yes critical analysis of media is super valuable but I think suspension of disbelief isn't practiced enough
"the beginning relied so much on fate/chance meetings/a bizarre set of circumstances that could have solved the conflict if avoided" babe that's an inciting incident
Probably going to switch to doing prompts only once a week and on a set day. Thinking about Fridays. Will skip this Friday in honor of the Halloween Prompt event.
Hasn't been much traction with the last couple, so might also just switch to accepting prompts on my personal page. 🤷
Dunno. Just thinking out loud. Thoughts?
For the @jonsaprompts “snow.” It’s my favorite premise: marriage for the sake of the North! Pretty pleased with this one. Might have to put it on AO3. 🥰
Sansa sat on a windowsill in one of the spare chambers which overlooked Winterfell’s courtyard. A book rested in her lap, though her eyes were not on it. They were, instead, on the group of men training outside, three stories below.
“Admiring your husband?” Jeyne asked as she approached, for Jon was among the men outside, and he had worked up such a sweat that he’d taken off his jerkin despite the cold.
“He trains like a madman,” Sansa replied. “It’s as if he plans to kill fifty wights for every one the other men kill.”
“He sets a good example for his bannermen. Surely none of them doubt his commitment to protecting the North.”
“Slashing a sword through the air is not the only way to protect the North,” Sansa said curtly. “People also need to be fed. They need to be clothed.”
Jeyne shook her head, a gentle rebuke. “You said the King’s been generous with his praise regarding how you’ve handled such plans.”
“He has.”
“Then why are you angry with him?”
Sansa released a heavy sigh, touched her temple to the window, then closed her eyes. “I don’t know. But I am angry, Jeyne. You’re right to say so,” she confessed. “I feel it in my whole body, nearly every second of every day. Perhaps I should slash a sword through the air as well. Release some aggression.”
They were quiet for a moment, until Jeyne spoke again. “He’s grown more handsome than I would have guessed when we were children. Don’t you agree?”
Sansa opened her eyes and looked out the window once more. “It’s all that extra hair,” she said, allowing herself a small smile. “I like his beard best of all.”
Jeyne smiled too, then patted Sansa’s legs as if to tell her to move them out of the way. Sansa did, and Jeyne joined her on the windowsill, her back pressed against the window. Once she was settled, she draped Sansa’s legs over her lap.
“Have you told him so?” she asked.
“That I like his beard? Or that I’m angry all the time?”
“Let’s start with the first one.”
“We don’t talk much outside of council meetings. Why? Should I tell him?”
“Some men like to be wooed as much as women,” Jeyne explained. “Perhaps you could return Jon’s praise with some of your own. Perhaps then you’d both feel a little less aggression.”
“What are you saying? You think that —” Sansa pointed out the window at Jon who was, at that very moment, fighting against four men at once “ — that is about me? Not the war to come?”
“Why can’t it be both? Perhaps our King feels pressure to save the North and bed his lady wife in order to produce an heir.”
“But I haven’t pressured him,” Sansa counted. “Not at all.”
“Nor have you invited him to your chambers,” Jeyne chirped.
“I don’t understand. When the idea to marry was put before us, we were assured we wouldn’t have to — to rush. And now you’re saying I’ve done something wrong by not rushing?”
“I’m saying I suspect your husband is ready to be invited to your bed.”
Sansa scoffed. “Invited? No. He shouldn’t need to be invited. It’s his right to have me if he wants me. The problem is that he doesn’t.”
Jeyne made a funny little noise with her tongue. Tsk, tsk, tsk. “I think I know why you’re angry,” she teased. “You want to be wanted.”
“Of course I want to be wanted,” Sansa grumbled, giving up all pretenses at last. “I —”
She groaned, then dropped her legs from Jeyne’s lap and stood on the ground next to the window. She whirled around, put her hand on her hips, and stared out the window once again.
“I want to be wanted by Jon,” she said firmly. “I want him to come to my chambers in the middle of the night, not out of duty but out of desire. I want him to tell me he cannot resist me any longer.”
Jeyne nodded primly, clearly pleased with herself for getting Sansa to admit all of this out loud. “And you’re angry because —” she prompted.
“Because he hasn’t, obviously. And because before I was married, the men I encountered led me to believe I was desirable. But that must have been a farce because I’ve been Jon’s wife for three moon turns now and he hasn’t so much as held my hand.”
Sansa noticed how loud she’d gotten, how rushed her words were. She turned away from the window, crossed the chamber, and flung herself onto a velvety chaise. A moment later, Jeyne was by her side again. She lowered herself to the ground and sat on the floor, her skirt puddling around her.
Taking Sansa’s hand in hers, Jeyne said, “Couldn’t you at least tell him something to that effect? Tell him to come to your chambers when he desires it, and not to ruin it by speaking of duty.”
“And make him feel as though he must pretend the deed means something different to him than it really does? I couldn’t ask that of him.”
“Honestly, my lady, I think he’ll be relieved you’ve learned to see him as your husband and not the boy who was raised as your bastard half-brother.”
Sansa gave a doubtful look.
“I would be relieved if I were in his position,” Jeyne went on. “To know my beautiful wife — who is also a magnificent Queen, mind you — wants me to want her? Actually, I’d be more than relieved. I’d be exhilarated.”
