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On-jo lost everything during the outbreak... I-sak, her father, Cheong-san, her will to live. So when her and the remaining members of her group finally arrived at a safe zone, she hid herself away, refusing to get close to anyone ever again.
That didn't stop Lee Su-hyeok from trying to bring down the walls she'd built around herself. The truth was, he was the last person On-jo wanted to see or hear from ever again. And how could he blame her, especially since his love for Nam-ra nearly killed her.
I think it’s very weird that when one country is criticized y’all tend to be like “oh well my country we would never —” uhh YES in your country too, that’s how states work? Y’all talking about people living in China or the US not knowing their history because the bad parts aren’t taught well in school: sure!!! But I know many people from Belgium who know next-to-nothing about the genocide in the Congo, from the Netherlands who say all their colonies were only trading posts, from Thailand who say that the indigenous people in their country have been and are treated fine only they don’t make an effort to be Thai, from Portugal who will tell you about what an amazingly positive force they were in their… territories, from Czechia who will tell you their country holds no responsibility for treatment of the Roma—but also it was and is justified; all were taught these things in school.
My point isn’t “other countries do this too so it doesn’t matter!!” No! My point is that every single state commits and covers up atrocities in some way. There is no ethical state.
American liberals especially seem to have a tendancy to think that there is a Good and Perfect state and we must only find it and imitate it and then our problems will be fixed. But trust me: it doesn’t exist, (and it’s certainly not in Europe??). We must create our own systems, and have the courage to change those, too, when we see their flaws.
I have this idea that I´ll never write, so if you could do something with it, it would be a dream come true and an absolute honor.
A Rhaegar wins AU, and when they were children, the parents decided Jon and Arya were a good match, and they were like well we like the same shit so that sounds cool.
FAST FORWARD TO ADULTHOOD and they are like I really don't wanna do this thing cause I might throw up but I don't wanna hurt the other person's feelings.
Arya is like, I don´t wanna get married at all, or maybe she likes Gendry or a girl.
And Jon is absolutely head over hills for Sansa, he's so charmed by her, he dances with her even if he doesn't like dancing.
And Sansa also loves him but she does not wanna hurt Arya.
AND NOBODY SAYS ANYTHING.
LITERALLY WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME ANON.
look, this wasn't the first prompt I got, and when I first read it, I went, "oh, I don't know if I can write that", and then I couldn't stop thinking about it and here we are, 5k words later.
1. this obviously turned out much longer than I intended for a prompt fic, 2. I got real into my emotions at some point? 3. I wrote this in a fever dream, where grammar and logic don't apply. 4. this isn't EXACTLY the prompt, so I am sorry about that.
read it on ao3 here:
ephemera, chapter 18
“Lyanna come again,” Rhaegar had murmured, looking at the small five year old standing before him, a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips.
And so it had been decided, all those years ago. Rhaegar would match his son with a Stark daughter, and this time, it wouldn't end in tragedy.
Jon looks back now and thinks – perhaps Targaryen and Stark were always meant for ruin.
…
When he is eleven, when talk of a betrothal first happens, he doesn't think much of the five year old, though Aegon says cruel things about her – how young she is, how short, how unruly her hair. It only makes Jon decide, stubbornly, that they will get along. They will have a good marriage. The best marriage. Certainly better than Aegon's.
He likes little Arya. He learns to like her even more when he goes to spend time up in Winterfell when he is fifteen and she nine. She wants to learn the sword, she can shoot better than her brothers. She gives as good as she gets, and Jon thanks all the gods in existence that they are to be matched. He has always dreaded the idea of marriage – of being stuck with some girl for his whole life. But he and Arya are so alike, it is bound to be a perfect match.
Much better than Lady Sansa, with her sewing hoops and her singing and her poetry. She makes them listen to it, reads the poems aloud to her family in the evening, before the hearth. Lady Catelyn smiles and Lord Stark sits stoic and Robb does his best to feign interest and Bran and Rickon are too young to care, but Jon and Arya make eye contact during it and neither can help when they burst into laughter (though he does feel awful when Sansa closes her book shortly after and says she is done her recitation, though he doesn't think she was. She never tries to read her poetry to them again while he is visiting).
(He tells himself he doesn't feel bad, though, when the next day Arya storms into the stables in tears and tells them Sansa said something mean to her. He decides then that it was alright for him to laugh at her poetry. Arya says she's a bully, and so it must be true.)
…
He runs into her once, in the godswood.
He's gone to see if he can feel the gods in the trees like his uncle says. Jon was raised with the Seven, but being in Winterfell makes him want the gods his mother carried. He had stood before her statue when he arrived and promised her, silently, that he would try.
Instead of the gods, though, he runs into Sansa. She's here - sewing, as usual.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at him with her wide eyes and lowering her hoop. “I came for a bit of peace, I did not realize you-”
“No, it's fine,” he says, uncomfortable. He's never been around Sansa alone before. “You were here first.”
“Oh, no,” she gets up, smoothing her skirts down and then gathering up her sewing. “You may stay, of course, your grace.”
“Jon,” he frowns. Everyone else calls him that, why can't she?
He watches the color rise in her, a red flush that creeps up her neck and into her cheeks. It should clash with her hair that shines near copper in the sunlight, but it doesn't. It makes something go through him, almost like a shiver, except he's not even cold.
“It is not proper,” she says, and he lets out a huff at how stubborn she is.
“Who cares about proper?” he spits, because he feels off balance and he doesn't know why. “If I wanted proper, I'd be back in King's Landing.”
Her face hardens - her eyes narrow, her lips press into a thin line - but she bows slightly and says, “of course, your grace,” and then she walks past him with her head held high and her shoulders back and her spine straight and she won't even look at him.
He turns to watch her go, anger and confusion and something all twisting together in his gut
…
He and Arya write to each other, almost as often as he and Robb do.
Almost as often, because Arya is terrible at sitting still long enough to write a letter, and if Jon is being honest, her penmanship is atrocious. Her writing turns into a puzzle for him, trying to piece it together letter by letter. When they are married, he will need to write all their correspondence, he realizes. The thought exhausts him. He hates writing letters, especially formal ones. He's no good at it, never has been.
Every once in a while, he receives a letter from Lady Sansa, usually around his name day, wishing him another year of joyous good health or some other nonsense. Her writing is perfect, and so courteous that he wonders if she thinks she is actually writing to the king himself, and not just the king's second son who caused a war with his birth. (The shame of the kingdom, wrapped up in an almost-bastard.)
Somehow, her letters always seem to smell faintly of perfume, he doesn't know how she manages, and he despises her for it, because of course she would dab perfume on her letters.
It lasts for days after he receives them, and every once in a while, he'll pick it up and press it to his nose, a tug down low in his gut. A stirring he refuses to think about.
He's always disappointed when it fades, though he pretends he isn't.
…
He knows he is supposed to wait until marriage for this, but he doesn't.
He meets her on the road, while they're traveling for a royal hunt. She works at an inn that they stop at, right outside the city. She's a skinny thing, her hair a wild mass of orange curls, and he hears her telling the men who try to touch her to fuck right off, her accent low and thick and common.
But then when the singing starts, he watches her close her eyes and her head tilt back and her lips curve into a soft smile, and something pangs deep in his chest.
Looking back, he's never quite sure how it happens, but he ends up in her bed, and he keeps going back.
Their affair does not last long, though. His father sees to that.
…
“Jon!” Arya grins and runs at him, throwing herself into his arms. He catches her easily, swings her around and then sets her down, ruffles his hand in her hair until she swats him away.
“Oi, enough of that,” she huffs, running her fingers through to sort out the tangles.
“It was already a mess,” he teases, and gets a scowl in return, but she can't hold it for long.
Jon looks up just in time to see Lord Stark's attempt to hide his smile – and behind him, Septa Mordane's frown.
“Uh oh,” he murmurs, just for Arya's ears. “Mordane's upset.”
“When is she not?” Arya rolls her eyes.
“Prince Jon,” Lord Stark greets, and Jon grimaces.
“Please, uncle, you know better than to call me that.”
Lord Stark grins and moves forward to embrace him, and Jon closes his eyes and wishes, for just the briefest moment, that Lord Stark was his father.
“Your grace,” he hears when he disengages from his uncle, and he turns to find Sansa bowing to him – bent down the perfect amount for someone of her station.
“Uh, Lady Sansa,” he greets, that same awkwardness that he remembers washing over him. He's always awkward around Sansa. He's a prince of the realm, for Seven's sake. He lives in King's Landing, he talks to Lords and Ladies all the time, and yet he never feels more like a bumbling fool than when he's presented with Sansa's courtesies.
“I suppose we should go in,” Lord Stark sighs, eyeing up the gate to the Red Keep. Jon had met them outside, before they would have to face the royal court.
He knows Lord Stark holds no love for Jon's father, and he's grateful that his uncle does not hold this against him. Lord Stark still loves Jon's mother. They used to visit her in the crypts while Jon was there.
“You can't run away now,” Jon says back, and it makes Lord Stark smile.
…
“She's turned into a beauty, at least,” Aegon snorts, and Jon resists the urge to tell him to get out of his room. “Didn't think she had any hope, last time I saw her.”
“The last time you saw her, she was five,” Jon grits out, reaching forward to take his inkwell from Aegon, who is tossing it idly back and forth between his hands.
“Shame it's not the other one, though,” Aegon's smile is a sly, predatory thing. “Talk about beauty.”
The anger he'd felt while Aegon spoke of Arya grows, morphs and twists into something ugly.
“You're betrothed,” Jon reminds him. He doesn't know why he has to remind Aegon – he's set to marry the Lady Margaery, and Jon cannot fathom why his eye would wander, for Margaery is also beautiful.
“Are you eager to finally be betrothed, yourself?” Aegon asks, as if he didn't hear the bite beneath Jon's words. “I can't believe father agreed to wait this long.” Lord Stark's requirement was that his daughter must flower before any sort of betrothal happened. But he cannot put it off any longer, for father is eager to prove to his kingdom that the Targaryens and the Starks are united once more
“She's barely more than a child,” Jon hears himself say, and he grimaces at his own statement.
But it's true. Jon is twenty, and Arya has just turned fourteen. A child still, though his father had verified that she has, in fact, flowered, before summoning them to King's Landing.
The thought makes Jon a little bit sick.
She will get older, he reminds himself. And Aegon is right, she has grown beautiful. It will be fine.
…
“It is not appropriate that you spar with her,” Lady Sansa whispers to him as they move about the floor.
Courtesy means that he must dance with the elder Stark daughter before the younger, because his betrothal to Arya is not official yet. Once it is, perhaps he will never have to dance with Lady Sansa again.
“She likes sparring,” he says back, forcing his hands not to tighten in annoyance around her waist.
“It is one thing for it to happen in Winterfell, but here?” she keeps whispering, keeping her face neutral so that no one watching can tell she is upset. “People will talk.”
“Let them talk,” he says, distracted. She moves so fluidly that it takes all his concentration to keep up. He's not the best dancer, but he has been trained in the art since birth, and he has never had this much trouble keeping his steps. It's like his brain has gone dumb, all his limbs heavy and useless. He has to stare past the long, slender line of her neck to keep any sort of thought in his head. The perfume she wears is the same one from her letters.
“Let them talk?” she hisses, eyes flashing – and this is the Sansa he rarely gets to see. She was always so guarded around him, back in Winterfell, but every once in a while, he had caught her and Arya fighting. And that one time, in the godswood... “Perhaps you do not care about your reputation, but may I remind you that youare a prince, your grace? The rules do not apply to you like they do Arya.”
Jon is still reeling from the seething way she says your grace. His heart has started hammering inside his chest, and he tries to look anywhere but the intense blue eyes that bore into him.
“I cannot always be around to protect her. That will be your job,” she keeps going, not waiting for his response.
“Where are you going?” Jon asks, eyes snapping back to hers, suddenly focused. Suddenly razor sharp. “Are you leaving?”
“Well, I cannot stay here forever,” she says, her voice faltering for the first time, the fight draining from her features. “Once father has found me a match-”
“A match?” Jon asks. His muscles feel on edge, filled with too much energy. “Lord Stark did not want betrothals for either of you until you are-”
“I am seventeen,” she cuts in. “Now is exactly the time I should be finding a husband. And once I do, of course I will leave King's Landing. That is my duty.”
