Daenerys Targaryen: I don't have love here.

– Game of Thrones S08E05

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so, here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
never enough for both.

– Ijeoma Umebinyou, "diaspora blues"

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for days I have wilded myself in the desert, wanton
with love and with the water
of the cactus-leaf; for days I have hungered, for days

I have knelt, prayed, begged.
come; come, relieve my ache.

my skin is raw with sun – raw with the red
it has wept;
o, how it has wept. how pious it has awaited

the flood of your kiss.

– Lianna Schreiber, "Oasis"

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Desire doubled is love, and love doubled is madness.

- Anne Carson, "The Beauty of the Husband"

It was so long ago, but you remember your brother telling you a story about wolfberries.

A wolfberry is a fruit. It's sticky and tart-sweet. And red. A redness as seen through a sheet of ice. It can be found only in Westeros, though. And so when you eat one – it is only a matter of when, your brother always insisted, for that time will certainly come – you can count yourself as touching, and being touched by, Westeros.

You have dreamed of wolfberries for a long, long time.

You still do.

One day she turns her full attention on you and says, "What do you know of our songs?"

Her shapely fingers are tracing the spines of Winterfell's surviving books. You follow the muted clacking of her silver chain jewellery against the black leather of her bodice. She is barred to anyone else. Her own spine is barred to you.

But even in this seemingly trifling subject of songs, she doesn't concede a light conversation with you. You still sense, in her courteous demeanor, the push and pull between the two of you, this tug of a simmering war.

You are so sure about this.

The flick of her lashes and her sidelong glance tell you that she means their Northern songs. What do you know of their Northern songs?

Or worse, what do you, a foreign conqueror, know of their Westerosi songs?

All your life you've been called a beggar, a barbarian queen, a savage conqueror, and you will not suffer the same in this land of your House, in the land of your birth.

You are determined that you both mean our Westerosi songs.

Affecting a thoughtful tone, you say, "Our songs. Let me think, my lady."

You cast back to those snatched moments, a lifetime ago, of reading Westerosi song books. Reading them with an unquenchable thirst whilst the water spilled past your tightly cupped hands. Reading them between long hours on the saddle, and on either side of you chatter in Dothraki and singsong rhymes in the bastard Valyrian of Lys. Reading them in a ship cabin, the damp air heaving with curses and bellowing songs in the bastard Valyrian of Pentos and Tyrosh. Reading them after a tedious day in your purple hall, with its petitions and growling murmurs in the Ghiscari tongue of Meereen. Reading them whilst Missandei, always nearby, hummed Naathi songs to herself. Reading them in between the burr of the Common Tongue of Westeros: Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan each had a different way of saying words in the Common Tongue – both of theirs still a bit different from your way – and though each of them had memories of Westeros, theirs were memories faded with time, blotted with grief and regret, wistfulness and longing.

And you look at her.

You look at her: she who grew up in this ancient Westerosi castle with this ancient Westerosi library, all the while bearing the name and the rights of her House.

Right then, she seems to be taller. The way she courteously raises her auburn brows, waiting for your reply, is suddenly suffused with an unobtainable force.

A want seizes you. You want to map her. To run your hand, ungloved, along her bare spine.

"Well." You lick your lips. "Well, my lady, there's the chase. The flight. The pursuit. The lover pursues the beloved, and eventually captures her affections."

A corner of her pink lips tip up. "For a time."

She sounds almost wistful. Almost mournful. You wonder why.

The tray of food is still on the table. Last night's spiced wine and your favourite soup, but you have not touched either.

How many trays have come and gone into your bedchamber, sometimes bearing folded notes tucked under a wine cup, other times boasting a freshly baked loaf of your favourite bread? All of them, untouched. How many trays with these paltry comforts?

You don't know, you have lost count.

And how many days has it been since Missandei –

Since she –

Since.

You'd rather forget.

The number of those you've lost, though, and their names sit heavy and cold in your belly. So many. Viserion, Ser Jorah, Rhaegal, Missandei – them most of all.

And Jon Snow. He is almost lost to you.

Has he ever been yours, though? Enough to be lost to you? You wonder.

And you wonder.

And you are hungry. How is it possible to be hungry and yet still have no appetite?

Hunger is an old spectre by now. An old friend.

Its sharp, sour bite in your belly slaps vivid images in your mind.

The girl with the windburnt lips looks like a long-lost little sister. You want to take her into your arms. She sleeps curled in on herself with her back against a wall, softly whimpering, and clutching her belly. Hungry times means even more mistrustful times: unsafe in the streets teeming with the Usurper's knives, and unsafe in what passes as home heaving with her own kin's cruelty.

