#i might do a few oneshots based around this premise tbh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mkstrigidae · 3 years

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Current WIPs and Fic Concepts

I promised I would do this yesterday, and then I forgot!!! (I was very sleep deprived). Anyways, here are a bunch of the WIP premises that I have in my 'unfinished drafts' folder. Most have at least a few pages written for them, but I love them all! ☺️💕

- A Santa Clarita Diet AU (Jonsa) Takes place in sunny southern California, where a shitty dinner at a mediocre restaurant turns into a huge problem for Jon and Sansa when Sansa's heart stops beating. Although she seems fine, Jon is flabbergasted several days later as he watches his wife- who alphabetizes their pantry and refuses to let anyone wear shoes in the house- rip the throat out of one of the sleazy new partners at their law firm, eating half of him before anyone processes what's going on. Hilarity ensues as Sansa's inhibitions and filter disappear, Arya ropes an extremely confused Gendry into helping figure out what the hell is going on just because he moderates the zombie forum on reddit, and Jon tries to deal with the fact that the woman he loves more than anything is now a humanitarian. He really could use a drink. (This one is actually mostly complete, but i need to refine a few things- i really love it. It's as gory and irreverent as the show, so viewer discretion advised, but it's a BLAST to write).

- A Thor/MCU AU (Jonsa, Steve Rogers/Sansa)- Asgardian prince Aegon is banished to Midgard after one too many arrogant decisions, and is promptly hit by a van containing Dr. Sansa Stark, Dr. Barristan Selmy, and Margaery Tyrell- two astrophysicists studying wormholes and Sansa's best friend and pseudo-intern. Marg yells at him, he yells back, Sansa tases him, and Barristan didn't sign up for the kind of heavy lifting that getting a 200+ pound slab of muscle into the back of a van takes. And then Aegon's younger brother, Jon, shows up, in the middle of an identity crisis because, apparently, he's adopted. He wasn't intending to stay, but he's rather drawn to Dr. Stark and her brilliance, and against her better judgement, she starts to trust him, and maybe even like him. This story is in about three parts so far- the first is based on 'Thor' and the second on 'The Avengers' and are fully Jonsa, and the third started as a family bonding story between the Stark kids and Tony (Ned and Tony are second cousins, and Ned was really supportive of Tony in rehab without expecting anything in return), and accidentally turned into a Steve Rogers/Sansa Stark story, which is a pairing i am HERE for. A lot of this one is written, but it needs some fill in before publishing, although it's one of my favorites that i've written to go back and actually read.

- A Star Wars AU (Jonsa) where Sansa and Arya are Alderaanian princesses who are off planet when Alderaan is destroyed- Sansa as a senator and Arya as a pilot, both working for the rebellion, and jon is a smuggler who does not know how all of these people got on his ship and why two princesses are sassing him. His copilot, Tormund (yes he's a wookie), thinks it is hilarious. I started this one just the other day, and it's already thirty pages long, most of them involving Sansa and Arya sassing people. Dany is a leader in the rebellion, Roose Bolton is the emperor, and Barbrey Dustin is a disgruntled former jedi trying to live in peace on a remote planet until another Stark crashes into her life and harangues her into teaching again.

- A witches/magic AU (Jonsa) where the Starks run an apothecary and spellcasting supplies shop. Jon had been completely in the dark about magic before his mother confessed to being born into a family of witches. He finds himself traveling to her hometown, trying to understand her world more clearly, and what it means for him. On the way, he develops something of a crush on the red-headed shop clerk who brews the best headache potions in town. Featuring lots of magical shenanigans, this is one of my favorites in the folder :)

- A 24 hour diner AU (Jonsa) where Jon is a local mob boss, and Sansa works the late shift at Seaworth's diner to buy textbooks for the PhD she's working on in botany. Sansa's running from memories, and Jon has a soft spot for the red-headed waitress who always remembers how he likes his coffee.

- An East of the Sun, West of the Moon AU!!! (Jonsa) This is one of my fav fairy tales, and of course i couldn't resist Jon as a direwolf striking a deal with the starks!

- A Roomates AU (Jonsa)- Arya, Jon, Tormund, and Sam have been renting the same house together off Winterfell's campus for years- but when Sam moves in with his girlfriend, they need one more person on the lease. Sansa, about to relocate to Winterfell for grad school, finds out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her and that her housing plans have fallen through, all on the same day. Needless to say, she's a bit upset when she calls Arya to relay the news. There's a simple solution here, if Arya and Tormund can stop teasing Jon about his crush for five minutes. (any excuse to write tormund and arya roasting jon, tbh).

- A Fae AU (Jonsa)- When Sansa, a baker living in the city, washes her face in an enchanted spring on a camping trip, she gains the sight as a result. Suddenly able to see the fae underworld all around her is disorienting and terrifying. Sansa tries to conceal it- afraid of what might happen if the fae around her know that she can see them- but slips up, and catches the attention of Jon Snow- one of the lords of the unseelie court.

- A nuclear winter wasteland AU (Jonsa)- (?? I don't even know how to describe this premise, haha) where the Starks are living and running the Free Winterfell settlement in Siberia after a worldwide nuclear meltdown. Before the fallout, Sansa was one of the world's preeminent researchers in plant genetics and pathology, and works at the settlement to create newer, disease and radiation resistant crops to distribute for free to other settlements, aiming to break up the monopoly that Lannister Corp has on the market. Jon is a scavenger, searching throughout Siberia for his sister Rhae who disappeared several years previously. When he runs across Arya Starkovna, helping her fight off another band of radiation ravaged scavengers is just instinct- he doesn't think twice about it. In thanks, she brings him to the Winterfell settlement, where her brother Robb offers Jon sanctuary and resources, in exchange for serving as a bodyguard for Sansa when she travels to other settlements. Sansa is not particularly thrilled by this arrangement, but given that multiple parties seem to want her dead, she doesn't have much of a choice but to accept his company.

- A reincarnation AU (Jonsa)- of sorts. Robb is an archaeologist who finds a strange set of runes at a site up north, and immediately calls in Jon Snow- a historian and expert in said ancient language, as well as an old university friend of Robb's. When he arrives though, Robb shows him their most valuable finds- two mysterious ice blocks, with what appear to be perfectly preserved bodies from over a thousand years ago. No one could ever have imagined that either of them were still alive, but when the ice melts, revealing two very alive girls, the entire crew is instantly buried in NDAs, and given an assignment from the Westerosi government to figure out what the hell was going on. Sansa and Arya wake up, extremely confused about the world they live in, trying to adapt and mourning all that they've lost, even as the people around them wear familiar faces.

- Soulmates AU (Jonsa)- (Yes, another one, I love this dumb trope) Trauma surgeon and medical resident Sansa Stark is having a very bad day, and ends up meeting her soulmate during what she thinks is a mugging gone wrong. Fortunately, he’s not the one mugging her, just an intervening bystander, but she ends up slightly shot nonetheless. Sansa’s fretting about bleeding on the upholstery in his car, but Jon is a bit more worried about her injuries than the blood stains. He’s a bit confused when she threatens him if he takes her to a specific hospital, nearly has a nervous breakdown when she insists on doing her own triage, and is very charmed when she insists on ice cream after taking pain meds at the hospital. On Sansa’s part, she’s a little less concerned about being shot, and a bit more concerned about whatever weird first impression she’s making to her soulmate while high as a kite on pain pills. (this one just needs some tweaking to be postable- I'm not sure if it's going to be a oneshot or a series, but i love what I have already)

- A Demon/Archivist AU (Jonsa)- where Sansa works in the university's historical archives in Oldtown, and is learning to restore old texts with her fellow student and friend, Alleras (Trans Sarella is an amazing concept). When Joffrey Baratheon shows up with a pile of old books from his family's library to donate, Sansa is eager to get away from his sleaze, and accidentally takes one of the books home with her in her rush to leave. Unbeknownst to her, it's more than it appears, and when she leaves it open overnight, she accidentally summons forth Jon- an ancient, powerful, and extremely annoyed demon who is under a curse, and now hers to command. As Jon and Sansa try to get used to this new normal, the Lannisters (unaware that Joffrey had donated the tome) try desperately to find the book and it's owner, wanting Jon's power for themselves, and putting Sansa in considerable danger unless she can figure out how to break Jon's curse. Fortunately, she's a pretty good researcher, even if Jon is initially a bit of a grump. (This is based on a total wish-fulfillment mary-sue type premise for something I wrote when I was thirteen, and I revisited it and wanted to see what it would look like if i took it very seriously, and i am really enjoying it so far. It's a love letter to the terrible, heartfelt writing i was doing in middle school that created the foundations for my writing today, and so much fun).

The one that I am MOST excited about though:

- A Pacific Rim AU!!!! (Ned/Cat, Gendrya, Braime, Sansa/Jon Umber)-Twins Sansa and Robb Stark have always been completely in tune with each other, and when your parents are Jaeger pilots and your mother invented the neural handshake, what option is there but the Jaeger academy? Sansa studies to be an engineer, but ends up copiloting the Jaeger 'Winter Wolf' with her twin brother, after they lose Ned Stark to cancer. When Robb is ripped out of the conn-pod and killed by a kaiju while he's still connected to Sansa, she barely manages to kill the creature before stumbling back to shore, traumatized, grieving, and swearing that she'll never pilot again.

