Chapter Rating: M for sexual content
Chapter Word Count: 4980
Chapter Summary: It is not so much his discomfort as a Targaryen or as a bastard that gives him pause, but the notion that Ygritte was always right and that he knows nothing. The radical notion that men are not made to bend the knee.
Author's Note: I was bound and determined to deliver another chapter promptly and while I succeeded on that front, this one really took it out of me. I suspect you'll be able to guess why after reading it. I plugged along through the tough bits, not in small part because of the kudos, alerts, favorites, and thoughtful comments you all have left. Thank you, as always. It is food for this fanfic author's soul.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Something revolts in Jon against the scores of people who stand before his new throne, which is still raised on the iron dais, ready to bend the knee each in turn following his hasty coronation. It is not so much his discomfort as a Targaryen or as a bastard that gives him pause, but the notion that Ygritte was always right and that he knows nothing. The radical notion that men are not made to bend the knee.
The Iron Throne has been melted down as Daenerys suggested. It is being reformed by smiths into weapons that will be used to fight in the North, used to save the Seven Kingdoms, and it its place, he sits a throne of strong, bone white weirwood banded in black iron. Draped over the back of the throne is a red silk coverlet Sansa stayed up the whole night previous to embroider with a white direwolf. Her fingers were pink and tender by the end of it and he kissed them, sucking them into his mouth, as she attempted to help him dress for the momentous morning and clucked her tongue indulgently at his efforts to seduce her back into his bed instead.
As nearly one thousand subjects look on, there are no dragons on which to gaze, save himself. None on the coverlet Sansa eagerly embroidered and none hanging on the walls of the Great Hall, though it was suggested their skulls be brought up for this day. None outside the gates of the city either, for Daenerys and her dragons were seen taking flight on the previous night just as a delivery of supplies and two maesters arrived inside her camp.
With the dragons gone, they can all breathe easier, but he wasn't willing to do anything that might turn his subjects' thoughts back to the scaled beasts. He saw the look on Sansa's face at the proposition and it echoed his own feelings.
Something revolts in Jon against Sansa Stark bending the knee. Not just to him, but to any man. However, she requested in council that she not only swear her allegiance like the rest, but that she also be the first to do so, that the North be allowed to pledge its allegiance through her first, and though Jon baulked, she would not be deterred.
I am the Lady of Winterfell, Warden of the North. Why should I not bend the knee as a loyal subject?
Asha smirked. Perhaps because you're none of those things. Your lord husband, our king, is the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. Is that not how you people do things?
Jon cast a furious glare at Asha, though he knows she only pokes at a tradition she despises herself.
The problem was the suggestion that his wife, the queen, needed to promise him anything, when she already gave him everything and more than he never hoped to have. They are blood, kin, and bonded by fate and the gods. You know that isn't my complaint. Winterfell will always be…
He had to stop himself from saying my sister's, and as an unwelcome feeling of shameful guilt he thought he'd set aside welled up inside of him with all the eyes of his council upon him, Sansa placed her hand over his own.
I thought it would be a strong example for the North, but if you don't wish it or if you can't abide my being the first to pledge, I'll do as you see fit. Always, Your Grace.
And of course his objections were shelved, because if she wishes it, then he wants to allow it and as she smiles up at him through her lashes, the sun slanting in through the western windows and catching the fiery red of her bowed head, and her Stark grey skirts billow around her, he hopes at least that he's made her happy. She's most likely correct that this is an important gesture for the North, and since it requires Sansa to bend the knee to him, he swears to himself that in return for his subjects' bending of the knee, he will not be a king who reigns unjustly over others. He will be a leader and champion for his people. He will be their protector. Not so much as a father but as a brother, the big brother he no longer is until Arya or Bran or Rickon can—if ever—be recovered.
The Queen's ballroom, where they celebrate the day's events, feels overly warm for winter with the mirrored wall sconces reflecting back all the light in the room twofold, contributing to his distracted and scattered thoughts, and he misses a step in the dance, nearly trodding on Sansa's foot. He takes her shoulders in his hands, stilling her graceful movements, though the other dancers continue around them and the musicians play on.
Sansa looks amused at the forced pause. "I should have spent more time with you when we were young, practicing at this. You will never be a very fine dancer."
"Do you regret it?"
Jon isn't sure what he means, what he intends asking her such a question, but her eyes go serious as she murmurs her response, "I regret a great many things."
