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❅ Seventeen (Text)
Have you ever been in love?
(This is asked late one night and it might seem frivolous with the current concerns hovering over the populace of Hadriel. Yet Sansa believes love is important no matter how long someone lives - or where they are imprisoned. Besides, she had a taste of love recently and it's a frightening - and exhilarating - change of scenery for her.)
Can it last?
(This is asked late one night and it might seem frivolous with the current concerns hovering over the populace of Hadriel. Yet Sansa believes love is important no matter how long someone lives - or where they are imprisoned. Besides, she had a taste of love recently and it's a frightening - and exhilarating - change of scenery for her.)
Can it last?
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[Remember that time when he and a woman he was clearly taken with disappeared on a little boat together for six weeks, and he came back sick, exhausted, clearly more in love than ever, and with no understanding between them, not even a kiss? He had rarely felt more like a fool than on the few mornings he’d awoken in the bunk with their arms wrapped around each other and the lengths of their bodies pressed together, something that had happened without his conscious will as they both slept.]
Is it the same with her as it was with them? Or is it something more, or something less?
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Love gave me the emotions and so I understand they are not entirely my own. But I am very fond of her and I see no harm in spending time at her side.
Every time I have felt attraction, it has been killed prematurely. I've never been with anyone solely out of love - or for love at all.
renewed GoT warning: mentions of rape and abuse.
I wasn’t with —
[He cuts himself off there, changing tack immediately.]
It’s different when it’s only love.
[And no fear or duty, he means. He had loved Ygritte, but it had begun with duty and with fear, and Sansa’s betrothals and marriages had been loveless. All he has for Daenerys now is unalloyed love, so much that it stuns him sometimes, steals his breath. He doesn’t need their names on each other to feel like they were made for each other.
Still, he’s not unaware that, if the truth about him had been known, and if his throne had been secure, Sansa is someone whose mother would have tried to get him for her. It would have been better for her than Joffrey would have been, but... well, he remembers how she was when she left Winterfell to go to King’s Landing. Might be that he wouldn’t have been the same person if he’d grown up as Aegon VI, but even so, he can’t imagine that he would have got on well with Sansa as she was then — not as his bride. And she’s not the only woman in the house of whom this is true, though Margaery would have done more to please him. Sansa wouldn’t have understood why he wasn’t pleased with her as she was, and it would have hurt her, but at least no one would have beaten her or forced themselves on her.
As a brother, with none of those concerns, he feels bound to protect her.]
There’s no harm in having a friend, Sansa.
renewed GoT warning: mentions of rape and abuse.
No, I mean, the deity Love gave me the feelings. I know, in a way, it is manipulation, but it wasn't Lady Maria's doing or mine.
(No one dislikes her younger self as much as her. King's Landing had done more than throw cold water in her face; it had made her downright suicidal. She can never forget that she helped the Lannisters kill their family. Unknowingly, yes, and naively, but are those really excuses?
She isn't the same girl anymore. No, she is a woman now and she is more like Eddard than Catelyn. If she had been betrothed to Jon - Aegon - she wouldn't have discovered this strength; she wouldn't understand that she isn't standing on the edges of the wolves, a bird more than anything with teeth. She is a wolf too.)
You don't kiss your friends.
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And when it comes to what happened to their family, he bears his share of guilt. Not like hers, not direct. But he had been forced to inaction, and since then, forced to admit to himself that his presence at Robb’s side at Edmure Tully’s wedding wouldn’t have saved anyone.]
No, I don’t. Some might. You wouldn’t.
I know the god gave you the feeling, but I was trying to say that not many people ever have any choice. Some people fall in love, but they can’t stay together, can’t be together. And most lords and ladies — they may be married, but love didn’t come into it. It’s duty, or fear, or both.
If love comes, I don’t know if it’s lucky or not. It isn’t if you can’t be with the person.
[The Free Folk, though, they take it as it comes. They think it’s mad to marry for land, or almost any reason other than desire. And to them, it doesn’t take much for two people to be together.
And then there are his parents — the way they had thrown off duty for love, and died for it.
And there is him, so in love now.
He shrugs, awkwardly, and softens, suddenly looking quite young.]
If you can be with the person... it feels like luck.
[And now he just looks a little bit embarrassed.]
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I will only marry in Westeros if I am in love. I don't care if he is a noble or a servant; if he fits me and we can be happy, I can ask for no more than that. I believe Father and Mother would understand after all we have endured.
(She smiles slowly, sharing his happiness in the only way a sibling can.)
I love you, Jon, and I hope you keep your luck.
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Your father and mother both did their duty. [In marriage, he means, but also in life. It had led them both to their deaths.] Duty can be sweet, but you know my thoughts on the matter. No marriage for you unless it's one that you want.
[Still, while relations are much better between them now than they had been before he left Winterfell to join the Watch, she's not usually so outspoken with her affections.]
That's -- [He smiles.] It's good of you. To keep my luck, she and I will have to remember each other, or we'll have to do it all over again back at home.
It isn't an easy thing to wonder if it will happen all over again someday.
[And he does, sometimes. Sometimes it keeps him awake at night.]
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(She respects her - their - parents and she would have been happy with a similar arrangement, yet she is beginning to see that she can wait for much more. Much better.
There are so many things she hasn't said - or hasn't said enough. Nothing can be taken for granted.)
You don't know what you've done for me. I was desperate... I wanted to escape Ramsey, but for what purpose? To be alone?
Then I saw my brother, grown so tall and strong. I don't care who fathered you; we are siblings. Ask what you like of me - I will do all I can for you and for Queen Daenerys.
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I just need you to remember that I saw the Dead, numbering a hundred thousand, at Hardhome. All I could do was stand in the boat and count them. I don't know if it would have been better if I didn't know how to count them at all.
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I do trust you. I know you will do what you think necessary - and even if I disagree, I respect you.
(All the same, she grows solemn.)
I want to... I need to protect Winterfell for as long as possible.
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I expect you'll disagree now and then. But we have the same goal. It's true that we need to protect it from the Lannisters. There won't be anything for the Lannisters if the Dead wash over it, though I'd like to see Cersei come and try to take it from the Night King.
Winterfell is my home, but I want to see Dragonstone. In another life, it could have been mine from the beginning.
[The only thing that had ever seemed like his was Castle Black for the few months he was Lord Commander, and even then, it was more of a task than a stronghold. The Wall is yours, the words go, when someone is in charge of defending it. Even then, work to be done, not a place to rest your head.]