Sansa smiled appreciatively. She suddenly felt as though they were little girls again, whispering scantilizing things about the lords who came to visit from other castles.
“Promise me you’ll invite him to your bed,” Jeyne said playfully.
“Promise it? No, I can’t. I really can’t.”
“Promise me,” Jeyne insisted.
Sansa shook her head. “If it’s so important to you, invite him to my bed on my behalf.”
Jeyne sat up straight, her eyes wide.
“Jeyne, no. That was a jape.”
But it was too late. As fast as any creature Sansa had ever seen, Jeyne got to her feet and fled from the room.
“Jeyne! Jeyne, come back here!”
But Jeyne did not. Sansa took after her, lifting the bottom of her dress to help her pace. She arrived in the courtyard as her friend was calling out to Jon.
“Your Grace! Your Grace, it’s urgent! I must speak to you at once!”
The men in the courtyard stopped slashing their swords, and Jon approached Jeyne.
“Jeyne, don’t!” Sansa hollered.
Jon noticed her then. He hesitated, his eyebrows furrowed. But Jeyne was relentless.
“Please, Your Grace, I must say it quietly,” she said, waving him closer.
Jon closed the remaining distance between himself and Jeyne, then bent down so she could whisper in his ear. The whispering lasted entirely too long, and Sansa’s heart pounded in her chest. When Jon looked at her again, his expression impossible to read, she thought she might die of embarrassment.
His eyebrows relaxed, then one of them quirked. A question. Is this true?
Sansa gave a tiny nod. And Jon, a tiny smirk.
@jonsaprompts
Here’s what I came up with for the word “feast.” Very little mention of a feast, actually, but I still like it. Liked it so much I gave it a title and put it on AO3, in fact. It’s pre-canon and attempts to explain the story behind that canon line, “‘That’s pretty.’ He remembered Sansa telling him…’“
And for funsies! I want to dedicate this one to @snowsandstones because I too like to headcanon that Ned kinda sorta secretly wanted his daughter and her cousin to be safe and happy together – and married. (Ridiculous? Who cares?!) Ned isn’t featured in this little ficlet, but it’s easy to imagine him at the nearby table of adults, noticing some Jonsa potential.
There must be music playing, Jon decides, for a meal to count as a feast.
Previously, he thought the distinction had something to do with the number of guests involved or whether or not he was allowed to sit with his family. But tonight he realizes he’d been wrong, for their Karstark guests are small in number and he’s been allowed to dine with them — and yet the music of feasts plays.
It plays, and all the children dance. There are eight of them in total, three boys and five girls. At first, Arya insists on dancing the boys’ part to even out their numbers. But Sansa, never not concerned with what is fair and proper, declares the girls will take turns dancing with each other. All of them except Lady Alys, of course, the youngest of their honored Karstark guests.
And so, for the initial round of dances, the pairs are Robb and Alys, Jon and Arya, Theon and Jeyne, and Sansa and Beth. With so few adults watching them from the nearby tables, the children make less effort than they should to remember their correct steps. Instead, they are clumsy and carefree, and for once Jon actually enjoys dancing.
That is, until the song ends and their pairings are shuffled around. This time, Jon dances with Lady Alys herself. She’s perfectly pleasant, but she’s also a stranger to him. And he knows her father didn’t bring her all the way to Winterfell to meet Ned Stark’s bastard. He brought her here to charm the future lord of the castle, the next Warden of the North.
Knowing so is enough to rattle Jon’s nerves, to make it impossible to enjoy the dance. When it’s over and the pairings shuffle again, he’s glad to take Sansa’s hand in his. She’s the most difficult of his siblings — his half-siblings, as she likes to point out — but at least she’s not a stranger. And at least she isn’t desperately wishing she were dancing with Robb instead.
“Why would you not smile at her?” Sansa quietly asks as they begin their steps.
“Who? The Karstark girl?” Jon returns.
“Who else?”
Jon doesn’t appreciate Sansa’s tone. “Why should I bother?” he grumbles, even though he knows doing so will earn him a firmer lecture. He spins Sansa around, to the edge of their crowd, further from possible eavesdroppers. “Aly’s father wishes to betroth her to Robb, a trueborn Stark,” he continues. “She only took a turn with me as a courtesy.”
Sansa frowns. “And you can’t be bothered to repay her courtesy with one of your own?” she asks.
“By smiling at her, you mean?” Jon means to make her feel foolish. Why should smiling be such a big deal?
“Smiling is the least you can do,” Sansa returns. “A compliment would be nice as well.”
Jon makes a small noise, a grunt of indifference. If Sansa were a bastard like him, she’d understand such efforts were pointless. Since she’s not, she never will, and explaining it to her is pointless too.
“What was that?” she asks regarding his grunt, determined to continue prodding him.
“I’d like to say I’ll do better next time,” Jon drawls, “but that would be a lie. I wouldn’t even know what compliment to give.”
“You can think of nothing? Nothing at all?”
“Gods, Sansa, you’re relentless. I’m not complaining about dancing. Why can’t that be enough?”
“Perhaps you could say something kind about a lady’s appearance when you meet her.”
Jon glances doubtfully across the group of dancers. His eyes flicker over Alys for a moment before returning to Sansa. “Not that I am so handsome I should judge,” he says, “but I’d hate to tell a lady she looks nice when she doesn’t.”
