love's labor's never lost, but labor on to this very day
Allow me to present, the ficmix. It was less of a omg this! I need to write fic asap! and more of a wow this is clingy-feely idea, how can I humanly express this? situation. If this were a baby, I would be not long for this world. So, post-ADWD this-happens-in-a-vacuum headcanon well-sprinkled with poetical nonsense. Enjoy.
artwork by panda_pladd
My Love Is a Mountain ⌠ 1 ⌡ Alina Simone
My love is a mountain
Glittering white with snow
And no one can mine it
It’s stone
Could I be the one you wanted?
A diamond in the coal
So bury me in a silver locket
Or move miles and miles away
But your eyes turn skyward
To the north, to the north!
Snow! Snow! Snow! The quorks were interminable, and the only thing that broke through his drugged haze. His eyes wouldn’t open, or else there was nothing but darkness to see. His body felt not his own, and there didn’t seem to be any air.
“Why..” he tried to say, stubborn, but what came out was a croak. How fitting. There was no maester, therefore there was no reason for him to be where the ravens were, and yet apparently, he was. Or else he was hallucinating the damnable sounds.
When next he came to, the thought was already there, stark and firm in his sluggish awareness:
I am not dead.
He looked at Bran on his weirwood throne, feeling as his heart pumped tirelessly in his chest with the palm of his hand. “What am I to do now?”
“Whatever you want, brother Jon. Go wherever you want. Live.”
Jon’s hand moved, searching for the hilt of his sword at his side to grasp onto. He hesitated.
“No, not fight,” Bran said, voice thin but resonant. “Your fight is done now.”
Jon walked out from under ground, confused. The colourless brightness of the overcast winter sky hurt his eyes, his head ached, his body felt like it was on fire. He had never known anything beyond the North, he had never loved anything… Did beyond the Wall count as North, or something else? Beyond the Wall, vaster than the North, vaster than anywhere else. He couldn’t properly imagine himself in a foreign land, across the sea, as if his feet were not merely rooted in this cold earth, but cast in stone, into a mountain slope, into the rocky crevices gurgling with hot springs. One cannot uproot that.
His duty and his hope had been intertwined, holding him in place. But that was before, and now… He felt abandoned, he realized, incredulous at himself. Weren’t you always? Unwanted.
Gasping for air at a sudden bolt of pain through his side, Jon slumped to the ground, pillowed in the last moment by Ghost quick at his heels, and threw his head back, resting on the soft fur. Snowflakes drifted through the cold air and melted before they reached his upturned face.
Winter ⌠ 2 ⌡ Joshua Radin
I should know who I am by now
I walk, the record stands somehow
Thinking of winter
But I don't have to make this mistake
And I don't have to stay this way
If only I would wake
What was he? No one's brother, no one's commander, traitor to none. A hedge knight, perhaps? A freerider. He did not feel very free, his thoughts turning over and again to whoever still lived of those who would give a bent copper for his fate. Most were dead; some of the rest found themselves worse off, it seemed, much like himself.
The Kingsroad was deserted, and nobody was chasing him this time. Nobody would be terribly glad when he would reach where he was going, he was fairly sure of that, but, left to his own devices, he couldn't find any other direction. His compass was all broken down, and no hall nor home to cast his lot with. Unless... Well, unless he acted like a fool of a man and went South where the rest of them had gone, snowflakes melting in their hair. Went after them, to die for them or live for them, too late, and unwanted, only to not be his own. Boy or man, stripped of his shame -- his honour, his bastard's name, on his own did him no good.
Jon vaguely remembered the night everything changed, with Winterfell full of sounds and southern folk, and the Imp jumping down on him to offer worldly advice. It didn't turn out to apply to him very much, but his luck had run out now, and all the snowflakes had melted.
It made for easier roads, anyway.
Blackwinged Bird ⌠ 3 ⌡ Emm Gryner
I made my mind up to be a black-winged bird
Never turn my head for how things were
Leave the bluest skies for boys to burn
And I'll soar on my way, sad as the state
Of things we can't change
Rows of regret, an arson for a wilderness
Alayne looked on everything Littlefinger did without batting an eyelash. Some of it she was privy to, other she could only guess at, but nothing shocked her anymore. In her heart she wondered if this was not what she had always been intended for: a silent witness to the atrocities of men, unable or unwilling to speak out against it. Alayne certainly did not want for anything, or wish for anything beyond her grasp, and that other self inside her resolved to never look too close. Never look back, to avoid fighting herself over things as insubstantial as wisps of smoke raising from the valley below to obscure her view of the sun settling blood-red among the peaks to the west.
She was only pretending not to care, but it worked spectacularly well. She had many duties around the castle, at which she was efficient, proper, and kind. She was not unloved in the Vale, in general, regardless of what was said or plotted against the Lord Protector. It was a life, and a better one that Sansa had in King's Landing. Although it would have been a right puzzle to determine which was safer in the long run.
