The first things Saskia noticed when she came to, if only for a wee bit, were the cold and the faint howl of wind between cracks of half-ruined stone.

She was somewhere that seemed to be the dankest, dampest, skankiest hotel room or dormitory known to man, on the most uncomfortable mattress on which she'd ever slept (even considering the shite camp beds of her girlguiding days, when she was fortunate enough to be permitted those). It must've been straw, for her legs itched whenever she stirred, and she could've sworn she felt tickled by… something. Jerking, she sat up, running her hands over her legs – still bare, still cold – and clutching at the material beneath her. Yep, straw, and a thin, scratchy blanket covering it and all the foul critters that probably inhabited it. What the fuck kind of place had straw beds, anyway, and why would she even go there? She had an essay to finish before she could even think of having a holiday, besides.

Westeros? Saskia answered her own question. Wherever the Amish live?

Saskia knew less than Jon Snow when it came to the Amish, but she was fairly certain that they did not live in castles. The walls all around her were stone. A weak and smoky fire was smouldering in a small hearth near the foot of her bed, offering very little warmth, especially considering that there was an open, glassless window in the wall opposite the one against which her bed lay. Was she in a castle? Harrenhal? Westeros? That had been a drunken dream, though, that Grumpy Cat-looking girl and her bald creeper of a companion who had forced her to sign over a year of her life to learning how to write Game of Thrones fanfiction. Wherever she was, she was going to be having one hell of a belated hangover, and would be leaving one very negative review on Yelp when she got home.

Saskia was just so knackered and cold and thirsty that she couldn't do aught but lie down again, roll over to face the wall, cover her eyes with the too-long sleeves of her jacket, and hope she fell asleep to wake up either back in London or, if this really were Westeros (which it couldn't be, right?), in a feather bed also containing Robb, stark naked, waiting for her with a glass of wine and a need to take her again and again. The thought was enough to warm her for all of five seconds. She curled up between the blanket, which wasn't even long enough to cover her, and the nasty straw, her eyes heavy. She'd sort this all out at a more reasonable hour.

Some minutes later – Saskia couldn't tell how long, and couldn't care – when she'd sunk into sleep again, just at the point of being half-conscious, a door groaned.

"Fire's welly out now. Oh."

"Ooh, look, Lucy! Another one! Ooh, Lucy, poke it. You should poke it," someone very Irish was pleading.

"It?" The girl – Lucy, presumably – had a distinctly Northern accent that Saskia couldn't name or begin to describe, above all now when she was scarcely conscious. "She's our last roommate, seems. Must've got dumped here durin' supper or sometime."

"But is it dead? Poke it. See if it's dead."

"Why'd Miss Ellie give us a dead one, hm?" There was a creaking as someone came to sit on the bed beside her. "See, na, she's breathin', just right jiggered, like. And no kecks to boot. Must've been havin' a mint night, her, when she were wrangled."

Miss Ellie?! Others, or voices in her head, shared the delusion?!

"What does that mean?"

"I mean, she's exhausted, and she's not wearin' any pants. Trousers. Whatever you call the things in Kilkenny, she's not got 'em, plainly. Clearly she were havin' a good time in some way."

"Well, its fun's over now. You wake it and get it to move. It can have the floor."

"I'm not wakin' her, Orla, and don't you be wakin' her or me. I'm goin' to sleep. You want to be oinin' people for no good, that's what Letty'll be for when she's back."

"But—"

"Get to sleep. We've orientation first thing in the mornin'. Don't you want to look pretty for Jaime Lannister?"

For… Jaime Lannister? What?

"But—"

"Ssh. Put another log on and get to bed, Orla."

There was someone clambering over Saskia in bed. Someone was in her bed. Or was she in someone's bed? Did she have her own? Did it matter? But said someone also laid another blanket on top of her – of them – and that was nice. After a while, still unable to sleep, she dared to squint open her eyes. The Northern girl, facing her and fast asleep, had one of those long, soft, slightly daft-looking faces common amongst the inbred, the English, and Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary. She was… nice, in a way, or just oddly nice-looking, from what Saskia could see in the dying firelight.

