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If Jon is being honest with himself, it isn’t even the hunger that makes him do it. No, he’s felt his stomach twist, turn, scream, and then settle into painful silence more often than not. So, it isn’t that. It’s the realization that life will only be this unless he does it. It being stealing.
So he’s sitting there, admiring the cage of chickens in the back of a cart being shuttled down the King’s Road, no doubt to feed some fancy lord in some fancy castle, and thinking if he stole that one bird, he’d eat well tonight, but what’s the point?
He’ll only be hungry in the morning again, this time with a price on his head. And if they catch him, it will be a hand or worse even. Maybe even getting sent to the Wall. And not even the greatest fool in Westeros would consent to go fight undead monsters in a land so cold you might freeze your foot or your dick—well, no, a chicken isn’t worth it. He wistfully watches it move past and swings his legs from the bough he’s resting on, high above the road, waiting to see if there’s another opportunity about to come to him, one with a better cost benefit analysis. He may be reduced to thieving, but he’s going to be rational about it, thank you very much.
Before long, he hears another party coming towards him, and this time be notices a horse tied to the back of their cart. Now a pretty mare, if he could find someone to buy a mare, that’s enough money to get him far, far away from this place. Maybe he could purchase passage and leave for the Free Cities. But even so, his fingers don’t even twitch. For, how could he sell a horse? One look and anyone would know it weren’t his to sell. Better not risk it. They’d hang him for certain. He’d rather have another supper of mud than endure a neck-stretching.
It’s just as he’s decided to leave the road and search for a stream that he sees the answer to his problems: money. In the form of a fine wheelhouse, curtains of bright silk fluttering from the windows. He’s never seen the like. It strikes him as if it emerged from one of his mother’s stories, only, he always thought those stories were fairytales. Apparently not, and most likely, someone traveling in such style would have something a little easier to nab than a horse or chicken. A little more valuable too.
He shimmies the length of the sturdy branch and drops silently to the forest floor. Following a procession such as that will be an easy task, there are wagons and a few outriders, they’ll make slow progress, have to stop early to set up camp, and when they do, he’ll sneak in and steal something precious.
Jon is right, of course, they do stop while the sun is still up, so he finds a hallow and curls up for a nap until dark, until only a few guards remain awake, and he sneaks into the camp. There’s silence except the crackling of torches, the lone eerie call of some forlorn owl, he’d noticed one tent in particular that servants carried several trunks to and staked that as the one worth entering, he’d be able to find what he wants in there, something valuable enough to be worth his time, small enough for him to carry. He ducks under the flap only to find himself staring into a pair of shockingly blue eyes. Shocking in that they are a brilliant blue he’s never seen before as well as clearly shocked by his presence.
Anyway, he wants to scream, he’s so startled, and he’s surprised the lady. He’s a strange man in her tent, she rightfully should be shrieking! But perhaps she is terrified, someone dangerous could have made their way in here, her life could be in danger if they had! She truly should have better guards. What is her father thinking. He’s the one who entered though, Jon reminds himself, it’s his life that’s on the line, so he takes advantage of her shocked silence, claps a hand over her mouth and hisses a warning. “Scream, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.” Hhhmm. Now he thinks of it, he should have issued a stronger threat, something truly frightening, but to try again might make him seem unserious, and if there is anything he needs at this moment, it’s to be feared. He looks around and realizes that his misfortune is complete. Those countless trunks were her clothes. He sees no convenient gold goblet or bracelet or any such thing. And now he’s threatened the daughter of a lord. He’s alone with her in her tent. If he’s discovered, he will certainly be sent to the Wall.
She’s tapping on his hand, trying to say something, and if he was self-possessed in the moment, Jon certainly would have ignored her, but he isn’t, and without thinking, lets his hand slip away so that she might speak. “Is it coin? Is it coin you’re after? I have a very little in that purse on the bed, if you leave without hurting me, I shall tell no one until dawn. Or ever. I’ll lie about losing the money and no one will ever know. I’ll say I dropped it while unpacking or no! I bought an extra sweet bun at the inn two days back. That’s more believable. I love sweets. Even if they aren’t lemoncakes which are my favorite.”