“Your duty?” he snaps, seething, though he cannot fathom where this anger is coming from. “Can you do anything else?” No, he thinks. She's too proper to do anything but her duty. Never says what she's actually thinking – so polite and kind and warm to everyone because she must be. Only reserves the truth for a few – Arya. Him.
Gods, but he loathes her.
“Excuse me?” she asks, and that same, familiar color rises in her. Up her throat, into her cheeks. Down to the neckline of her dress.
“I can't wait until you leave,” he mutters, and soon the song ends and he can finally get away from the torture of dancing with Lady Sansa. It is so horrible that he must excuse himself for air after, and he steps outside, until his head stops spinning.
…
Joffrey.
The little shit looks so smug as he leads Sansa around by the arm. He looks like a girl, what does Sansa even see in him? It's just her courtesies, he decides, as she smiles and ducks her head over something Joffrey has said. Jon has met Joffrey before, and he's never seen a single thing to smile over.
“Oi,” Arya punches him in the arm, and Jon rips his gaze away from the couple up ahead.
“What?”
“I asked - what do you think is west of Westeros?” Arya huffs with a glare that tells him she isn't happy to have to repeat herself.
“Water?” he says, distracted as Sansa's annoying laugh trickles back from up ahead. He glares at the back of her, the spill of copper hair. Sometimes he just wants to fist his hands in it and-
He blinks, and forces himself to focus back on Arya, who's frowning at him.
“What?” he asks, feeling hot under the glaring sun and Arya's stare.
“You're not even listening to me,” she says.
“Yes I am.”
“Then answer my question.”
His mind races to try and think back – water, he had said. Then a laugh, copper hair... and Arya asking a question.
“I can't,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn't be allowed,” he tells her.
“You aren't the heir,” she whines. “Why can't we go sailing and see? We could discover anything!”
“When Aegon takes the throne, I will be,” Jon says, unease sparking in his chest. It's not something he likes to think on. “Until Aegon has a son, I'm his heir. I'll be Lord of Dragonstone.”
He can tell Arya doesn't like that answer. She ponders this for a while as they walk – something she also isn't happy about, having to walk the gardens with Aegon and Margaery leading the way, Sansa and Joffrey behind them, and him and Arya bringing up the rear.
Finally, she nods to herself, then says, “well, let's hope he has a son soon. Once he does, we'll go see what's west of Westeros.”
No, they won't, Jon thinks. He'll be wanted here, in King's Landing. He's a prince of the realm, he isn't allowed to do whatever he wants, no matter what Arya thinks. If he was, he would have stayed in Winterfell with them.
But he doesn't want a fight, and so he lets it go, and she takes his silence for agreement.
…
“Joffrey, please!”
Jon freezes, the desperate whisper barely audible in the dusk of the gardens.
There's more whispering, but Jon doesn't hear it as his vision narrows in the direction the voice came from.
He'd come out here for a peaceful walk. Time alone, that he so rarely gets in the Red Keep. Precious, glorious time alone.
Except he clearly isn't alone.
He moves through a hedge and sees them – that prick Joffrey, and Sansa, pressed back against a tree with her eyes wide and her hands pushing at Joffrey's chest.
“You'll be my wife, soon,” the boy sneers, hands groping at her, “it's my right.”
Jon feels a swell of rage rush through him, making him hot, making his thoughts blur, and-
“Jon! Jon, stop, you're killing him!”
Jon blinks, and suddenly he isn't where he was. He's got Joffrey by the throat, pressed back against the same tree he'd been cornering Sansa with, the boy's eyes bugged out and his face turning red.
Beside him, Sansa tugs at his arm, her own eyes wide as saucers. Fearful and gripping his tunic and saying, “Jon, please!”
He relaxes his grip and Joffrey slides down the tree, hands at his throat, gasping for air, but all Jon can think is that it's the first time he's ever heard Sansa say his name.
Joffrey lets out a pathetic whimper, and Jon turns back and looks down at him.
“If you ever touch her again, I'll kill you,” he says, the anger rushing back through him, though duller now. Controllable. “Don't even look at her. Do you understand me?”
Joffrey nods, then scrambles up and away, towards the castle.
“You shouldn't have done that,” she sniffs, voice wobbly and low, and Jon turns back to her as she wipes at her nose. “You'll get in trouble.”
“Hey,” he says, reaching for her and the moment his hand rests on her arm, she moves in and presses herself against his chest and the ground falls out from beneath his feet. Except – no, it doesn't. He's still standing, with Sansa softly sniffling into his shoulder. “I won't get in trouble,” he tells the top of her head, lips brushing against her soft hair, “I'm a prince, remember? The rules don't apply to me like they do to everyone else.”
She lets out a sob – or a laugh, he can't tell, and she pulls back from him and gives his chest a good shove.
“You idiot,” she makes that noise again, and this time he's certain it's a laugh, because her lips pull up into a reluctant smile.
“Did the Lady Sansa just call a prince an idiot?” Jon gasps, putting his hand to his chest and staggering back.
“Oh,” she huffs, “you're insufferable.”
He's laughing now, a grin stretching his lips, feeling suddenly light as air. He rarely laughs here in King's Landing, not like he did up in Winterfell. Though never with Sansa before.
Suddenly, her glare at him fades, and he watches despair take over.
“What if he tells someone?” she asks, bringing a hand up to her throat. “I know I shouldn't have gone walking with him alone, I know, but he was so insistent...” she looks as though she is about to cry again, and Jon's delirious joy crashes down around him.
“He won't tell anyone, if he knows what's good for him,” Jon says. “Your reputation will be fine, I won't let anyone say otherwise.”
“That's not how it works,” she tells him, voice thin and trembling, and he knows she's right. It doesn't matter what the truth is – if anyone finds out she went with Joffrey alone into the gardens at dusk, her reputation will be ruined.
“He won't tell anyone,” Jon says again. He thinks that is true, at least. Joffrey may be a prat, but he's also a coward. “Come on, let's get you back before anyone notices you're missing. I know all the secret passageways, I promise no one will see you.”
He holds out his hand, though he cannot fathom why, and he ignores that pull in his gut – in his chest – when she takes it.
“Thank you, Jon,” she whispers.
“Anything for you, Lady Sansa,” he says. It's meant to be a joke, meant to rile her up, but it comes out low and gravelly and nothing like a joke at all. He thinks he should let go of her hand before she gets the wrong idea, but he never does as he leads her back into the castle.
…
Aegon marries Margaery in an elaborate display.
A time for celebration, he knows, but Jon feels lost. Like a pit has opened up beneath him, ready to swallow him whole.
“Soon it will be your turn,” Margaery tells him as they dance, a look in her eye that means she's up to no good. She's right – father had decided to announce his betrothal to Arya after Aegon and Margaery were wed.
Jon doesn't answer, but his eyes flit across the room, to where Sansa is dancing with one of the Martells.
He cannot find Arya in the crowd.
…
There is no happy ending here, he thinks, as father rages.
The meeting room is clear of everyone except Ser Arthur, Lord Stark, Aegon, and Jon.
“Missing?” father seethes. “How could she go missing?”
“I do not know,” Lord Stark starts, his face pale, shadows under his eyes. He has been awake for days, Jon thinks.
“Where were her guards?” father cries.
“Where were yours?” Lord Stark snaps, clearly at his end, though he realizes his error as soon as he makes it. “I'm sorry, your highness-”
The shock of seeing Eddard Stark lose his temper seems to be enough to pull father out of his dramatics, because father's shoulders slump, and he sits down at the table, the energy drained from him.
“This cannot get out,” father says, closing his eyes.
It isn't often that Jon sees the weight of the crown on father's head. Rhaegar Targaryen is a good king, everyone says – especially after the madness of his father. Good and calm and easy to laugh and joke. Loves music and dancing and hosting elaborate feasts. But every once in a while, Jon sees it – the shadows that plague him. Aerys. Elia. Lyanna. A war started by his own, selfish wants.
And now, for a second time, a Stark girl has run away.
Arya. Disappeared two days ago, on the eave of their betrothal announcement, no sign of her since. It doesn't matter how many guards they put on her, Jon thinks to himself. She's always been sneaky. He has no idea where she could have gone, or-
What is west of Westeros?
The docks! Jon almost cries, but the words catch in his throat. She'll be at the docks, finding a boat that will take her on an adventure.
Part of him wants to tell them so that they can find her, bring her back safe.
Part of him wants to stay silent, let her run.
Let her be free.
…
Arya is dragged back to court three weeks later, dressed in boy's clothes, with her hair chopped off up to her ears.
Jon has never seen his uncle so broken as he was in those weeks, wondering where his daughter had gone. Even now, Lord Stark trembles as he hugs Arya to his chest. Sansa is sobbing, though trying to keep it under control and constantly wiping at her eyes, aware that it is not just her family present, but the king and the crown prince, as well.
Arya glares at the king in defiance when she is finally let go, when she finally turns to face him. Rhaegar looks resigned. Defeated.
“I don't want to get married,” she says. Jon recognizes the stubborn clench of her jaw, the way her feet plant apart. Ready for a fight.
Father stands silent for a while, and Jon sees those shadows in him.
“There was a time,” father finally says, “that a Stark maiden did not want to get married.”
The words hang in the air, a terrible silence as old grief grips at Jon's throat. He never got to meet his mother, and yet he has dreamed of her. He has thought of her, every day.
“I will not make the same mistakes twice,” Rhaegar's voice is raw, that same grief clouding his words. “You are a lady of House Stark, and your father can do what he sees fit with you, but I... I will not be a part of it. You are released from your promise.”
Arya stares, then looks from the king to Lord Stark, as if she cannot believe it.
“We will-” Lord Stark's words catch, and Jon can tell there is grief in him, too. Memories turned to shadows and ghosts. “We will let it be known that House Stark stands with House Targaryen, even without a marriage. Let the past be in the past.”
“Yes,” father nods, though his eyes are far away.
“There can still be a marriage,” Arya says, and it is enough to pull everyone back to the present.
“Make up your mind,” Aegon sighs.
“Not me,” Arya wrinkles up her nose, then turns to look at Jon. “I mean no offense,” she says, softening.
“I have not taken any,” Jon says back, and for the first time, he notices that a great weight has been lifted from him. Relief, heady and dizzying.
“But if you want an alliance, we've still got a perfectly good unmarried Stark lady. And she's even a proper one, with manners and everything,” Arya snorts, turning to look at Sansa, who's red-rimmed eyes are now wide with surprise.
“That is true,” father says, though he sounds hesitant. “Though I will keep my promise, and I will not force this. But if both are amenable...”
Lord Stark looks at his daughter, Sansa's face now flushed. It creeps up her neck and into her cheeks, like he's seen countless times.
“I-” she says, looking around the room, voice barely more than a whisper. “I would be amenable.”
Jon's heart is doing that thing again – pounding so hard in his chest he feels as though he has been sparring for hours.
She would be amenable to marrying him?
He doesn't mean to – what he means to do is say that this is madness and walk away, but instead his stupid mouth has it's own mind, it seems. “I would also be amenable,” he says, the words a rush. His tongue trips over them, because he is a bumbling fool whenever he is around her.
“I cannot believe Margaery was right,” Aegon groans, letting his head tip back as his eyes squeeze shut. “She is going to be impossible from now on.”
…
He finds her in the stables, up in the loft above, surrounded by hay. He climbs the ladder and sits next to her, their feet hanging over the edge, the horses whinnying and shuffling below.
“You're not mad at me?” Arya asks, kicking her feet out.
“Never,” he says.
“I just... Margaery kept talking about what marriage was like. The things we'd have to do to make babies, and I...” her nose scrunches up, and a shiver goes through her. Jon lets out a soft laugh.
“You'll find someone that you want to make babies with, some day,” Jon tells her, bumping her shoulder with his, but it doesn't make her laugh, and it doesn't make her argue. Instead, she frowns. Serious.
“I don't know if I will,” she says. She won't look at him, worry clear across her face. “I don't get it,” she says finally. “I hear Sansa talk about... about boys and I don't understand it. Jeyne, Beth, Margaery. I think I was born wrong.”
“You weren't,” Jon says, and he feels that same anger he had in the gardens, holding Joffrey by the throat. “You aren't wrong. You're... you're just...” he huffs out air through his nose in annoyance, because he can never get his thoughts into words properly. He isn't Sansa, who can always seem to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. “You're just Arya.”
“But I don't know what that means!” she cries, hands balled into fists at her side.
“You'll figure it out,” he tells her.