Unfortunately, the Kaiju don't stop just because Sansa does, and when the end of the world is imminent, Marshall Catelyn Stark orders both her daughter and former pilot Jaime Lannister (who lost his twin and copilot, Cersei, several years previously) back to Hong Kong for one final stand. Forced to face both her demons and an irate Arya, furious that Sansa had abandoned the rest of them after Robb's death, Sansa and Arya have to figure out how to pilot Winter Wolf together before the apocalypse comes for them all.

Featuring Marshall Catelyn Stark (commander of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, inventor of the neural handshake, former Jaeger pilot, and BAMF), Sansa x Jon Umber (Yes i know it's a rare pair but i've always kind of loved the idea of them, even though we know so little about him), Kaiju parts dealer and smuggler Petyr Baelish, bickering kaiju biologist Dany and theoretical mathematician Jon Snow, LOCCENT officer Theon, lots of snark, lots of angst and heartfelt conversations, and a weird friendship between snarky-grieving-asshole Jaime Lannister and kind-quiet-grieving Sansa Stark, who are the only two people in the world who know what it's like to lose a copilot and a twin in the drift.

Thanks for reading guys!! There are more, but some of them I just don't know how to explain quite yet, haha. I'd love to hear what you guys think about these!

#my writing #fanfics #fanfic wip #jonsa #jonsa fic

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dialux · 6 years

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let my soul with their souls find peace, and forget what is done and undone

This began as a series of typos that I laughed about with @alittlestardustcaught, and slowly morphed into a smutty oneshot about Jon x Sansa x Satin; this, in turn, grew into an s7-s8 redux that... is slightly terrifying me, tbh.

Premise: Littlefinger’s killed before the beginning of the story; the Northern lords named Jon king in return for his promise that the North wouldn’t surrender its freedom under him; Jon’s trying to find people to throw at the Walkers until he can figure out a way to end this menace; everyone’s pretty sure that this won’t, in fact, work, and they’re just going to end up dead.

Enjoy!

...

Prologue: my life is bitter with thy love

(Jon hadn’t meant to.

That’s how any song they ever sing of him will begin, in all likelihood: Jon Snow hadn’t meant to find himself knee-deep in snow, but he’d followed his uncle easily enough beyond the Wall; Jon Snow hadn’t meant to fuck his wildling lover, but he’d loved her and found her too enticing amidst mounds of frozen earth; Jon Snow hadn’t quite meant to fall into this- arrangement- with his steward, with his half-sister- but he’s here anyhow.)

Arc One: let life burn down, and dream it is not death

It starts with a candle.

Or, no; before that- when Sansa falls asleep over the records, head resting on the pages, small fist pressed against her mouth. It’s been weeks since retaking Winterfell but she’s still too thin, hollowed-out, overly different from the girl that Jon had once called sister.

Sansa falls asleep, and Jon can’t find it in himself to grudge her that rest, or try to move her. If there’s one thing he’s learned of her, it’s that Sansa can be more stubborn than Arya, Robb, and Rickon combined if she puts her mind to it, and when she feels her pride has been trampled on, Sansa tends to put her mind to it. And she’s had dark circles ringing her eyes for all the weeks they’ve met, from their first night at the Wall when Jon’d had nightmares because of her appearance. It had made a startling contrast against the dank emptiness that had been his dreams up until then, which is why he remembers it, but his worry remains.

Jon sighs, instead, now, and leans back in his own chair.

They’ve settled into a nice rhythm here: past dusk, seated opposite each other in the common solar of the Lord and Lady Stark, going over records, consulting each other quietly. It’s quiet and nice, beyond all else that he’s ever considered before.

And if it feels too domestic- if he feels a flash of warmth, whenever Sansa smiles at him over the top of her papers- it’s the stirrings of a base-born man who’s known little of a woman’s touch in his life, even less of a woman so well-bred as Sansa.

Nothing more.

He might have ignored it, Jon thinks, he might well have ignored all of those stirrings and those warmths and those kindnesses. He might have done a lot of things.

But the gods have always hated him.

And then- Satin brings the candle into his chambers.

...

It’s Satin’s damn job to bring those candles in.

He’s to keep stock of the stationary the Lord uses, the inks and quills and papers and, yes, candles. And Jon’s a good man to serve, Satin knows; he doesn’t truly have a head for the finer nuances of penny-pinching, but that’s where Sansa enters.

Sansa.

Lady Sansa.

She’s not quite like many of the ladies that Satin’s seen, though there are times when she feels like any of them, like all of them. But Sansa’s pretty, with fine-lined cheekbones and a shining sweep of hair that he’d think dyed on anyone of less high birth. And she’s kind, that’s what’s even more surprising: sweet, for all that her silences can be as cold as the Wall itself; generous, for all her insistence on lords’ fealty to the Starks; and kind, for all that she’d not hesitated to feed Ramsay to his own hounds.

She makes a good match to Jon, which Jon might have realized earlier had he not been so invested in those White Walkers.

(Jon gets... single-minded, Satin’s realized. It’s his job to soften things up. To smile at the world when Jon seems so invested in the Army Of The Dead and tell the lords or the servants or the smallfolk- no, sorry, m’lord’s busy right now, he’ll... probably not remember you but I promise that if you take it up with Lady Sansa- yes, that’d be wonderful, I’ll put in a word with her-

It’s him and Sansa who’re doing the ruling, while Jon raises the armies, is the point. And Satin’s seen quite a bit of Lady Sansa over these past few months, working in tandem beside Jon while still managing to butt heads over the most inane points- gods, they’d once spent an afternoon shrieking at each other over some fish-barrel Sansa’d imported from the Stormlands-

But whatever else, Sansa’s good at ruling, and Jon’s good at leading, and Satin’s good at getting ink in the middle of the damned winter, so they make a good team.)

“Satin?”

Satin looks back and tips his head forwards, shoulders bowing enough to qualify as a bobbled-bow. It’s the compromise they’ve reached between themselves: enough to satisfy both their senses of priority.

“M’lord.” He lifts the candle- it’s a thick one, long, made of better-quality wax than the kind they’d bartered from Torrhen Square. Satin had won it off a bet the previous night. “Where’d you like this?”

“Just- set it down,” says Jon, waving at Sansa’s desk.

He looks weary, Satin thinks. He looks wearier than he’d done walking out of those ice cells, and he’d looked like he was halfway to the Stranger then.

The darkness is taking a toll on all of them.

“M’lord,” Satin says, slowly, when he sees the ragged cut of Jon’s nails, made less by a clean blade and more by gnawing teeth. “M’lord, is... everything fine?”

And Jon- fool that he is- only lifts a brow. “There’s an army of the dead arriving,” he says, dry as the wine Sansa so enjoys.

“I only meant,” Satin begins, hand gesturing slightly-

-but he’d forgotten, he’d forgotten, he holds a candle that’s twice the size of any other candle he’s ever held, and the delicate pile of papers on Sansa’s desk go crashing to the floor when his candle knocks into it.

Satin might have forgiven himself for that, but the soft fwump of papers falling onto the flagstones makes Sansa lurch sideways, graceless as he’s never seen before; her sleeve catches on the corner of the desk but she jerks anyhow, the cloth ripping loudly in the abrupt silence of the room. When she looks up, there’s a line across one cheek from the abrupt drag of her face against the wood, rubbed raw and red.

But it’s her eyes that catch his attention: large, and blue, and terrified.

And unseeing.

“Sansa,” Jon mutters under his breath, before rising, stepping around both of them to lean down next to her, hand cupping her cheek.

She flinches away. Jon goes still at that, his shoulders pulling tight. There’s a long breathless moment, stretched taut with words Satin can’t quite pull into being- and then he, too, steps forwards, the anger-despair in Jon’s spine propelling him those few steps; Satin places one hand square between Jon’s shoulderblades and the other on Sansa’s shoulder.

“Lady Sansa?” he ventures, slowly. There’d been a woman in Oldtown who’d been like this, sometimes, when a customer was over-rough. Satin had once sat in the sunlight with her, popping dried apricots into his mouth until his tongue blistered. He’d rather liked that woman. “M’lady. You’re- you’re in Winterfell, now, m’lady, you’re safe. You- d’you remember? Your brother- m’lady-”

Sansa shudders out of the rabbit-caught stillness she’d been in, her shoulders hunching up to her ears and face staining a shade just a little duller than her hair. Jon, too, moves- or- something- something similar. Satin feels the vibration through his palm, flat on Jon’s back, but there’s no outward sign of it.

“You should’ve woken me,” she says, voice quiet, voice rough. An edge that reminds Satin of screams, of- of not-quite-screams, of screams swallowed before they were every allowed to be screams.

