
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3587937.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      Game_of_Thrones_(TV), A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin
  Relationship:
      Sandor_Clegane/Sansa_Stark, Arya_Stark/Gendry_Waters, Jaime_Lannister/
      Brienne_of_Tarth, Gilly_(ASoIaF)/Samwell_Tarly, Cersei_Lannister/Jaime
      Lannister
  Character:
      Sansa_Stark, Sandor_Clegane, Arya_Stark, Bran_Stark, Gendry_Waters,
      Rickon_Stark, Jaime_Lannister, Shireen_Baratheon, Samwell_Tarly, Gilly_
      (ASoIaF), Brienne_of_Tarth, Hot_Pie_(ASoIaF), Jeyne_Poole, Osha_(ASoIaF),
      Ghost_(ASoIaF), Nymeria
  Additional Tags:
      happy_ever_after, Domestic_Bliss, domestic_bliss_with_dragons, Fluff,
      Angst, Crack, Romance, Drama, All_the_genres
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-03-21 Updated: 2015-11-28 Chapters: 16/? Words: 27536
****** One Day in An Ever After ******
by shadow_in_the_shade
Summary
     Four years since Sansa Stark took her rightful place as Queen in the
     North with Sandor Clegane at her side, all the characters who deserve
     happy endings are living them out in Winterfell and beyond. But a
     happy ending is not an ending at all. This is a description of one
     ordinary day in the lives of our favourite characters, a where are
     they now of Westeros, in which the characters remember how they got
     to this point.
     It's cute, it's fluffy, it's domestic and the past is dramatic and
     often painful, it's a fic of all genres really.
     Oh yes, and Bran's a dragon.
***** Sansa *****
 
Sansa
 
She woke with first light these days, slow and languorous, yawning like a cat
as she stretched in the sheets. It was two years into summer and the gold that
spilled over the windowsill was molten and warm. Soft liquid fire,she thought,
though she would find another way to describe it to her husband.
It was not the first morning into which she smiled as she stretched, slowly
half sitting up in preparation for the bolder move of actually sitting up. I’m
Queen of all the Northshe thought, chastising herself with a smile – waking up
should not be such a slow process.
She remembered all those years of sleeping for as long as she could, not waking
until she knew she would otherwise be called; Kings Landing, The Eyrie, all of
her various prisons. She had slept for as long as she could to pass the time
more quickly. Dreams had been better than real life back then. She had started
to lose hope that it would ever be otherwise.
And here she was. Years of this life had not made her used to it. She had never
started to take it for granted, to assume that nothing bad would happen. She
knew she should. If she could not trust in herself to keep herself safe she
should surely trust in Sandor. When they argued, half the time it was about
this – and every time it was over soon with kisses; she never had enjoyed an
argument and he, it seemed, was done with shouting at the world.
She turned her head to look at him asleep and dropped a still heavy head down
beside his on the pillow. Her fingers lightly traced his face, from nose to the
ear nearest her. He had grumbled at her just the other night that she only
slept on the side she did because she still could not really stand to look at
the other side of his face. She had almost been infuriated; after all this
timeshe thought, after everything I’ve said and donebut he had not quite meant
it and she had not quite become cross.
She would never forget that day towards the end of winter. Winterfell was still
under threat and even though they knew that they were winning she had still not
fought off the last of The Bastard’s men. They had made one last hurried
attempt to take back the castle and somehow she had found herself chased into a
corner, on her back on the floor with a group of men laughing at her claim to
the North and asking how she’d manage it without her skin.
It’s not fair,she vividly remembered thinking, childish though it was. In that
second she had wondered what she had even been trying to do, how indeed she had
ever thought that she could do this – it’s not fair, I got so far!And then a
hot spray of blood had hit her in the face and the first man crumpled like the
broken toy of a giant. One by one each man who had threatened her was neatly
broken and dropped and she had looked up, struggling back to her feet to see
who had rescued her. It was the stranger who had come and offered his services
as Winterfell’s new kennel master. They had had to get new people for
everything in the early days of re-establishing their stake on the castle and
so she had said yes without much thought. He was a Brother from the Quiet Isle,
he said, and at that time she had not been fussy enough to mind that he was so
heavily hooded at all times that she never saw his face.
Still that voice– and the size of him – something had pulled at the back of her
mind. Just a few days before she had gone to speak at him down at the kennels.
“Do I know you, ser?” He had made a noise that was almost a laugh;
“Surely the Queen in the North does not call a kennel master Ser?”It had not
helped the niggling feeling.
“You remind me of someone,” she had frowned.
He had made a half querying grunting sound, never looking at her –
“Some true knight of yours, no doubt.”
“No –” she could feel the frown lines running across her forehead – “No knight
– but true –” she sighed, remembering – “Truer than anyone I ever met”. Her
eyes went misty and when she looked back at him he looked quickly away from
her, not to show that he had been watching or listening to the faraway
dreaminess that had crept into her voice – “But he died,” she finished heavily,
wondering why it still hurt her heart to say so. She shook her head, shaking
off the dream she had never quite been able to fully form anyway – “Good day to
you.”
She had felt him watching her as she walked away and the feeling that she was
missing something had not left her.
And now he stood over her, reaching out his hand and pulling her to her feet
and if the deja vu was not enough she heard him rasp softly –
“You’re alright now, little bird.” Her eyes went wide as she stood up beside
him and she stared at him as though she had seen a ghost and it seemed to her
she might have done –
“Sandor?”she whispered – “That’s impossible.”
“Not impossible little bird,” he returned, letting her reach and slip her
fingers beneath the hood of his cloak and push it back – “Just –” he did not
know what else to say, overwhelmed at hearing her say his name like that, at
having her thisdelighted to see him. Her face broke into a smile like a burst
of sunlight on the snow and she reached to touch the burned side of his face as
if that more than anything convinced her he was real.
And she, unable to stop herself, when she had spent so long holding herself
back from everyone and everything had thrown her arms around him as much as
they would reach, standing on tiptoe to cover his face with kisses. It had been
an easier step than she could have ever imagined between that moment and
marriage.
And now, lying in bed beside him, more convinced than she had once imagined she
could be that he really would always be the one to keep her safe, she kissed
his face again. It made her smile how at this angle he looked undamaged –
beautiful even – and she never stopped wanting to trace the lines of him in
fascination. Then at some point he would always turn over and she would find
the poor scarred side of his face just as beautiful and kiss that twice as
much.
When she took a moment to blink between kisses she giggled to see that he was
squinting at her from one eye;
“Little bird –” he growled softly, and she thought he was going to say
something sweet and affectionate but all that followed was “It’s too fucking
early to have you pecking at my face.”
She kissed him lightly again, quickly, more like a peck than ever.
“The sun’s up and it’s a beautiful day!” she beamed, all the more cheerfully
because she knew it would annoy him. He closed his eyes in pain;
“Stop your bloody chirping already!” She grinned in the comfort of this early
morning routine, all the familiar words that meant love and happiness in their
language.
“It’s a beautiful day and there’s a dragon at the window!” she added. He
followed where she was looking and swore violently. The dragon had one claw
curled around the window ledge, scales glistening black and rainbow in the
early morning light. It snaked its head just a little inside when Sansa smiled
at it and she could have sworn it was smiling benignly at them.
Sandor swore violently again.
“Oh what’s wrong?” she laughed – “It’s only Bran.”
__x__
So, my beloved and I were talking last night, coming up with an ending for
everyone that was so happy it was almost crack. I didn’t sleep for a long time
thinking about this and how I could actually work it into a story that was
sweet but not completecrack. Actually it could be a very long story, even if it
does just cover one day. This is the story in which everyone you love is fine,
all will be explained and yes, I swear it makes sense that Bran is a dragon!
 
***** Sandor *****
Sandor
 
“Swear to the gods, little bird,” he rolled his eyes, sitting up in bed with a
heave – “I will never get used to your fucking family”.
The dragon that was Bran peered its face further into the room, close enough to
be almost nose to nose with him. That was a little too close for comfort and he
could feel himself pulling a face as he drew away.
“Honestly Sandor -” Sansa sighed, still smiling benignly – and if he did not
know better, which she frequently told him she did not – he could have sworn
that the dragon was smiling the same benign smile that she had. He often
groaned and sarcastically annoyed her by saying he could see the family
resemblance, but at times like this he almost could.
“He won’t hurt you,” she shook her head, getting out of bed and finding Bran a
leg of rabbit as she spoke – “We’ve told him, allof us, no fire, except where
needed, and no-one saying the – the -” she lowered her voice, knowing that the
little part of Drogon that remained had trouble controlling himself at times –
“The D word,”she whispered.
“All of you my arse,” he grumbled, opening his mouth to tell her about Arya
yesterday, after one of their frequent spats, yelling “Dracarys! Dracarys!”
repeatedly in the dragon’s hearing until he could have sworn he actually saw
the great black shining creature shake its head at her in tolerant refusal to
rise to the bait.
“I’ll talk to Arya,” again,she sighed, patiently.
“Great,” he grunted “Good luck with that.” She shook her head and turned to her
brother;
“Run along now Bran,” she smiled, scratching him behind the ear – “It’s stilla
little creepy to be nosing into my room like this”.
Bran withdrew and a great breeze washed through the room as black wings beat
the air outside. Sandor relaxed; much as he respected, indeed even liked most
of Sansa’s family, he was not sure he would ever get used to having a huge,
potentially fire breathing monster flying around the place.
“He used to do this when we were little too,” she shook her head, getting back
into bed and snuggling in. His arm went around her as though they slotted
together that way.
“He used to – be a dragon?”
“He used to climb.I’d wake up and find him peering in my window just like that.
I never knew how long he’d been balancing there grinning at me. It was weird.”
“Weird like having a fucking big dragon flying around the place?”
“Sandor –” she kissed him on the nose – “Shh.”
He shushed. He could never, he thought, have imagined his life coming to this –
the happiness of waking every day with this girl beside him, of reaching to a
point where not only would anybody want to be kissing him on the nose but that
he would accept such a thing.
He had learned to accept calm, even peace amongst the Brothers. Cut off from
the rage and rumble of the world he had gradually found something akin to
contentment. He had never considered himself miserable, had never stopped to
care if he was happy or dared imagine he could deserve it. All those years at
Casterly Rock and then King’s Landing he had not considered himself unhappy,he
had not considered himself much at all, avoided thinking too hard wherever
possible, drowning doubt and bitterness in the acid of wine. He had refused to
think of himself as broken, learned to ignore the way people looked at him,
learned to react if he had to, with anger and intimidation. He had seen himself
turning into someone he hated and convinced himself he was glad of it because
it was better than trying to be something that did not exist; trying to be
good.Whatever that meant.
She had ruined it. He had tried to hate her for it and almost succeeded.
Almost; until he realised, with a sinking sensation that was like wildfire in
the gut that it was not hateafter all. He could have pinpointed the exact
moment he realised it for good, when he had seen her strength as well as her
beauty and known that he was doomed. It had been creeping up on him the whole
time she had been staring at her father’s head; she wasn’t seeing,he could see
it when none of the rest of them could. He had looked at his own face the same
way often enough; walling himself off from it, refusing to be affected. It had
taken him by surprise to see her do this too, to be so strong, so stubborn and
so young. And then, when Joffrey had threatened her with her brother’s head and
she had said, barely a whisper – “Maybe he’ll bring me yours”. That was it,
that was the moment, he had known who she was then, heard the ice in her voice
and then, as he knelt before her, seen the wolf in her eyes. She was a wolf of
Winterfell and he was hers from that moment on.
He had not wanted to change her, only to help, to give fuel to that strength in
her he had seen that day. It had frustrated him, every time they awkwardly
spoke, to see her hanging on to her ridiculous notions of honour and truth,
still living a story in spite of everything she saw, everything she said.
Instead he had found himself questioning his own disillusionment, his bitter
insistence that the stories were all lies. Her insistence and the way he looked
at him – the fear was bad but the pity was worse – and then she had tried to
treat him like a rescuing knight in one of her stories and he had not known
what to do. He couldn’t tell her he would only ever have done it for her, not
because it was harsh but because she might have worked a few things out – and
not the things he wanted her knowing. So he had been vile to her instead, put a
sword at her throat and laughed about her father’s death. He had cursed himself
the rest of the day about that.
In the end he did not think he had managed to change her at all. Instead she
had changed him, almost back into someone who still believed there was anything
of honour and bravery left in the world. Of course he had run from her before
ever hearing if she would go with him or not.
When he had got word that she had moved to take back Winterfell and the north
he had debated with himself for days. It seemed wrong to just leave the
Brothers who had done so much for him; it was terrifying to think of re-joining
the world, more so to think of seeing her again. He felt he had come so far,
learned to embrace a stillness he never though he would have; it had washed him
out and made him better and he knew it. It seemed that the most awful thing he
could do was to throw that away.
“Do you have to?” the Elder Brother had asked him when he expressed these
thoughts aloud, another thing he had learned to do here.
“What?”
“Throw it away? Is peace such a poor thing it should be dependent on this
place?”
“Perhaps for me –”
“And this girl – you speak of her. I hear you out there, in the hallways,
quietly singing under your breath, it’s the song she sang to you, yes?”
He had not been able to meet the man’s eyes. It was. Of course it was.
“Hiding from the world is not peace. Take it with you, no place is so big you
cannot live there in your heart and this – my friend – it’s only a small
island. Go.”
He went. He had hated himself for not just making himself known to her, but the
stillness in him insisted just to lie low, to help her but not get in the way,
confuse her or frighten her. He had not lost what he had gained on the Quiet
Isle and the dogs he worked with helped him to maintain that stillness, animals
always had. It was not rage and ager that began to return to him, just her. He
had been glad of the hood for being able to watch her without her seeing,
trying to guess how she would react to him.
And then she had spoken to him, almost as though she knew. He had felt worse
than he had in a long time for not telling her; but that look in her eyes when
she had spoken of his being dead- it led him to hope as he had never dared hope
before. Even so he had never expected her to kiss him as she had when she
finally knew him – as though she had missed him, thought of him, like he had
her; even as though they had kissed before.
They talked about that later; in her mind they hadkissed before. He wished he
had been there for it.
They had almost argued badly; the moment she was finished flinging kisses and
limbs around him she broke away embarrassed and demanded to know why he had not
told her straight away. She had actually slapped him – and then instantly
started to cry.
“I missedyou,” she wept – “I missed you every day.I thought you were dead.Do
you knowwhat that’s like?”
“I couldn’t – how could I possibly know that? I thought you – hated me, like
your stupid sister.”
“I – you – oh!” she sniffed, angrily, at that – “When you came to me – the
night of the Blackwater – you kissed me, you threatened me, you offered to take
me with you and then –”
She glared at him furiously – “You just left!”
It was not what he had expected, he did not know how to begin to explain
himself, how she had sung to him and he had cried to hear such sweetness, such
pure forgiveness, to feel her little hand so soft upon his face, to copewith
tenderness – he could not. He had turned craven after all, like they all said,
and not on account of the flames. He could not say any of that and so instead –
“I – kissed you?”
They argued about it a moment until she made a gesture that said she was done,
looked at him very seriously and simply said –
“I was going to say yes.”
It was a short step from there to kissing her, for real this time, shorter from
there than he could have imagined, to marrying her.
And now, five years later, here he was, ruling The North at her side; little
Ned and Robb, just as she had always wanted, and no leg to stand on when she
reminded him that all those silly fairy tales didcome true after all. And yes,
she reminded him every day, and was in danger of becoming insufferably smug
about it.
It was perfect. Like a dream he never needed to wake up from.
__x__
 