"Don't," he insists, as he pulls her a step back, away from the dancers, letting them pass by them, as he slides his hands down the full sleeves of her gown and takes her hands in his. "I don't regret it." Not his lack of dancing skills and not the time she spent playing at dolls rather than scampering after him the way Arya always did. If their relationship would have been different, the relationship they have now would have been out of the question. He can't regret any of it.
"I don't want you to regret my being king either. I mean to make you proud. Everyone here," he says, nodding towards the room full of subjects who make merry behind her. He knows they celebrate the Dragon Queen's departure as much if not more than his crowning, but it is good to have a day to give thanks and drink together. As much as the coronation made him uncomfortable, he understood that this day was a necessary for a multitude of reasons. "To repay them for that ceremony earlier."
"No one minded, Jon," she assures him, her thumb running over the burned skin of his hand. "You're the king they want. And you looked just as I dreamt you would," she adds with a soft smile. "Sitting up there with Ghost at your side." She releases his hand and reaches up to brush his crown with her fingertips. "With a crown amongst your curls."
He feels himself beginning to flush at her touch and the dreamy quality of her voice. He drags her hand away from his hair.
"Am I not allowed?"
"You are allowed anything, but I don't think it would be considered appropriate if I carry you away the way I did on the night of our wedding feast."
Sansa bites her lower lip. "Let me worry about what is appropriate, Your Grace."
He pinches her in the the narrow of her waist for her cheek before turning her around to lead her towards the high table, where they are seated beside each other, and he whispers in her ear, "You'll be right as always, I'm sure, about whether it was the appropriate thing to do, having you swear your allegiance first. You always know what is right. You'll be better at this than I am." Her head twists to glance sideways at him. Confusion knits her brows. "While I am gone in the North, you'll be a better fit for that weirwood throne than I ever could be."
He's no more said it then she goes stiff at his side, and though he does not understand the source of her discomfort or displeasure, for he had meant it as a compliment to her abilities, she barely speaks a word to him as they sit side by side. She is gracious and proper with those around her, as always, but she is strangely unresponsive to him—a fact which no one save himself seems to notice. Her tongue is silent, but there is also no sound of her inside his head and none of her emotions echoing in his chest. It is as if there is a wall between them as thick as the Wall he once defended.
Her silence only makes the night seem more interminable, and he tosses his crown of brass and iron down on the sideboard of his bedchamber with less care than he should, when it is over, his nerves frayed by the time they are alone and enveloped in the gloom of the sole guttering light of one candle.
Her face is obscured, her back turned, as she stands before the looking glass, and finally speaks. "You're leaving me behind." He freezes, his hand poised at the back of his black tunic, waiting to pull it over his head and throw it to the ground in frustration. "You're going North without me, leaving me behind here in this wretched city, when all I wanted was to go North, when all I wanted since you found me was to be with you."
Her voice is tight with accusation.
"Sansa, I can't take you with me. It will be much too dangerous."
"Have things not already been dangerous? Battles and frozen camps and dragons and now a teem of Unsullied suffering from greyscale just outside the gates? Jon, all I've known sine I left Winterfell is danger."
It's been much too dangerous and he's hated that she's been exposed to any of it. "Yes, of course, but this war will be no place for a woman." He thinks of their undead eyes—ice blue, nothing like the cool warmth of Sansa's eyes—and the piles of bodies set aflame to save them from coming back to life, condemned to that glowing blue.
She huffs, wrapping her arms around her waist, and despite her defensive posture, he dares a few steps towards her.
"But you'll gladly find a place for Asha and the Martell women. Is it because I wear gowns and embroider silks?"
It's because you're my wife, he wants to say, but he knows that isn't fair. Now that she's his and he is hers, now that they've been together and he knows what it is to be inside her, he is lit by an even more intense need to protect her, to tuck her away, where she can't be harmed, but there is no such place in this world and his fears are his burden. He will not allow himself to cage her in because of them.
"No. You're more important to me than they ever could be. But if something happened to you out of my own selfish need to have you close to me, advising me how best to proceed, when I am lost…That would be the worst kind of selfishness, Sansa."
"Sharing your bedroll."
He's not accustomed to her lashing out at him like this, but as he draws close, he finally can better feel the real tumult of her emotions that her cool, cutting comments do very little to expose. He better understands. She's afraid. She loves him and she's terribly afraid.
He comes close enough to touch her, but keeps his arms at his side, waiting for her to look at him. "You know that isn't what makes you indispensible to me. But, I'm a newly crowned king ready to march North, leaving the rest of my kingdoms without a ruler. I need you here. I need you to rule in my absence."
"Choose someone else," she offers, though she must know that's an impossibility.
