Girl on Ice
Title: Girl on Ice
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
Characters/pairings: Jeyne Poole, Sansa, Theon, Asha, others; Jeyne/Sansa, Jeyne/Theon
Genres: tragedy, hurt/comfort, friendship, character-fic
Rating: M
Warnings: spoilers for ADwD; canon inconsistencies; mentions of sex, sexual violence, death, and torture (probably less graphic than the book's, though)
Words: 10,861
a/n: Written for bigbang_mixup, based on a mix by suchaprince, with art by madteagirl ( here). Thanks to sephystabbity for the beta - all remaining errors are mine.
The room is dim and she can hardly see her own features, even though she’s trying to find them in the glass. That’s a lie. She can see herself just fine. She just can’t believe that the girl in the wavy glass is really her, and not some kind of ghost.
Mira’s fingers are rough and careless, and the pins prick her scalp as she sets the them in. Jeyne thinks that Mira is bruising her, but what does it matter to Mira if she bruises Jeyne’s head? It doesn’t make any difference - bruised or unbruished, pained or pleased, as long as Jeyne is presentable. The thought makes her stomach jump.
The pins, the pins - Jeyne concentrates on those. Those, Jeyne thinks, look pretty. She can’t begrudge Mira for that. The seed pearls on the tips shine lustrous in the light. They’re not fine jewels - not like Sansa must wear - but they’re still the nicest thing she’s ever worn.
When Mira finally stops dressing Jeyne’s hair, she stares sternly down at Jeyne through the mirror, as if warning her not to mess things up. But things are already so wrong. Jeyne doesn’t know how she can do any worse.
She reaches for the seed pearls, hoping that if she rubs them, they will rub some of their prettiness off on her. Mira swats her hand.
“You’ll ruin them, wench” she says.
Jeyne’s hand goes back to her side.
When tears start running down her cheeks, Mira presses her hands to her face to try and stop them.
“Stop that,” she says, “You’ll ruin the paint.”
Jeyne holds her sob in her throat and stares, unblinking, into the tiny, silver mirror. Willing herself not to cry.
If anything, she can try and be pretty for the man who will bed her. Her husband.
She wants him to like her.
~
The snow crunches under her boots. Somewhere, she can hear the rattle of wheels, but she does not look over. She has no reason to. Her eyes are already bloodshot and she’s so sick from crying that she can’t cry any more.
She lifts her skirts as she steps from rock to rock, pretending that there is a pool under them and they will crack any time. The real pools might be cracking today. It’s so unusually warm.
Mother died from the cold, Maester Luwin said. If she’d lived one more day, she might have recovered. Jeyne keeps this to herself. Maester Luwin knows best. But Jeyne can’t help but think it.
She must fall asleep out there, because no one remembers her and she awakens to a howling in the distance. She nearly jumps up. There are wolves out there, Old Nan tells the Stark children. Jeyne always hears.
She looks out into the distance. There are black trees silhouetted against a clouded, dark sky. The sun is gone. She shivers.
Some kind of cold has seeped into her bones, and Winterfell feels too warm when she slips in. Lord Theon is prowling the halls; she sees his shadow before she sees him. But he does not see her. He passes right past her, off to Robb. He gives her a little condescending sort of smile, the sort that older boys reserve for girl-children like her. She swallows and lowers her head. She licks her cold lips.
When they pass, she returns to the bed she shares with Sansa.
Sansa is the only one who notices how cold she is when she slips under the furs.
In the quiet room, the crackle of movement seems louder than normal. Jeyne can feel Sansa’s eyes on her, hears Sansa’s voice as a tired crackle.
“Where were you?”
Jeyne licks her lips again. They’re cold. She realizes she keeps licking them in hopes that they’ll taste like something other than snot and salt.
“I was outside.”
Sansa is silent for a long time. At last, she wraps Jeyne in her arms, so Jeyne can feel her warm, soft skin through her slip, can even see a flicker of moonlight in her pale red hair.