Jon doesn’t move. Fool, Satin thinks again, though this time it’s with admittedly more fondness. “You’ve not been sleeping well.”

“Yes, well,” says Sansa, “clearly that’s not going to be remedied by sleeping on desks.”

“I’m-” Jon pauses, checks himself, sighs. “I’m sorry.”

She leans back, pulling away from Satin’s fingers just enough that it can’t be an accident- far enough to look Jon in the eye, not far enough for Satin to let go. She’s slotting her masks into place again, Satin realizes; masks and smiles and courtesies, all of them to divert from the true girl under it all.

“Whatever for?”

“I scared you,” he says, flatly.

At that- there’s another, longer, moment of silence. Her face pulls tight.

“Jon.”

“You should rest,” Jon says, with the almost-impatient cadence of repetition, and rises to his feet. Satin’s hand drops fast. “I’ll speak to you in the morning.”

He leaves, and Satin’s left touching a woman who’s lovelier than any other he’s ever seen, a woman who has masks enough to make the Faceless Men envious.

Satin’s other hand still feels warm, warm from the heat of Jon’s back. He curls it into a fist and brings the other to his side and bows, and when he leaves he doesn’t look back at all.

(This is a lie. He does, just a glance over his shoulder when he reaches the door; and he sees Sansa staring into the guttering flames of the candle next to her- her eyes are dark, and heavy-lidded, and her hand is cupped over the shoulder he’d been touching, fingers running over the bare square-inch he’d brushed.

Satin wonders, at it. How long has it been since someone just- just touched her? Without cruelty, or wanting. Simply to comfort her.)

Looking back, Satin ought to have known.

He never has been able to resist broken things. Even less beautiful ones. And less than that, brave ones. And if Sansa Stark is anything at all, it’s brave and beautiful and broken.

...

Sansa doesn’t sleep that night.

She doesn’t dream of Ramsay often; even then, when she does, it’s usually of the way his blood painted Winterfell’s mud under Jon’s fist, the pad of his dogs before tearing into his flesh. Of course the one time she dreamt of his hands on her skin it was while in public.

But it shakes her, more than anything else. Ramsay’s hands on her skin, the way he’d tended to rip the blankets off her and then rip her clothes off her and then- and then- her skin.

Breathe, she tells herself, but it doesn’t work, she can’t-

She stands, and belts her nightdress together, hands aching for something to do; she’s almost at the door when she sees the jug of wine she’d stored in her chambers almost a sennight previous. She pauses only briefly, however, and reaches for it; and when she swallows two mouthfuls, she feels a slow warmth light in her belly.

There’s a curse on the tip of her tongue for her foolish mind, but Sansa swallows it instead, running a hand through her hair. These nightmares don’t come often, but they’re often enough to leave her hesitant to sleep.

It’s really been her memory of Robb that’s provided courage- how he would have laughed, and lit up all the candles in the room to ensure there wasn’t a speck of fear inside her chest, and likely slept beside her until Sansa finally kicked him out herself. And when even that fails, she has Arya inside her head.

She’d have slapped me until I fainted, Sansa thinks wryly, tugging the sleeves of her nightdress further down, against her cold wrists. And then she’d have told me that she was more frightening than any monster I had inside my head, so as long as she was there I’d have nothing to fear.

Arya’s not here now, and neither is Robb, but Sansa carries them inside of her like they were sunken into her ribs and heart. Her dead aren’t quite dead, and they won’t ever be. Not so long as she lives.

Sansa sighs and turns to the window, inspecting the sky critically.

Dark, but not too dark.

Jon’s taken to studying Sansa with worried eyes. He thinks he’s subtle, Sansa knows, but the rub is that he’s not; Jon and subtlety tend to go together as well as a Stark in the south or a Baratheon on the throne. And the care with which he treats her when he remembers how damaged she is- it’s irritating, more than all the other annoying habits he’s picked up over the years.

They’ve fought, the two of them, over what must seem utterly inane in retrospect- Jon’s clothes, Sansa’s sleep-habits, one time that Jon refused to treat one of the lords with enough courtesy- though they’ve fought over harsher, more important things as well, and that louder.

Admittedly, Sansa’s sleep has been one of their longest fought battles, even if it isn’t one of the most vicious. If he knows that she didn’t sleep for the full night, he’d as like as lock her in her rooms as not, and Sansa doesn’t think the nightmares will fade at all if he does so.

But the night sky is tinged with grey, so Sansa has hope that she can just pass it off to any people who see her as getting up early, not not sleeping at all.

A few minutes later, she’s creeping down the hallway to her solar, taking care to avoid the looser flagstones and hollow areas- if her knowledge of Winterfell hadn’t been good enough in her childhood, she’s learned it well enough when the Boltons held it. Jon’s room is next to the solar, all but attached; Sansa must be careful to ensure she doesn’t wake him. The doors are thick, yes, but it always pays to be more careful than not, as Sansa’s learned.

Just because she cannot find sleep doesn’t mean that Jon must waken as well.

She slips inside, silently, and closes the door as gently as she can, only relaxing when the lock’s tumblers settle without any corresponding shuffle in the adjacent rooms. Then she turns around, and all the care in the world wouldn’t be enough to stifle the shriek that climbs out of her throat when she sees a wavering flame hanging in mid-air.

Sansa’s fingers close over the handle, heartbeat jackrabbiting in her chest, all but ready to slam the door open.

And then she realizes: it’s Satin, not wearing his customary black cloak but in a brown jerkin that’s almost the exact shade of the paneling. With his back to her and a candle held aloft, the solar still not-quite lit, it’s not exactly surprising that she hadn’t realized that there was someone there.

“Oh,” she says, pressing a hand to her neck, trying to lower her voice from the octave it’d jumped to, “Satin, it’s you.” A breath, in and out, whistling in her lungs. “I don’t- what are you doing here?”

Satin stares back at Sansa, eyes wide. “Cand-”

Before he can finish the sentence, the door on the far side of the solar bursts open. Jon flings himself through it half a breath later, brandishing a dagger that she’s seen only in one man’s keep, and Sansa blinks at him for a long moment. The large-bladed, long-handled knife catches the light, and she feels the shock shift, abruptly, to anger.

Anger at Jon, who makes it damn easy to be angry at him anyhow.

“You took Littlefinger’s dagger,” she accuses.

“You shouted,” he replies.

“I didn’t expect anyone to be in here,” Sansa says levelly, drawing herself up. “But then, I didn’t expect you to enter either.” That, I think, is a lie. But it’s not like you need to know that, is it? What she says doesn’t matter all that much, with Jon; what matters is how she says it- the tone, the rhythm, and body language. Sansa lets censure hone her voice, now. “Least of all like- this.”

Jon’s cheeks suffuse with a color that makes him look younger. It’s a good look on him: his hair cuts across his over-sharp jaw, and the color softens his face even further, and the light in his eyes is bright enough to make her chest ache a little, faint memories of their childhood coming together to remind her of him laughing, sometimes with Robb, sometimes with Arya, bright as children still innocent of the horrors of the world.

He cuts his eyes over to Satin, who’s frowning determinedly at the far wall as if it’s done him an injustice, and flushes further, painfully red.

Her toes curl in her slippers, something hot and brilliant coiling in her belly.

“I was- worried,” Jon bites out.

“For what?” Sansa asks, tipping her arms wide. “We’re inside Winterfell, Ramsay’s gone, Petyr’s gone, what more-”

“-you screamed,” he says.

“I did not,” says Sansa, almost insulted.

It hadn’t been a scream. A yelp, a shout- but she hadn’t screamed, not really. Certainly not loud enough for Jon to hear through his door, not unless he were...

Oh, she thinks, a vicious sort of triumph flitting up her throat like a flame’s heat. Oh, Jon.

“You were awake,” she says.

Jon frowns, and then he sees her face, and he pales. “No,” he says. “No, no. Be quiet. I wasn’t-”

“You were,” says Sansa, the anger quickly being replaced by delight. “You haven’t been sleeping, I knew it!"

“Sansa,” he hisses.

“Jon,” she mimics, before quirking her lips. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

His hands clench. “I’m not lying to you,” he tells her slowly.

Sansa pushes away from the door, stepping closer to him. One step, and then two, and then three- each foot closer feels dangerous, but not as it’d ever been with Ramsay; less like she’s balancing on a knife’s edge and more like she’s on a high wall with a net strung to catch her if she were to fall. Still frightening- but not- not too much.

The firelight flicks over his eyes, shadows sharp over most of his face; over all of him, truly, all but the gleaming flats of his cheekbones.

“Yes,” Sansa tells him, her braid loose over her shoulder, nightgown loose over her pale skin. It’s too dark, damn it all, she can’t quite see what he’s looking at- but she sees the bob of his throat as he swallows, and it’s that single motion that gives her the courage to step forwards once more, close enough to brush his arms if she just extended her own: the idea that Jon’s throat is as dry as her own, for reasons neither of them is willing to explore. “You are.”

“I’m not,” he whispers, but she can see the way he pulls away, even as she comes closer; Sansa can see it, and she’s not half so blind as to think that it’s for anything other than the heat low in her belly.