I’m thinking the next chapter will probably be from Bran but I AM going to
return to these two probably repeatedly, because Sansan. :-)
***** Bran *****
Bran
 
It was not quitean accident, he remembered. He had been reaching for the crow.
He had never reached so far in his life, pushing nervous but insistent fingers
up out of his mind up and up into the sky. It was cold up in the clouds, and
the tendrils of his mind drifted in the breeze. He was lost in the mists, his
third eye gone blind, blown far beyond the crow before he ever realised he had
gone too far. He had been just about to turn back, head back to the body in the
snow when he had felt the other mind surprisingly close and – he could have
sworn it – reaching back.
Somehow, up there, in the wind, they became tangled up, his consciousness and
that of the other meshing like ribbons of different colours; impossible to pull
away, he could only keep going until with a heave and a painful squeeze of the
mind he found himself inside the body. It was no bird, or wolf, or any animal
he could have imagined, and it felt so alien and strange he thought he was
going to crack from it. In his panic he began to fall from the sky and so did
the only thing he could do and beat his new wings back into the air current. In
those few seconds he turned himself around, all the way from the horrible
falling and the dread and the terror and the ground- that dreadful plummeting
that beat at the insides. To suddenly pull up from that was better than a
dream. None of his dreams had even offered this. Thiswas where he had been
trying to go all along. In those first hazy, nervous moments he knew it for
certainty.
He opened his mouth to yell as he soared back up, wind in his face and rippling
across his new body, felt his wings like sails, thin but so tough they floated
on the cold pounding air. He could not yell, but he could roar.
And he was hot, gods he was so hot.He wondered if he could burn on his own
insides; the blood was boiling and the heart that beat in his chest was like
bubbling lava in there. The cold wind felt good to him but in the back of his
mind he heard the other’s mind dislike it. The other had scurried there when he
slipped in and it spoke to him with all the timidity of the bird he had been
trying to be. Though the words themselves were strange he understood their
sentiment – where am I, what is this, who are you? Drogon, I am Drogon.
Drogonhe echoed in reply – I’m Bran, I won’t hurt you, there’s room in here for
us both – I’ve been looking for you for so long –
It was only when he spoke it in his mind, this last, that he knew that it was
true, that this was the end of his search, that he had travelled as North as he
could to find a dragon to fly him back south.
Bran –he could feel the dragon tasting his name, finding it strange and exotic,
other worldly even; then he felt the consciousness quiver and it was
frightening to be alongside this great and ferocious mind and to feel it
shiver, feel its thoughts fly apart into dislike, dislike, no, please, scared –
and so he let go, tumbled out of the dragon’s mind and back down through the
sky. He was so high up, terror sized him and he was afraid he would not find
the way back to his body but then the crow was there and its voice was Jojen
Reed’s – you have to go back, Bran.
Backhe thought – to the myself or to the dragon?
You are the dragon. You have to go back to it, but first to yourself, tell the
others. You have to let the body die, tell them, tell Meera, she’ll understand,
she’ll see you again – in Winterfell, and me, tell her, she’ll see me –
although she already knows.
Winterfell?Bran was all questions, always.
Yes, in the end, after everything. Don’t you see, Bran? You have to save the
world. You always did.
Bran was surprised to find that this did not scare him nearly as much as the
falling but before he could panic again he was back, laughing, crying, trying
to explain it all to Meera. She had shouted at him at first, objected, tried to
stop him from going again – until he told her it was Jojen who had told him to.
He was longer saying goodbye to her than saying it to his own body. He had
stared at Hodor for several moments, wondering what he could possibly say that
he would understand. In the end he just said –
“Hodor,” and hoped that it would be enough.
When he went back to Drogon the second time, it was with no intent to ever
leave again. This time the dragon welcomed him, if warily, as an old
acquaintance and grudgingly allowed him to share headspace. It was a large head
space, Drogon admitted, and sometimes he got tired, room in here for both of
them, like Bran had said. But here,he said – there people I must have you meet.
Bran questioned Drogon’s use of the world peoplewhen he found himself flying
alongside the other dragons. They looked at him distrusting at first, but they
flew with him all the same. In the cold sunlight their wings shone, every shade
of fire, pale gold through ruby red to coal. My brothers,he thought, trying to
outdo them with every twist of rippling scale and beat of powerful wing. They
took him to King’s Landing where he met the girl who looked like ice but was
made of fire and when she, all unknowingly took over from where her father had
left off and told them burn it allit was Brandon Stark of Winterfell who said
no, who made the others follow his example and fly through the streets never
hurting a thing, letting the people of Westeros see the power and beauty
without the terror and the flame. There was no need for all this burning. Bran
wished he could speak, it was a simple thing but for all the fire in her he
thought the girl might understand. He nestled at her side and shook his head so
gently she turned and stared into his eyes for the longest minutes until
finally she blinked and whispered –
“Drogon?”
He shook his head, so gently, he was sure she had to see that he was barely
even a dragon in spite of all appearance. Her eyes filled with tears and she
put a hand on his nose. He felt his mind flex as it had not been able to
before, not to control, just to feel, just to speak. He felt that the girl was
half mad but that it did not have to matter, he felt that she was born to rule,
a queen if ever he had met one, and that, if he just said the right thing, she
could be good.Really good, like his father, like Sansa. But he just a boy after
all and he did not know what the right thing to say was. So he whispered, from
his mind to hers;
It’s good. Drogon’s fine. You can take the Iron Throne. But – you don’t have to
burn people. Just be kind instead. It’s better. And leave us Winterfell.
She looked at him for what felt like forever until he heard her voice come back
to him faintly –
It’s – can I do this? Can I speak to you? Whoare you?
I’m Bran, Brandon Stark of –
Winterfell. I see. Your sister has moved to take back the North, would you
fight us?
He had not known that, but he knew the answer to her question.
No. She wouldn’t want to fight. We could – have peace.
Yes.Drogon’s mother smiled, and he realised with a sudden shock that she was
only just shy of a child herself – That would be good. Go to your sister in the
North, she may have her dragon and I mine, from now on there shall be a Queen
in the North and another in the South, I am Daenerys Stormborn of house
Targaryen and as I have said it, it shall be done.
It was perhaps not quite as simple as they made it sound that day, but in truth
it was not far more complicated. At least not to Bran. The difficulty for him
was more in communicating than in the technicalities of rule. It appeared he
could not speak to everyone as he had to the new Queen. He had pressed against
every mind that came near, testing for a response and got none until Sam and
Gilly came to them from the Citadel. Gilly had surprised everyone by
understanding him perfectly, and translated for everyone else. Sam, in awe of
her as ever and in more terrified awe of Bran, was no sooner placed as Maester
of Winterfell than he began a thorough study of dragons and how to communicate
with them.
Slowly, like a shredded tapestry re–weaving itself, his family had come back
together; Arya from across the sea, Osha and Rickon, bringing with them young
Shireen Baratheon who was welcomed by his sister and her lord as though she
were one of their own. Slowly, beautifully, the threads of family and happiness
wove themselves into a place that combined all that used to be with the
extraordinary potential of what it could grow into.
As he swooped away from Sansa’s window he heard whispers from the room behind
him that he wished he had not. Dragon or not there were still things he did not
need to hear.
He woke up Arya instead. She groaned at him. Then she shouted. Then she threw a
pillow. He set it on fire and flew away. When dragons laugh the sound is like
warm thunder, mellow with mead.
__x__
Okay please be kind – I normally almost always write romance-y stuff, indeed
porn, so this was a massive change of style and substance for me! Also it went
way more serious than I really thought it was gonna – so I’ll make up for it by
having the next chapter be much sillier. It’s gonna be Arya I think, after that
I’ll probably go back to Sansa, cause it’s weird writing a chapter without
her!!
 
***** Arya *****
Arya
She could have done without being woken early by a dragon. To make her
disapproval clear, she came down to breakfast as late as she could without
missing it altogether. She regretted her decision as soon as she sat down; her
sister’s stinking husband had already eaten everything good.
“How can anyone eat allthat bacon?” she grumbled for the third time. He rolled
his eyes at her; it was not a pretty sight.
“Shut up about it.”
“AndBran set my pillow on fire,” she sulked. Several voices sprung up at once;
“Igot bacon!”
“Thought we said no fire –”
“Whydid Bran set your pillow on fire?”
“I’ll eat all the damned bacon I want to!”
“Bran, didyou burn Arya’s bed linen?”
Bran was stretched out in front of the fire at the other end of the hall, as
still and placid as a stone sculpture of a dragon. He replied with a low,
rather lazy, rumbling noise;
“He says she threw it at him, what did she expect?” Gilly translated mildly.
She got up from the table and went over to sit beside Bran. The dragon pushed
his nose up into her hand for a stroke. Arya watched her smile and bend in to
tickle the massive creature and rolled her eyes at the way the two seemed to
play with each other; it had to be the strangest friendship she had ever seen.
“Arya should know better than to throw her pillows at a dragon,” her sister was
saying, but before Arya could get too annoyed Sansa hailed down a serving girl
and asked her to bring more bacon. She chalked this one up as a victory and
stuck her tongue out at The Hound. She knew he wasn’t The Hound anymore, not
really, but she could not get the moniker out of her head all the same. He
glared back at her witheringly and stuck his tongue out back at her when he
thought Sansa was not looking. She was. She was alwayslooking.
“Stop that you two!” she chided for the millionth time in her life – “Honestly,
how old are you both – Arya you should know better and Sandor – you should
reallyknow better.”
But she said it more affectionately, Arya noticed and kissed him lightly at the
end of it. She watched him smile back at her sister just like a big dumb dog
and interrupted them loudly with a round of retching sounds, finishing off with
a resounding–
“Yuck!”
“Oh shut up!” Sansa turned back to her, temporarily forgetting that she was
supposed to be the mature one – “Or I’ll kiss you too!”
“Ewwww!”
“The children are better behaved than you!”
At the far end of the table Shireen and the little ones smiled angelically just
to prove her right. Rickon glared and stabbed the table just to prove, she was
sure, that he could be just as bad – almost as though he was proud of it.
Before she could come up with another riposte Sandor intercepted the bacon that
was supposed to be hers. She yelled, Sansa smoothed, Sandor grudgingly gave her
half her bacon.
“He’s such a pig,” Arya grumbled with a mouth full of bacon – “You should have
seen him eat pig’s feet – you wouldn’t have married him then.”
“Oh, you should have seen yourself eat stew,” he fired back.
“Well I learned it from you didn’t I?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Ohhh –” Arya raged, fighting for a reply – “Dracarys!”
Bran growled softly.
“He says -” Gilly blushed a little, but grinning – “Fuck off with your
Dracarys.”
“Sandor –” Sansa sighed, “Look, you’re even teaching the dragonbad language.”
Sandor made a noise that attempted to be a protest.
“You should have heard him go on about you,” Arya headed into a new form of
attack – “He never shut up about you, it was Sansa this and Little Bird that
until I wanted to vomit –”
“Oooh Gendry –”Sandor mocked, to hide the fact that she was making him squirm
with awkwardness – “Gendry’s so pretty, he could take you any day, you should
see his muscles –Spending the day at the forge are we? How many blades do you
need?”
“Oh shut up!” lame though it was she had gone red. She threw a bit of bacon at
him. He ate it.
“Thanks.”
“Oh how lovely,” Sansa sighed with weariness at the both of them – “It’s good
to see one of you learning manners.”
Arya’s eyes were tired from rolling;
“I’m going out!” she grunted – “Enough of you all, I’m going –”
“Going where exactly?” Sansa asked gently, though Arya could hear the smile in
her voice without having to look.
“Going down the forge,” she muttered. She could hear Sandor’s laughter ringing
in her ears all the way out the door.
It was a beautiful morning in the courtyard, the sun streaming in over the
walls, spreading a soft blanket of warmth across the stones that would toast
them by midday. She stopped when she was far enough away from everyone and
where they would not see and smiled to herself; the morning was going
perfectly. The wake up routine of banter and abuse was almost as sweet and
warming as the sunshine.
And now the gold warmed her face, a light breeze sent up the rustle of leaves
and the smell of the trees, she could hear the ever thrilling sound of metal
clanging reaching up to her from the forge and the day offered itself up to her
in noise and smell and sensation.
She ran down to meet it.
__x__
I know, I know, this went kinda crack, eh well, I’ll go more serious in the
next one, which is gonna be Sansa again cause I can’t stay away! – I may even
do some pwp again finally!
 