He can't know that for sure, but what he does know, is that if anyone can do it, Arya can.
…
Prince Jon's betrothal to Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell is a message.
The war is over. Leave the past in the past.
Arya promises to stay for the wedding, at least. After that, Jon doesn't think she will last very long before she disappears again.
What is west of Westeros?
Sansa will be upset when she leaves. Arya will too, he thinks, though both of them are too stubborn to admit it.
“Be nice,” Jon tells her as they walk through the gardens behind Aegon and Margaery – who keeps looking back at them with a smug, knowing smile.
“I'm always nice,” Sansa says, not looking at him, her chin lifted in defiance. Jon lets out a snort of disbelief.
“And if Arya shows up to our wedding in breeches?” he teases.
That earns him a side-eyed glare, but she doesn't break. “I shall allow breeches, but she will dance, and I won't have her whining about it the whole time, either.”
Jon wants to keep this up, keep teasing her, because it makes her blush and her breathing go shallow and rapid and it makes him nearly weak in the knees to see it, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls her off the path and just past a large rosebush that hides them from view.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, eyes darting back to where they have lost sight of Aegon and Margaery, but she makes no move to leave.
“I was hoping to steal a kiss from my betrothed,” he grins at her.
“This is highly improper,” she breathes, but still does not try to leave.
“I'm a prince,” he shrugs. “The rules don't apply to me.”
“I shall regret ever saying that,” she says, her face scrunching up in dismay.
“Do you regret anything else?” he steps closer to her, his tone serious. Her face softens and she shakes her head.
“No.”
“Neither do I,” he murmurs, and leans down to capture her lips in a kiss, and he knows in that moment that he has wanted to do this from the first moment he saw her.
From the way she kisses back, he thinks she has, too.
“Lyanna come again,” Rhaegar had murmured, looking at the small five year old standing before him, a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips.
And so it had been decided, all those years ago. Rhaegar would match his son with a Stark daughter, and this time, it wouldn't end in tragedy.
Jon looks back now and thinks – perhaps Targaryen and Stark were always meant for ruin.
…
When he is eleven, when talk of a betrothal first happens, he doesn't think much of the five year old, though Aegon says cruel things about her – how young she is, how short, how unruly her hair. It only makes Jon decide, stubbornly, that they will get along. They will have a good marriage. The best marriage. Certainly better than Aegon's.
He likes little Arya. He learns to like her even more when he goes to spend time up in Winterfell when he is fifteen and she nine. She wants to learn the sword, she can shoot better than her brothers. She gives as good as she gets, and Jon thanks all the gods in existence that they are to be matched. He has always dreaded the idea of marriage – of being stuck with some girl for his whole life. But he and Arya are so alike, it is bound to be a perfect match.
Much better than Lady Sansa, with her sewing hoops and her singing and her poetry. She makes them listen to it, reads the poems aloud to her family in the evening, before the hearth. Lady Catelyn smiles and Lord Stark sits stoic and Robb does his best to feign interest and Bran and Rickon are too young to care, but Jon and Arya make eye contact during it and neither can help when they burst into laughter (though he does feel awful when Sansa closes her book shortly after and says she is done her recitation, though he doesn't think she was. She never tries to read her poetry to them again while he is visiting).
(He tells himself he doesn't feel bad, though, when the next day Arya storms into the stables in tears and tells them Sansa said something mean to her. He decides then that it was alright for him to laugh at her poetry. Arya says she's a bully, and so it must be true.)
…
He runs into her once, in the godswood.
He's gone to see if he can feel the gods in the trees like his uncle says. Jon was raised with the Seven, but being in Winterfell makes him want the gods his mother carried. He had stood before her statue when he arrived and promised her, silently, that he would try.
Instead of the gods, though, he runs into Sansa. She's here - sewing, as usual.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at him with her wide eyes and lowering her hoop. “I came for a bit of peace, I did not realize you-”
“No, it's fine,” he says, uncomfortable. He's never been around Sansa alone before. “You were here first.”
“Oh, no,” she gets up, smoothing her skirts down and then gathering up her sewing. “You may stay, of course, your grace.”
“Jon,” he frowns. Everyone else calls him that, why can't she?
He watches the color rise in her, a red flush that creeps up her neck and into her cheeks. It should clash with her hair that shines near copper in the sunlight, but it doesn't. It makes something go through him, almost like a shiver, except he's not even cold.
“It is not proper,” she says, and he lets out a huff at how stubborn she is.
“Who cares about proper?” he spits, because he feels off balance and he doesn't know why. “If I wanted proper, I'd be back in King's Landing.”
Her face hardens - her eyes narrow, her lips press into a thin line - but she bows slightly and says, “of course, your grace,” and then she walks past him with her head held high and her shoulders back and her spine straight and she won't even look at him.
He turns to watch her go, anger and confusion and something all twisting together in his gut
…
He and Arya write to each other, almost as often as he and Robb do.
Almost as often, because Arya is terrible at sitting still long enough to write a letter, and if Jon is being honest, her penmanship is atrocious. Her writing turns into a puzzle for him, trying to piece it together letter by letter. When they are married, he will need to write all their correspondence, he realizes. The thought exhausts him. He hates writing letters, especially formal ones. He's no good at it, never has been.
Every once in a while, he receives a letter from Lady Sansa, usually around his name day, wishing him another year of joyous good health or some other nonsense. Her writing is perfect, and so courteous that he wonders if she thinks she is actually writing to the king himself, and not just the king's second son who caused a war with his birth. (The shame of the kingdom, wrapped up in an almost-bastard.)
Somehow, her letters always seem to smell faintly of perfume, he doesn't know how she manages, and he despises her for it, because of course she would dab perfume on her letters.
It lasts for days after he receives them, and every once in a while, he'll pick it up and press it to his nose, a tug down low in his gut. A stirring he refuses to think about.
He's always disappointed when it fades, though he pretends he isn't.
…
He knows he is supposed to wait until marriage for this, but he doesn't.
He meets her on the road, while they're traveling for a royal hunt. She's works at an inn that they stop at, right outside the city. She's a skinny thing, her hair a wild mass of orange curls, and he hears her telling the men who try to touch her to fuck right off, her accent low and thick and common.
But then when the singing starts, he watches her close her eyes and her head tilt back and her lips curve into a soft smile, and something pangs deep in his chest.
Looking back, he's never quite sure how it happens, but he ends up in her bed, and he keeps going back.
Their affair does not last long, though. His father sees to that.
…
“Jon!” Arya grins and runs at him, throwing herself into his arms. He catches her easily, swings her around and then sets her down, ruffles his hand in her hair until she swats him away.
“Oi, enough of that,” she huffs, running her fingers through to sort out the tangles.
“It was already a mess,” he teases, and gets a scowl in return, but she can't hold it for long.
Jon looks up just in time to see Lord Stark's attempt to hide his smile – and behind him, Septa Mordane's frown.
“Uh oh,” he murmurs, just for Arya's ears. “Mordane's upset.”
“When is she not?” Arya rolls her eyes.
“Prince Jon,” Lord Stark greets, and Jon grimaces.
“Please, uncle, you know better than to call me that.”
Lord Stark grins and moves forward to embrace him, and Jon closes his eyes and wishes, for just the briefest moment, that Lord Stark was his father.
“Your grace,” he hears when he disengages from his uncle, and he turns to find Sansa bowing to him – bent down the perfect amount for someone of her station.
“Uh, Lady Sansa,” he greets, that same awkwardness that he remembers washing over him. He's always awkward around Sansa. He's a prince of the realm, for Seven's sake. He lives in King's Landing, he talks to Lords and Ladies all the time, and yet he never feels more like a bumbling fool than when he's presented with Sansa's courtesies.
“I suppose we should go in,” Lord Stark sighs, eyeing up the gate to the Red Keep. Jon had met them outside, before they would have to face the royal court.
He knows Lord Stark holds no love for Jon's father, and he's grateful that his uncle does not hold this against him. Lord Stark still loves Jon's mother. They used to visit her in the crypts while Jon was there.
“You can't run away now,” Jon says back, and it makes Lord Stark smile.
…
“She's turned into a beauty, at least,” Aegon snorts, and Jon resists the urge to tell him to get out of his room. “Didn't think she had any hope, last time I saw her.”
“The last time you saw her, she was five,” Jon grits out, reaching forward to take his inkwell from Aegon, who is tossing it idly back and forth between his hands.
“Shame it's not the other one, though,” Aegon's smile is a sly, predatory thing. “Talk about beauty.”
The anger he'd felt while Aegon spoke of Arya grows, morphs and twists into something ugly.
“You're betrothed,” Jon reminds him. He doesn't know why he has to remind Aegon – he's set to marry the Lady Margaery, and Jon cannot fathom why his eye would wander, for Margaery is also beautiful.
“Are you eager to finally be betrothed, yourself?” Aegon asks, as if he didn't hear the bite beneath Jon's words. “I can't believe father agreed to wait this long.” Lord Stark's requirement was that his daughter must flower before any sort of betrothal happened. But he cannot put it off any longer, for father is eager to prove to his kingdom that the Targaryens and the Starks are united once more
“She's barely more than a child,” Jon hears himself say, and he grimaces at his own statement.
But it's true. Jon is twenty, and Arya has just turned fourteen. A child still, though his father had verified that she has, in fact, flowered, before summoning them to King's Landing.
The thought makes Jon a little bit sick.
She will get older, he reminds himself. And Aegon is right, she has grown beautiful. It will be fine.
…
“It is not appropriate that you spar with her,” Lady Sansa whispers to him as they move about the floor.
Courtesy means that he must dance with the elder Stark daughter before the younger, because his betrothal to Arya is not official yet. Once it is, perhaps he will never have to dance with Lady Sansa again.
“She likes sparring,” he says back, forcing his hands not to tighten in annoyance around her waist.
“It is one thing for it to happen in Winterfell, but here?” she keeps whispering, keeping her face neutral so that no one watching can tell she is upset. “People will talk.”
“Let them talk,” he says, distracted. She moves so fluidly that it takes all his concentration to keep up. He's not the best dancer, but he has been trained in the art since birth, and he has never had this much trouble keeping his steps. It's like his brain has gone dumb, all his limbs heavy and useless. He has to stare past the long, slender line of her neck to keep any sort of thought in his head. The perfume she wears is the same one from her letters.
“Let them talk?” she hisses, eyes flashing – and this is the Sansa he rarely gets to see. She was always so guarded around him, back in Winterfell, but every once in a while, he had caught her and Arya fighting. And that one time, in the godswood... “Perhaps you do not care about your reputation, but may I remind you that youare a prince, your grace? The rules do not apply to you like they do Arya.”
Jon is still reeling from the seething way she says your grace. His heart has started hammering inside his chest, and he tries to look anywhere but the intense blue eyes that bore into him.
“I cannot always be around to protect her. That will be your job,” she keeps going, not waiting for his response.
“Where are you going?” Jon asks, eyes snapping back to hers, suddenly focused. Suddenly razor sharp. “Are you leaving?”
“Well, I cannot stay here forever,” she says, her voice faltering for the first time, the fight draining from her features. “Once father has found me a match-”
“A match?” Jon asks. His muscles feel on edge, filled with too much energy. “Lord Stark did not want betrothals for either of you until you are-”
“I am seventeen,” she cuts in. “Now is exactly the time I should be finding a husband. And once I do, of course I will leave King's Landing. That is my duty.”
“Your duty?” he snaps, seething, though he cannot fathom where this anger is coming from. “Can you do anything else?” No, he thinks. She's too proper to do anything but her duty. Never says what she's actually thinking – so polite and kind and warm to everyone because she must be. Only reserves the truth for a few – Arya. Him.
Gods, but he loathes her.
“Excuse me?” she asks, and that same, familiar color rises in her. Up her throat, into her cheeks. Down to the neckline of her dress.
“I can't wait until you leave,” he mutters, and soon the song ends and he can finally get away from the torture of dancing with Lady Sansa. It is so horrible that he must excuse himself for air after, and he steps outside, until his head stops spinning.
…
Joffrey.
The little shit looks so smug as he leads Sansa around by the arm. He looks like a girl, what does Sansa even see in him? It's just her courtesies, he decides, as she smiles and ducks her head over something Joffrey has said. Jon has met Joffrey before, and he's never seen a single thing to smile over.
“Oi,” Arya punches him in the arm, and Jon rips his gaze away from the couple up ahead.
“What?”