She stayed in the Eyrie to the last, even when it had been half reduced to rubble. The dragon sweept down, enormous, taking up half the sky, as she stared, mouth going slack and eyes round as saucers, and later she thought it was at that moment that her heart bolted into a gallop for the first time since the Blackwater and the sky on fire. And as she stood up among the burning ruins, smoke didn't seem as insubstantial anymore, and all she could think of was Winterfell, burning, and her cheeks burned, eyes burned. She faced it with Alayne's detachment: another player, and another piece, unknown and terrible, but certainly in possession of a weakness or two, as if placed there specifically for her to observe and pluck at her leisure... but she faced it down as Sansa, with wonder and fear that left her drenched as a passing wave, still standing when it subsided.
Bess and Raleigh Dance ⌠ 4 ⌡ Craig Armstrong
{instrumental}
Chiding herself for childishness did not help her discomfort very well, but fortunately she was not the only one. Pretty much all of Westerosi nobility with a few notable exceptions were as near as put between a dragons' jaws and asked to dance and converse about the latest fashions. The latest fashions, incidentally, were almost exclusively of the Free Cities. The court life was bizarre, and the amount of tiptoeing and eavesdropping and outrageous gossip enough to keep a few score of Varys' little birds busy and well fed in the Red Keep alone, Sansa suspected. The very immediate necessity to keep herself safe and afloat in those uncharted waters soon replaced the painful reminders of her past ordeals in the same walls.
Sansa had her own trade in gossip, and so she heard of Jon weeks before she finally saw him - he proved to be rather elusive, for all his alleged political incompetence. If she said she wasn't dreading their meeting she would have been lying.
Up until she heard his name mentioned, she believed herself to be the eldest surviving Stark child, and she did not know that the mere fact of his survival changed anything, and yet she felt as if it did. She would have fought him if had to, with everything she had, like any one thundering fool who did not see a tithe of what she saw, but it didn't come to that.
As luck would have it, she saw Jon at a feast, among a large company, and him seated well above the salt, she noted with a smile. He was not wearing all black - only a modest doublet with thin silver piping, no sigil anywhere. That and his hair framed a face pale, drawn, and scarred. When his eyes met hers she thought each held two pupils, so dark and heavy his gaze seemed, fixing her in place. She felt relief so strong it spoiled her determination to beckon him over with gesture smooth with methodical practice, and she almost ran to him herself.
"I fear I am a poorer dancer now than I may have been, but if you shall do me the honour," he said, courtesy unable to hide the fumbling sincerity of the apology, and his body gave proof to his words - he moved laboriously, like an old man, though not without grace.
Sansa gave him her hand, feeling more scars, and refusing to look. "I have not hoped to ever see you again," she breathed, without a thought to how it sounded, or what he would infer, or if it meant that he mattered. His frame was firm, and he led her well, following the pattern of the dance without taking his eyes off her.
"I only don't know which gods to thank that I find you well, my lady," he replied, his smile feather-light and a little rueful as she started at his formality.
All through the interminable days at court, executions, pardons, treaties, she found him at an arm's length, balancing, and she did not feel she bore the name alone anymore.
Nearly Home ⌠ 5 ⌡ Broken Records
And, oh, my dear,
I've had a good idea
Let's lay these bones to rest
Build it all over and start again
And what's left, that vacuumless empty shell
Is ready to be refilled
With all the love you should have had
“There was a raven from White Harbor,” Sansa told him when he came to supper, exhausted after a day of ifs and buts and never enough done. “They have father’s bones. At least they say they’re father’s.” She pursed her lips unhappily. “I don’t suppose we will ever know for sure even if they swear it up and down.”
She didn’t look to be done, so he kept his silence. She gave him a brief smile, motioning him to sit, and the servants came around with steaming dishes of lamb stew.
“I don’t know how am I to do right by his memory if I cannot be sure it is him. It is a farce.”
Her eyes glinted dangerously at that, but there truly was nothing they could do, except perhaps have a maester whose expertise they could trust have a look. Jon said as much, trying to keep his own bitterness from seeping into words.
She nodded absently, only half listening. “I would almost rather not go back at all, than go like that. Let the tomb stand empty, let it all go rot-”
“You don’t mean that,” Jon interrupted, alarmed. “Sansa, there must always be-”
“A Stark in Winterfell,” she finished with him. “Yes, that. And look at us. Arya will certainly not oblige anyone, including herself, Rickon is playing pirate, and Bran - well, Bran is...” she trailed off, uncertain how to phrase it, but her face softened at the mention of her sweet little brother, and she settled her gaze on Jon instead, unsatisfied.
Jon hurriedly swallowed: his hunger had lost the fight with his worry while she talked, but hot meal was a good comforter, and he felt a surge of confidence, saying to her: “That is all as it may be, but it is you that I’m talking about. You can now take our - your father’s bones to where they should be, and stay there, and rebuild.”
