Wyman Manderly was, indeed, the cook; Daenerys took great delight in informing the pupils of this delicious fact. Lord Manderly's kitchen, too, was staffed by Thenns, as he was so blobular that he couldn't do most of the actual cooking himself. Saskia and many others threw up right then and there, and swore off ever eating pies again. Daenerys assured them that it'd been actual chicken pie with no fangirl chunks – weren't half the staff members eating it as well, herself included? But that mattered little. Saskia and essentially everyone else would be boycotting pie. And meat. And… anything that could possibly have been cooked with flesh that was not obviously, like, a whole bird or anything.
Not that they would have the chance to stage a silent protest or think too much on it, though. Second breakfast consisted of tea and a measly slice of visibly stale, mouldering bread per person – not that anyone really touched it – and then it was off to the armoury to sign up for Slaying.
Lucy signed up for Oberyn's spearfighting lessons. Stabby-stabby twirl sticks were cool, Oberyn was hot (but not as hot as Jon Snow), and it would be obvious, she'd wagered, if she took archery in order to impress or somehow get closer to Jon. There would have to be other, less-predictable ways of getting to the gormless bastard, ones hopefully related to her rack. Plus, if Lucy really wanted to get laid, Oberyn was much less fanatical about honour, and would, despite Ellaria being about, be much more likely to touch her than Jon. Saskia had settled on archery because it meant no running, no exertion at all (you just stood there and shot straw things), and she was sure Robb wouldn't feel she was trying to impress him like he might If she took up the sword. She had Lucy to thank for that idea. Orla had gone her own insistent, fangirlish way and signed up for Bronn's sword lessons with that girl Carolina down the hall, in hopes that Jaime would stop in often at the lessons he was no longer allowed to teach for not having a sword hand. Letty, too, chose archery, for the sole reason that Katniss Everdeen was awesome.
Finally, ultimately, at fucking last, Saskia could sleep.
She dreamt of Robb.
Robb in a garden amongst the eyes of death, the poppies, Jeyne's swollenly grotesque corpse at his feet, waiting for Saskia to take him and love him amidst the summer flowers because corpses and gardens were kind of romantic in weird dreams, she guessed. Robb, bare-chested and tousled and perfect and wind-kissed and even more perfecter than ever, as in that .gif she missed watching loop ad infinitum. Robb, clad only in britches and boots, awaiting her in the pink silken sheets of a featherbed, awaiting her touch, her kisses, her love, a love that would last for all of eternity.
And Robb, Robb, handsome, honourable, perfect, manly Robb, holding her in his lap, letting her wrap her Sueish pale arms around his neck, letting her kiss his stubbly, chiselled cheeks as he mmffed with pleasure and stroked her arse as she straddled him.
"We're meant to be," she breathed.
"I love you, Lyalyah," he whispered into the crook of her neck. "I will always, always love you."
"Oooh, Robbie, I'll love you forever."
She was leaning down to kiss him, savouring his breath against her—
BANG. BANG.
"You are mine, my love," Robb was whispering—
BANG. BANG. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. BANG.
Saskia woke to the sounds of something quite heavy bludgeoning something also heavy. Banging was, she thought groggily, turning over to hold her flimsy pillow over her head and sending one weary hand out to pat the empty half of her bed for sexy wee Robbie (who wasn't there, to her immense disappointment), no better than a vuvuzela applied directly to the ear.
"Robb. No. Umdsfdskfsdmmfff. Ramsay," Saskia groaned, rubbing her eyes. "The fuck?"
Ramsay Snow was nowhere to be seen. Orla and her mess of sandy blond curls came into very blurry view as Saskia rolled over and opened her eyes. Orla was standing teeteringly on a rather rotten chair in front of the toilet door, banging a sheet of parchment into the wooden door. In lieu of a hammer, she was using Letty's new hardcover copy of A Dance with Dragons, and was in no way being gentle to the innocent book.
"The fuck you doing?" Saskia mumbled, straining to sit up.
"Posting an agenda, a to-do list. A list of things that must be accomplished, if you will. Went 'round earlier, asking 'round, and nothing here's to my standards."
"At… whatever time it is now?"
