No Featherbed For Me
by lit_chick08 is a fanfiction of A Song of Ice and Fire that follows the story of Arya Stark if she was forced to grow up as a highborn lady and if Gendry was the son of Robert and Cersei and heir to the Iron Throne.
The story chronicles Arya's life starting from her time as a child at Winterfell and moving into adulthood and all the trials she faces as she grows older and is dragged into the "game of thrones".
A set of side stories following the Point of View of other characters is also being written.
It is now complete.
No Featherbed For Me contains examples of these tropes:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Sansa is in love with Gendry, who loves Arya, who loves him back, but ends up marrying other men. In reality she says she really loved a knight that has yet to be named. Aemon is in love with Alysanne, who loves Brandon. Rhaenys loves Rhaego, who married someone else. She may possibly also be in love with Aemon.
- Edric Dayne loves Arya.
- Amicable Exes: Arya and Renly get along even better once their relationship ends.
- Arranged Marriage: Arya to Edric Dayne and Renly Baratheon. Sansa and Gendry
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Arya and Renly get along quite well.
- Badass Boast: "Let him come. I am not Elia Martell, and my sword cuts as well as theirs."
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Gendry and Arya
- Birds of a Feather: Gendry and Arya
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While Sansa aspires to fill the role of Princess Classic and The High Queen, her manipulative side comes out whenever her dreams are threatened. For instance, when Prince Gendry tells her he doesn't wish to marry her and would rather wed her sister, Sansa schemes with his mother to make him marry her anyway. Also, when Arya returns to King's Landing after being widowed during the war, Sansa suggests marrying her off to Renly in order to keep her away from Gendry — though neither Renly nor Arya wants this marriage at all. Later, when Arya and Gendry have a son together, Sansa steals the letters he writes to Arya, asking for a place in Brandon's life.
- Bittersweet Ending: Aemon and Rhaenys die and neither Gendry and Arya or Brandon and Alysanne stay together, but they part on good terms, Westeros is at peace and once more divided into seven kingdoms, and Arya is at home in Winterfell, with Jon, and finally, for the first time in a long while, truly happy.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Aemon is sleeping with both of his sisters and Brandon and Alysanne are in love.
- Alysanne suggests Arya is in love with Jon. The ending teases this.
- Cartwright Curse: All of Arya's former husbands have died.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Arya and Gendry
- Convenient Miscarriage: Arya has no children from her first marriage.
- Death Equals Redemption: Rhaenys dies saving Alysanne from the Others.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Aegon claims to have dreamed of his future children with Arya.
- Arya's wolf dreams about the stags.
- Foreshadowing: A great deal:
- Arya wonders if Gendry would ever dishonor Sansa by fathering a bastard.
- Arya telling her mother she could only be taken if she wants to be taken. She eventually runs off with Aegon.
- Arya's similarities to Lyanna. She even dreams of her and wakes to the smell of winter roses.
- Everyone Can See It: Arya and Gendry. Even before Arya allows herself to acknowledge her feelings for Gendry, nearly everyone at court already knows they are into each other.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Arya and Sansa.
- Rhaenys and Alysanne.
- Generation Xerox: The Arya, Gendry, and Aegon love triangle is exactly like the one between Lyanna, Robert, and Rhaegar. It even ends with a new king sitting on the Iron Throne and the deaths of almost an entire house.
- Aemon, Alysanne, and Brandon are Robert, Cersei, and Jaime. Time will tell if Alysanne and Brandon's child will be another Joffery. By the end, they also have a lot in common with the Arya, Sansa, and Gendry triangle.
- Rhaenys and Alysanne are a lot like Arya and Sansa.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: There are no purely evil villains or purely good heroes in this story.
- Heroic Bastard: Brandon
- Incompatible Orientation: Arya and Renly
- Irony: Arya's reason for rejecting Gendry is because she doesn't want to be queen. She later runs off with and marries Aegon Targaryen who takes back the Iron Throne and makes her queen.
- Aegon and Arya want their children to be who they want to be. All of them end up forced into a life they never wanted.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Arya's reasons for not wanting to marry Gendry are actually right. She would make a terrible queen and Sansa is much better suited for it. Gendry however, is actually right about them being able to have made one another happy.
- Like Brother and Sister: Arya describes her relationship with Gendry this way to Catelyn when her mother asks about her feelings for the crown prince.
- Love at First Sight: Gendry for Arya.
- Love Dodecahedron:Hoo boy:
- Sansa loves Gendry who is in love with Arya. Arya has been married multiple time. Once to Renly, who love Loras Tyrell. Aegon loves Arya, but he takes a second wife. Rhaenys loves Rhaego, who marries someone else. Then there is Aemon who loves Alysanne who loves Brandon. Rhaenys may or may not love Aemon.
- Mama Bear: Arya
- Marital Rape License: Discussed by Arya. She sees it as a blessing Edric Dayne does not do this.
- Mythology Gag: Gendry's love of forges. He even says he would have made a good armorer. He also wishes that he had been born a bastard.
- Gendry's comments on Joffery's ability to rule.
- Gendry and Arya's first meeting. Instead of her being a noble lady disguised as a boy, he is a prince she mistakes as a commoner.
- Arya and blue roses.
- "Promise me, Jon! Promise me!"
- The first time Aegon takes Arya to Braavos, they see the outside of the church of the Faceless Men. Aegon jokingly asks if Arya wants to worship there. Her response (to the god of death)?
"Not today."- Brandon losing his ability to walk.
- Oblivious to Love: Arya thinks her and Gendry are playing together. Justified in that she is only 13 at the time.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Arya and Renly. After they marry, their relationship is purely based in friendship, which only grows deeper when they divorce.
- Rebellious Princess: Arya; with rather unforeseen consequences.
- Rhaenys as well.
- Both are deconstructed.
- Replacement Goldfish: Gendry is pretty much a substitute Jon for Arya. At first.
- Pretty much the reason why Robert is interested in Arya.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Arya. While also an unkemptbeauty, it is noted multiple times that she is beautiful when she dresses up.
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Ships That Pass in the Night: Arya and Aegon - Sibling Triangle: Arya, Gendry, and Sansa. Also, the ultimate example, Brandon, Alysanne, Aemon, and Rhaenys.
- Spoiler Title: Almost all of them. Chapter 8 is called Mother of Dragons.
- Starcrossed Lovers: Arya and Gendry.
- Tranquil Fury: Gendry's voice is calm when he threatens his father for touching Arya.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Gendry
- Victorious Childhood Friend: Eventually
- Unkempt Beauty: Arya
- What the Hell, Hero?/"Reason You Suck" Speech: Arya pretty much gets them heaped upon her.
- Wham Chapter: Chapter 8: Mother of Dragons.
- Chapter 10: The Broken Pack
- Wham Line: "Not for Targaryens."