“Sansa,” Jon sighs, again, but this time she thinks there’s resignation there as well- and it makes triumph flare like a falcon’s spearing wings inside her.

But then- but then-

Satin coughs.

And Jon jumps, wild as a startled deer, away from her and whatever delicate confession she’d almost wheedled out of him.

“M’lord,” calls Satin, startled all on his own- oh, be quiet, is all Sansa can think, likely with too much of a spiteful edge- “M’lord, I didn’t mean to-”

The far door slams behind Jon. Sansa braces herself on the table, the edge digging into her palms. Satin starts towards the door as if to follow him.

“Let him go,” she says, biting back the sigh crawling up her throat.

Satin halts, looking between Sansa and the door, conflicted. Sansa looks up at him, and releases the sigh anyhow, before jerking her chin at the door- effectively dismissing Satin.

Alone in the study, she glares at her hands, sleep a far memory.

“Coward,” she says.

Sansa’s not quite certain who she’s branding such. Perhaps, she thinks, the petulant part of her still awake and baying- perhaps it’s all three.

...

The Wall fell, the note reads, in a script too jagged to be written by someone who could truly write. It’s the cut of a quill made by unused hands, and it makes dread seize in Jon’s lungs, in Jon’s throat, in Jon’s mouth.

Please help us.

Written by an illiterate person, begging for assistance against an undead enemy-

I’m coming, Jon thinks, and when he announces it that night, the hall doesn’t say a word against him.

The hall doesn’t, but Sansa does.

Jon remembers the slope of the ‘l’ in the note, slanting together as if leaning for comfort. He can’t forgive Sansa for daring to put him above the land she’s sworn to rule, and so he meets her flint with his own flash, and-

Well.

Is it any surprise that there’s a fire?

...

“M’lady,” says Satin, before pulling away hastily at Sansa’s cool, arched brow. “I- I’d like to speak to you, if I could, in private.”

Sansa’s mouth curves into something that only just apes a smile. “We’re rather busy ensuring the King has all he needs to leave.”

“Tonight, then,” Satin says, immediately. “Please, m’lady.”

She pauses. Then: “Yes. Tonight.”

Satin’s a mess, for the rest of the day; he stutters through half his meetings, remembering the way Sansa had looked up at Jon, the way Jon had stared back down at her, the flicker of Jon’s pale eyes towards Satin before he turned heel and fled-

Fuck, thinks Satin, fisting his hands in his tunic. They’re so pretty, the both of them, and he can’t stop imagining the play of firelight across their skin, the way Jon’s face would flush like roughened silk, the bend of Sansa’s waist against those scarred fingers. I’m a selfish bastard for this, mayhaps.

Selfish, yes, but content.

He spends precious minutes trying to find the courage to knock on Sansa’s door- but Jon is going to leave on the morrow, and Satin’s leaving with him. If Satin loses his nerve, he’ll lose it all, and all before it even forms as well.

“Lady Sansa?”

Sansa doesn’t speak when he enters, instead choosing to study him closely. Satin looks back frankly, and he wonders if there’s ever been anyone in the lovely lady’s life to care that she has a patch of freckles on the side of her neck, a constellation almost like the Seven Sisters in the sky. Likely not, and that’s as great a tragedy as Satin’s ever known.

“You wished to speak to me,” Sansa says, finally.

“Yes.” Satin coughs. “I meant- that is- I thought-” her brows climb higher with each stutter, make his heart pound a little harder. But Satin’s not going to lose his mind to shame, not before he’s spit out what he wants. There’s every chance he’ll die within the fortnight, and he thinks he deserves to know what Sansa’s answer would be. “I’ve seen it, you know,” he says, holding her gaze until he feels like he’s drowning. “How you look at Jon.”

And how he looks at you. But he bites back those words, mostly because Sansa’s face goes- not whiter, not precisely; Satin can’t tell exactly what changes in her face, only that there’s a strained cast to it, all of a sudden, despite her still-arched brows and disapproving eyes. Did you think you were hiding it?

Perhaps to someone who wasn’t in constant, daily contact with both of them, but Satin’s definitely not one of those people.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Sansa says, so evenly that had Satin not been sure of himself, he’d likely have been convinced. “He is my brother, yes. And I’ve precious little family left, so I’ll forgive you for your ignorance-”

“M’lady, that’s not how any sister looks at a man she calls brother.”

Sansa smiles thinly. “I’ve lost all my family save Jon, and he’s as like as not to lose himself to those thrice-accursed dead. The way I look at him is the way a woman resigned to being alone looks at her last blood, Satin.”

So you’ve hidden it from yourself as well.

“You love him,” says Satin.

“Of course I do.” Her smile seems to grow teeth, just a hint. “He is my brother.”

For a long moment, Satin cannot find the words. Then he straightens further, pleads every inch he can out of his spine, stares directly into Sansa Stark’s stubborn face and says, “I love him.”

There is silence around them, like the quiet before a blizzard. Satin can see the surprise flood Sansa’s face, along with the smaller, pettier emotions; he can see the way her jaw clenches, the pulse of her heart along the skin of her neck.

Satin hadn’t known that himself, not entirely. But it’s the truth, isn’t it?

(There had been a customer, back in Oldtown, who’d been- gentle with him, in the fashion of a man who thought himself generous and utterly capable. He’d returned time and time again, trying to find a purchase in Satin’s heart; each time, with a different object.

Flowers, at first, and then satin, and then jewels.

On their last night together, before he’d had to return to Essos, the man had slowly, thoroughly fucked him into the bed, and then, as they laid together, he’d whispered of the hundred names the Lyseni tongue had for love.

“Brother and family and lover,” he’d said, “and a hundred more besides, which I can’t ever remember- but- you’ve captured my heart, little Satin, over all those types, in a hundred different ways.”

Satin never saw him again, and never truly cared either way.)

He’d always thought there was exaggeration, to say I love you in a hundred different ways, but- Satin thinks about it, and he does, he loves Jon as a brother in arms, as a king, as his king; he loves Jon deeper than he’s ever loved anyone else in his life, and it’s not least because Jon would never demand that love of him.

Satin loves Jon, with all the ways that he’d never known himself capable of.

For little more than a heartbeat, Satin feels the yawning, terrifying depth of those truths- then he shoves it aside, and faces Sansa, and wonders if this is enough to break her of her masks.

“If you love him,” she says, then, and Satin thinks her hands are clenching beneath the desk, out of sight- “and you think I love him, as well, what is this? An attempt to- to convince me to leave well enough alone? Or-”

Ah, poor lady, you have been hurt far too much, to think me so cruel. I’m afraid that I’m not so selfish as to demand that of you- though I am selfish enough to demand the both of you.

“You love him too, I think,” Satin says, quietly. Sansa twitches, but keeps quiet. “I wouldn’t wish to keep that love of him, m’lady. I didn’t come here to warn you away, rather closer.”

“I don’t understand.”

Do not lose your nerve now, Satin orders himself. You’ve come this far, just- tell her the rest.

“We could,” he says, hesitantly. “We could- there are ways. For all three of us. Together.”

Sansa pales further, instead of the flush Satin had hoped for.

“I think you should leave,” is all she says, before she reaches for the papers in front of her. Satin hesitates, and her eyes flick from him to the door, blue and almost electric in their intensity.

Slowly, Satin bows out of the room.

...

Sansa doesn’t sleep that night, either.

Perhaps Jon is right, she thinks, her fingers drumming against her legs. Perhaps I ought to speak to a maester about this.

But speaking to a maester would be akin to admitting defeat, and Jon’s stung Sansa’s pride enough that she knows she won’t back down before he does.

The rest of the hall had let Jon walk away, after he announced his intentions. But Sansa- Sansa’d stared for a full minute before throwing down her napkin and fleeing after him- and they’d fought again, after that, with words and thrown papers aplenty. The world might well be content with Jon throwing himself into danger after danger, escaping by only the slimmest of margins, but Sansa certainly won’t lie down and accept that.

I’ll drink a sleeping draught after Jon swears never to seek out the dead, and not a moment sooner.

That decided, she closes her eyes, and resigns herself to another night of staring at the canopy, anger and fear a hot mess in her chest.

It doesn’t come, though. What does come is a vision that leaves her feeling too tight for her skin, the same twist in her belly that had come when she almost confronted Jon: a vision of Jon, and Satin, and the contrast of their hair- not too much, not enough at all in dim light, Sansa decides, but during the day... -and their skin, too, one tawny and the other pale, though she doesn’t know which one is which; and their bodies- one muscled, the other thin, one sharpened, the other softened, and still, somehow, both lovely.

The three of us, Satin had said, ducking his head, looking so bashful that no one would ever imagine him to give such a bold suggestion. Together.

But he’d looked at her, and he’d told her that he loved Jon, and Sansa can’t think of anything more bold than that. She isn’t so bold herself.

And still, somehow, for some reason, the image won’t leave her mind.

Gods damn it all to hell.

