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“Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”
Ygritte shot Jon a look, too quick to let Stannis Baratheon take heed. Jon had told her things about his other siblings—Bran who used to climb like a monkey until he’d fallen from a tower, savage little Rickon who would have made a fine wildling, Robb who liked to talk bold but had a soft spot for quiet girls with big doe eyes, Arya who was tougher than all the boys put together. There had never been any mention of Sansa.
Jon half-staggered forward as Stannis informed him that the girl was at Winterfell even now—“Though I doubt she’ll be able to hold it on her own, with no one to help her but the youngest Stark boy and that Clegane traitor.”
Now, looking back, Ygritte liked to remember how happy she and Jon were then. He’d searched for months to find her after his brother Robb was so cruelly butchered, and they’d been inseparable since.
(“I don’t want to defend a kingdom where those in power would do such a thing,” he’d confided to her as the last of the evening fire’s embers faded. “Let them all kill each other—the Lannisters, the Baratheons. I wash my hands of them.”)
She knew that Jon had had no inkling of what they would be riding into as they packed up their meager possessions to journey to his childhood home. She liked to believe that if he had, they would have never left. They would have stayed in their little hovel in the north, where they had to fend off white walkers and could scarcely feel their toes for the cold, but were happy. Or perhaps that was only wishful thinking from a heart that had been thawed and softened now by too much time spent south of the wall.
Turned out Jon Snow wasn’t the only one who knew nothing, sometimes.
#
It was hard to say when she first noticed the shift. Small things had been accumulating over time. Jon still sat with her at evening meal, still laughed at the crude things she muttered under her breath, but he’d started spending more and more time away from her, counseling from early in the morning to late in the evenings with his sister on all the matters of the household.
He had much to preoccupy him these days, he defended himself when Ygritte accused him of being ashamed of his wild northern whore.
Much to preoccupy him. Yes, that much was true. His eyes had begun to follow Sansa Stark wherever she went, after all.
He was not alone in that. The big ugly one who called himself the Hound did the same, as did several of the bannermen. She was an uncommonly beautiful girl—Ygritte could own that without jealousy. The sort of soft, sweet thing a southern lord would pant over.
It didn’t bother Ygritte that Sansa was beautiful. It didn’t even bother her—much—that she was his sister, even if it was only half (as he was quick to point out these days).What bothered her was that Jon should have a taste for something so delicate and fine when that was something she herself could never give him.
Jon had used to look at Ygritte like she was the moon. But now, he’d seen the sun, it seemed, and was blinded by her brightness.
#
She’d managed to half-convince herself it was only in her mind until the night Sansa called all the women in the castle to her rooms. It was meant to be some sort of bonding ritual, combing out their hair and talking and laughing as they readied for bed, and the ladies took to it with relish.
Only Ygritte and the other wildling woman Osha sat on the outskirts of it all, watching on with thinly veiled disdain.
“Aren’t we the lucky ones to have been included?” Osha muttered under her breath, arms folded tight over her chest.
Ygritte watched the Lady Sansa as she laughed at something one of the serving women had said. Another of the girls stood behind her, playing with her long red hair. It was so much like Ygritte’s own, but tamer, finer, and smoother, and she was so effortlessly, impossibly beautiful that it seemed she had just stepped out straight from a song.
“Gods forbid we forget how benevolent she is,” Ygritte mumbled back in agreement, trying not to let the bitterness show in her voice.
Osha laughed low under her breath. “Would that I be snubbed and disdained rather than asked to braid hair.”
There was a knock at the door. “Come in!” Sansa called.
Jon entered, cheeks already blazing at the prospect of stepping into this den of females, who in true form whispered and tittered at his entrance as though they’d never seen a beard before. “Sorry. I just…”
At the sight of Sansa in her nightdress, hair unbound, face flushed with happiness, he stopped in his tracks. It was no more than a moment, but to Ygritte it seemed a cold, heavy eternity.
