a fairytale all our own
@snowstoneweek
When Jon finally takes to the stairs that will take him up to his chamber, he’s beyond exhausted.
It has been a long, trying day of meetings and arguing. There was a land dispute between two of the Lords and it had come to blows the day before between them, leaving one with one less ear than he’d started the fight with. Jon sighs, thankful that the day was over and thankful that they had finally come to a resolution, even if it had taken all day.
As he approaches the door to his room, he pauses before he reaches for the knob for from inside he hears a softly speaking voice. Quietly as he can, so he can’t disturb the occupants, he pushes open the door a crack simply so he might peek inside. And there in the grand bed, with three children snuggled around her, Sansa sits propped up against the pillows, a book open in her hands. “And then…” She’s reading, her voice lyrical as she tells the story from the pages, the story one he remembers her reading often when she was a small girl. “The princess gasped as the prince rode through on his beautiful white stallion, sword in hand, all so he could save her from the evil king!” At her left elbow, even Robb listens carefully, though he had only just a few days before declared himself far too old for such nonsense, despite being but six years old. Then there’s little Lyanna, tucked between her mother and Ned, while her big, Stark colored eyes blinking sleepily as she surely tries to stay awake to hear the ending. And then, Ned is at her other elbow, reading ahead over his sister’s head, for he’s giggling at something there on the page his mother has yet to even read aloud.
Jon can’t help but stay there a moment longer, listening in on his family, something so precious to him, something so dear, that he can’t even put it to words. But he knows the story is coming to a close, so as Sansa reads the final page, he pushes open the door and slips inside, quietly as he can so as to not disturb them. But of course, Sansa’s eyes are upon him at once, knowing her she knew he was there all along. “Papa!” Lyanna’s sleepy vocals bring a smile to his face as he sinks into the available space at the foot of the bed.
“Father!” His boys cry in unison, scrambling over their mother’s legs to reach for him, and Jon finds himself laughing as they climb him like a tree. “Tell us about the fight Lord Royhe had!” Robb exclaims, having heard snippets of the conversation brought to Sansa and Jon early that morning.
“Your father is tired and it is well past your bedtime,” Sansa cuts in and both boys sigh dramatically, though they’re slipping off the bed without much hassle. Sansa follows after them, Lyanna in her arms, though the small girl leans over so she might kiss her father, earning one back in response and a little tug on one of her dark braids. Sansa’s eyes say it all as she casts a quick glance his way before she’s shuffling the boys from the room, only after they’ve both called out a good night to their father.
When the room is quiet and empty, Jon kicks off his boots and strips off his doublet, before climbing into the space Sansa and their children once occupied. He glances left and sees there on her side of the bed, the book she’d been reading from, so he reaches for it, unable to help but to run his hand across the well worn cover. Once glossy letters have gone matte with age and there’s a small tear at the bottom corner. Jon imagines Sansa as she had once been, a small girl tucked into the bed Lyanna now sleeps in, reading this very same book, dreaming of a prince she would hope to meet and love with all of her heart. He chuckles, recalling how he and Robb would laugh over such a dream, but even they had once sat up in bed listening to Catelyn reading to them from a book of tales, though it had been of the Dragonknight and his many fights for the realm.
The door opens again and in comes his wife, a smile on her lips. “Do they sleep?” He asks as she sinks down beside him, her body offering warmth and comfort as she shifts a little closer.
“They do,” she says with a laugh, thinking of Lyanna’s quiet snores before they had even reached her room. The boys had climbed into their beds without trouble, certainly asleep before their door had even swung closed behind her. She looks down at the book in his hands and chuckles, reaching for it, her hand running across the cover just as his had done a few minutes ago. “It feels like a lifetime ago when mother and father gave me this book,” she had been Robb’s age, a gift for her nameday that year, one of the only things she still has from those days so very long ago. To think that book she once read as she drifted off to sleep each night, she now reads to her own children… It was unlike any feeling she’d ever felt before. The fairytale life she had once wished for, hoped for, was certainly hers now, even if it had taken time to become hers. Once she had dreamed of a golden prince, but in truth, she had found no happiness at all in that prince. Rather, it had only been misery. Slow as it was, time brought her to who she was meant to be with, that gentle, brave knight who her father had promised to her. “I love you,” she murmurs as she leans her head in, placing it against his shoulder, her hand sliding over his atop the furs.
“I love you,” he whispers back, his chest tightening, the warmth he feels threatening to overflow.
This was their fairytale.