Sansa’s eyes flicker over Alys as well. “I think she’ll be lovely when she’s older,” she says, her voice ringing with confidence.
Despite himself, Jon smirks. “That’s hardly a compliment, though, is it? ‘You’re no looker now, girl, but maybe one day when you’re older —’”
Sansa swats Jon’s shoulder. “Oh, stop that,” she says. “Now you’re just being petulant and you know it.”
“Petulant? Has Septa Mordane been teaching you new words? I don’t think I’ve heard you use that one before.”
“It means —”
“I know what it means,” Jon says, quite intentionally cutting Sansa off. He’s been described as petulant before. More than a few times.
Sansa falls silent after being interrupted and so Jon does too. For a few moments, he finds himself wondering when they last had a conversation quite as long as this one. Sansa can go ages without saying more than a few words to him, but when she gets it in her head that he needs a lecture, he receives her undivided attention until she’s through.
“If you can’t compliment a lady’s appearance when you meet her,” Sansa begins again, “then perhaps you can compliment her name.”
Jon lifts an eyebrow.
“Honestly, it shouldn’t be so difficult to convince yourself to like a name,“ Sansa says.
“Most names are rather boring,” Jon replies. “And most have been used too many times before.”
“Including yours?” she teases.
“Aye, including mine.”
“Perhaps if we practice?” Sansa asks, refusing to accept Jon’s continued objections. “Here, I’ll lead,” she adds. “Oh, what a pleasure to meet you, Jon Snow. My name’s Sansa Stark. I’m Lord Stark’s eldest daughter.”
Jon snorts. He can’t help himself. When he says nothing in reply, though, Sansa stops dancing and holds out a delicate hand. To keep from drawing attention from the other dancers, for Jon knows she will hold her position as long as it takes, he quickly kisses her knuckles the way he’s been taught.
He pulls her back into their dance. “Sansa, did you say? That’s a pretty name. I like it very much.”
For the JonsaPrompt “snow.” Some Modern AU - College vibes clinging to my thoughts from the previous prompt.
It’s tradition. Or, it was for a lot of years. Growing up, when the first big snow of the season was expected, Jon would head to the Starks’ before the roads got bad, then they’d stay up late watching movies, fall asleep in the family room, eat pancakes for breakfast, and finally play in the snow in the backyard the following afternoon — for hours and hours until their teeth chattered and their gloves were sopping wet.
The tradition ended, though, when Robb started college four years ago. Now that he’s graduated and entered adulthood, and now that Jon’s only a few months from doing the same, the renewal of the tradition is the last thing he expects. But the first big snow of the season is several weeks late this year — after his finals have ended and he’s home from Castle Black already, back in Winterfell for the holidays.
That’s when Jon’s phone lights up with a text from Rickon. Snow day tomorrow, it says. Come over like old times? He grins as he takes a screenshot and sends it to Sansa.
Because here’s the thing. Sansa goes to Castle Black too. Last year, her freshman year, they hadn’t seen much of each other. Occasionally one would spot the other while studying in the library and they’d chat for a few minutes. And on two different occasions, when Sansa couldn’t find anyone else to go with her, she’d texted him for dinner plans. But nothing significant.
This year, though — first semester — things were different. Vastly different. Jon’s still not sure what got into Sansa, what made her act so boldly. But about halfway through the semester, she invited him to a party. And after the party, she invited him back to her apartment. They’ve been doing the friends with benefits thing ever since.
Well, that and more actually. Friends with benefits implies late night hookups and little else. No date nights. No public affection. But they do the former and the latter, which is why Jon keeps thinking they’re due for a conversation about becoming an official couple. So far, though, neither of them have initiated one. The closest they’ve come to that was when Sansa said they should “act normal” while home for Christmas.
All that to say, Jon wants Sansa’s input before replying to Rickon’s text. Should he agree to head to the Starks’ for the upcoming snow day? Would that be normal? Or would it turn into an obvious excuse for them to see each other?
Sansa sends a reply text a few minutes later. Can I call you? Jon calls her instead.
“Hey, hang on,” she says as soon as she answers. He can hear fading voices in the background and then her feet padding down a short flight of stairs. She’s gone from the kitchen to the family room, he figures.
“I don’t mind making up an excuse for why I can’t come over,” Jon says when he can tell Sansa’s alone. “If that’s what you want to do, I mean.”
“I appreciate that, but Rickon’s got his heart set on it. So if you don’t mind, I don’t mind. I just wanted to say that in a call instead of a text because — well, it would sound dismissive in a text, wouldn’t it?”
“Always thinking,” Jon replies, teasing Sansa. It’s something they’ve talked about before, the way her mind is busy every second of the day, assessing every angle of every scenario. She called it a blessing and a curse. He called it endearing, which earned him a kiss.
“I am indeed,” Sansa agrees.
“Right. Well, thank you for the call,” Jon says, “and I guess I’ll see you in about twenty minutes.”
“Yeah?” She sounds excited, like that’s the answer she wanted.
“Yeah. I’ll reply to Rickon and then I’ll be over.”