Sansa is saying sorry without saying sorry. Ladies can’t speak of what happened, and what happened must be all the more horrific for Sansa. It is horrific for both of them.
Because Jeyne’s mother didn’t die from illness alone.
She died in a mess of blood while bearing Jeyne’s dead baby brother.
Sansa does not even speak of it, and she goes on as though she has no knowledge of such things. Everyone is very careful to avoid talking about it, and after a few weeks, Sansa will forget it entirely, they are all so sure. Jeyne hears them whispering about it, trying to keep it out of Sansa’s earshot.
Sansa, Jeyne knows, will be a queen.
Jeyne knows, as well as Sansa does, that queens do not die birthing stillborn heirs.
~
“You should be thankful,” Mira mutters, “A warm bed. Food to eat.” Her eyes are like accusations. “And you aren’t even working for it.”
She had been taught to be grateful, but there was only so much gratefulness that she could bring forth.
It’s no matter.
Jeyne will learn soon that there is a price for everything. Even then, unknowing, she had a sinking feeling that she could not safely step anywhere; that the world was made of ice, like over the old ponds at Winterfell, and that, as in the spring, she was apt to fall through and drown at any time.
~
He had never spoken to her, but she knew his name.
Lord Baelish, she whispers. It’s a whisper that falls on dead ears. The other whores are asleep, but the dim morning light falls right on her eyes.
He had claimed to be a friend to her lady.
~
Sansa sits in her chair instead of dressing for dinner, looking at a spot on the wall and combing through her hair with her fingers. Tugging, even, so wretchedly that Jeyne fears she will pull all the pretty red hairs out. Worse, she’s afraid that she doesn’t even fear it - that Sansa might look less pretty with less hair, and that it might be a good thing for Jeyne.
She hates herself when she doesn’t stop her, but she does worry.
“What is it?”
Sansa does not reply. Her eyes are vacant and blue. Jeyne comes closer, and wrinkles her nose. Sansa smells slightly of sweat. What could she have done, to exert herself?
“I thought you were off with the Prince.” If there is a tinge of envy in her voice, she does not hide it. But she does not hide her curiosity, either. A thrill goes through her toes. “Did he try and kiss you?” she whispers. Such a thing would be the height of indecency.
But if he were indecent, it would mean he loved her.
And Jeyne wants to hear Sansa’s love story even as she greedily, hungrily wants for her own.
Sansa’s eyes are dry, but they go wide, and she stops running her fingers through her hair.
She does not reply.
Jeyne looks around, as though just missing something. “Where is Lady?”
The wolf is always around, beautiful and soft, but Jeyne fears her all the same. Direwolves aren’t toys, her father scoffed. A little girl like that shouldn’t make a pet of something so dangerous.
Sansa does not cry, but she does not look at Jeyne either, and Jeyne knows.
Neither of them noticed right away when Arya went missing, but now they both notice that a part of Sansa is gone.
~
If he loves you…
The man slaps her bottom, and the whore gives a keening sound from her throat. She’s near-fully clothed, her assignation finished, but her eyes are somehow… indecent. That’s the only word Jeyne can think of for it. A word that Septa Mordane taught her. They’re wet, Jeyne decides, wet with fabricated desire. Brown and lustrous like pools of it.
The whore looks over in her direction. Jeyne isn’t particularly stealthy, but she’s learned to be soft-footed. Not to draw attention to herself. Before, she was always trying for the opposite, despite her role. Now it is all she wants. To be silent is to be ignored. To be ignored is to be unharmed.
She’s already walking away.
She can hear a voice, that slow, strange voice belonging to the proprietier, but she does not pause to hear it. Littlefinger, she thinks, thrilling in the rude name. They all call him that behind his back. A part of her thinks that she might go to him and plead, that her connection with Lady Sansa might save her. Another part of her remembers how dead his eyes are and reminds her that she should not take the risk: to go silent is to go unharmed. Like a doe in the woods. She always loved the animals; would cry like a child whenever one of the men brought home some deer fully-formed with an arrow to the brain.
