The updates will slow down since I've caught up with myself. I'm now writing in advance by 1 chapter, but later chapters I have in bullet points and I write from them, soon as I get to that chapter. So when I post one, I'm probably only half way through the following chapter.
The King held out his arm for her, and she looped her arm through. They strolled like a newly courting couple through the woods alone, with a squire towing 3 horses, and sack full of kindling. Her grip changed during their trip to the outskirts of the wood, she found her hand squeezing his upper arm, like it were a loaf of bread- but of course it was nothing like bread- his arm was too hard and unyielding. Jon looked at what she was doing, it couldn't be ignored, but she stopped when he held his arm further out, as if giving her a chance to squeeze the whole arm. "Did you want to try the other one?" He smirked.
Sansa withdrew. "I was feeling for how many layers you had on. You've forgotten your wolf pelts, you must be cold." She was good at fibbing.
"The lord's fire is within me." He husked, feeding her arm back through the loop of his arm. They sniggered, it had become a joke to them.
"You'll need it, winter is here." Davos had told her about the raven.
"Father promised, didn't he?" Further sniggering.
Her happiness was short-lived. "Does the dead thrive on this climate?" She asked earnestly, the pace slowed considerably, enough that their hips had stopped bumping.
"Yes, but I've never seen any in the south." He saw her pained expression "But not even going south would save us. Winter comes for everyone." His honesty was bitter, and it left the air even colder. "I have yet to see them break through stone walls though."
"Don't they ride giant spiders, surely they can climb?"
Jon's face split with a toothless smile, his face creased like her father's used to, he was close to laughter. "I've never seen 'em. But maybe old nan was onto something?" He clicked his jaw. "I didn't think you took in old nan's stories, you never seemed interested."
"Those stories are stories- you know I'm obsessed with tales, she would tell them to the others and I would hear them." Winterfell emerged from the trees. "Arya liked to relay them to me to scare me."
"And me." Jon admitted slyly. "But I was the master at scaring people."
"I remember, you were the ghost of Winterfell." She smirked knowingly, and Jon came to a halt and swivelled to be in front of her, to bar her passing. Oh boy.
"How'd you know that?" He was sceptic, but playful.
Sansa tried to get him to walk, so she tugged his sleeve. "Well, you didn't deny it. So now I know for certain, come on." She indicated to the path ahead, but he stood firm in the ferns and the roots.
"I was a very convincing ghost, and very accurate representation of the real thing."
"There are no ghosts." She shook her head, she was no fool. "Only you. You left a trail of flour from the kitchens to the crypt." Her tone was heavily influenced by her cockiness. "I knew it were you, your shoes farted flour for a week afterwards."
He barked into the air. "Favourite thing to ever come out of your mouth; farted flour!" The only time his rasp left his voice was when he laughed, boyish and unabashed. He once again grabbed her hand to feed it through his arm, the chuckle remained- as he lead her up a raised bit in the undergrowth that finally took them out of the woods, and onto a plain stretch that led right up to the battlements. "Writing has really brightened your vocabulary."
Sansa wasn't sure how to take that, it sounded like he was calling her illiterate or dull before taking it up. "That's through research of things I've never considered, though I found the most intriguing things I've learnt, weren't in books."
He inclined his head to coax her to explain, but she was surprisingly quiet. "Like what for instance?" It was burning in him.
There were so many words she could use, but she chose one. "Misbehaviours..." It was quick, and all too revealing, and Jon just stared at her very darkly, his mouth twitched.
"Hm." He focused on the path ahead, physically, and metaphorically. "I take it you mean...unladylike things." He began grinding his teeth, but Sansa reached out and cupped his jaw- her hand pressing on bristle, he stopped and looked at her as if she had slapped him.
"You'll wear your teeth out, my love." She said, and it was poignant- she hardly ever said 'my love' so openly and warmly. He still looked surprised, but his cheeks became a posy pink. She had too much power, she just needed to learn how to use it. Her husband's eye flicked to something over her shoulder and he turned his head back to the battlements to sever the contact.
"If only Podrick wasn't here." He muttered quietly, and Sansa didn't look, so as not to make it obvious.
She knew what he was thinking. "That would be very unseemly, your grace. We're out in the open, in full view of the castle."
"Prying eyes stop you, do they?- What's your excuse when we are in the privacy of our own chamber?" He still had his playful tone, but the Queen misread it as annoyance, she came to an abrupt halt shy of the gate, she gestured for Podrick to carry on in without them, and he walked past with the horses. Jon stuttered to a stop.
"There are some things I have to get used to." Sansa began once Podrick was out of earshot, and her husband stood like he was training again. "Like sharing someone's bed, pain, anguish, being completely...unfamiliar with the concept of intimacy."
"-You're better than you think." He countered.
"-I'm not doing anything!"
"-You don't have to!" Jon exclaimed, it went straight through her like a knife.
"-Is that supposed to be sweet, or endear me?!" She posed, and her gormless husband had the 'Oh shit' look. "-I want to do something, for the love of the gods!" She rasped, and for a second she sounded like her mother. Her hand flew up to her forehead and she turned away, Jon was on her tentatively, he assumed she was crying. "Space!" She snapped, and he recoiled like she had caught fire.
