Alysanne, Lady of Winterfell
is a A Song of Ice and Fire Alternate Universe Fic by AutumnLeaves.
In 60 AC, Jaehaerys Targaryen catches the Shivers from his daughter and dies as well, leading to the collapse of Exceptionalism. A year later, Alysanne is urged to marry someone not related to her, and for her new husband, she chooses Alaric Stark.
There is also a prequel, Jonquil sans Florian, focusing on the backstory of Jonquil Darke before her appointment as Alysanne's sworn shield.
The fanfic contains examples of:
- Acting for Two: In-Universe, in the Sunflowers' staging of The Royal Penance, several mummers each have multiple parts to play.
- Age-Gap Romance: When they get married, Alaric is forty-five to Alysanne's twenty-five.
- Aloof Big Brother: Roderick and Edwyn Stark love their little sister and she them, but, since they are ten and seven years her senior respectively, they aren't too close.
- Altar Diplomacy:
- Alysanne's reason for marrying Alaric is to bind the North closer to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms.
- Now that incestuous marriage is forbidden, Aemon's potential bride is Milane Hightower, who comes from one of the wealthiest and most respected bloodlines of Westeros.
- Theomore Manderly discusses the possible betrothal between his daughter Jessamyn and Desmond Darklyn, feeling that more ties with the south will be useful now that Alaric has married Alysanne.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Jonquil Darke recalls smiling widely for the first time in several weeks when she hears about Maegor's death.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: The Royal Penance, at least in the Sunflowers' version, wraps up with the prince getting crowned by the High Septon to "thunderous triumphant music".
- Awful Wedded Life: Tommen and Fenella Lannister can't even remain in the same room without starting a quarrel.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: In The Royal Penance, the heroine and her children looking hale and healthy after the punishments they endure is a sign of the goodness of their hearts.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Lady Elodie Caron is plump and pretty, and Mandon Chelsted thinks he might have considered her as a possible bride, had he not been seeking a much more advantageous match in Alarra Stark.
- Boring Religious Service: Alaric doesn't keep the Faith of the Seven but has to attend the sept on feast days as Alysanne's consort, so he finds himself wearied by the long service on Warrior's Day.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gruff and cynical Alaric and sanguine, charming Alysanne get married.
- Casting Couch: Hugh is revealed to be a particularly nasty subversion, making all the girls who want a place in his troupe sleep with him and keeping them hopeful for as long as possible, only to reveal that the actual casting is based purely on real acting talent. At least one girl has been Driven to Suicide as a result.
- Competing with a Corpse:
- Alaric swings between Green-Eyed Monster anger at Jaehaerys, who died a year before Alaric's wedding to Alysanne, and the resigned feeling of never being able to measure up to him. Meanwhile, Alysanne feels guilty at marrying another man at all after Jaehaerys's death, and even more guilty as she gradually becomes fonder of Alaric.
- At one point, Alaric remembers his deceased wife Jonelle and ponders whether it's so wrong of him to love another woman so deeply after her death. However, even at this moment, he is somewhat less conflicted than Alysanne is concerning Jaehaerys, because he has had much more time to deal with the loss before he even developed any feelings for Alysanne.
- Confession Triggers Consummation: After Alysanne confesses her love for Alaric, the two of them quickly dart off to the bedroom. Cue Sexy Discretion Shot.
- Conspicuous Consumption: Alaric is extremely annoyed by what he deems useless waste of money for no reason other than that money is available (such as feasts, or tourneys, or pretty much everything that he encounters in the Reach).
- Cool Big Sis: Alysanne recalls that Rhaena used to be "the very best big sister" before her life went downhill.
- Critical Staffing Shortage: After the Shivers, the numbers of the City Watch have dwindled dramatically.
- Crosscast Role: The Ladies Fair are a theatre troupe where the men only put up the sets and act as guards, while all the parts are played by women.
- Cry into Chest: During their stay in Oldtown, Alaric sees that Alysanne can't keep her Stepford Smiler mask for much longer and offers to hold her while she cries, resulting in this trope. She didn't ask about it herself because she thought Alaric wouldn't like to see her grieve for Jaehaerys.
- Culture Clash: Basically inevitable in a marriage like Alaric and Alysanne's.
