medicalling | Open Post

"I will never lift my hand in anger to you either," Sansa says, leaning in to kiss him softly. She has never felt this way about anyone or anything before and she cannot get enough of it.

"We will always be respectful. It makes me glad to know it."

"As it should be." And often wasn't. But he couldn't do anything about how others lived in their relationships, only cherish his own.

"I am sorry for asking questions about...past experiences. It is simply that I have never had a man inside me without pain and I simply wanted to have an idea of what it felt like when it wasn't that way, even if it was only a clinical description and not a personal experience."

Sansa leans in and kisses him softly.

"How will it feel for you, then, since you know that part best? How have you dreamed of it feeling with me?"

"Don't be sorry," he said, kissing her head again. "We are both new to each other, Sansa. Both learning. I want you to feel as if you can ask me things. And perhaps I should stop listening to the desire I have to protect you overmuch and answer you instead of wanting to protect you from your past. So in answer, I think it will feel- I hope it will feel good. Like my fingers. But a tad more filling than that. There's a place inside you, a little spot that's incredibly receptive to sensation. It helps with making it feel good."

He pet her hair as she spoke, grinning against it. "I tried not to think of my future mate. Some beings live thousands of years without finding them. Fate might have split souls to come together, but through folly and chance, they may never meet each other. Or, they die before they can. One half of a soul born in a place that has a high mortality rate might take overlong for there to be any time for that life to make it to where they might even stand a chance at meeting their other half. The Fates aren't always known for being kind. Just... what they are."

"I never knew a mate existed. It isn't a concept that we speak of in Westeros. I suppose that is why we have so many arranged marriages. I imagine that if mates existed for us we would have more marriages with mates," Sansa says.

"Instead, we are married according to who has the best lands to tie together, what armies must unite. Crowns shift and change based on marriages and heirs."

"It happens here and home as well. I've seen more than one marriage that has an allowance for a mate to be allowed on the side. Most of those never end well. I thought I understood it before, but I'm gleaning more keenly now. Mates are all consuming. There is no room for anyone else in their hearts, other than children. I wouldn't be able to stomach sharing you with a husband for political reasons. Nor would I want the touch of someone that isn't you. Yet, it happens to others, and now I'm more saddened for them. Mates don't fix everything unless people are willing to fight for them."

And wasn't that a sad fact.

"I wouldn't be able to bear the touch of another person," Sansa says, shivering at the thought. "I thought I would go the rest of my life untouched and unloved and it was what I wanted after everything that happened to me. I didn't want to be harmed again. I did not expect you. I did not know you were possible."

Sansa burrows up against him, needing to be held.

"I wish I had met you before...but I would not have been the proper age for you, I think, and you would have had to wait for me."

He laughed softly at that last comment, bundling her up against him and tucking the blanket in behind her. "I would have waited. I would have wanted you to have all the moments of youth you could. A few years more, a decade or two, I would have waited until you were ready. And not just the moment you turned of age. When you were ready." Considering the land she came from, he had no illusions over the fact that 'of age' varied wildly, and the day she first bled, she'd be considered old enough to wed and breed.

Not by his bloody standards.

"I was married the first time at fourteen. Actually, it was just after my fourteenth nameday. I had bled for the first time just the month before," Sansa says. "I wish it had happened later so I could have escaped marriage for a bit longer but it was very important that I marry because I was Winterfell's only heir."

Sansa presses her lips together. "By our standards, you could have married and consummated the day I bled the first time. Waiting would be a kindness. Some are lucky to be betrothed for a long while but I have never had luck. I do not think I was ready to be a wife at fourteen and I was not ready to be a wife at sixteen when I was given to Ramsay either."

He didn't want to stop her from venting, from lancing that wound in her sound from all the hurts laden upon her. He'd let her speak, let her share her secrets with him, and he'd seethe in private. Knowing that it wasn't just her, that it wasn't as if the world, her world, had conspired to torture her specifically, that plenty of girls and young women were ill used and abused where she came from. Where they lived now, it had been a constant theme. But that didn't make his rage about it lessen any. His offense at her being harmed in the first place. At not being able to just... be.

So he pet her hair, kissing the top of her head, nuzzling into her hair as he let his other hand stroke along her back. "By more than just your standards. But those standards are not in play here. Here, with me, you will always have a choice. We can be wed as man and wife in this realm if you like, or we can merely live together as mates."

"I would like to get married someday," Sansa says. "I have never had a wedding I wanted. I want to be happy in a wedding gown for once and not feel as if I am going to my own funeral. I would like to make a gown to wed you in and have our friends watch us join our lives."

It would require her to have friends, a thing that has come in short order in her life, but Sansa has confidence that once she settles into Rowan's home and learns how life works here, she will be able to meet people that she likes and can spend time with.

"I suppose I should go to sleep, though, shouldn't I? We have a big day tomorrow trying to dress me for this world so I don't stick out so much. Do you even have something I can borrow?"

"I should warn you, the nurses and doctors will be both jealous and curious of you when you meet them. They'll love you, but nurses tend to get very protective of their doctors. Between constantly trying to set me up and being the hands I need when I need them in medical situations, they're all very lovely but fierce people." And not all women. The variety in medical staff as he'd aged had become something he'd been pleased about. More women in his field. More men as aides. That kind of equality was something that he hoped Sansa would appreciate here.

