The Sharpest Edge; (Robb Stark/Asha Greyjoy, M)
Title: The Sharpest Edge
Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV)
Character/Ship: Robb Stark/Asha Greyjoy
Rating: M
Word Count: ~2000
Prompt: hbo_gotfiction Ficathon 01 prompt “Do you want it? Do you want anything I have? Will you throw me to the ground like you mean it, reach inside and wrestle it out with your bare hands? If you love me, you don't love me in a way I understand.”
Summary: “A boy in exchange for a girl, a story like any other she supposes. Except it isn’t and it never will be.”
Spoilers: All of season 1, also centered around a character that does not appear until season 2 (Asha Greyjoy).
Warnings: non-graphic sex, AU scenario.
Notes: To the prompter-I’m sorry if this fic isn’t what you had in mind, but I hope you end up enjoying it =) This is based on an AU scenario in which Robb Stark and Asha Greyjoy are wed in order to secure an alliance between The North and The Iron Islands against the Lannisters and the Iron Throne.
~*~
It happens quickly: the initial meeting (orchestrated by her estranged brother of all people), the deal, the betrothal that would seal it-a boy (a man now, so he claims) in exchange for a girl. A story like any other, she supposes.
Except it isn’t and it never will be.
How can it be when they’ve got a history riddled with failed rebellions, hostage brothers, and tarnished houses between the pair of them? She’s seen enough to know that the question alone is mere rhetoric. And so she judges them with the harshest of verdicts, thinks them foolish-her father, the brother she can scarcely recognize, the boy King she is to marry-for believing that booming words of sworn allegiance and firm handshakes could erase what the years have bred between them.
She remembers every one of these things as she glares daggers at her husband to be-her King--over the rim of her cup (filled, as always, with more wine than is customary for a lady).
He glares right back at her, jaw set and eyes sober, until one of his jovial men clambers for his attention.
Her brother sits to his right, the “peacemaker” they now call him, as proud and majestic as the waves that crash against the lines of their shores. But he knows nothing of those waves and she sees through his facade as easily as she does his King’s (her King’s).
Her father, Lord Balon Greyjoy, sits to his left. There is no joy, no preening pride to behold where her father is concerned. The lines of his face, his dark, flashing eyes, are as unyielding as ever. She wonders, not for the first time, if his heart is at ease with any of this (though the very thought does things to her own heart that she’d rather not address, so she stifles it).
And then, of course, there’s Lady Stark with her weary eyes, as piercing a blue as her son’s, and the proud tilt of her head. For reasons she cannot place, Asha hates her least of all tonight.
When her eyes return to him, she finds that his have beaten her to it. He gives her a slow nod, the first sign of acknowledgement either one of them has offered the other that night.
The first sign she does not return.
~*~
He comes to her later that night, a swift knock on her door that sends the servants scurrying away, heads bowed and flustered before their new King.
He stands at the threshold, a sight to behold clad in what she doesn’t doubt are the finest of furs, with the bluest of eyes and the most chiselled of jaws. He looks the part he’s meant to play--she’ll give him that much--even if he doesn’t fit it, never will.
“May I enter?” He asks, a courtesy she’s certain she should appreciate (even if she doesn’t).
“You may do as you please, Your Grace.”
There is no feebleness in her tone, no simpering or maidenly bashfulness. Instead there is a deliberate harshness, a mockery. If his twitching jaw is any indication, her efforts did not go unnoticed.
“I know you didn’t ask for this,” he begins, voice even and certain. “But it will all turn out for the best. I’m sure of it.”
“For whose best exactly?”
She does not look the part of his Northern Queen, with her short, choppy locks and her sharp edges; nor will she play it. She’ll leave the charades for him.
“I’m not certain I understand your query.”
Ah, there it is. His tone is harsher now, his face stony and his jaw clenched. Like all Kings and high Lords he does not take derision well-the anger is far too sharp and sudden for it to be another act.
“Oh, but I think you do,” her lips tilt into a mirthless, mocking smile; knows it will only serve to anger him further.
He says nothing though, simply watches her, eyes boring in a way she’s certain many have found unnerving-intimidating even. Not her though, never her.
“The Starks will succeed where the Greyjoys failed,” she continues. “Freeing themselves from the tyranny of the Iron Throne, all the while trading one Greyjoy hostage for another. Clever indeed, Your Grace.”
Nothing is said for what could have easily been seconds or minutes (hours), neither of them willing to cede what little they have left just yet.
“If that’s how you really see things, then there’s little to be said between us.”
His voice is as cold as the winter he’s spent his entire life anticipating. He’d sooner live to see that winter than the day he softened her sharp edges.
~*~
The eve of their wedding she does not yield. Her heart pounds (anger, fear... anticipation) when he enters, as quiet as the dire wolf that shadows him.
He stands before her, arm extended and slowly, tentatively (softly even) trails his fingers across her cheek.
Had she been the delicate maiden of his dreams, she may have simply turned away-shy and perhaps even a little coy.
But she isn’t, never will be. She swats his hand away and relishes in the sound of the resounding slap.