She’s angry, yes, angry like she’s never been before in her life. Jon does make it easy to be angry at him, because he doesn’t really defend his decisions; he only makes them, and those who wish to fall in line can, while those who don’t leave. It’s how it’s been with him ever since he left Winterfell- perhaps even before, it’s not like she knows all that much of how he was treated then- but Sansa’s not going to leave, and she’s not going to shy away from throwing Jon’s decisions in his face either.

I love him, and I’m going to make sure he survives if I have to break the world for it. Call me selfish- I don’t care. Not anymore.

Sansa digs her fingers into the muscle of her thigh. For the first time in days, she feels a plan brewing in the back of her mind- a desperate, terrible sort of plan, but a plan nevertheless.

I might be selfish, she thinks, and closes her eyes, remembers the shadows ringing Satin’s thin face. But I think I know one person who wouldn’t care either way.

Call her selfish, but Sansa won’t hesitate to use him.

Not if it means bringing Jon back.

...

Jon hadn’t expected Sansa to come meet him.

They haven’t spoken since she yelled at him; Sansa’s avoided him so expertly that Jon hasn’t been able to find her, much less speak to her. But when he starts harnessing his horse, Sansa appears besides him- she looks tired, her skin parchment-thin and Jon wonders when she last got a good night’s sleep- but they’ve only got a few more minutes together, and he’s not going to let their last words to each other be so petty.

“My lady,” Jon murmurs.

“My lord,” Sansa returns, courtesy polished to a honed edge.

She bows, stiffly, and some of her hair slips over her face when she does- it’s not in her usual braid, and the free locks look even brighter now. Abruptly, Jon’s seized by a rush of- something- something rich and deep, that makes him want to reach out and brush his fingers over her- her face, those sharp cheekbones, the joint of neck and shoulder that looks so soft, that thick hair. Reason asserts itself a moment later, but the damage is already done: Jon can feel his cheeks heating, and in the middle of the courtyard, mere moments before he’s to ride out, he feels utterly foolish.

“I bid you fair travels, and fortune enough to return to these walls in good health.” Sansa doesn’t smile at him- she does that very rarely, and usually when she does it’s because she’s furious, not when she’s happy- but her face does soften, and her eyes brighten, and she looks as unabashedly beautiful as she’d once looked all those years ago before the Lannisters rode North.

“I thought you’d not miss me,” Jon replies, and cannot stop the wry smile curving his lips. “I’ve seen little enough of you over the past sennight.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Sansa says airily, before stepping closer to him. Her voice is far quieter, though no less sharp, when she says, “I want you to come back, do you hear me? No matter what, no matter how desolate it seems out there- you’re not going to stop fighting. You’re going to come back.”

“I’ll certainly try,” Jon replies.

Sansa looks as if she might hit him- and, yes, admittedly, Jon could have been less flippant with his response- but Sansa takes it even harder than he’d expected of her. Her lips curl, and her eyes narrow, and every inch of her goes as rigid as a board. “I don’t care how hopeless you feel it is,” she grits out, eyes blazing. “You’ll swear to come back, right here, right now. And- Jon?”

“Yes?” Jon asks, warily.

A good precaution, as it were, because Sansa looks as if she’s spoiling for a whetstone for her tongue, and Jon’s the nearest target.

“You’ll hold to these vows,” Sansa says sweetly.

Someone who doesn’t know Sansa very well might not have realized the venom in that tone, but Jon knows her very well indeed. Jon might have broken some vows, but-

“Sansa,” he says lowly.

She sighs, just a little, and unbends enough to reach out and catch his hand. “I didn’t mean that. Or, I did, but- not that way. You know how I was in the south, Jon, how lonely it was- and I came North, and after I met you it was- I wasn’t alone. At least for a time.”

Which Jon might very well end, with his untimely death.

“If it were up to me,” Jon says, gently, “we’d be in Essos, or perhaps Ulthos, and the dead would not be our problem at all. But they crowned me their king, and you are the only Stark in Winterfell now.”

“We will survive,” Sansa says. Her eyes shine, for all that the rest of her face looks calm. “The Starks endure, and you are as much a Stark as I am. So you’ll come back to me, do you understand?”

She steps forwards and embraces him, so abruptly that Jon can barely respond; and then she steps away just as fast.

“Yes,” Jon says finally, helplessly.

Sansa nods, a spearing motion that looks at once triumphant and resolved. Then she turns, eyes sweeping over the courtyard until she finds- Satin, and strides over to him, gripping Satin’s elbow hard enough to dent the leather vanbraces he wears. Sansa leads him away; they bend their heads together, not a few feet from him, and Sansa says something to Satin that makes him pale.

But they’re too quiet for Jon to hear, so he’s reduced to watching them- the steward he’s grown to rely on more than is likely healthy, or good for the kingdom; the sister who’s his last family in all the world.

Eight millennia, and a bastard and a girl are all that is left.

Somewhere up above, the gods are laughing at them, Jon’s certain of it.

Finally, Satin seems to agree to whatever Sansa asked of him. They return, but both look grim. Grim and resolute as well, which is a dangerous combination- Jon remembers that feeling well, before he fled Ygritte, before he let the wildlings south. Actions undertaken when feeling this particular emotion can make the stuff of legends, Jon knows.

The stuff of legends, or the stuff of eulogies.

...

Save him, Sansa’d said. If you love him, even half as much as I- save him. At the cost of everything, if necessary. Your men’s lives, and the Night’s Watch’s lives, and your own life, if it comes to it; they are none of them- she’d hiccuped, a little, before forging on with the sheer stubbornness that must have been Stark, for Jon had it as well- you will bring him back here.

And why should I? Satin had responded.

That still haunts him. If he’d said something else- perhaps no, or what you ask is a selfish thing, or even what will you give me in return; but Satin did not, and Sansa drew herself up instead, and she said, more royally than anything Satin’s heard in his life: For you love him, and you know his worth, and you know Jon Snow to be a better man than most any other you’ve seen in your life. And because you pity me, and if you let him die you will have to contend with my grief when you return.

My grief, Sansa’d said, and it echoes in his every bone like a cursed thing.

It echoes and echoes and echoes, and when Jon remains inside the Wall even as it crashes down- Satin’s first impulse is to run, when the crack forms across the wall of ice.

MY GRIEF, Sansa’s voice thunders over him, rolling even louder than the terrible sound of Brandon Builder’s Wall crashing down- MY GRIEF!

It is a song, and a chant, and Satin draws himself together to the beat of it.

He dives into the Wall, and when they escape, the two of them- the last thing Satin sees is red, spattering over the snow. It looks like Sansa’s hair.

Oh, he thinks he hears, before his eyes close; this time, the voice is aching with pain, softer than it’s been for weeks. Oh, my grief.

...

“M’lady!”

Sansa steps out onto the ramparts, and she sees a sight that makes her heart skip a beat.

Ghost stands right beyond the walls, two bodies slung over his back. There’s snow frosted along the two bodies, light and glittering. The image imprinted along the backs of her eyes, however, is of the scarlet stain dribbling down Ghost’s sides.

No.

It’s hours later that Sansa comes back to herself. She has a vague sense- slightly- of screaming, both orders and quieter sobs. But Jon and Satin rest inside the walls, now, and they’re no longer in danger of dying from their wounds as they’d been when they first arrived.

They both almost- almost died.

There had been so much blood. Frozen blood, crusted blood, dripping blood. Sansa had never known the human body could bear that much blood. Sansa had soaked straight through three layers of wool and linen, and her skin still feels cold with it.

Jon almost died. Her hands are still stained with his blood. He’s a fool, Sansa knows, but she hadn’t ever thought him so utterly brainless. Half their army is gone in an attempt to save more men than returned- and the gods only know how long it will take Jon to regain consciousness.

Until then, Sansa is the sole ruler.

And she has bargaining chips aplenty.

“Get me a piece of parchment,” she orders the man who’s taken Satin’s place as steward- who’s far less capable, in all truth.

He nods. “And a washbasin, my lady?”

Sansa hesitates. But the blood is still wet on her fingers, and the desperation will look good on parchment. The Targaryens understand blood, according to all the stories. And if the Dragon Queen believes Sansa to be more desperate than she actually is-

Of all the things she’s learned from Petyr, the foremost among them is to keep the truth a close thing.

“No,” she says. “Just the parchment, if you please.”

...

Satin wakes.

This is something he hadn’t entirely expected- without blood loss addling his wits, he realizes that the redness splattered across snow was blood, not Sansa’s hair- but even more importantly, he’s warm, and Jon’s there in the same room- he’s asleep, or so Satin suspects; there’s a blanket thrown over his shoulders, and bandages peeking out from underneath it, the linen just a few shades lighter than Jon’s skin.

Jon is alive, is the point.

“You’re awake,” a voice says, sounding surprised. Satin tries to turn his head, but his neck twinges sharply, and he desists. A moment later, Sansa steps forwards out of the darkness shrouding the entryway. “Don’t get out of bed.”