But cruel though the girl's brother can be, he's got essential crumbs to feed her. Crumbs of stories: memories from home. His childish memories of home, for he was a child still when he had to leave it.

Home means a full stomach and a wide smile, his stories say.

Home is both something to eat and something to feed, the girl thinks. Something to cup in the palm of her hand. Something to keep and adore. But home is also the house with the red door, the one with the lemon tree outside her window – the house where the girl remembers eating heartily and smiling widely, and laughing.

But. But home is also due west, the Sunset Kingdoms. The way the girl and her brother intone it is nothing short of a prayer: the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

The thought of Westeros is enough to sate the girl for the meantime, on those nights when the hunger is worse.

Oh, this old spectre. You know it well.

You see, hunger began with the death of the girl's old knight, the girl's most loyal friend.

Missandei joins you this morning.

Returning your smile, she puts a plate of flatbread, cream cheese, olives, and dried persimmon on the cold stone of the balcony. Goods that you have taken from your storage in Meereen, now being enjoyed with the view of the beach of Dragonstone.

You two share the plate, as you have always done in the pyramid's terrace in Meereen.

"Did you sleep well?" You pour her a cup of Dragonstone's nettle tea. A delicacy for both of you. "It's colder here, isn't it? I had to shut my windows."

"I slept quite well, Your Grace." Missandei thoughtfully knits her brows as she chews on a persimmon. "I did wake up earlier than I am used to, but that can't be right. I always wake up in the same hour."

"In the same moment, more like," you say with a grin. "It's your talent."

She laughs with you.

Both of you settle into a comfortable silence, sharing a cup, nibbling on bread and fruit, watching the pale winter sun struggling to rise through the foggy horizon.

After a while Missandei says, "My queen. Better days are coming."

She told you this same thing one afternoon, a lifetime ago, on the road to Meereen. Both of you were in your tent, you remember. She was teaching you words in the bastard Ghiscari tongue of Meereen whilst you were teaching her how to cook black rice. It's a useful trick you learned from a market stall in Pentos at the time when you were at your poorest, at the mercy of a merchant's charity, and your brother was called a beggar king. Missandei was sat with you near the pot, you remember, the fragrant steam coming from it making your dragons curious. Missandei was smiling when she tasted the first grain she ever cooked: she put it on the tip of her tongue, her dark eyes alight with joy, and told you that as a slave she had only ever been a scribe, and added, the single grain of rice still on her tongue peeking at you between her words, "Better days are coming, Your Grace."

Now you put down your cup of nettle tea and gaze out at Dragonstone's fog. Sighing, "I hope so, Missandei. But look at this winter."

"I see it. And that's why, my queen, I say to you, better days are coming."

This linen sheet has grown familiar to you. It even smells of you, the salt of your tears, the sourness of your muffled cries, the musk of your scalp and neck. You press your dry cheek against it. It's still crumpled from your old tears.

How many days has it been since you've stopped crying?

A child has just brought in another bowl of your favourite soup.

Your eyes narrow; this child's face has become familiar, and you wonder who gives orders to the kitchen servants even now. Is it truly the steward? Or is it Lord Varys? Lord Tyrion? Dare you continue trusting them, now that those whom you've trusted the most are mostly gone? And where does Jon Snow truly stand? He doesn't seem inclined to share confidences with Lord Varys or Lord Tyrion, as far as you know – but do you even truly know this Jon Snow? You have known Ser Jorah far longer than him when Ser Jorah betr – when Ser Jorah –

Briefly, you close your eyes and think of Ser Jorah as you've known him last. Your old bear. Your brave knight, shielding you until his last breath in Winterfe –

With a jolt, you snap your eyes open.

Has Jon Snow told his lady sister? Does Lady Stark know of his parentage even now? You curl your hand into a fist.

Hunger soon follows mistrust. An evil cycle, a dragon eating its own tail. Your belly rumbles as soon as you catch a whiff of the rich soup. Crab, onions, garlic, pepper, leeks, wolfberries.

You do not touch it.

Your head feels like it's been stuffed full of wool.

Funny. You've never worn wool before landing on Westeros. It can be said, then, that you are now undoubtedly of this land, yes? Yes?

Should you laugh? What a poor jape.

You want to laugh.

With swollen eyes you stare at this Westerosi dusk dripping in from the windows and congealing at the corners of your bedchamber. This bedchamber where, you've learned, you were born. You've been alone and lonely for most of your life, even in the company of those whom you trust and care about, so you wonder why you expected that finally setting foot in this ancestral bedchamber would be any different.

What a foolish, childish dream.

Still, it was a great comfort when you still believed that.

For a time, Lady Stark said, sounding almost wistful. Almost mournful.

You stare at the tray. Heaped with food, cold, and untouched.

