Thread: let no man steal your thyme || for xlilxmissx

Come all ye fair and tender girls Who flourish in your prime Beware, beware keep your garden fair Let no man steal your thyme Let no man steal your thyme Icy blue eyes opened slowly. Shireen was singing. Stannis had never heard her sing. The quiet girl that was his daughter sat before the hearth on a worn rug looking down at the charred, glowing logs burning with bright flames. Her thin hair fell around her face and shoulders like straw, bare feet sticking out from underneath the gray wool dress. Her tiny hands held a small book between them. The pages were frayed and the spine nearly broken. Stannis recognized it nonetheless. Where did you get that? His normally hard edged voice was quieter, almost gentle when he spoke to the girl. She paused, her tiny head rising before she turned it to look up at him. Stannis sat on the far wall in an old chair, nearly a mans height between them. Shireens large, doe like eyes shimmered in the firelight. In Mothers room. Stannis huffed softly. Selyse had been dead for nearly three months now. She was ill. Stannis never concerned himself much with her care once they arrived at Castle Black and it was true that he had not asked what ailed her. Melisandre swore to cure her. He left it at that. But the woman who bore his daughter died shortly after settling in. Sickness of the blood, someone muttered but he didnt know if it was true. Melisandre tried to twist the death She tried to bend it and shape it. Stannis did not care. He had not loved Selyse for years. As callous as it sounded, what did he care how the priestess interpreted her death? Yet it did not stop there. She spoke feverently of a sign for a sacrifice and kings blood she spoke of Shireen. It was a step too far. The Red Woman burned with all that existed of her god. The flames were struck from his banner. The idols were destroyed. The farce was over. Stannis Baratheon had sworn long ago to never put any stock in the gods, new or old or enveloped in flames. Had he ever truly thought that was the Warrior of Light? When he looked in Melisandres flames Anything was possible. But those flames showed less and less, and letting that woman guide him was like walking uphill through knee deep snow. One step forward only led to two steps back. Now he walked a much simpler path. Your mother took that book with her everywhere. Shireen needed to hear things like that. She needed to know. Keep it safe. His daughter nodded slowly and then turned her attention back to the small book. Stannis felt the corners of his mouth twitch. An almost comfortable quiet settled over father and daughter while the fire crackled and spit embers. It would not last for long, however, for a matter pressed the king into speaking once more. Shireen Do you like Sansa Stark? The girl nodded her head in agreement, not looking up from the book whose pages she turned gingerly with her thin fingers. Stannis shifted in his seat and leaned forward, elbows perched on his knees. I mean Do you get along well? Shes nice. She says hello whenever we see each other. Stannis jaw tensed. He barely knew how to tell the Stark girl and now here he was trying to say it to his daughter. How How would you feel about her staying with us? Isnt she staying with us already? I meant permanently. That caught Shireens attention and she glanced back up through her stringy hair at the man she called father. But doesnt she want to go back home? The Starks come from Winterfell. Were going to Kings Landing. Kings Landing would be her home. Shireen tilted her head slightly and her hair moved, exposing a piece of the grayscale that marred her face. Why? Stannis inhaled sharply through his nostrils and sat up straighter. She would be my wife. Her home would be my home. He saw his daughters eyes widen slightly but otherwise there was no visible indication that the older man could use to discern whether or not she found the news favorable. Then slowly, she hung her head, setting the book aside. Its because Im not a boy, isnt it? You need a son. The king wet his lips quickly. You will always be my daughter But yes. I need an heir. Shireen said nothing more and Stannis could not find the words to say what he wanted, so after several long moments of discomfort, he rose from the chair and walked over to the door. In the threshold he paused and regarded his daughter once more but she still refused to look at him. After a second of hesitation, he tapped the doorway with his fingertips, whispered a soft, Goodbye, and then left. It was mid day at Castle Black and the Nights Watch was bustling around the keep. They paid Stannis little attention as he walked the ramparts. His men were scattered amongst them though most slept in tents just outside. His commanders stayed in the keep They were the same commanders that brought the reality of Stannis situation back to him after Melisandre was dealt with. Stannis was a king without a son and without a wife to give him one. Shireen was she could never be Queen of Westeros. He lacked soldiers and the few he had left were battle weary and on the brink of desertion. A solution was needed and quick. His late wifes brother suggested that Stannis legitimize the bastard Jon Snow. As Jon Stark, he would be the perfect instrument to win the allegiance of the Northmen who had fought under Robb Stark and now were being brutally oppressed by Roose Bolton and whatever inbreed child king that crawled from Cerseis womb she chose to put on the Iron Throne. But Jon refused. Hed taken vows, he said. Admiral as it was, Stannis still thought that the boy had made a serious mistake but there was nothing more he could say to change his mind. That was when the she-wolf arrived. Sansa Stark rode right up to the gates of Castle Black, looking for her half brother. Jon was all too eager to cover her in the blanket safety of the Nights Watch but he was reminded that the brothers in black took no side. Sansa could not stay there. Instead, Jon approached Stannis. With all their brothers dead and Jon refusing to be legitimized, she was the rightful heir to Winterfell. She could rally the North and give Stannis her bannermen. Tentatively, Stannis agreed to take her into his court but had yet to name Sansa as Lady of Winterfell, instead delegating to her the task of endless needlework and prayer as a lady without titles or lands waiting for his decision. It was Davos Seaworth who suggested taking her as his wife. As optimistic as it was to believe that the North would rally to her if she was put in the seat of Winterfell, what the North really needed was a lord to govern and rule with a firm and steady hand. Sansa was still a girl But a girl with plenty of childbearing years left in her. If Stannis would wed and bed her, she could produce the son the king needed. And he would be the one to call the Northern banner houses to arms in her name and the name of her father, Eddard Stark, and her brother, Robb Stark. The idea of taking such a young girl as a wife, however Stannis was no fool. He knew he was not the Knight of Flowers. He was a man over twenty years her senior, a widower with a daughter near her age. Why would she want to marry him? Ser Polbrook made the crass suggestion that he give her no choice in the matter. That made Stannis stomach turn. Resorting to such tactics were unpleasant. But perhaps necessary. Stannis could not definitively say he could not do it. Yet. So he mulled over the choices before him for two days. This was the third day. This was the day he was supposed to make a decision, or so he told himself. Stannis sent word that morning that he wanted Sansa to meet him in the Lord Commanders quarters after the midday meal. If he was going to ask for her hand, he would do it properly and do it in front of her family, at least the one person she had left. Dressed in drab black with his sword belted around his waist, Stannis Baratheon, flanked by two of his Kingsguard, approached the large oak door with a scowl on his face. His jaw was set as he was announced and stepped through into the room after the door was opened by none other than Jon Snow. At first glance he did not see Sansa anywhere inside He must have arrived first. Stannis watched Jon close the door and walk back to his desk, though he did not sit. Rather, he absently spread papers about on his desk, making Stannis all too painfully aware that Jon was uncertain about what his sister would say when Stannis asked his question And that was enough to put a seed of doubt in Stannis stomach. It did not have time to fester, however. There was a knock on the door.