“I asked - what do you think is west of Westeros?” Arya huffs with a glare that tells him she isn't happy to have to repeat herself.
“Water?” he says, distracted as Sansa's annoying laugh trickles back from up ahead. He glares at the back of her, the spill of copper hair. Sometimes he just wants to fist his hands in it and-
He blinks, and forces himself to focus back on Arya, who's frowning at him.
“What?” he asks, feeling hot under the glaring sun and Arya's stare.
“You're not even listening to me,” she says.
“Yes I am.”
“Then answer my question.”
His mind races to try and think back – water, he had said. Then a laugh, copper hair... and Arya asking a question.
“I can't,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn't be allowed,” he tells her.
“You aren't the heir,” she whines. “Why can't we go sailing and see? We could discover anything!”
“When Aegon takes the throne, I will be,” Jon says, unease sparking in his chest. It's not something he likes to think on. “Until Aegon has a son, I'm his heir. I'll be Lord of Dragonstone.”
He can tell Arya doesn't like that answer. She ponders this for a while as they walk – something she also isn't happy about, having to walk the gardens with Aegon and Margaery leading the way, Sansa and Joffrey behind them, and him and Arya bringing up the rear.
Finally, she nods to herself, then says, “well, let's hope he has a son soon. Once he does, we'll go see what's west of Westeros.”
No, they won't, Jon thinks. He'll be wanted here, in King's Landing. He's a prince of the realm, he isn't allowed to do whatever he wants, no matter what Arya thinks. If he was, he would have stayed in Winterfell with them.
But he doesn't want a fight, and so he lets it go, and she takes his silence for agreement.
…
“Joffrey, please!”
Jon freezes, the desperate whisper barely audible in the dusk of the gardens.
There's more whispering, but Jon doesn't hear it as his vision narrows in the direction the voice came from.
He'd come out here for a peaceful walk. Time alone, that he so rarely gets in the Red Keep. Precious, glorious time alone.
Except he clearly isn't alone.
He moves through a hedge and sees them – that prick Joffrey, and Sansa, pressed back against a tree with her eyes wide and her hands pushing at Joffrey's chest.
“You'll be my wife, soon,” the boy sneers, hands groping at her, “it's my right.”
Jon feels a swell of rage rush through him, making him hot, making his thoughts blur, and-
“Jon! Jon, stop, you're killing him!”
Jon blinks, and suddenly he isn't where he was. He's got Joffrey by the throat, pressed back against the same tree he'd been cornering Sansa with, the boy's eyes bugged out and his face turning red.
Beside him, Sansa tugs at his arm, her own eyes wide as saucers. Fearful and gripping his tunic and saying, “Jon, please!”
He relaxes his grip and Joffrey slides down the tree, hands at his throat, gasping for air, but all Jon can think is that it's the first time he's ever heard Sansa say his name.
Joffrey lets out a pathetic whimper, and Jon turns back and looks down at him.
“If you ever touch her again, I'll kill you,” he says, the anger rushing back through him, though duller now. Controllable. “Don't even look at her. Do you understand me?”
Joffrey nods, then scrambles up and away, towards the castle.
“You shouldn't have done that,” she sniffs, voice wobbly and low, and Jon turns back to her as she wipes at her nose. “You'll get in trouble.”
“Hey,” he says, reaching for her and the moment his hand rests on her arm, she moves in and presses herself against his chest and the ground falls out from beneath his feet. Except – no, it doesn't. He's still standing, with Sansa softly sniffling into his shoulder. “I won't get in trouble,” he tells the top of her head, lips brushing against her soft hair, “I'm a prince, remember? The rules don't apply to me like they do to everyone else.”
She lets out a sob – or a laugh, he can't tell, and she pulls back from him and gives his chest a good shove.
“You idiot,” she makes that noise again, and this time he's certain it's a laugh, because her lips pull up into a reluctant smile.
“Did the Lady Sansa just call a prince an idiot?” Jon gasps, putting his hand to his chest and staggering back.
“Oh,” she huffs, “you're insufferable.”
He's laughing now, a grin stretching his lips, feeling suddenly light as air. He rarely laughs here in King's Landing, not like he did up in Winterfell. Though never with Sansa before.
Suddenly, her glare at him fades, and he watches despair take over.
“What if he tells someone?” she asks, bringing a hand up to her throat. “I know I shouldn't have gone walking with him alone, I know, but he was so insistent...” she looks as though she is about to cry again, and Jon's delirious joy crashes down around him.
“He won't tell anyone, if he knows what's good for him,” Jon says. “Your reputation will be fine, I won't let anyone say otherwise.”
“That's not how it works,” she tells him, voice thin and trembling, and he knows she's right. It doesn't matter what the truth is – if anyone finds out she went with Joffrey alone into the gardens at dusk, her reputation will be ruined.
“He won't tell anyone,” Jon says again. He thinks that is true, at least. Joffrey may be a prat, but he's also a coward. “Come on, let's get you back before anyone notices you're missing. I know all the secret passageways, I promise no one will see you.”
He holds out his hand, though he cannot fathom why, and he ignores that pull in his gut – in his chest – when she takes it.
“Thank you, Jon,” she whispers.
“Anything for you, Lady Sansa,” he says. It's meant to be a joke, meant to rile her up, but it comes out low and gravelly and nothing like a joke at all. He thinks he should let go of her hand before she gets the wrong idea, but he never does as he leads her back into the castle.
…
Aegon marries Margaery in an elaborate display.
A time for celebration, he knows, but Jon feels lost. Like a pit has opened up beneath him, ready to swallow him whole.
“Soon it will be your turn,” Margaery tells him as they dance, a look in her eye that means she's up to no good. She's right – father had decided to announce his betrothal to Arya after Aegon and Margaery were wed.
Jon doesn't answer, but his eyes flit across the room, to where Sansa is dancing with one of the Martells.
He cannot find Arya in the crowd.
…
There is no happy ending here, he thinks, as father rages.
The meeting room is clear of everyone except Ser Arthur, Lord Stark, Aegon, and Jon.
“Missing?” father seethes. “How could she go missing?”
“I do not know,” Lord Stark starts, his face pale, shadows under his eyes. He has been awake for days, Jon thinks.
“Where were her guards?” father cries.
“Where were yours?” Lord Stark snaps, clearly at his end, though he realizes his error as soon as he makes it. “I'm sorry, your highness-”
The shock of seeing Eddard Stark lose his temper seems to be enough to pull father out of his dramatics, because father's shoulders slump, and he sits down at the table, the energy drained from him.
“This cannot get out,” father says, closing his eyes.
It isn't often that Jon sees the weight of the crown on father's head. Rhaegar Targaryen is a good king, everyone says – especially after the madness of his father. Good and calm and easy to laugh and joke. Loves music and dancing and hosting elaborate feasts. But every once in a while, Jon sees it – the shadows that plague him. Aerys. Elia. Lyanna. A war started by his own, selfish wants.
And now, for a second time, a Stark girl has run away.
Arya. Disappeared two days ago, on the eave of their betrothal announcement, no sign of her since. It doesn't matter how many guards they put on her, Jon thinks to himself. She's always been sneaky. He has no idea where she could have gone, or-
What is west of Westeros?
The docks! Jon almost cries, but the words catch in his throat. She'll be at the docks, finding a boat that will take her on an adventure.
Part of him wants to tell them so that they can find her, bring her back safe.
Part of him wants to stay silent, let her run.
Let her be free.
…
Arya is dragged back to court three weeks later, dressed in boy's clothes, with her hair chopped off up to her ears.
Jon has never seen his uncle so broken as he was in those weeks, wondering where his daughter had gone. Even now, Lord Stark trembles as he hugs Arya to his chest. Sansa is sobbing, though trying to keep it under control and constantly wiping at her eyes, aware that it is not just her family present, but the king and the crown prince, as well.
Arya glares at the king in defiance when she is finally let go, when she finally turns to face him. Rhaegar looks resigned. Defeated.
“I don't want to get married,” she says. Jon recognizes the stubborn clench of her jaw, the way her feet plant apart. Ready for a fight.
Father stands silent for a while, and Jon sees those shadows in him.
“There was a time,” father finally says, “that a Stark maiden did not want to get married.”
The words hang in the air, a terrible silence as old grief grips at Jon's throat. He never got to meet his mother, and yet he has dreamed of her. He has thought of her, every day.
“I will not make the same mistakes twice,” Rhaegar's voice is raw, that same grief clouding his words. “You are a lady of House Stark, and your father can do what he sees fit with you, but I... I will not be a part of it. You are released from your promise.”
Arya stares, then looks from the king to Lord Stark, as if she cannot believe it.
“We will-” Lord Stark's words catch, and Jon can tell there is grief in him, too. Memories turned to shadows and ghosts. “We will let it be known that House Stark stands with House Targaryen, even without a marriage. Let the past be in the past.”
“Yes,” father nods, though his eyes are far away.
“There can still be a marriage,” Arya says, and it is enough to pull everyone back to the present.
“Make up your mind,” Aegon sighs.
“Not me,” Arya wrinkles up her nose, then turns to look at Jon. “I mean no offense,” she says, softening.
“I have not taken any,” Jon says back, and for the first time, he notices that a great weight has been lifted from him. Relief, heady and dizzying.
“But if you want an alliance, we've still got a perfectly good unmarried Stark lady. And she's even a proper one, with manners and everything,” Arya snorts, turning to look at Sansa, who's red-rimmed eyes are now wide with surprise.
“That is true,” father says, though he sounds hesitant. “Though I will keep my promise, and I will not force this. But if both are amenable...”
Lord Stark looks at his daughter, Sansa's face now flushed. It creeps up her neck and into her cheeks, like he's seen countless times.
“I-” she says, looking around the room, voice barely more than a whisper. “I would be amenable.”
Jon's heart is doing that thing again – pounding so hard in his chest he feels as though he has been sparring for hours.
She would be amenable to marrying him?
He doesn't mean to – what he means to do is say that this is madness and walk away, but instead his stupid mouth has it's own mind, it seems. “I would also be amenable,” he says, the words a rush. His tongue trips over them, because he is a bumbling fool whenever he is around her.
“I cannot believe Margaery was right,” Aegon groans, letting his head tip back as his eyes squeeze shut. “She is going to be impossible from now on.”
…
He finds her in the stables, up in the loft above, surrounded by hay. He climbs the ladder and sits next to her, their feet hanging over the edge, the horses whinnying and shuffling below.
“You're not mad at me?” Arya asks, kicking her feet out.
“Never,” he says.
“I just... Margaery kept talking about what marriage was like. The things we'd have to do to make babies, and I...” her nose scrunches up, and a shiver goes through her. Jon lets out a soft laugh.
“You'll find someone that you want to make babies with, some day,” Jon tells her, bumping her shoulder with his, but it doesn't make her laugh, and it doesn't make her argue. Instead, she frowns. Serious.
“I don't know if I will,” she says. She won't look at him, worry clear across her face. “I don't get it,” she says finally. “I hear Sansa talk about... about boys and I don't understand it. Jeyne, Beth, Margaery. I think I was born wrong.”
“You weren't,” Jon says, and he feels that same anger he had in the gardens, holding Joffrey by the throat. “You aren't wrong. You're... you're just...” he huffs out air through his nose in annoyance, because he can never get his thoughts into words properly. He isn't Sansa, who can always seem to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. “You're just Arya.”
“But I don't know what that means!” she cries, hands balled into fists at her side.
“You'll figure it out,” he tells her.
He can't know that for sure, but what he does know, is that if anyone can do it, Arya can.
…
Prince Jon's betrothal to Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell is a message.
The war is over. Leave the past in the past.
Arya promises to stay for the wedding, at least. After that, Jon doesn't think she will last very long before she disappears again.
What is west of Westeros?
Sansa will be upset when she leaves. Arya will too, he thinks, though both of them are too stubborn to admit it.
“Be nice,” Jon tells her as they walk through the gardens behind Aegon and Margaery – who keeps looking back at them with a smug, knowing smile.
“I'm always nice,” Sansa says, not looking at him, her chin lifted in defiance. Jon lets out a snort of disbelief.
“And if Arya shows up to our wedding in breeches?” he teases.
That earns him a side-eyed glare, but she doesn't break. “I shall allow breeches, but she will dance, and I won't have her whining about it the whole time, either.”
