#got femslash

Ygritte knows many things. Useful things. Things that keep you alive. Things that keep you dead. Things worth knowing.

Ygritte knows how to swim and how to control the muscles that make you breathe. How to keep them from seizing up and killing you when the ice shatters under your feet and you fall into the cold water underneath.

But Daenerys makes her feel out of her depth.

Like she’s three again and being thrown into the river so she’ll either sink or learn to swim.

“You think very loudly, Ygritte.”

Ygritte rolls onto her side to look at the naked woman next to her. A princess and a queen and a khaleesi and a mother of dragons and whatever else Missandei keeps repeating whenever she introduces her to someone new. A woman, at the end of the day. Just like Ygritte, who doesn’t even have a family name.

Southerners are like magpies, if you ask her. Collecting useless things like strings of titles just because they shine pretty when the sun hits them just right.

“What am I thinking about, then? Since you can hear.”

“Me.”

Ygritte puts on her best imitation of what she assumes southern ladies sound like. “Aye, Daenerys Targaralaleeday,” she knows it's Targaryen, but she prefers to watch an indignant little crinkle appear between Daenerys’s eyebrows instead, “mother of dragons, breaker of chains, reader of minds.”

“Tamer of wildlings,” Daenerys adds, one fingertip tracing the bruise she sucked onto the pale skin between Ygritte’s breasts just a few hours ago.

“You’ve tamed nothing, southern girl.”

“I’m not a girl.” There’s nothing cute about the frown on her face now. She’s angry, not just annoyed. Ygritte has known the signs of a storm in the horizon since before she could talk, and they’re all right there in Daenerys’ eyes. “I’m a Khaleesi.”

Ygritte lets out a quiet chuckle. She’s never been afraid of storms.

“I don’t care.” In one swift movement Ygritte is on top of Daenerys, strong lean thighs straddling round hips and calloused hands planted on the bed on either side of Daenerys’s head.

“All those titles of yours,” she leans forward and kisses Daenerys, and there’s no holding back the smirk on her face when she hears Daenerys’s quiet sound of protest as she pulls away, “all those names. They mean nothing here.”

“I’m still your queen.” Daenerys tries to sound serious, but Ygritte can see how much she wants to kiss her written all over her face.

“I’ve got no queen.”

Daenerys holds her gaze for a moment, and Ygritte wonders what she’s thinking. Is she thinking about punishing Ygritte? About having her men make her kneel for their queen? About how many of them Ygritte would probably kill (or maim, at the very least) before they succeeded?

“But you’re still on my side.” It’s not a question, but Ygritte feels like Daenerys meant it as one.

“On your side of what?”

Daenerys looks surprised by the question. Like it should be obvious. But Ygritte has nothing to do with whatever lords and ladies get up to south of the Wall, and she’s not interested in changing that.

“Nothing.” Daenerys finally answers, after a few moments of thought. “Everything.”

Ygritte’s never had the patience for riddles.

“You’ve got to learn some real words, you know. With some weight to them.” Ygritte knows ladies down south aren’t supposed to do much. She wonders if they teach them to keep even their words light so they won’t bother the men.

“What do you mean?” Daenerys sounds genuinely curious. Ygritte’s seen that look in her eyes before, when she’s taught her how to tell where the North is, how to follow the stars or how to track your next meal. She knows Daenerys knows all kinds of things Ygritte can’t even imagine, but when it comes to useful things – things that matter – she knows nothing at all.

“I mean,” Ygritte says, moving one hand from its place on the bed to wrap around Daenerys’s wrist, “you say on your side of everything and that means nothing, don’t it? No such thing as everything. I can’t promise you everything any more than I can promise you the moon.”

“But you could,” Daenerys argues, but she doesn’t fight Ygritte when she pins a slender wrist to the bed above Daenerys’s head, “you could say it.”

Ygritte shifts on top of Daenerys, puts more of her weight on the hand she has around Daenerys’s left wrist to free the other so it can do the same to the her right one.

“Is that what the southern lords do to you ladies? Lie?”