There are two things that strike Jon now. One, this woman is quite young, his own age or a trifle younger. Two, she has never lied before. She’s scrambling, she might not want to tell anyone, but she can’t tell a convincing lie to save herself. She’s also beautiful. She smells sweet too. He’s never felt skin so soft or heard such a melodious voice. She’s talking, but somehow her words feel like a song he’s known all his life. No wonder she was riding in a coach that looked fit for a queen, such as she warrants it. He shakes his head at that. This is far too much. He supposes he’s noticed a few more than two things about her but itemizing them all feels wrong. So, he notices them, but tells himself not to pay too much attention. “I can’t know that you won’t scream as soon as may be, so you’ll come with me until we’re some distance from the camp and then I’ll set you free. It will give me a head start to make my escape.” She’s nodding, agreeing that it makes sense, which strikes him as an odd thing to say to a thief, but it isn’t any odder than her reaching for her shoes and methodically tying their ribbons around her delicate ankles and then she’s searching about for a cloak, as he watches in bafflement at her calm, collected manner, and it’s not until she set’s to braiding her hair that he realizes he simply must intervene. “This is ridiculous!” He hisses, “It’s no way to behave when you’re being robbed.”
“Oh,” she says all breathy, eyes wide and fingers clasped together, “I don’t know how I’m meant to behave. I’ve never even seen a thief, let alone been robbed before. My septa has always said evil men are ugly, dirty, with bad breath…but you seem oddly clean.”
She’s not wrong, he does like a dip in a river to wash the dust from the road off, and he did forget to pull out the old knife he has hanging at his hip, so maybe her not being frightened enough is entirely his fault for doing this all wrong, and clearly, he shouldn’t have never thought of it, lack of food must have made him not capable of thinking. If he did frighten her, maybe this would be going more to plan? Only, it seems too late to try that now, and he doesn’t really want to see her scared, there’s something very endearing— no, no. This will not do at all. His mother always kept away from people, said you couldn’t trust anyone, and here he is, thinking about how the gentle lady smells even though this kerfuffle might see him hanged. “I don’t care what your Septa says. I am dangerous, and we don’t have time for you to braid your hair—“ he stops. The thing is, it is a lot of hair. Perfectly formed curls that fall well past her shoulders and trail down over her breasts—he gulps and looks away. She does need to cover up that flimsy gown. The cloak is clearly necessary too. He grabs it from her hands, flings the grey material around her shoulders and snatches the ribbon she had been planning to tie her hair with. “Come with me and don’t say a word.”
“You’ve forgotten the coins!” She says it too loudly and covers her mouth at his glare but then, finally, they’re off. In his hand a ribbon, in hers the bag of money that is certainly not worth what he’s risking, he sees that now. No more stealing for him. If he survives this, he will simply have to stop avoiding people and find some farm where he can work and sleep in the barn. Not that he knows about farm work, however he clearly cannot do this again. They’re slipping past the tents and are safely moving between shadows when one of the guards comes into view and he’s just thinking he’d best cover her mouth again to prevent her from calling out when the girl shoves him. He’s surprised which is why he stumbles to his knees, and it’s embarrassing to appear weak like that. Hardly helps with the claim that he’s dangerous, yet he was taken unawares so perhaps it doesn’t count. He’d best make a run for it, if she’s calling a guard. He’ll never make it of course, now he’s stuck in the dirt, but he should try. It seems a pity that he’s just realized the error of his ways and thought of a better alternative when he’s about to die. He’s trying to stand but her hands are annoyingly clinging to his arm, and he means to demand she unhand him when she ducks to the ground too, whispers, “Guard. Just there. By that tree.”