The slightest prickle of sound-
She can still remember, how she stripped and turned for him, and how they discussed, like business, things like woman’s blood and her weight. Things that should have been reserved for the family of her betrothed.
They’d said she was light for her age. He had frowned. She had wondered, feverishly, what she was doing wrong.
She steps on a creaky floorboard.
A twig in the woods, a prickle of sound -
A hand grabs at her arm and Jeyne cries out.
“Oh, quiet. What do you think I’m going to do to you?”
Jeyne swallows. She stares the woman in the face. Despite herself, she drinks in this woman, this whore. She takes in the fine brown of her eyes, the careful curl of her hair, and the half-hidden wrinkles near her mouth. They deepen when she frowns.
“Oi. It’s indecent, it is, to look at someone like that.”
Jeyne’s gaze drops to the floor. What you do is indecent, she thinks.
“I’m very sorry.” Her voice is little more than a squeak. It’s the disuse, Jeyne thinks. She hasn’t spoken to anyone in a long time. She hardly spoke while they examined her, then they confined her alone for days. At last she’s allowed out but, even now, she knows she shouldn’t draw attention to herself.
She remembers his flinty, grey-green eyes: and you are no longer Jeyne Poole, he said. It will do you little good to be her, when a whore will live so much longer.
But even Jeyne had already come to understand that much.
The whore’s shift slips off her shoulder, but she doesn’t move to correct it. Her eyes stay fixed on Jeyne. “You’re young,” she says finally. Her voice is almost suspicious. “Are they getting younger, then?”
“I do not know… what you are talking about.”
“Us. The whores. Is he bringing in younger?”
“I - no. I don’t think so…”
“You look too young. Have you had your woman’s blood?”
Jeyne’s cheeks burn. “No.”
“Oh. Usually they keep your sort somewhere else.”
Jeyne doesn’t care to ask the whore’s meaning. She doesn’t want to hear about her sort, when she feels so uniquely terrified. She stares down at the ground, cheeks burning.
“Are you a maiden? Or’ve you done this before?”
Now her face is burning so hot that she can hardly answer. She has some idea what the whore speaks of. Womanly duties, Septa Mordane had explained. Jeyne remembers the septa’s stern eyes, her hard-pressed lips. The way they fell on Sansa, as though Sansa was the vessel of something greater than herself, as though some unborn princeling was already in her belly. Under the bonds of marriage, to please the gods and your husband.
She remembers the way Berric Dondarrion smiled at her, the day that Theon undressed the girl in the stables.
Her lips form the word, but it barely comes out. “No.”
She forgets those things. Jeyne is a maiden. Pure and perfect.
Someone will come and save her.
The whore doesn’t seem to take heed of her shame. “How did you end up here, then?”
“I-“
“Don’t lie to me, now, girl. You’ve all your teeth.”
“My parents are…” she didn’t want to think about it. The tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of her father, all of the Stark household. Most of all, her eyes pricked when she thought of how alone she was, how everything was ruined.
She was ruined.
No one will save you, you stupid, stupid girl.
She hears it in Littlefinger’s voice.
“Dead,” the whore finishes, without a note of sympathy. “Common enough tale. S’pose you’re pretty enough for this life.” She laughs, raucously. “But pretty don’t last long.”
Jeyne’s hands tremble, and the whore turns, as though she is the princess.
Perhaps she is, now.
~
She cried and screamed and thrashed on the floor.
Please, she wailed, please, no, my father, no, please….
A cry to someone, a cry never finished, never answered.
She did not notice at the time, but she remembers it, like a tableau: Sansa, sitting in the chair by the window. Staring out the bars.
Hands folded in her lap.
Face pale.
Mouth tight with the regal effort of not-crying.
Eyes half-empty, but set on the horizon.