Jon throws a bag together, lets his mom in on the plan, then drives over to the Starks. By the time he gets there, the snow is starting to fall. They steal glances at it through the window as they add the finishing touches to their homemade pizzas. After dinner, Bran and Arya drag Sansa’s old gymnastics mat from the garage into the family room and spread it out across the floor. The rest of the family retrieves pillows and blankets from nearly every other room in the house, until the best sleeping pallet Jon’s seen since high school is complete.
When they lay down to watch the first of several movies — some sci-fi parody Arya loves — they do so in birth order. Jon on the far left, Rickon on the far right. That’s not an explicit part of the tradition, but definitely a pattern Jon remembers. More specifically, he remembers being next to Sansa many times before and not thinking much of it.
Tonight, though, he lays a little closer than he should. Underneath the blanket, he slips his hand between her sweater and her lower back. He skates his fingers across her skin and smiles when she melts at his touch.
Later that night, as Jon drifts into sleep, it’s with a profound sense of contentment. He has the first snow of the season, and renewed traditions, and Sansa Stark by his side — what more could he want?
This is set post season 8. Sansa returns to Castle Black. Warning: brief mentions of Jokerys. A bit angsty. Using the prompts very loosely. Tormund is MVP.
A year before.
Sansa. Kiss.
The Great Hall of Castle Black is packed to the ceiling with wildlings and northern lords. The fragile truce after the Battle of Winterfell didn’t last long. Years of mistrust don’t just dissolve because they all have survived the army of the undead. Those two peoples are very different and yet...
When Sansa looks at the rosy cheeks of the boys, she cannot help but think of little Bran and little Rickon. At least as she remembers them. As she chooses to remember them. Young wildling boys are not very different from northern boys, or so Jon says.
When she looks at him and smiles he gives her his lopsided grin that makes her feel all warm inside.
It was all his idea. To foster those boys at Winterfell and to end the raids and the stealing with alliances, with weddings. It was not easy to convince the lords to wed their daughters to wildling men but together she and Jon prevailed. She looks up to the newly repaired ceiling and allows herself to feel pride. She hopes the marriages will stand the test of time as much as the timber above her head. That was also Jon’s idea. To refund the Watch, to repair and man the castles again and allow the free folk to resettle at the Gift.
If he hadn’t disappeared beyond the Wall for months perhaps they could have done more by now but...
“Argh” says Tormund Giantsbane. “We should have a feast! Drink to the couples!”
She can barely suppress a chuckle. “We shall drink and be merry, but in a year’s time, when I have returned with your brides”.
The huge man seems disappointed. He leans in close and tells her in what intends to be a whisper. “Will you marry too? Show your southern men how is done?”
Jon groans behind her. “Tormund”.
“Ah” Tormund wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Calm down little crow, she said we should do it for our children!” He laughs for good this time and most of the hall with him. “Unless...children are done differently in the south but...”
Sansa touches his arm affectionately. “What I meant was...for the new generations, for everyone’s children...not...mine. It’s a figure of speech, Tormund”.
“Oh.” That seems to confuse him even more. She stands up and her lords stand up with her. Tormund smiles at her. “I will be waiting for that feast, then”.
“You have my word”.
“I will teach you how to dance, really dance, like the free folk do!”
She chuckles. “I look forward to that”.
To that Tormund laughs and hugs her with such force that he lifts her a little from the floor. He puts her down and gives her two noisy kisses on both cheeks before she can react. Suddenly, Tormund is being pushed away from her. He seems as surprised as her, as Jon grabs him by the neck and shoves him hard.
“Enough, you” he spits.
Tormund simply shrugs and walks away.
Snow.
“The more I think about it, the more wise Tormund sounds”.
Jon chokes and spits his wine. “What?”
“Oh, Jon”. She puts down her embroidery. “He is a good friend of us, isn’t he?”
Jon sighs. “He is.”
She resumes her work. Roses and snowflakes line up over grey wool. She took on the task of giving each one of the seven brides a maiden cloak they could be proud of. It signifies their northern roots but also their new lives, the humble but warm cabins they will soon call home, with their wildling husbands, newly minted lordlings of the Gift.
Jon breaks the silence first. “I hope you are not considering Tormund as a groom”.
She laughs until her ribs hurt and there are tears on the corner of her eyes. Jon laughs too, with that big smile she likes so much, the one that gives him wrinkles around the eyes and softens the scars on his face. He looks so young then, so carefree.
She used to think it was just because she has been planning a wedding, seven weddings, that forgotten dreams had returned to her mind and her heart, so she kept them quiet. Suddenly she wants to tell Jon about it.
“I...have thought about it long and hard”. She puts down her embroidery. “I could find a good northern man, someone whose valour is beyond doubt, a war hero”. She has gone over this many times in the solitude of her chambers, in long nights of cold beds. This is the first time she has said it aloud. “But it would have to be someone from a minor house, not too proud, because he will be giving up his house name to become a Stark, he won’t pass his name to any children we may have, because they must be Starks”. She gulps. Jon is silent. “Must be someone who understands what I have been through but won’t let it bother him, someone patient and gentle, and more importantly...” she takes a deep breath. “Someone I can trust will never attempt to steal my crown, or to rule the north using me”.