Well, that’s helpful. She’s a very helpful girl. But it is odd she’s so accommodating about this mess and really, as she’s dragging him to the darkest corner of the encampment and disappearing before him into the forest, he thinks she’s taking an awful risk. Or maybe he’s taking the risk, as he’s the one who might end up dead—or worse—after this. And obviously, he’s the one in the wrong, of the two of them, he’s the one who intruded into her night’s sleep, still, there’s something very wrong about her dragging him through the forest when she is the one who is being abducted.
Does he need to…remind her?
He takes the lead. That’s the way to handle this. The branches are attacking his face and arm as he plunges further into the darkness, it is his feet that stumble across rocks and the odd tree root as he leads them he knows not where, simply away. What a disaster. This entire experience has been a mistake and as soon as he’s a little further from the camp he’ll send her back. He doesn’t like the idea of her walking back on the dark, a girl shouldn’t be alone in these woods, but he hasn’t another solution. He’s just decided it’s high time he returns her ribbon that he is stupidly still clutching in his hand when she says, “This is far enough, I think. By the time I get back to camp you’ll have had a chance to cross the river. It’s just ahead, and I shan’t help them at all when they ask which direction you’ve gone.”
It’s simply not right, her dictating how things will be, runs him the wrong way when he is the criminal. Only, he can’t object to her on this occasion because it is more than he deserves. “Thank you,” he says, but he tries to say it roughly, as if he’s a dangerous man. It will be safer if she’s frightened, he reminds himself. He’s reaching out his hand to give her the ribbon, and she’s reaching hers out to give him the coins when there is a cry, a voice cuts through the darkness, and every story Jon has ever heard of barbaric Northerners fills his head at once. He’s committed a far worse crime than taking a chicken or a horse, the gods will see fit to punish him accordingly. What’s worse than losing a hand or dying? Getting eaten. He just knows they’ll send him North, and he’ll be taken by the Wildlings and be eaten in a stew.
He’s about to bolt — leave the coins and the girl — and run for his life when this exasperating girl grabs his hand and leads him deeper into the woods so swiftly he’s stumbling behind her, struggling to keep up. Before he knows what’s what, they’re at a mouth of a small cave, not far from the river. He can hear it now, and he’s trying to sort out her sure-footed run, just how she knew the forest so well, when she thrusts a hand out and drags him in behind her, pulling some branches down to partially obscure the entrance top of course. She’s an odd captive that way, helpful.
He’s panting, but he still finds breath to exclaim, “What do you think you’re doing? You’re meant to go back to the camp, not come with me.”
“If they catch you, they’ll kill you.”
“I know that! That’s why I was going to run.”
“But you weren’t running.” She very reasonably notes, “You seem very poorly prepared for abduction.”
“Because I had no intention of stealing anyone! I thought I’d find a trinket to sell, I had no intention of dragging anyone along. And while we’re on the subject, it’s dangerous for a girl to run-off with a man.”
She looks bizarrely hurt by this statement “You are the one who stole me!”
“And if I had been a bad man, you would be in great danger!”
“Are you, not dangerous, then?”
Oh, well, she’s got him there. He did forget himself for a moment and now he’s flummoxed. His face must show that he’s flabbergasted by her because she peeps a small smile at him, and in a night of unfathomable oddities, he thinks this, a highborn lady smiling at him shyly, has to be the strangest of it all. It’s a warm smile, her eyes are looking at him kindly which only makes it worse, so much worse.
“That’s beside the point. You shouldn’t have willingly come with me! Life isn’t like the songs. People die. There are bad men who do bad things to women, and then the women die. Don’t you know that? Has no one told you??!”
Ah, well. Becoming hysterical is no way to convince her that he’s dangerous, but she didn’t seem inclined to believe that anyway.
Working himself to near tears isn’t doing him any good and he’d note that for next time but there will never be a next time and even if he wanted there to be a next time he has no business near highborn ladies ever again because he has no clue what to do with them, clearly. A mess. The situation, now his head. It’s all a muddle.