- Alaric is used to the more austere culture of the North, and it's very difficult for him to get accustomed to the opulence of King's Landing and even more so to that of the Reach.
- Alysanne suggests drying the marshes of the Neck to create more arable fields, and Alaric has a hard time explaining to her that the marshes aren't just a good defense against enemies but an integral part of the crannogmen's culture.
- Dead Guy Junior: Alysanne offers to name her and Alaric's son Walton, to honor Alaric's deceased beloved brother, but Alaric refuses, since he doesn't want his kids to feel like a Replacement Goldfish. For the same reason, he explains, he never gave any of his sons the name of Brandon.
- Death by Adaptation: Jaehaerys Targaryen dies forty-three years earlier than in canon, catching the Shivers.
- Death of the Hypotenuse: For three years, Alaric secretly wished Jaehaerys could die so that he could marry Alysanne. Now that it has occurred exactly the way he imagined, he actually feels guilty and wonders if he had somehow made it happen.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: The Medieval European Fantasy version thereof. Aemon hates a family painting of Jaehaerys, Alysanne and himself, because it depicts him as a baby and he thinks he looks stupid.
- "Eureka!" Moment: While Alysanne is watching a very boring allegorical play, it dawns on her she can defend Aemon's right to the crown by putting the arguments in favor of it into a theatrical piece.
- Faint in Shock: The queen in the Sunflowers' version of The Royal Penance faints after learning that her children are to join the begging brothers.
- Gender Is No Object:
- Prayers to the Warrior used to only mention men (e.g. there was a prayer for "every man who wields a sword and stands against a foeman's blade"), but after Lady Rosamund Ball was killed defending Alysanne from the assassination attempt at Jonquil's Pool, the High Septon and the Most Devout decided she died a warrior's death and would be given a warrior's funeral, so they amended the appointed prayers to, for example, "everyone who wields a sword and stands against a foeman's blade".
- Some septs don't even allow women inside on Warrior's Day, but at the Red Keep, not only there is no such rule, but the ladies-in-waiting on Warrior's Day are headed by Action Girl Jonquil Darke and the battle survivors' prayer of thanks is led by Septa Lyra, a survivor of the Jonquil's Pool attack.
- Even though Alaric, to put it mildly, isn't always in agreement with Florence Fossoway's ideas, he thinks it ridiculous that her husband is nominally master of coin while it's an Open Secret that she's doing all the real work – especially since everybody is okay with Alysanne as the regent or Lady Turnberry as mistress of whisperers.
- Grief-Induced Split: Tommen and Fenella Lannister's relationship collapsed after they lost three children to the Shivers.
- Harmful to Minors: Played with. Alysanne tries to tell Alarra an abridged version of the doctrine of Exceptionalism, its collapse and the ensuing problems, only for Alarra to awkwardly tell her that she is thirteen, not three, and already knows most of it.
- Heavenly Blue: In tandem with True Blue Femininity, the Maiden's dress in the Sunflowers' The Royal Penance staging is periwinkle blue.
- Heel–Face Turn: In The Royal Penance, the High Septon repents having mistreated the queen and her children and starts supporting her son's right to inherit.
- Heir Club for Men: The most common and expected situation in the Seven Kingdoms. A notable exception is Bear Island which not only has absolute primogeniture but allows children of unmarried ladies to take the family name and inherit.
- Holding Hands: In public, that's how Alaric and Alysanne usualy show each other affection and support. The most intimate gesture they can allow themselves, when that support is really needed, is Intertwined Fingers.
- I Shall Taunt You: While discussing financial matters with Florence Tyrell, Alaric deliberately provokes her with offering to spend implausibly little to keep the spendings' increase in check (the amount agreed upon in this case is reasonable rather than astronomical). When he tells Alysanne about it, she laughingly informs him that Florence uses the exact same method against him, suggesting sky-high spendings on purpose.
- In Spite of a Nail: Lord Rogar's War still ends with the crown's victory, albeit it's achieved less easily without a dragonrider. In addition, Rogar is still prevented from killing Borys, but thanks to Mandon's scheming rather than Jaehaerys not wishing Rogar to become a kinslayer.
- Incestuous Casting: In-Universe. In the Sunflowers' staging of The Royal Penance, where the actress playing the queen is the adoptive Honorary Aunt to the actor playing the king.