He righted himself quickly. “Rickon’s asking for you. I thought…”
“Of course.” Sansa made her excuses, pulling on her dressing gown to follow after Jon. “I’ll only be a moment…”
His eyes met Ygritte’s briefly as he passed. He paused, but said nothing, and was gone.
The other ladies took up their chatter again, but Ygritte remained silent, staring forward, not truly seeing anything. Osha shifted at her side. “He’ll never act on it, you know.”
Ygritte shot her a quick, sharp look. The wildling woman’s gaze was canny but not unkind. “These southern men have a strange sort of honor. It won’t prevent him from dreaming wet for his own sister, but it will prevent him ever acting on it. And I wager you look enough like her in the dark he’ll find his way back to you again.”
If there was anything Ygritte envied these spoiled southerners, it was their tact. Having the truth laid out bold before her stung more than all of her quiet, private nursing of the wound. But if Osha could be blunt, so could she. “Don’t remember asking you, you sagging-titted cow.”
And Osha never said anything more to her on the matter, though the words stuck with Ygritte all the same.
#
A few days past, Ygritte went out to the yard to watch Jon spar. When they’d first come to Winterfell, this had been their time together, these early-morning dances. These days, he was busy training the bannermen up to the Night’s Watch standards, building up Sansa’s own little army.
(“Most of them are too young to have seen any battle,” he’d told Ygritte, back in the days when he still confided things in her, “or so old they can barely hold a sword.”
“Don’t you think I’d be better at teaching them how to hold a sword?” Ygritte had murmured, pressing her hand to his warm, waiting skin.)
In the moons that had passed, Jon had managed to bring the men up to passable standards, though none could hold a candle to him. Still, Ygritte liked to watch him in his element. He could not stop her from that, at least.
(The night before, she’d tried his door but it was barred. “I must have dozed off without realizing,” Jon mumbled that morning at breakfast, though he would not meet her gaze.)
A pair of shoes crunched on the gravel and Lady Sansa stepped up to her side. Smiling at Ygritte as though they were the dearest of friends. “He’s made such marvelous progress with them, don’t you think?”
Was it guilt, Ygritte wondered, that made Sansa so determined to be her friend? Or did she merely want a confidant and had convinced herself somehow that it should be the fire-haired wildling warming her brother’s bed? Anyone could smell the loneliness on the girl from a mile off. But then, anyone too could see the way her eyes followed Jon as he moved, lingering on his hands.
Ygritte snorted. “Wildlings would make short work of this lot. They’d shit themselves at the first sign of white walkers.” She raised her voice so Jon could hear her. “And Lord Snow’s gone soft in the head if he thinks otherwise.”
Jon stopped, breathing heavy as he turned to face her. He said nothing, though there was a flash of hurt in his eyes that was a strange relief to Ygritte.
Good, she thought savagely, at least there’s still that.
He spread his palms to her, an invitation. “I’m open to suggestion, if you know how we could improve.”
“Why not try fighting someone who’s your equal for a change?”
Something warm flitted through Jon’s eyes at the challenge, and it was almost—almost—the same as it had once been. “And who would that equal be—you?”
Ygritte was nowhere near his match at the sword, he knew that well, though she would have liked to remind him she could easily best him with a bow. “No. I meant him.”
She jerked her head toward Sandor Clegane, who as always was only a pace or two behind Sansa, lapping at her heels like the loyal, grizzled dog he was. Ygritte had watched him from time to time, seen just how out of place he was here at Winterfell—almost as much as she was.
He would have made an excellent wildling, she thought privately to herself. A good head taller than most men, meaner than he was ugly (which was saying something, indeed), and with no loyalty to crown or manners that she could sniff out. The only thing holding him here was Sansa, who might have given him hope at a time when she was lonely and far from home and had forgotten what it was to be a Stark of Winterfell. But things were different now. He wasn’t a dim man; he doubtless understood this all too well. And yet, he could not make himself leave her side.
It was a feeling Ygritte understood well.