Orla shrugged, clambering down off the chair. "Half past five in the evening, sleepyhead. Thought I'd get it through whilst Letty and Lucy were down at Flannery's. I got you up in time for supper, on the bright side."
Baths? Saskia had been so knackered and busy and ill and such to realise she'd not bathed or brushed her teeth in days, and that she probably reeked of sick, straw, and ale. There were baths? She'd soon be visiting those.
"What're you accomplishing, then?" she said sleepily.
Orla grinned. "Come see for yourself."
Whimpering and rubbing her eyes again, Saskia heaved herself to her feet and shuffled over to the door. This had better be a Nobel Prize-worthy document to be worth getting noisily woken up for.
And… it was not a Nobel Prize-worthy document. It was a mess that read, in shiny urple ink (where did Orla even find shiny urple ink?), in ridiculously flowery cursive,
ORLA'S LIST: TO DO
-Jaime and Brienne get married
-Jon and Ygritte have a baby
-Tyrion and Sansa reconcile
-Sandor and Sansa get together
ﾟ･✿ヾ╲(｡◕‿◕｡)╱✿･ﾟ
Complete, of course, with boxes to tick off and a hand-drawn Japanese emoticon.
"I didn't add Robb and Jeyne because they're already perfect," Orla added as Saskia read, "or Arya and Gendry, cos they're not here. But Arya and Gendry would be reuniting, starting their own faceless sellsword company, sitting on the Iron Throne, and having three sons."
Jeyne and Robb are already perfect? No. She and Robb were perfect.
"So you want SanSan and Sansa/Tyrion?" Saskia asked pointedly. "How's that going to work?"
"If Sansa and the Imp can't work things out between them, or even if they can, he'll graciously let her free to marry Sandor. Duh," the Irish girl said, rolling her eyes. "And with some talking and counselling, they'll all agree to one or the other."
"And how are you… uh, forcing the baby thing?"
"Harrenhal Tea Party. Like the kind in Boston I saw a documentary about on YouTube, except with all moon tea around and in the stream in the godswood."
A clearly brilliant plan, to be certain.
"Oh, uh, brilliant. Do you even know where to find moon tea, what it is, or what it even looks like?"
"No. But I know what it does."
"Still won't guarantee a baby. Or anything other than poisoning a bunch of fish."
Orla narrowed her green eyes. "It's a start."
"Jaime and Brienne get married," Saskia read. "I mean, they're cute and all, but what're you going to do, pin Brienne down in that bombed-out sept and force her to swear eternal love and devotion to Jaime? There's not even a septon here."
"Well, no, I'd never manage that," Orla smiled, her lips twitching slightly. "The godswood will do."
"She's easily twice your size."
"I'll go for a more subtle approach."
"Like?"
"Like talking to her all the time, and mentioning my Jaime all the time, and how honourable and sweet and perfect he is. Well, I guess he's not my Jaime, because I know I'll never have him just as you'll never have Robb and Ruby'll never have Oberyn. And I can ask for tutoring after lessons, and arrange for Jaime to come tutor me there too, and not tell either of them, so they'll both be working with me. And making eyes at each other. And they'll not be able to leave, most like. And over months and months, they'll realise they were meant to be, if they're not learning that already. They are meant to be. Forever. For always. For eternity," Orla whined, "and maybe I have to help them see that."
Like you'll never have Robb? The words, of course, were probably true, Saskia thought, remembering Jeyne and Robb and the kiss they'd shared, and wee baby Ned. But they hurt, whether or not Orla meant for them to hurt. They hurt like a bitch, like a knife in her heart; as cliché as that was, it was just as true.
Saskia snorted. "That's not subtle. You clearly have no idea what you're doing if that's your idea of how to get people together, much less if that's your idea of love."
Orla snorted right back. "Someone's a pessimist and a hypocrite."
"Hypocrite?"
"It's yours too, isn't it? Oooooh, Robbie, we're meant to be. Oooooh, Robbie, I'll love you forever, forever, forever," Orla yammered. She couldn't drop her Rs and sucked at mocking Saskia's accent. "You talk in your sleep."
Saskia could feel her cheeks burning. "I'm not a hypocrite. And I don't talk in my sleep."
"Oh, really?"