Somewhat assured and slightly warmer, and by now beyond exhausted, Saskia rolled over and slept. Until…

"WAKEY WAKEY, LITTLE BRAT!" someone yelled in her face before playing something – a vuvuzela? – directly in her ear.

Saskia screamed and attempted to jump out of bed, falling over Lucy in the process.

"WAKEY WAKEY, LITTLE BRATS!" the intruder yelled between discordant vuvuzela blares and over the sounds of something being banged. "UNCLE RAMSAY'S HERE TO WAKE YOU! TIME FOR ORIENTATION!"

A brown-haired, greyish-bearded man with a little bag around his neck, looking grumbly and bothered at having to do this, was rolling his eyes and banging coconut halves together. Thankfully, he wasn't doing it in the immediate vicinity of anyone's ears. This… Ramsay, though (Bolton?!), swung an armful of sacks to the floor and blew that fucking thing again, right in Lucy's face.

"IT'S TIME FOR ORIENTATION! TIME FOR ORIENTATION! TIME FOR ORIENTATION! TIME FOR ORIENTATION! TIME FOR ORIENTATION! TIME FOR ORIENTATION! HALL OF THE HUNDRED HEARTHS IN HALF AN HOUR! GET YOUR NEW CLOTHES ON AT ONCE! TIME FOR ORIENTATION! TIME FOR ORIENTATION!"

With a final screech of his fine hot pink vuvuzela in Orla's face, Ramsay Snow was gone.

The girls had had to rush to get dressed, fumbling in the dark with the sacks of university-approved frocks and smallclothes that Ramsay had dropped off before vuvuzela-ing other innocuous souls in the tower. As Saskia struggled with the laces of her new boots, her hands shaking from the cold, she could hear someone yelling HOOOODDOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRR ad nauseam.

Then it was down an ostensibly endless and fanbrat-crowded flight of winding castle stairs (at least ten storeys' worth, Saskia wagered), across a courtyard at least half a kilometre long, through a great foyer, and through an enormous set of wooden doors into an even more enormous, by now almost-filled hall.

"HOGWARTS!" one of the Americans exclaimed.

The Hall of a Hundred Hearths did sort of look like Hogwarts, true, if Hogwarts had been blasted by dragonfire and left for the elements to further ravage, and been too expensive and expansive to maintain to any liveable standard. There weren't actually a hundred hearths – more like thirty-ish, only half of them blazing, but Saskia wasn't arsed to count – and there were two galleries above, but it was similar to the Great Hall of Hogwarts, only enormous and with a much bigger dais on which to seat the staff. The ceiling, too, looked like the night sky in places, but that was due to an old roof beginning to crumble and break off in some parts, and ruined by dragonfire in others. And the food on the tables. Gods, the food. Even that was an Hogwartsesque spread. Pie! Lemon bars! Entire roast chickens! Olives! Dornish plums! And more pie!

Hogwartsly, the pupils were divided into colour-coded houses that corresponded, more or less, to where they lived and, as they'd later learn, the class sections to which they were assigned. Saskia, Lucy, Orla, and Letty (who had returned whilst Saskia had been sleeping) were in Hawick, which was housed in the topmost floors of something called the Wailing Tower; that did explain the noise. The Hawick table was the one on the far left, to the front. Her assigned area did provide a good view of some of the staff, which would have been nice if she had had a raging crush on Daenerys, Brienne, Catelyn, Davos, Stannis, Tyrion (ew, he had no nose), or Sam, some of whom were ugly and all of whom were not Robb.

Where's Robb, anyways? Saskia mused as she sunk into her seat and helped herself to pie. Where was his beautiful, scruffy, gorgeous, honourable, perfect self? Where was her lord husband and one true love?! Would he even notice her amongst all these other girls? (Of course he would. They were destined to be together.) All of the sexy characters, it seemed, were missing from the high table. No Jaime, Bronn, Jon, Robb, Oberyn, or Ramsay, but essentially everyone else was present, as far as she knew.