“You won’t die on my account.”
She says it as if she can promise him that. As if she can grant him a future, when thoughts of his death have been his constant company ever since his mother died, ever since the only songs he heard were the anguished cries of his stomach. And here is a girl who grew up being waited on by servants, who has been so cradled in comfort the idea that a man such as him might hurt her is not even a possibility, and she is looking at him with pity instead of fear. She feels sorry for him, the man who stole her. He was trying to warn her about the dangers to herself, and all she can feel is compassion. As if he isn’t what he declared himself to be, as if she has heard a great deal more than the words he has said. As if she has seen the memories that haunt him, the times he and his mother fled into the dark, from what he did not know, only to flee again, again, and again. Until her last day, when he’d held her hand and cursed whatever fear had haunted her, kept them running, and taken her at last. No, the girl doesn’t know any of that, but she’s looking at him as if she doesn’t need to have lived it to care. He’s never been more ashamed of himself. Honestly, he’d welcome some form of punishment now.
She sits down on a stone, they’re near enough the cave entrance he can still make her out, nervously wringing her hands, jerkily brushing twigs and burrs from her skirts. Then she’s reaching back to her hair which is now a fearsome mess to comb it with her fingers.
He’s scared her now, he thinks. And he still has her ribbon.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters as he hands it over. “I’m sorry for taking you.”
“And for yelling at me?” But she’s smiling again, just a little, and it makes him grin in spite of himself.
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry for that too.” He kicks a stone and winces. His worn shoes offer no protection to his toes.
She clears her throat. “My name is Sansa.” She’s holding out her hand to him, and the moment he realizes she is offering it to be kissed he blushes.
He kisses it though, presses his chapped lips to the delicate skin on the back of her hand. Quickly though, he doesn’t want to linger and make her think even worse of him.
“And what is your name?” She prompts him.
“Jon Sand.”
Sansa squints at him, “But you are not Dornish.”
“Uh, no, not really. Don’t know where exactly my mother was from, didn’t know my father.”
“You have the look of a Northman.”
Of course. Of course she would liken him to the wild men in the North. She probably thought he was capable of barbarism. Well, he did technically steal her. He really shouldn’t put too much weight in it. They didn’t meet on his best day. Besides, she’s a grand southern lady, she knows nothing of Northmen, he needn’t take it to heart.
“I am tired. May we sleep a while until it’s safe for us to leave?”
“Us? I will be leaving. You’re going back.”
“Of course, that’s what I meant, but you can’t go now that the whole encampment is roused. I can find my way back in the morning. I’ll claim I had a dream and walked here in my sleep and then everyone will calm down and no one will come searching for you.”
He’s once again reminded of his earlier feeling that she has no practice in deception. But the thing is, he is tired. A cave is a much nicer place to sleep than many of the places he’s made do, so he shrugs, walks a very little bit deeper into the cave and plops down, imagines the warmth of a fire and lets his eyelids drift closed before he very nearly jumps out of his own skin when he feels something lightly brush against his back.
“I’m sorry, my apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Sansa is scrambling away. It was Sansa brushing against him in the dark, and he tries to remain calm when he asks, very rationally, again, with great calm, “What in the seven hells do you think you’re doing?!”
“I’m sorry, it’s just, I’m very cold.”
Her voice sounds so pitiful, he instantly is awash in guilt. Of course she is. And she’s frightened. She has probably never been into a cave before let alone slept in one before. He sighs. “Come here.” They both lie down, then Sansa fidgets, pulls half of her voluminous cape around to use as a too-small blanket, and then she rolls closer to him until she can share her too-small blanket with him.
He takes a long, slow, breath, “I don’t suppose it would do any good to remind you now that I tried to rob you and did take you prisoner, and that means I’m dangerous?”
A soft giggle is his only answer. Only he wasn’t trying to be funny.