This was never in your prayer.

Lady Sansa Stark has red hair.

Autumn red, the colour of leaves at that point when winter is nearly come. Or so your Westerosi books, those long ago wedding gifts of songs and children's histories, have told you.

Auburn.

The colour of fire, glazed like a sweet.

Whatever it is exactly, Lady Stark's hair is a redness as seen through a sheet of ice. Not bright. But not dull. Just surrounded by frosty colours.

That red hair of hers was the first thing that caught your interest. And swiftly after that was her gaze.

It slammed against you.

The way that she looked at you as you stepped forward in that snowy yard – you still haven't forgotten that.

Perhaps you never will.

How her gaze, blue as a chilly river, flicked over you from head to boots to dead in the eyes, with a regard that was at once both tactful and devastatingly pointed.

Your breath snagged in your throat.

You spread your legs a bit, anchoring yourself, planting your feet firmly on the wintry ground. You could feel your nostrils flaring. A scalding rush had suddenly drummed all over you.

"Winterfell is yours," said Lady Stark and smoothly, as though it wasn't the afterthought that you immediately knew it to be, she punctuated with, "Your Grace."

You remember that moment with Lady Stark so clearly, even now as you stare at your cold untouched tray.

Those images are still vivid, sharp as a slap.

You want to know more about Lady Stark.

"My lady sister," Jon Snow starts, with a small lingering smile. He is escorting you from the yard mere moments after you've first met Lady Stark.

"She hosts superbly. Very courteous, besides. She bears you no ill will, but best remember, she can be single-minded about the, ah, the matter of the North. I can't fault her for that, though. House Stark has ruled the North for thousands of years. It has a duty to the land and its people, and these past twenty years, with the Iron Throne's unjust actions towards two Lords Stark and an heir to Winterfell – " He pauses.

You want to pointedly ask how House Stark expanded its domain thousands of years ago, but you are tired from the long journey, and so is he. And the both of you have more pressing concerns at the moment: the undead. It would be better to be united for now. You have not brought your dragons and your people all this way just to lose, when the goal is now in sight.

You give him a moment to gather his thoughts.

Glancing at your own hand tucked in the crook of his arm, you note wryly that the only colour around here so far are your red gloves.

And Lady Stark's hair.

Jon continues, "I am not the Lord of Winterfell, You Grace. And I am no longer King in the North. During the time of my lord father no one stood above him in the North, save for the king on the Iron Throne. And now my lady sister sits on our lord father's High Seat. It's hers by right and by blood. And by the love of us Northmen, as you have seen. By marriage to a Lord of Winterfell as well – " Jon grimaces – "if someone were to bring up that filth Ramsay being granted Winterfell by the Iron Throne, just to make a mess. Which I won't stand for, and that doesn't count in inheritance laws, I don't think. But she bears you no ill will, Your Grace. I'm sure that there's nothing that can't be talked over with."

Jon has his dark hair pulled back. He looks cosy and rather handsome in a dark furred cloak. You remember him mentioning his lady sister when talking about that cloak. How beautiful Lady Stark is, how beautiful her needlework is, how beautiful the North is, how you will like them all.

After a beat, you note, "You love her."

Jon's face does that thing again whenever he's trying to hide his pleasure. He is plainer than Lady Stark, you see it now. Plain in his tired earnestness. Easier to divine.

"We went through some things together," he says. "House Bolton for one."

"Tully auburn, Your Grace," Ser Jorah advises. He is urging you to clear the air with her after that terse public moment in the Great Hall. "If I may, Your Grace, Lady Stark has the auburn hair of House Tully. Her lady mother's House."

This is wise of him. You want to know more about the allegiances to Lady Stark. In the North, no one stands above the Lady of Winterfell except yourself.

You follow Ser Jorah's advice, and you find out that she's courteous enough. She stands when you enter, sits when you invite her to sit, adept at pleasantries. You find out that her smile can be pretty, that the skin of her hand is soft, this Lady Sansa Stark. You share a laugh with –

You squeeze your eyes shut.

For a moment.

When you open them, the bowl on the tray is steaming again. The loaf of bread has bits of wolfberries. Outside your windows, the skies have breathed out, have lightened.

Unbidden, Lady Stark's measured voice floats through the dawn: "And is the wood to your liking?" Eyes gleaming in the lamplight, steepled fingers stained with ink.

She stands when you enter, sits when you invite her to sit. She's adept at pleasantries. You clasp her hand. You find out that her smile can be pretty, that her skin is soft, this Lady Sansa Stark. You share a courteous laugh with her.

You also find out that her eyes can be steely. That her voice can be coldly courteous. That she commands the loyalties of the Lord Regent of the Vale and of Theon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands.