Thinking no more of it for then, Saskia ate and looked to the papers that had been left on the table for her, consisting of a copy of the OFUW vows, a map of the campus, and her timetable for the first term.

Pupil: Crockett, Saskia Louise (#299)
Disease: Mary Sue (Robb)
Wailing Tower 1101
Hawick

Canon for Feeble-Minded Fanbrats
Samwell Tarly, Tyrion Lannister
Mondays and Fridays, 8.00-10.00
Tower of Dread 212

Military Realism: or, Your Army Hasn't Got 50,000 Cavalry All with Valyrian Swords
Stannis Baratheon, Robb Stark
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3.00-5.30
Tower of Ghosts 034

Domestic Arts: Actually Acting a Lady
Sansa Stark, Catelyn Stark, Jeyne Westerling
Mondays and Fridays, 13.15-14.15
Widow's Tower 126

Contemporary Issues in Westerosi Society
Jon Snow, various lecturers (TBD)
Mondays and Wednesdays, 16.00-18.00
Tower of Dread 209

Slaying 101 (choice of spear, sword, or bow)
Oberyn Martell, Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, Ygritte
Times and locations to be determined
*Sign-ups for Slaying 101 are on Sunday morning at 7.00 in the armoury*

Honour and Dignity for Twats
Brienne of Tarth, Davos Seaworth
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 14.30-16.00
Tower of Ghosts 115

Mandatory Writing Workshop
Wednesdays, 13.00-14.30
Widow's Tower 302

Meal times: 6.00-6.45, 12.00-12.45, 18.15-19.00

In case of emergency:
Corpse Control (Sandor, Ser Jaime): Tower of Ghosts 028
Infirmary (Maester Qyburn): Wailing Tower Vaults

Of note:
1) University-approved clothing is to be worn at all times. PE kits are to be worn only in Slaying lessons or at other staff-approved times.

2) Staff quarters (in Kingspyre Tower) are strictly off-limits to pupils without a designated chaperone and the express written permission of both Lord Tywin and Miss Ellie.

3) You must graduate in order to be permitted to continue writing fanfiction. No exceptions. Details on final graduation project[s] forthcoming.

"Oh, you've Military Realism at three?" Lucy asked, glancing at Saskia's timetable. "I've got the eight. I think Orla's with you."

"You're lucky, then, eh?" Attending lectures on warfare in a place called the Tower of Ghosts at three in the morning was not anywhere near to making it onto Saskia's list of things she'd ever like to do. What kind of university even offered lectures that early, besides? Groaning once again, she served herself more pie and ale. Pie and ale were sure to make anyone feel better.

"Good morning, sweet summer children," came a sickeningly kind voice from up front. Everyone quieted. Miss Ellie was, in fact, real, and was just as much of a miniature, bug-eyed Umbridge as Saskia had found her in England. She stood at a podium at the furthest end of the dais, surveying the absolute horde of sleep-deprived fangirls. "I hope you have been enjoying breakfast, courtesy of the Pie Master. For those of you who have not met me, I am Miss Ellie, coordinator and fanbrat wrangler. You are to see me for any trivial matters, as well as questions regarding timetables, modules, housing, excursions, and anything related to the running of this institution. May I introduce Tywin of House Lannister?"

Tywin Lannister was next to her. He looked very little like his show counterpart; he was still stone-faced and quietly terrifying, but was bald and had ridiculous blond sideburns that made him look just a bit like a cross between a biker and a mudkip. "As headmaster of this fine institution, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros. Let us begin by reviewing our vows."

Reason gathers, and now my shame begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no disturbing liberties with canon, write no modern AUs, and ship no loathsome incest. I shall spout no pseudo-feminist bullshit and woo no canonical characters. I shall live and die in the ignominy I deserve. I am the fanbrat stalking Tumblr. I am the moron on the Pit of Voles. I am the twat who shames the realms of fanfiction. I pledge my life and education to the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros, for this day and all the days to come.