She realises now how it all sounds, so much, so demanding and her heart plunges a little. She keeps her eyes trained away from Jon, for he may see her weakness. “It’s a lot, I know, quite impossible and...” she trips on her own words. “That is simply asking too much, isn’t it? What man...what man would pay that price?”.
It is a brief moment before Jon speaks again. “Any man would pay that price, and more, because you are worth it, so much worth it, and he would be giving up nothing and winning something wonderful”.
A year after. Jon. Wolf.
His dreams had always seemed shameful to him, like he should not be allowed to have them and yet, he did, like a sharp blade inside him, those desires never died. Not completely. They were numb. For a while, but everything was.
After.
After the fire, after the fear, after his words, all his empty promises to a Queen made of ashes, as he watched his own future blown to the wind, weightless, and scattered away. Yet his desires found a way back to his battered heart, along with hope, with little wildling faces and laughter, and songs. But not before he stopped gloating in his mistakes, torturing himself about the father he didn’t chose, about the price he paid for stopping a dragon, perhaps too late, perhaps too reluctantly. Not before he found a reason to go back to Winterfell, and a reason to stay there. He may not deserve it but here he stands, sitting by her side.
Sansa.
His Sansa with the quick smile, auburn and bright, with the grey wolf pelt around her shoulders.
He found the wolf already dying, both back legs trapped by the iron jaws a hunter left. Terrified, the animal bared his fangs and growled, but Jon crouched carefully and sliced his throat in one swift slash, so fast the wolf did not even have time to panic. It felt to the ground slowly, almost gently, and that was when Jon noticed his pelt, shiny and perfect.
He cleaned and packed it carefully, and then he rode straight to Winterfell. His gift was well received, its dark grey a perfect match to Sansa’s blue velvet dress. The gift bearer was also well received, with long conversations by the fire, reading after supper and breaking their fast. Walks in the Godswood when weather allowed it. And something shifted. Something in him. And in her.
Sansa sometimes grabs his hand under the table. Sometimes she touches his arm for no reason. She laughs at his jokes and mends his shirts. She asks for his advice in private and asks him to talk to the lords when she is busy. He finds excuses not to come to the Gift more often as he knows he should. He finds excuses and stays, grabbing her hand and watching her sew, and laugh, and hearing her read aloud.
A year has passed like a dream and now they must attend the weddings, and he fears it will be over, Sansa won’t need him anymore. Greedily he drinks her in, her shiny hair and her smell. He leans in and grabs a loose strand of hair and puts it behind her ear, his fingers brushing her cheek. She doesn’t shy away from his touch, she smiles at him.
“They seem happy, don’t they?”
“They do.”
“It was a beautiful ceremony, although it snowed”. She says, all bright eyed.
“Nothing wrong with a little snow?” He teases.
She giggles and puts her hand over his. Over the table.
He allows himself a little hope, a little hunger for joy. For forgiveness. For love. He caresses her fingers gently, basking in her warmth, in the softness of her skin.
When someone proposes a toast “to new beginnings” he joins wholeheartedly. When Tormund takes her for a few turns around the hall he smiles and lets him. Perhaps even enjoys it a little.
Perhaps another wedding next year. Winterfell’s Godswood. Perhaps a little snow too. And a dance.
Does anyone feel strongly about the next word? Here are a few from the list that jump out at me...
- snow
- home
- sigil
-feast
- rose
- promise
- bastard
- heir
Reply or send a message if you feel strongly about any of these or a different word being the next one. I'd like to post it later tonight or early tomorrow.
For the prompt Wolf, and since I was there why not for the prompt Kiss? by @jonsaprompts, a bit late but better late than ever!
Also, perhaps a bit longer than it should be, but what can I say...I was inspired. And it is a bit dark and healing all together Jonsa, so be advised, if that is not what you were searching for. It's post s8.
Wolf kiss,
You cried wolf and I came running. Am I the wolf or the savior?
[QUESTION: Is she the wolf? Is her smile hiding fangs? Is her song an howl?
ANSWER: Come closer, if you dare. Hunter, or prey or wolf, whatever you are, wouldn't you want to find out?]
Jon observes her. The Queen in the North. Sansa Stark. Ned Stark's daughter. Catelyn Stark's daughter.
He had promised himself, never again.
When they had said farewell he had promised himself. Never again. And he had known it had been a lie.
He had known all along. From the moment Sansa had rode through the gates of Castle Black, shivering and trembling from the cold, but giving all of her warmth. His soft, elegant, sensible, soft-spoken sister.
It had taken less than a day for Jon to understand that her smile hid sharp teeth and her clear tongue wielded even sharper words. Words pretty enough, powerful enough to make his will crumble to dust.
And her tears...Gods, Jon would've let the entire world freeze, burn or crumble to dust, just to never see her tears again.
Her softness if rightly wielded, and Jon does not believe there is one thing of herself that Sansa doesn't wield right, doesn't carry right, can be as lethal as any blade; he has found.
And that day, on the docks in Kings Landing, Jon had known with stark clarity. Sansa was an enemy better not be trifled with. Jon had deluded himself that his sister had remained the same, perhaps hardened by what had happened to her, but that had not irrevocably changed her nature.
She's not the same girl you grew up with, words spoken what felt like an age ago, bittersweet and acrid, putrid even, not after what she's seen, not after what they've done to her.
