bird had followed him and Ygritte into the cave. Jon had never seen a bird act like that before, it had hopped from one spot to another, as if in awe of its surroundings. Then all of a sudden, something had disappeared from its eyes and it panicked for a moment until Jon found a stick and shooed it out of the cave.

This was what he was thinking about when he went to sleep and had his dream.

In the morning, when he shows both to Rowan and she nods quietly, and tells everyone they have to leave.

“Do you think it was prophetic?”

Rowan’s nod is gentler than her last ones, and more unsure.

“I’m not sure if that’s the right word. Most humans who speak of green dreams speak of dreaming in symbols. Yours was very straight forward right?””

Jon nods, the images from his dream playing before his eyes, even as they begin to fade as dreams did.

“Perhaps…”

“What?”

“Perhaps you understand these dreams more fully because you already speak the language.”

“Speak-” Jon is nearly speechless, “Rowan, are you saying you think green dreams are the weirwoods trying to speak to humans?”’

“It makes sense, too much,” she replies, “Especially knowing of the physical toll green sight takes upon the humans who have it. They are burdened with images that they don’t understand and have no ability to. Their minds are grappling with something they cannot reason and so the body revolts.”

Jon keeps his mouth shut. Nothing she says matters once they all begin to pack up and begin the journey south.

Traveling through the tunnels under the earth is not exactly straightforward, but as they are free of obstacles, it is much safer and faster. They emerge at cave openings to set a fire and sleep, but can’t go all the way through without losing the protection of the wards at the far northern end.

Even with Gilly and her sister’s maps, Jon’s never sure exactly where they are. After a little over a month’s travel, one of the caves opens up into a much larger space than the others have, revealing an enormous underground hot spring.

The other women squeal at the warmth and the chance to bathe properly, instead of out of a kettle. Jon sits quietly in one of the side pathways, allowing them some privacy.

He gets a look as they all file in. It’s strange, Gilly aside, he’s almost come to think of them as a collective. He files off their names. Jyna, Nella, Ryta, Norea, Gilly (carrying Sam), Henneh. He sticks outside to give them privacy, wondering if there’s anyway for them to wash off what’s happened to them. They all seem to be happy with it, at least.

After a bit, Ygritte joins him. She sits and he throws an arm around her idly.

“I know where we are now.”

“How?”

She turns her head to look at one of the smaller paths off another side of the spring.

“We’re along the Milkwater just south of the Frostfangs. This is where we took you to meet with Mance Ryder before. “

Jon frowns,

“This place doesn’t look large enough for a big group of people to shelter.”

Ygritte shook her head.

“I took you out here to try and tempt you away from your crow vows.”

Jon raises an eyebrow, his hand playing errantly with the ends of her hair.

“And how did you do that?”

Her smile turns mischievous instead of melancholy, if just for a moment.

“Stripped naked and went ‘want some?’”

Jon snorts loudly.

“Guessing I did?”

“Well you didn’t really say yes or no, you just sunk to your knees and stuck your face between my legs…”

He laughs, and kisses the side of her face, with intent. He still doesn’t care for recollections of his previous life, and he hates the look on her face still.

“That was the last thing I remember before I died,” she admits, “That I wish we had just stayed here.”

They can’t stay. They both know that. The dead are coming and the fate of everyone and everything. But once the others are finished, the two of them strip down and slide into the water to try and wash off some of their burdens.

Once they are a bit sleepy and wrinkled from the heat, Ygritte pulls herself onto the edge of the spring to sit. And with an idle thought, Jon swims to her, gently pushes her knees apart, and buries his tongue inside her. She wraps her fingers in his curls and pulls them, with rather less force than her someone hearing her moans would probably think.

He’ll call it recreating a good memory.

After they dry off, redress, and rejoin the others, Jon asks her.

“How far are we from the wall?”

Ygritte chews her lip.

“On the ground, I’d say a moon’s turn. Down here? No mountains to cross, no snow, no bears, but not exactly a straight line of a journey either. Maybe a week less than that I’d say.”

The closer they get to the wall, the narrower the passages become. Much of the rock turns into tightly packed earth, and they can only go through one at a time.

Jon asks Rowan,

“How are we supposed to get over the wall once we reach it? The tunnels will be sealed and guarded at all the castles.”

Ygritte had told him many times of when the wildlings had climbed the wall  before. How one off placement of her pick had caused a crack that nearly killed them both. He hadn’t been looking forward to it, but more than that, he knew it was impossible. He could have probably carried Sam on his back, but there is no way to get all of Craster’s girls over, even one at a time.

Rowan shakes her head.

“We aren’t going over, we’re going under.”

Even in the extremely low light, Jon can see Ygritte’s face twist.

“Fuck me,” she mutters under her breath. When Jon looks at her quizzically, she replies.

“Story goes that three thousand years ago, brothers Gendel and Gorne discovered a huge network of caves that caverns that led one into another. They even found a passageway under the Wall and tried to use it to invade the North. They failed, and that path has been lost since.”

Jon’s face pinches,

“I guess we’re lucky Mance and the others never found it.”

“They wouldn’t have,” Rowan interjects. “These caverns were why I came south in the first place. I had to dig many free of earth, a few had even collapsed completely. But the way should be clear for us now.”

Jon’s sick of the torch-lit darkness. He’s sick of the damp air.