She asks you, "What about the North?"

No, not asks – demands.

"What about the North?" she demands of you, this Lady of Winterfell, this woman lord. Just as you are a woman king.

Are you speaking with a neighbouring king? You are not; the Iron Throne is yours, and the North is vassal to the Iron Throne.

Are you, then, speaking with a rebel lord?

Is she demanding for a chunk of your home?

You snatch your hand back.

By the love of Northmen, Lord Paramount of the North.

Jon Snow told this to you. That he included this particular point about Lady Stark is interesting enough. Has made you alternate between curling you hand into a fist and cracking your knuckles.

Tyrion Lannister is pouring wine for the both of you. There's an approving glint in his eyes when he glances up at you, and says, "You want to know more about Sansa Stark?"

With a wry twist to his mouth, he tells you that she was once his lady wife.

You stare at him.

Then, in earnest, he tells you all about her whilst gesturing at various points on a painted map of Westeros.

"In these times, Your Grace, you absolutely need a map of your Seven Kingdoms if you want to know more about Sansa Stark."

He proceeds to tell you.

And he tells you.

And he tells you some more.

The North is House Stark. The Riverlands is House Tully, a lord uncle through her lady mother. The Vale is House Arryn, a lord cousin who is also a nephew to the aforementioned lord uncle. Looking at the map, the three of them combined are easily half of Westeros.

The Westerlands will be Lord Tyrion's upon your victory, and already he has said, with something close to a friendly feeling, that Lady Stark used to be his lady wife. The Stormlands used to be the domain of the Usurper's House, and you've already learned of its connection to Lady Stark's aunt and lord father. "My nephew Joffrey Baratheon," adds Lord Tyrion, "used to be betrothed to Lady Stark. She almost became Queen consort of the Seven Kingdoms, funny how that works." The Reach is House Tyrell, and you learn of a long-ago plot to squirrel Lady Stark, then still styled as Lady Sansa, to Highgarden and wed her to its heir. The Iron Islands is House Greyjoy; Lady Greyjoy is your ally but you learn of Theon Greyjoy's history with House Stark and you've already witnessed him professing loyalty to Lady Stark. Dorne is House Nymeros Martell, once wed to your brother Rhaegar, but if the North had broken away it would be only a matter of time before Dorne made their opinions on secession known.

As you listen, you run your hand along the contours of Westeros. Smooth curves. Sharp dips. Jagged edges.

It's all yours. To eat and to feed. To cup in the palm of your hand. Something to keep and adore.

And you want all of it.

Love.

In your mind, you run your fingers along that word again as you watch Lady Stark's morning progress in the Winterfell yards.

She is not a hard figure to miss, the ever lovely Lady Stark, and not only because you have taken to spending the hour after breakfast on this particular covered bridge. No. It's because wherever Lady Stark goes the very ground seems to warm up and every chilly Northman seems to look up at her with appreciation, and love, their faces rippling with a Northman's brand of warmth. Even the Vale knights, those vassals of Lady Stark's maternal cousin Lord Arryn, sway towards her. Even Theon Greyjoy's Ironborn. Even this frost-laced Northern wind is keen on Lady Stark this morning, gently ruffling her long auburn hair and flirting with her swishing grey skirts. Kissing her cheeks to a blush.

Lovely and beloved.

You stroke that word some more.

Ser Jorah's advice from yesterday turn it over for you.

You worry it. You pinch it, finger it. Curves. Sharp turns. Pointy edges. No different from the map of Westeros. Your mind's fingers feel like your hands' right now: wrapped in fur-lined red gloves, at once cautious and bold to touch anything.

You start down the steps.

Snow crunching under your boots is still a novelty. You keep one ear on it, stubbornly clutching this small wonder, whilst keeping both eyes on the sheet of auburn hair ahead of you.

The main gates are wide open. In a steady stream, smallfolk with wagons, baskets, and children have been ambling into the shelter of the North's greatest castle. The yards are alive with various preparations for the battle, and above all of you, a solid wall of slate-grey skies is brooding.

Thick scents of onion, garlic, and hot bread reach you as you draw closer to Lady Stark. You take in Ser Davos exchanging quiet words with her, and in front of them the row of large pots and the stacks of bowls.

Ser Davos sees you first. "Your Grace."

Then Lady Stark turns. Her lips are slightly curved.

You speak first. "Lady Stark. Ser Davos. I see that you'll be busy shortly. When will you open the queue?"

"In a little while." Lady Stark's voice is mild. Courteous enough. But you don't fail to notice her lack of title when addressing you. "Mid-morning, usually," she continues. "The days are dreadfully shorter now."

"Yes," you say, snatching at that opening. "I was wondering if you'd like to have supper with me, Lady Stark. To continue our discussion from yesterday. We didn't get a chance."