And yet, Sansa shines. It hurts. It hurts so much because the price for her to shine was his honor. No, he thinks darkly. It was his soul. He had no honor, or the stirring he felt deep in his insides and lower still would not be caused by her.
Still. He watches her, unable to look away. Every man, a few women too, they are all completely smitten with her. They hang from her lips as if from therein shall spill the nectar of truth, the nectar of life. Jon feels no pity for them. Jon feels no remorse for the way it's going to claw at them later, when they're going to do something against their own morals for her.
You had no morals to begin with, the darkness whispers into his ear as her supple smile renders everyone in her near vicinity speechless.
No. Jon doesn't pity them, just like he didn't pity the way Edd had tried every way to get Sansa's validation when she had staid at Castle Black that time. He doesn't even pity himself.
He's gone beyond that. He's seen the ugly truth behind the thinly veiled lie. He knows her softness true, her smile as pliant as it looks is forged in steel. Her steel.
She's not a willowy princess in a tower, held hostage and at the mercy of a dragon.
No. Jon knows better now. She's the wolf relentlessly stalking the woods, hunting for her pack. Howling for the Gods, the moon, the sky to answer her prayers.
She's terrible, in her beauty. In the way her beauty can be crueler than the world's darkest pit. Because of that beauty wars come be fought and won, because of that beauty empire crumbled to the dust.
He feels it still, the pungent smell of burned and rotten flesh and bones. The ashes falling from the sky as snow, filling his nostrils and his lungs, puncturing and fracturing his own will.
He had been powerless. Powerless against such a cruelty, such a terrible, wicked sense of power. He had been even more powerless against the pureness that Sansa exuded. The truth nagging at him, clawing in him deeply.
Oh, they could say he had loved his dragon queen all that they liked. He alone would know the truth.
He alone would carry that burden. Of how he had cloaked himself in deceit and mercilessly maneuvered, all to make sure they were safe. That she was safe.
Sansa's laugh breaks him from his reverie and he looks at her once again, seeing her. She is sitting with the men, his men. Ghost, his direwolf, is draped all around her, his massive body curled around her lithe form, his head — almost twice as big as hers — nestled against her shoulder, on par with hers. Woman and wolf moving as one, one and the same.
Jon works at his jaw, his teeth grit together. She exudes light. She's equal part darkness and light.
She has come to him. A dark part of himself reminds him, she has been the one swallowing her pride and coming to him. He nurses his ale, observing her darkly, as she makes a chuckling mess of his men. Men who are supposed to be made of sterner stuff.
Men who sworn to never take wife or sire children.
There is some pungent, wicked sense of satisfaction in that, she caved in first. She came to him. Not the other way around.
He feels a surge of possessiveness when one of the new recruits, a young man who has not yet sworn the oath, rests his hand in the crook of Sansa's elbow as he makes her laugh. Her eyes brimming with mirth.
Can you forgive me?, her voice swirls around him. And yet Jon cannot recall why he was mad at her to begin with, not whilst the boy — he doesn't even recall who he is, though he knows all of his men by heart if not by name — the boy's hand is still against Sansa's skin...nor that he can touch beneath the fabric, but still...
... he remembers how tingling Sansa's touch can be, how encompassing.
And then, next he blinks, Sansa is before him. Jon studies her, he tells her nothing. He has told her nothing since he has welcomed her, somewhat formally and apersonally inside of Castle Black.
Sansa never breaks eye-contact as she takes his cup of ale from his hand, Jon would like to resist, but he does not, not when her fingers trace along the skin of his, before she raises it to toast to the men of the Nights Watch and to the men and women they lost in the Great War.
Jon sneaks out from the side as she's distracted. Returning to the darkness which welcomes him. Still he cannot tear his gaze from her, from the way her face fell and a grimace settled into her jaw and a frown between her red eyebrows, her light eyelashes fluttering close and for a moment she looks as if close to tears.
He knows what she's come to ask. Only a fool would not know.
He wants to say no. He will say no. His place is here, at Castle Black.
“I wish to dance!” Sansa declares at one point. They have no menestrels at the Wall, but Pyp starts to sing a tune anyway and soon enough the others are clapping along to the tune and smashing their fists to the table to drum along it.
Jon grits his teeth and sees red as Sansa dances with those brave enough to ask a dance from the queen in the North.
He knows what she hopes to achieve.
He won't yield.
[He has already yielded]
“I won't do it,” he tells her. He doesn't turn around. He looks away, his sight settled to the far north.
We should never have left that cave.
Still, he doesn't wish he was back there, not for all the sweetness on his tongue. Not even as her presence hurt him so, and heals him all along.
Sansa is silent for a long moment, then she steps next to him.
He has not slept tonight, he cannot do this. Not now, but Sansa knows to choose her battle well, and to fight them when the odds are in her favor.
The sun is just peeking from beyond the land, tinting the ice and snow in all kind of pink, lilac and frost blue. As lovely as the shades of blue in her eyes.
He sets his jaw.
Sansa says nothing still, but he feels the rustling of the fabric of her gown. She sighs “It looks like an enchantment,” she breathes out and Jon shudders.
He's done for.
Sansa turns around and Jon stiffens, she walks a step closer to him, and slowly, ever so slowly — so slow it seems like an eternity — rises her hands to cup his cheeks and Jon closes his eyes, letting out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
Her vicinity is a balm for his wounded soul, a healing brand for his broken pride.
