By Trisha Kostis of clippings.me/tkostis

I’ve invited my giant family; some of them actual giants. Thank Gods I have a huge dining hall to accommodate all the siblings, uncles, cousins, and bastards. The townspeople, otherwise known as the wet, dirty and downtrodden, have been fermenting ale and resentment for months in preparation. The castle has been readied with clean-ish bedding made of scratchy leftover direwolves fur. New crap holes have been dug throughout the land. Even the weirwoods have stopped bleeding for a minute. What do we say to winter? Not today – it’s Thanksgiving.

Next up: seating arrangements.

I can’t seat Uncle Varys beside Aunt Daenerys. Word on the street is they had a wee bit of a disagreement about whether testicles are required to prove you’re the rightful heir to the throne so there’s no love lost there. She’s also squabbling with Aunt Sansa about some secret that Sansa spilled to cousin Tyrion. He’s still pissed at her about an overzealous dragon incident so he needs to be seated as far away from her as possible.  I can’t put him near any young girls after the last Thanksgiving when he slipped under the table completely unnoticed and violated my youngest sister Margaery before she even knew what was happening.  That defilement has set her on a most disreputable path and I fear for her future. That whole side of the family is a shit show.

Originally I wanted to seat my handsome step-brother, Jaime, the chick magnet, next to my gorgeous cousin Cersei, but when she arrived a week ago, we drank a fuck ton of wine and she spilled her guts about some guy named Urine, or Uron, or something like that. Evidently he’s coming and bringing along his loser nephew.  And somehow I have to persuade Cersei to keep her religious freak friend who guilted her into an invitation, the High Parrot or something, from preaching his fire and brimstone new theology during the blessing. He’s really smelly too.

Lady Olenna, or as we call her, Mom, is my biggest problem. When she’s not talking about the lack of bowel-moving-fruit available in the North, she’s wagging her wine-swollen tongue about what a great monument to human ingenuity The Wall is and how we need one around Westeros. She’s virulently anti-migration and would love to see the nomads and bums sent back from whence they came. Big fan of fire breathing dragons too. Politics and poo; that’s her jam.

It looks like the rift between my sister-in-law Brienne and her old nemesis Uncle Sandor has healed. For a while, he was pretty upset about the whole sword in the gut thing but it turns out he spent some time healing in an Ashram in the hills with a group called the “Brotherhood” and got in touch with his inner puppy. Now, he emanates love and empathy so I really feel like Uncle Walder would benefit from sitting beside all that positive energy. Plus, no one else will sit next to Lord Frey since he has this history of behaving badly during family gatherings.

Drogo, although not technically a relative, has such a great reputation for hosting parties, as was clearly reported by the many attendees of his wedding. They say the food was da bomb so I’ve hired him and his team to prep and cook everything for this massive feast. The castle kitchen looks like a morgue, with bones everywhere and sinew literally draped over the drying racks normally used for my bodices and skirts. I’ll send Arya out to fetch Hot Pie from the tavern and appoint him kitchen manager and assign Ghost to cleaning plates.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my second cousin, the sexy blonde Daario Naharis. He used to visit on the regular, bringing me bags full of gold coins and severed heads, and sneaking up quietly while I was in the bath. I do not copulate with siblings or aunts and uncles but second cousins don’t count. I had high hopes for that relationship but he changed, almost overnight. He was nearly unrecognizable and I had to break it off quickly. I wonder if it’s too late to send a raven with an invite.

Jon Snow, with whom my familial relationship is a tad fuzzy due to his ongoing identity crisis, is one of those guests every host loves and appreciates. He gets along with everyone, is easy on the eyes, and has the whitest teeth this side of Pentos. I will probably pull him aside early in the day and suggest he wash his hair because the man bun is clearly nothing more than an attempt to hide Castle Black crust. Literally no one bathes in that place. He tends to be a little depressing so seating him beside family friend Qyburn seems a natural choice. The pseudo Maester is always so upbeat! He’s not the only one in Westeros that can reanimate a corpse but he does it with positive vibes and endless creativity instead of magic.

Finally, I’ll have to put Bronn on the door to disarm every guest of their swords, otherwise they’ll spend the whole bloody night comparing sizes or sticking the pointy ends where they don’t belong. My dear cousin Arya is the only exception because I need that fancy, Valerian steel dagger she carries to carve all the meat the Dothraki are smoking. After all, what damage could little Arya do with a blade? She’s just a girl.

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About the Author

Trisha Kostis is a freelance writer and Chef whose work has appeared in The Sunlight Press, Into the Void, Points In Case, and many other literary journals and online publications. Visit her at https://www.clippings.me/tkostis