~
She remembers Theon, and the way his voice was so low and rough and coaxing.
Would you like to go somewhere with me? he’d asked the maid. He was so chivalrous that she could not understand how anyone might refuse him. I’ll be gentle. We’ll have a good time.
The maid had looked around for help.
I’m expected, she’d said weakly, but her lips were parted and she was looking at him. Her hands were clutching at her pail of water.
What about quickly, then? He’d said. Right here? He’d reached out to brush a strand out of her face. His hands were so lovely, so large and masculine and fine. He could shoot an arrow like a hawk found prey, Jeyne had heard.
And somewhere, he was a prince.
She could have princelings, too, and visit Sansa and their princelings could play together. But first he needed to stop -
But Jeyne could not help watching him, mesmerized even as she knew she should be repelled.
He’d moved in closer and the pail had sputtered all over the floor, with a fluid crash.
His face had meshed with the maid’s, and his hands were over her waist. She made some kind of small sound in her throat.
The crash brought Jeyne to her senses.
She stole away, trying to be soundless.
She tried to curse the maid for stealing her dreams, but she did not. She could not.
Perhaps she was no better than that maid.
~
The first time she met Mira, Mira had taught her what was in a whore’s future.
The second time, she had asked to examine her face.
Jeyne’s heart had thumped in her chest with the realization that this woman - this whore, an exotic, lustrous creature for all her foulness - was to examine her beauty. She half-hoped that Mira would reproach her in some way, tell her that Jeyne’s type of beauty would only be appreciated by those looking for a courtly love.
Instead, Mira had looked half-sorry and shook her head.
“Your mouth is small,” she said. “It will hurt for you.”
Jeyne asked her to explain.
Mira had.
Jeyne could not sleep that night.
~
“Turn.”
The air is warm - as it is in the whorehouse, in the South - but it still feels cold. She has never been this naked before in front of someone else. Not a man. Not three men. Not the queen.
She turns.
“Has she bled yet?” It’s the man again, the one that was so fond of Sansa. His voice is a drawl. This is business. But it is also a cut, a cut right through her bones. She is glad that he does not ask her directly. Her face colors at the very possibility of answering.
The second man asks her, though. His voice sounds slightly more considerate. “Have you, girl?”
Her face is on fire.
“N-n-no.”
He turns away and nods his head. “There is your answer.”
The other man looks at her. He has a fat face. He has many names. They called him something around the palace, but she cannot remember it. She remembers the other, though - Spider. If he is a spider, then he is a successful one. He’s fat on flies.
The queen stares blankly and stays silent. She holds out her cup and the cup-bearer fills it. Queen Cersei, most of all, seems uninterested in the proceedings. She stands. “If we have made a decision, then I shall continue about my business.”
Jeyne shivers in the warm, dusty room. Some flecks of the dust catch the light, and in the darker corner, the little man smirks. He seems pleased with this. “She’ll bleed soon enough.”
~
They tell her she will marry.
She thinks it is her opportunity to leave, to find something better. Perhaps they will treat her as a lady there. Perhaps she will have lap dogs and children, and pretty dresses to call her own. Perhaps her husband will be kind to her.
They tell her she is to call herself Arya Stark, and Jeyne agrees. Already, in her mind, she practices her courtesy, and her accompanying greeting: I am Arya of Winterfell. I am pleased to serve you, my lord.
Then they show her his sigil, and she cannot reconcile it with all that she imagines.
~
Jeyne will always remember the first time she saw him. He looked a bit like the ghost; more realistically, he was the very sigil of the Boltons brought to life. A walking emblem of its power.
Then she recognizes him, and that impression becomes even clearer.
He looks unlike himself, but she can recognize his eyes, when they flick up uncertainly. Moreover, she can recognize them recognizing her. It’s an odd feeling. It’s been so long since someone saw her, and she feels a great surge of emotion before she can place him.
Haggard as she is, she nearly cries out his name.
Theon Greyjoy.
