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LADY JEYNE
a song of ice and fire — AU ✧
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" ON THE STROKE OF TWELVE,
the spell will be broken
and everything will be as it was before "
— CINDERELLA, fairy godmother
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⋆ ii. Passing Fancy ⋆
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COUNTLESS TIMES SHE HAD PRICKED her finger as she tried and failed miserably to mirror the exemplary embroidery of Sansa. Sewing was not per say one of her strong suits but she had never thought it a shortcoming until Sansa's intricate patterns had made her attempts at stitching look shameful. It comforted Jeyne that at least she was not alone in her lack of success as Maegelle and Arya looked distastefully to the Septa at her praise of the red haired girl.
Hearty laughter emitting from the outside distracted them both and while Jeyne could not deny the voices of the boys and arrows flying through the air ringing in her ear piqued her interest, she was not early as eager to abandon threading to go and join them. Yet she knew Arya's longing glances to the window and Maegelle's brown eyes being full with mischief meant this was only going to play out in one way.
"Septa Mordane." Maegelle cleared her throat to catch the woman's attention as she spoke politely. "It appears I have drank too much water, I should like to go relieve myself."
The septa nodded her veiled head dismissively as she continued to marvel at the artistry Sansa's delicate fingers had crafted. Maegelle wagged her eyebrows at Jeyne triumphantly and Arya enviously watched her leave.
"Maegelle!" Jeyne whisper-shouted to which she only received a wave, the girl not even turning her head.
"Maegelle!"
"If there was anything she was drinking too much off, it definitely wasn't water." Arya scoffed in frustration, poking her needles profusely into the circular template.
"I don't care if I'm being rude." Arya snapped after Jeyne sent her a pointed look seeping with reprimand. "The only reason she's going is so she can flirt with Robb."
Jeyne frowned at the words, biting down on her lip to subdue her discomfort at the thought of her seductress of a sister batting her eyelashes and touching his arm coyly. She felt a strange feeling, was it envy? Surely it is not that, it is just that you think that he is meant to be yours. Silly Jeyne.
"She's going to steal him from you!" Arya cried out, panic in her eyes most likely at the idea of Maegelle being her good sister. It would be like having another Sansa around, though at least Sansa wasn't as shrewd, just a little annoying.
"He is not mine to be stolen." Jeyne muttered, shaking her head free from foolish ideas as she return her attention to the needle and thread in her hands.
Minutes after she sighed defeatedly, the wilful girl turned to smile at Jeyne roguishly as if having concocted a devilish scheme. Ignoring the look of heeding in her wide eyes, Arya grinned with all her teeth in display before she clasped at one of Jeyne's labouring hand with her own loveable teensy one and once again, dragging her out of a room she felt no need for them to be.
"Come back this instant Arya or I am telling your mother!" Septa Mordane called furiously after the wild wolf.
Sansa rolled her eyes at the Septa's demands. "I don't think she cares much if you do."
The more timid of the two, however, protested profusely to her abduction whilst she was all but being hoisted to the courtyard. "You have got to stop pulling me everywhere!" Jeyne exclaimed exasperatedly, nearly slipping over her own two feet whilst she was being tugged harshly down the stony rough steps that would expose her to the bitter bite of the cold winds. "And how are you so tiny but still so strong?!"
"No Arya I don't want to!"
"He's not really a wolf! He won't eat you!"
"Yes but he might bite."
"Don't be such a baby Jeyne."
"Please don't make me go there!"
Those were the repetitive exchanges Jon Snow had been overhearing as he was guiding Bran in the ways of archery. Trudging over to the source of noise, Jon raised an eyebrow as he bit his lip in attempts to conceal his amusement at the squabbling pair. Secreted by one of the many arching walls of the long standing keep, Arya and Jeyne stood there bickering back and forth.
"How are you going to marry him if you can't even speak to him?"
"I speak to him," Jeyne countered, whispering under her breath. "Occasionally."
"Arya what are you forcing her to do this time?" Jon questioned his sister, a facade of sternness written all over his face as he spared Jeyne a fleeting glance, crouching down to his sister. Had her heart not already been hammering in her chest, the zeal in Jon's eyes as they skimmed over her face carelessly would have had it skipping a beat. His clothes, per usual, were lacking variation with the bastard boy being coated in an inky black attire from almost head to toe. Although, there were faint grey tinges in the chest armour he adorned. Jeyne supposed he, Denys and the rest of the boys had been sparring again along with practising more like flaunting their archery skills to the youngest in their midst.