Sandor straightened at the attention, eying Jon over. He’d fantasized about just such a match, it was plain—more than once, if the snarl at the corner of his lips was any indication.
Jon was no coward, but he was also half the Hound’s size. He swallowed. “What do you say, Clegane? Should we show them how it’s done?”
Sandor straightened from the wall, unsheathing his sword. “With pleasure, Snow.”
At Ygritte’s side, Sansa stirred, hand going to her throat. “Oh, don’t. I think there’s been enough fighting for the day…”
The worry in her voice was doubtless meant to deter the two men, but in truth it only served to spur them on. Neither wanted to believe he was the one she feared would lose, Ygritte suspected.
“It’s all right, Sansa,” Jon called to her, never once taking his eyes from the Hound as they circled each other. “It’s only for fun.”
Clegane grinned at this, face splitting into something truly horrific. “Yes,” he agreed, “fun.” And then they were off.
It was a sight to behold, sure enough. Jon was no match for Sandor in strength and size, it was true, but neither could the Hound keep up with the bastard’s speed and agility. Swords clashed, two pairs of arms straining against one another. They circled and danced around each other like two skittish lovers, afraid to come together fully and yet unable to keep apart all the same.
As Sandor rained down one particularly harsh blow against Jon’s sword, Sansa reached out to grip Ygritte’s sleeve. It took all of her willpower not to shove the girl off. Poor little lady, with two men willing to fight to the death for her favor. What a tragic life she led.
“Ygritte, make them stop. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
She only shrugged. “And what a lucky boy he’ll be, whoever it is, with you there to nurse him back to health.”
Sansa met her gaze, startled. For a long moment, they merely stared at one another, and Ygritte saw the shift in the younger girl’s eyes as finally she understood.
A shout of pain drew them out of it. Both turned to see Jon on his knees, a long gash in his thigh, blood darkening his trousers.
The Hound’s eyes darted to Sansa. “It slipped,” he said, and kept saying it as a group of men gathered to carry Jon up to the house.
#
Ygritte was sent to find the Maester. It should have been Sansa’s task as lady of the house, but she’d been hysterical with worry, refusing to leave Jon’s side. Which was foolishness, really. Anyone could see it was merely a flesh wound, one that might have him limping for a few days but that he’d recover from well enough.
She searched in every corner of the castle, even up in the burnt, charred ruins of the turrets that had been lit aflame under siege, but the Maester was nowhere to be found. Off to visit the whorehouse, no doubt, as he was prone to do under the guise of going for herbs. Ygritte could smell it on him even if no one else could. Sometimes she felt like she was the only person who truly saw things in this place.
At last, she returned to Jon’s rooms. The door was cracked open as she approached, and she moved to push her way inside when a snippet of conversation stopped her in her tracks.
“…leave me, Sansa. I’m fine.”
Ygritte shifted her weight soundlessly, pressing her eye to the sliver of open doorway. Sansa and Jon were alone in the room now, all of the other men scattered to who knows where and Sandor doubtless off somewhere sulking.
Blood loss seemed to have made Jon woozy. He was sitting up in bed but his face was drained of all color, and every so often he swayed forward and had to reach out for the bedpost to stop himself from falling. “I just need some sleep, that’s all.”
“Then sleep. I’ll stay with you, at least until the Maester comes.”
Naïve little thing, she honestly didn’t seem to realize the effect she had as she crawled into the bed behind Jon, tugging on his shoulders in an attempt to persuade him to recline back against her. He suddenly seemed awake and very lucid, indeed, throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Sansa…”
But he was powerless against her. Sansa cradled his head in her lap, stroking at his curls. It was meant to be a soothing motion, no doubt, but Jon’s eyes were wide open, his shoulders tensing more and more with each shallow breath.
“This is just how Mother used to care for us when we were ill, remember?” At once, Sansa seemed to realize her mistake, face coloring. “I’m sorry.”
Jon shrugged. “She wasn’t my mother.” But even from the distance, Ygritte could hear the wound, not as fresh as the one on his leg, yet never having quite healed over.