And so, when Rowan finally beckons them to the end of the largest cave opening they’ve seen in days, he squeezes Ygritte’s hand, and they guide the others out into the light.

And Jon takes the first breath of northern air he has breathed in years.

 Winterfell

The morning comes that Robb and Ned must leave for the Dreadfort. They are both reluctant, as Sansa and Catelyn have according to raven, just docked in Gullstown.

Bran claps one hand on his father’s shoulder. Standing straight, he’s up to his brow.

“It’s not for too long, and we still have three Starks in Winterfell. “

Most of the others leave for breakfast, but Gendry lingers behind.

“Wanted to say thanks again, to the both of you.”

He shakes both of their hands, and for the first time, looks them square in the eye as he does so.

He’s the last one to breakfast, and when he gets there, it’s just the small group around a pot of porridge. Rickon’s feet swing, unawares, while Meera and Arya whisper quietly. Bran’s head is resting to one side on the wood of the table.

“Is he…” Gendry asks, trailing off. They’ve all been paying close attention to what Bran tells them when he wargs, since the day when they’d woken up to the news that Jon was alive and unharmed, though they were not as shocked by the knowledge that one of the children of the forest had survived as Bran and Meera were.

“No,” Meera replies, not even looking up, “He’s sleeping. We were up late again last night.”

Gendry raises an eyebrow in her direction and Meera rolls her eyes. Jojen told Bran the truth all those years ago, that it wasn’t safe to warg alone, especially not for as many hours as he had been doing it. And if the best way to bring him back to earth afterwards involved her getting to discover the noise he made when she sucked on his earlobe, well, call it a bonus. Her next words are quiet though.

“There are big groups of others gathering far north towards the Lands of Always Winter,” Septima had flown past several, all heading in one direction.

“At least they aren’t coming south yet,” Arya adds grimly, though she is as apprehensive as the rest.

Gendry spares a glance down the empty table. Rickon had managed to already disappear without a word.

“Where’s everyone else got off to?”

“Rickon ate two bites and ran straight off,” Arya tells him. She doesn’t let on how much she worries about her youngest brother, tall now, but still without even the traces of a beard. How she sees the wildness in his movements and fears he may slip away. He’s the best archer they’ve got after her and Meera.

“And Theon left without eating.”

Gendry snorts at that. No doubt off trying to flirt with some of the Free Folk women. He’s having both more and less luck with them then with the other women from the north. More willing, without worries of their virtue, but also less likely to be impressed by him and his stories of being Ironborn. Gendry wonders if perhaps he just likes the challenge.

“And Jojen and Shireen left for the library already.”

That was expected, they did that pretty much every day. Shireen admitted that books aside, she is still unused to the cold of the North.

Right now, despite her cloak and the walls, she is still shivering under her cloak.

“Does it get this cold where you’re from?”

Jojen shrugs over the lip of his book.

“I don’t remember the last winter, I was too young. I know it gets cold enough that most of the bogs freeze over, but it’s pretty hot in summer, and I don’t think it ever gets hot here.”

He goes quiet again, and Shireen pouts a bit. She likes talking to him, but he’s so quiet most of the time it seems like she has to drag the words out of him. Or maybe he’s just comfortable being silent a lot of the time. She spares a glance at the book he’s going through.

“You’re reading about diseases and healing?” she asks, with a grimace.

“Lots of things about caring for wounds in here,” Jojen replies, “That could end up being really important.”

He’s quiet for a long moment.

“And it’s sobering to realize how likely that I probably would have died if I hadn’t been born the son of a lord, even if a minor one. There’s nothing in here that could change me, but I could have drowned or fallen from a horse, just because I would have been left alone all the time.”

Not even withstanding that others might not have even understood his visions. Might have thought he was possessed by something.

Shireen’s silent. She hates how much she understands. She’s heard all the stories about what happens to most people with greyscale. Disfigurement sounding so minor in comparison to potential blindness, loss of appendages and madness before death.

“When I got sick,” she says, slowly. It feels like a secret, even though it isn’t. “My father sent for any maester who thought he might be able to help. I don’t even know if it became known that they stopped the disease. Feels like the sort of thing that should be spread through all of the known world.”

She would have died, she comes to the dim realization. Had she been the daughter of a sailor or a crofter, or even a merchant. Maesters were under no compulsion to treat any but those in castles. Those who paid them.

She opens her mouth to say something else, when Jojen suddenly goes stiff and falls from his chair.

Shireen knows she would normally be frightened, but she isn’t. Jojen had said he had fits when the visions came to him. She very calmly moves his chair and the stacks of books on the floor so that he doesn’t hurt himself.

After only a minute or so, his jerking movements still. Shireen recalls Leeman, one of her uncle’s men. He had had a shaking fit after being ordered to stop drinking so much, and she’d seen how the maester laid him on the ground after. She remembers him doing much the same with men who had drank so much they passed out.

When Jojen still, Shireen rolls him onto his left side, leg and arm bent, and one hand under his chin. She worries for a moment before he sputters and takes a deep breath.

“Are you hurt?” she asks, and starts to say something else when he reaches out and grabs her by the arm, frightening her more than the fit had.

“Get the others,” he tells her in a voice far deeper than his normal one.

“What did you see?”

He squeezes his arm tightly, and the look in his eye makes her words catch in her throat. She stands and instead of leaving, she pulls him up, throwing one of his arms over her shoulder to bear his weight, and half pulls his towards the library door.