***** Sansa *****
Sansa
 
She stood overlooking the training yard, watching the boys with their wooden
sticks, Arya trying to oversee their training – such as it was – but only
really getting in the way. She smiled as Ned accidentally got her in the leg
with his stick and all pretence at serious instruction flew out into the winds
in favour of a yelling tumble.
She felt a hand cover hers on the wall, smiled and squeezed it without needing
to turn round; a simple touch was like a kiss to the neck, sending warm shivers
through her every time. Her heart gave a smile and a little involuntary leap
and truly –she thought every time and after five years?But this was what love
was, she knew it now, that smile at the heart and the shiver in the skin; how a
simple touch had so much lovely power long after it should have become
commonplace. She had thought once it was something else, something big and epic
like a song. But it wasn’t. It was small and sweet, like a baby animal to take
care of and nothing more precious in the world.
Every time he touched her reminded her of that first night they had spent
together; it felt like she had been waiting for it for as long as she had any
idea of what she was waiting for. She could hardly believe she had made it to
this point still a maid, for every threat and attempt upon her she had
experienced since she first left Winterfell. And here she was, back in her own
home, in the room that had once been her parents- and more than that, back in
herself, Sansa Stark of Winterfell-she said it to herself every night, the same
words she had spoken to Littlefinger before she pushed him out the moon door –
who else would I be?
It was a maid that turned to him in the light of the fire, safe behind its
guard so as not to trouble him, but it was not the frightened, trembling girl
he had first seen. She had worried in those early days that she had changed too
much for him to love her but soon found that it was his knowledge of who she
was that reminded her herself.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, but it was almost an order; wildfire danced ready
across her lips and something in her voice must have made it clear to him that
she was asking for more than a kiss because he asked her if she was sure. He
was so gentle, so tender to her that she would have felt bad for ever being
afraid of him if there was room in her right at this moment for feeling bad.
But there was not.
“I lived for two years off one kiss that never happened,” she smiled, aware now
of her error and what it entailed – “How long do you think I could go on
anything else?”
In the end she still moved first, but he moved to meet her and there was
lightning on their lips when they met. If she had been afraid that he could
even be toogentle it fell away in moments after the first tentative touch. He
tasted her, then fell upon her in a hunger that might have scared her if she
did not meet it with her own. She had never felt drowning to feel so delicious,
but she was sinking in his hands as they grabbed for her, trying to take all of
her in at once. She had convinced herself she would take this slowly, but she
was burning up with want and could feel his hardness pressing against her with
an urgency he was trembling to control.
“Bed –” she croaked, hoarsely. Somehow they found it, the couple of metres
seeming like a mile, and fell upon it clumsily, half laughing, half crying, but
everything went quiet and breathless as he started to work out the lacings on
her dress.
She had imagined this about a hundred times and more, her lord undressing her
for the first time, in reverential perfection. But when she looked at him, she
saw reverential yes, but clouded with confusion, and his fingers fumbled
awkwardly as though he was the one who had never done this before. He groaned
in frustration.
“Surely you’ve –” she began, but broke off when he looked away furtively.
“But you’re not –” she supposed she should not have pressed it but she was too
astonished not to.
“Of course not,” he growled, trying to regain ground beneath a sneer – “But
whores do that bit for you and you –”
“I’m no whore,” she finished for him, mildly affronted.
“No –” he shook his head, voice sinking back into softness – “No little bird,
you’re something I never expected – always wanted but –”
She put a finger to his lips to silence him before he started babbling, sat up
a little and wriggled out of her dress herself. When she looked back up at him
he was staring at her in utter silence and she could feel his face wet beneath
her fingers. She leaned up to kiss it away, her hands sliding under his shirt
almost as though she knew what she was doing. At least he helped her to get it
off. When they were finally both out of their clothes she had stared back at
him, nervous for the first time.
King’s Landing had convinced her she would always be afraid of this moment and
her time in the Eyrie had solidified her intent to maintain not so much her
maidenhead – though that too –as her free will in the matter. She had been sure
on many occasions that it was a promise to herself she would never be able to
keep, but here she was, and nervous though she was she had never truly been
less afraid in her life, and it was his hand that trembled against her face,
and he looked at her as though he could not believe she was real.
“Don’t,” she said, and he frowned – “Don’t doubt that I’m real,” she clarified
– “I’ve never been more so.”
He shook his head at her, smiling crookedly – “It’s not that, little bird –” he
bit his lip and she found herself staring, entranced – “It’s that you’re mine.”
“I am yours,” she said simply, clasping her hands around his neck – “And you
are mine.”
She felt a lovely shiver at the words, knowing she would be saying them again
soon, though somehow the promise felt deeper now – it felt somehow as though
she hadwaited until her wedding night after all.
When she leaned up further to kiss him, she had never felt more beautiful, more
alive. His lips were fascinating, hers on fire with a burn he could never hate.
He was hard and soft all at once and she felt his chest press against hers,
skin sliding on skin and his manhood pressing hard against her thigh. She felt
magical, as though in the grip of a spell, and her fingers travelled across his
chest, following the paths of so many scars, as though they were runes carved
into flesh. He was sovery scarred and hard beneath her fingers; she pressed
into them in fascination, both aroused and in sympathy for the wounds he had
taken. She had not had any idea she could feel both at the same time but it did
not last long as her wandering fingers found his hardness and anything like
sympathy fled in an instant. He shuddered as she curled a hand around him and
her cheeks felt hot as her legs parted so completely, almost involuntarily.
“Please –” she whimpered, needing now and almost desperate, uncertain exactly
how this could possibly work, he was so big and she – “I don’t know –”
He shushed her gently, one hand sliding gentle and rough between her legs,
ghosting across her thighs and making her nearly scream as they brushed a spot
that set her whole skin screaming, brushing it far too quickly for satisfaction
and too obviously to ignore.
“Gods –” he rasped, as he touched her – “You’re so wet –”
“Is that – good?” she whispered, not quite sure. He just smiled at her and ever
so gently slid a finger up inside her. She had never even touched herself like
that; even this invasion seemed to stretch her, but he took it so slowly it
barely hurt and within moments she was twisting and pressing herself into his
hand. He pressed a thumb against that sweet incredible spot again and she could
almost feel herself opening for the next finger he slid in. She could feel her
insides dancing, shivering like a candle flame and she tried to bite back her
cries as she twisted beneath him, he held her head in his hand, one arm around
her shoulders, holding her just as she felt like the bed was falling away and
she was spinning through the air, wild and straining with want. She felt
herself brushing so close to something wonderful and just as she opened her
mouth to scream in earnest he took his hand away. She screamed a little at that
– but in frustration - and glared at him frantically.
He tried to smile at her, but it came but as a grimace; he needed her too much
now to be as gentle as he would have liked, his cock was killing him but he
still made himself nudge it gently against her, coating himself in her wetness
before pressing the head into her. She bit her lip and it was all he could do
to stop, but she shook her head desperately –
“Don’t – don’t stop, please -” He surged into her in relief and she could not
help but cry out it felt so strange, so new and she was so full of him she
wondered that she did not break. But she did not break, not at all and he
worked her so gently with his fingers still that it sweetened the pain and
dispersed it. He thrust into her almost more slowly than he could bear at first
and then harder as her whimpers of mingled pleasure and pain mellowed into
sighs of astonished delight at the delicious friction and far from breaking
her, she almost felt like all the tattered pieces of herself were being
enchanted back together as the sweet singing sensations spread throughout her
body, magic in her fingertips that she was sure he could feel as she dug them
into his back.
He had waited for this for so long he had always feared he could not last long
and she heard him whimper brokenly with the effort of trying to hold on longer.
He was so strong, so much bigger than her, to hear him whimper like that made
her shiver like leaves and she hardly knew what to do, but caught his eye and
did not look away as she fell apart completely, screaming as all the shimmering
leaves of her scurried from their branch and she fell apart into a warm and
blissful wind.
“Gods –” he groaned as she clenched around him, shuddering all his lust and
need and love uncontrollably into her as he pressed her tight to him – “Gods –
Sansa –”
He had never called her by her name before, not to her face, and she realised,
later, when she could think straight again, that when she had whimpered his
name in gasping return, it was the first time she had even said it.
__x__
Arrrgh, this was so tricky for me! I have such huge love for the idea that,
especially given all the rape threats and the times Sansa thought her first
time would be rubbish – that actually it could be perfect and beautiful and,
more magically still not even hurt her, because y’know, it doesn’t have to –
also that she would be the one in control. But I normally write mad slightly
brutal rough sex scenes so I’m not sure if I did this right at all. Eeeeeeee
*closes eyes and offers chapter nervously up to the world*. :-)
Who shall I write next, I’m thinking maybe Jaime? :-)
 
***** Jaime *****
 
Quick note – I totally head canon Brienne as genderqueer and asexual but not
aromantic so if you hate that interpretation you won’t like this chapter,
obviously everyone has their own head canons and that’s cool, so I don’t mind
anyone disagreeing just don’t hate. :-)
 
Jaime
 
“You’re riding with me to Winterfell today, then?”
It was phrased in such a way that he could have taken it as a question or a
fact. He decided to take it as a statement, and responded with appropriate
disdain.
“Oh am I. Am I really.”He made an ughsound and almost said do I have tobut he
supposed it would make him sound like a petulant child and held himself back.
Cersei always said he was a child, a big baby, a whining imbecile, and so on
and so on, ad nauseum.
There was a time when he had thought he could never, would never live without
her. He never had done in all his life. He had thought that losing her would be
like losing a limb. Well, he had survived thatto begin with. This had almost
been easier; she had lived on more than his missing hand had. It had been
easier to internalise her than it was to learn to fight left handed. Well, he
did not need to make a space for her voice in his head, she had always had it.
But it was the Cersei of long ago that lived on, not the desperate, scheming
bitch of her later years. He was almost glad she had turned into somebody he
hated before she died, he was not sure he could have survived her loss if she
had not. The Cersei who lived on in him was the girl who had played the
peasant, the girl whose smiles were like a fine rain and whose tears made the
sun come out. She always was contrary, impossible to read. She was no different
in his mind, only – better. A better person perhaps; the girl he had always
dreamed she was, imagined she could be and who she never could have been in
life.
He could not even miss her; all hint of that girl had died so long ago.
It made it easier that this one was as different from Cersei as a woman could
be. In fact woman was barely even the right word. He had suggested a long time
ago that they needed to make up a new word for whatever she was and it must
have spoken weights as to how far they had come that he did not mean it as an
insult and she did not take it as one.
He wondered what Cersei would say of where he had ended up; in quiet retirement
not far from Winterfell, and with Brienne of all people. He could hardly credit
it himself. She – though again a new word was needed – was everything that
Cersei was not, honest and brave and noble to an often tedious thought. Ugly
too, he would have once been the first to say – though he could not see it any
more, not since he had first seen those blue eyes shining in any kind of
happiness. He had been so delighted to have put it there that for the first
time, more than ever with Cersei, he could have honestly said he knew what love
was.
It was not a love he ever expected to find, in truth he would rarely speak
aloud and no more would she, but they demonstrated it as they had from the
start, each leaping to a steely fierce defence of the other that left everyone
else behind.
He still called her wench,though he never thought of her as such, and
sometimes, when she knew he would not take it seriously, she still called him
kingslayer.She would follow it with a smile more beautiful than he could have
imagined her capable of; it was all teeth, yes, but beauty was not about looks
with her, he had come to realise that well enough. It was not as though he was
so pretty any more himself- Cersei had been right about that at least.
Any sexuality he had had it seemed, had died with her. He never had been
interested in anyone else, and now he was content enough that way. He had
always assumed Brienne to be lying when she had claimed no interest in the
matter but, after Cersei’s death, for the first time he had come to understand
her together. And that was fine. He had never imagined he would be able to
share a bed with both no sex and no awkwardness, but it was pleasure and a
peace that took him by delightful surprise.
He had questioned the location at first;
“Why Winterfell?”
“I swore an oath to protect the Stark girls,” she said for the hundredth time.
“You swore an oath to a dead woman who tried to have you hanged,” he pointed
out.
“I swore to protect them and that’s what I’ll do,” she repeated stubbornly.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re thedullest, most predictable –”
“Repeatedly. And it was always you.”
He had always assumed his irritation with her was simply that – irritation. He
had never guessed it could be affection.
“I don’t think she needs your protection,” he said, after they had first gone
to meet the new Queen in the North.
“No,” Brienne had agreed.
“Even if she did not have our old hound to protect her – there’s a girl who can
look after herself”. By all the gods – he remembered the day they had first
arrived in Winterfell and the Sansa he had seen there and never thought he
would have said such a thing.
“But her sister does,” Brienne insisted. Jaime had started to argue that he had
never met a girl who so well knew her way around a sword but once before.
“Oh she knows her way around a sword. It’s not enough. I’ve never seen a girl
need more help knowing her way around herself.”
He had looked at her, smirking; he had seen the way she watched Arya.
“Dear gods,” he sighed, resignedly – “It must be like looking in a mirror.”
“Shut up”.
That was the beginning of their relations with Winterfell; friendshipBrienne
called it, he would have tentatively said allianceand never admitted that she
had the right of it more than he did.
It was harder for him than for Brienne, to find his way into their friendship.
He supposed it always would be. He had heard that they had a dragon but was not
prepared for it to attack him the first day they set foot within the walls. It
had swooped down out of the sky, pinning him beneath its claws and roared,
opening its jaws to stream fire into his face.
“Don’t you bloody dare!” he had heard as something large crashed into the
beast’s side.
“Sandor?” he squinted, sitting up in the dust, but his erstwhile Hound was
paying him no attention –
“We do not flame people!” he was shouting at the dragon as though it was a
child – “Sansa -”
The lady had come running at the commotion – “Tell him!”
The dragon was clawing at the ground sullenly, glaring at the two people stood
between them.
Sansa had held out a hand to calm the dragon and Jaime was astounded to see it
have some effect, though she glanced at him a little too fiercely for comfort –
“That’s Jaime Lannister,” she said, as though this excused the animal’s
behaviour.
“I know who it bloody is! You said he – ” he indicated the dragon – “Didn’t
attack people”
“He pushed him out a window!”
“I beg your pardons –” Jaime was getting to his feet finally – “But I think I’d
know if I pushed a bloody great dragon out a window.”
“That’s my brother Bran,” she said coldly, folding her arms and looking at him
pointedly.
“Ah.” Jaime stated, grimacing, working it out. He looked the dragon in the
eyes, cringing a little –
“I suppose a simple sorryisn’t going to do it?”
The dragon spat a tiny flame in response.
“No fucking fire, I said!” Sandor roared at it. He continued to rail at it
whilst Sansa coolly welcomed him to Winterfell.
He was welcome on Brienne’s account at first, though they had heard how he had
searched for her and Arya and understood he genuinely wished to help them now,
had done for a long time. But it had to be up to Bran when and if to forgive
him, and he could not but accept this, saddened as he always had been by his
one greatest misdeed. Thankfully Brienne and Arya were already bonding in the
training yard by the time Sansa was finished speaking
It was Clegane who made him really feel welcome first, as soon as Jaime
apologised for ever thinking he had been raping and pillaging the river lands.
“I should have known better,” he admitted – “That’s not you, is it?”
“I’d have thought the same of myself at one time too,” Sandor shrugged.
As soon as Sandor had come to realise that Jaime no longer saw himself as his
superior they became easily united both in distrust of Bran the dragon and in a
shared disregard for the Kingsguard they had both been part of and the true
knightswho had destroyed their faith in the title. Sansa had come round to him
soon enough, he suspected largely on her husband’s account, and the children
had followed soon upon Brienne’s.
It was the dragon that was hardest and, when he thought about it, he could see
no reason why Bran would ever forgive him. He would not forgive someone who had
crippled him. And yet, one day, after many months of back and forth between
their minor castle and Winterfell, he was walking through the Weirwood when a
great warm weight nudged him so hard in the shoulder that he fell over. When he
saw it was the dragon he got ready to scream – like a girl if he had to – but a
girl, who could only be of Wildling descent, came out from under the shadow of
a wing and pulled him to his feet.
“He says he forgives you,” she said and she grinned – “But don’t do it again.”
“Yes well – I was planning to, of course.” He looked at the huge creature
nervous through the mask of sarcasm.
“He wouldn’t be a dragon if he hadn’t followed the three eyed raven he says,
and he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t lost the use of his legs –”
The dragon made a little rumble;
“He says he would have grown up to be some rubbishy knight like you. But on the
whole he can’t not forgive you forever he says. He likes being a dragon.”
After that everything was easier. He would never stop being nervous of the
great, oily black beast. Often he would turn around with the suspicion that he
was being followed and find the creature creeping behind him, cocking its head
and licking its lips. He could swear to the gods it was laughing at him. Every
time he argued with Arya – and she was quite as obstreperous as Sandor had
warned him, she would end it by saying Bran was going to eat him, but over the
years it had become almost as friendly as trading insults with Brienne.
“I promised Arya,” she was saying now, and no doubt she had, for the two of
them were thick as thieves – “We’re going to train a little and I believe
everyone’s riding out this afternoon to take lunch in the woods.”
“Let me check this – you’re enticing me to Winterfell – for a picnic?How old do
you think I am?”
“Do you really want me to answer that question?” She looked at him, weary
already and it was only just after breakfast.
“Actually, I love picnics”.
She rolled her eyes at him as they headed out to the stables. He rolled his
back. They made faces. He grinned, he felt more golden than being a lion could
ever have made him.
___x___
Maybe it’s unrealistic to think Bran could forgive Jaime – but I think he’s a
very forgiving person/ dragon and if anyone could do that it would be Bran. So
okay nowI’m taking suggestions for who to do next! :-)
By the way, if anyone thinks I’m awesome enough yous can follow me on tumblr at
shadow-in-the-shade.It’s multi – fandom with much sansan. Enjoy. :-)
***** Hot Pie *****
 
So, it occurred to me I should probably write a chapter that actually
progresses the Day in Question, there’s a picnic happening, there’s cake, and
so, though I’m surprised myself to be doing this, this chapter is from the
perspective of…..
 