“Fine, tonight will be a lesson, but you must promise to never be so trusting of men ever again.”
She scooches even closer to say, very softly, “I promise,” with a breath that tickles his ear. She starts to hum then, and he’s too tired to stop her. His stomach growls, and she’s murmuring that if she had food she’d give it to him, and he’s hazily thinking she’s terribly sweet but he should tell her not to hum, it’s a terrible idea and they need to be quiet. Somehow, his lips don’t want to move. Just before he sleeps, he thinks she’s singing about a northern rose, and he has the briefest thought that the tune is familiar, that the lyrics are words he’s learned long long ago and somehow forgotten until she’d whispered it in his ear.
***
It’s a guard dragging him from the cave that wakes him. He furiously kicks and throws a few punches attempting to free himself, but there’s another and another, hands grasping at him and holding him still, and Sansa coolly looking on.
She’s a little bedraggled, he thinks, seeing her in broad daylight. Her hair is wild and tangled, her face a little pale, her bottom lip is caught between her teeth as she watches. It’s that, the sign that she is debating something in her mind that gives him a slight hope that she’ll lie for him. He doesn’t deserve it, but there’s something about her eyes that strangely makes him feel that all is not lost, only, one of the guards is speaking to her, congratulating her on leaving a trail of coins for them to follow and he realizes, she had the matter well in-hand all along, that she was placating him and buying time. Those stories about how she’d lie and protect him were bold-faced lies.
She motions to him and commands her guards, “Bring him. My father will want to see to this himself.”
He’s so hurt at her words. Absurdly hurt that she would lie to him, so hurt that she wants to ensure he is punished by her father, it almost makes him forget he’d kidnapped her, and he opens his lips and sullenly mutters the most foolish words he has ever spoken, no, the most foolish words he has ever heard, “I thought we were friends.”
“You crept into my tent and stole me!” She shrieks, only, she’s turned a brilliant pink, her eyes that had looked so tired are alive, like burning ice, and he doesn’t quite think it’s the stealing she objected to. He almost convinces himself by the way she looks at him it’s his accusation of betrayal that has upset her, all when really, he should be ashamed of himself.
“I would have never hurt you.” He mutters, feeling the greatest fool who has ever lived as the guards tie his hands behind his back. He isn’t looking at her, he’s too ashamed, to think they slept side by side and now her guards are taking every precaution as if he’s a man capable of doing any harm to her. He says it with bitterness, and she answers in an imperious tone, with every trace of her sweetness brushed away, “As if I didn’t know that within two minutes of being taken.”
She needn’t add, you fool, he’s aware. Well, now she’s insulted. He was wrong to take her, wrong to think she owed him any favors after he did, and then he followed it up with ridiculous, hypocritical accusations. They’ll hang him for this, he has no doubt. The guards have provided a horse, a beautiful mare that they help her mount, and they yank him along in her wake. As Sansa rides away, all his stupid brain can muster is, they will stretch his neck at last and no one will weep when they do.
That’s not exactly how it goes.
As he’s trudging along, the guards are talking and he realizes, they are from the North, every last man of them. They’re Lord Stark’s men, men of Winterfell, the great Northern house that rebelled against the king. They lost the war, but retained their lands as part of Rhaegar’s hope to make peace, after all, Aerys killed many of the Northerners, not just the Stark Lord and heir. And Rhaegar himself had been accused of abducting Lyanna Stark although he somehow lost her, Jon can’t quite remember how the stories go, although there are songs of Rhaegar searching the seven kingdoms for his lost love. Killed her probably, he’s a Targaryen after all. How land and titles can make up for that is something only a Targaryen could believe. He wonders what these Northerners are doing in the South, then realized, she spoke of her father so it’s Sansa Stark, and she’s no Southern lady.