"I'm only trying to get Jeyne to spend some time with Robb," The child droned petulantly. "It's the whole reason the Redwynes are even here."
"I thought the two of you had grown closer." Jon prodded, brows furrowed out of curiosity as she avoided his gaze. "One truthful conversation between us does not mean are set and ready to be wed." Jeyne muttered unhappily, drumming her fingers against her arm. Since the fateful night in the crypts where it was Robb that had comforted her, she was drawn to him like he was the dry land in a sea of tidal waves rushing towards her. Even in the library their chatter was unreserved at best but the more days that passed without them talking much, the more Jeyne longed to speak to him and so the more she dreaded it too.
"No one is sending you there to be a bride, it is only for some fun."
Sulking slightly, the girl with honey yellow and rosy pink flowers in her crown-like braid handed her arm to her second closest companion in Winterfell. "You are of unsound mind if you think I will go over there without you and Arya." Jeyne scoffed when Jon had stared at her cloth-textiled sleeve in confusion.
Before the raven-haired boy could even take her arm in his, Arya squealed in excitement as she clasped her hands around Jeyne's waist excitedly. Of course, leading her directly to where Denys and Theon directed Bran at the same time Maegelle dawdled about the very heir Jeyne was being coerced to charm. Does she not tire, lingering by something she can never have?
"Has Lady Jeyne come to join us?" Came the taunting words of the Greyjoy who appeared to thrive from the delight that accompanied picking on a girl of only ten and three.
"Shut up Theon." Arya and Maegelle snapped simultaneously at the ironborn, him only throwing his hands up in a feigned innocence with an excruciatingly irritating smirk playing on his shrivelled lips.
Robb had snapped his head around so fast at the mention of the flower-born girl, grinning in transports of delight at the sight of her joining them. "Jeyne." Her name sounded so sweet on his lips, like the letters had been honeyed in the glacè of candies. Without even realising it, the Stark boy had shrugged Maegelle away from him in his astonishment of Jeyne's presence amongst them.
"Have you come to join us in shooting arrows, little sister?" Denys quipped at her, smiling broadly.
Jeyne shook her head cordially, twiddling her thumbs and picking at her fingernails under the observance of irises of blue, grey and brown pigments. "It was Arya that wanted to come," She said softly, "She insisted I join her."
Sharing a warm smile with the younger girl, Jeyne ambled closer to her brother while Arya followed in suit of Jon who approached the defeated Bran. Robb had cleared his throat and turned his gaze back to his brothers when he saw that Jeyne would not even look to him. "You have to do this," Jon encouraged him Bran in a hushed tone, patting him on the shoulder. "Especially now that there's a pretty girl watching you."
He ruffled Arya's hair lovingly as if it was her he was speaking off but as his besotted eyes fell to Jeyne far off by the wooden fences beside Denys, Arya did not think she was the pretty girl Jon was quite talking about.
Rowdy laughter rushed through the air, Jon's the most gratifying to Jeyne because for once it seemed his shoulders were rid of the weight of the world, as the Starks and Denys were hunched over in laughter after Bran missed the target entirely. Maegelle tittered too, although at least, she placed a hand over her mouth as to not be to mocking of the boy.
"And which one of you was a marksman at ten?" Eddard Stark bellowed. Jeyne craned her head to see him and Lady Stark watching from above; it was like a testament to the superiority that they reigned over everyone else as wardens of the North. "Go on Bran." He said with a nod of encouragement.
"Relax your bow arm." Robb instructed, his Northen accent reigning his voice thick, folding his arms over his chest in the time that the flustered little boy readied himself from another attempt. Bran's efforts were futile still, much to his chagrin, with the sudden release of an arrow piercing through the air and landing the mark to perfection from behind him.
Everyone turned to the source of the arrow, holding their sides from how much they hurt from all their chortling when Arya revealed herself as the perpetrator, bowing in a curtesy-fashion like the proper lady everyone had insisted she act like. Lord and Lady Stark peered over the wooden hold to see their daughter in all her mischief, holding back their own smiles at her wilfulness. It was only Jeyne who cringed out of pity for the red-faced boy, his cheeks burning up out of embarrassment as he dropped his bow and arrow immediately to chase after Arya.