Hot Pie
 
It was such a lovely day out, he could smell it even down in the kitchens; it
came rushing in on a breeze, clinging to Arya and Gendry as they pelted into
the kitchen like they were still a couple of kids.
“Hot Pie, come on!” Arya wailed – “Everyone’s waiting for you, now!”
“Everyone’s waiting for the food,” Gendry amended – “Is that chocolate?”
Like a little pack of wolveshe thought, grinning. Well everyone was a wolf
around here, but the way those two clattered around they could have been a
little pack all their own. They were taking deep breaths now, sniffing the air
like they really were dogs, Arya was all but rolling around in a joy of pain,
inhaling as though she could eat the picnic food through her nose.
It didsmell good. He knew it smelled good. He had been getting ingredients in
for days. There hadn’t been a special event for him to cook for in far too long
and so they had created this one and while everyone else’s greatest joy would
be in the eating, Hot Pie’s was always going to be in the baking.
“Get out of that!” He pushed Arya away from a bowl of tart filling; she still
threatened to stab him on an almost daily basis, but he had weight over her and
righteous indignation on behalf of his pastries- and he knew she never really
would anyway.
Fruit tarts were Jaime Lannister’s favourite. Chocolate was Gendry’s. Arya said
chocolate was hers as well; at least at the moment she did. Her favourite
seemed to change every week depending on her mood. Everyone knew the Lady of
Winterfell’s preference and Hot Pie had become as skilled in lemon cakes as any
baker in Westeros; more even than most.
He had never imagined, when hawking pies in King’s Landing, that he would one
day become head of Winterfell’s great kitchen. It was, to him, what becoming a
knight had been to the boys he had grown up with in Flea Bottom. He had counted
himself lucky wherever he had ended up and there was any kind of kitchen for
him to make a home in; even in Harrenhall where everything had terrified him,
he had taken comfort in the smell of baking bread and stewing fruit, basked in
the sweet and savoury aromatic fumes that permeated the very walls of the
place. Where everywhere else in that vast horrible castle had smelled of death
and awfulness the kitchens at least had offered bread and comfort.
Food wasall the comfort in the world to Hot Pie. Where there was enough of it,
he reasoned, you were safe, safe from death and pain. Hunger was pain, food
safety. It may not have been the deepest philosophy of life but it was one that
you could live on more than comfortably.
He had weathered all the wars of the realm baking in the roadside tavern and
the day a highborn lady he did not know came riding in asking for him
personally to come bake in her great castle he had been suspicious to the point
of refusal right up until Gendry and Arry – Aryarather – had stepped out from
behind her, grinning and saying he was coming with them if they had to hogtie
him and throw him in the back of a wagon.
They had nothad to force him; they were his people and he had known it for a
while. His packas Arya called it and he could not argue with that.
He bundled the last of the food up quickly with those couple of idiots hanging
over him, hurrying him. You could still smell the bread from one of the bags.
He threw them out to the others to help carry and when they got up into the
courtyard a general cheer broke out at the sight of the people with the food.
Some of the party had gone ahead on foot, but Arya had been waiting anyway; she
wanted to ride with Brienne, she said. It made Hot Pie grin to see how everyone
had come together, remembering the day she and Pod had found him in the inn.
Arya had never got the perfect dire wolf loaf he baked for her that day – Pod
had sheepishly admitted to him later that he had eaten it. He had mumbled the
admission as though afraid Hot Pie might have his head off for it, but when he
had added that it was delicious it had been the start of a firm friendship.
Podrick still squired for Brienne and now Jaime and Hot Pie was pleased to see
he had joined them for the day and was loading his pony with as much food as it
could happily carry - and plenty of his now perfected dire wolf loaves.
The party that rode out from Winterfell that day was a jolly one. Voices soared
up above the sound of horse’s hooves, laughing out into the summer air. Hot Pie
soon found himself surrounded by his friends, Podrick and Maester Sam always
seeming to gravitate towards him. Even in the presence of such high up folk,
Hot Pie could feel like a king himself and looked forward to the unveiling of
his kingdom when it was time to present everyone with the picnic.
By the time they got to the clearing in the woods, the queen and her entourage
had decked it out as though for a great celebration, piles of soft blankets
tucked amongst the leaves for sitting on, Stark banners flying from the trees,
their white and silver glimmering green and gold in the sun and shimmer of the
leaves. As he started to unpack the food he was all but vibrating with pride
and joy that only increased as whoops went up all around at the sights and
smells that assailed them.
There were fresh baked loaves and mounds of new churned butter, wheels of
cheese and plates of cold meats, glistening hams and pies stuffed with meat and
eggs. To one side of the clearing Jaime Lannister and Sandor Clegane were
rolling casks of golden ale from the wagon they had brought ahead with them,
laughing through grunts at the work and beaming in a manner designed to assure
everyone that the alcohol was absolutely safe in their capable hands and they
were not claiming it all from themselves, honest. Ser Brienne was watching them
with gentle tolerance, now and then shouting at Arya and Rickon and the
children who had scaled the trees like monkeys and were dropping branches on
the people trying to work.
The cakes were Hot Pie’s pride and joy and he would only trust Pod and Sam to
the task of helping him unload. There were cinnamon buns and honey rolls,
ginger cakes and peaches stewed in mead, fruit tarts and chocolate cakes,
pastries filled with strawberries, cream and custard. He shouted gently at
Shireen who snuck in under them and made a move for the plain sponge cake but
Sandor quickly intervened on her behalf, declaring her exempt from having to
wait – at least for sponge cake.
When Shireen had first come to them Hot Pie had been incredulous that a
princess could know so little of cake, could not believe the austerity of the
circumstances she had lived under that meant she had never tried any kind of
cake ever.He had almost cried to see her eyes widen as she nibbled her first
simple sponge. She had been so overjoyed, declared nothing in world had ever
tasted so good and would never again be convinced that anything could taste
better. They had tried her with all manner of fancy cakes, suggested the
addition of dried fruit, jams, icing, anything but she had persistently,
happily, and benignly pursued her adoration of sponge cake and nothing else.
Sandor, who had very quickly adopted an utter adoration for the girl, had
insisted Hot Pie bake one today just for her. As if he had ever planned not to.
He had baked a lot of things especially for the people whose favourite they
were and as he came to the bottom of his bags he suddenly felt a sinking
sensation of utter horror.
“Oh” he wailed, going pale – “Oh no!”
“What?” several people asked him at once, turning round at the utter distress
in his voice.
“Oh no!” He wailed again, frozen in shock at his mistake.
“It can’t be thatbad,” someone said.
“No really, Hot Pie –” the queen added sweetly – “Everything looks wonderful.
Whatever it is I’m sure we can do without.”
“Noooooo,” he howled, softly, hardly able to get out the terrible words – “I –
M’lady - I – forgot – the – lemon – cakes!”
“Oh,” she swallowed. Everyone was suddenly staring at him like he had killed
someone and put them in the meat pies. Arya started to laugh; he turned to her
annoyed –
“It’s yourfault! You were hurrying me!”
“It’s quite alright,” Sansa said, though he could hear that she was just being
nice to make him feel better. Her disappointment was the worst thing he could
have caused – “Really, Hot Pie – don’t be sad ….”
He was just starting to feel like he had ruined everything everwhen he heard a
rough “Ahem –” as Sansa’s husband tapped her on the arm, unveiling as he did….a
whole extra basket of lemon cakes! Hot Pie felt as though he had been rescued
by magical spirits.
“I brought spares,” Sandor mumbled and anyone could see the Queen’s blue eyes
shine with delight. She gave a little squeal and kissed her beloved on the
nose. He tried very hard to look like a man who had notjust been kissed on the
nose. Luckily for him everyone’s attention was just then distracted by the
Wildling girls, Osha and Gilly, swooping in on the back of the dragon.
__x__
Well, that became a hideous cross between Game of Thrones and something out of
Enid Blyton! I wonder who likes ginger beer? :-)
I promise this willhave serious chapters again at some point, and issues like
Brienne’s knighthood willbe properly addressed! Thinking of which, who would
people like to hear from in future chapters? The net one, I think will be Sam
but I’m open to suggestions!
***** Samwell *****
 