- Lesser of Two Evils: A lighthearted version of the trope. Alaric is very irritated by the Conspicuous Consumption he observes at the royal court... until he visits the Reach, after which he decides King's Landing isn't so bad.
- Lower-Deck Episode: Robert Redwyne's Sympathetic P.O.V. deconstructs Alaric and Alysanne's main character traits. Alaric demands the best results from the City Watch for a ridiculously low pay, which only leads to many of Robert's men outright skipping work. Meanwhile, the tourneys and feasts Alysanne organizes one after another mean the Watch is constantly overloaded with work, down to cleaning up the streets after every celebration. Then, however, it all gets promptly reconstructed as Alaric and Alysanne summon Robert to tell him they are now dealing with the Watch's problems and have started by raising the salary.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: At the start of the fanfic, Roderick Stark has five sons and his brother Edwyn three.
- Meaningful Name: While Alaric and Alysanne are picking a name for their first child (as in, the first one they have with each other), Alaric tells his wife that in the Old Tongue, creg meant "firm, steadfast, invincible" (hence the names like Cregan or Cregard) and ly (preserved in many names like Lyanna and Lyarra) probably meant "life".
- Mock Millionaire: Florence Tyrell figures out that the Citadel is actually struggling to stay afloat, with the far more numerous students it has to deal with after the Conquest and the unification of the Kingdoms, and after Maegor's tyranny and the Shivers took their toll on Oldtown's wealth.
- Multinational Team: The Sunflowers are a theatre troupe with half of the performers from Dorne (including at least one orphan of the Greenblood), a Westeros-raised Lyseni, and a Braavosi, led by a woman from the Shield Islands.
- Mythology Gag:
- High Septon Lemmar mentions that had nobody but Daenerys died in the royal family, the Doctrine of Exceptionalism could have survived that blow — which is the way the situation unfolded in canon.
- When he and Alysanne argue about letting dragon hatchlings near their future children, Alaric wonders if he would have let his children keep direwolf pups.
- Lady Florence says that, to cope with its financial problems, the Citadel will have to employ senile archmaesters, which is exactly what we observe in A Feast for Crows.
- Nap-Inducing Speak: After surviving through an allegorical play the Hightowers stage in his and Alysanne's honor, Alaric thinks that its author's creations are only useful for putting people to sleep.
- Narm Charm: In-Universe. Alaric muses that even the silliest plays can be entertaining if the actors put their heart into them, and recalls a show he watched with his first wife, which was basically one endless fight scene but became funny and heartwarming thanks to the mummers' efforts.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: In-Universe, the characters of The Royal Penance are heavily based on Alysanne, Jaehaerys, their children, and Septon Barth.
- Non-Singing Voice: In-Universe. Among the Sunflowers, only two men, Caleotte and Tylar, have good singing voices. Caleotte is Mr. Fanservice and is therefore frequently onstage, so pudgy, balding Tylar is the one who stays hidden and provides the singing voice for the rest of the male actors.
- Obliviously Evil: The chosen line of defense of Aemon's legitimacy is ultimately that his parents genuinely believed incest wasn't a sin and had had their union approved by the Faith. Therefore, since an action done in honest ignorance cannot be called a moral transgression, their marriage was legal and their progeny legitimate.
- Parent with New Paramour: Of the Targaryen and Stark younger generation, only Alarra is genuinely excited when Alaric and Alysanne marry. Her brothers Roderick and Edwyn feel awkward around Alysanne because she is just a couple of years their senior, while Aemon is intimidated by Alaric.
- Parental Hypocrisy: Mandon Chelsted is surprised when he's told that Alarra Stark, aged thirteen, is too young for courtship. After all, her stepmother got married at that age!
- Phenotype Stereotype: Alarra assumes all Dornishmen are dark-skinned and black-haired and is astonished when she is told that among the Sunflowers' troupe, two pale red-haired girls come from Dorne and an Ambiguously Brown man whom she believed to be certainly Dornish is actually from Braavos.
- Point of Divergence: The story deviates from canon when Jaehaerys catches the Shivers and dies.
- Police Are Useless: After losing many good men the Shivers, the City Watch of King's Landing is way too small for the city, and a lot of its current members are outright incompetent. Not to mention that it's led by Robert Redwyne who is only in his early twenties and has troubles controlling the men.