If Lady Stark was taken aback, she's hid it well. Her face is a perfection of mild pleasantness. "That would be lovely. My solar shall be ready, then."

It certainly is ready.

Apple wood is burning in the grate. A simple supper is laid out: soup and walnut bread, roasted lamb and mulled wine, and as a treat a platter of honey cakes. Your chairs aren't as close as they were yesterday; now you sit at opposite ends of a table.

Lady Stark speaks first. "It so pleases me that you remembered our conversation. My apologies for cutting it short, I had to discuss some things with Theon Greyjoy. I believe you're familiar with his lady sister?"

"I am." You sip at the soup, onion and cheese. "But back to our earlier conversation, Lady Stark. You asked about the North."

"I did," she says. "I'm eagerly waiting for your answer."

You squeeze your spoon. Then you let it go and settle your palm on the table.

"My answer. Would you agree that at any day now, we are going to be besieged? Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow. And if we don't stem the tide here in Winterfell, it'll move on in a deluge further south. Maybe as far as Dorne. Don't you think so, my lady?"

Lady Stark raises her cloth napkin to her lips. She surveys you with an inscrutable gaze, with a pretty court-perfect mask that, briefly, you think that she would have fared well in your Meereenese court.

"Oh yes, I do." Her pink lips smile at you. "My brother Jon rode south to urgently plead for your help in this. Your help, and Cersei Lannister's. Alas, it took him longer than I expected. I had some questions for him about leather provisions for the armours."

You feel it as the slap it was intended to be.

But you rally. You can be a queen too and not just a conqueror.

You incline your head, and you summon all your queenly reserves. "My mistake. It is a queen's responsibility to acknowledge her mistakes. And rectify it. And to learn from it. So you see, my lady, I learned from your brother Jon Snow. The political specifics, they only serve to divide us in these urgent times. I ask you to postpone the question of the North until this is won. And I promise you, we will discuss it with all the gravity and diplomacy it deserves, with all our respective councils and maesters in attendance."

Lady Stark reaches for her wine cup. She does not paint her fingernails like you sometimes did in Meereen.

"And justice," she adds, "I hope."

"Of course."

"You are a most just leader, I've heard. I thank you." She smiles again, raises her cup to you. "House Stark shall settle for its own crown or for a marriage to your House, no less, but I'm very comforted to know that all the details will be heard with utmost justice and diplomacy later on."

This she-wolf.

You smile tightly at her.

"Talking about later on," continues Lady Stark as she starts to cut her lamb, "plans for spring, for the future, gives me hope. It is a resilient hope. Would you agree?"

How could you have forgotten that these courtly duties can be just as exhausting as making split decisions whilst riding Drogon? How could you have forgotten those dreadful lessons from Meereen? Your throat is parched. "Very much so," you manage to say. "I've experienced it. Clinging on to impossible hope."

Lady Stark inclines her head. She takes a delicate bite of lamb.

She chews delicately. She sips delicately. She wields her fork and knife delicately. Her Common Tongue words have a delicate edge compared to those of Jon Snow's or Ser Jorah's, even though all of them are Northmen. She is the distilled elegance of Westerosi queens from your song books, but seeing her sat there across from you, in the flesh at last, limned by the scented table candles – it leaves you with a hollow feeling. But also, curiously, frustratingly, with an indescribable yearning.

You want to say more.

Something. Anything.

You want to steer yourself towards something that you have in common with her. What else did Jon Snow and Lord Tyrion say about her? You try to remember. Being a woman is not enough, as you've learned from that misstep yesterday.

You try.

But the walls have started to turn into purple pillars. The engraved ironwood chair with a burgundy cushion has started to turn into a simple black bench. The stretch of table between the two of you is a stretch too far. A weariness twined with a melancholy dread cloaks itself over your white furs. Any moment now, Ghiscari growls will clamour for your attention.

You reach for your wine cup.

It's good that your hand is still steady.

With small pleasure, you note that it's mulled with the raisins and dried apricots you've sent to the kitchens as compliments for your supper with Lady Stark, as well as with –

"Is this – what is this?"

Lady Stark looks up from her carved lamb. "Oh, that's a dried wolfberry."

Your heart jumps to your throat. It tastes of vintage summerwine from Lord Arryn's stores, now mulled with raisins and apricots and wolfberries.

A piece of dried wolfberry. You marvel at it. "Is it, really?" you breathe out. "It's wonderful. Wonderful. I've always wanted to see one."

Lady Stark smiles. It's small, but warm and sweet. In that moment, she almost looks like the Lady Sansa from Jon Snow's and Lord Tyrion's stories.