When he finally makes it to camp he’s near delirious with hunger, the sores on his feet make him hobble, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from fainting from the pain. That would just be the fitting way to end it all, wouldn’t it? Getting outsmarted by the girl he stole and fainting at her feet. He’s led to a large tent which he’s rudely shoved into and despite the dim light, he instantly sees Sansa standing in the gloom next to a tall man who looks just like him. It’s eerie. It’s not just the same steel-colored eyes, and long horse-face, he wears the same stoic expression that Jon’s mother had often teased him about. Ah. Maybe Sansa meant a great deal more than her simple words when she mentioned him looking like a Northman.
On the man’s other side is a girl who, well, she has Jon blinking back tears. Her dark braids, her fierce grey eyes, that long nose and chin. It’s shockingly similar to the face he never thought to see again.
So it turns out, he’s Northern too. Lord Stark is absolutely convinced Jon is his nephew, which frankly, Jon is grateful that’s the conclusion he reaches. Instead of any unpleasant ideas of being Ned Stark’s bastard, the first thought that came to his mind when faced with a man who might as well have been his own reflection. Considering a few of those unbidden yet rather elaborate thoughts he’d been having about the man’s daughter, he’s relieved that’s what this solemn Northman believes. He understands that he’s to be taken North after all, although not to be killed by Wildlings, his skull worn by some warrior of ice, he’s to be hidden away in Winterfell.
Not that he’s forgiven, mind. Lord Stark sends him to a tent to wash and rest, but with a guard following his every step because he’s clearly an untrustworthy sort. He’s just slipped a clean tunic over his head, the first new garment he’s worn in years, when some fumbling comes from the unguarded corner of his tent and in pops a familiar face.
Jon is scandalized by her appearance even if he is fully dressed now, and hisses at Sansa that this is a terrible idea, that she doesn’t belong in his tent, that her father will be greatly displeased.
Sansa, the sweet, willful girl ignores him and tries to shush-shush her own giggles. “I stole an extra lemoncake.” She produces the slightly squashed desert from a handkerchief, and he’s touched. How couldn’t he be? He knows they’re her favorite.
But he’s still, absurdly, a little hurt that she went along with him and pretended that she liked—well, it’s ridiculous, but apparently she is good at acting.
“You don’t have to pretend anymore. You’re not my prisoner, and besides, I never was going to harm you. I don’t think I could.”
“Are you still angry about having the guards bringing you to my father? I meant it as an act of service. You should thank me. I saved your life, you ungrateful wretch.”
Damn it all. She has gotten the better of him again. His head has been screwed on wrong for days, and he can’t even blame it on the hunger anymore. She said he looked like a Northerner because he looked exactly like her father and ever so much like her sister. She meant he looked like a Stark.
He tries to smooth out the tangled mess of his mind and decides to simply take her lead, “Thank you,” he mutters, only a little stiff and grudging.
“It’s no matter, Arya says worse to me all the time.”
Arya, the girl who so closely resembles his mother. His knees give out on him then, he stumbles and drops to the makeshift bed, his head in his hands.
“What happened to ‘ungrateful wretch’?” He tries to joke.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s still in there,” she sits next to him, places a gentle hand on his back, and he can no longer hold back those tears, his final humiliation. Well, not final, he’s not heading to his death, he’s sure there will be others.
So, he didn’t try to steal a chicken, he did accidentally steal a lady, and instead of his neck getting stretched, he finds himself laughing through tears with a highborn lady who seems to have forgotten this is his tent and his cot and is nudging him to lay down, scoot over, make room for her. “Do you know what your father will do to me if he catches you in here?” His tone is mild though, his words interrupted by a yawn, and Sansa doesn’t pay him any more heed than she did the night they met. “I’ll not let any harm come to you for my sake.”
It’s a familiar and comforting sentiment now. He stretches out his arm that’s going numb, trapped between his body and Sansa’s, and she promptly wiggles until her head is resting on his chest, and his arm comfortably wrapped around her shoulders. If they are caught in here like this… but Sansa is softly patting at him, distracting him from that fear with a coy question, “By the by, whatever happened to dangerous?”