- Real Men Love Jesus: On Warrior's Day, every man who isn't a maester goes to the sept to pray for strength and courage. As Alysanne explains, even old men and invalids go to pray for their battle skills to come back or at least for enough strength to perform a Last Stand should the need arise.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: In-Universe. Aemon thinks that Alarra's story about the floating castle of the crannogmen is one of her least believable ones, while the crannogmen really do have floating homes built on islands of buoyant peat and reeds.
- Red Filter of Doom: The beacon of the Hightower is lit dark red during epidemics.
- Romancing the Widow: An unusual example since the party planning the romancing is already married to said widow and is also himself a widower. At first, Alaric is ready to hide his feelings for Alysanne for the rest of his life, but later he decides he'll reveal them to her once time somewhat heals her grief.
- Saying Too Much: Hugh denies ever offering Ellara a part in his play, saying that Ellara can't act to save her life... which confirms to Alaric and Alysanne that Ellara, who accuses Hugh of offering her the Casting Couch and then cruelly turning her down, isn't acting now.
- Second Love:
- Alaric is very much in love with Alysanne, but his thoughts reveal he dearly loved his first wife, too. At one point, he ponders whether it is a betrayal to her memory to fall in love again.
- Eventually, Alysanne realizes she has fallen in love with Alaric as well, though she still feels extremely guilty about it, fearing she has moved on too soon. She thinks she wouldn't have developed feelings for Alaric so quickly, had he not been so much in love with her.
- Sex for Solace: The last time Tommen and Fenella Lannister shared a bed, it was a few days after the funeral of their last surviving child, and they managed to conceive another son but not to recover their relationship.
- Sexless Marriage:
- Offered by Alaric for Alysanne's sake but defied by Alysanne herself. First, she needs a fully consummated marriage from the political standpoint, second, she believes that marriages really are much happier when they include the sexual relationship.
- Tommen and Fenella Lannister haven't slept together for a long time, and their marriage is as over as it's possible in a society where divorce is frowned upon.
- Downplayed with Willem and Myranda Hogg. They only sleep together to conceive children (so far, they have two with possibly a third on the way) and take long breaks between the births and new attempts at conception.
- Show Within a Show: The Royal Penance is a play thought up by Alysanne, Alaric and the Hightowers and ghostwritten by playwrights in both the Reach and the crownlands.
- Sibling Triangle: Tyler Hill is in unrequited love with Fenella, the wife of his trueborn brother Tommen. However, by the start of the fanfic, the trope is downplayed, since Tommen and Fenella have drifted apart.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: Rich, highborn and refined Robert Redwyne is very angry about having to listen to bastard-born Tyler Hill who doesn't bother with courtesies a lot.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: Alaric and Alysanne, concerning their marriage. For the first four chapters, each of them thinks the other is the suffering and sacrificing party forced to agree to the wedding. In chapter five, they finally talk it over and realize both are pretty content.
- Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids: Brought up by Garris when Obella tells him she doesn't want her daughter to leave the keep and go into the town. Garris explains to her that if she tries to keep Garnet locked up, the latter would just sneak away in secret.
- Sugary Malice: Alysanne and Lord Lyonel Caswell greet each other with obviously forced merriment. They have quietly despised each other since Alysanne abolished the first night and Lyonel got angry about it; however, he is too cowardly to do anything actively rebellious.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- Alaric and Lady Florence Tyrell don't often see eye to eye in financial matters (he views her as a spendthrift and she thinks he's too niggardly), but are reasonable enough to achieve compromise, which is precisely what Alysanne hoped for when she asked Alaric to help Lady Florence with coin.
- Robert Redwyne and Tyler Hill take an instant dislike to each other (Robert resents having to listen to an uncouth bastard, and Tyler is disdainful of Robert's inexperience and resulting mistakes as Commander), but they force themselves to work together to strengthen the City Watch of King's Landing.
- Violence Is Not an Option: Manfryd Redwyne suggests defending Aemon's claim to the throne with "fire and blood". The small council quickly concludes that it won't do: first, people still remember Maegor the Cruel, second, Alysanne is the only dragonrider at present and they can't risk her and Silverwing.
- White Is Pure: The court spends Warrior's Day ascetically (to save up money for funding The Royal Penance's production), and roughspun white robes are prepared for everyone to wear.