Jon wants to keep this up, keep teasing her, because it makes her blush and her breathing go shallow and rapid and it makes him nearly weak in the knees to see it, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls her off the path and just past a large rosebush that hides them from view.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, eyes darting back to where they have lost sight of Aegon and Margaery, but she makes no move to leave.
“I was hoping to steal a kiss from my betrothed,” he grins at her.
“This is highly improper,” she breathes, but still does not try to leave.
“I'm a prince,” he shrugs. “The rules don't apply to me.”
“I shall regret ever saying that,” she says, her face scrunching up in dismay.
“Do you regret anything else?” he steps closer to her, his tone serious. Her face softens and she shakes her head.
“No.”
“Neither do I,” he murmurs, and leans down to capture her lips in a kiss, and he knows in that moment that he has wanted to do this from the first moment he saw her.
From the way she kisses back, he thinks she has, too.
I have this idea that I´ll never write, so if you could do something with it, it would be a dream come true and an absolute honor.
A Rhaegar wins AU, and when they were children, the parents decided Jon and Arya were a good match, and they were like well we like the same shit so that sounds cool.
FAST FORWARD TO ADULTHOOD and they are like I really don't wanna do this thing cause I might throw up but I don't wanna hurt the other person's feelings.
Arya is like, I don´t wanna get married at all, or maybe she likes Gendry or a girl.
And Jon is absolutely head over hills for Sansa, he's so charmed by her, he dances with her even if he doesn't like dancing.
And Sansa also loves him but she does not wanna hurt Arya.
AND NOBODY SAYS ANYTHING.
LITERALLY WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME ANON.
look, this wasn't the first prompt I got, and when I first read it, I went, "oh, I don't know if I can write that", and then I couldn't stop thinking about it and here we are, 5k words later.
1. this obviously turned out much longer than I intended for a prompt fic, 2. I got real into my emotions at some point? 3. I wrote this in a fever dream, where grammar and logic don't apply. 4. this isn't EXACTLY the prompt, so I am sorry about that.
read it on ao3 here:
ephemera, chapter 18
“Lyanna come again,” Rhaegar had murmured, looking at the small five year old standing before him, a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips.
And so it had been decided, all those years ago. Rhaegar would match his son with a Stark daughter, and this time, it wouldn't end in tragedy.
Jon looks back now and thinks – perhaps Targaryen and Stark were always meant for ruin.
…
When he is eleven, when talk of a betrothal first happens, he doesn't think much of the five year old, though Aegon says cruel things about her – how young she is, how short, how unruly her hair. It only makes Jon decide, stubbornly, that they will get along. They will have a good marriage. The best marriage. Certainly better than Aegon's.
He likes little Arya. He learns to like her even more when he goes to spend time up in Winterfell when he is fifteen and she nine. She wants to learn the sword, she can shoot better than her brothers. She gives as good as she gets, and Jon thanks all the gods in existence that they are to be matched. He has always dreaded the idea of marriage – of being stuck with some girl for his whole life. But he and Arya are so alike, it is bound to be a perfect match.
Much better than Lady Sansa, with her sewing hoops and her singing and her poetry. She makes them listen to it, reads the poems aloud to her family in the evening, before the hearth. Lady Catelyn smiles and Lord Stark sits stoic and Robb does his best to feign interest and Bran and Rickon are too young to care, but Jon and Arya make eye contact during it and neither can help when they burst into laughter (though he does feel awful when Sansa closes her book shortly after and says she is done her recitation, though he doesn't think she was. She never tries to read her poetry to them again while he is visiting).
(He tells himself he doesn't feel bad, though, when the next day Arya storms into the stables in tears and tells them Sansa said something mean to her. He decides then that it was alright for him to laugh at her poetry. Arya says she's a bully, and so it must be true.)
…
He runs into her once, in the godswood.
He's gone to see if he can feel the gods in the trees like his uncle says. Jon was raised with the Seven, but being in Winterfell makes him want the gods his mother carried. He had stood before her statue when he arrived and promised her, silently, that he would try.
Instead of the gods, though, he runs into Sansa. She's here - sewing, as usual.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at him with her wide eyes and lowering her hoop. “I came for a bit of peace, I did not realize you-”
“No, it's fine,” he says, uncomfortable. He's never been around Sansa alone before. “You were here first.”
“Oh, no,” she gets up, smoothing her skirts down and then gathering up her sewing. “You may stay, of course, your grace.”
“Jon,” he frowns. Everyone else calls him that, why can't she?
He watches the color rise in her, a red flush that creeps up her neck and into her cheeks. It should clash with her hair that shines near copper in the sunlight, but it doesn't. It makes something go through him, almost like a shiver, except he's not even cold.
“It is not proper,” she says, and he lets out a huff at how stubborn she is.
“Who cares about proper?” he spits, because he feels off balance and he doesn't know why. “If I wanted proper, I'd be back in King's Landing.”
Her face hardens - her eyes narrow, her lips press into a thin line - but she bows slightly and says, “of course, your grace,” and then she walks past him with her head held high and her shoulders back and her spine straight and she won't even look at him.
He turns to watch her go, anger and confusion and something all twisting together in his gut
…
He and Arya write to each other, almost as often as he and Robb do.
Almost as often, because Arya is terrible at sitting still long enough to write a letter, and if Jon is being honest, her penmanship is atrocious. Her writing turns into a puzzle for him, trying to piece it together letter by letter. When they are married, he will need to write all their correspondence, he realizes. The thought exhausts him. He hates writing letters, especially formal ones. He's no good at it, never has been.
Every once in a while, he receives a letter from Lady Sansa, usually around his name day, wishing him another year of joyous good health or some other nonsense. Her writing is perfect, and so courteous that he wonders if she thinks she is actually writing to the king himself, and not just the king's second son who caused a war with his birth. (The shame of the kingdom, wrapped up in an almost-bastard.)
Somehow, her letters always seem to smell faintly of perfume, he doesn't know how she manages, and he despises her for it, because of course she would dab perfume on her letters.
It lasts for days after he receives them, and every once in a while, he'll pick it up and press it to his nose, a tug down low in his gut. A stirring he refuses to think about.
He's always disappointed when it fades, though he pretends he isn't.
…
He knows he is supposed to wait until marriage for this, but he doesn't.
He meets her on the road, while they're traveling for a royal hunt. She works at an inn that they stop at, right outside the city. She's a skinny thing, her hair a wild mass of orange curls, and he hears her telling the men who try to touch her to fuck right off, her accent low and thick and common.
But then when the singing starts, he watches her close her eyes and her head tilt back and her lips curve into a soft smile, and something pangs deep in his chest.
Looking back, he's never quite sure how it happens, but he ends up in her bed, and he keeps going back.
Their affair does not last long, though. His father sees to that.
…
“Jon!” Arya grins and runs at him, throwing herself into his arms. He catches her easily, swings her around and then sets her down, ruffles his hand in her hair until she swats him away.
“Oi, enough of that,” she huffs, running her fingers through to sort out the tangles.
“It was already a mess,” he teases, and gets a scowl in return, but she can't hold it for long.
Jon looks up just in time to see Lord Stark's attempt to hide his smile – and behind him, Septa Mordane's frown.
“Uh oh,” he murmurs, just for Arya's ears. “Mordane's upset.”
“When is she not?” Arya rolls her eyes.
“Prince Jon,” Lord Stark greets, and Jon grimaces.
“Please, uncle, you know better than to call me that.”
Lord Stark grins and moves forward to embrace him, and Jon closes his eyes and wishes, for just the briefest moment, that Lord Stark was his father.
“Your grace,” he hears when he disengages from his uncle, and he turns to find Sansa bowing to him – bent down the perfect amount for someone of her station.
“Uh, Lady Sansa,” he greets, that same awkwardness that he remembers washing over him. He's always awkward around Sansa. He's a prince of the realm, for Seven's sake. He lives in King's Landing, he talks to Lords and Ladies all the time, and yet he never feels more like a bumbling fool than when he's presented with Sansa's courtesies.
“I suppose we should go in,” Lord Stark sighs, eyeing up the gate to the Red Keep. Jon had met them outside, before they would have to face the royal court.
He knows Lord Stark holds no love for Jon's father, and he's grateful that his uncle does not hold this against him. Lord Stark still loves Jon's mother. They used to visit her in the crypts while Jon was there.
“You can't run away now,” Jon says back, and it makes Lord Stark smile.
…
“She's turned into a beauty, at least,” Aegon snorts, and Jon resists the urge to tell him to get out of his room. “Didn't think she had any hope, last time I saw her.”
“The last time you saw her, she was five,” Jon grits out, reaching forward to take his inkwell from Aegon, who is tossing it idly back and forth between his hands.
“Shame it's not the other one, though,” Aegon's smile is a sly, predatory thing. “Talk about beauty.”
The anger he'd felt while Aegon spoke of Arya grows, morphs and twists into something ugly.
“You're betrothed,” Jon reminds him. He doesn't know why he has to remind Aegon – he's set to marry the Lady Margaery, and Jon cannot fathom why his eye would wander, for Margaery is also beautiful.
“Are you eager to finally be betrothed, yourself?” Aegon asks, as if he didn't hear the bite beneath Jon's words. “I can't believe father agreed to wait this long.” Lord Stark's requirement was that his daughter must flower before any sort of betrothal happened. But he cannot put it off any longer, for father is eager to prove to his kingdom that the Targaryens and the Starks are united once more
“She's barely more than a child,” Jon hears himself say, and he grimaces at his own statement.
But it's true. Jon is twenty, and Arya has just turned fourteen. A child still, though his father had verified that she has, in fact, flowered, before summoning them to King's Landing.
The thought makes Jon a little bit sick.
She will get older, he reminds himself. And Aegon is right, she has grown beautiful. It will be fine.
…
“It is not appropriate that you spar with her,” Lady Sansa whispers to him as they move about the floor.
Courtesy means that he must dance with the elder Stark daughter before the younger, because his betrothal to Arya is not official yet. Once it is, perhaps he will never have to dance with Lady Sansa again.
“She likes sparring,” he says back, forcing his hands not to tighten in annoyance around her waist.
“It is one thing for it to happen in Winterfell, but here?” she keeps whispering, keeping her face neutral so that no one watching can tell she is upset. “People will talk.”
“Let them talk,” he says, distracted. She moves so fluidly that it takes all his concentration to keep up. He's not the best dancer, but he has been trained in the art since birth, and he has never had this much trouble keeping his steps. It's like his brain has gone dumb, all his limbs heavy and useless. He has to stare past the long, slender line of her neck to keep any sort of thought in his head. The perfume she wears is the same one from her letters.
“Let them talk?” she hisses, eyes flashing – and this is the Sansa he rarely gets to see. She was always so guarded around him, back in Winterfell, but every once in a while, he had caught her and Arya fighting. And that one time, in the godswood... “Perhaps you do not care about your reputation, but may I remind you that youare a prince, your grace? The rules do not apply to you like they do Arya.”
Jon is still reeling from the seething way she says your grace. His heart has started hammering inside his chest, and he tries to look anywhere but the intense blue eyes that bore into him.
“I cannot always be around to protect her. That will be your job,” she keeps going, not waiting for his response.
“Where are you going?” Jon asks, eyes snapping back to hers, suddenly focused. Suddenly razor sharp. “Are you leaving?”
“Well, I cannot stay here forever,” she says, her voice faltering for the first time, the fight draining from her features. “Once father has found me a match-”
“A match?” Jon asks. His muscles feel on edge, filled with too much energy. “Lord Stark did not want betrothals for either of you until you are-”
“I am seventeen,” she cuts in. “Now is exactly the time I should be finding a husband. And once I do, of course I will leave King's Landing. That is my duty.”
“Your duty?” he snaps, seething, though he cannot fathom where this anger is coming from. “Can you do anything else?” No, he thinks. She's too proper to do anything but her duty. Never says what she's actually thinking – so polite and kind and warm to everyone because she must be. Only reserves the truth for a few – Arya. Him.
Gods, but he loathes her.
“Excuse me?” she asks, and that same, familiar color rises in her. Up her throat, into her cheeks. Down to the neckline of her dress.
“I can't wait until you leave,” he mutters, and soon the song ends and he can finally get away from the torture of dancing with Lady Sansa. It is so horrible that he must excuse himself for air after, and he steps outside, until his head stops spinning.
…
Joffrey.
The little shit looks so smug as he leads Sansa around by the arm. He looks like a girl, what does Sansa even see in him? It's just her courtesies, he decides, as she smiles and ducks her head over something Joffrey has said. Jon has met Joffrey before, and he's never seen a single thing to smile over.