"I can glamour something into something appropriate to at least let us get you something real. Tomorrow is the first day of many in the future, love. Rest. I plan on starting to spoil you tomorrow."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time a woman was jealous of me and it won't be the last. I have never lived under any assumption that I was anything but a beautiful woman," Sansa says. She states it as fact, though, and not with any arrogance or guile. It is just something she has always been and gotten praise for and she thinks it's caused her more problems than not.

"I'll sleep well beside you," she says, snuggling close to him. "I'm so tired I cannot even be bothered with a nightgown. How scandalous of me, sleeping without anything but my skin."

"No one will find out from my lips," he said. True, since he wasn't likely to talk to anyone about his intimate habits with his mate. Most that knew him knew that he wasn't the kiss and tell type. Her secret was safe with him.

Sansa sleeps well with him. She has always slept well beside Rowan in their short acquaintance but she feels especially connected now that they have been intimate even if they have not consummated their bond just yet.

When she wakes, there is weak sunlight streaming through the window and Rowan isn't in bed. Sansa imagines he's in the kitchen so she doesn't bother putting anything on before walking out to greet him.

"Rowan? Where are you?"

Rowan had purchased a waffle maker and it had come in yesterday. So this morning, after waking up hours ahead of her and spending at least one of those hours just watching her sleep, he'd opted to make waffles for her breakfast. He'd already been out to grab fresh fruit from the market, along with real maple syrup, and he'd whipped up some fresh made whipped cream after making the batter. All the things a growing girl needed to face the day with a smile.

The weather was nice, the sun cresting the horizon and painting the beach and water with smears of vivid pinks and oranges. Rue was out chasing the beach birds and he was humming away in his sleep pants and only those as he flipped a new hot disk full of pockets off the iron and onto a waiting plate. He'd been keeping tabs on her consciousness and he'd felt when she's started to lift closer to waking. He smiled as he poured another circle of batter onto the iron, closing it and lifting his gaze upward when he heard her call out and enter the room.

And then he promptly dropped the ladle. Batter spattered over his feet and the bottoms of the cupboard, but he was a little beyond giving much of a fig about that. He gazed at her as she stood naked before him, hair a little mussed from sleeping, but loose and lovely, and he felt that swelling of desire that took monumental effort to quash and not just have him leap over the counter and carry her back to bed. "Ah... morning, love. You look... aye."

"Oh, well, I didn't mean to make you drop anything," Sansa says, laughing a little at the look he's giving her. She feels a bit proud of it too, though, because it means she's stunning enough to completely distract him.

"Should I go back into the bedroom and go get dressed? I didn't think about it when I first woke up because I just wanted to find you first. I woke up without you."

"Get dressed? Now why would you do something so foolish as that? You look stunning as you are," he said, grinning widely over at her before he picked up the ladle and started to clean up the mess. "Sorry, pet. I thought you'd like something I don't think you've had where you're from for breakfast. Waffles. I've an assortment of things you can have with them, so you can pick and choose your favorites."

"No, I have never heard of such a thing," Sansa says. She takes a seat at the table but she still has a clear view of the kitchen and by extension, Rowan, and she is more than appreciative of what she sees.

"You spoil me. You've spoiled me from the moment you met me, actually."

"That is my privilege," he said, flipping the waffle and then plating up the two he'd already made. He came over with the plate and a bowl of whipped cream. He set them down in front of her, bending down and kissing her quickly on the lips before he went to grab the rest of the additives to her breakfast. "Whipped cream, fresh fruit and berries, maple syrup. I was tempted to make bacon, but it's a fool that cooks that with no shirt on."

"And I do not wish you to burn yourself," Sansa says, cutting the waffle into tiny bites before trying one. It's unlike anything she's ever had before and she closes her eyes and makes a sound of sheer pleasure.

"Gods, this is absolutely perfect," she murmurs. "I'm going to want one of these every day for the rest of my life."

"Try it with the cream. That... well. I could try that off you later." He grinned and pulled out the next waffle, setting it on another plate, then starting a fourth. "Food is an indulgence here. People eat to soothe themselves, so they've made some of it an artform. This? Simple enough that I can make here, but if we were to go to a place that specialized in them, these would pale in comparison."

"Is that something people do?" Sansa asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow. She puts the cream on the waffle, though, and when she tries it she is not disappointed. The combination of everything makes this more of a confection than a breakfast.

"I want to learn to cook," she admits. "Will you teach me how your oven works? I cannot get my head around it because there is no fire."

"I'm not the best chef myself. I can feed myself and make something decent, but I wouldn't consider myself good at it. That said, there are plenty of places that teach cooking to anyone who wishes to know, and if you like, I can sign either us or yourself up for classes." It pleased him that she was eating his food and enjoying it, a simple thing that he did but supplying for his mate was so... satisfying.

"I would like to learn," Sansa says. "I want to know how to be a good mate and a good wife and it looks different here than it would back in Westeros. You do not need me to be a fine lady in your castle nor do you need me to wear a crown and dispense justice. You need me to do other things."

Sansa gives him a smile, a bright one. "So I have a chance to become someone new. I wish to do that."

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