"She is something else." Denys chuckled with a shake of his head as he watched Jon scramble to run and capture his little brother and sister. "I did not even see her run off there." Jeyne laughed along.
"I reckon I could shoot in the middle there too." Maegelle mused, face contrived in determination as she eyed the marking spot competitively like just by being there it was challenging her.
Denys scoffed in disagreement, "You think far too much of yourself, Maege." She all but growled at the sobriquet her brother had teased her with all their childhood. "Let us see then." Theon challenged, wearing that same smug grin as he thrust a spare bow from the quiver into her arms.
"You shall." Maegelle said with a smicker oozing with a victory that she hadn't yet reigned in. Picking the spare bow from the ground as she placed the arrow Theon handed to her into the contraption, she made her shot with ease. It flew through the air sharply and whilst it did not narrowly missed the mark in the middle, the strike was just shy of it. Robb had barely been looking, he had ambled closer to Jeyne who had been clapping in awe of her sisters talents. "I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the Winter town. My mother told me you have been wanting to go." He said to her in a hushed whisper. Her eyes, green as forests, went straight to her freezing hands when he spoke. She hummed in what was a polite agreement he could only guess, frowning when she didn't say anything in response. "It is in Winter that it comes alive Old Nan says but something tells me you will take a shine to it anyways."
"Old Nan says a lot of things." Jeyne smiled at him briefly, her gaze fleeting as she looked away from as quickly as she looked to him. Denys smirked at the heir's relentless attempts at seeking his sisters favour, who seemed adamant not to give it.
"What?!" Bran threw his hands in the air defeatedly, wondering why everyone in the world could shoot this arrow but him. "How?!"
"Everyone but me can do it."
"Jeyne can't." Theon remarked. His eyes were feasted on the girl his best friend stood by hungrily like he wanted to rip out all the pretty roses of honey and pink from her brown locks. "Leave her alone." Robb snapped in irritation, growing tiresome of the ironborns petty hatred for Jeyne Grace. Theon looked to him annoyedly himself, "No need to jump down my throat," he spat at the heir, "All I said is that Jeyne couldn't shoot an arrow either, to make Bran feel better."
"I don't need you to make me feel better." Bran murmured weakly in retaliation.
"Yes she could." Maegelle barked at him. Jeyne shook her head profusely as Denys swung his arm over her shoulder. "Exactly Greyjoy, let her try."
"I don't want to try!" Jeyne whined, her head whipping rapidly between her brother and sister in betrayal. Why whenever the two of them are in agreement over something it is always at my expense!
"Come on Jeyne, it is not so terrifying," Maegelle goaded her, taking her arm lightly as she led her to the centre where Bran had shuffled backwards on his feet to make way for her. "Think of the poor nocking point, you'll be shooting at it. Not the other way around."
"Here you go," Denys strided forwards, handing her a bow and arrow in casualty like it was a spare piece of parchment he was handing her. "I'm not going to be able to do it!" Jeyne protested, her fingers already sore from needles that were not complicit with them. "There's no point in me even trying."
"Do not make her do it." Robb said, taking pity on the lady. She smiled at him gratuitously then, like he was her knight in shining armour and she felt ashamed that she had been avoiding his gaze like it would blind her. "She has nothing to prove." Theon scoffed at that, taking the bite in the remark as directed at him which of course it was.
"She said it herself, she can't do it." Theon said in a deriding tone that would have had Denys at his throat if he hadn't already almost strangled the boy days prior at the feasting table.
"Shut your mouth, Greyjoy." Denys spat. He looked at Jeyne with his comforting eyes blue as the oceans of home. She nodded in a reluctant compliance, his encouraging smile doing nothing to ease her nerves while she struggled to correctly angle the weapon.
Lamely positioning the arrow, it missed the board entirely let alone the mark as it flew far over to the gates. She winced embarrassedly as Theon guffawed at her in ridicule, Robb offering her a sweet smile as she went to make her second attempt. And her third and her fourth and fifth too. It was at the sixth interval Robb felt it would be wise to intervene.