"Sansa, how am I supposed to act, if I can't comfort like a husband?!" Jon tried after a moment of stifling silence, he fidgeted looking over into the yard. "You want me to be gentle and less rough, but you don't want me to...touch you anyway." He dipped his voice, because he realised the guards on the battlements might hear him. "But now you are saying you want to participate?- Great, participate." He made it sound like a command.
"Try and focus on the fact that maybe, your best tactic-" She stalled when she saw him rolling his eyes. "Or is this another bit of information you are going to ignore?!" This stopped him from shrugging her off. "Maybe your best tactic is not to try and gain access to me." The cold air got to her teeth. "Or to try and coax me to let you...in." Her cheeks flushed, the cold had dried her mouth, so she rolled her tongue about."But to wait for me to ask or... do it myself." Her whisper was harsh and fierce. "At least, to begin with." That had a hopeful lilt to it, well Jon heard it that way. It was a moment that warranted a kiss, but neither moved, especially Jon- through fear of her biting his head off.
He grumbled to clear his throat. "Well...This is quite a predicament." He found himself saying, he wasn't sure whom it was for though. They dithered awkwardly at the gate. "What if...?" He began and she stared daggers at him. "What if I asked?..I never just asked, just hinted." He heard her scoff at him. "Alright, I'm a little forward. I mean, there are some things..." Sansa still had that unyielding look in her eye. Gods. "-Some things you've done that have been exceptional- could they be repeated?" Jon felt himself reversing into the castle, as if he was going to prepare for siege, from the angry woman. "Or not."
She followed him in, and he continued to walk away from her – flee from her, but he never looked frightened. "Wait a minute." He came to a squelching halt, and turned to her, he looked very open, and vulnerable. "You can ask me, but ask me nicely." His lips curled at that. "But don't hold your breath, I can still refuse." And she heard the gates close behind them, in an ominous fashion.
The Queen looked down on the yard at her husband from the platform, he was toying with some daggers, moodily. She wasn't sure what he was trying to do, he was either trying to spin them, or juggle them. It looked very good and fluid, until one flew out of his hand unceremoniously and landed in a barrel. He looked about him and then retrieved it, she watched him stand on his toes, and double over, into the barrel. He had little legs, she thought, but she imagined the buttocks under that clothing were... outstanding. She pondered on whether there was another word for buttocks-that shared a name with a fruit. What fruit looks like that? Surely Peaches have a bum resemblance-
"-Ooo Sansa, get a chamber, why don't you?!" Sam said suddenly, this snared the Queen's attention.
"What?" Sansa asked incredulously, he had said it with a ludicrous voice. "What do you mean get a chamber?" She repeated in his tone. "I have plenty of chambers!"
Sam laughed. "Yes, but please use one..." His smile faded when he realised she didn't understand- also he had addressed a Queen so informally. "Your grace... it's merely an expression." His grin was infectious, he was a fool, but a trustworthy one at that.
"What's the expression for?" She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Is this one of your games, I'm not playing one of your games, Sam."
"Calm down, it's an expression of when someone witnesses someone being a little heated, or affectionate with someone." Sansa blinked at him. "...Well, if you saw a servant staring intently at another servant, you would assume they would want to copulate, so you tell them, use a room for privacy, or get a chamber for just the two of them." The Queen remained staring at Sam as if he had given her unfortunate news. "Well, it isn't that funny I suppose."
She grimaced. "I've heard better, but why were you using it on me?"
"I think you know why." And the man left her to stew in her naughtiness.
She grumbled like a wolf, and when she brought her eyes back to her target- her husband was gone. She heard a creak nearby and assumed he had managed to rush up to her, she turned and saw the red woman. "Oh...You."
"I heard things were getting... fruity." She smouldered, her brows were annoyingly suggestive.
Sansa was too irritated to blush. "Are you joking?..Did you pump it out of Podrick?" She walked off before the witch had time to answer, but she heard her clomping boots behind her. "What?"
Melisandre halted, and her red skirts settled. "Honesty is the key."
The Queen was non-plus. "Obvious." She withdrew indoors, but still heard the witch behind her. "What do you want with Podrick?" She said after letting it stew in her mind.
"Nothing." She shrugged, and the Queen found herself believing her- there was no edge to her voice, or cryptic response. "I'm a woman, I have needs."
What? The younger woman blinked at her as if she had cussed a vile word. "Needs? You're a woman."
"You're very naive, your grace." The witch played with her own skirt, a calculating smile on her face. "Though women don't openly talk about it comfortably, everybody has needs, even the noblest of us all. " The witch cast an eye about her. "You just have to be honest about it to the right people, it was sweet of you to ask Podrick."
Sansa felt tension in her face. "I didn't ask him for anything." What was she suggesting?
"You asked him questions, why can't you ask me questions?- I'm a lady after all." The red woman pouted like she was hurt.
Nope, I'm not falling for that. "It's none of your business, that's why, and it's none of your business what I ask and to whom." Sansa waited. "Anything else?" When the Queen made to leave, then the witch decided at the last moment, so she had to stall with a huff, the witch was as bad as Petyr Baelish.
"I think you should discuss your dreams into darkness with your husband, your grace."
