Anything for You

The long winter had finally come, and people were dropping like flies. It was bitterly cold and food was running low. Everyone had lost someone during the great battles that had taken place, some more than others, and even in different ways. It was with a heavy heart every night after supper that the inhabitants of Winterfell lit candles in a vigil to the ones lost to the cold.

Outsiders that had come to Winterfell to swear fealty to the new King in the North had lost people as well, the Mallister family most of all, but the only daughter, Elisabeth, had kept her head up through it all. Her mother had died just after they left their hold just a few miles south of Winterfell from what the maester could only identify as an infection to her leg. Her father had died in battle with some of the White Walker stragglers that had gotten away from the horde.

Her brothers Davod and Henry had been mauled by a bear they meant to take as food. Elisabeth and her brother Deryn were the only Mallisters that yet lived.

The King in the North had noticed her strength from the beginning. He admired it from afar at first, silently watching as she buried family member after family member that had been lost, and as far back as he could remember he hadn't seen her weep in the public's eye. She simply kept living her life as best she could and mending as many clothes as possible to keep herself from grieving.

Jon thought back to her arrival in Winterfell.



The Mallisters had come to pledge their alliance with the North soon after Jon Snow had been crowned. The patriarch, Kristofer, and the boys of the family had insisted Elisabeth stay behind, but being the defiant woman she was, she didn't want to sit pretty at her family's hold and wait on the army of the dead to take her in the night.

She wanted to help in some way, and was one of the most proficient with a needle across the seven kingdoms. She had bent the knee just as her father and brothers had, vowing that as long as she had breath in her breast and the ability to wield a needle she'd earn her stay in Winterfell.

Elisabeth soon joined with the women who were mending and making clothing for the upcoming war, and her needlework proved indeed to be astounding.



On dreary evening, after a group of women traveling had been attacked outside the castle, Jon declared that the women that lived inside the walls of Winterfell should be trained to fight as well as they sewed.

Sometimes he stood watch over the training to ensure everything was going as planned. Some of the women were better than he expected, and some were simply unable to learn the dance of battle. He watched them train for days, listening as the Wildings and his bannermen alike gave advice to the fairer sex, proud when a woman was able to disarm one of the men.

He had noticed that he hadn't seen Elisabeth in all the days of training, and with that in mind he sought her out one evening. He slunk into the small room where she sat with garments strewn haphazardly around her, the tips of her fingers bloody from the stitch work. Her blonde hair had escaped the confines of her loose braid and fell to frame her face.

Her eyebrows were angled towards each other as she squinted to perfect every stitch. Jon watched her work in silence for a moment before he cleared his throat softly.

"My lady," he bowed his head politely.

"My King," Elisabeth dropped what was in her hands the moment she saw him. She put her hand over her heart and bowed her head. "Is there something of yours that needs mending?"

Jon shook his head lightly. "No."

Her eyebrow raised gently. "To what do I owe the pleasure, your grace?"

"Have you completed your sword training, my lady?" Jon asked, his hands resting on the hilt of his own sword. He looked regal when he stood like that, like a king worthy of the North. Elisabeth let her eyes trail over him momentarily, then to the floor, before meeting eyes with shame.

"I have not," Elisabeth admitted in a low voice. "There have been many men with clothes that needed mending, and since I am the fastest with a needle I took it upon myself to mend as many as I could." She gestured around to the clothes. "If I can get them done faster than the others then what right do I have to stop?"

"You have the right to eat, my lady," Jon said quietly. "Come, lets get you some food in you, and then I'll train you myself."

Elisabeth's eyes widened considerably and her cheeks flushed. It was a welcome sight to Jon - he'd grown tired of blood and guts and all the ugly things he'd seen in his short life. He longed to see more things as beautiful as she was in that moment.

"Y-Your grace, I can ask my brother in his spare time. I do not wish to inconvenience you." Deryn was the only family she had left, and he had been left with a limp after a hunt gone wrong. As proficient as he had once been with a sword Jon knew he couldn't teach her to move correctly now.

Jon shook his head. "If it were an inconvenience, my lady, I would not have offered."



For weeks after that, when Jon was free of his courtly duties, he would train with Elisabeth. He helped her learn to grip the sword correctly, how to use the momentum to cut a man down, and how to dodge incoming blows.

Elisabeth weren't the best at swordplay - she was quick, but not strong. Jon was watching over her one evening, his hands once again resting on the hilt of his sword, his lips pursed in thought. She can aim, he thought as he watched, and she's said nothing as he walked over to retrieve a bow and a few arrows.

"Lady Elisabeth" he called, motioning her over with a small tip of his head.

Elisabeth handed the sword to Neil, a young stable boy, and strode toward her king, her spirits damped. She felt she'd let Jon down, and it made her chest feel tighter with every step she took.

"Yes, my King?"

Jon held the bow out to her and she took it quietly. Elisabeth looked at the chipped wood and wondered how it would hold up to the pressure of shooting the arrows.

She looked up to Jon for instruction, but he only answered with a nod. "Go on."

Elisabeth drew a deep breath and held it, just as she'd heard Jon instruct the others to do, after she'd notched the arrow. Straining against the pressure she aimed and released the breath she held as she let the arrow go. It whistled through the air and thumped just to the side of the inner circle of the target.

"It's not perfect," Jon started, "but with more practice and discipline you'll make a fine archer."

Elisabeth couldn't help the large smile that overtook her. A laugh bubbled out of her before she knew what was happening. Elisabeth turned to Jon quicker than she ever had and the sight nearly knocked the air from her lungs. He was smiling, a real, tooth baring smile that left her dazed.

He offered a strong nod and a small chuckle when he realized she were still laughing in glee. "Keep up the good work, Lady Elisabeth."

Elisabeth bowed her head slightly, still out of breath. "Thank you most graciously, my king, for your time and your knowledge."

Jon placed one hand on her shoulder and the other under her chin, raising her head to look her in the eye. He wished for nothing more than to drown in her amber gaze.

"Anything for you, my lady."