“Oi,” Arya punches him in the arm, and Jon rips his gaze away from the couple up ahead.
“What?”
“I asked - what do you think is west of Westeros?” Arya huffs with a glare that tells him she isn't happy to have to repeat herself.
“Water?” he says, distracted as Sansa's annoying laugh trickles back from up ahead. He glares at the back of her, the spill of copper hair. Sometimes he just wants to fist his hands in it and-
He blinks, and forces himself to focus back on Arya, who's frowning at him.
“What?” he asks, feeling hot under the glaring sun and Arya's stare.
“You're not even listening to me,” she says.
“Yes I am.”
“Then answer my question.”
His mind races to try and think back – water, he had said. Then a laugh, copper hair... and Arya asking a question.
“I can't,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn't be allowed,” he tells her.
“You aren't the heir,” she whines. “Why can't we go sailing and see? We could discover anything!”
“When Aegon takes the throne, I will be,” Jon says, unease sparking in his chest. It's not something he likes to think on. “Until Aegon has a son, I'm his heir. I'll be Lord of Dragonstone.”
He can tell Arya doesn't like that answer. She ponders this for a while as they walk – something she also isn't happy about, having to walk the gardens with Aegon and Margaery leading the way, Sansa and Joffrey behind them, and him and Arya bringing up the rear.
Finally, she nods to herself, then says, “well, let's hope he has a son soon. Once he does, we'll go see what's west of Westeros.”
No, they won't, Jon thinks. He'll be wanted here, in King's Landing. He's a prince of the realm, he isn't allowed to do whatever he wants, no matter what Arya thinks. If he was, he would have stayed in Winterfell with them.
But he doesn't want a fight, and so he lets it go, and she takes his silence for agreement.
…
“Joffrey, please!”
Jon freezes, the desperate whisper barely audible in the dusk of the gardens.
There's more whispering, but Jon doesn't hear it as his vision narrows in the direction the voice came from.
He'd come out here for a peaceful walk. Time alone, that he so rarely gets in the Red Keep. Precious, glorious time alone.
Except he clearly isn't alone.
He moves through a hedge and sees them – that prick Joffrey, and Sansa, pressed back against a tree with her eyes wide and her hands pushing at Joffrey's chest.
“You'll be my wife, soon,” the boy sneers, hands groping at her, “it's my right.”
Jon feels a swell of rage rush through him, making him hot, making his thoughts blur, and-
“Jon! Jon, stop, you're killing him!”
Jon blinks, and suddenly he isn't where he was. He's got Joffrey by the throat, pressed back against the same tree he'd been cornering Sansa with, the boy's eyes bugged out and his face turning red.
Beside him, Sansa tugs at his arm, her own eyes wide as saucers. Fearful and gripping his tunic and saying, “Jon, please!”
He relaxes his grip and Joffrey slides down the tree, hands at his throat, gasping for air, but all Jon can think is that it's the first time he's ever heard Sansa say his name.
Joffrey lets out a pathetic whimper, and Jon turns back and looks down at him.
“If you ever touch her again, I'll kill you,” he says, the anger rushing back through him, though duller now. Controllable. “Don't even look at her. Do you understand me?”
Joffrey nods, then scrambles up and away, towards the castle.
“You shouldn't have done that,” she sniffs, voice wobbly and low, and Jon turns back to her as she wipes at her nose. “You'll get in trouble.”
“Hey,” he says, reaching for her and the moment his hand rests on her arm, she moves in and presses herself against his chest and the ground falls out from beneath his feet. Except – no, it doesn't. He's still standing, with Sansa softly sniffling into his shoulder. “I won't get in trouble,” he tells the top of her head, lips brushing against her soft hair, “I'm a prince, remember? The rules don't apply to me like they do to everyone else.”
She lets out a sob – or a laugh, he can't tell, and she pulls back from him and gives his chest a good shove.
“You idiot,” she makes that noise again, and this time he's certain it's a laugh, because her lips pull up into a reluctant smile.
“Did the Lady Sansa just call a prince an idiot?” Jon gasps, putting his hand to his chest and staggering back.
“Oh,” she huffs, “you're insufferable.”
He's laughing now, a grin stretching his lips, feeling suddenly light as air. He rarely laughs here in King's Landing, not like he did up in Winterfell. Though never with Sansa before.
Suddenly, her glare at him fades, and he watches despair take over.
“What if he tells someone?” she asks, bringing a hand up to her throat. “I know I shouldn't have gone walking with him alone, I know, but he was so insistent...” she looks as though she is about to cry again, and Jon's delirious joy crashes down around him.
“He won't tell anyone, if he knows what's good for him,” Jon says. “Your reputation will be fine, I won't let anyone say otherwise.”
“That's not how it works,” she tells him, voice thin and trembling, and he knows she's right. It doesn't matter what the truth is – if anyone finds out she went with Joffrey alone into the gardens at dusk, her reputation will be ruined.
“He won't tell anyone,” Jon says again. He thinks that is true, at least. Joffrey may be a prat, but he's also a coward. “Come on, let's get you back before anyone notices you're missing. I know all the secret passageways, I promise no one will see you.”
He holds out his hand, though he cannot fathom why, and he ignores that pull in his gut – in his chest – when she takes it.
“Thank you, Jon,” she whispers.
“Anything for you, Lady Sansa,” he says. It's meant to be a joke, meant to rile her up, but it comes out low and gravelly and nothing like a joke at all. He thinks he should let go of her hand before she gets the wrong idea, but he never does as he leads her back into the castle.
…
Aegon marries Margaery in an elaborate display.
A time for celebration, he knows, but Jon feels lost. Like a pit has opened up beneath him, ready to swallow him whole.
“Soon it will be your turn,” Margaery tells him as they dance, a look in her eye that means she's up to no good. She's right – father had decided to announce his betrothal to Arya after Aegon and Margaery were wed.
Jon doesn't answer, but his eyes flit across the room, to where Sansa is dancing with one of the Martells.
He cannot find Arya in the crowd.
…
There is no happy ending here, he thinks, as father rages.
The meeting room is clear of everyone except Ser Arthur, Lord Stark, Aegon, and Jon.
“Missing?” father seethes. “How could she go missing?”
“I do not know,” Lord Stark starts, his face pale, shadows under his eyes. He has been awake for days, Jon thinks.
“Where were her guards?” father cries.
“Where were yours?” Lord Stark snaps, clearly at his end, though he realizes his error as soon as he makes it. “I'm sorry, your highness-”
The shock of seeing Eddard Stark lose his temper seems to be enough to pull father out of his dramatics, because father's shoulders slump, and he sits down at the table, the energy drained from him.
“This cannot get out,” father says, closing his eyes.
It isn't often that Jon sees the weight of the crown on father's head. Rhaegar Targaryen is a good king, everyone says – especially after the madness of his father. Good and calm and easy to laugh and joke. Loves music and dancing and hosting elaborate feasts. But every once in a while, Jon sees it – the shadows that plague him. Aerys. Elia. Lyanna. A war started by his own, selfish wants.
And now, for a second time, a Stark girl has run away.
Arya. Disappeared two days ago, on the eave of their betrothal announcement, no sign of her since. It doesn't matter how many guards they put on her, Jon thinks to himself. She's always been sneaky. He has no idea where she could have gone, or-
What is west of Westeros?
The docks! Jon almost cries, but the words catch in his throat. She'll be at the docks, finding a boat that will take her on an adventure.
Part of him wants to tell them so that they can find her, bring her back safe.
Part of him wants to stay silent, let her run.
Let her be free.
…
Arya is dragged back to court three weeks later, dressed in boy's clothes, with her hair chopped off up to her ears.
Jon has never seen his uncle so broken as he was in those weeks, wondering where his daughter had gone. Even now, Lord Stark trembles as he hugs Arya to his chest. Sansa is sobbing, though trying to keep it under control and constantly wiping at her eyes, aware that it is not just her family present, but the king and the crown prince, as well.
Arya glares at the king in defiance when she is finally let go, when she finally turns to face him. Rhaegar looks resigned. Defeated.
“I don't want to get married,” she says. Jon recognizes the stubborn clench of her jaw, the way her feet plant apart. Ready for a fight.
Father stands silent for a while, and Jon sees those shadows in him.
“There was a time,” father finally says, “that a Stark maiden did not want to get married.”
The words hang in the air, a terrible silence as old grief grips at Jon's throat. He never got to meet his mother, and yet he has dreamed of her. He has thought of her, every day.
“I will not make the same mistakes twice,” Rhaegar's voice is raw, that same grief clouding his words. “You are a lady of House Stark, and your father can do what he sees fit with you, but I... I will not be a part of it. You are released from your promise.”
Arya stares, then looks from the king to Lord Stark, as if she cannot believe it.
“We will-” Lord Stark's words catch, and Jon can tell there is grief in him, too. Memories turned to shadows and ghosts. “We will let it be known that House Stark stands with House Targaryen, even without a marriage. Let the past be in the past.”
“Yes,” father nods, though his eyes are far away.
“There can still be a marriage,” Arya says, and it is enough to pull everyone back to the present.
“Make up your mind,” Aegon sighs.
“Not me,” Arya wrinkles up her nose, then turns to look at Jon. “I mean no offense,” she says, softening.
“I have not taken any,” Jon says back, and for the first time, he notices that a great weight has been lifted from him. Relief, heady and dizzying.
“But if you want an alliance, we've still got a perfectly good unmarried Stark lady. And she's even a proper one, with manners and everything,” Arya snorts, turning to look at Sansa, who's red-rimmed eyes are now wide with surprise.
“That is true,” father says, though he sounds hesitant. “Though I will keep my promise, and I will not force this. But if both are amenable...”
Lord Stark looks at his daughter, Sansa's face now flushed. It creeps up her neck and into her cheeks, like he's seen countless times.
“I-” she says, looking around the room, voice barely more than a whisper. “I would be amenable.”
Jon's heart is doing that thing again – pounding so hard in his chest he feels as though he has been sparring for hours.
She would be amenable to marrying him?
He doesn't mean to – what he means to do is say that this is madness and walk away, but instead his stupid mouth has it's own mind, it seems. “I would also be amenable,” he says, the words a rush. His tongue trips over them, because he is a bumbling fool whenever he is around her.
“I cannot believe Margaery was right,” Aegon groans, letting his head tip back as his eyes squeeze shut. “She is going to be impossible from now on.”
…
He finds her in the stables, up in the loft above, surrounded by hay. He climbs the ladder and sits next to her, their feet hanging over the edge, the horses whinnying and shuffling below.
“You're not mad at me?” Arya asks, kicking her feet out.
“Never,” he says.
“I just... Margaery kept talking about what marriage was like. The things we'd have to do to make babies, and I...” her nose scrunches up, and a shiver goes through her. Jon lets out a soft laugh.
“You'll find someone that you want to make babies with, some day,” Jon tells her, bumping her shoulder with his, but it doesn't make her laugh, and it doesn't make her argue. Instead, she frowns. Serious.
“I don't know if I will,” she says. She won't look at him, worry clear across her face. “I don't get it,” she says finally. “I hear Sansa talk about... about boys and I don't understand it. Jeyne, Beth, Margaery. I think I was born wrong.”
“You weren't,” Jon says, and he feels that same anger he had in the gardens, holding Joffrey by the throat. “You aren't wrong. You're... you're just...” he huffs out air through his nose in annoyance, because he can never get his thoughts into words properly. He isn't Sansa, who can always seem to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. “You're just Arya.”
“But I don't know what that means!” she cries, hands balled into fists at her side.
“You'll figure it out,” he tells her.
He can't know that for sure, but what he does know, is that if anyone can do it, Arya can.
…
Prince Jon's betrothal to Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell is a message.
The war is over. Leave the past in the past.
Arya promises to stay for the wedding, at least. After that, Jon doesn't think she will last very long before she disappears again.
What is west of Westeros?
Sansa will be upset when she leaves. Arya will too, he thinks, though both of them are too stubborn to admit it.
“Be nice,” Jon tells her as they walk through the gardens behind Aegon and Margaery – who keeps looking back at them with a smug, knowing smile.
“I'm always nice,” Sansa says, not looking at him, her chin lifted in defiance. Jon lets out a snort of disbelief.
“And if Arya shows up to our wedding in breeches?” he teases.