~
ii: we flew through the air, he and I
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
Characters/pairings: Jeyne Poole, Sansa, Theon, Asha, others; Jeyne/Sansa, Jeyne/Theon
Genres: tragedy, hurt/comfort, friendship, character-fic
Rating: M
Warnings: spoilers for ADwD; canon inconsistencies; mentions of sex, sexual violence, death, and torture (probably less graphic than the book's, though)
Words: 10,861
a/n: Written for bigbang_mixup, based on a mix by suchaprince, with art by madteagirl ( here). Thanks to sephystabbity for the beta - all remaining errors are mine.
The room is dim and she can hardly see her own features, even though she’s trying to find them in the glass. That’s a lie. She can see herself just fine. She just can’t believe that the girl in the wavy glass is really her, and not some kind of ghost.
Mira’s fingers are rough and careless, and the pins prick her scalp as she sets the them in. Jeyne thinks that Mira is bruising her, but what does it matter to Mira if she bruises Jeyne’s head? It doesn’t make any difference - bruised or unbruished, pained or pleased, as long as Jeyne is presentable. The thought makes her stomach jump.
The pins, the pins - Jeyne concentrates on those. Those, Jeyne thinks, look pretty. She can’t begrudge Mira for that. The seed pearls on the tips shine lustrous in the light. They’re not fine jewels - not like Sansa must wear - but they’re still the nicest thing she’s ever worn.
When Mira finally stops dressing Jeyne’s hair, she stares sternly down at Jeyne through the mirror, as if warning her not to mess things up. But things are already so wrong. Jeyne doesn’t know how she can do any worse.
She reaches for the seed pearls, hoping that if she rubs them, they will rub some of their prettiness off on her. Mira swats her hand.
“You’ll ruin them, wench” she says.
Jeyne’s hand goes back to her side.
When tears start running down her cheeks, Mira presses her hands to her face to try and stop them.
“Stop that,” she says, “You’ll ruin the paint.”
Jeyne holds her sob in her throat and stares, unblinking, into the tiny, silver mirror. Willing herself not to cry.
If anything, she can try and be pretty for the man who will bed her. Her husband.
She wants him to like her.
~
The snow crunches under her boots. Somewhere, she can hear the rattle of wheels, but she does not look over. She has no reason to. Her eyes are already bloodshot and she’s so sick from crying that she can’t cry any more.
She lifts her skirts as she steps from rock to rock, pretending that there is a pool under them and they will crack any time. The real pools might be cracking today. It’s so unusually warm.
Mother died from the cold, Maester Luwin said. If she’d lived one more day, she might have recovered. Jeyne keeps this to herself. Maester Luwin knows best. But Jeyne can’t help but think it.
She must fall asleep out there, because no one remembers her and she awakens to a howling in the distance. She nearly jumps up. There are wolves out there, Old Nan tells the Stark children. Jeyne always hears.
She looks out into the distance. There are black trees silhouetted against a clouded, dark sky. The sun is gone. She shivers.
Some kind of cold has seeped into her bones, and Winterfell feels too warm when she slips in. Lord Theon is prowling the halls; she sees his shadow before she sees him. But he does not see her. He passes right past her, off to Robb. He gives her a little condescending sort of smile, the sort that older boys reserve for girl-children like her. She swallows and lowers her head. She licks her cold lips.
When they pass, she returns to the bed she shares with Sansa.
Sansa is the only one who notices how cold she is when she slips under the furs.
In the quiet room, the crackle of movement seems louder than normal. Jeyne can feel Sansa’s eyes on her, hears Sansa’s voice as a tired crackle.
“Where were you?”
Jeyne licks her lips again. They’re cold. She realizes she keeps licking them in hopes that they’ll taste like something other than snot and salt.
“I was outside.”
Sansa is silent for a long time. At last, she wraps Jeyne in her arms, so Jeyne can feel her warm, soft skin through her slip, can even see a flicker of moonlight in her pale red hair.