Sansa was silent a moment, continuing to run her fingers through his hair, across his brow. “Do you ever think about who she might be? Your real mother.”
“From time to time.”
“Do you ever…” Sansa’s hand faltered, then stilled. “Do you ever think…what if you weren’t really Father’s bastard? What if… what if he found you somewhere, and just decided to bring you home?”
Even with as little of the Stark family as she’d witnessed, Ygritte could see plain that wasn’t true. And she knew both of them could as well, though there was a moment—just a moment—as they held their breaths, weighing down the air with wishing it was so.
“Trying to get rid of me?” Jon joked at last.
“Never.” The words were fiercer than anything Ygritte had heard from the girl’s lips. “I’d die without you, Jon. You know that.”
At last he turned his face up to her, brow creasing with concern. “Don’t say that.”
“If you decide to go back north of the wall, you’d take me with you, wouldn’t you?” There was a note of hysteria in the girl’s voice, thinly concealed. “I wouldn’t make trouble. I’d never complain. I’d chop firewood and cook and clean and whatever else you wanted me to do. All I want is to be with you, wherever you go. You’ll take me with you, won’t you, Jon?”
His blood- and dirt-stained hand shook as he raised it to her, hesitating before he touched her face. “I’m not going north of the wall. I’m not going anywhere.”
Sansa’s eyes fell shut at the contact, her face burrowing deeper into his touch, heedless of the marks he was leaving on her pretty skin. Reaching up her hand, she twined her fingers through his before pressing her lips to his palm. For a moment, she stilled entirely, as if scarcely believe her boldness. But, taking his sharp intake of breath for encouragement, she kissed his hand again and again, guiding a trail down to the soft skin of his wrist.
In an instant, Jon was upright once more, breaking the contact between her as he turned away. “You can’t touch me like that, Sansa.”
The girl froze in place, pulling her hands back toward her chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
It was such a broken, pathetic sound that Ygritte half-expected him to turn back for her. Comfort her. Tell her everything was all right. But he remained facing forward, braced against the edge of the bed once more as if ready to flee. “Please go.”
She ran.
Ygritte had time to move away from the door, but barely. Sansa stopped in her tracks at the sight of her, the bloodstained handprint bright red against her peaches and cream skin, almost as red as the long hair falling low to her back.
Kissed by fire, Ygritte thought to herself as Sansa turned without a word and hurried toward the stairs.
Just like mine.
#
Ygritte waited until the other girl had gone down to evening meal before slipping into her rooms. She found the silkiest, softest dress and made short work of her own fur-lined tunic and trousers. She slipped on Sansa’s milk-white stockings and cream slippers, and she brushed and brushed and brushed at her hair until it was long and sleek and smooth and tied half of it back with a pale blue ribbon.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she evaluated what she saw. Not quite the beauty of legends, but anyone seeing her wouldn’t be faulted for mistaking her for highborn. Glance quick enough, and she might even pass for the Lady of Winterfell, herself.
(You look enough like her, in the dark.)
She slipped through the halls with ease, completely undetected, as everyone else was down in the Great Hall for supper.
Well, almost everyone.
As she rounded the corner, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of Sandor Clegane. He, too, paused, blinking at her a moment before his face broke into a broad, mean grin. “Well, well, well. Someone’s been snooping in the little bird’s closet.”
Ygritte only raised her chin, doing a little twirl to show she wasn’t cowed by him or his broad ugly face. “Like my dress?”
He snorted. “A pack mule stuffed in a gown is still a pack mule.”
“And a horse’s ass with one cheek burned is still a horse’s ass.”
Sandor laughed at that—a sharp, barking sound that matched his namesake well. “True enough, Wild Thistle.” And he stepped aside to let her pass on her way, though she could feel his eyes on her all the way down the corridor, probing.
#
She did not stop again until she reached Jon’s chambers, letting herself inside. The Maester had finally appeared again from the ether and put his leg to right, cleaning out the cut and bandaging it tight. Just a surface wound, as Ygritte had predicted, though it had still been a relief to hear it. Now he was dozing, oblivious to her approach.