Sansa shook her head, resigned. “Whatever the Queen decrees, Northmen will not accept me. I have been married to their foe, and am now a maid unwed again, and a stranger. They would have loved Jeyne Poole better than me.” She took a deep breath and added, “If you were to accept the Queen’s offer, and perhaps Rickon can be brought in line…”
“No, Sansa, that will not do. The Queen doesn’t need me, and she’s not too comfortable having me here, with all the stories people have been filling her head with.” Jon carried on, his own homelessness a distant second to the desperate wish to convince her, to give her an excuse to act as she wanted. “I am of no use to anyone, not here, not elsewhere. My only ambition is to see Winterfell restored, and you in your father’s seat, where you belong.” Bracing his palms against the edge of the table, he leaned forward a bit, earnest. “The North has no stomach for games. Nobody would see you as anything less than the Stark in Winterfell. It is rightfully yours.”
Sansa was staring at him, rapt and cautious. “And you want to come North with me?” *
Jon stood up.
So Red ⌠ 6 ⌡ Stevan Pasero
{instrumental}
It was not far above the Neck when they had the first hot day, a herald of the summer to come. The road was spring-wet, grass patchy and uneven, the land brown more than green, but the sun beat triumphantly down on people’s heads and horses’ necks, making all squint and scowl, but for all the grumbling, spirits were high. The roll of the carriage was smooth, and when they stopped at midday, Sansa was the first outside, her fur cloak left behind. Her hair spilled down her back in a river of red, all the traces of dye gone like the clingy shadows of a nightmare, which Jon supposed Alayne was. A dream of being not her own self, trapped, he thought, though he didn’t ask Sansa and didn’t think she’d answer if he did. There were still moments when she looked sullen, and far away. Once, back in King’s Landing, he saw her all but recoil at her own reflection in the mirror held up for her by a maid, even though she was free then. She is free now. Yet she would not speak of it, so Jon, sensing vaguely that his understanding was flawed, could merely look on and be contented by the beauty of her.
When he looked at her in her rich and sturdy clothes, head held high, he wasn’t reminded of Lady Catelyn, as he thought he would be, all steel core and mild serenity, alien, but of Robb, as he dreamed of him on the Wall. Robb his king, Robb his brother, as if he were carved out of a weirwood trunk whole, white and red, burning from within, and inviolable.
Sansa danced up to him, carefree as a child, heedless of the amused looks she was getting from the men, and broke the spell, taking his hand with fingers warm and demanding. “Come,” she said, “come now, you look like you’re slumbering with your eyes open.”
“I was.”
“Well, awake, brother, we’ve miles to go, and I’ve something to show you.” She looked at him, proud and shy at once, as if she had been gathering her courage for days, torn, and now it spilled loud and clear. “It’s not direwolf pups.”
Jon thought he was still dreaming. Robb, why did we not love her better before? he asked of the ghost in his heart. Why didn’t we?
Out loud, he said, “Lead the way.”
Made by Maid ⌠ 7 ⌡ Laura Marling
Didn't think I'd be coming back this way
But my feet resolute, found their root,
And brought me back to its place
And on the hill where I was born,
There is a rose without a thorn,
They cut it off each year and give it away.
Took him under, took him on,
Taught him everything about the world I've come to know.
I'm blamed for every wrong ever he made,
Forgive me I am only a maid
But I can still see a babe, under all that blame
Down in the crypts absolutely nothing had changed. Eddard's remains were solemnly interred a few days ago, and Sansa kept coming down to look at the stone faces and ask herself how it happened that she was so eager to leave and so reluctant to come back, reshaped by stranger hands, and feel no animosity from the spirits of her dead, but only acceptance.
Of course, she thought, it is all fancies. It was not the spirits, it was she, accepting the blame and the absolution, and somehow managing to swallow both, and not burst. It kept her awake some nights, instead, her mind whirring with the practicalities of this and the consequences of that, and all she could do was rise with the sun and work her hardest, harder than the builders, harder than the smiths and the stone masons, to show them all that if she could accept herself as she was, they'd better.
There was some trouble the Black brothers tried to stir up, about Jon, so she had to put on her court face again, and coax and make threats, to put them in their place, furious, and as yet hesitantly backed by the newest occupants of the Gift, who, the less to provoke further disagreements with the Night's Watch that plagued their lives enough as it was, weren't all eager to stand with, or indeed, near Jon. The latter, Sansa privately thought, from what Jon told her, was uniquely out of superstition.
And if for her bannermen, as well as her smallfolk, it made little difference what she had been about down South, and tales each more grandiose than the last sprung up like mushrooms after a shower, that was small grief compared to the scrutiny she was subject to from Jon, or the sharp admonishments of ledgers and crops, day in and day out.
It had to be got out; by and by, the truths and lessons spilled from her lips, and there was only one person who could possibly hear them, even if she couldn't help feeling nobody should. She gave Jon the minutest account of everything that happened, and some of how it came to be. It seemed to her she talked for weeks, one-sided, and he looked at her with eyes heavy and dark and heard it all out, as if he were a training dummy, indifferent to whatever battering his stuffed belly received.