Her eyes are on the piece of fruit caught in your fork's tines.

Your soup has grown cold again.

Should you get up?

Get up and see if they used fresh wolfberries in it?

"We grew them in our greenhouses, the wolfberries," says Lady Stark. "But that was a long time ago."

"Where are the greenhouses?"

Both of you are standing by the apple-sweet fire, wine cups in hand, a half-empty plate of honey cakes on the mantelpiece.

Lady Stark delicately licks at the crumbs on her thumb. "Oh, not usable for now. But don't worry, wolfberries grow anywhere where there are Northern shrubs."

You have seen the map of Westeros. You know how much land the North has: roughly the size of the other regions put together.

"Would you show them to me?" You have kept a piece of dried wolfberry underneath your tongue, where saliva pools warmly. "The greenhouses? I don't mind if they're not at peak condition."

She pauses. Slants another of her inscrutable looks at you, before saying, "Has my brother Jon not shown them to you?"

Now that you think about it.

He hasn't. Not yet. Not during your walks in the yards before the midday meal.

Your silence is answer enough to her. She glances away, reaches for the almost empty jug.

Your cup is empty too. Again.

"Would you have shown them to me?" you persist. "If I had not told you about wanting to see wolfberries since I was a child? If I weren't setting my claim on the Iron Throne, would you have shown me?"

"Some other time," she says, almost gently. "I will show them to you some other time, Daenerys Targaryen."

But you have waited for far too long.

You exercise discernment and refrain from inviting Lady Stark for a walk the next day. She might think that you are only angling for a stroll past her greenhouses; in which case she would be correct.

So instead you invite her for supper, but this time in your guest chambers.

She arrives in a gown of dark grey velvet with ermine collar and cuffs. An even darker grey leather makes up her bodice, still adorned by her silver chain jewellery. At the door she gives you a pretty courteous smile and a bottle of vintage summerwine.

The fresh loaf of bread has wolfberries. You cut it yourself and leave it on the board, and since you have chosen the circular table, your chairs are considerably closer than they were the other night.

"I'm accustomed to eating from the same plate," you explain. "My ladies eat in this way with me, as do my close advisers, at times when I sorely needed company. Usually we eat flatbread, though."

Lady Stark is taking this in with attentive eyes. "I should like to taste flatbread some time," she tells you.

You dare to smile at her. "Pan-fried in butter fat or olive oil. I hope you'll like it."

"That sounds delicious. I must say, I'm very curious about olive oil. It's divine, I've heard it said. There are mentions of it from maesters and, one time, from a Dornish wedding party. Is flatbread fried with olive oil your favourite?"

She's immensely good at this, is Lady Stark. A born courtier. Lord Tyrion was right. He advised you that he'd known her when she was little more than a child and she was adept even then.

"Yes," you reply. "Butter fat for variety. I enjoy it with fruit and company. Loneliness – do you sometimes feel lonely, my lady?"

Lady Stark takes a sip of wine. When she turns back to you, you can see it in her candlelit eyes: a naked earnestness. It takes you aback, somewhat.

In thoughtful tones she says, "Oh, I do. I will not deny that. So I have found myself, with growing frequency, wondering what my lord father must have felt. He was about my age when he became Lord of Winterfell. He spent most of his childhood in a southron court, like I did. Like me, he was not born to be Lord of Winterfell. At the time when he did become Lord of Winterfell, his lady wife was still a stranger to him, half his family are dead, and the only sibling that remained to him entered the Night's Watch. Lord of Winterfell due to tragedy and victory both. How lonely he must have been. How alone he must have felt." Her eyes slipped through you. Distant and a bit misty in their recollections. She almost looks what Lady Sansa must have looked like. "But the lord father I knew – Father, Father without his lord face telling us stories in his gentle tones, Father with his lord face inviting members of his household to sit by him – well. He had a family he nurtured and loved. He had a family who loved him. And a people who loved him. If good fortune remained with me, I may have that. I want to have that." Lady Stark's gaze sharpened into focus again and met yours squarely. "There's plenty of time. I have the entire future ahead of me, I have to hope for that."

This is the most that you have heard her speak with you with any degree of earnestness. She has you transfixed. She is talking about the Usurper's close friend – you've been made aware of the deeds of Lord Eddard Stark, yes, but some feelings are hard to unravel – yet she has you transfixed. It's because of the mindset of the castle, you suppose. The state of siege. Any day now, any hour now, and all of you will be besieged; hence these quicksilver intimacies.

"Has Lord Tyrion ever shared his piece of wisdom with you?" she says.

"About what?" You try for a wry smile. "He has shared plenty."

"He shared this one with Jon. Death is terribly final, whilst life is full of possibility."