"I'm not a hypocrite, but I am a realist. You can't just force people to fall in love or have babies or settle their differences and have uncanonically happy marriages. Tyrion's father helped orchestrate the murder of Sansa's mother and brother, and it's not like the Lannisters had nothing to do with her father's death. There's no way that's working. Even lemon cakes couldn't fix Sansa's angst, remember?"
"In canon," Orla said sweetly. "Not here. This isn't really canon, is it? In case you've not noticed, Robb and Catelyn are alive. I just want to help them all take things to the next level. And if not, there's SanSan."
Saskia huffed. "That's not the point of us coming here."
"Says who, goody-goody Robb-fancying hypocrite?"
"Says me. Says Miss Ellie and Lord Tywin and everyone," she snapped. "Now where are the baths?"
"Down the corridor, last door on the right," Orla sang as Saskia gathered her shoes and a change of clothes. "Hope you don't mind hairy spiders. They're everywhere. It's gross."
"Fuck you."
Saskia hadn't meant to say it, but she did, she definitely did.
There were hairy spiders all over the wooden stalls separating the ratchet brass tubs – and, maybe, they were likely all over her own room, too – but she was too upset to care about spiders. What were spiders against the destruction of her dreams and her fantasies, and being woken up, annoyed, and called out? She could hear Lucy, a few doors down, shrieking something maddening, of course featuring a repetition of "mine" – so likely something relating to her preferred lust object and Orla's list – so she wasn't the only one lustful and obsessed and kind of stupid, right? She was just as brilliant as Orla when it came to love and getting Robb's attention, wasn't she? And just as desperate, too, she thought.
She drew her knees up to her chest, half-assedly scrubbing her legs with the manky old brush in the tub. She felt so small. No one could take Robb from her. Not Jeyne, not Orla, not Letty or Ilze, not anyone else who fancied him. Not even Robb could pry himself away from her, or would be able to once he realised how much he could love her. Would he ever love her, though?
Yes. No, no, no, she wept into her knees. Yes.
The next morning, after being vuvuzela-ed by Ramsay and sitting through an uneaten but much screamed-at breakfast of rosehip tea and barely-boiled sea lamprey mouths that would have been Instagrammed with the hashtags "wtf" and "thisiswhatmyuniscanteencallsbreakfast" by a good percentage of the girls present had they not been in Westeros, the pupils proceeded to their first lessons of the term. Orla, tittering with excitement that Saskia wanted to punch the hell out of her, scurried off to Brienne's honour lesson with Ilze and Amy, and Letty, Lucy, and Saskia proceeded to Tyrion and Sam's.
"Canon for Feeble-Minded Fanbrats?" Saskia said to Lucy as they settled into the only available pair of seats in the front. "Do they really think we're that daft, now?"
She nodded. "And Hannah says that's ableist, callin' us feeble-minded."
"Yes, Miss… Crockett, is it? We are inclined to think you lot so stupid," a voice said, "based on the… interesting things you write."
Tyrion Lannister, short and noseless and scarred and stubby, sat at the desk at the front, downing what was likely nowhere near his first goblet of wine and immediately pouring himself another from a half-empty carafe at least twice the size of his head. Saskia hadn't noticed him or Sam, standing awkwardly by the window, and she'd no idea how she could not have seen Sam, given his size and his ugly Twisted Sister shoulder pad things.
"How do you know what we write?" Letty wondered. "You've not got accounts on FanFiction."
Tyrion waved a handful of papers at them. "These. Your super-secret files. We have them on all of you, and update them regularly with each fanfic you write. Miss Ellie has a system."
"Prove it," Carolina challenged.
"Gladly. Always a pleasure to bask in your failures," Tyrion said, hoisting himself up to sit on his desk, thumbing through the pile. "Ah. A magical Mary Sue and Jon. So inventive, Miss Hothersall. If only Fiorella Sand were somehow a wildling faerie princess like the rest of them. What is a magician's apprentice from Dorne even doing north of the Wall, and how is she Mance Rayder's daughter? Another Mary Sue and Robb, courtesy of Miss Crockett. So insipid and poorly-written it isn't even worth a comment. Are you not studying Literature, Miss Crockett? Shame. A Mary Sue and Bronn— though this one's well-written and has Bronn in character, and is witty, it does not excuse you, Miss Nelson. Perhaps you should apply your talents elsewhere. A Mary Sue and Ramsay, who is also fucking and torturing his favourite stinking pet, courtesy of Miss Marchant, who does not understand that riding a freshly-flayed cock rubbed with vinegar is not in any way pleasurable for either party."