“It’s not lying. It’s…” Daenerys thinks for a moment, and Ygritte takes the chance to admire just how pretty she looks, naked and soft and letting Ygritte have her way with her instead of playing the part of a khaleesi or a queen. “It’s like a wish. You know it’s impossible, of course. But if it were possible, you’d do it.”

Ygritte lets out a huff of laughter. “No weight to it, none of that. Seen empty water skins with more substance to them than all those empty words.”

Daenerys looks almost offended, and Ygritte wonders if maybe she grew up dreaming of a fair prince who’d make weightless promises to her while bending his knee.

“Go on, then,” Daenerys says, and that defiant, queenly tone of hers comes through in every word, “show me those words with weight to them.”

Ygritte smirks, unable to hide the fact that she’s been waiting for a chance to do just that, and starts by pressing a kiss to Daenerys’s lips. Just because there’s a weight to that, too.

“I promise,” she starts, knee nudging Daenerys’s soft thighs apart, “I’ll keep you well kissed. And well fucked."

Ygritte sees the first hint of an eye roll on Daenerys's face, but she shifts her weight and presses her thigh against Daenerys's cunt, and the blonde's eyes flutter closed instead.

"I promise I'd kill for you. And I'd die for you."

"I should--" Daenerys arches her back, rocking against Ygritte's muscular thigh, "I should knight you. Make you captain of my queensguard."

Ygritte kisses the pulse at the base of Daenerys's throat, licks a path up the side of her neck, catches her earlobe between her teeth and grins when she feels her struggle against the hold of Ygritte's hands around her wrists.

"I don't give a fuck about the queen," she whispers, low and hot against Daenerys's ear, "but I'd fight an army for you."

Danerys shudders against her and rocks harder, faster against her thigh. She's soft and slick and if Ygritte didn't have her hands otherwise occupied, she'd have at least two fingers inside her by now.

"What else?" Daenerys breathes it out, pale skin flushed pink and pebbled nipples dragging against Ygritte's skin every time she moves. "What else would you do for me?"

Ygritte lets out a quiet, husky chuckle against her neck. "I'd fight dragons for you, southern girl."

Daenerys is too far gone – too close to the edge – to argue Ygritte's wording, but she does manage to choke out a quiet, "impossible" between moans.

"Aye. Impossible to fight them and win," Ygritte shifts just enough to change the angle of her thigh against Daenerys's cunt, and the blonde arches her back and rides it even faster, "but I'd die trying."

Ygritte doesn't know if it's the words or the new angle that does it, but Daenerys comes with Ygritte's name on her tongue, shuddering against Ygritte's drenched thigh and then falling limply back on the mattress like a well-loved rag doll.

She always seems to need a few moments to herself after she comes, and Ygritte lets her have them, lying next to her and waiting for the shorter woman to come to her when she's ready.

It doesn't take long at all.

"Ygritte," Daenerys says, rolling onto her side and lazily draping an arm and leg over the other woman, "if I asked you to kneel instead of killing or dying for me. Would you?"

Ygritte lets the question sit in her head for a while. "Kneel for you?"

Daenerys nods against Ygritte's chest. "For your queen."

Ygritte smiles and presses a kiss to platinum hair. Daenerys knows next to nothing about things that matter. "I've got no queen," she reminds her, voice soft but firm.

Daenerys sighs, but she doesn't protest.

***

  Ygritte doesn't think she'll ever get tired of watching Daenerys's dragons.

She watches them take off and fly around. Watches them land, heavy and graceful, and feels the thud of their massive bodies hitting the floor right inside her ribcage. Like when someone plays a drum right next to you.

Sometimes, she watches them hunt. She doesn't like that as much, just because there's no beast in the land who can put up a fair fight against them so it almost feels cheap. Like they haven't quite earned their meal.

And sometimes, like right now, she just watches them and lets them watch her.

Daenerys is a protective mother. Too protective, Ygritte thinks. So she'd never tell her she has a favorite dragon, because she's sure Daenerys would take offense on behalf of the other two. Especially because Ygritte's favorite is not the one Daenerys loves the most.