"Here Jeyne, no look you are too tense." He explained to her softly, placing his hand on her arm to correct her positioning, gently goading her to shoot the arrow. "Relax your bow arm." He relayed his earlier instructions, his accent reigning through once again and his body so close to hers she could feel his breath on her neck. Her skin tingled as the goosebumps ran across it's softness, her own breath shallow as she swallowed the lump in her throat, like she had forgotten to breathe when she turned her neck back to see how close he was to her. His other hand on her waist to steady her, he looked forward at her with intensity, neither of this smiling but only staring. She cleared her throat in discomfort at feeling things a lady was most unrefined in feeling but he was so handsome she could not blame herself. He was so beautiful that it hurt. It actually hurt. Leaning in closer to her as she turned back around and steadied her hands on the bow, he whispered to her.
"Also..." he whispered just as she was to release the arrow. "You look very pretty today." The declaration took her off guard as she completely missed the board once again, the bow shooting at some poor serving girl who yelped fearfully, jumping out of the way just in time.
"Sorry!" Jeyne shouting in return, hee face contorting into one of mortification and remorse and apology. Robb bowed his head in merriment, a soft tug on his lips when he realised how effortlessly he had her flustered. His mouth dangerously close to her ear again, so much so that Jeyne could have sworn she felt the fluffiness of his lips, softer than the feel of silk, graze against them. "Try to shoot on the board this time. We don't want anything to make Theon's head any bigger." Jeyne could hear the triumph in Robb's voice that he could have such a hold on and she only craned her neck to look at him, their mouths rich with salivation mere inches away from touching indecently, before she turned away again to refocus her attention on archery.
She missed again.
Sighing, Jeyne threw an apologetic glance to Denys and Maegelle as she gently handed the contraption to her brother. Robb had relinquished his hold on her entirely too, backing away so she could have space to adjust. "I told you I couldn't do it." She offered while her shoulders sagged in a way that had her look lovely still.
"I told them all it first." Theon interjected, his arms crossed over his chest while he leant against some rickety gates. "Don't beat yourself up over it," he offered, raising a few brows but Jeyne knew his niceties were false. There was nothing nice about the way he pranced closer towards her, the mole near his mouth as aggravating as the contemptuous leer he wore. "Maegelle and Arya could do it but they're not half the lady you are..." He mocked her, invading her haven of solace with each step he took, his nose almost touching her from how close he had gotten. Robb went forward immediately to defend his betrothed but Denys, who had caught sight of Jeyne's balled up fists, touched his shoulder to warn him to hold back.
"Are they, Lady Jeyne?"
That was the last straw. All her own niceties faded away in that instant: the taunting, the mocking, the baseless cruelty had seemed to take over her senses as the title she detested so deeply rid her of all sense. Her fist hanging by her right side rose up before anyone could even could comprehend what was happening to land directly in centre of the slimy face of Theon Greyjoy.
"You bitch!" He groaned, clutching his nose that leaked with blood the colour of red wine, stumbling back in shock from the impact. Jeyne gasped in regret instantly, her green eyes darting to Maegelle who cheered through her loud, deafening guffaws and Denys who stood with a fierce pride gleaming from every crevice of his face. "It was about time." He said with a thrilled smile, his arms crossed over his chest like he was expecting the outcome. It was Robb's expression that had sent her to shame, her irises widening so much they had almost melted out of her face entirely, his mouth agape had her grow rosier than flowers. She winced in recollection that Lord and Lady Stark had never left their stance above, peeking through her wispy eyelashes to see their faces, Jeyne lifted her gorgeous skirts and ran quicker than she ever had before.
"Close your mouth," Denys slapped Robb on his back in a brotherly way, nearly choking him. He smirked at the adoring glint in the boy's blue eyes that followed his little sister every step she ran away in an awe. "You might have just fallen for Jeyne Grace but there's no need to look like you're going to devour her."
Robb spluttered in a lame scramble for words, a defence Denys felt no need to be subject to. Even from the way they had been pining for a kiss from the other moments ago had the beef and bacon pies turning in his stomach, even though he knew the pair of half lovers (as they were to be, in the time to come) would dismiss it as passing fancy. His lip curled up disgustedly, knowing the lust the heir bore for his sister was flooding his veins and manhood as they stood, in a distasteful mutter. "Truly, it is unbecoming for a brother to witness."
authors note: short and cute chapter, it's definitely my favourite one <3 a little fluffy moment between robb and jeyne with her trying to deny her blossoming crush bqsically throughout the entirety of 17 pages (i love)
ps. a lot of stuff might not make sense throughout act i but dw i will be editing the entire thing once it's completed x
UNEDITED