Samwell
“Close your mouth Slayer, you’ll catch flies”.
Sam looked around, only a little bit guiltily, to find out who had spoken. He
went red as he did so; still colouring up under any kind of spotlight even
after all these years, all he had seen and done. By the time he saw that it was
Jaime that had spoken he still had not thought to close his mouth. Sat beside
him, Podrick pushed his chin up for him; it had become such a common gesture he
no longer even had to look at Sam to perform it.
Of course it was Jaime, Sam thought; Jaime relished the opportunity to call
someone else Slayerfor a change and he had been utterly overjoyed at the chance
to do so with a sworn Maester. As for Sam, where he might once have felt
bullied by the comment now he smiled, only slightly apologetically. It had
taken him a long time to understand affection in the form of mockery, but he
was just about there, finally.
It was, surprisingly to everyone else, Ser Brienne who had explained it to him.
He remembered it well; it had been Jaime on that occasion as well. It was one
of his early visits to Winterfell and he had just been introduced to Hot Pie.
Jaime had laughed and said with a name like that he was surprised the good
Maester had not yet eaten him.
It was not that Jaime had even known that Sam had heard the comment, but he had
felt mortified all the same. He had thought he was a man grown, a man formerly
of the Night’s Watch, a Maester of the Citadel, beyond and above all the who
ate all the piesjokes and worthy of some respect. He was even starting to feel
it.
“I suppose I was wrong,” he sighed, blurting all of this out to Brienne when
she came to sit beside him on the courtyard bench and asked him what was wrong.
“I’ll never be a man grown, just a fat boy from Horn Hill,” he added. He had
expected vague kindness; she had seemed so sympathetic, but at this she just
made a quiet snort of disgust;
“Yes, and I’m just the freak from Tarth. Why should it matter what you were?
I’m also the first woman in all Westeros to become a Knight, and what are you?
The first man to kill a White Walker, and I heard that was just the start of
it.”
“But –” hurt latched itself to Sam easily and it was hard to shake, even in the
face of such reason – “People don’t forget. It doesn’t seem to matter how much
I work, what I make of myself, people still try and put me back down.”
“Oh, for the gods’ sake. Youput yourself back down-”
“No, but they –”
“Shut up. Yes you do. Who says you have to listen? You’re almost as ridiculous
as Jaime. You’re all so ready to give up. People never stop, they never will,
you think that means you are what they say?” She snorted more rudely than
before – “Give me a break. If I listened to everything they said about me I’d
have jumped off the cliffs of Tarth when I was twelve. You doeat pies. You
earned that name Slayer.Buggering hells, you think I’d go around moping if I
had a name like that?”
“But it’s not –”
“It is.It’s not the people keep you down, it’s youwallowing in your imagined
slights. And here – now – do you think they even mean it unkindly?”
“No, but –”
“Then shut up about it. Think about how nice you are, how respectful to your
father, to the people you hate. So what do you think being rude means? You’re
clever, you tell me.”
Sam had tried to think about this way before. People had tried to tell him. But
somehow, this time, hearing it from someone he barely knew, and a respected
lady knight at that, it somehow clicked like a switch in his head. Brienne
nodded, watching the light come on in his eyes. But he couldn’t quite – not
without a final weak fight –
“But Ser Jaime –”
“Jaime,”she said, smiling wryly – “Is an ass. You should hear the things he
calls me. Do you get it now?”
He smiled himself then, widely; he felt several stone lighter already from the
weight that seemed to lift from him.
-x-
It was hard not to gawp, looking up at Gilly on the front of the dragon, Osha –
not yet quite as used to this – with her head down against her back and her
arms wrapped around the younger girl’s waist.
Gilly. Gilly for Gillyflower; she had opened up when the spring came, unfolding
like he would never have expected. His brothers in the Watch had laughed that
he only saw anything in her because she was the only girl who had ever spoken
to him but if every lady in the realm had paid him attention it still would
only ever have been Gilly. He looked at her now and his heart swelled; the
sunlight picked out a fire in her hair that winter had always kept hidden and
her skin flashed gold as they came in through the trees. She was so little and
so mighty, it dazzled him to watch her, the queen flying the dragon. All
Wildling women could be queens if they so much as said they were, she had told
him regally one day, and he knew it every time he saw her in flight. He could
not help but be proud; she was her own, she had never been anything else, but
when people referred to her as his, his girl, he could not argue with that now
either and neither would she.
They could never marry; he knew that, but the rules could change and it was no
longer impossible for a Maester to live in a state of marriage that was not and
they had whispered vows to each in the Weirwood of Winterfell that no god worth
believing in could ever think to frown upon.
She swung down off of Bran as though she had been riding a dragon all her life,
helping Osha down. Osha cursed all the way, more vehemently than was at all
necessary, to hide the fact that she had both loved and feared her first flight
in equal measure. They were not mothers of dragons these two, but they were no
less for being so, as the little ones reminded them. Rickon, not really so
little anymore, had long since come to think of Osha as his mother and remember
her above his own. He ran to her now, offering to slay the beast that had
scared her.
“You can’t slay him, Little Lord, that’s your brother.” She gave the sigh that
passed in her for a laugh – “And I wasn’t scared,” she lied. Rickon hit Bran on
the nose with a wooden sword and they ran off into the woods to re-enact a
mighty battle between dragon and knight.
Meanwhile little Sam and Aemon had run to Gilly, clamouring to be allowed to
fly with her next time. She laughed and patted them like wolf cubs;
“You’ll have to ask your father”.
Sam groaned as they turned their imploring faces his way, though he could never
quite hide his joy at hearing her call him their father even though it wasn’t
technically true. Well it was true in every other way he supposed, he felt like
he grew taller each time she said it.
“You’ll have to come with them Sam,” she teased, laughing because she knew how
he started to protest every time it was suggested and he was sure Bran was
quietly protesting too but was too polite a dragon to make it known.
“Maybe one day,” he said for the millionth time, and this time when everyone
laughed at him he felt it dance in his ears like love.
“We’re all here then,” the queen was saying.
“Not quite!” Arya yelled, from so far up a tree now that they could barely see
her – “Look, Nymeria’s coming with the pups”.
“Pupsmy arse –” Sandor yelled up at her – “They’re no more pups than you are!”
A well-aimed stick fell neatly on his head and  -
“Fetch that!” Arya yelled from above.
“I’ll save it for them!” he yelled back.
Sam took a deep breath at the sound of a small pack of dire wolves approaching
their party and shook his head in amazement at this life, for almost everybody
just looked up at their approach with pleasure and barely a dash of fear.
Dragons and dire wolvesSam thought – I must be a wizard as well as the slayer
because this is the fantasy I once only read about, right here and now.
__x__
Yes, genuinely, the next chapter is gonna be all about puppies and how Nymeria
found her humans again. I might make it another Sandor POV cause I’ve missed
him in the last few chapters! :-)
***** Sandor *****
Sandor
He remembered. It was one of those first early days of spring, one of the first
mornings he had woken up early to a smell drifting in through the window that
was quite distinctly and unmistakably spring.It was familiar, in a distant way;
he could only just remember back to the last one, before the long summer; he
had been a young man then, young and so angry. It seemed to him now that he had
been twisted up inside and out back then, a thing created of knotty bits of
string held together with battered armour. No, he had no nostalgia for youth.
It was strange, to look at the sleeping girl beside him and realise that she
was no older now than he had been then. She was miraculous; to look once was
always to look again. He stroked her hair upon the pillow, bright like a fire
that would never frighten him; she had untied him, somehow unpicked all those
knots inside that he had thought could never be untangled.
It was barely six in the morning but the world was alive outside. One thing he
had learned on the Quiet Isle was that the world was always full of noise. It
was true this morning- he could hear the breeze ruffle the curtains, the birds
setting up a cacophony outside, his wife’s snuffling breathing as she slept –
gentlebreathing was what he wished he could say, but the truth was she snored
like a wriggling puppy, although she complained that he was the one who
sometimes twitched in his sleep as though he was chasing rabbits.
Another sound added itself to the symphony on the morning air; he thought
perhaps he had heard it before. It was maybe this that had woken him up, the
wolves down in the courtyard, howling back and forth as though in conversation.
They were chatty this morning; over the months he had learned to recognise
their voices; Summer with his loud clear bark, almost like one of the dogs,
Shaggydog, always more growling, gruff like he was himself. Shaggydog was his
favourite; Sandor often came across him in the morning, asleep in Stranger’s
stall. Somehow, the horse who made friends with nobody but his master seemed to
have found a kindred spirit in Shaggydog, and he would often see the wolf
streaking along at their heels as he rode. Ghost was out there too, he knew,
silent but listening; he would be talking too, but in his own way.
One morning not long before, they had come down to find Ghost back from beyond
the wall, a sad and silent look in his ruby eyes. I’m home,it seemed to say,
but sorrowful for his lost master. Tears had jumped in Sansa’s eyes and she had
dropped to her knees and hugged Ghost as though he were a child – A wolf
without a human,she had said, more to the wolf than anyone else – and I was a
human without a wolf.Ghost latched himself to her after that, true to his name
always following close by her.
Wolves within the walls of Winterfell,he thought – it had taken some getting
used to, but in truth, not that much. They were very like dogs to him and there
was not a one of them disliked him.
And so he knew, hearing them this morning that something was different. It was
not something bad; he knew that as well, their calls were more expectant,
excited than they were of warning. They had become louder too, and Sansa
stirred beside him. She yawned; she was never quick to really wake, she looked
at him and smiled as she always did, and it never stopped making his heart sing
to see. Then she frowned as he knew she would –
“The wolves –” she murmured and he nodded and, as if by mutual unspoken
agreement they threw on some clothes and went down to the yard.
Hardly anybody was up at this hour, even with the noise the wolves were making.
Only Arya and Rickon, in fact, and they looked at Sansa accusingly;
“We’ve been waiting for you for ages,” Arya moaned.
“Can’t you hear them?” Rickon added. A gentle rumble added voice to theirs and
they all looked up to see Bran circling in the sky as though on the same
errand.
Sandor looked from one sibling to another and suddenly felt out of place – this
is a Stark thinghe thought, for want of better articulation, and he got as far
as saying as he started to back away –
“Maybe I should –” when Sansa and Arya each took hold of his arm, impatiently
and almost in unison, to make him stay.
“You’re a Stark now,” Sansa said, as though reading his thoughts; and it was
true enough he supposed, he had little attachment to his own name, and their
children would be Starks- but it was Arya’s hold on his arm that really
convinced him maybe he should stay. Besides, a figure at the front gate called
–
“What are you all standing around for?” and they made off, with the wolves
leading, to go in the direction Osha was pointing.
Outside the castle wall they looked down, to one side the Queen’s Road and to
the other the field sloping down towards the forest. Mist still hung upon the
morning, coiling across the grass and out from the trees beyond and so by the
time they made out the figures coming up from the woods they were closer than
expected. Summer set up a delighted barking first and he and Shaggydog almost
leaped out to meet the newcomers, Ghost running like a gentle wind behind.
Out of the humans it was Arya who worked it out first, as the largest shape
came into view;
“Nymeria!” she shrieked, loud and unrestrained, tears darting into her eyes as
she ran the way of the wolves. Rickon kept close to Osha, and they kept a
little behind, but the four of them followed down the meadow and when they
reached the little group Arya was on the grass, damp seeping up her skirt,
laughing and crying into the dire wolf’s neck.
She was huge,this one, Sandor noticed, even bigger than the others, and yet she
licked her little owner’s face and neck like an excited puppy. There were tears
sparkling in Sansa’s eyes just watching them, but they were tears of joy. Her
own wolf could never return to her, she knew, but it would never have made her
sad to see Arya so happy. More happy even than the day Gendry had come to them
to take up the blacksmith’s role at Winterfell.
It seemed like an age and like no time at all, before Nymeria broke away from
Arya, who was still sobbing in delight, to evaluate the rest of them. She
licked Sansa’s hand, nuzzled Rickon, greeted the massive dragon who had landed
near them with a friendly bark and then sniffed the two strangers. She made a
motion of the head that suggested she approved of Osha then came and sniffed at
Sandor for the longest time.
“She doesn’t like the smell of you either,” Arya laughed through her tears. But
then, as if in defiance of her mistresses words, Nymeria licked him exuberantly
on the hand. He had never been so happy to be covered in drool and Arya
regarded him for the first time with a look he had never expected to see from
her.
And then, as though she were making an introduction, Nymeria trotted to the
smaller shapes she had brought with her, that sat and wriggled clumsily in the
grass. Six of them, just as she had been one of six, barely more than a few
weeks old, squishy and clumsy on soft paws. She picked one of the littlest up
decidedly by the scruff and deposited it gently and deliberately – everyone was
sure – at Sansa’s feet.
Sansa went to her knees in the grass then too, reaching out to the wolf pup
gently, looking at the mother all the while as if to say may I?When she touched
the soft fur the started to cry silently, it was happy and sad all at once and
the pup all but leapt into her arms. When she stood up it came with her,
nestling its head beneath her chin.
Nymeria stayed the rest of the day, conducting her visit as though she were a
queen, not resting until she had met all the new inhabitants of Winterfell.
When it came evening and she sloped away with silent goodbyes, Bran told them,
through Gilly, that she would be back to visit often. She was wild now and
would not live within the castle like the others did; only the little one she
had given Sansa would stay and she would be back often to see them all.
Sansa did not let go of the pup all day and Sandor was reminded, fiercely, of
the very first time he had seen her; a child walking with a great wolf,
unafraid and free. She was unafraid again now, but a child no longer. He
remembered back then how hard he had tried not to love her, but to see her now
he wondered that he had ever bothered.
“You should call her Lady,” Arya said that night at dinner, the pup sat between
them on the bench, begging scraps from her mistress’s hand. Sansa looked at
her, dreamy and decided all at once –
“No –” she said steadily, in truth she had been thinking about this much of the
day – “No, Lady was.And I won’t replace her, it would be….rude. I thought I
might call her Cat.”
Arya snorted and laughed –
“You can’tcall a wolf Cat.”
Sansa nodded, with all due respect to their mother she supposed she could not,
not really.
“I’ll call her Alayne then,” she nodded, firmly, adding in a murmur for anyone
who understood – “part of me – but different.”
Sandor understood.
-x-
And now, in the clearing, with everyone who mattered nearby, all of the wolves
came too, bounding upon them unaware of their size, the little ones thinking
they were puppies still, leaping and rolling in a great licking tumble.
TrulySandor thought – the whole family, together again.
__x__
I know, I know it’s a happy ending but Jon Snow has died. I’m sorry, I can’t
fit everyonein here, and – I know – I’m sorry – I don’t really like him that
much *holds up hands in advanced surrender!*
I don’t know if they’d re-name the King’s Road if there was a Queen on the iron
throne, but I figured they might so yeah, did that. :-)
 
***** Gendry *****
Gendry
Just as he did right now, he often found himself the silent one in the midst of
a rough and tumble of glorious chaos. People were used to it now; they had long
since stopped asking him how he was. He hoped that meant that they realised he
was good. He usually was these days.
He could understand. Quietness unnerved a lot of the people around him. Arya
would never have it in her, and maybe that was why he did not push himself to
add his voice to the chatter much of the time. She made enough noise for the
both of them. Even the Queen, for all her serenity and self-possession, had a
heart that chattered as loudly as her sister’s. These Starks, they were
passionate people, he had come to realise. He loved it about them, though for a
long time he had thought it set him apart. That was before Sandor had started
coming often to the forge just to sit with him, not talking for sometimes hours
on end.
There was a deep stillness in him too, Gendry had realised. Something he would
never have guessed of the man – or the hound that he had known only vaguely
from King’s Landing; and even less from the man he had seen fight Beric
Dondarion. He never forgot a helmet and that had been the strangest he had ever
helped to make. He had wondered what to say the first time Sandor had come to
join him at work, sat just to one side, half watching him, half not. It had
unnerved him at first; after a while he had asked how he could help. The man
was after all, Lord of Winterfell now.
“Just reckoned you were someone a man could be still around,” he had said,
looking at Gendry carefully – “Am I wrong?”
Gendry had offered up a half smile; he supposed anyone else might have thought
it a strange thing to say, but he understood silence well enough. Perhaps you
came to more after hearing the clang of metal all day, he didn’t know. Perhaps
it was a tactic he had nurtured for survival; perhaps it was a peace in him
that had never been too troubled by a need to know who he was. He had never
known, nor expected to, and in teaching himself not to care he had worked out
the truth of who he was younger than most. This man had come to it late, he
knew, but when he had he had brought a stillness with it that permeated the air
around them, the peace of the Quiet Isle lingering about the Blacksmith’s forge
at Winterfell. He had spoken of his time there on one of the days they had
actually spoken.
It had been half Sandor’s silence and half Arya’s noise that had really
combined to make Winterfell his home. He had always wanted a home, he supposed;
though sometimes the exuberance of her insistence had made him frown.
“Stark and Baratheon together again!” she had said one day – “Father always
said it was meant to be that way.”
“I’m not a Baratheon,” he had protested. She had disagreed, of course, she
always did.
“What are you then?” she challenged.
“I’m a Waters.”
“There’s no need to sound so proud of it.”
But he was. If he had ever been pressed to follow in his father’s path he would
not have taken it; smithing was his knighthood, just as baking was Hot Pie’s.
That did not mean he could not smile at the irony of the name. It was the water
that had nearly killed him. He had not had a clue how to man the little boat
Davos had cast him off in and had floated out to sea until he thought that all
was lost. He had no idea how many days he had passed out at sea, when he came
to in the bunk of a larger ship, unsure who had him or where he was headed.
Finally a woman had come down to him, her face was sweet but her eyes were
crafty and twinkled with a clever light. Strangely it was those eyes that made
him like her, for there was something in them that reminded him of Arya, so too
in the way she laughed when he asked who captained the ship.
“Boy,” she said, “ICaptain this ship, and all the ships around us, we’re headed
on a course for Pyke to take back the Iron Islands- and who the fuck are you?”
He had told her the vaguest of truths, and it must have been enough, for he had
not been killed or thrown overboard. Neither had he been set free and that, in
truth, was fair enough, as he had no real idea of where he wanted to go. It
took him the rest of the voyage to work it out and when he did, it was a
person, not a place.
He remembered too well the mistake he had not had a chance to make, and the
tears she had covered with anger when he told her he was staying.
I can be your familyshe had said. He had meant his reply as courtesy and
something more he had not quite realised he felt until he said it, but he
realised straight away that she had just taken it somehow as an insult.
You’d be my lady.
He could not work out, on that long journey to Pyke, if she still would; all he
knew-and it was a definite enough decision to let him know where he wanted to
go-was that he had to find out. It was months before he got the chance to leave
anyway. In the end Asha didtake back the Iron Islands and one of her early
tasks, as first Queen to sit the Sea Stone Chair, was to ask their not-quite-
captive if he had finallydecided where he wanted to go.
“Winterfell,” he had replied, decidedly – “I want to go to Winterfell”. She
spat on the ground at that in amused scorn.
“Not much there,” she said “I’ve seen it. What do you hope to find there?”
He thought a moment before shrugging and replying simply –
“My Lady”.
Queen Asha rolled her eyes as though the reply bored her, and let him go with a
shake of her head.
But he had not found Arya at Winterfell. He had found her before that. She had
jumped him one night on the road, thinking he was a bandit or something. He had
not recognised her at first either. Not until she had fought him to the ground
and that sword of hers was at his throat and then –
“Gendry?” she scowled.
“Arya?”
“I thought you were a cut throat!”
“That’s yoursword at mythroat.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I was….looking for you actually.”
“Why would I be here?”
“Well you are here, aren’t you?”
“Yes but –”
“I was heading for Winterfell.”
“So was I.”
They looked at each other then and started to laugh. She sounded like she had
not laughed in years and he was not sure he had either. He peered at her in the
evening light, blinked, looked again and began to grow red between what he now
saw and the fact that she was still straddling him. It seemed she became aware
of it too because she suddenly went awkward, and scrambled up like a cat.
Having turned into a woman in his absence had not made her any more elegant,
though it was clear from the way she moved now that she had finally learned all
the steps in that dance she had always gone on about.
On the road, and for weeks after their return to Winterfell, it was the only
dance he would ask her to take with him and every day for half a year found
them sparring in the yard and out in the fields. She beat him now every time,
but it never stopped him asking her.
“A man’s supposed to lead a dance,” he huffed after she beat him for the
hundredth time.
“You’ll have to learn the ladies steps,” she retorted. Her eyes were bright and
golden in the sunlight and he wrestled her into the grass all the same. It was
the last time they did so as children.
“You could marry me,” he had suggested, shrugging it to her one day.
“You could marry me,” she retorted, because everything with her had to be a
challenge. Then she grinned – “You’d be my lady.”
“Shut up.” He threw blossoms at her and they never did marry. He was not sure
they ever would and now, laughing with the others as she and her siblings
rolled with the wolf cubs that could hardly be called cubs any more, it was the
last thing in the world that could matter.
__x__
 
Uff, I’m sorry it’s been a bit of a wait for this one, I wasn’t sure where I
was going at first, and then other projects kept poking me. I’m thinking I’ll
do Brienne next but I need suggestions from yous for after that? :-)
 