Meanwhile, Winterfell was slowly rising anew around them. Sometimes she felt as if her words spoken freely in spite of everything she had learned of the world were a spell that was summoning the castle back from nothingness exactly as it had been, that nothing was lost, only waiting for her to get on with her story.
Augustine ⌠ 8 ⌡ Patrick Wolf
Does it mean that I can never change my ways?
And that's why, love, you shouldn't stay
Still you will and love me
Like a mother or a maid
Down on your brazen knees
Watering the worms and the weeds
Thinking, why does love leave me so damn cold?
And is this what it should be?
Oh, my Augustine, Augustine.
Oh, is this forever, ever?
Do we kill this one tonight?
Sansa could hardly lift Ice, to say nothing of swinging it without taking her own foot off in the process. That served little to ease her mind, both on the subject of her responsibility to it - the sword, or her father, she couldn’t quite tell, and of the sentence itself. Theon had clearly suffered, but that was not why she tittered on the brink of granting pardon. His suffering was not retribution, merely the path he chose to walk, his foolishness, his pride. She knew well enough of that. What stopped her was the look in his eyes when he stood in the Great Hall of Winterfell, judged, condemned, and free. It was the face of someone who would as gladly die here as live here, and it struck too close to home.
She sat looking down on the courtyard, where the men were fashioning a sort of swing for the blade out of wooden blocks and sliding knots so that she could rule as her father ruled. Half of them had their backs bared to the sun, sweat glistening. Here and there in the remaining ruins flowers had sprung up between the stones, blossoms fresh and unguarded. Jon walked up behind her softly but for the clicking of Ghost’s claws on the stone floor. He was leaning into the direwolf’s flank heavily, tired by the two dozen steps to her solar. He stood silent for a while, looking at her looking down.
“He has to die,” he said, staid, as she put a hand on Ghost’s muzzle and looked in his pink eyes sadly, unable to offer quite the same look to Jon. “But you need only send me away-”
“Then I shall hope I won’t make a butchery of it,” she replied, heart plummeting somewhere much further down than her feet. She finally lifted her eyes to face him, and saw a look there more unguarded than the young flowers breaking out in the yard. “I need more comfort than mercy can give me, Jon. You have to stay with me.”
Venn Diagram ⌠ 9 ⌡ Lisa Hannigan
I have lost you to sleep again
Sleeping as we do on opposite sides of a venn diagram
I read the time in shadows on the wall
I stumble out into the afternoon
Still salty from drink and the late night pool
I'll be gone an hour at most, you will be more diagonal
I've a head on me in the post, I know,
A castle swallowed in the swell
Sansa woke up well into the morning. Sunlight was slanting through the closed shutters at a high angle, and bright. The tapestries were not drawn, not to impede the fresh air from getting through. It was warm enough, now. Her head felt a little heavy, and the mouth sour and dry from too much wine the night before. They had had another wedding -- she could scarcely remember who it was, this time, she had given so many feasts to honour the daughters and sons of her bannermen, building their lives afresh from whoever was left after war and winter. She was glad to; that duty she wouldn't give over for the world, even if she had to bear the prods at herself time and time again.
She sat up and swung her legs to the stone floor of the chamber that used to be her parents'. She was merely biding her time, she said to all of them. No need to hurry, and she had to see her people settled first. And she didn't need a husband to help her; she had help enough. Sansa twisted around to look at Jon sleeping on the other side of the bed, still in his clothes, silver grey cuffs stained with scarlet in a few spots. He was always very warm, and still he would curl in on himself when he slept, as if to ward off cold, one arm across his chest protectively, the other under his head, stretched out, limp fingers reaching just under her pillow. They had retired late, and talked well into dawn, until she realised she was speaking to herself: Jon sound asleep, their shared plans and hopes filling the diamond-shaped space between them on the immense bed. She let him sleep.
Taking little care, she dressed quickly and slipped out into the corridor, carefully closing the door behind her and taking a route that would put her out of the way of the serving folk, so they would not know she was up and disturb Jon. The castle was quiet, even though most would certainly be awake by now; voices didn't carry, languid and subdued. Sansa went down the stairs and out into the brightness of day, heading for the godswood. The soft ground bore the footprints of the great party that trod it the day before, during the ceremony and after, but now it stood empty, and hers only. There, she would not be disturbed.
She walked through the sacred ground, some old trees still standing, others gone in the fire and replaced now with saplings, seeping green sweetness into the air. She walked through the godswood, and beside her walked the girl with the lioncloak on her shoulders, and the girl in the amethyst hairnet, and the girl with knees wet from the snow, and lips wet from an unwanted kiss.
When she comes back, Jon is fumbling on his boots, squinting sleepily at the shuttered window. She crosses the room and lets the light in, listening to him breathe and shuffle. And when he comes to stand by her side, a croaky laugh on his lips, she leans into his shoulder and into his scarred, familiar hand brushing a lock of hair off her temple.
Winter Lovin' ⌠ bonus track ⌡ The Whitlams
Winter Stark lovin' - that's the best kind of lovin'
& hidden track:
Robb, can you hear me, Robb?
Robb, we're, we're here!