Tywin and Miss Ellie made them all repeat their vows another two times, to the displeasure of three hundred and nineteen sleepy pupils.

"Good," Miss Ellie smiled. "Again, a warm welcome. At the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros, we learn through pain, disappointment, punishment, and thorough torture. And no, Eve, no, Flannery, not the type of 'sexy' torture you imagine Ramsay Snow to inflict on those he… loves. We partake in no erotic flaying or dick-severing here."

"Ramsay BOLTON!" yelled a squat-faced, toadlike American at the Lothston table.

"All the same, Flannery. We do not flay, and anyone attempting to flay will be fed alive to Her Grace Daenerys Targaryen's dragons. That said, as part of our educational mission of teaching through disappointment, and as you might have noticed, none of you, and I repeat, none of you, are your OCs, and none of you ever will be."

"But that's how an Official Fanfiction University works!" one of the distressed girls at the furthest table cried. "I'm Marylean Targaryen!"

"I'm Lenah!" someone moaned.

"I'm Morwenna!" Letty cried. "I'm the carpenter's daughter!"

At least a hundred others joined suit, weeping and whinging and insisting that they were indeed big-breasted, violet-eyed, raven-haired, sword-or-bow-wielding, and downright annoying Mary Sues. Most of the twenty-five or so male pupils present also raged, swearing that they were the extra and/or illegitimate sons of Tywin, Eddard, Robert, Balon, Rhaegar, and Stannis.

"Not this Official Fanfiction University, sweet summer children," Miss Ellie said sweetly. "And no, no, you are not. Tywin and I do not care how and why you lie on your enrolment forms. You are the insignificant fanbrats you are, and no more. You are Ilze Ziguzis, Carolina Nelson, Lettice Postlethwaite, and whoever else you were born on Earth."

"It's not fair!" Ilze cried.

"You do not need to be even twattier than you are already," Miss Ellie said. "Trust me on this. We will cure you of your desire to be, and you will learn canon."

"There's nothing wrong with being a Mary Sue!"

Carolina, too, was adamant. "But I don't want to be cured! It's just a bit of fun!"

Tywin said, "Anyone can be reformed. Even you, Carolina Nelson. Even the most hopeless of you. One you have already met. To date, only one brat, Eleanor Eyland, has entered these doors for the offence of being more kill-happy than George RR Martin, to the point of recklessness and poor writing and characterisation. You are looking at Eleanor Eyland, who previously had never written a thousand-word one-shot without at least two major deaths. Remember this before you err. Miss Ellie Eyland has been reformed, however, and has since worked tirelessly in the education of brats like her former self. Full recovery is likely for you as well, should you complete your degree. You may find it possible to go on writing canon-based, literate stories with well-rounded characters and nary a Sue or Stu."

Saskia raised her hand. "Just because we write Mary Sues doesn't mean we're desperate or are morons."

Miss Ellie raised a pale eyebrow. "Really, now? Let's find out for certain." She lifted her eyes to the lower gallery above her, calling, "Lust objects, you may join us now."

Thus began the madness.

Several fangirls began whimpering and yowling like cats in heat when Jaime descended the stairs with Bronn (Oh my god, you think they're gay together?! As gay as Robb and Jon and Theon?! Letty moaned to Saskia). Orla was squealing hysterically at Jaime coming to sit between Brienne and Bronn, because oh my god Jaime and Brienne are, like, so cute together are they together are they married oh my god?! An Asian girl at their table insisted that, no, Jaime could not have Brienne because he would be having her, every night, for at least four hours at a time. Flannery and Eve insisted the same of Ramsay, who waved and winked at them, sending them into convulsions of lust that ended in drooling and in nasty, heart-stoppingly awkward moans and full-body shivers that made everyone in their vicinity shiver with disgust.