He's white – a warm white, like milk, not cold like snow – and gold. Mostly gold. He looks like he was forged instead of grown in an egg.

Ygritte crouches down, relaxes her stance, and watches Viserion come closer. He reminds her of a cat, somehow. When she tilts her head to the right, he does the same, nostrils flaring as his breath comes out in clouds of steam.

"I've got something for you," she says, triple checking that his brothers are distracted before reaching into her bag and pulling out one of the fish she caught earlier. Dragons can fish, she figures, but they don't know how to make holes in the ice to reach the water below. Maybe she'll teach them some time. Their mother sure won't.

Ygritte throws the fish up in the air and watches Viserion catch it between his teeth. He could've swallowed it whole, but he chews a couple times first, and she takes it as a compliment on her fishing skills.

"I'll teach you how to get more some time. Before you leave."

"You could come with us." Daenerys's voice doesn't quite startle her, but it comes as a surprise. "I'm sure he'd let you ride him South."

"Would you?" Ygritte is still looking at Viserion, and when she offers his hand he bumps it with his enormous snout. Like a massive, fire-breathing cat. "But I'd never ask. You're no horse."

She respects him too much to treat him like a horse or an ass or an ox.

"You could still come," Daenerys says once Ygritte stands up and turns around to face her, "we could both ride horses if that's what you'd prefer."

Ygritte shakes her head with a smile and walks towards the hut they've been calling a home for the last few weeks. At first Daenerys tried to pitch her silky, queenly tent, but facing one Northern night in it was enough to make her see the error of her ways.

"And what would I do in the South, Dany?" Ygritte much prefers the shorter name. Less of a mouthful. "Play the fiddle and sew?"

Dany lets out a quiet chuckle. "Ladies don't play the fiddle, if that's what you were going for."

"This lady would. If she were a lady."

"So you would. I'd have a fiddle made for you the minute we arrived."

Ygritte finishes feeding the fire, frees herself from her bow and quiver and her bag full of freshly caught fish, and even sheds the outer layer of furs she's wearing. Their hut is warm enough.

"I can't play the fiddle. You'd be wasting good wood."

Dany rolls her eyes. When Ygritte finally sits down and settles in near the fire, she immediately claims her place on the wildling's lap, thighs straddling Ygritte's legs. "I'd hire the best fiddle player to teach you." She kisses Ygritte's chapped lips. "If playing the fiddle is what you want, then I'll see to it that it happens."

"I don't want to play the fiddle." Dany's lips are soft and warm, like the rest of her. She's always warm.

"What is it that you want, then? Come with me and I'll give you anything you ask for." Dany kisses her again, and then a third time. "I'll give you fields full of game for you to hunt. I'll give you--" another kiss, deeper this time, just enough to make Ygritte let out a sound of protest when it ends, "whatever you want."

They've had this conversation before, but this time Ygritte wants to make sure Dany hears her. That she listens. So she hooks one finger under Dany's chin and tilts her face up until she's looking into Ygritte's eyes.

"Whatever I want is this."

This. The North and Dany and a hut that's always a little warmer than it should be because Dany is in it. Three dragons. Fresh fish for dinner. Freedom. And Dany.

She knows Dany's listening this time because her eyes glisten with unshed tears.

"Don't you love me?"

"Aye, I love you. I love you." Ygritte kisses her for good measure and lets Dany press herself even closer against her. "Not some khaleesi. Not the queen you'll be down South."

"That queen and I are one and the same. I am her, and she is me."

Ygritte sighs. "No."

She kisses Dany before she can protest. Before she can go on about birth rights and blood and gods know what else. She kisses Dany until she's quiet. Until she's soft and pliant against her. Until she wraps her legs around Ygritte's waist so she can carry her to bed. She kisses her as she lowers her onto the bed, and then she kisses her some more, calloused fingers making quick work of untying Dany's leather trousers and pushing them down her legs.