Sansa is saying sorry without saying sorry. Ladies can’t speak of what happened, and what happened must be all the more horrific for Sansa. It is horrific for both of them.
Because Jeyne’s mother didn’t die from illness alone.
She died in a mess of blood while bearing Jeyne’s dead baby brother.
Sansa does not even speak of it, and she goes on as though she has no knowledge of such things. Everyone is very careful to avoid talking about it, and after a few weeks, Sansa will forget it entirely, they are all so sure. Jeyne hears them whispering about it, trying to keep it out of Sansa’s earshot.
Sansa, Jeyne knows, will be a queen.
Jeyne knows, as well as Sansa does, that queens do not die birthing stillborn heirs.
~
“You should be thankful,” Mira mutters, “A warm bed. Food to eat.” Her eyes are like accusations. “And you aren’t even working for it.”
She had been taught to be grateful, but there was only so much gratefulness that she could bring forth.
It’s no matter.
Jeyne will learn soon that there is a price for everything. Even then, unknowing, she had a sinking feeling that she could not safely step anywhere; that the world was made of ice, like over the old ponds at Winterfell, and that, as in the spring, she was apt to fall through and drown at any time.
~
He had never spoken to her, but she knew his name.
Lord Baelish, she whispers. It’s a whisper that falls on dead ears. The other whores are asleep, but the dim morning light falls right on her eyes.
He had claimed to be a friend to her lady.
~
Sansa sits in her chair instead of dressing for dinner, looking at a spot on the wall and combing through her hair with her fingers. Tugging, even, so wretchedly that Jeyne fears she will pull all the pretty red hairs out. Worse, she’s afraid that she doesn’t even fear it - that Sansa might look less pretty with less hair, and that it might be a good thing for Jeyne.
She hates herself when she doesn’t stop her, but she does worry.
“What is it?”
Sansa does not reply. Her eyes are vacant and blue. Jeyne comes closer, and wrinkles her nose. Sansa smells slightly of sweat. What could she have done, to exert herself?
“I thought you were off with the Prince.” If there is a tinge of envy in her voice, she does not hide it. But she does not hide her curiosity, either. A thrill goes through her toes. “Did he try and kiss you?” she whispers. Such a thing would be the height of indecency.
But if he were indecent, it would mean he loved her.
And Jeyne wants to hear Sansa’s love story even as she greedily, hungrily wants for her own.
Sansa’s eyes are dry, but they go wide, and she stops running her fingers through her hair.
She does not reply.
Jeyne looks around, as though just missing something. “Where is Lady?”
The wolf is always around, beautiful and soft, but Jeyne fears her all the same. Direwolves aren’t toys, her father scoffed. A little girl like that shouldn’t make a pet of something so dangerous.
Sansa does not cry, but she does not look at Jeyne either, and Jeyne knows.
Neither of them noticed right away when Arya went missing, but now they both notice that a part of Sansa is gone.
~
If he loves you…
The man slaps her bottom, and the whore gives a keening sound from her throat. She’s near-fully clothed, her assignation finished, but her eyes are somehow… indecent. That’s the only word Jeyne can think of for it. A word that Septa Mordane taught her. They’re wet, Jeyne decides, wet with fabricated desire. Brown and lustrous like pools of it.
The whore looks over in her direction. Jeyne isn’t particularly stealthy, but she’s learned to be soft-footed. Not to draw attention to herself. Before, she was always trying for the opposite, despite her role. Now it is all she wants. To be silent is to be ignored. To be ignored is to be unharmed.
She’s already walking away.
She can hear a voice, that slow, strange voice belonging to the proprietier, but she does not pause to hear it. Littlefinger, she thinks, thrilling in the rude name. They all call him that behind his back. A part of her thinks that she might go to him and plead, that her connection with Lady Sansa might save her. Another part of her remembers how dead his eyes are and reminds her that she should not take the risk: to go silent is to go unharmed. Like a doe in the woods. She always loved the animals; would cry like a child whenever one of the men brought home some deer fully-formed with an arrow to the brain.