She turns gently his head and Jon's body twists, as a flower twists to follow the sun, to face her.
“Come back to Winterfell with me,” she pleads and Jon feels his own heart skip a beat, undead thing that it is, Sansa still manages to make it feel alive.
“I cannot,” his voice sounds little and unsure even to his ears, a lie “I cannot,” he tells her again a bit more sternly. There is silence from her, and that spooks him to open his eyes “My place is here,” he tells her.
Sansa cocks her head to the side, like a wolf would do “Your place is in Winterfell,” Sansa tells him “by my side”
The whimper he lets out is inhuman at that “I am a brother of the Nights Watch, Sansa...I—”
Her grip on his face turns soft, and Jon misses it immediately “Tell me,” Sansa begs of him “tell me you want to stay here, really want to, and I will go” she promises him.
Jon opens his eyes again, looks into hers. Her pools of night sky and ocean, eyes he'd gladly drown in.
“You chose my fate, Sansa” he tells her, perhaps cruelly “When you decided to tell the truth about my—”
“I had chosen a crown on your head,” Sansa interjects and Jon feels speechless, her voice is devoid of bite, but still as soft as it is wields the power to spark the flame in him “I chose your life, over my honor. She would've killed you, you know this”
“No I don't,” Jon bites back, claws back “neither do you”
Sansa does not let his bite scare her, “Perhaps I don't,” she snaps “but I wasn't willing to take the risk, not with you” she says “everything pointed to her snapping, as she did, I couldn't be sure that her flame would be directed to you, but I wasn't willing to risk you, even if that meant loosing you”
“It was not your choice to make!”
“So you are entitled to come and go as you please, give away my birthright, Bran's birthright, and Arya's. You are entitled to choose for me, aren't you?!” she whispers to him, and her whisper is louder than the entire world warring against itself.
Strident.
“I was protecting you!” Jon accuses “everything I did since I fucking died, was To. Protect. You!” he punctuates every word with a shake of her shoulders “You're so smart how could you not see it?!”
“How can you be so thick not to think I was protecting you right back?!” Sansa's voice holds more steel than Long Claw in that moment as she doesn't even raise her voice to match his.
Two wolves snarling at each other and Jon feels speechless.
“I have as much right to protect you as you have to protect me!” Sansa tells him “I did all I did to protect you and the North” she says “our family. Our people. Our kingdom” her smile is all teeth “and you can spit that back in my face all you want, but it doesn't change the truth of it”
“You weren't going to protect yourself, so I stepped in!”
Jon feels breathless. Sansa is panting as well.
And he loves her. And he wants her.
Sansa lets go of him and walks a couple of steps to the side, she turns to observe the world from the Wall, he feels her shiver. He doesn't know why she's shivering, until he feels the sobs.
It wasn't a choice to begin in, in the end. He thinks.
He chose her. Every time. Every day. Since returning from death he has chosen her. Even before.
She's wolf. And so is he.
He moves to her, gently unclasps the cloak from his shoulders and sweeps it across hers, making sure it keeps her safe and warm. His hands lingering at her waist.
A kiss is such a simple thing.
And yet the moment Jon's lips press against her temple he feels the world freeze and tilt on its axis, to come alive again, one day.
Sansa turns to look at him, her hands grasped around the seam of his cloak around her shoulders “I want you by my side,” she tells him “I think there is where you belong, at my side as I belong at yours. But I won't force you” she tells him.
Her softspokeness will be his end. Jon knows this.
“The Queen in the North would want a traitor back in her midst?” he mostly jests.
Sansa takes his hand then “You're not a traitor.”
“She would take another Targaryen in her court? After everything”
Sansa grimaces “You aren't a Targaryen,” she says, and this time there is bite in her voice, there is steel. Naked and powerful “Not to me”
Jon wants to kiss her then.
“To everyone else, though...”
“Then I would make of you a Stark” she tells him, her voice sure and even “Marry me,” she tells him “beneath the Godswood fronds, before the Heart Tree and our Gods.” she says “or let me legitimize you as a Stark. You choose.” she offers.
Her grip is warm “If you want to stay then stay. But if you want to be with me as much as I—”
A kiss is a simple thing, he thinks.
And still a kiss can enclose the entire of the world in a breath. It's tongue and lips and fangs and teeth, it's theirs.
So, when Sansa leaves Castle Black she does it with a husband at her side, a husband she chose and who chose her. A wolf stalking at her side, the mate to her own wolf.
He never knew who he was. A wolf or a dragon, a crow or a wildling. A traitor or a man capable of anything to uphold his duty.
He knows now. She's a wolf and he is hers. All the rest doesn't matter. They are just words.
Only her kisses and her claws hold any sense.
And when the trumpets of Winterfell sound, they sound because the wolves have returned.
Wind swirls around her, the beginning of a storm or the beat of dragon wings, she can’t say. It pulls her hair from its careful braids, drags long strands of copper across his scarred cheek.
Death has been a constant since her father lost his life, her ever present fear, but it is not the encampment of men intent on bloodshed, nor the beasts summoned from history that stir terror into her heart.
No, it is the look in his eyes, the murmured words of farewell, the soft, then urgent, press of his lips.