This is for you, Robb
There're a way to be happy again, my love
*crack!version of 'Nearly Home':
Sansa: Want me to take you home?
Jon: Thought you'd never ask!
.ZIP
artwork by panda_pladd
My Love Is a Mountain ⌠ 1 ⌡ Alina Simone
My love is a mountain
Glittering white with snow
And no one can mine it
It’s stone
Could I be the one you wanted?
A diamond in the coal
So bury me in a silver locket
Or move miles and miles away
But your eyes turn skyward
To the north, to the north!
Snow! Snow! Snow! The quorks were interminable, and the only thing that broke through his drugged haze. His eyes wouldn’t open, or else there was nothing but darkness to see. His body felt not his own, and there didn’t seem to be any air.
“Why..” he tried to say, stubborn, but what came out was a croak. How fitting. There was no maester, therefore there was no reason for him to be where the ravens were, and yet apparently, he was. Or else he was hallucinating the damnable sounds.
When next he came to, the thought was already there, stark and firm in his sluggish awareness:
I am not dead.
He looked at Bran on his weirwood throne, feeling as his heart pumped tirelessly in his chest with the palm of his hand. “What am I to do now?”
“Whatever you want, brother Jon. Go wherever you want. Live.”
Jon’s hand moved, searching for the hilt of his sword at his side to grasp onto. He hesitated.
“No, not fight,” Bran said, voice thin but resonant. “Your fight is done now.”
Jon walked out from under ground, confused. The colourless brightness of the overcast winter sky hurt his eyes, his head ached, his body felt like it was on fire. He had never known anything beyond the North, he had never loved anything… Did beyond the Wall count as North, or something else? Beyond the Wall, vaster than the North, vaster than anywhere else. He couldn’t properly imagine himself in a foreign land, across the sea, as if his feet were not merely rooted in this cold earth, but cast in stone, into a mountain slope, into the rocky crevices gurgling with hot springs. One cannot uproot that.
His duty and his hope had been intertwined, holding him in place. But that was before, and now… He felt abandoned, he realized, incredulous at himself. Weren’t you always? Unwanted.
Gasping for air at a sudden bolt of pain through his side, Jon slumped to the ground, pillowed in the last moment by Ghost quick at his heels, and threw his head back, resting on the soft fur. Snowflakes drifted through the cold air and melted before they reached his upturned face.
Winter ⌠ 2 ⌡ Joshua Radin
I should know who I am by now
I walk, the record stands somehow
Thinking of winter
But I don't have to make this mistake
And I don't have to stay this way
If only I would wake
What was he? No one's brother, no one's commander, traitor to none. A hedge knight, perhaps? A freerider. He did not feel very free, his thoughts turning over and again to whoever still lived of those who would give a bent copper for his fate. Most were dead; some of the rest found themselves worse off, it seemed, much like himself.
The Kingsroad was deserted, and nobody was chasing him this time. Nobody would be terribly glad when he would reach where he was going, he was fairly sure of that, but, left to his own devices, he couldn't find any other direction. His compass was all broken down, and no hall nor home to cast his lot with. Unless... Well, unless he acted like a fool of a man and went South where the rest of them had gone, snowflakes melting in their hair. Went after them, to die for them or live for them, too late, and unwanted, only to not be his own. Boy or man, stripped of his shame -- his honour, his bastard's name, on his own did him no good.
Jon vaguely remembered the night everything changed, with Winterfell full of sounds and southern folk, and the Imp jumping down on him to offer worldly advice. It didn't turn out to apply to him very much, but his luck had run out now, and all the snowflakes had melted.
It made for easier roads, anyway.
Blackwinged Bird ⌠ 3 ⌡ Emm Gryner
I made my mind up to be a black-winged bird
Never turn my head for how things were
Leave the bluest skies for boys to burn
And I'll soar on my way, sad as the state
Of things we can't change
Rows of regret, an arson for a wilderness
Alayne looked on everything Littlefinger did without batting an eyelash. Some of it she was privy to, other she could only guess at, but nothing shocked her anymore. In her heart she wondered if this was not what she had always been intended for: a silent witness to the atrocities of men, unable or unwilling to speak out against it. Alayne certainly did not want for anything, or wish for anything beyond her grasp, and that other self inside her resolved to never look too close. Never look back, to avoid fighting herself over things as insubstantial as wisps of smoke raising from the valley below to obscure her view of the sun settling blood-red among the peaks to the west.
She was only pretending not to care, but it worked spectacularly well. She had many duties around the castle, at which she was efficient, proper, and kind. She was not unloved in the Vale, in general, regardless of what was said or plotted against the Lord Protector. It was a life, and a better one that Sansa had in King's Landing. Although it would have been a right puzzle to determine which was safer in the long run.