Who else could he trust?
"It's our duty to serve them. You'll best be able to do that here, ensuring that order is maintained, that mouths are fed, and justice served."
"You're as dutiful as our father," she says with a sniff before turning away from the looking glass and unwinding her arms from around her middle. She does not sound as pleased with his dutiful nature as she has in the past.
She presses her fingers against the darkened glass, as if she might not otherwise be steady on her feet, and there it is again, the stab of fear—her fear—mixing with his own anxiety over leaving her, over this war that may part them forever. She cuts her eyes towards him, staring into the middle of his chest, where he feels the pain, and he can see that her beautiful blue eyes shimmer with unspilt tears.
He swallows, forcing himself to speak. "If I don't survive it will be up to you…"
"Stop," she pleads, her voice breaking. "You can't say that. It's hard enough as it is, trying to be brave, without you saying such things."
She still hasn't looked him in the eye, but he can't wait any longer and he hauls her to his chest, his palm cradling the back of her head, pressing her cheek into his shoulder. A sob wracks her body, and he doesn't know how to tell her how much he wants to come back to her. He doesn't dream of a hero's death. He dreams of old age with her at his side. He dreams of their children. That's all he wants. But only the gods know how much he thirsts for those things.
He tips her head up, his thumb under her chin, and she blinks up at him, her mouth contorting. "Don't make me be brave tonight, Jon. I'll be brave for you tomorrow, but not tonight."
She's been braver than him, since her fate largely has been in his hands since the moment she decided to come with him and had nothing but her words to protect her. He'll be brave for her tonight. He won't burden her with his darkest visions of what might become of her, should he lose and the Others march further south.
He'll give. The giving is always better anyway.
He kisses her and her lips are already tracked with salty tears. He tugs at her lip, grazing it with his teeth, pressing into the kiss as fiercely as his desperation demands. She opens her lips to him, and he groans at the feeling of her tongue pushing to meet his. There should have been weeks of nothing but knowing her kisses, of anticipating all the rest, but everything has happened in a rush by necessity, and it makes him furious.
He breaks their kiss to turn her around by her shoulders, his hands working to free the laces at her lower back. Even this is hurried and feels more furtive than it should, but he needs her in his bed, spread before him now, for dawn is always upon them much too soon.
Her shoulders still rise and fall, but no longer from tears by the time her gown slides to the floor and she kicks her satin slippers off. She glances over her shoulder at him, as his hands grip her hips, pulling her flush against him, so she can feel him.
Her shift is thin and were the light better, he suspects it would be nigh on translucent, but he needs more than just the hint of her curves. He bends to bunch the hem of the shift in his hand and draws it slowly up to her hip, exposing the curve of her arse. She wears no smallclothes.
"You do this to torment me."
She holds his gaze, her lip caught between her teeth, looking unrepentant. "Are you going to take me to bed, husband?"
His response is most probably lost in the rustle of fabric, as he tows her shift over her head and sweeps her into his arms as bare as her nameday except for the creamy silken stockings held up by sweet little bows he'd like to untie with his teeth. Atop the furs, she draws her leg up and he finds a home between her hips. He is already hard and he can feel the warmth of her through his breeches, but he wants so much more than the friction of their bodies pressed against each other and the aching promise of what awaits him between her legs.
She gives voice to his frustration, her fingers twining in his tunic. "You have too many clothes on."
Yes, and he could fumble with his breeches and strip himself of his smallclothes and bury himself inside of her, but he wants wants her to cry with her own pleasure first.
Leaning on his forearm, he nuzzles between her breasts and thumbs her peaked nipple. "Let me try something, love."
She hums, arching under his touch, as his hand slips down and trails above her curls. He looks up at her, but her eyes are closed, her kiss swollen lips slightly parted, when his fingers slide into the wetness already gathering there. He knows what it feels like when she's wet like that and he's inside of her. He hisses a curse against the soft skin of her belly, kissing lower, as his fingers trace her and slide, teasing the source of her pleasure.
She whines, when his lips form to the curve of her hipbone. He nudges it with his nose, kissing lower still and her leg twitches underneath him. On the night of their marriage, she was too nervous for this. She is tense still. That must be corrected.
He slips one hand under her soft thigh to open her up to him, while his other stretches up to lay flat against her belly. She feels too tightly strung beneath his touch, her muscles taut.
"Where would you like to be?" he asks, breathing heavily against her.
She draws a shaky breath and her eyes open, her fair lashes fluttering. He can see the flush bloom on her cheeks, as she watches him between her thighs. "Anywhere with you."