This is for the prompt Wolf from @jonsaprompts its later then I anticipated but I’ve been tired after work. I truly don’t think this was what was in mind when the prompt was issued. Also it turned out longer then expected as well.
Pure fluff with some trauma sprinkled in there for spice.
Happy Halloween!
It was ruined.
She’d worked so hard on it too. After school and her homework was done, she’d hid in her room, working away at it, not wanting her family’s constant input and teasing. This was going to be her last Samhain, where she could go trick or treating without adults getting all weird about it. (One adult last year made her cry because she was already taller than her peers. Arya took great offence to this and kicked the middle-aged man in the shin before telling them all to run.)
But now her hard work was ruined.
“I’m so sorry, Sansa,” Rickon’s little voice wobbled as he covered his mouth with both hands and made a beeline for the washroom. An afternoon of eating chocolate non-stop had upset the little boy’s stomach and brought it back up all over Sansa’s sparkly white princess dress.
Sansa did her best to repress the urge to cry as her bottom lip trembled and tears threatened to fall.
Took a couple days and I don’t *love* it but here’s my contribution for the @jonsaprompts the word “wolf.” Moden AU / Sansa’s birthday.
Though they attend the same college — Sansa as a junior and Jon as a graduate student — they see little of each other outside of accidental run-ins on campus. She tells herself she’s fine with that. He was always more of Robb’s friend than hers anyway. But tonight Sansa is celebrating her twenty-first birthday, so no matter how tired Jon is after he gets off work, he’d better show up at the bar. He promised he would.
By ten o’clock, Sansa’s well on her way to being drunk, and she’s glancing at the door way too often. Her friends notice and tease her about it. “When are you going to stop pretending you’re not in love with that man?” one of them asks.
Sansa tilts her head to the side. “Was that a double negative?” she asks, deflecting.
“Oh, here he is,” a different friend interjects, swatting her on her shoulder.
Sansa’s eyes snap towards the door for the millionth time that night and, sure enough, there’s Jon, handing his ID to the bouncer. She squeals, hops off her chair, and runs across the room to greet him, dodging a few people as she goes. Jon’s barely two steps further inside the bar when he sees her, but when he does, a grin stretches across his face.
Sansa throws her arms around him and then, suddenly, she’s lifted into the air — high enough that it only makes sense to wrap her legs around his waist. She’s seen that sort of thing in movies but never done it before. She feels ridiculous. She feels elated.
“Hi,” Jon says, almost laughing.
“Hi.”
“Happy birthday.”
Sansa kisses his cheek, another thing she’s never done before, then drops to the ground. “Thank you. Did you get me anything?” she asks.
Jon really does laugh at that. Just a short, breathy thing, but it makes Sansa’s heart flutter. “I did, actually,” he says. “Arya helped me with it, but it was my idea.”
He reaches inside his jacket and retrieves what appears, at first, to be a bookmark. But after he hands it to Sansa, she realizes it’s not a bookmark at all. It’s one of those fancy temporary tattoos, the kind that look real but last only a few weeks. When they were all home for Christmas, she’d seen an ad for one on her phone and showed it to Jon and her siblings.
“That’s a clever idea,” she’d said, “though I don’t love any of these designs.”
But that design Jon has handed her, she does love. He said Arya helped him, so Sansa figures the five simplistic, line drawing wolves — each in a different pose — must have been her creation. Arya likes to draw. So a custom order. That’s a really thoughtful, really adorable gift.
Wolves had always been the Stark siblings’ thing. Blame whoever gave Robb a stuffed animal of one when he was little because it all started there. He carried that thing with him everywhere. And then Sansa, wanting to be like Robb but in her own feminine way, had collected figurines of wolves for years and years. Then there was Arya, who liked to pretend she was a wolf surviving out in the woods. And Bran who was an intellectual about it — knew way more about wolves than the average person by the time he was six. And then Rickon, of course, had begged Mom and Dad to get him a wolf so often, despite them saying that was probably illegal, that they finally gave in and adopted a dog that looked rather like a wolf.
“But there’s one missing,” Sansa says, though she smiles to let Jon to show she’s only teasing. She loves her gift.
“No, there’s not. I’m not a Stark,” Jon replies.
“But you’re part of our pack. We’ve always said so.”
Jon came into their lives through a friendship with Robb when they were a little older. Old enough that all of them but Rickon had grown out of their wolf fixation. Somehow, though, it felt right to find a way to include Jon in on it. So for his eighteenth birthday, the family had taken a roadtrip to the Endangered Wolf Center where they had a private tour and were allowed to buy several souvenirs each. Jon still carried the wolf keychain he’d gotten that day.
“But I’m not a Stark,” he repeats, a little firmer this time, but a little more playful too. His eyes shine and Sansa wonders if it could mean what she wants it to mean.
So blame the two vodka lemonades she finished already — she suddenly decides to say something brave, something flirty. “Well, thank the gods for that.”
Jon grins, and now Sansa’s more confident about it. If she wants, tonight could be the night they finally turn a corner in their relationship. Before she can blush about that thought, she capitalizes on it instead. She takes Jon’s hand in hers to lead him to her table.
Later, she tells herself, she’ll take his hand like this and lead him to her room. It’s about that time.
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