***** Sansa *****
Sansa
“You know, being queen makes it less easy for you to slip off unnoticed”.
She smiled at the voice, not even slightly startled. It was impossible for
someone so large and lumbering to approach silently. She liked it that way; she
did not like to be surprised, not even good surprises. She found she took far
more pleasure in knowing what was going to happen. Her ears buzzed in gentle
happiness at his presence and for a moment she did not reply. Sandor, being
Sandor, of course, had to take offence;
“I can go – if you wanted to be alone.”
He was not actually as sore as it came out; he understood well enough- silence
had settled into him over the years like warmth into a stone, and sometimes the
press and clamour of people all around was too much for him, too.
“No,” she said then, stepping back, finding his hand and taking it, still with
her back to him. He knew her well enough to know that this was trust and not
dismissal. Sansa faced threat head on, mask of calm in place, and sank
backwards into comfort like a soft pillow. She showed her back like a small
animal might show its belly – “I can be alone with you”.
She had said that more than once before, he remembered, the first time not long
after they were married. He had assumed then that this was a bad thing. He had
realised since then there was nothing sweeter one could hear from their
beloved.
It was not that she had been sad, far from it; or even that she was not
enjoying having all her people around her. She was- indeed there was less that
gladdened her heart more. But sometimes, just sometimes, when the noise was
thickest, she felt the need for peace, just to go off and be alone and smile to
herself at the pleasure of her life, her family, her world. It was what she had
made it, and having learnt that she could be the creator of her own world, it
never ceased to delight her that the one she had built up was so lovely. Sandor
understood; he always did, without her ever having to say a word. He had taught
her stillness, just as she had taught it to him so very long ago. Even in the
midst of a happy ending they continued to fix themselves and each other in the
constant symbiosis that was the bedrock of their marriage.
It seemed to Sansa, as she stood amongst the trees, that she was both alone and
surrounded all at once. She could hear the shouts and laughs of the others
roiling up on the breeze from the picnic site; she could even hear Jaime, who
was starting to list a little into the tide of mead and beer, starting to lead
the children in a rousing chorus of what should have been The bear and the
Maiden Fair– but with somewhat more obscene lyrics of his own devising. She
smiled to hear them and to still feel the crunch of leaves and twigs beneath
her feet, to feel the breeze through the leaves and the sun dappling warmth
onto her face. She felt part of everything today, her people and her world. She
even thought she might be rather an important part, a thought requiring such
confidence she rarely dared think it; but today she would.
Sandor leaned towards her ear then and she smiled widely in the knowledge that
he was going to whisper something sweet. Actually what he said, in a very sweet
whisper, was –
“Your sister’s gone up a tree with your lemon cakes.”
Sansa laughed; then she turned round, sat down on the ground, on the soft, dry
moss and taking Sandor’s hands, pulled him down beside her.
“I knew she would. I gave half to Hot Pie,” she smiled – “Half the rest anyway,
I ate so many already your little bird is going to become flightless if she’s
not careful. Are you quite sure your share of the mead is safe from Jaime?”
“Not even slightly.”
“He’s teaching the little ones rude songs, isn’t he?”
“Apparently this is a brand new set of words he says his little brother
invented – and when I say little –”
“Don’t be mean!”
“Oh I know, why am I always so hateful?” Sandor rolled his eyes at her; he had
never stopped reminding her of that – “Sorry little bird, didn’t mean to slight
your first husband, should I be jealous?”
“You shouldn’t.” She shrugged, he was just playing and so was she – “You will
be. Anyway my firsthusband has re-married his firstwife. You know that. He
writes to Jaime often, that’s the only reason I know. It’s good that they’re
communicating again.”
“You people,” he shook his head – “Starks, Lannisters – you’re all insane –”
“Mmm –” she pretended to agree – “Starks, Lannisters, Cleganes – strange,
strange people.”
She lay back on the ground, stretched out and looked up through the leaves,
blue and gold and brown and green all woven together above them in a fabric no
hand could ever replicate. She wished she could make it into a dress and wear
the sky and sunlight, but she couldn’t and that was alright. She smiled to
herself; it felt like letting her brain off the hook for a while to allow it to
roam free into the realm of fanciful thought. She had not even noticed Sandor
lie beside her or realised that her hand was in his. It was too right, too much
a part of her for her to notice it.
“What are you staring it?” She smiled, sleepy in the sunlight, turning over to
look at him in the leaves and twigs of the forest floor.
“You,” he said and her eyes pricked at the words beneath it and she could not
help but feel beautiful. He kissed her, almost innocently, fingers chasing the
streaks of gold in her hair;
“You taste like lemon cakes,” he said and for a moment it was sweet, until he
added, with a glint in his eye –
“I don’t like lemon cakes.”
She squealed at that, sat up and tried to fight him; he was longer picking the
leaves out of her hair than they ever spent in fighting.
“You haveto like lemon cakes,” she laughed, as he combed out her hair with his
fingers – “Truelemon cakes,” she teased. Several minutes later they re-joined
the rest of the group, Sansa still saying, for anyone to hear –
“You are not allowedto not like lemon cakes.”
She giggled when a lemon cake fell onto Sandor from the branches of the tree
beside them, almost as though in agreement with her point, and shouted a thank
you to Arya up in the branches.
__x__
(“I’ve been waiting for a tree like this all my life! Sandor, you must ride
forth every day and pick me the finest lemon cakes this tree has to offer!” He
agrees, wearily and from every day onwards the children hide in the branches of
a tree with plates of lemon cakes to make his gathering more fruitful.) My new
headcanon!
So it started sweet, went a bit crack, can’t be helped, I had trouble getting
back into the zone to write this after crappy recent events on g.o.t. But I’m
back, hello, have some happy Sansa to cheer yourselves up! I know I said I was
writing Brienne, i am still half way through that chapter - I just needed to do
some Sansa right now! Also, yes, Tyrion gets a happy ending too. :-)
***** Brienne *****
 
Brienne
 
Wolves and dragons and Jaime; it was a fantasy world she had never thought to
live in. She had always, depressingly, assumed that there was no place for her
in any world, least of all one where everything was right and good and as it
should be. She supposed she had always had too strong an idea of what these
things entailed for it ever to all come right.
But it had. If it had not been sealed before, it had been so on the day the
Queen in the North gave her a knighthood.  She could still remember the moment
and the words of it as though it were minutes ago; she repeated them to herself
every day and heard the new Queen’s voice in her head – a place by my hearth
and meat and mead at my table– she had spoken the words just like her mother
had, pledging as Lady Catelyn had pledged it, by the old gods and the new. She
had looked so like her mother then that Brienne had been afraid she might cry;
her eyes had stung, even as she felt so radiantly buoyed up upon her oath and
this honour she had dreamed of so often but never truly expected might be hers.
But there had been a thousand times and more in her life that she had wanted to
cry and had to hold it back. She was good at that, almost as good as everything
else she had trained herself to be good in. She had managed to keep her dignity
in that wonderful moment and Lady Sansa had smiled at her like she understood.
It was that smile that made her different from Catelyn; almost playful, despite
all her worries and cares, as though they were sharing a secret. Indeed Sansa
had told her later she was at least as proud to have bestowed this knighthood
as Brienne was to receive it. They were both glad at the precedent it had set
and could not help but smile to see more and more young women setting out upon
the path to knighthood. It had seemed the last she could to in repayment was to
set about schooling the queen’s sister along that path, undoing all she could
of the strange things she had learned in Braavos and teaching her all the old
ways of honour and courage. Arya was a slow learner but a satisfying one who
always got there in the end.
They had all argued for a long time over whether or not she could be called a
ser.It had seemed like an obvious yes to Sansa and a noto Jaime; they had
almost become quite heated about it. In the end it was Pod who cleared it up
for them the day after the whole debate when he addressed her for the first
time, with perfect clarity, as Serand nothing else. She had been uncertain
herself, as many of them had, but Pod’s simple assurance made it clear to all
of them and all argument was left well behind.
In truth she had been given the option of a knighthood long before she took it.
But the first offer had come from Jaime and so she had not taken it. It was
notjust stubbornness, as he insisted it was to this day. It had just been too
strange at first. She had nearly killedJaime. She still did not know what would
have happened if Beric Dondarion had not unexpectedly risen up and killed the
thing Lady Catelyn had become even as she and Jaime fought in that wretched
cavern. He was undoing the wrong they had done in bringing her back, Lord Beric
said; she could only assume it was the fact that she could barely see to try
and kill Jaime through the tears in her eyes that had convinced him of the
wrong they were doing. She still had nightmares about those days, though they
were mercifully becoming less and less each year.
She had expected Jaime never to forgive her, had been so convinced of it that
she had made herself sullen and angry about it, almost mean to him before he
could say anything. But they had been going to kill Pod if she had not brought
him there- he could see her argument before she ever made it. He often could;
it was a large part of cycle their marriage survived upon – foreseeing one
another’s arguments, understanding them and yelling at each other nonetheless.
Marriage.That was something she could have never foreseen. Not only because
Jaime was so far superior to her, but because she did not like him anyway. It
was the conundrum on which they continued to work – the assumption of her
disliking him and him being unable to stand her right back – an assumption that
had become a joke long before either of them realised it themselves. Indeed it
seemed, the only people who had been surprised when they announced their
intentions at Winterfell were the two of them who were announcing it. Sansa had
smiled as though she had just won a bet – in fact, Brienne was fairly sure she
saw Arya slip her five dragons. Sandor had grinned, announcing that it was
about bloody time, a sentiment that was then echoed by a hall full of their
friends. She was not sure she had ever heard Pod cheer so loudly.
They had travelled together out of habit at first; not realising until after
they had helped the Starks take back Winterfell that separating seemed more
terrible than they would like to admit. She remembered the conversation well;
“So this is where we say goodbye,” Jaime had said; she was never as good at
reading people as she would have liked, but she could not help but think that
he was trying a little too hard to sound light and as though he could not care
less.
“I suppose it is,” she had replied, deadpan.
“Where will you go from here?” he asked, then answered himself before she had a
chance – “Back to Tarth I suppose”.
“And you –” she neither confirmed nor denied it – “To Casterly Rock?”
“It would make sense.” He looked down at his reins steadily.
Then had followed the most awkward silence either of them had ever inhabited;
she was only glad they were both on horses so they did not have to do the dance
of whether or not to hug.
“Goodbye then –” she inclined her head a little and then smiled, for old time’s
sake – “Kingslayer!”
“Wench!” he rolled his eyes – “If I never see you again it’ll be too soon.”
The jibe hung flatly in the air.
“So,” she said, staring at him.
“So,” he echoed. For an overly long moment neither of them moved and eventually
she turned her horse and started off out of embarrassment, heart sinking. She
had not gone ten metres before Jaime called out a tired, deep breathed –
“Wait!”
She turned back around too quickly in her relief.
“You know,” Jaime said, as though he had only just thought of it – “My Aunt
Genna can have Casterly Rock, it would be too strange back there now – I don’t
think – you know –”
She watched him scratch his head as he fumbled for the thing to say, just for a
minute, before helping out;
“I’m done with Tarth,” she shrugged – “I think I was done a long time ago.”
“The Rock’s too big,” Jaime nodded – “I was thinking somewhere smaller – just
for one – you know –”
“Or two –” she supplied as though she could not care less.
“Two – yes – I could do that. So I thought maybe – remember on the way up here
we found that keep, just north of Torrhen’s Square and you said you could
happily live out forever in a place like that?”
“It was you that said that.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Shut up woman! But you know we could – I mean – I know it’s not what either of
us ever planned but it could be –”
“It could be a life,” she finished.
The wind whipped up from the woods just then and the smell of spring was a bird
flying in on the last on the chill winter wind, and Brienne who had never been
tactile in her life reached over to take hold of Jaime’s hand. She smiled at
him and he scowled back –
“Wrong hand,” he whispered pointedly. She looked down, went red, rode around
the other side of him to take the right one.
“We could be-” she began. But she was not sure exactly what it was they would
be and broke off, realising that the sentence was alright on its own; They
couldjust be.
“No kissing though,” Jaime scowled and smiled all at once, afraid of this
tenderness and the surprising chance for happiness that was so unlike anything
either of them had grown up to expecting. Brienne made a face;
“Like I’d want to kiss you.”
“Oh what are you – twelve?”
“You started it.”
“Maybe, but youwere all ewwwabout it.”
They were still holding hands, still bickering happily as they rode off into
their sunset.
-x-
Brienne saw Sansa and Sandor coming back out of the trees to join them; she
never ceased to be surprised at how beautiful they looked together. It was
nothing to do with the way either of them looked, it was the bubble that seemed
to surround them all, a faint shimmery film between them and the rest of the
world, inside of which they were inviolable. They always made her smile.
She would never be like that- she and Jaime would never be like that; they
would never gaze into each other’s eyes and make the children pretend to gag
from cuteness. If they looked too long into each other’s faces they started
yelling urrrghhat each other as though they were children themselves. It wasn’t
the same kind of perfect as Sansa and Sandor had, it was a different perfect
all of its own.
She held her happiness close inside, wrapped around it like around a soft
cushion. She wondered how she only ever let it show in such a mild smile when
inside she was singing and ringing with it like a bell; a bell she knew only
Jaime could hear. It was more than enough.
__x__
So, I started writing this ages and ages ago – then series 5 started getting me
down then my parents were with me for a week, I’m sorry it took so long but
here it finally is!!
On a quick side note I don’t head canon Brienne as a “She” particularly, I
entirely think that if she was living in today’s society she’d use “they”
pronouns, but since they don’t have that option in Westeros I’ve gone with
“she” same as in the books. I’m willing to take suggestions on how I could do
this better though. :-)
***** The Queen in the North *****
 
I know this is a happy fic but I should probably put a trigger warning in here
for Jeyne Poole’s story line – just because to get her a happy ending I’ve
obviously had to deal with the aftermath of what happened to her. Absolutely
nothing graphic just references.
 