That earns him a side-eyed glare, but she doesn't break. “I shall allow breeches, but she will dance, and I won't have her whining about it the whole time, either.”
Jon wants to keep this up, keep teasing her, because it makes her blush and her breathing go shallow and rapid and it makes him nearly weak in the knees to see it, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls her off the path and just past a large rosebush that hides them from view.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, eyes darting back to where they have lost sight of Aegon and Margaery, but she makes no move to leave.
“I was hoping to steal a kiss from my betrothed,” he grins at her.
“This is highly improper,” she breathes, but still does not try to leave.
“I'm a prince,” he shrugs. “The rules don't apply to me.”
“I shall regret ever saying that,” she says, her face scrunching up in dismay.
“Do you regret anything else?” he steps closer to her, his tone serious. Her face softens and she shakes her head.
“No.”
“Neither do I,” he murmurs, and leans down to capture her lips in a kiss, and he knows in that moment that he has wanted to do this from the first moment he saw her.
From the way she kisses back, he thinks she has, too.
“Lyanna come again,” Rhaegar had murmured, looking at the small five year old standing before him, a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips.
And so it had been decided, all those years ago. Rhaegar would match his son with a Stark daughter, and this time, it wouldn't end in tragedy.
Jon looks back now and thinks – perhaps Targaryen and Stark were always meant for ruin.
…
When he is eleven, when talk of a betrothal first happens, he doesn't think much of the five year old, though Aegon says cruel things about her – how young she is, how short, how unruly her hair. It only makes Jon decide, stubbornly, that they will get along. They will have a good marriage. The best marriage. Certainly better than Aegon's.
He likes little Arya. He learns to like her even more when he goes to spend time up in Winterfell when he is fifteen and she nine. She wants to learn the sword, she can shoot better than her brothers. She gives as good as she gets, and Jon thanks all the gods in existence that they are to be matched. He has always dreaded the idea of marriage – of being stuck with some girl for his whole life. But he and Arya are so alike, it is bound to be a perfect match.
Much better than Lady Sansa, with her sewing hoops and her singing and her poetry. She makes them listen to it, reads the poems aloud to her family in the evening, before the hearth. Lady Catelyn smiles and Lord Stark sits stoic and Robb does his best to feign interest and Bran and Rickon are too young to care, but Jon and Arya make eye contact during it and neither can help when they burst into laughter (though he does feel awful when Sansa closes her book shortly after and says she is done her recitation, though he doesn't think she was. She never tries to read her poetry to them again while he is visiting).
(He tells himself he doesn't feel bad, though, when the next day Arya storms into the stables in tears and tells them Sansa said something mean to her. He decides then that it was alright for him to laugh at her poetry. Arya says she's a bully, and so it must be true.)
…
He runs into her once, in the godswood.
He's gone to see if he can feel the gods in the trees like his uncle says. Jon was raised with the Seven, but being in Winterfell makes him want the gods his mother carried. He had stood before her statue when he arrived and promised her, silently, that he would try.
Instead of the gods, though, he runs into Sansa. She's here - sewing, as usual.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at him with her wide eyes and lowering her hoop. “I came for a bit of peace, I did not realize you-”
“No, it's fine,” he says, uncomfortable. He's never been around Sansa alone before. “You were here first.”
“Oh, no,” she gets up, smoothing her skirts down and then gathering up her sewing. “You may stay, of course, your grace.”
“Jon,” he frowns. Everyone else calls him that, why can't she?
He watches the color rise in her, a red flush that creeps up her neck and into her cheeks. It should clash with her hair that shines near copper in the sunlight, but it doesn't. It makes something go through him, almost like a shiver, except he's not even cold.
“It is not proper,” she says, and he lets out a huff at how stubborn she is.
“Who cares about proper?” he spits, because he feels off balance and he doesn't know why. “If I wanted proper, I'd be back in King's Landing.”
Her face hardens - her eyes narrow, her lips press into a thin line - but she bows slightly and says, “of course, your grace,” and then she walks past him with her head held high and her shoulders back and her spine straight and she won't even look at him.
He turns to watch her go, anger and confusion and something all twisting together in his gut
…
He and Arya write to each other, almost as often as he and Robb do.
Almost as often, because Arya is terrible at sitting still long enough to write a letter, and if Jon is being honest, her penmanship is atrocious. Her writing turns into a puzzle for him, trying to piece it together letter by letter. When they are married, he will need to write all their correspondence, he realizes. The thought exhausts him. He hates writing letters, especially formal ones. He's no good at it, never has been.
Every once in a while, he receives a letter from Lady Sansa, usually around his name day, wishing him another year of joyous good health or some other nonsense. Her writing is perfect, and so courteous that he wonders if she thinks she is actually writing to the king himself, and not just the king's second son who caused a war with his birth. (The shame of the kingdom, wrapped up in an almost-bastard.)
Somehow, her letters always seem to smell faintly of perfume, he doesn't know how she manages, and he despises her for it, because of course she would dab perfume on her letters.
It lasts for days after he receives them, and every once in a while, he'll pick it up and press it to his nose, a tug down low in his gut. A stirring he refuses to think about.
He's always disappointed when it fades, though he pretends he isn't.
…
He knows he is supposed to wait until marriage for this, but he doesn't.
He meets her on the road, while they're traveling for a royal hunt. She's works at an inn that they stop at, right outside the city. She's a skinny thing, her hair a wild mass of orange curls, and he hears her telling the men who try to touch her to fuck right off, her accent low and thick and common.
But then when the singing starts, he watches her close her eyes and her head tilt back and her lips curve into a soft smile, and something pangs deep in his chest.
Looking back, he's never quite sure how it happens, but he ends up in her bed, and he keeps going back.
Their affair does not last long, though. His father sees to that.
…
“Jon!” Arya grins and runs at him, throwing herself into his arms. He catches her easily, swings her around and then sets her down, ruffles his hand in her hair until she swats him away.
“Oi, enough of that,” she huffs, running her fingers through to sort out the tangles.
“It was already a mess,” he teases, and gets a scowl in return, but she can't hold it for long.
Jon looks up just in time to see Lord Stark's attempt to hide his smile – and behind him, Septa Mordane's frown.
“Uh oh,” he murmurs, just for Arya's ears. “Mordane's upset.”
“When is she not?” Arya rolls her eyes.
“Prince Jon,” Lord Stark greets, and Jon grimaces.
“Please, uncle, you know better than to call me that.”
Lord Stark grins and moves forward to embrace him, and Jon closes his eyes and wishes, for just the briefest moment, that Lord Stark was his father.
“Your grace,” he hears when he disengages from his uncle, and he turns to find Sansa bowing to him – bent down the perfect amount for someone of her station.
“Uh, Lady Sansa,” he greets, that same awkwardness that he remembers washing over him. He's always awkward around Sansa. He's a prince of the realm, for Seven's sake. He lives in King's Landing, he talks to Lords and Ladies all the time, and yet he never feels more like a bumbling fool than when he's presented with Sansa's courtesies.
“I suppose we should go in,” Lord Stark sighs, eyeing up the gate to the Red Keep. Jon had met them outside, before they would have to face the royal court.
He knows Lord Stark holds no love for Jon's father, and he's grateful that his uncle does not hold this against him. Lord Stark still loves Jon's mother. They used to visit her in the crypts while Jon was there.
“You can't run away now,” Jon says back, and it makes Lord Stark smile.
…
“She's turned into a beauty, at least,” Aegon snorts, and Jon resists the urge to tell him to get out of his room. “Didn't think she had any hope, last time I saw her.”
“The last time you saw her, she was five,” Jon grits out, reaching forward to take his inkwell from Aegon, who is tossing it idly back and forth between his hands.
“Shame it's not the other one, though,” Aegon's smile is a sly, predatory thing. “Talk about beauty.”
The anger he'd felt while Aegon spoke of Arya grows, morphs and twists into something ugly.
“You're betrothed,” Jon reminds him. He doesn't know why he has to remind Aegon – he's set to marry the Lady Margaery, and Jon cannot fathom why his eye would wander, for Margaery is also beautiful.
“Are you eager to finally be betrothed, yourself?” Aegon asks, as if he didn't hear the bite beneath Jon's words. “I can't believe father agreed to wait this long.” Lord Stark's requirement was that his daughter must flower before any sort of betrothal happened. But he cannot put it off any longer, for father is eager to prove to his kingdom that the Targaryens and the Starks are united once more
“She's barely more than a child,” Jon hears himself say, and he grimaces at his own statement.
But it's true. Jon is twenty, and Arya has just turned fourteen. A child still, though his father had verified that she has, in fact, flowered, before summoning them to King's Landing.
The thought makes Jon a little bit sick.
She will get older, he reminds himself. And Aegon is right, she has grown beautiful. It will be fine.
…
“It is not appropriate that you spar with her,” Lady Sansa whispers to him as they move about the floor.
Courtesy means that he must dance with the elder Stark daughter before the younger, because his betrothal to Arya is not official yet. Once it is, perhaps he will never have to dance with Lady Sansa again.
“She likes sparring,” he says back, forcing his hands not to tighten in annoyance around her waist.
“It is one thing for it to happen in Winterfell, but here?” she keeps whispering, keeping her face neutral so that no one watching can tell she is upset. “People will talk.”
“Let them talk,” he says, distracted. She moves so fluidly that it takes all his concentration to keep up. He's not the best dancer, but he has been trained in the art since birth, and he has never had this much trouble keeping his steps. It's like his brain has gone dumb, all his limbs heavy and useless. He has to stare past the long, slender line of her neck to keep any sort of thought in his head. The perfume she wears is the same one from her letters.
“Let them talk?” she hisses, eyes flashing – and this is the Sansa he rarely gets to see. She was always so guarded around him, back in Winterfell, but every once in a while, he had caught her and Arya fighting. And that one time, in the godswood... “Perhaps you do not care about your reputation, but may I remind you that youare a prince, your grace? The rules do not apply to you like they do Arya.”
Jon is still reeling from the seething way she says your grace. His heart has started hammering inside his chest, and he tries to look anywhere but the intense blue eyes that bore into him.
“I cannot always be around to protect her. That will be your job,” she keeps going, not waiting for his response.
“Where are you going?” Jon asks, eyes snapping back to hers, suddenly focused. Suddenly razor sharp. “Are you leaving?”
“Well, I cannot stay here forever,” she says, her voice faltering for the first time, the fight draining from her features. “Once father has found me a match-”
“A match?” Jon asks. His muscles feel on edge, filled with too much energy. “Lord Stark did not want betrothals for either of you until you are-”
“I am seventeen,” she cuts in. “Now is exactly the time I should be finding a husband. And once I do, of course I will leave King's Landing. That is my duty.”
“Your duty?” he snaps, seething, though he cannot fathom where this anger is coming from. “Can you do anything else?” No, he thinks. She's too proper to do anything but her duty. Never says what she's actually thinking – so polite and kind and warm to everyone because she must be. Only reserves the truth for a few – Arya. Him.
Gods, but he loathes her.
“Excuse me?” she asks, and that same, familiar color rises in her. Up her throat, into her cheeks. Down to the neckline of her dress.
“I can't wait until you leave,” he mutters, and soon the song ends and he can finally get away from the torture of dancing with Lady Sansa. It is so horrible that he must excuse himself for air after, and he steps outside, until his head stops spinning.
…
Joffrey.
The little shit looks so smug as he leads Sansa around by the arm. He looks like a girl, what does Sansa even see in him? It's just her courtesies, he decides, as she smiles and ducks her head over something Joffrey has said. Jon has met Joffrey before, and he's never seen a single thing to smile over.
“Oi,” Arya punches him in the arm, and Jon rips his gaze away from the couple up ahead.
“What?”
“I asked - what do you think is west of Westeros?” Arya huffs with a glare that tells him she isn't happy to have to repeat herself.
“Water?” he says, distracted as Sansa's annoying laugh trickles back from up ahead. He glares at the back of her, the spill of copper hair. Sometimes he just wants to fist his hands in it and-
He blinks, and forces himself to focus back on Arya, who's frowning at him.
“What?” he asks, feeling hot under the glaring sun and Arya's stare.
“You're not even listening to me,” she says.
“Yes I am.”
“Then answer my question.”
His mind races to try and think back – water, he had said. Then a laugh, copper hair... and Arya asking a question.
“I can't,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn't be allowed,” he tells her.
“You aren't the heir,” she whines. “Why can't we go sailing and see? We could discover anything!”