But she dreams of the North, just as he does. He knows it, and perchance it is the same dream. Winterfell rebuilt, the snow blowing about their faces with early spring flowers breaking through the frost, Ghost standing at their feet, and the sound of voices—not ghosts, but children, laughing.
"Think of us in Winterfell." Where he imagines she would be happiest and feel safest, instead of in this city that holds so many dark memories.
She gasps, when his nose parts her curls. She tastes like salt and juniper. Like she's sprung from the forests of the North.
His suggestion might be of some help. His beautiful wife's legs fall further open of their own accord and her hands sink into his hair, fisting it as he begins to lathe her with his tongue. Her nails rake his scalp, while she murmurs nonsense that makes Jon redouble his efforts, dragging his tongue over the spot that makes her back arch and her body move shyly against his mouth. His fingers join his mouth, moving inside of her, and he can feel the tightening spiral of tension of a better sort building.
And when her thighs snap closed around his head and he hears her muffled pleas to the gods, Jon can't suppress his smile. She's never tossed so hard or so long under his touch, and he's reluctant to stop until her hands press on his forehead, forcing him away.
"You taste like home," he says, as he kneels in the furs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before unfastening his breeches.
"Jon," she chides, pressing her lips together in embarrassment and covering her eyes with one shaking hand.
"My enthusiasm embarrasses you," he chuckles, as he works his breeches down over his hips and kicks himself free of them, repeating the process with his smallclothes.
She sits up and helps him pull his tunic over his head, her hands settling on his sides once he is unclothed. "A bit," she says, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You must help me forget it."
He complies, covering her body with his own, and grasps himself, rubbing himself over her. She's sensitive enough from his mouth that she gasps and jerks at the slightest touch.
"I'll make you forget," he grits out, as the tip of him presses inside of her. "By making you come like that again."
"What?" she asks, but her wide-eyed question turns into a heavy sigh, as he thickly thrusts to the limit of his length.
Deep inside of her, he grips her thigh, tilting her body to accommodate him better, to improve the angle, so that he might feel her tighten around him once more.
"I've thought of this ever since you denied me this morning."
"It would be rude to be late to your own coronation, husband," she sighs, as he eases a hand between their bodies to feel where they are connected.
"You feel that?" he asks, and she gives a quick nod, her lashes fanning her flushed cheeks. He's wet with her and it feels so good. "Bloody hells."
He moves slowly inside of her and it's exquisite torture. Her fingers tracing the muscles of his back, her silken heel hitting the small of his back with each thrust, and her lips and teeth finding his neck, his shoulder, his bearded chin, and his mouth have him holding on to his composure by the thinnest of threads.
If he embarrassed her earlier, she seems to have no qualms about the suggestions, the eager encouragements he purrs in her ear now. She is hot, slick, as perfect as anything he's ever known, and with each stroke, each hot kiss, each panted confession, she grows more so. Until he has to grit his teeth. Until she's whimpering his name like a broken chant. Until he is rewarded for his persistence and she comes apart a second time—another first—shaking beneath him and panting for breath.
"Gods, Sansa. Gods," he groans in appreciation.
He closes his mouth around the tip of her breast once more, sucking and kissing, and gives leash to his need to chase his own completion. Her legs wrap around him and her fingers dig into the curls at the nape of his neck, holding him to her breast, as his hips snap quickly against her pliant body. She's still shuddering, when he loses his rhythm and spends himself inside of her.
He makes to roll off of her and her hands grip his arse.
"Not just yet. Stay with me."
He kisses her. Slow.
"We're getting better at that."
She frowns at him. "Were we so terrible?"
He bites her shoulder, growling his answer into her flesh, "It was better than I imagined it would be, and in my considerable weakness I imagined wicked things."
She halfheartedly swats at his back. "I don't believe that of you, Jon Snow. You are too restrained to allow yourself such indulgence."
"I will happily allow myself to indulge in you."
He feels her slow exhale against his neck before she says, "Two days is all we have left."
Not enough time to learn all the things about her body he wants to know. Since the day they were married, there has not been enough time with the Stranger always awaiting them around every corner.
He's softening and he slips free of her, despite her request. He rolls onto his side and pulls her with him, away from the mess they've made.
He smoothes the dampened hair at her temples away from her face and tries to memorize how she looks—her hair blowsy, her lips and cheeks stained pink, a flush upon her small breasts, and her eyes giant pools. He'll need this memory.
"You won't be alone, Sansa. I've sent for Sam."