Ygritte climbed on top of him, settling down on his chest. Jon stirred, blinking up at her from his haze of slumber. “Hmmph?” he mumbled drowsily.
She waited for him to notice her pretty dress. At last he did, struggling to sit up, brow wrinkled in confusion. “Ygritte. What are you—”
Placing a finger to his lips, she silenced him with a shake of her head. “Not Ygritte,” she demurred. “I’m a lady. A proper lady, smallclothes and all. And tonight is our wedding night, when you finally get to claim me.”
Jon still looked confused but did not refuse her or say he was too tired as he’d been prone to do of late. Taking that for encouragement, Ygritte licked her finger and thumb and put out the candle ebbing low on the bedside table, plunging the room into darkness— save be for the moonlight coming through the window that she knew would catch the red of her hair.
Taking him by the hand, she brought his palm to her face, nuzzling against it. Jon’s voice was quizzical in the dark. “What’s brought this on?”
She silenced him by placing his hand to her heart. When she spoke, her voice was soft and high, a melody, just as she’d been practicing. “Can you feel it racing, husband?”
Jon remained silent, though again he didn’t pull away, so Ygritte pressed on. “I’ve never been touched by a man before. I’m so frightened.”
He laughed a little at this, though other parts of his anatomy suggested he wasn’t entirely unmoved by the plea. “Ygritte….”
She leaned down so her lips were at his ear, breasts pressing flat against his chest. “I’m so nervous. Will you show me what to do? I only want to please you.”
The next instant, she was on her back, Jon pinning her down. In the moonlight, she could see his eyes, no longer laughing, could feel his heart, hammering hard against her own. “Be gentle with me, husband,” she breathed, fighting back a smile of triumph.
But he was not gentle, not gentle at all. His hands tore at her pretty silk dress as if it was nothing, buried deep into her long smooth locks. “Oh, Jon,” she gasped as if it was all new to her, each touch and sensation, her hands floundering at his back as though she didn’t know what to do with herself, only draw him closer. “Oh, Jon…”
And she was so caught up in the game that she didn’t notice until much later—as they lay entwined with one another, breathing deep—that he hadn’t said her name. Not once.
#
When he was asleep again, Ygritte slipped out of his arms and pulled on her dressing gown. All at once the room felt stifling and small to her, so she stepped out into the hall, pausing for a moment to lean her head back against the door. She’d known the danger when she’d put on her costume, but it still hurt all the same, a raw, gaping wound in her chest.
“Fool,” she muttered to herself.
She wondered what the Ygritte before would have thought of the weak, sniveling thing she’d become now, heart aching because some pretty southern lord didn’t want her anymore. Or at least didn’t want her enough. What a stupid, senseless thing it was to love if all it did was sap your strength and bring you pain.
She needed to shoot something; that would certainly help. Making her way down to her room to fetch her bow, she came to a stop as she rounded the corner and came face to face with Sansa.
The younger woman was in her night dress and looked as though she had been weeping, though she made a brave show of pretending elsewise as she met Ygritte’s gaze.
Even naïve as the girl was, there was no way she could not notice Ygritte’s state of rumpled undress, or the fact that she had just come from Jon’s rooms. For a moment, Ygritte saw behind the girl’s pretty mask, saw that the loathing and hurt and pain was mutual. One of them had claim over his heart but not his body, and the other his touch but not his soul. And they both of them would have traded places with the other in a heartbeat if they could.
The two of them merely stared at one another for a long moment, until at last Sansa blinked. “Is that my ribbon?”
Ygritte’s hand darted to her hair, pulling out the pale blue fabric that had been roughly dislodged out of place with all of Jon’s desperate grasping. It was so clearly Sansa’s, any fool could see that just by looking.
She clasped it tight in her palm. “No, it’s mine,” she insisted, shouldering past the other girl down the hallway.
Some things were still hers to keep, after all.
The End