She comes closer, placing a wooden bowl on the table besides him and dipping a cloth into it. “The muscles were sprained,” she says, by way of explanation. “According to the maester, that is. He said-” Sansa breaks off, before she turns and approaches him with a cloth. Satin shies away, as much as he can with a sprained neck and a still-aching body.

“You’re not- I’m a-”

What lady tends to a-

“Steward, yes,” says Sansa. “And a bastard besides.” I ought to be glad she didn’t call me a whore as well, I suppose, Satin thinks bitterly. “But you’ve done more for my family than most any other person I can think of, and I am quite grateful for that.”

Wait, what?

Sansa quirks her lips at him, and she looks far too beautiful; Satin can’t help but think he’s still in the middle of a fever-dream, because gods only know how many of the dreams have ended up with him grievously wounded, a lovely woman tending to said wounds-

It’s the pain, in the end, which convinces him it isn’t a dream.

“That you survived is a miracle,” Sansa says softly, brushing a stinging liquid along his brow. “Had Ghost not been there- had it been any colder, or any warmer for that matter- you’d both have died.” Her hand pauses at his elbow, where it had rested in the courtyard, before Satin left. It’s soft, and warm, and gentler than Sansa’s ever been in his presence before. “What happened there, Satin?”

He shudders, hands fisting in the coverlet across his knees. “We got to the Wall easily enough,” Satin murmurs, steadying his voice when it threatens to break against Sansa’s touch. “He left me at Mole’s Town, and went on ahead to the Wall to convince some o’ the men. It... they were tryin’ to leave, almost there, when the Walkers came.”

He shudders, again, shoulders jumping. Satin’s spent so long training that lowborn-Reach accent out of his words; turns out it only takes some fear to bring it back.

And gods, but the fear is there inside of him even now: of the Wall, which had felt more frightening than death even as he raced inside it; of the darkness, which had swallowed him whole in his desperate search; of the cold, which had frozen and shattered his blade even before he met a Walker.

“Jon was fighting them.” Blade almost glowing, a blur of silver around him as he stood in a pile of bodies. “He hadn’t known how to get out- was going in the opposite direction- so I helped.” Satin had been sure, bone-sure, that they wouldn’t get out. When the light finally emerged in the distance, he’d almost cried with sheer happiness. “It was right terrifying.”

“We heard of the Wall falling,” Sansa says quietly. “Do you know what Jon did- what anyone did to-”

Satin shakes his head. “No,” he replies, eyes flickering over to the pale figure asleep on the bed. “No, m’lady. I had to bring him back, and I did it. I know nothin’ more of all of it. The Wall fell, and I was sure we’d die even after we go’ out, ‘cause there was no way we’d get any distance- both of us wounded, barely able to walk, no supplies.”

Sansa nods. “And if Ghost hadn’t found you, you would’ve died there.” Then she tacks her lips up in a faint smile, or a faint attempt at a smile. “You did more than I ever hoped for, Satin. It’s why you’re here: I didn’t want you to wonder how Jon was, when you awoke.” The smile fades, replaced by a far more genuine look. “And I didn’t want to tend to the two of you in separate rooms. Time would be wasted in simply walking back and forth, wouldn’t you say?”

“So,” says Satin, simply to clarify- “you put me in the same room as the king.”

“No,” Sansa says. Satin’s brows furrow, and she smiles at him, pleasantly. “Do not tell this to Jon until I’m there, but he’s not king any longer. Or, rather, he is; but only until I receive a raven from the south.”

Satin hauls himself upright so fast his neck cricks. “You spoke to them?” he cries.

Sansa looks as if she’s readying to answer, but before she can, a voice croaks from the far side of the room:

“Traitor.”

Horror rises up Satin’s throat, along with a flood of words; but Sansa reaches out and rests a long-fingered palm on his knee, stopping his words; then she closes her eyes. When she opens them, there’s only resolve in them.

Resolve, and an anger deeper than any sea Satin’s ever seen.

He knows then, with the surety of a man trained to judge other’s emotions: this fight between Sansa and Jon will be more vicious than any other they’ve ever fought, and Satin’s caught right between them both, with no way to move at all, not even to twist his neck.

...

“You’re certainly one to talk.”

Jon closes his eyes. He hadn’t thought-

I thought you could be trusted. But if Sansa’d done what she had just told Satin, and if she’d set events in action that threatened their entire realm... What other word is there for it than traitor?

“I am your king,” he says wearily.

Sansa tosses her hair, surging to her feet like a twisting column of flame. “And did you think the realm would rule itself when you slept? The North needed a ruler, and I was de facto head.” She lifts her chin. “Half our army is gone. Our food stores are almost disappeared. What more can we lose, before we lose our lives as well?”

“Doesn’t look likely that we’ll have that, either, for overlong,” Jon retorts, through the pounding headache behind one temple. “‘Twas a condition of the lords, wasn’t it, Sansa? That we never kneel to the south? And now you’ve brought the south’s attention to us.” He bares his teeth at her. “One army we might have dealt with. One threat. Not both!”

“So you think one threat will ignore us while the other is dealt with?” Sansa demands. “The living, the dead; once we finish dealing with one we’ll have naught but ashes for the other. Better we make them allies. Better we treat with the one threat that is reasonable, and even better to do so before we’re cut off at the knees with all we’ve lost.”

He grits his teeth. “The lords won’t like it.”

“Oh, what will the lords do?” she asks. “Hide in their homes until they’re swelling the Night’s King’s army? After what happened to the Umbers, they’re all too scared to do even that.”

"I don’t like it.”

Sansa’s face shadows. Then she turns to Satin. “Tell him how close he was to death,” she orders, before turning reproachful eyes back on Jon.

Satin hesitates, and then he says, a little brittlely, “You were rather close to death, my lord.”

“Rather close? Rather close!” Sansa looks as if she were trembling from the force of her anger. “Your face was blue, and you’d both spilled so much blood that it was frozen to your body! I had to cut it off with a knife, and pray that I wasn’t skinning you while at it! And as if that weren’t enough-”

She cuts herself off, face white.

“As if that weren’t enough?” Jon inquires, as politely as he can, his own temper heating.

“I have ruled the North while you played games against these dead,” Sansa whispers, and when she steps closer to him she looks just as bright-eyed and terrifying as when Jon left, eyes blazing like a dozen stars all sunk together. “But no longer. What need have we of a king so lost in one threat that he forgets all others? Better a queen with an army behind her, no matter the price.”

Jon swallows, hard, and drags himself further upright.

Coups should be more obvious, I think. Jaime Lannister had struck Aerys down as befitted a mad king. There should be more to a king losing power than a darkened sickroom and a skull-bandaged steward and a red-eyed young woman. But then, I was never a proper king.

“And that queen shall be you, I suppose?”

Sansa manages to bristle further. “What army do I have?” she demands scornfully. “No. I sent for the Targaryen Queen. Three dragons, and enough horselords to make Cersei quail- it’ll be enough, hopefully.”

Jon thinks he knows what Sansa’s not saying, though: If it won’t be enough, it scarce matters; we’ll all be dead.

“How did you send it?”

“Ser Davos made a good messenger.” Her lips thin when she sees his disapproval. “He knows Dragonstone best of all the people here. I suspect he’ll return within a few days.”

Satin frowns. “M’lady,” he says, quietly, “if the Dragon Queen’s got any worth to her name, she’d’ve captured Davos.”

Sansa inclines her head. “Yes.”

“He’s not likely to escape.”

“Ser Davos knows Dragonstone better than all the people here,” Sansa says neutrally. “He also knows Dragonstone better than the people currently residing there. If he sticks to the shoreline he won’t be captured by the queen, not even if she were to ride her dragon and scour the sea. And once he reaches the Vale, it won’t be too difficult to ride north.”

And she thinks me a fool?

“Even if he escapes,” Jon says, “do you think the Queen won’t know where he’s headed?”

She’ll burn us in our beds, and if she doesn’t- by some miracle- we’ll have to give away everything you fought so hard for.

“She’ll come here,” says Sansa, before smiling, thin and small.

“And you’re not frightened by that,” Jon says flatly.

“Oh,” Sansa murmurs, the smile growing wider, dangerous as a wolf’s bared teeth, “I’m rather counting on it.”

#jonxsansa #jon x sansa #jonxsansaxsatin #satin flowers #jon snow #sansa stark #titles all come from either anactoria or hymn to proserpine #by algernon charles swinburne #the idea of sansa being furious at jon and also #simultaneously #furiously in love with him #is one of the best ideas i've ever heard of #satin is so the well-adjusted one of the trio it's kind of sad #let my soul with their souls find peace #my writing

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minijenn · 6 years

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MiniJen’s Fic Recs!