"Sam's coming?"
She knows Sam's as good as a brother to him.
"He'll think the world of you. Although, your beauty might leave him a bit tongue tied." Sansa hitches her leg over him and tucks her head into his neck, hiding her face. "You'll get along brilliantly. I'll come back to find the pair of you didn't even miss me."
"Just come back."
…
Sansa thinks it a farce that the winter sun shines cheerily down on the snow covered ground on this of all days. Jon and his forces are assembled outside the Dragon Gate. They are leaving, and she stands, wrapped in fur, watching with her heart so high in her throat, she can scarce draw breath.
There have been half a dozen moments since they awoke this morn that Sansa almost broke down. Upon waking Jon, who slept so soundly on the pillow beside her, and watching his sleepy, grey eyes scan her face. Tucking his fur lined gloves into his satchel to keep him warm and protect his hands. When he pressed the gift of a mother of pearl handled dagger into her hands, which might prove as useful as the fur he gave her upon their wedding. Over stewed oats and dried lady apples—an extravagence to see them off—where she observed that some of the men's hands shook, as they brought the spoons up to their mouths, despite the fires that blazed in the hall. Feeding Ghost a rasher of bacon for the last time from her hands, his warm tongue wet and purposefully careful in taking the proffered food. And when Jon's sweet squire walked by, bundled up to the chin for the cold ahead, looking too young to face undead horrors.
But she did not give way. She promised Jon bravery, and she has schooled herself for long enough to be controlled and composed that she can summon on her reserves of strength and give him what he needs. For she knows he needs her to be brave, his forces need her to be brave, and those who are being left behind need it as well.
Still, she feels as if everyone fears she will crumble, as they sidestep her by several feet, hurrying out to join the ranks. Except for Asha, who bumps her shoulder into Sansa and raises her eyebrows towards where Jon stands beside Ghost and his sorrel mount—a parting gift from the Dragon Queen upon the fulfillment of Jon's promise to send supplies and maesters to aid those suffering from greyscale that came bearing a name, Dracarys, the only dragon Jon will likely ever ride.
"I'll keep him from scarring up that pretty face of his any worse."
"Just keep him from killing himself in some ridiculous feat of heroics, and I'll be grateful," Sansa says low enough that no one else will hear, and for once Asha neither scowls at her nor wears a teasing grin.
"Aye. I'll do my best." She pats her sword and tilts her head in closer to add, "Take heart: we have the best of it, escaping this pit of a city."
Sansa hates it here, but even she can't believe what Asha's says. All the same, she appreciates it. There is little that can be said in truth to ease her worries, but she accepts any kindness on this bleakest of days. On the day that Jon will ride away from her.
And as they kick at their horses' sides and those on foot begin to trudge forward, Jon looks back. He only nods—a stiff, formal gesture that hints at nothing—but Sansa hears him.
I love you.
Come back to me.
I'll try.
Jon. Jon. Jon.
It takes inhuman strength to root her feet to the ground.
They're already disappearing over the horizon like ants on the march, when there's a soft touch to her elbow and she jerks from the unexpected contact. The world has seemed silent since she could no longer make out Jon amongst his men, and she has felt disembodied, floating away from this nightmare. The touch has awakened her.
"Excuse me, Your Grace, but you didn't seem to hear me."
Sansa turns to see Myrcella here to see off her husband too. She shivers visibly in the cold, a cold that does not touch Sansa, and Sansa thinks for a moment to slide her fur about the young woman's shoulders, but Jon gave this to her and she does not have the wherewithal yet to be that generous.
"Yes, forgive me, I'm…" But Sansa can think of no words to describe what she feels at this moment. It is as if she has been cut in two and forced to forfeit the most important part of herself.
Myrcella extends her hand palm up and her green eyes meet Sansa's unfocused gaze. "I am lost, Your Grace."
So am I, Sansa thinks. Lost. Horribly, horribly lost.
"I was a child when I left and I find myself losing my way, forgetting the streets and muddling up the corridors until I'm turned around. Will you lead me back?"
Of course there is a guard that still stands behind them, waiting to escort all of the ladies that have come out back to the Red Keep. There is no chance of Lady Myrcella losing her way today. Her question is a yet another kindness.
It has been her intent to reign in Jon's absence with as much kindness and compassion as she knows their people need and deserve after years of war and a cruel winter upon them. But perhaps she will rely on their kindnesses as much as they will rely on hers.
Sansa lets Myrcella thread her arm through her own, and she turns her back on the disappearing line of men. She can't afford to look back.