Carolina and a few other girls were squeeing over Bronn, in a manner only a wee bit more tame. Several fanbrats were fanning themselves as they watched Oberyn (he was so much like Pedro Pascal, only sexier, if that were even possible) strutting down to sit with someone Saskia presumed to be Ellaria, who would be no object to a little bit of extra-relationship hanky panky, or so everyone who fancied Oberyn likely hoped. The noise in the hall reached a new, ear-splitting height when Jon Snow arrived and kissed Ygritte full on the lips to a serenade of jealous screeching.

"HANDS OFF MY JONNY BOY! HE'S MY SWEET BOO-BOO LOVERCAKES! MINE!" one of the yellow-clad Lothston girls, the most insistent of the Jon fanciers, wailed. The girl and too many others, Lucy included, were emitting noises so high-pitched and irritating that Saskia was compelled to take a massive swig of ale and a silent vow to loathe them all. She was better than that kind of desperate behaviour. "JONNY-POO IS MINE! MINE! MINE!"

"Mine! Mine! Mine!" Lucy echoed until she choked on her tears and, in the throes of her tantrum, ended up with a faceful of lemon cakes when she threw her head toddleresquely down on the table.

"OH MY GOD, ROBB!" someone shrieked.

And there Robb suddenly was at the far end of the dais with Jon and a curly-haired brunette beside him. He wasn't Richard Madden, but he was glorious, he was gorgeous, he was Robb, he was Saskia's husband and lover and was just perfect. Perfect, she whispered to herself, biting her lip. She had to struggle to keep her arse in her seat and fight the urge to run up to Robb and glomp and snog the hell out of him. But the woman beside him… was… was she holding a baby? An auburn-haired, adorable wee baby, maybe six months old and chubby and cute and kind of terrified of all the noise? That Lyalyah/Saskia did not birth? Did the woman just kiss Robb and pass the fussing baby to him?

Saskia and far too many other fanbrats howled. Their hopes and dreams – and very lives, it seemed – had ended.

"NO NO NO NO NO!" was the only thing Saskia could manage through her sudden rush of tears.

"BUT I'M YOUR BABY MAMA, ROBBIE!"

"THAT AIN'T TALISA! WHERE'S TALISA? JEYNE WESTERLING IS A LIE!"

"JEYNE WESTERLING IS A BITCH! ROBB IS MINE!"

"ROBB, HOW DARE YOU! I AM YOUR INTENDED!"

"Baby Ned is. not. canon!" rasped one of rare males, who was so slim, sunken-cheeked, crazy-eyed, ratty-mullet-haired, and balding that he kind of looked like the Cryptkeeper on speed. "Shame! D&D fanfiction at its worst! Wishful thinking of shownlies! Don't tell me the baby's going to learn to ride horses! That's pandering to female casuals at its finest!"

The Cryptkeeper's obsessive moanings were soon drowned out, however, by shrieks even louder than those of the resident Robb and Jon fangirls.

Two tiny grey dragons swooped down from the gallery, screaming, and flew directly to the girl who had called Jon her 'lovercakes', still weeping as she sent Olly-like glares towards the sexy object of her affection. She and one of her snivelling friends had risen, and were shuffling towards Jon, when the little dragons screamed in their faces and nipped at their arms, causing them to throw themselves to the ground in terror, sobbing even harder amidst the sudden, shocked silence in the hall.

"Rickerd, Benjyn, enough!" Daenerys called. "No eating!"

"Yes, it does seem as if the lot of you are desperate morons, in Saskia Crockett's own words. You in particular, Kayleigh Evans and Sophie Wells, for attempting to stampede Jon Snow. You are lucky that the mini dragons do not find you threatening enough to kill, it seems. Your behaviour, however, can and must be rectified," Tywin drawled. He turned to Daenerys, who was rewarding the dragons with bacon and snuggles. "Daenerys, perhaps it is time to show the pupils more of what awaits them if they do not correct their foolish comportment?"

Yes, baby Ned exists because there should be some wishful happiness that makes fanbrats cry, and the show canon may sometimes leak here. Wait for the Sand Snakes. Teehee. Don't you want to watch little Ned Stark learn to ride horses? :3