So I said I was gonna do it and here it is! One big huge list of fics I love the hell outta for ya’ll to read. These are mostly GF fics, but there are a few SU fics and maybe like several LoZ fics near the end, maybe a few others from other fandoms but still, I can promise they’re all pretty good! And nah I’m not reccing any UF based fics on here, cause if you want to check those out, you can do so here. And with that outta the way, let’s get started, in no particular order and with very little rhyme or reason under the cut! (fyi all the titles are links to make your life easier, even if they dont show up as links on my blog, but you can still click on em and it’ll take you where you wanna go)

All the World’s a Toybox by Straightjacketd Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete Ok so I fucking LOVE the hell outta this one because its angsty as fuck and dark. Like fucking dark, like if ya’ll think UF has gotten dark ahahah UF is like child’s play compared to how far this one goes. But that’s honestly one of the things I love about it. I feel like there aren’t enough GF fics out there about what might have happened to our beloved characters had Bill won during Weirdmageddon, but this one puts all ten of the zodiac characters through utter hell and back but the good news is there are spots of hope here and there as the story goes along, so totally go check it out if you wanna cry a fucking LOT because I certainly have with this one!

Monster Falls by Queen Flara Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete A pretty cute take on Monster Falls. We get to see how all the various characters deal with their new monster forms and there’s a bit of angst but a lot of fluff too so I like it and I’d check it out if you just want some cute Monster Falls stuff.

Ain’t No Cure for The Cervitaur Blues by Krista Perry (also on Ao3) Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete? I think? So I recently reread this one over Thanksgiving break and I remembered how much I ADORED this one! Its chock full of one of the things ya’ll know I’m infamous for in UF: Dipper angst! Which is honestly a kinda common theme through several of these fics but whatever, its all good, don’t worry about it. But yeah this one’s a beautifully written angst storm with really high stakes, great tension, and immense amounts of awesome creativity packed into things! Plus its kinda Monster Fallsish, which is always a good time, so for reals, check this one out cause its one of the ones I recommend the most on this entire list, no lies.

Time Trapped by Polachew Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete So if you’re like me and love some Timestuck AU angst, this one has got plenty of that! The ways Young!Stan and Mabel and Young!Ford and Dipper play off each other in this are so great and there really are a lot of sweet moments in here. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something of an inspiration for a future chapter of UF I wanna do with a Timestuck premise... But yeah go check this one out its pretty great!

Silent Knight by Split Infinitive Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Incomplete This was honestly one of the first really good Breath of the Wild fics I managed to find after the game first came out and its honestly so good. It fulfills my inner Zelink shipper so much imo I died because of how cute those two dorks are but this one also has a pretty damn intriguing plot, one that I am totally down for reading more of whenever the author decides to update it. So go check it out if that’s your thing!

We Had a Deal by freakyanimegirl Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete This may be one of my favorite fucking fanfics of all time because of mere premise alone. Also feels, this one gives me INTENSE feels every time I read it because of how absolutely, soul crushingly angsty it is. But yeah its a super neat idea in here, one that I won’t dare spoil to any of you. Suffice to say its copious amounts of Mystery Twins angst and Bill being a complete and utter asshole, so what else is new imo like I said its great yet so simple and idk I just really, really like this one so go read it!

Deerperfalls by Deerper Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Complete (for a fucking change) Oh damn another Monster Falls fic with a fuck ton of Dipper angst in it what else is new that seems to be my fanfic taste for some reason imo but yeah this one’s a good one. Really sad and angsty but really good. Like Augh I remember the first time I read this over the course of a sick day from school and I was so fucking engrossed in it that I forgot to actually fucking try to get better so ahaha you know its good if that be happening. Check it out and enjoy the angstssssss

Nothing a Little Sleep Can’t Fix by AkitaFallow Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Heyyyyy its one of those angsty post Sock Opera oneshots that kinda might have inspired the angst aftermath of Sock Opera in UF! Ya’ll can’t blame me for that you gotta blame damn good fics like this. But for as angsty as this is, it also has is lovely moments of fluff, which are much appreciated so yeah, check it out!

A Different Way by Seasoned Writing Fandom: Steven Universe Status: Incomplete Bout time I rec an SU fic. And while this one doesn’t have a lot of chapters, it does have a pretty interesting AU concept, so *shrugs* idk I like it, not a whole lot else to say about it though.

Tourmaline by Phantomrose96 Fandom: Steven Universe Status: Complete Goooooodddddd this one is just a fucking ANGST storm but its a damn good angst storm, one that really, REALLY makes you hurt for Steven and pre-redemption arc Peridot. Like I legit cried over this one because DAMN its something else. Go check it out like WOW

Ancient Roots by RandomButLoved Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Complete Gooooosh this one is absolutely GORGEOUS and it hurt me so much but I love it so much too! Such an incredibly crafted, heartwrecnhing AU of Skyward Sword, one that made me rethink pretty much the entire game! Its rare that roleswaps between Link and Zelda work so perfectly, but this one is as close to perfection as anyone has ever gotten before and I simply adore it.

Dreamscarring by AnneriaWings Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Another angsty post-Sock Opera oneshot, and again, probably one of the ones that unconsciously influenced UF Sock Opera. Still, really angst, pretty brutal, but ultimately sweet and comforting and that’s what I like in my post-Sock Opera angst storms if Do It For Them was any indication of that.

Heartbreaker by Queenie Z Fandom: Legend of Zelda Staus: Twoshot Yeeeee boi love me some HW angst involving Zelink and onesided Cialink. And this one’s honestly so beautiful, balancing the angst out with fluffy adorable romance and I simply love it.

Finally by Kibasgirltsumi Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Complete This is honestly one of my faovirte fanfics of all time like for reals its so damn beautiful and so damn painful and so damn perfect and it strikes me in all the right places and my ship is so damn strong in it and so much happens and its just AUGH oh god I could go on forever with it its so fucking good

Tainted Tale by Flying.Penguin.97 Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Complete I’m a sucker for dark rouge protagonists fics, and I’m also a lover of Link angst so this one fucking did it for it. Also it has copious amounts of Ghirahim being a fucking fabulous asshole, so that’s fun and everything. This a good read.

Convictions and Captivity by realfakedoors Fandom: Steven Universe Status: Incomplete AUGHGHGHG FUCK I haven’t even finished fully reading this one yet but DAMN SON IF IT AINT SOME OF THE MOST ANGSTY STEVEN UNIVERSE SHIT I”VE EVER READ again in an example of a fic that puts UF to shame with how damn dark it is this one goes fucking HARD and it HURTS ME but I love it and I really need to finish it because AUGH FUCK

Ask the Right Questions by AceFace98 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete So the idea behind this one is a lot of fun and tbh this has quite a good bit of fluff and humor in it and hey I’m always for Mystery Twins bonding so yeah this one is neat check it out

Three Days by LynnLarsh Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot And in an example of something from canon that will also turn incredibly angsty in UF when we get to Weirdmageddon, we get, what else, more Dipper angst! But yeah this one is sad like damn this poor kid wandered around a fucking desolate apocalyptic wasteland completely alone for three days and everyone seems to forget about that but this fic doesn’t and it HURTS and I like it a lot for that

Come Together by Winter_S_Jameson Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete I love zodiac centric fics so this one I really enjoy a lot, in large part because it focuses on Ford realizing “oh shit maybe working with others can actually save the day how have I never thought about that before”. Its not super far along yet, but we get some Pines fam angst in there which is always good angst if ya ask me I’m down for that and I like it so ye ye ye ye

Anyway, I’ve Been There by Caleb Nova Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Complete (but still updates occasionally) Strange how Dipifica is one of my primary OTPs but I’ve recced so far fics centered on those two in this list, huh? Well no more because this one has one of the best developments of the ship I’ve seen thus far. Its kinda slow burn and lowkey but in a really nice way and everyone feels so great and in character and Dipper and Pacifica are adorable together and ahhhh its so cute imo

A Conspiracy of Minerals by CompletelyDifferent Fandom: Gravity Falls/Steven Universe Status: Complete Waahhhhhha? A GF/SU fic writer reccing a GF/SU fic??? Tis madness! But yeah I read this way back before I even started writing UF anf loved it. Its mostly just a bunch of cute little oneshots but I do enjoy the few that are there. They’re pretty cute if ya ask me and the character interactions are sweet enough.

Let Me Clarify by carpenoctem22 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Bunch more Dipifica cuteness, only this time a little aged up. Not a whole lot to say about it except for that its completely adorable.

Twin Telepathy by blueechofreak Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot What can I say but more post Sock Opera angst, only this time with a bit more Mystery Twins fluff added in so ya got that good old hurt/comfort in there, which always makes for a good time.

Host by Neelh Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Some pretty artsy Pines family angst all around in this one, so yeah, good stuff. Pretty short, but still good.

Lull by carpenoctem22 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: oneshot Hey look, instead of Sock Opera angst we got post the Last Mabelcorn angst! As if that makes any difference imo its still angst no matter how much you cut it and that’s why I like it.

Swear by carpetnoctem22 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: oneshot Another take on those three days Dipper was wandering around during Weirdmageddon and also pretty fucking heartwrenchingly angsy so you know I like if if its that lol

Enough by Inkblot9 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: oneshot A really sweet little bunch of fluff focusing on one of my favorite bonds in the entire show, that between Dipper and Ford, which is sadly not utilized enough in GF fics but here its done so adorably and sweet and such good family fluff and I love it

And yeah that’s about it for now. These were all the best ones I could find in all my lists. I’ll be sure to add onto this whenever I find new good fics. But yeah hopefully ya’ll got hooked up with some good fics here! I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, so I’m glad I finally got it carved out. Enjoy!