She stayed in the Eyrie to the last, even when it had been half reduced to rubble. The dragon sweept down, enormous, taking up half the sky, as she stared, mouth going slack and eyes round as saucers, and later she thought it was at that moment that her heart bolted into a gallop for the first time since the Blackwater and the sky on fire. And as she stood up among the burning ruins, smoke didn't seem as insubstantial anymore, and all she could think of was Winterfell, burning, and her cheeks burned, eyes burned. She faced it with Alayne's detachment: another player, and another piece, unknown and terrible, but certainly in possession of a weakness or two, as if placed there specifically for her to observe and pluck at her leisure... but she faced it down as Sansa, with wonder and fear that left her drenched as a passing wave, still standing when it subsided.
Bess and Raleigh Dance ⌠ 4 ⌡ Craig Armstrong
{instrumental}
Chiding herself for childishness did not help her discomfort very well, but fortunately she was not the only one. Pretty much all of Westerosi nobility with a few notable exceptions were as near as put between a dragons' jaws and asked to dance and converse about the latest fashions. The latest fashions, incidentally, were almost exclusively of the Free Cities. The court life was bizarre, and the amount of tiptoeing and eavesdropping and outrageous gossip enough to keep a few score of Varys' little birds busy and well fed in the Red Keep alone, Sansa suspected. The very immediate necessity to keep herself safe and afloat in those uncharted waters soon replaced the painful reminders of her past ordeals in the same walls.
Sansa had her own trade in gossip, and so she heard of Jon weeks before she finally saw him - he proved to be rather elusive, for all his alleged political incompetence. If she said she wasn't dreading their meeting she would have been lying.
Up until she heard his name mentioned, she believed herself to be the eldest surviving Stark child, and she did not know that the mere fact of his survival changed anything, and yet she felt as if it did. She would have fought him if had to, with everything she had, like any one thundering fool who did not see a tithe of what she saw, but it didn't come to that.
As luck would have it, she saw Jon at a feast, among a large company, and him seated well above the salt, she noted with a smile. He was not wearing all black - only a modest doublet with thin silver piping, no sigil anywhere. That and his hair framed a face pale, drawn, and scarred. When his eyes met hers she thought each held two pupils, so dark and heavy his gaze seemed, fixing her in place. She felt relief so strong it spoiled her determination to beckon him over with gesture smooth with methodical practice, and she almost ran to him herself.
"I fear I am a poorer dancer now than I may have been, but if you shall do me the honour," he said, courtesy unable to hide the fumbling sincerity of the apology, and his body gave proof to his words - he moved laboriously, like an old man, though not without grace.
Sansa gave him her hand, feeling more scars, and refusing to look. "I have not hoped to ever see you again," she breathed, without a thought to how it sounded, or what he would infer, or if it meant that he mattered. His frame was firm, and he led her well, following the pattern of the dance without taking his eyes off her.
"I only don't know which gods to thank that I find you well, my lady," he replied, his smile feather-light and a little rueful as she started at his formality.
All through the interminable days at court, executions, pardons, treaties, she found him at an arm's length, balancing, and she did not feel she bore the name alone anymore.
Nearly Home ⌠ 5 ⌡ Broken Records
And, oh, my dear,
I've had a good idea
Let's lay these bones to rest
Build it all over and start again
And what's left, that vacuumless empty shell
Is ready to be refilled
With all the love you should have had
“There was a raven from White Harbor,” Sansa told him when he came to supper, exhausted after a day of ifs and buts and never enough done. “They have father’s bones. At least they say they’re father’s.” She pursed her lips unhappily. “I don’t suppose we will ever know for sure even if they swear it up and down.”
She didn’t look to be done, so he kept his silence. She gave him a brief smile, motioning him to sit, and the servants came around with steaming dishes of lamb stew.
“I don’t know how am I to do right by his memory if I cannot be sure it is him. It is a farce.”
Her eyes glinted dangerously at that, but there truly was nothing they could do, except perhaps have a maester whose expertise they could trust have a look. Jon said as much, trying to keep his own bitterness from seeping into words.
She nodded absently, only half listening. “I would almost rather not go back at all, than go like that. Let the tomb stand empty, let it all go rot-”
“You don’t mean that,” Jon interrupted, alarmed. “Sansa, there must always be-”
“A Stark in Winterfell,” she finished with him. “Yes, that. And look at us. Arya will certainly not oblige anyone, including herself, Rickon is playing pirate, and Bran - well, Bran is...” she trailed off, uncertain how to phrase it, but her face softened at the mention of her sweet little brother, and she settled her gaze on Jon instead, unsatisfied.
Jon hurriedly swallowed: his hunger had lost the fight with his worry while she talked, but hot meal was a good comforter, and he felt a surge of confidence, saying to her: “That is all as it may be, but it is you that I’m talking about. You can now take our - your father’s bones to where they should be, and stay there, and rebuild.”