Sam looked as if he were going to be ill, but pressed Tyrion on. "Go on, Lord Tyrion. There's worse in there. I was readin' 'em before."
"A high school retelling of an Arya/Jon/Jaqen/Gendry love decahedron with a side of SanSan and Brojen. What were you thinking, Miss Taylor? Rather, what weren't you thinking? Another Mary Sue and Robb, although at least this one's fallen to Westeros from bumfuck Namibia like girls fall to Middle Earth. That's hardly ever done in this wreck of a fandom. Oh, and you've written a Legolas one, too. Why, Miss Cloete, why? For all Jaime knew, Moon Boy was the best lover in Westeros. Jaime and… Moon Boy, Miss Whenlock? Which one of you is Miss Whenlock? Come on, now. No need to be afraid."
A mousy girl in the first row, in the far corner, shyly raised her hand. Saskia thought she looked so small and sweet, almost a bit like a brown-eyed Shireen without weird scaly thingies on her face, and definitely not like someone who would write explicit Jaime/Moon Boy smut, whoever Moon Boy was.
"I cannot decide if that is more sickening or hilarious. I should send you to the shame septa, but my lord father would rather not have you miss your first day."
"You satisfied now?" Sam asked.
"Ew, shut up, neckbeard hamplanet," said Keisha, wrinkling her nose at Sam. "Tyrion was talking!"
"I killed an Other," he said proudly. "Have you?"
Keisha didn't even acknowledge his response. "You'd be so sexy," she sighed to Tyrion, "if only you had a nose."
"Lost it in battle. A pity you find me unattractive," he said with mock sadness. "We could have had it all, Miss Cole."
"We still can," she breathed. "A prosthetic. Get one. And… and I'll not mind it. And I'll love you all night long, and longer after…"
Tyrion took a huge swig of wine. "I will pass on that. But will you – all of you – pass this most important subject?"
Everyone remained silent.
"That… that wasn't a rhetorical question," Sam pointed out. "He was really askin' you."
"Yes," they dutifully, grumblingly answered.
Tyrion forced a crooked smile and poured himself more wine. "Good. We'll not have anyone failing, and we'll get right to work, won't we, Samwell? First, an activity. Directions are in the folders we'll give you, and Sam will pair you up."
Saskia was paired with Sara, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian girl from Verona who was normal and nice enough, if only a little too quick to get shippy (I can't wait for Arya and Gendry to happen! So meant to be!, she'd squeed when she picked up Arya's photo, completely ignoring the fact that, in the show, Gendry had been on a rowboat he could barely row for at least months and was likely dead or just made irrelevant). Saskia had no idea how and why Tyrion and Sam were even able to get stills from the show. It wasn't all unlike a normal activity or lesson at her old secondary school back home in Wiltshire, except, you know, taught by fictional people and for the eventual purposes of writing fanfiction that didn't rupture canon or make anyone's eyes bleed.
"Good morning, summer children. Good morning, Tyrion."
Saskia glanced up. Lord Tywin Lannister, looking especially heartless-mudkip-esque today in a blue tunic, had unexpectedly arrived.
Tyrion looked to Sam, who looked just a bit perplexed, then to his father, as he dumped out the remainder of his wine behind the desk. "Ah. Good morning, Father. What brings you to my classroom so early?"
"As headmaster, it is my duty to observe my staff."
"On… on the first day of term? During the first lecture?" Sam asked nervously as Tywin made his way through the aisles, half-sneering at the pupils.
"What lecture? You are not lecturing."
"Do not mind my lord father," Tyrion called to the fanbrats. "Keep working. The gods know you need to be."
"What is this?" Tywin said with utter revulsion, looking down over Saskia and Sara's shoulders at their pictures and cut-outs. "Art? Art has no place in a classroom for fanbrats, Tyrion, Samwell."
"It's a learnin' activity, my lord," Sam spoke as if it were obvious, "on who's who as the books begin, as most of them have only seen the show. They'll be readin' for homework."