#fanfictions #fic recs #gravity falls #(mostly fuckin gravity falls imo im weak)#steven universe #legend of zelda #jen rambles #master lists

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the-cryptographer · 7 years

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Ettushipping for the ask!!!!

Ah~ Thank you for asking about the OTP. I kind of figured I’d have nothing to say about it except repeating what I answered about polar and JouKai for the meme, but I shouldn’t have underestimated myself x_x I also apologise, because it feels impossible for me to talk about them without talking about my fic project talking about writing fic instead of writing it so this might not be all that exciting mea culpa, but imma post - no obligation to pay attention to me - thankies~

when I started shipping it if I did:

In 2015, I was watching a lot ofygotas, feeling kind of bummed out, and looking through fanfiction. And I kindof had an ongoing interest in fmm and ffm polyships at this point, so I waslike, ‘okay, let’s smash my two favourite ships together and read all theMaiJouKai’.

A few minutes and some searchesaround the net later, I came to the tragic realisation that there /was/ noMaiJouKai. And then I was like, ‘fuck that. What has fandom spent the lastfifteen years doing then?’ and decided to write my own.

So I wrote a fic called On Public Relations and IndefiniteDefinitions which, instead of being the humorous longform fic I wanted toread, was some oneshot filled with Kaiba angsting about how he not only endedup with this moron, but he ended up with this moron that he’s kind of afraidwill leave him for Mai. It was also about the paparazzi, and the fact that Jouis Kaiba’s kind-of employee, and trying to understand where exactly we draw theline on somebody being a golddigger, and how to reconcile vastly differentlevels of income in a relationship. And, tbh, the fic is kind of shitty imo,but it still has some interesting ideas in it that are more or less ignored orunexplored so far as I’ve been able to see (and also it’s my humble fanficroots so I appreciate it for that).

I kind of dropped the fic and ran,and was going to just leave it at that. But then about a year later, due tomore ygotas and a sudden desire to revisit manga canon and watch the rest ofthe dub, I dropped back into the fandom and started revisting the ideas I’ddropped in my fic. I came to realise I really wanted to reuse the ship andbasic premise and try to write a fic where (1) Kaiba and Jou’s relationshipgoes from its approximate canon form with all the animosity to a romanceonscreen, (2) you’re given a lot of the factors commonly used to cause Mai& Jou to break-up except considered and explored in their own right in thecontext of Mai and Jou actually being invested in and feeling strongly for eachother, (3) Jou is working for Kaiba and the issues involved inemployee/employer relationships are laid out without an attempt to villainiseeither character, (4) wealth and poverty are not just having or not-havingmoney (something that could then easily be solved by Mai or Kaiba handing Jou acheck) but an entire relationship with money and employment and society andself-expectation and the cause of pretty severe cultural misunderstandings, (5)etc. etc. Yeah, this fic has way too many themes in it. I mean, more than anything I wanted a ficabout Jounouchi’s entire existence postcanon – every single one of hisrelationships – and this ended up being a good way to do it. And, jeez, if thiswasn’t my OTP before I started planning LottoTicket, it definitely was after.

my thoughts:

idk, part of me is like, ‘you’rejust being really self-indulgent and forcing your two favourite ships into one,aren’t you?’ and then the other part of me is like, ‘but I don’t feel at alllike I’m forcing the characters to behave in any way that’s unnatural for them.I mean, I certainly commandeer the situational factors to make them moresusceptible to certain behaviour, but it doesn’t even feel very outlandish. Infact, the more I think about it, the more I think the ship as a whole couldease a lot of the individual tensions of its components.’

idk, I think the true answer is…both. It’s both indulgent and reasonable.

But I feel like I should say,insofar as my WIP is going, I’m not attempting to justify it as a ship thatwill last until everyone is dead, as much as I’m attempting to justify it assomething that helps brings stability to the characters during this ratherspecific period in their lives. I might eventually write something thatattempts to do more with the ship in the future, but I think those willdefinitely be more on the silly and fun and wholly indulgent side of things.

What makes me happy about them:

That Mai gets to travel and duel,Seto gets to have his company and its projects, and Jou doesn’t have to feel unsupportedand completely attention-starved in the meantime.

Also I’ve talked before about howSeto and Jou can pretty easily create a positive feedback loop for terriblebehaviour. I think having another person involved is one of the easiest ways tointercept that. It doesn’t have to be Mai, and it doesn’t have to be somebodyone or both of them are romantically involved with, but it does have to besomeone close enough to them, that they can witness the cause and effect oftheir behaviour on the emotional aspects of their relationship, and that Jouand Kaiba can’t just turn to and say, ‘buzz off, our relationship is our ownprivate business’. I think Mai and Jou, in different ways, both end upmediating quite a bit between Jou & Kaiba and Mai & Kaiba respectively.Kaiba less so for Jou & Mai, but I think, even in his presence, he canencourage Mai and Jou to consider when they’re being inattentive andunreasonable with each other respectively.

What makes me sad about them:

The amount of trickery I have to useto get them together, lol. I’ve tricked Seto into thinking Joey is gay andsingle. If he knew Joey was bi and had a girlfriend, I don’t think he’d beentertaining this idea for even a second. That’sright, Seto, let’s get you nice and overly invested ahead of time so you can’tdismiss the idea out of hand~

idk, everyone’s an insecure mess,but… even if I was writing for a more proper triad/threesome like miranova’settushipping, or battleshipping, or how I think most people talk aboutflareshipping, I imagine Seto at some point pitching a fit about how the othertwo like each other more than they like him. It is inevitable. It’s only amatter of how terrible the explosion is, and how well they manage to reassureeach other in the aftermath. So isn’t MaiJouKai as a V even worse because, ontop of all the personal insecurity, you’ve got a lot of societal messagingabout how you probably shouldn’t let yourself feel secure in letting your boyfriendsleep with someone else? idk, I see why Vs aren’t that popular in fandom.Before this I’d mostly shipped polyships where all the people were sexuallyinvolved. But I feel like, if you read a lot of OT3s, you realise how that mostof them are Vs on one level or another – it’s pretty naïve to think you’regoing to find two other people you feel equally strongly about in all theimportant™ ways, who are also going to feel equally strongly about you and eachother in those same important™ ways. Maybe it’s also naïve to think that aninequality in a sexual fashion is more profound than an inequality in anemotional one? I mean, /I/ think sexuality in relationships is one of thehigher ranked things in terms of profundity, but I don’t think everyone thinksso. Jou and Mai and Kaiba probably don’t agree with me or each other on thattopic – everyone has a different set of values, right? …I guess it makes me sadthat I don’t know whether or not they can make a poly relationship work incorrespondence with their expectations for a relationship – whether thoseexpectations are based on their own needs or on kind of a societalunderstanding of what a relationship should be – but maybe I shouldn’t say thatmakes me sad like that’s the end of the story either? When you are curious anddon’t know the answer – that’s a time when your mind is still open to newinformation and possibilities, right? You can let the characters bounce offeach other without an investment in the answer. That’s a fun place to writefrom.

things done in fanfic that annoy me & things I look for in fanfic:

lol, what fic? I liked Love Boat, although it’s more arrogantshipping than ettu.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

I think it’s pretty clear I ship allthe people with all the people at this point. Anyone can end up with anyone andI’d be comfortable with it if it was considered with care.

My happily ever after for them:

I feel like it came up in a memeonce, or as a response to a fic comment, or something of that nature. Jou andMai and Seto are at some sporting event for their kid. Jou and Mai are theembarrassingly loud and enthusiastic parents who are ready to fight anyone thatsays their kid isn’t the greatest. It’s a hot summer day and Seto is wearing aheavy jacket and shades and being incredibly unemotive. He’ll save hiscongratulations until the end, thanks.

That’s a happily ever after of sorts, right?

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

idk, about spoons, but sleepposition headcanon is that Seto and Mai both like sleeping in the middle whenall three of them share a bed. It is the warmest and most comforting spot. AndI’ve already said that Seto is always cold, and Mai likes feeling safelyenclosed.

(Oh, god, Seto probably starts a riotthe first time Mai wakes him up and teasingly tells him to move because he’spopping wood into her stomach/thigh. For a while he refuses to sleep near herat all. And then for a while he refuses to sleep near her except with his back facingher.)

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

For all three of them together? Sleeping. That’s aboring one though, lol. I think they like going to tournaments together, eitherwhen somebody’s competing or none of them are.

I think more they like doing things just the two ofthem though. I answered for Jou and each of the others, but for Seto and Mai –they probably go to gallery openings or something, or get lunch and talk shopabout work and talk smack about everyone. Mai’s an easy guest for Seto to taketo business party type things too. She’s all the charm and he can just sit nextto her and lean into her shoulder and zone out while she’s socialising.

:’) Thank you again~

#ettuship #save me from this card game hell #ask

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