The Queen in the North
 
A casual chorus of cheers came up as they re-emerged from the trees, and a few
ripe suggestions were thrown out as to what they had been up to. Sandor
squeezed her hand and broke off towards the ale barrels, and her wolves came
bounding up to take his place. Ghost pushed his head beneath her right hand and
Alayne, who emulated him in everything, did the same on Sansa’s left. As she
walked slowly towards the party with a hand on the head of each wolf somebody
called out a joyous toast, glass in hand –
“The Queen in the North!”
Somebody else took it up and just like that the early afternoon burst into a
chorus of shouts and celebrations. Arya shouted something that was not quite
The Queen in the North,but she supposed that from Arya the insult was as good
as a toast.
She remembered. She supposed it was a large part of her duty to remember. She
remembered the day she had known she was going to have to take the title; that
Protector of the Vale and Lady of the Eyrie was not enough, as she had thought
back then that it might be.
It was a freezing cold winter evening and she had sat alone as she often did.
Everyone was lost to her, she had thought; her family, friends, Sweetrobin and
Harry killed by Littlefinger and even he was gone now and at her doing. For
that at least she supposed she deserved the loneliness, though if truth were
told she did not wholly hate it.
She had got word earlier that day about the two fugitives from the north who
sought sanctuary in the Eyrie. Fugitives from Winterfell.She did not
understand; did not see how Winterfell could ever be somewhere anyone would
need to escape. She realised for the first time, how little she knew of all
that was happening in the rest of the world.
She still did not know them when they were brought before her. The girl was a
tiny thing, all but hidden in her cloak, still shivering from the long climb,
and the man – she had never seen someone whose eyes were so old.It took her
several moments looking at him, aware of some recognition, imagining what he
would look like if he were younger before she saw it;
“Theon,” she said, she could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. He
faltered and failed in his already poor effort to meet her eye.
“I don’t want to see him now,” she told Ser Lothor, who stood near her, ever
faithful. He led Theon out, not harshly. Alayne turned to the girl, knelt in
front of her and gently pushed back her hood. Her eyes widened; so did the
girl’s –
“Jeyne?” She asked, it was hard to believe it. A look crossed Jeyne’s face that
wanted to be happiness but came out as disbelief –
“Sansa?” She was delighted and devastated all at once, her friend restored but
looking so different - even so the two girls flew together in a crushing hug.
Sansa cried from a half dozen different emotions at once – but Jeyne; it was
like she had forgotten how to cry, or she was used up with no more tears left
in her. Eventually Jeyne winced and she pulled away but they stayed kneeling on
the floor, hands clasped, staring at each other. Jeyne reached out and touched
Sansa’s hair timidly; she made a sound that was almost a little laugh –
“I almost didn’t know you,” she said; her voice was a whisper, like she had
grown afraid to really speak – “You’re still so beautiful”.
Sansa’s heart hurt her, looking at her friend she knew she could not say the
same back and Jeyne would not believe her if she tried. It felt like a lifetime
ago that she had last seen her; the two of them huddled together in Maegor’s
holdfast whilst Jeyne wept for her father. Gods, but it had been so long ago;
not long before that they had giggled on the castle steps over stolen
strawberry tart.
As the evening wore on and Sansa found Jeyne better clothes, made her warm and
dry and found them both food, Jeyne told Sansa everything that had happened
since the last time they had been together. Sansa fought hard – and succeeded-
to stop herself from crying. She did not want to make anything worse for her
friend; not after that.
“Jeyne –” she said, chin quivering but dry eyed, clasping her friend’s hands so
as not to hurt her with her hugs – “I’m so, so sorry”.
“It’s not your fault,” Jeyne said and she meant it, but just as she said it
Sansa realised with a terrible stab that it was.When Cersei had sent for her
that night she wrote the letters, she had unthinkingly let it slip that Jeyne
was with her; worse, she had let them know that Jeyne was the reason she had
any idea what was going on in the wake of her father’s capture and – it
occurred to her now – Jeyne’s own father’s death. She remembered The Queen
telling her Jeyne would be safe with Lord Baelish from now on, and in her
memory Littlefinger loomed over Cersei’s shoulder, a dark shadow running his
evil schemes and plans for Jeyne between his fingers.
It washer fault, but she could not say that to Jeyne and Jeyne would not
believe her anyway; her friend was too good, better than she was. She found
something else true to say –
“I wish none of this had happened – I – if it could have been me instead of you
I wish I could have spared you that. It shouldhave been me – I –” she could not
say the reason she was thinking – “You’re better than me and - I’m a Stark. You
should not have suffered for my family’s mistakes.”
“Don’t say that –” Jeyne looked almost frightened – “Better than you – no – I –
you would have done it all differently. I wish –well – I always wished I was
more like you.”
Now Sansa did start to cry; it was almost a relief – being with Jeyne – they
had always been able to cry with each other. Just for this once, she could be a
child again; just be Sansa again and nobody else.
“Don’t,” she sniffed – “Don’t wish that – I’m –” she realised Jeyne did not
want her to hear her say how awful she was, what a terrible person she felt
herself to be – how dare she wallow in such self-pity after everything her
friend had survived?
“I’ve made so many mistakes,” she finished lamely.
But Jeyne would not hear her. They huddled by the fire together, eating the
last of the winter’s lemon cakes, and Jeyne asked Sansa all about her own life
since the last time they had seen each other. Sansa told it; she left out a lot
– she left out Joffrey and the beatings and abuse – Jeyne needed no repeat of a
story with so many similarities to her own. And she left out Sweetrobin and his
death and the fact that she had killed Littlefinger.
But she did tell Jeyne of Littlefinger’s death; how he had fallen from the
moon, door at least. Jeyne liked that part and nodded more firmly than Sansa
had yet seen.
“Good,” she had said of his death, her eyes flinty for a moment, reminding
Sansa of the north and the home that she missed. Later, as Sansa told her more,
Jeyne’s eyes filled with tears for the first time –
“You’ve been through so much –” she whispered – “I’m so –”
“Jeyne ” Sansa said, aghast – “Youcan’t say that to me – not when you’ve –”
Jeyne shook her head softly, her eyes large, almost smiling;
“You can’t compare, Sansa,” she said “Suffering and such things – we’re all too
different, it’s not a thing you can compare.” Sansa looked at her friend in
admiration and wondered if she would ever be so wise or so sweet.
After that they talked about happier things.
Sansa told Jeyne stories made up out of bits of her life, things to make them
smile, of building snow castles in the Eyrie and preserving lemons in the snow.
She told her stories to make her grin like they had when they were children.
She remembered how they had whispered about boys and kisses and – though it was
never quite what they had whispered about she found herself telling Jeyne about
Sandor Clegane and the night of the Blackwater; of a kiss and a song beneath a
burning green sky and the cloak he had left her.
“Like a wedding vow,” Jeyne said, and though she did not giggle any more she
smiled and Sansa could not say she had not thought of that herself.
They talked through the night; wrapped in one cloak like sisters as the fire
died down and it was Sansa’s joy to see Jeyne emerge more and more from the
shell of herself until she could almost recognise her friend again.
“And Sansa,” Jeyne said seriously, as the grey light of dawn came through the
window – “You have to forgive Theon –” she back pedalled hard, frightened
herself by daring to say Sansa hadto do anything – “I just – he really did
rescue me – he was brave and – and – he suffered so much – you don’t know
Ramsay, Sansa – he –” Jeyne began to shake as soon as she had said the name 
and could barely get the rest out – “He’s a monster” she whispered. And Sansa
remembered a conversation in a garden of gold roses and she understood Jeyne’s
fear like it was her own. But Theon –
“He killed Bran and Rickon,” she said, lips set hard.
“No –” Jeyne’s eyes widened – she had only just realised that Sansa did not
know – “No he told me – he – we – I mean on the way here – we talked and – they
were two boys – but they weren’t Bran and Rickon – he just wanted us to think
they were. It was awful – and he knows that – he really does but Sansa –” this
time Jeyne clasped her hands, eyes shining with the news – “Bran and Rickon are
still alive! I mean I knowRickon is – somebody overheard someone at Winterfell
say he was at White Harbour with Manderley’s people – something like that, and
Bran I don’t know but – those people, they want to see one of you back at
Winterfell – there –” Jeyne faltered, lost for breath; it had been so long
since she had said so much or been so excited. Sansa finished for her;
“There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.” She nodded, stretched, stood up,
pulling Jeyne up with her –
“I know what I have to do”.
It was then and there that she had decided; she would take back the north for
her family, so many of whom still lived after all, she would do it for the
north who would rally behind her, she would do it for everyone they had lost
and in truth, more than anything – she would do it for Jeyne. Jeyne who
remained so wise and so courageous after all she had faced. She would do it for
all of them, because they all deserved better.
She hadforgiven Theon, and she had not taken either of them with her to
Winterfell. Neither could face it and she was not going to push that. They had
stayed out the winter in the Vale and now still wrote to her often from the
Iron islands where they had gone to be alone together away from the rest of
everything.
-x-
Sansa laughed beneath the chorus of cheers and roughly nuzzled the wolves as
she sat back down in the clearing. She had never imagined back then how sweet
and lovely her life might be, even less imagine all that she was capable of.
She laughed again as Bran flew low overhead with Rickon clinging to his feet.
Queen in the Northshe thought, with something like pride – now that it was true
there were times – times like this – when she could just about imagine it.
__x__
So I’ve been planning this chapter for about a week since the idea of a Jeyne/
Sansa reunion scene came to me. I hope I’ve made it clear what different people
they are and why D&D treating them as interchangeable is inexcusable and yeah
for sure I may have ground my axe a bit in this chapter over some of the issues
with this plotline in season 5! Also I feel Jeyne’s been largely ignored/
treated shabbily in fanfic so I wanted to redress that a bit!
Next chapter: More hot dragon action, I’m thinking probably Gilly needs a pov
chapter! :-D
 
***** Gilly *****
 
Gilly
 
“Bran!” Gilly called up to him, laughing because Rickon was shouting “Wheeeee!”
as they flew, at the same time as yelling at his brother to put him down –
“Bran, you put your brother down!” she called. Bran growled back and she
laughed in a mixture of amusement and alarm – “No, no, no Bran, don’t visit the
woods!”
Gilly was quick to alarm, quick to worry, even now that she was happy and
secure. Even security could worry Gilly; it felt so unnatural to her, even
after all these years. Sam said she was like a frightened deer; a girl
transformed into a doe by magic, a spell that could only be broken when
somebody looked at her and knew straight away who she was. She loved those
stories, though she shook her head at the idea of herself as the heroine of one
– although being rescued by having somebody know her at first glance – that she
could understand. It had been very like that for her.
There was a time when she had thought that she was broken for having any kind
of idea of who she was. But she had. She had always had a desperate little
flame of a thought that she was somebody beyond Craster’s property. None of the
others seemed to feel this, or if they did they kept it down. They made her
keep it down too, and she had thought at the time they were being mean and
harsh; but she knew now that they were just trying to help her. She sometimes
wished she missed her sisters more, but she did not.
It had not occurred to her that she was strong. When she first escaped with
Sam, she had put all of their success down to him. She had thought that she
latched on to him because he was so much better than her and had laughed it
away when he told her he had been in awe of her, thinking shewas so much better
than him. In the end she had realised – and she taught him to know it too –
that their relationship did not thrive on being in persistent awe of one
another, but in the realisation that they were in many ways equal. There were
things she did better and things he did better and they taught one another and
learned.
She had thought at first that Sam would do, that she was in both debt and awe
to him because he rescued her; eventually she had realised it was very far from
just that – that what kept her delighted in him was nothing less than him
himself,a far better thing, she realised, than what he had done for her.
She remembered one of those early conversations, the ones where realisation
came to her, so well. It was one of the early – though not the first time she
had brushed off his suggestion that she was strong; in many ways stronger than
he was.
“You’re a slayer though,” she said – “I’m just a – a gillyflower!”
“No, but flowers are strong though!” Sam had argued straight back as though it
should be obvious. He always did that and sometimes it irritated her and at
other times, like this, it was sweet. She laughed.
“I mean it though!” he went on, in that earnest little boy manner she found
more endearing than anything else about him – “Flowers are hardy and – and
persistent, you can plant just the littlest bulb and soon there’s a whole wall
just covered in blooms! And – with enough time they can eat the wall away – you
see the flowers last longer than stone in the end and that’s – that’s you,
strong and powerful as a weed –”
“A weed?” She laughed; she had not known – until Sam – that she had the power
to tease, that she could pretend to be affronted to make him be sweet. He
blushed so red she almost regretted it.
“I meant it as a – as a good thing”.
“I know,” she smiled, taking pity on him.
She remembered how sad he had been when he told her they would never be able to
marry; how sorry he was that as a Maester he could not. She had struggled to
see why this was anything he should be sorry about. She had been marriedto
Craster; it was the only example of marriage she knew, and as such she could
not see why it was something she should want. Better just to be as they were
now, and nobody said anything about it, or nothing bad anyway. That was good.
She had spent the early days and weeks at Winterfell alternately in awe at its
size and structure and frightened and suspicious of it. Sam told her stories,
and in them she saw herself in roles she never could have imagined. Some days
she would panic; she would hear the sky calling her, drawing her back over the
wall – “This place is not for wildlings! Not for me, not for free folk!” she
would cry, half way towards leaving before the Weirwood called her back, the
warm stone and the smell of books.
In the end three people had helped her to stay; to find her place in this place
and herself within it. The first, of course, was Sam; he showed her how things
worked and in return she found herself helping him – it helped her more to help
him than to be helped.
The second was Shireen. Again she found herself helping the girl to find her
place here; in return Shireen finished the reading lessons she had started what
felt like so long ago. She did not quite understand it – not just at first but
for the longest time. She half thought herself some kind of witch to be able to
make sense of all those shapes. She liked that though; herself as magic, it
felt right and tingly and powerful. The first time she read a full story and
pictured it in her head she had felt like she could fly –
“It’s like magic!” she said – “It’s – it’s freedom!” She had smiled
apologetically because that was silly; Craster had talked so much about freedom
but had so little time for books. But Shireen just smiled as though she had
gone her whole life thinking herself the only one who understood.
“Freedom,” she echoed – “Yes”. She nodded. There was a story there too; Gilly
could see it; One that Shireen would tell her when it felt like the right time.
She began to see that there were stories everywhere, within all the disparate
people who came to Winterfell in those early months and knitted themselves
together like a garment. More than anything she saw a group of girls and women,
women from everywhere bearing the stories of how they found freedom, clinging
to images and tales of what each freedom meant. She grew to know too that what
she saw in the people around her was select and that everyone saw everyone else
differently. They held their new found selves and their new freedoms like
scraps of fabric, all different colours and textures. Hers was made of words,
though she knew she had so many more to learn. She began to gather more and
more an idea that one day she would have enough to write down their collective
story and in so doing stitch all those beautiful colours together.
She was learning to know what freedom meant; she was getting such a grip on it
she had not realised there was more to learn. Not until she met Bran. She had
not been afraid, not for a moment. Many of them were and she wondered if that
made her deficient in some way. But when she saw him for the first time in the
sky she saw a colour of freedom she had not known existed. She had known from
the very beginning she would ride him and she would have no difficulty. All
those days and nights beyond the way with nowhere to look but up; gazing at the
clouds and the stars and wondering what stuff they were made of. Now she would
know; now she would touch them.
She did not heed a word of Sam’s advice – his concern in this matter. This was
a sort of freedom to – to not heed someone and know they would still love you.
Reading had felt to her something as strange and wonderful as flying. Flying
was as natural as breathing. Gilly held her arms out to the wind, screamed into
the sky on Bran’s back as the wind hugged her right back, whipping in her hair
and streaming cold and fresh right through her bones. She could do this. She
could do anything. She was the most important person in all the seven kingdoms.
She yelled and laughed into the wind and sun, closer to them than the birds
were. There was gold in her hair when the sun touched it up high like this; she
had never known that. Knowledge was wonderful. She felt as though she were in
possession of the most powerful secret in all the world; let the silver girl on
the Iron Throne keep it; the wildling girl had a power so much greater.
_x_
She laughed at herself as much as she laughed at Bran – to hear herself talk
with a dragon – she never got used to it, not ever. When he came down low
enough she swung onto his back like she was water running uphill. She supposed
there was so much she could begin to learn from talking with dragons, though
for now she was content to justfly. Maybe one day she would write a book about
that too.
__x__
I love Gilly, She’s a powerful little flower. I might give Shireen a chapter
next what do people think? Giving her a happy ending seems apt right now yes? :
-)
***** Shireen *****
 
Okay so this chapter massively goes against canon because if I was going to get
Shireen alive and well to Winterfell it would have to! But here goes!
 