Sansa shook her head, resigned. “Whatever the Queen decrees, Northmen will not accept me. I have been married to their foe, and am now a maid unwed again, and a stranger. They would have loved Jeyne Poole better than me.” She took a deep breath and added, “If you were to accept the Queen’s offer, and perhaps Rickon can be brought in line…”
“No, Sansa, that will not do. The Queen doesn’t need me, and she’s not too comfortable having me here, with all the stories people have been filling her head with.” Jon carried on, his own homelessness a distant second to the desperate wish to convince her, to give her an excuse to act as she wanted. “I am of no use to anyone, not here, not elsewhere. My only ambition is to see Winterfell restored, and you in your father’s seat, where you belong.” Bracing his palms against the edge of the table, he leaned forward a bit, earnest. “The North has no stomach for games. Nobody would see you as anything less than the Stark in Winterfell. It is rightfully yours.”
Sansa was staring at him, rapt and cautious. “And you want to come North with me?” *
Jon stood up.
So Red ⌠ 6 ⌡ Stevan Pasero
{instrumental}
It was not far above the Neck when they had the first hot day, a herald of the summer to come. The road was spring-wet, grass patchy and uneven, the land brown more than green, but the sun beat triumphantly down on people’s heads and horses’ necks, making all squint and scowl, but for all the grumbling, spirits were high. The roll of the carriage was smooth, and when they stopped at midday, Sansa was the first outside, her fur cloak left behind. Her hair spilled down her back in a river of red, all the traces of dye gone like the clingy shadows of a nightmare, which Jon supposed Alayne was. A dream of being not her own self, trapped, he thought, though he didn’t ask Sansa and didn’t think she’d answer if he did. There were still moments when she looked sullen, and far away. Once, back in King’s Landing, he saw her all but recoil at her own reflection in the mirror held up for her by a maid, even though she was free then. She is free now. Yet she would not speak of it, so Jon, sensing vaguely that his understanding was flawed, could merely look on and be contented by the beauty of her.
When he looked at her in her rich and sturdy clothes, head held high, he wasn’t reminded of Lady Catelyn, as he thought he would be, all steel core and mild serenity, alien, but of Robb, as he dreamed of him on the Wall. Robb his king, Robb his brother, as if he were carved out of a weirwood trunk whole, white and red, burning from within, and inviolable.
Sansa danced up to him, carefree as a child, heedless of the amused looks she was getting from the men, and broke the spell, taking his hand with fingers warm and demanding. “Come,” she said, “come now, you look like you’re slumbering with your eyes open.”
“I was.”
“Well, awake, brother, we’ve miles to go, and I’ve something to show you.” She looked at him, proud and shy at once, as if she had been gathering her courage for days, torn, and now it spilled loud and clear. “It’s not direwolf pups.”
Jon thought he was still dreaming. Robb, why did we not love her better before? he asked of the ghost in his heart. Why didn’t we?
Out loud, he said, “Lead the way.”
Made by Maid ⌠ 7 ⌡ Laura Marling
Didn't think I'd be coming back this way
But my feet resolute, found their root,
And brought me back to its place
And on the hill where I was born,
There is a rose without a thorn,
They cut it off each year and give it away.
Took him under, took him on,
Taught him everything about the world I've come to know.
I'm blamed for every wrong ever he made,
Forgive me I am only a maid
But I can still see a babe, under all that blame
Down in the crypts absolutely nothing had changed. Eddard's remains were solemnly interred a few days ago, and Sansa kept coming down to look at the stone faces and ask herself how it happened that she was so eager to leave and so reluctant to come back, reshaped by stranger hands, and feel no animosity from the spirits of her dead, but only acceptance.
Of course, she thought, it is all fancies. It was not the spirits, it was she, accepting the blame and the absolution, and somehow managing to swallow both, and not burst. It kept her awake some nights, instead, her mind whirring with the practicalities of this and the consequences of that, and all she could do was rise with the sun and work her hardest, harder than the builders, harder than the smiths and the stone masons, to show them all that if she could accept herself as she was, they'd better.
There was some trouble the Black brothers tried to stir up, about Jon, so she had to put on her court face again, and coax and make threats, to put them in their place, furious, and as yet hesitantly backed by the newest occupants of the Gift, who, the less to provoke further disagreements with the Night's Watch that plagued their lives enough as it was, weren't all eager to stand with, or indeed, near Jon. The latter, Sansa privately thought, from what Jon told her, was uniquely out of superstition.
And if for her bannermen, as well as her smallfolk, it made little difference what she had been about down South, and tales each more grandiose than the last sprung up like mushrooms after a shower, that was small grief compared to the scrutiny she was subject to from Jon, or the sharp admonishments of ledgers and crops, day in and day out.
It had to be got out; by and by, the truths and lessons spilled from her lips, and there was only one person who could possibly hear them, even if she couldn't help feeling nobody should. She gave Jon the minutest account of everything that happened, and some of how it came to be. It seemed to her she talked for weeks, one-sided, and he looked at her with eyes heavy and dark and heard it all out, as if he were a training dummy, indifferent to whatever battering his stuffed belly received.
Meanwhile, Winterfell was slowly rising anew around them. Sometimes she felt as if her words spoken freely in spite of everything she had learned of the world were a spell that was summoning the castle back from nothingness exactly as it had been, that nothing was lost, only waiting for her to get on with her story.