The slightest prickle of sound-
She can still remember, how she stripped and turned for him, and how they discussed, like business, things like woman’s blood and her weight. Things that should have been reserved for the family of her betrothed.
They’d said she was light for her age. He had frowned. She had wondered, feverishly, what she was doing wrong.
She steps on a creaky floorboard.
A twig in the woods, a prickle of sound -
A hand grabs at her arm and Jeyne cries out.
“Oh, quiet. What do you think I’m going to do to you?”
Jeyne swallows. She stares the woman in the face. Despite herself, she drinks in this woman, this whore. She takes in the fine brown of her eyes, the careful curl of her hair, and the half-hidden wrinkles near her mouth. They deepen when she frowns.
“Oi. It’s indecent, it is, to look at someone like that.”
Jeyne’s gaze drops to the floor. What you do is indecent, she thinks.
“I’m very sorry.” Her voice is little more than a squeak. It’s the disuse, Jeyne thinks. She hasn’t spoken to anyone in a long time. She hardly spoke while they examined her, then they confined her alone for days. At last she’s allowed out but, even now, she knows she shouldn’t draw attention to herself.
She remembers his flinty, grey-green eyes: and you are no longer Jeyne Poole, he said. It will do you little good to be her, when a whore will live so much longer.
But even Jeyne had already come to understand that much.
The whore’s shift slips off her shoulder, but she doesn’t move to correct it. Her eyes stay fixed on Jeyne. “You’re young,” she says finally. Her voice is almost suspicious. “Are they getting younger, then?”
“I do not know… what you are talking about.”
“Us. The whores. Is he bringing in younger?”
“I - no. I don’t think so…”
“You look too young. Have you had your woman’s blood?”
Jeyne’s cheeks burn. “No.”
“Oh. Usually they keep your sort somewhere else.”
Jeyne doesn’t care to ask the whore’s meaning. She doesn’t want to hear about her sort, when she feels so uniquely terrified. She stares down at the ground, cheeks burning.
“Are you a maiden? Or’ve you done this before?”
Now her face is burning so hot that she can hardly answer. She has some idea what the whore speaks of. Womanly duties, Septa Mordane had explained. Jeyne remembers the septa’s stern eyes, her hard-pressed lips. The way they fell on Sansa, as though Sansa was the vessel of something greater than herself, as though some unborn princeling was already in her belly. Under the bonds of marriage, to please the gods and your husband.
She remembers the way Berric Dondarrion smiled at her, the day that Theon undressed the girl in the stables.
Her lips form the word, but it barely comes out. “No.”
She forgets those things. Jeyne is a maiden. Pure and perfect.
Someone will come and save her.
The whore doesn’t seem to take heed of her shame. “How did you end up here, then?”
“I-“
“Don’t lie to me, now, girl. You’ve all your teeth.”
“My parents are…” she didn’t want to think about it. The tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of her father, all of the Stark household. Most of all, her eyes pricked when she thought of how alone she was, how everything was ruined.
She was ruined.
No one will save you, you stupid, stupid girl.
She hears it in Littlefinger’s voice.
“Dead,” the whore finishes, without a note of sympathy. “Common enough tale. S’pose you’re pretty enough for this life.” She laughs, raucously. “But pretty don’t last long.”
Jeyne’s hands tremble, and the whore turns, as though she is the princess.
Perhaps she is, now.
~
She cried and screamed and thrashed on the floor.
Please, she wailed, please, no, my father, no, please….
A cry to someone, a cry never finished, never answered.
She did not notice at the time, but she remembers it, like a tableau: Sansa, sitting in the chair by the window. Staring out the bars.
Hands folded in her lap.
Face pale.
Mouth tight with the regal effort of not-crying.
Eyes half-empty, but set on the horizon.
~
She remembers Theon, and the way his voice was so low and rough and coaxing.