Shireen
 
It made her smile to herself now to remember how frightened she had been when
she first came here. She wondered if frightened was the wrong word – it made it
sound as though coming to Winterfell had been bad and it wasn’t bad at all.
Frightenedsounded ungrateful, maybe it was more apprehension that she had felt,
but what was apprehension if not a kind of frightened? She did not mean any
offence to the people here – people she had come to love more early perhaps
than the family she had grown up with - by thinking it and so it had to be
alright to think it. Call things what they are, she had heard her father say in
that distant past – and she did. Sometimes it was hard to find the exact word
for the thing and she feared that however much she read she would not discover
nearly as many as she needed – but it was a problem that was easily fixed by
reading more and more every day, and talking to people. That was newer but, she
was discovering, no less educational. Everyone had such a different frame of
reference and the word was bigger than she had ever imagined it being all those
years on Dragonstone.
Still she did agonise in her search for the right words, agonising sometimes
the way her father had done over grammar. It was, as far as she could find, one
of the only points in common they had had.
Coming from that world, the world of King Stannis and the red woman, of her
still more distant mother, and her one friend the fool – coming from that
strange hot circle into this one had shocked her into that sense of being
frightened. It had been so much to take in. So much change, so many people, she
had thought she would find herself dumb and silent and scared, that she would
never be able to navigate the waters of so much interaction without drowning.
She might have floundered too, in all truth, but like Gilly there had been
three important people who drew her into the very heart of her new family.
The first had been Ser Sandor. She remembered her first morning in Winterfell,
how kind everyone had been, but he had not spoken to her at all. She had almost
been afraid of him, but she knew it was a silly kind of fear – growing up she
had heard tales of The Mountain and The Hound; terror tales to frighten
children into doing as they were told. And here was this story in the flesh,
sat across the table from her, all but ignoring her and occasionally throwing
early morning grouchiness across the table at the queen’s sister.
She was still watching him with curious interest when everyone else at the
table began to disperse. She had not meant it to be awkward but it must have
been because he broke the silence –
“You’re staring, girl.”
Of course she looked away;
“I’m sorry, I –”
“I remember a little girl like you – couldn’t stop staring, then couldn’t stop
notstaring – proper little pest she was with that.”
“What happened to her?” Shireen’s eyes went wide; she had heard the Cleganes
killed children.
“I married her,” Sandor grunted, vaguely amusing himself and half smiling.
“You can’t marry me then,” Shireen said, logically.
“No.”
“I had greyscale when I was little,” she said, suddenly – it was, she realised,
the perfect alternative to asking him the next obvious question – “They thought
I would die – I think most of them wanted me to die – but my father – he was
determined I wouldn’t, so I didn’t.”
Sandor grunted –
“My father –” he said, surprising himself, she could see – “My family – they
just covered up what happened, it wasn’t an accident you see, not an illness –
my brother did it – I think they would have liked everyone to forget that. To
forget I was there.”
“My mother wanted to forget I was there,” Shireen nodded; it was not self-pity,
just a kind of understanding – “I – I didn’t go out much.”
Later Sandor would learn what an understatement that was.
They did not have the rest of what that conversation could have been, it seemed
they did not need to – the part where he observed how strange this must be for
her – being in an open and friendly place like Winterfell, a place as much at
the heart of everything as Dragonstone had been cut off from it. The part where
she acknowledged how different it all was, through which she started to become
used to it. It was all expressed without a single word. She was glad for the
non – sentimental affection Sandor showed her after that; she was used to that
kind of awkward, distant fondness, like she remembered of her father, and a
fierce protectiveness that reminded her sweetly of Ser Davos and helped her to
miss him less. She could not feel sadness for his absence because she knew he
was happy back at home, after all this time with his own family, but she had
missed him nonetheless. He wrote her letters sometimes and she felt proud like
parent every time she saw one of those oh – so carefully written missives.
Teaching others had become a tradition of Shireen’s. And just as she had helped
Gilly to find her place in Winterfell, Gilly had helped Shireen in being there
for her to help. The reading lessons took her back to Dragonstone whilst at the
same time getting her used to being here, and acclimatising the wildling girl
to a strange new place helped Shireen to settle herself in more than just
trying to do so for herself could ever have done. As the Queen’s children and
Gilly’s too grew up Shireen found herself with more and more people to pass on
her knowledge to and between her and Sam they formed all of the new educational
system in Winterfell.  
And finally, it was discovering she had family of her own blood here that
really fixed her new home as home. She could not remember who it was who had
clumsily announced over breakfast one morning that Gendry of course was her
cousin. It was the morning after he had shown up with Arya. Shireen had simply
been surprised but Gendry had looked shocked and quietly left the room. Later,
when somebody had explained it to her more clearly she went down to the old
forge to find him.
The forge had been left all but untended ever since Mikken had resided over it
and when Shireen came down, Gendry was stood in the midst of the mess
scratching his head and clearly wondering where he could even start. He did not
give her much of an acknowledgement and she did not demand one, just sat down
on a sturdy box in quiet companionship. Shireen was good at quiet and could
sense immediately that it was natural to Gendry too. The forge was so long
unused that there was a hole in the ceiling, one of the walls was half fallen
in and what salvageable equipment there was, was in such disarray that Gendry
was soon sighing deeply in audible distress. It was then that Shireen judged
the silence to be already compromised to hazard a suggestion –
“If you start to fix the wall and ceiling first, everything else can come
after,” she said; having observed it all as hard as he had – “You can’t start
to do anything with all this stuff if the rain keeps getting in.”
He turned to her, grinned wryly and said not unkindly –
“You an expert?”
“I grew up on Dragonstone,” she pronounced – “I know about rain and damp and
all sorts getting through the walls.”
He smiled then;
“You’ve the right of it anyway –” he paused – “You were on Dragonstone?”
“Until just last year. Then we came to the Wall and then –” she did not want to
think about the snow storm and the red woman and her father dying – “Then
here.”
“I saw Dragonstone once,” he said – “Never saw you. But then –” he frowned.
“It’s not a nice story?”
“There was this woman. A terrible woman, all – redshe was – she wanted to kill
me –”
Shireen could not help a little – “Oh!” that escaped her. Gendry gave her a
half glance and went on.
“But someone rescued me. A knight. He put me in a boat and pointed me to safety
– Ser Davos his name was – what’s so funny?”
Shireen had not meant to be rude but she had started to laugh a little.
“I’m sorry –” she said, thinking of the story she had been too afraid to tell –
“I’m sorry – you see – she wanted to kill me too – the red woman. We got caught
in a snow storm between here and the wall and she wanted to burn me –” she
shuddered, remembering.
“Yeah that sounds like her,” Gendry nodded.
“But my father wouldn’t let her. He – he died in the siege of Winterfell – but
he put her off long enough so that my friend could rescue me and bring me here
– my friend Ser Davos.”
Gendry saw what she had found so funny and chuckled briefly in reply.
“I’m glad you found your way here.”
“Yeah,” he agreed – “Me too. Rowing forever I was. Felt like it anyway. I don’t
think it occurred to our friend that anyone might not be used to boats. If I
hadn’t been found –” he shuddered – “I’d still be rowing now –” he grinned at
her. “Roof first you reckon then?”
In the weeks that followed Gendry rebuilt the forge, and it was largely under
the guidance of his young cousin that the work all went out as smoothly as it
did. And, though it seemed too strange for either of them to actually call each
other cousin, Shireen would quite often be found reading or just sitting in a
quiet corner of the forge keeping a pleasant company with the last left of her
line.
-x-
This then, Shireen thought - as she watched the younger children and Arya
fighting in the grass with their wolves – was family as she had never known it
could be. Certainly, she was not related to most of them and they came from
such different paths in life as set her head to spinning. But they were warm
and loud and unafraid and it was a wondrous life that carried her along with it
now and she was happy to float along on it as it carried her into summer. She
looked around at all the faces that had become dear to her – Ser Jaime and Ser
Brienne more than a little weathered by ale and bickering happily beneath a
tree, Hot Pie, offering her the last of the sponge cake as he started to pack
up the picnic. The Queen and Ser Sandor were talking with Sam about starting to
head back to the castle to start preparations. Jaime’s brother Tyrion was
visiting and Sansa’s friend Jeyne and some other people she could not quite
picture and there was to be a huge feast such as they had not seen in
Winterfell since the last days of the long summer. A huge part of Shireen
wanted to categorise it all, everyone and everything she saw, to write it down
and capture it so none of it could ever be lost.
But most of all she was happy just to live it.
__x__
 
Two months!! I am sooo sorry! Who thought I’d given up? :-) Okay though you see
I had been planning to write Shireen soon, got it in my head, but that was all
before I watched the end of season five. Then I saw that travesty and,
obviously it messed shit well up for my little Shireen and I found it nearly
impossible to pick up from that. But finally I figured this is a fantasy! If I
want Shireen to be alive in it she damn well can be! So here, here is the
resurrected Shireen, alive and well and F**k you D&D! And yeah I’m childish but
I had to get n a wee reference to Gendry still rowing!
So who to do next?
***** Jaime *****
 
Been `having a lot of Cersei feels lately, but obviously I killed her so I
can’t write her, so I’ve done a Jaime chapter instead. It’s Jaime/ Brienne but
also past Jaime/ Cersei so if anyone hates that – this isn’t graphic but it’s
there. :-)
 
 
Jaime
 
It was blissfully warm in the afternoon sun and Brienne had blessedly pissed
off to bother somebody else. Jaime stretched beneath his tree and yawned. It
was a good tree and did not have any of the wretched children in it. There had
been good mead that day and it had made him sleepy and, it occurred to him, if
he did just give in to that and fall asleep right now Sandor would have to
start packing everything away on his own. It was a shame. Jaime fell asleep in
the sun beneath the tree.
In the dream he was still warm, still gently inebriated. In truth it was more a
memory than a dream, but it was a memory tinged with the rose and gold
delightfulness of dreaming. It was the kind of memory that after the event you
pack away and store for later, to take out and dust down, press out the creases
like a favourite dress and delight in it all over again. He was fairly sure
that Cersei had said almost exactly that once.
In the dream they had been – what? - thirteen perhaps. It was summer and they
had travelled somewhere without all the bad things that tainted so much of
their childhood, without their father most of all, and without Tyrion hurrying
along behind them which never bothered Jaime but drove Cersei to almost
pantomime levels of irritation.
So they were somewhere, almost unchecked, after a party they had not been
allowed to stay too late at. They had not really minded; they had been sent to
their room with the sounds of revelry still going on downstairs and easily made
their own fun. He could not quite remember now how they had got away with that
one room, but they had and it was a gift from the gods if he had believed in
them.
When all the sounds had died down they had slipped giggling downstairs and into
the great hall.
“Why are we doing this again?” he had asked, to which she had responded with a
raise of the eyebrows, picking up an almost full glass of some pungently strong
red wine, raising it with a grin and drinking it too fast. She drained it in
fact, banged it on the table like a man and looked at him for a moment ablaze
with triumph and challenge and promptly doubled over coughing and almost
retching. He had not stopped laughing at her when she straightened herself up,
glaring at him as he creased over with laughter at her, finding that her
withering glare only made it funnier.
“Well I should think so!” he said eventually – “You never drank more than a sip
before, what did you think would happen?”
“I know what I think will happen now”she replied, menacingly, picking up the
glass she had slammed down and filling it from the half full flagon on the
table.
“Don’t you dare” she raised it with the gleam back in her eyes. He took a step
towards her, falling right into her trap; she threw the wine straight in his
face.
“Right” he had chased her round the hall with a cup of his own and when he
threw it he missed. She had jumped on the table as though she meant to dance on
it and drained her second glass, bowing when she was through as though to an
imaginary audience.
“You’re mad!”
“Yes!” she jumped down from the table – “It runs in the family.”
“We’re not Targaryens!”
“No –” she jumped into his space, steadying herself with a hand on his arm,
cupping his face with her other hand, not half as unsteady as she could have
been, considering – “But we should have been” she added sadly and she kissed
him.
He remembered it as though it had been his first real taste of wine, and though
he was sure afterwards that it could not have been when he thought about that
first taste it was always her that he thought of. It summarised her perfectly
he had thought later – that she should have been his first inebriation –
delightful and compelling and utterly utterly terrible for him. Still it was an
addiction it had taken him half a lifetime to get over.
That night, he could not half imagined he would ever get over it, or ever want
to. They had crept back upstairs, staggeringly drunk, constantly making more
noise in hushing each other than they had ever been making to start with. In
the bedroom she had demanded they switch clothes, slurring demandingly that he
give her his first.
“I will not!”
“You will so!”
“They’re mine!”
“Oh come on baby brother just give me your clothes!”
“Don’t baby brother me woman - ten minutes does not count!”
“Fine” she said it in that voice that entirely implied it was not,taking her
dress off in the most unceremonious way he had ever seen and thrusting it at
him –
“Wear the dress.”
“I will not”
“If you were a man you’d wear the dress.”
“That does not - did you hear that? Do you need some help sister?”
“No” she grinned sweetly, unashamedly naked – “I’m naked. But it looks like you
might.”
She wrestled him out of his clothes in the end, but they never got round to
swapping that night. He remembered waking up with his head aching and Cersei
slapping him gently and repeatedly in the face –
“Jaime!”
Someone was doing it now –
“Jaime!”
Jaime opened his eyes unwillingly, on the sun coming down through the leaves,
the sound of a picnic being packed away and Brienne slapping him not too gently
in the face –
“By all the gods Lannister stop having your sex dreams around the children!”
“Sex dreams? Whaa – I was not – that is I –”
Brienne swore at him benignly and disbelievingly. He finally focussed on her,
waking up and smiling. It seemed as though her eyes were always the first
beautiful thing he saw every time he woke up. It was so strange, on the back of
such a dream to wake up to such a reality, not bad just –
“What?” he supposed he must have been looking at her oddly.
“You’re – so – different” he managed slowly.
“Well I should bloody well hope so!” she rolled her eyes at him in despair –
“Come on! We’re headed back to Winterfell.”
He wondered, quietly, all the way back, how different his life might have been.
He wondered at what a day like this would have been like if Cersei had been
here with them. It would never have happened he supposed, somehow he could not
see it, could not see her here in this life. He remembered that night in his
dream and so many other of those childish occasions when she had pissed him off
and he had chased her screaming that he would kill her. That stung a bit now as
he supposed, not for the first time, that indirectly he had killed her and
wondered why he had never felt worse about it. She was so close to his heart it
was easy to forget that she was dead. But then, at the same time, the girl he
held in there had been gone for a long time. Oh my lovehe thought, but it was
an unformed thought with nowhere to go. He had, he supposed died with her after
all. He was not who he had been when he had been The Kingslayer and it was – it
was wonderful. He knew in his heart that Cersei could never have saved him from
who he used to be. It had been so long before he ever began to imagine it would
be Brienne.
He watched her in the sunlight riding ahead of him. He wondered if he would
ever tell her she had been his redeemer and his salvation. He loved her for it
and wondered if he would ever tell her that either. He probably would not, it
was horrifyingly sentimental. There were moments, brief seconds, when he felt
guilty for his infidelity towards Cersei, there was a time it would have seemed
impossible and yes it hurt his heart a little to think of those times. But it
only took a few moments consideration for it to stop feeling wrong and it was,
essentially because she was sodifferent. And he was different and this was
right, this world that did not have Cersei in it. He missed her like he missed
his hand, another phantom limb that he could learn – had learnt – to live
without.
This was alright, this world and this person he had married. It was not the
same as the passion of childhood, it was not desire, it was not madness. But it
was love, and that was alright.
__x__
So this came into my head watching “Crimson Peak” where he’s all like “You’re
so different” and she’s like “From what?” and he basically means his sister but
just says “Everything”. I got giggles thinking if Jaime gave Brienne the
“You’re so different” she’d be onto him straight away and just be like “Yeah
from your fucking sister, I know!”Weirdly when I ship a couple, like I do Jaime
and Brienne I almost never ship either one of the couple with anyone else,
these guys are the one exception because I DO ship Jaime/ Cersei, but I totally
think he will be the valonquer and will outlive her so in this instance I’d
argue both ships still work! Happy to debate though as always! :-)
And yeah, I know it’s been forever – I have far too many fandoms – I haven’t
quit on “Nature of the Beast” either, it’s just on a temporary hiatus, sorry.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