“When Aegon takes the throne, I will be,” Jon says, unease sparking in his chest. It's not something he likes to think on. “Until Aegon has a son, I'm his heir. I'll be Lord of Dragonstone.”
He can tell Arya doesn't like that answer. She ponders this for a while as they walk – something she also isn't happy about, having to walk the gardens with Aegon and Margaery leading the way, Sansa and Joffrey behind them, and him and Arya bringing up the rear.
Finally, she nods to herself, then says, “well, let's hope he has a son soon. Once he does, we'll go see what's west of Westeros.”
No, they won't, Jon thinks. He'll be wanted here, in King's Landing. He's a prince of the realm, he isn't allowed to do whatever he wants, no matter what Arya thinks. If he was, he would have stayed in Winterfell with them.
But he doesn't want a fight, and so he lets it go, and she takes his silence for agreement.
…
“Joffrey, please!”
Jon freezes, the desperate whisper barely audible in the dusk of the gardens.
There's more whispering, but Jon doesn't hear it as his vision narrows in the direction the voice came from.
He'd come out here for a peaceful walk. Time alone, that he so rarely gets in the Red Keep. Precious, glorious time alone.
Except he clearly isn't alone.
He moves through a hedge and sees them – that prick Joffrey, and Sansa, pressed back against a tree with her eyes wide and her hands pushing at Joffrey's chest.
“You'll be my wife, soon,” the boy sneers, hands groping at her, “it's my right.”
Jon feels a swell of rage rush through him, making him hot, making his thoughts blur, and-
“Jon! Jon, stop, you're killing him!”
Jon blinks, and suddenly he isn't where he was. He's got Joffrey by the throat, pressed back against the same tree he'd been cornering Sansa with, the boy's eyes bugged out and his face turning red.
Beside him, Sansa tugs at his arm, her own eyes wide as saucers. Fearful and gripping his tunic and saying, “Jon, please!”
He relaxes his grip and Joffrey slides down the tree, hands at his throat, gasping for air, but all Jon can think is that it's the first time he's ever heard Sansa say his name.
Joffrey lets out a pathetic whimper, and Jon turns back and looks down at him.
“If you ever touch her again, I'll kill you,” he says, the anger rushing back through him, though duller now. Controllable. “Don't even look at her. Do you understand me?”
Joffrey nods, then scrambles up and away, towards the castle.
“You shouldn't have done that,” she sniffs, voice wobbly and low, and Jon turns back to her as she wipes at her nose. “You'll get in trouble.”
“Hey,” he says, reaching for her and the moment his hand rests on her arm, she moves in and presses herself against his chest and the ground falls out from beneath his feet. Except – no, it doesn't. He's still standing, with Sansa softly sniffling into his shoulder. “I won't get in trouble,” he tells the top of her head, lips brushing against her soft hair, “I'm a prince, remember? The rules don't apply to me like they do to everyone else.”
She lets out a sob – or a laugh, he can't tell, and she pulls back from him and gives his chest a good shove.
“You idiot,” she makes that noise again, and this time he's certain it's a laugh, because her lips pull up into a reluctant smile.
“Did the Lady Sansa just call a prince an idiot?” Jon gasps, putting his hand to his chest and staggering back.
“Oh,” she huffs, “you're insufferable.”
He's laughing now, a grin stretching his lips, feeling suddenly light as air. He rarely laughs here in King's Landing, not like he did up in Winterfell. Though never with Sansa before.
Suddenly, her glare at him fades, and he watches despair take over.
“What if he tells someone?” she asks, bringing a hand up to her throat. “I know I shouldn't have gone walking with him alone, I know, but he was so insistent...” she looks as though she is about to cry again, and Jon's delirious joy crashes down around him.
“He won't tell anyone, if he knows what's good for him,” Jon says. “Your reputation will be fine, I won't let anyone say otherwise.”
“That's not how it works,” she tells him, voice thin and trembling, and he knows she's right. It doesn't matter what the truth is – if anyone finds out she went with Joffrey alone into the gardens at dusk, her reputation will be ruined.
“He won't tell anyone,” Jon says again. He thinks that is true, at least. Joffrey may be a prat, but he's also a coward. “Come on, let's get you back before anyone notices you're missing. I know all the secret passageways, I promise no one will see you.”
He holds out his hand, though he cannot fathom why, and he ignores that pull in his gut – in his chest – when she takes it.
“Thank you, Jon,” she whispers.
“Anything for you, Lady Sansa,” he says. It's meant to be a joke, meant to rile her up, but it comes out low and gravelly and nothing like a joke at all. He thinks he should let go of her hand before she gets the wrong idea, but he never does as he leads her back into the castle.
…
Aegon marries Margaery in an elaborate display.
A time for celebration, he knows, but Jon feels lost. Like a pit has opened up beneath him, ready to swallow him whole.
“Soon it will be your turn,” Margaery tells him as they dance, a look in her eye that means she's up to no good. She's right – father had decided to announce his betrothal to Arya after Aegon and Margaery were wed.
Jon doesn't answer, but his eyes flit across the room, to where Sansa is dancing with one of the Martells.
He cannot find Arya in the crowd.
…
There is no happy ending here, he thinks, as father rages.
The meeting room is clear of everyone except Ser Arthur, Lord Stark, Aegon, and Jon.
“Missing?” father seethes. “How could she go missing?”
“I do not know,” Lord Stark starts, his face pale, shadows under his eyes. He has been awake for days, Jon thinks.
“Where were her guards?” father cries.
“Where were yours?” Lord Stark snaps, clearly at his end, though he realizes his error as soon as he makes it. “I'm sorry, your highness-”
The shock of seeing Eddard Stark lose his temper seems to be enough to pull father out of his dramatics, because father's shoulders slump, and he sits down at the table, the energy drained from him.
“This cannot get out,” father says, closing his eyes.
It isn't often that Jon sees the weight of the crown on father's head. Rhaegar Targaryen is a good king, everyone says – especially after the madness of his father. Good and calm and easy to laugh and joke. Loves music and dancing and hosting elaborate feasts. But every once in a while, Jon sees it – the shadows that plague him. Aerys. Elia. Lyanna. A war started by his own, selfish wants.
And now, for a second time, a Stark girl has run away.
Arya. Disappeared two days ago, on the eave of their betrothal announcement, no sign of her since. It doesn't matter how many guards they put on her, Jon thinks to himself. She's always been sneaky. He has no idea where she could have gone, or-
What is west of Westeros?
The docks! Jon almost cries, but the words catch in his throat. She'll be at the docks, finding a boat that will take her on an adventure.
Part of him wants to tell them so that they can find her, bring her back safe.
Part of him wants to stay silent, let her run.
Let her be free.
…
Arya is dragged back to court three weeks later, dressed in boy's clothes, with her hair chopped off up to her ears.
Jon has never seen his uncle so broken as he was in those weeks, wondering where his daughter had gone. Even now, Lord Stark trembles as he hugs Arya to his chest. Sansa is sobbing, though trying to keep it under control and constantly wiping at her eyes, aware that it is not just her family present, but the king and the crown prince, as well.
Arya glares at the king in defiance when she is finally let go, when she finally turns to face him. Rhaegar looks resigned. Defeated.
“I don't want to get married,” she says. Jon recognizes the stubborn clench of her jaw, the way her feet plant apart. Ready for a fight.
Father stands silent for a while, and Jon sees those shadows in him.
“There was a time,” father finally says, “that a Stark maiden did not want to get married.”
The words hang in the air, a terrible silence as old grief grips at Jon's throat. He never got to meet his mother, and yet he has dreamed of her. He has thought of her, every day.
“I will not make the same mistakes twice,” Rhaegar's voice is raw, that same grief clouding his words. “You are a lady of House Stark, and your father can do what he sees fit with you, but I... I will not be a part of it. You are released from your promise.”
Arya stares, then looks from the king to Lord Stark, as if she cannot believe it.
“We will-” Lord Stark's words catch, and Jon can tell there is grief in him, too. Memories turned to shadows and ghosts. “We will let it be known that House Stark stands with House Targaryen, even without a marriage. Let the past be in the past.”
“Yes,” father nods, though his eyes are far away.
“There can still be a marriage,” Arya says, and it is enough to pull everyone back to the present.
“Make up your mind,” Aegon sighs.
“Not me,” Arya wrinkles up her nose, then turns to look at Jon. “I mean no offense,” she says, softening.
“I have not taken any,” Jon says back, and for the first time, he notices that a great weight has been lifted from him. Relief, heady and dizzying.
“But if you want an alliance, we've still got a perfectly good unmarried Stark lady. And she's even a proper one, with manners and everything,” Arya snorts, turning to look at Sansa, who's red-rimmed eyes are now wide with surprise.
“That is true,” father says, though he sounds hesitant. “Though I will keep my promise, and I will not force this. But if both are amenable...”
Lord Stark looks at his daughter, Sansa's face now flushed. It creeps up her neck and into her cheeks, like he's seen countless times.
“I-” she says, looking around the room, voice barely more than a whisper. “I would be amenable.”
Jon's heart is doing that thing again – pounding so hard in his chest he feels as though he has been sparring for hours.
She would be amenable to marrying him?
He doesn't mean to – what he means to do is say that this is madness and walk away, but instead his stupid mouth has it's own mind, it seems. “I would also be amenable,” he says, the words a rush. His tongue trips over them, because he is a bumbling fool whenever he is around her.
“I cannot believe Margaery was right,” Aegon groans, letting his head tip back as his eyes squeeze shut. “She is going to be impossible from now on.”
…
He finds her in the stables, up in the loft above, surrounded by hay. He climbs the ladder and sits next to her, their feet hanging over the edge, the horses whinnying and shuffling below.
“You're not mad at me?” Arya asks, kicking her feet out.
“Never,” he says.
“I just... Margaery kept talking about what marriage was like. The things we'd have to do to make babies, and I...” her nose scrunches up, and a shiver goes through her. Jon lets out a soft laugh.
“You'll find someone that you want to make babies with, some day,” Jon tells her, bumping her shoulder with his, but it doesn't make her laugh, and it doesn't make her argue. Instead, she frowns. Serious.
“I don't know if I will,” she says. She won't look at him, worry clear across her face. “I don't get it,” she says finally. “I hear Sansa talk about... about boys and I don't understand it. Jeyne, Beth, Margaery. I think I was born wrong.”
“You weren't,” Jon says, and he feels that same anger he had in the gardens, holding Joffrey by the throat. “You aren't wrong. You're... you're just...” he huffs out air through his nose in annoyance, because he can never get his thoughts into words properly. He isn't Sansa, who can always seem to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. “You're just Arya.”
“But I don't know what that means!” she cries, hands balled into fists at her side.
“You'll figure it out,” he tells her.
He can't know that for sure, but what he does know, is that if anyone can do it, Arya can.
…
Prince Jon's betrothal to Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell is a message.
The war is over. Leave the past in the past.
Arya promises to stay for the wedding, at least. After that, Jon doesn't think she will last very long before she disappears again.
What is west of Westeros?
Sansa will be upset when she leaves. Arya will too, he thinks, though both of them are too stubborn to admit it.
“Be nice,” Jon tells her as they walk through the gardens behind Aegon and Margaery – who keeps looking back at them with a smug, knowing smile.
“I'm always nice,” Sansa says, not looking at him, her chin lifted in defiance. Jon lets out a snort of disbelief.
“And if Arya shows up to our wedding in breeches?” he teases.
That earns him a side-eyed glare, but she doesn't break. “I shall allow breeches, but she will dance, and I won't have her whining about it the whole time, either.”
Jon wants to keep this up, keep teasing her, because it makes her blush and her breathing go shallow and rapid and it makes him nearly weak in the knees to see it, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls her off the path and just past a large rosebush that hides them from view.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, eyes darting back to where they have lost sight of Aegon and Margaery, but she makes no move to leave.
“I was hoping to steal a kiss from my betrothed,” he grins at her.
“This is highly improper,” she breathes, but still does not try to leave.
“I'm a prince,” he shrugs. “The rules don't apply to me.”
“I shall regret ever saying that,” she says, her face scrunching up in dismay.
“Do you regret anything else?” he steps closer to her, his tone serious. Her face softens and she shakes her head.
“No.”
“Neither do I,” he murmurs, and leans down to capture her lips in a kiss, and he knows in that moment that he has wanted to do this from the first moment he saw her.
From the way she kisses back, he thinks she has, too.