Augustine ⌠ 8 ⌡ Patrick Wolf
Does it mean that I can never change my ways?
And that's why, love, you shouldn't stay
Still you will and love me
Like a mother or a maid
Down on your brazen knees
Watering the worms and the weeds
Thinking, why does love leave me so damn cold?
And is this what it should be?
Oh, my Augustine, Augustine.
Oh, is this forever, ever?
Do we kill this one tonight?
Sansa could hardly lift Ice, to say nothing of swinging it without taking her own foot off in the process. That served little to ease her mind, both on the subject of her responsibility to it - the sword, or her father, she couldn’t quite tell, and of the sentence itself. Theon had clearly suffered, but that was not why she tittered on the brink of granting pardon. His suffering was not retribution, merely the path he chose to walk, his foolishness, his pride. She knew well enough of that. What stopped her was the look in his eyes when he stood in the Great Hall of Winterfell, judged, condemned, and free. It was the face of someone who would as gladly die here as live here, and it struck too close to home.
She sat looking down on the courtyard, where the men were fashioning a sort of swing for the blade out of wooden blocks and sliding knots so that she could rule as her father ruled. Half of them had their backs bared to the sun, sweat glistening. Here and there in the remaining ruins flowers had sprung up between the stones, blossoms fresh and unguarded. Jon walked up behind her softly but for the clicking of Ghost’s claws on the stone floor. He was leaning into the direwolf’s flank heavily, tired by the two dozen steps to her solar. He stood silent for a while, looking at her looking down.
“He has to die,” he said, staid, as she put a hand on Ghost’s muzzle and looked in his pink eyes sadly, unable to offer quite the same look to Jon. “But you need only send me away-”
“Then I shall hope I won’t make a butchery of it,” she replied, heart plummeting somewhere much further down than her feet. She finally lifted her eyes to face him, and saw a look there more unguarded than the young flowers breaking out in the yard. “I need more comfort than mercy can give me, Jon. You have to stay with me.”
Venn Diagram ⌠ 9 ⌡ Lisa Hannigan
I have lost you to sleep again
Sleeping as we do on opposite sides of a venn diagram
I read the time in shadows on the wall
I stumble out into the afternoon
Still salty from drink and the late night pool
I'll be gone an hour at most, you will be more diagonal
I've a head on me in the post, I know,
A castle swallowed in the swell
Sansa woke up well into the morning. Sunlight was slanting through the closed shutters at a high angle, and bright. The tapestries were not drawn, not to impede the fresh air from getting through. It was warm enough, now. Her head felt a little heavy, and the mouth sour and dry from too much wine the night before. They had had another wedding -- she could scarcely remember who it was, this time, she had given so many feasts to honour the daughters and sons of her bannermen, building their lives afresh from whoever was left after war and winter. She was glad to; that duty she wouldn't give over for the world, even if she had to bear the prods at herself time and time again.
She sat up and swung her legs to the stone floor of the chamber that used to be her parents'. She was merely biding her time, she said to all of them. No need to hurry, and she had to see her people settled first. And she didn't need a husband to help her; she had help enough. Sansa twisted around to look at Jon sleeping on the other side of the bed, still in his clothes, silver grey cuffs stained with scarlet in a few spots. He was always very warm, and still he would curl in on himself when he slept, as if to ward off cold, one arm across his chest protectively, the other under his head, stretched out, limp fingers reaching just under her pillow. They had retired late, and talked well into dawn, until she realised she was speaking to herself: Jon sound asleep, their shared plans and hopes filling the diamond-shaped space between them on the immense bed. She let him sleep.
Taking little care, she dressed quickly and slipped out into the corridor, carefully closing the door behind her and taking a route that would put her out of the way of the serving folk, so they would not know she was up and disturb Jon. The castle was quiet, even though most would certainly be awake by now; voices didn't carry, languid and subdued. Sansa went down the stairs and out into the brightness of day, heading for the godswood. The soft ground bore the footprints of the great party that trod it the day before, during the ceremony and after, but now it stood empty, and hers only. There, she would not be disturbed.
She walked through the sacred ground, some old trees still standing, others gone in the fire and replaced now with saplings, seeping green sweetness into the air. She walked through the godswood, and beside her walked the girl with the lioncloak on her shoulders, and the girl in the amethyst hairnet, and the girl with knees wet from the snow, and lips wet from an unwanted kiss.
When she comes back, Jon is fumbling on his boots, squinting sleepily at the shuttered window. She crosses the room and lets the light in, listening to him breathe and shuffle. And when he comes to stand by her side, a croaky laugh on his lips, she leans into his shoulder and into his scarred, familiar hand brushing a lock of hair off her temple.
Winter Lovin' ⌠ bonus track ⌡ The Whitlams
Winter Stark lovin' - that's the best kind of lovin'
& hidden track:
Robb, can you hear me, Robb?
Robb, we're, we're here!
This is for you, Robb
There're a way to be happy again, my love
*crack!version of 'Nearly Home':
Sansa: Want me to take you home?
Jon: Thought you'd never ask!
.ZIP