Ygritte doesn't want to waste time with the furs above Dany's waist, but when she pulls away from Dany's lips she sees the blonde herself has done the work for her, vest and shirt pulled open to give Ygritte full access to Dany's breasts.

"You're always so warm," Ygritte muses out loud, already making her way down Dany's body to kiss the swell of her right breast and flick her tongue against a pretty pink nipple.

"Fire and blood," Dany sighs, fingers tangling in unruly red hair, "but you're the one who's been kissed by fire."

Ygritte smiles against soft skin, sucks Dany's right nipple into her mouth and pinches the left between her fingers. When Dany's back arches off the bed, Ygritte lets the nipple in her mouth go and starts kissing a path down to Dany's bellybutton, and then to the soft curls between her legs.

"You're always so wet." Ygritte breathes in the scent of her, voice reverent like she guesses other people might sound when they bend the knee for their queen. But she's got no queen.

"Not always," Dany corrects softly, thighs spreading for Ygritte, "only for you."

Ygritte closes her eyes for a moment, lets the words sink into her chest like a glass of hot mead in a cold winter night. She kisses the inside of Dany's thigh, lets her lips linger there for a moment, hopes Dany understands how this is much more important than anything South of the Wall.

Once the moment passes – once Ygritte feels like she's breathing right once again – she turns her head and noses at soft silver-white hair, kisses Dany's swollen clit, and lets out a quiet moan at the first taste of her.

Ygritte knows many things worth knowing, but one of the most important things she knows is just how Dany likes to be fucked. And Ygritte knows that very well.

Soft at first, kisses and gentle licks and the pads of Ygritte's thumbs holding her folds open so she can worship every inch of her with her mouth. She waits until Dany's hips rock up against her mouth to suck on her clit and slide one finger deep inside her, and when Dany pulls on her hair Ygritte knows gentle is no longer what she needs.

She nips at sensitive skin, fucks Dany with two fingers and then three, feels Dany's thighs clamp around her head when she matches the thrusts of her fingers with her tongue against Dany's clit.

And then everything stills. Dany's whole body tenses, her cunt squeezes tightly around Ygritte's fingers, and she finally comes with a cry that sounds a lot like she's trying to say Ygritte's name.

She knows not to stop right away. She knows to be gentle, to help her ride out the waves of pleasure crashing over her until Dany softly pushes her away and Ygritte knows any more would be too much.

Ygritte crawls back up Dany's limp, sated body and kisses her deep and slow, letting her southern girl taste herself on Ygritte's tongue.

"Do you like the way you taste?"

Dany nods against Ygritte's lips, too spent to speak.

"That's not the taste of a queen," Ygritte says, and she sees a flash of something nearly dangerous in Dany's eyes, "that's the taste of a woman."

She kisses Dany again before she can argue.

"And a well fucked woman at that."

***

Ygritte doesn't help Dany pack up her things. She doesn't watch, either. She just lets it happen. She's a free woman. Dany isn't, but Ygritte won't add more chains to the ones she's been carrying around from birth.

Viserion lands right next to her, snout sparkling with frozen droplets of water. He's been fishing. Something aches in Ygritte's chest, like an arrowhead someone forgot to pull out.

"I've got to go." Dany's voice isn't as firm as she probably wanted it to be.

"You want to go," Ygritte corrects.

For a split second, Dany looks like she might cry. And then she looks like she might have Viserion burn Ygritte right where she stands.

"I am a queen. I'm their queen." Dany gestures towards the East, but Ygritte knows she meant to point South. Dany knows so few useful things. "They need me there."

Nobody needs a queen. That's what Ygritte wants to say. Nobody needs someone to kneel for. Someone to own them. Nobody.

"Well, I don't need you here--"

"I know."

"But I want you here."

Dany stares at her for a moment. The fire is gone from her eyes, and Ygritte would feel bad if she didn't know that's how you learn. You're thrown in ice water so you'll learn to float and save yourself. Nobody learns from people making things easy for them.

"Ygritte--"

"Run away with me."