"Would it be possible," you tell her one morning, with half a smile, "to tempt you for a ride with Drogon? With me?"

Lady Stark stares at you a beat too long.

"Or would a cup of hot ale suffice?"

She sighs out a smile. She smoothens her black skirts, her lips twitching. "Very much. I'll take the cup of ale."

"Not a ride on a dragon?"

"Riding's not for me, I'm afraid. Even horses."

Sometimes, in your dreams, you are Drogon.

You take to visiting Lady Stark in her study.

Courtesy visits, you call them. After all she is your host.

She's good at this game. No other visit directly precedes or follows yours, so you don't know firsthand whom she meets with. A plate of honey cakes and fruit is ready. For drinks, it's either mulled wine or nettle tea. Her desk is always busy with parchments, pens, ink pots, and sealing wax. But as soon as you arrive she tidies it all away before inviting you to eat. She lets you stay for no more than half an hour.

Life is full of possibility, so one visit, you bring her flatbread pan-fried in olive oil.

She's lavish with her praise. Regales you with a long-ago royal wedding, how she attended breakfast in the queen's ballroom which served flatbread. The day ended with the royal groom's death.

On another visit, it's pan-fried in butter fat.

Lady Stark smiles as she washes her ink-stained hands in a basin. "I know what dragons eat now."

A laugh is startled out of you.

She looks over at you, startled herself, unmasked in that moment.

And then you see it. You truly see it.

Lady Sansa – auburn tendril escaping from her neat pins and curling past her ear, eyes wide with a sort of sweet wonder, pink blooming on her cheeks and sides of her forehead, her slack lips glistening – this Lady Sansa, sweet and gentle and full of a dewy yet sturdy hope, this Lady Sansa's face which has carved out an excess of tenderness you didn't know you possess. She's so beautiful. As lovely as a lady in a song. You're seized with a want. You want to cup her in the palm of your hand, tenderly. You want to keep her.

What kind of absurd, dangerous power is that?

You grip the table. You plant your feet firmly on the floor.

And that life is full of possibility, that's absolutely right. Had you not lived past Daznak's Pit, past Qarth, past the Red Waste, past Vaes Dothrak, past Dragonstone, would you have been here, in this moment? Feeling this indescribable – this – this –

"Love," says Missandei, looking up from her books. "This poet says that love is just desire doubled."

You smile, amused. "And what's love doubled?"

"Madness."

How did it start?

You remember –

The rasp of your velvet as you walk around the desk. The whisper of her wool and leather as she fully turns around.

You lift your hand. You reach out for her slowly, slowly.

Slowly.

Asking for permission.

She lets you clasp her hand.

How did it start?

Your palm on her smooth cheeks. Calluses, burns. She shivers.

Her lips, hesitant; she has never been properly kissed. Your butterfly-light kisses stop at her chin. Then, slowly you open your mouth. Inviting her. She grips your shoulder, and moulds the shape of her mouth after yours.

And it starts again.

Desire floods into your mouth.

You pull her close. She clutches at you. The very air is gasping between your mouths. You drink of the taste of honey cakes and fresh wolfberries and summerwine from her tongue, from her upper lip, from her lower lip. You push her against her desk.

Tongue, teeth, lips. Your palm on either side of her thighs, pressed hard against the desk. Her leather bodice is impossible; she lifts not one finger to help you take it off. So you ruck up her skirts. Up and up. Warm supple flesh. You settle yourself between her legs. She parts them. But she doesn't help you. She lets you, but she doesn't give. You have to work for it, you have to take it yourself. The world turning. Her auburn hair spilling flat against the dark oak, dipping into the nearly empty plate of honey cakes and wolfberries.

You have kissed her lips red.

A redness as seen through a sheet of ice.

"You," Lady Sansa breathes out, a slight tremble in her voice, "you just want something from me."

That much is true. But the truth has seven faces just now, and all of them are nameless.

You slowly rub your thumb against her bottom lip. "And what would you have of me?"

She swallows thickly. Her eyes flick between yours as if searching for something.

"Hold me," Lady Sansa says. "For a time. For just now, hold me."

You hold her.

You hold her pleasure. Cup it, hot, dripping, pulsing, in the palm of your hand. Lick it off your fingers whilst your gaze never left hers. Feed it to her like honey, smearing it on her eager tongue, behind her lower teeth, on the soft inside of her cheek.

And she eats it all.

Her tight gasps. Her guileless moans. Her stunned, open-mouthed silences. Her keens. Her desperate grip on the edges of the desk. The heel of her boot digging behind your thigh.

Coaxing and wringing out her pleasure is pleasure itself. It's a heady new feeling. You feel almost drunk with it. Drunk yet still parched for it.