Would you like to go somewhere with me? he’d asked the maid. He was so chivalrous that she could not understand how anyone might refuse him. I’ll be gentle. We’ll have a good time.
The maid had looked around for help.
I’m expected, she’d said weakly, but her lips were parted and she was looking at him. Her hands were clutching at her pail of water.
What about quickly, then? He’d said. Right here? He’d reached out to brush a strand out of her face. His hands were so lovely, so large and masculine and fine. He could shoot an arrow like a hawk found prey, Jeyne had heard.
And somewhere, he was a prince.
She could have princelings, too, and visit Sansa and their princelings could play together. But first he needed to stop -
But Jeyne could not help watching him, mesmerized even as she knew she should be repelled.
He’d moved in closer and the pail had sputtered all over the floor, with a fluid crash.
His face had meshed with the maid’s, and his hands were over her waist. She made some kind of small sound in her throat.
The crash brought Jeyne to her senses.
She stole away, trying to be soundless.
She tried to curse the maid for stealing her dreams, but she did not. She could not.
Perhaps she was no better than that maid.
~
The first time she met Mira, Mira had taught her what was in a whore’s future.
The second time, she had asked to examine her face.
Jeyne’s heart had thumped in her chest with the realization that this woman - this whore, an exotic, lustrous creature for all her foulness - was to examine her beauty. She half-hoped that Mira would reproach her in some way, tell her that Jeyne’s type of beauty would only be appreciated by those looking for a courtly love.
Instead, Mira had looked half-sorry and shook her head.
“Your mouth is small,” she said. “It will hurt for you.”
Jeyne asked her to explain.
Mira had.
Jeyne could not sleep that night.
~
“Turn.”
The air is warm - as it is in the whorehouse, in the South - but it still feels cold. She has never been this naked before in front of someone else. Not a man. Not three men. Not the queen.
She turns.
“Has she bled yet?” It’s the man again, the one that was so fond of Sansa. His voice is a drawl. This is business. But it is also a cut, a cut right through her bones. She is glad that he does not ask her directly. Her face colors at the very possibility of answering.
The second man asks her, though. His voice sounds slightly more considerate. “Have you, girl?”
Her face is on fire.
“N-n-no.”
He turns away and nods his head. “There is your answer.”
The other man looks at her. He has a fat face. He has many names. They called him something around the palace, but she cannot remember it. She remembers the other, though - Spider. If he is a spider, then he is a successful one. He’s fat on flies.
The queen stares blankly and stays silent. She holds out her cup and the cup-bearer fills it. Queen Cersei, most of all, seems uninterested in the proceedings. She stands. “If we have made a decision, then I shall continue about my business.”
Jeyne shivers in the warm, dusty room. Some flecks of the dust catch the light, and in the darker corner, the little man smirks. He seems pleased with this. “She’ll bleed soon enough.”
~
They tell her she will marry.
She thinks it is her opportunity to leave, to find something better. Perhaps they will treat her as a lady there. Perhaps she will have lap dogs and children, and pretty dresses to call her own. Perhaps her husband will be kind to her.
They tell her she is to call herself Arya Stark, and Jeyne agrees. Already, in her mind, she practices her courtesy, and her accompanying greeting: I am Arya of Winterfell. I am pleased to serve you, my lord.
Then they show her his sigil, and she cannot reconcile it with all that she imagines.
~
Jeyne will always remember the first time she saw him. He looked a bit like the ghost; more realistically, he was the very sigil of the Boltons brought to life. A walking emblem of its power.
Then she recognizes him, and that impression becomes even clearer.
He looks unlike himself, but she can recognize his eyes, when they flick up uncertainly. Moreover, she can recognize them recognizing her. It’s an odd feeling. It’s been so long since someone saw her, and she feels a great surge of emotion before she can place him.
Haggard as she is, she nearly cries out his name.
Theon Greyjoy.
~
ii: we flew through the air, he and I