When his fingers curl into a fist, she wonders for a brief second if he intends to strike her. He doesn’t, of course, too noble a man for such behaviour, and it isn’t until he pulls out a long dagger that she’s second guessing herself-that her body’s humming in anticipation.
She’ll take him on, if need be-leave him drowning in a pool of his own blood if she has to.
But even as the adrenaline courses through her and the mental images delight her, he’s moving to the other side of the bed, pushing aside multiple covers until he reaches the silken white sheets.
Before she can so much as consider his odd behaviour, he’s using the dagger to carve a cut on the inside of his own palm, lets the blood slowly trickle onto the sheets-just enough to lay testament to her maidenhood.
He says nothings, doesn’t so much as spare her a glance before he leaves the room, door slamming in his wake.
He is his father’s son through and through, stifled under the weight of his honour-his honour that would not allow him to deflower an unwilling maiden.
She supposes she should love him for it, but she won’t (she won’t, she won’t, she won’t...).
~*~
The days drag on, one after the other, and she does not yield. She does not eat with him, does not speak to him, and does not welcome him into her bed.
He leaves her be, a decision that unsettles her until she remembers that she is not the first sullen-faced Greyjoy to have crossed his path.
She doesn’t realize how anxiously she’s awaiting his next move until he finally does approach her, swinging open the door of her chambers with a belligerence that almost startles her (almost).
“This has gone on long enough,” his tone reeks of authority, the kind he uses on his men-the kind he now dares to use on her.
“Oh, not nearly,” she bites back.
“That so?”
“Indeed it is.”
He walks right up to her, looks down at her while she looks right back up at him, black eyes boring into blue.
“You’re only making this harder on yourself,” he whispers, and she could swear he was pleading if his voice wasn’t so harsh.
She’s tempted to tell him that it’s hard enough as is, but (of course) she doesn't.
~*~
He comes back from their latest endeavour mildly wounded, a small gash on his left shoulder.
Why he comes to her, shirtless and awaiting her tending hands, is something she cannot fathom. Why she obliges him this time of all others is even less fathomable.
But she does, dabs the ointment provided by the healers and feels more disoriented in that moment than she has felt in any other since learning that she was to wed Robb Stark.
It isn’t her place to mend his wounds, to soothe him when he has done nothing but uproot her.
And so she says it.
“You’ll never win this war.”
She stops dabbing, looks him straight in the eye and sees the fury building there. Good.
“You confuse me with your father,” he retorts, as cold and cruel as the land he calls home.
She takes even herself by surprise when she slaps him. Hard.
It isn’t enough to quell her anger-her bitterness, her resentment-and so she moves to strike again. Except this time he’s ready for her; this time he grabs her wrist and yanks her forward until their lips literally crash against one another and he’s kissing her-working his lips over her own with a fervour that she can’t help but respond to.
Her fingers dig into the wound she just tended, causing him to pull back hissing, the fingers he has tangled in the hair at the back of her head twisting hard.
For a second they’re simply looking at one another, breath ragged and faces flushed. She doesn’t let the moment last, is pressing her lips over his own again before either of them has the chance to utter a single word.
It isn’t long before he has her up against the wall, her legs wrapped around him on instinct, pulling her gown down to expose her bare breasts. Her cheeks burn as he looks down at them, mouth slightly agape in what she could read as awe-if she wanted to.
But she doesn’t, instead she digs her fingers into the skin of his abdomen and draws blood-more wounds. He returns the favour, not as brutally of course, but his hands are far from gentle as they knead her breasts, the calloused skin leaving them heavy and aching.
She’s been on the receiving end of enough hushed conversations to know what the throbbing ache, the wetness, between her legs means; what the hardness she can feel through his breeches means.
One of his hands finds its way underneath her gown, finds her sopping wet and her cheeks burn in both pleasure and shame. He works her with his fingers, rubbing slow circles into the nub of her sex and she’s certain nothing has ever felt this good.
She can hear the noises she’s making, the ones she could scarcely stop, desperate moans that she could swear belonged to another.
Her hand, as if of its own wilful accord, dips into his breeches and slides against the length of him, makes him groan-long and low.
He takes her just like that-up against the wall and half in and out of her cloths. It stings when he first enters her, stings in more ways than one. But before long he’s sliding in and out of her and it feels even better than what his fingers were doing just moments before-better than anything she’s ever felt.
Eventually she begins to meet him thrust for thrust, rocking her hips in the most wanton way, determined to reach a point she does not know, to remedy that coiling she feels at her center.
She gets there just before he does, just before he spills his seed inside her, shuddering and burying his face in the crook of her neck. She wonders idly how she’d feel if this coupling impregnated her, banishes the thought before it takes on a full form.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, break ragged and voice broken; as far from the commanding King of the North as she has ever seen him.
She does not assure him that it’s alright, does not rub soothing circles into his back. Instead she stays silent, fingers digging into the skin of his arms.
After all, if there’s anything she knows, it’s that he will never win this war.
~*~