Lady Sansa, even if she doesn't know it, consumes you, and it aches. A sweet ache.

You take a wolfberry from the plate. With sticky fragrant fingers you feed it to her. You lap at the dregs from her mouth. Stain her jaw with red and her pleasure. Kiss away the moisture at the corner of her eye.

All night long, you hold Lady Sansa again and again and again.

At dawn, she traces the calluses and burns on your hands.

The rug makes for a good pillow for you.

Your shoulder seems to be a good pillow for Lady Sansa.

Both of you remain silent.

She mutters in her sleep.

"Bread, I would have given them bread if I had it"

Brow furrowed. Sweat on her temples. Short breaths.

"If I am ever queen, if - if - yes, I will make them love me."

In the morning the news arrives that the undead armies are only several hours away.

Lady Stark takes a dagger for her vigil inside the walls.

You put on your riding leathers and go out to spend some time with Drogon.

("You are always writing," remarked the dragon queen. She was stood in front of Sansa's carved oaken desk, flicking through a stack of blank parchment, tracing the lip of an inkpot with a callused finger, hovering over the seal of House Stark, before finally pressing a wide-open palm on the polished desk top.

At ease on her chair, Sansa observed all of it in silence.

This desk and this chair had been her lord father's before her, and other Lord Starks' before him, and before them likewise belonged to countless Kings in the North. The lamp on a corner of the desk, however, was Sansa's alone. She had found it miraculously intact in the bedchamber of her girlhood; an old lamp, almost as old as she, but it still cast a gentle glow over her letters, her toils and troubles and tedium.

"Surely it must cramp your hand, Lady Stark. All that scribbling."

Rolling her quill between her inkstainned fingers, Sansa made herself smile blandly at Daenerys Targaryen. "Oh, a time or two," she allowed. "But I needs must. Ruling can be tedious."

"So you've pointed out in council this morning," said the dragon queen, striding to the side of the desk.

She was always striding, interestingly enough, whether it be in the Great Hall or the yards or in the corridors and council chambers. Or here, in the Lord's solar. The dragon queen never just walked. "In Meereen I had scribes and scholars to help me. We have maesters here in Westeros, don't we?"

"We do. And is the wood to your liking?"

The dragon queen paused.

Clearly taken aback.

Then she laughed.

She had a full-throated laughter, Sansa noted, as rich and wine-dark as her coat. When she looked at Sansa again her eyes were alight with a sharp brightness and her nostrils were almost flaring, but her hand remained on Sansa's desk.

And Sansa remained seated.

"To hear my Hand talk about you, Lady Stark. He made it seem as if you're the sweetest and gentlest lady he has ever met." Daenerys Targaryen took another stride. Now she was behind the desk as well. "He told me, in all technicality Sansa Stark is the Lord Stark of Winterfell now, and the power in the North. In the days of Lord Rickard Stark no one stood higher in the North, except for Aerys II Targaryen on the Iron Throne."

Sansa tilted her head. "It is always wise to learn your heraldries."

"A woman lord." The dragon queen moved her hand along the table, a tight-knuckled caress along the edge. She only stopped when her hand was right in front of Sansa. "As I am a woman king. I often wonder how Aegon the Conqueror dealt with his own Lord Stark."

The dragon queen was stood over her. A small woman, but with a large presence. She made no effort to fold into herself, though, which reminded Sansa of kings in songs and in life.

And of dragons, most of all.

How did the heroes tame the dragons? Sansa wondered, wryly. Enough to draw close? Enough to ride them?

Sansa planted her feet on the floor, still sitting, and leisurely leaned forward.

"Why," replied Sansa, smiling in full now, "only with circumstances much different from ours."

Daenerys Targaryen's eyes were very bright now. Intense. Pits of fire. A devouring heat which licked up and down Sansa. Something about them struck her as unsettlingly hungry.

Brave, Sansa must be brave.

She settled both arms on her chair, suffusing her room, her castle, with her presence, and didn't look away from those pits of fire.)

Sometimes, in your dreams, you are Drogon.

Fire made flesh.

You open your mouth and Lady Stark slips inside. Her leathers and wool melt on the points of your teeth. Warm and naked, sticky with red and her pleasure, she slides across your tongue and then under it. Every naked inch of her at last – her throat, her spine, her breasts, her arms, her cunt, her thighs – is yours to hold. Westeros and love in your mouth.

She brushes wayward locks from her face. Her pins and braids have come loose. "Return me to my castle," she demands of you, echoing sweetly in the hollow of your mouth.

You say nothing. What can a dragon say? But you smile, let the warm rumble of it cloak her.

She turns on her soft belly. Chin on the palm of her hand, she starts counting the days.

fin

Note: Title from Tove Lo's "Talking Body."