Ygritte thinks the look Dany gives her is as close as a queen can get to pleading.

"Fuck being their queen," Ygritte continues, unwilling to bend to rules that mean nothing in the North, "stay and be my woman instead."

Dany frowns. She presses her lips together and sets her jaw, and then she talks about honor and duty and many other things that mean nothing to Ygritte. She's come to hate weightless, empty words.

"They don't care," Ygritte says, and she's not sure if Dany stops talking from the shock of being interrupted while talking about queenly shite, or because Ygritte raised her voice.

"They don't care," she says again, softer this time, hoping Dany will hear. "They don't care whose ass sits on the throne. Whose head's under the crown. They'll have them kneel for whoever wears it. If not you, then someone else. A Stark or a Mormont or whoever they can find. It doesn't matter. The head under the crown doesn't matter."

Dany looks like she's just been thrown in a river full of ice-cold water for the first time in her life. And Ygritte decides to help her remember how to breathe.

"The head between my thighs, though. That matters. If not you, then—well."

Dany shakes her head like she's silently begging her not to say it—silently begging her to let this be easy for her.

"Then no one else."

***

Daenerys doesn't stay North of the Wall.

And neither does Ygritte.

She rides Viserion exactly once, only because the alternative would have been a ship and she trusts the air more than the sea. Once he lands, heavy but graceful, she thanks him but decides her feet belong on firm ground.

The first thing Ygritte notices about Braavos is the warmth. She's only ever known winter, and she's never taken in a breath that didn't feel like ice in her lungs. She's never been outside and not seen her breath come out like puffs of smoke. She's never felt her skin warm up in the sun.

One of the first lessons she learns in Braavos is just how quickly the sun can burn her skin when it's not protected by furs.

She soon discovers she's the one who knows next to nothing in the Free City. She doesn't speak Braavosi or High Valyrian or any of the other tongues she hears around the city. She doesn't know how to haggle – she barely understands money – or how to navigate the maze of streets that all look the same to someone who's used to looking at trees instead.

But Ygritte's always been sharp. You don't survive up North if you're not quick on your feet, and she knows she'll learn sooner rather than later.

They live in a big house made of stone. Not made of rocks – made of stone, blocks of stone cut by a mason and built to last. It's got a red door in the front and a courtyard with a lemon tree at the back, and Ygritte doesn't think Dany will ever understand just how much of a luxury that is. Having their own lemon tree.

Braavos is loud and crowded and Ygritte doesn't quite belong, but Dany does. Not Daenerys Targaryen. Not a queen or a khaleesi. Dany. And Ygritte figures she'll end up belonging, too.

"The fish merchant said war's still raging in Westeros," Dany says one day as she walks out onto the courtyard.

Ygritte doesn't stop inspecting the small flowers that will become lemons with time. "So let it rage."

"Hundreds-- thousands of men will--"

"So let them die." Ygritte speaks slowly, purposefully, and finally looks at Dany. She knows she'll never stop feeling like she abandoned her people, no matter how many times Ygritte tells her the people of Westeros didn't even know she was alive. Ygritte was raised to survive, and she figures Dany was raised to serve.

To rule, Dany would say if Ygritte asked her. But Ygritte knows better.

Ygritte sees the struggle in Dany's eyes. She's fire and blood and that means something to her. So Ygritte walks closer, reaches for one of her hands, gives her something solid to anchor herself to. Something with a weight to it.

Dany lets out a sigh.

"Valar morghulis."

Ygritte nods, the pad of her thumb brushing Dany's soft knuckles. "Aye. But first, we live."

Dany kisses her like she's sealing a promise, soft but relentless, and when she's done Ygritte feels her lips tingle like she's put fresh lemon on them.

Still holding on to Dany's hand, she sinks down to her knees in front of her and wraps her fingers around the hem of Dany's dress to start pulling it up her legs.

"You finally bent the knee, my love."

Ygritte smiles against the soft skin of Dany's thigh and presses an open-mouthed kiss to it.