Tywin raised an eyebrow. "What are learning activities and what are they doing at this institution?"
"They're matchin' characters from the programme with artistic depictions of us in the books, and those papers are written descriptions of us that they're matchin', too. They'll be copying the descriptions to our names in their notebooks once they've finished. The pupils are enjoyin' it, you see."
They might indeed have been enjoying it more than they would have enjoyed being yelled at for two hours first thing in the morning after a terrifying and inadequate breakfast, but some were not getting it at all. Sophie Jones and Sophie Wells had both confused Theon for Robb, and the former Sophie could not grasp the difference between Maester Luwin and Maester Aemon. Keisha was sure that Varys was really a woman and that Tyrion was a secret Targaryen. Kayleigh had no idea who Lyanna was (Ned's sister-lover, Jon's mother, and the beloved of that dead Targaryen who was totally Daenerys' dad and the fat king guy, Carolina assured and further confused her before Tyrion could step in to scold her for her insolence). Taylor and Lilanie thought that Ramsay was Jon's long-lost brother, and some brown-haired Australian (Keeley or Kelly or something) was frustratedly trying to explain bastard surnames to them and getting nowhere.
"Oh, no, that's Jory Cassel," Sara whispered, grabbing a photo from Saskia's hand. "The guy Jaime stabbed in the eye?"
"Who?"
"Rodrik's nephew."
"Who's Rodrik?"
"Master-at-arms of Winterfell. He has braidy mudkip-face like Tywin."
"And what, Samwell, is the point of such an activity that cannot be found in a lecture from the experts in the classroom?"
Sam tried to explain, bumblingly, that it was something Brienne had shown him, and involved getting pupils involved in their own education instead of forcing them to be passive and lectured at. That was very bad, apparently, according to Brienne, because it devalued pupils, their pre-existing knowledge, and their own experiences, and bored them furthermore. Involving the wee morons in tasks and activities was kind of like how the Slaying and Domestic Arts teachers operated, Sam explained, by having pupils actually do things, and it was all right for them to learn by sewing samplers and shaking pointy sticks at each other, wasn't it?
Tywin was having none of it. "In future, you will sit the brats down, tell them what is and is not canon, assign them work, correct that work, correct their behaviour should they be out of line, and be done with it."
"Brienne says that studies have shown that such a pedagogy is harmf—"
"The only pedagogy in place at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros is a pedagogy of torture, and you will remember that in future, Samwell Tarly, should you wish to retain your position here."
Sam looked down. "Yes, my lord."
"Maester Aemon is not at Winterfell, and Maester Luwin is not a Targaryen," Tywin seethed, glaring over the Sophies' mismatched photos. "And that is Theon Greyjoy."
"Reek!" Flannery hissed.
"We would be more willing to listen to your suggestions if you could tell the difference between Loras and Lancel. You clearly cannot."
Flannery thought a moment, poring over the show photos. They looked kind of different, didn't they? "One of them's gay? But they're both Lannisters and blond?"
"No, Flannery Marchant. No. Loras is of the House Tyrell, and Lancel suffers from no such perversions," Tywin turned to Tyrion. "And that is why you will stop drinking at once, and sit them down and yell at them, starting immediately. They are fanbrats through and through, and they are not clever enough to reason. They have no background in canon that does not involve attractive men or bedroom matters."
"And that is why we are teaching them," Tyrion objected, "if only you would let us."
"I will be seeing no such progressive educational methods in your lessons this afternoon, Tyrion, or ever again. Is that understood?"
"Oh, yes, very much understood."
"And less wine. Much less wine."
With one long last pointed look to Tyrion, Lord Tywin was gone.
I hope Orla, our main SanSan shipper, is sufficiently annoying, and I hope Saskia is, too, to an extent. Orla's a sixteen-year-old version of my own chronically bored, immature, idiotic thirteen-year-old self. I gave Orla the OTPs I like […to murder half the time] and SanSan [which I loathe], and too much pluck and insistence, and set her at giving them all a very naïve idea of happiness when, really, it's happy enough that they're all alive in this fic. She's kind of me and she makes me twitch. Fear not: Orla's not crossing off everything on her list, if anything at all, because too many sappy endings would only provoke me to outMartin George RR Martin.