Stronger, Part IV
Harry had been laughing for a very long time, so long that his face was beginning to turn red, and he could not stand up straight. Sansa found it incredibly obnoxious, but it was contagious, so she laughed too, until her belly ached, until for the second time that evening the tears began to stream down her face. “For the good of the realm,” he roared again, throwing a fist in the air, and collapsing with laughter onto a chair in his sitting room. Sansa let out a loud cackle and wiped the tears caught in the corners of her eyes. Finally, a calm settled over them and they were quiet. In this moment, she was so glad of Harry. She could always count on him to make her laugh. “The incestuous greed of the lion’s pride!” he called out and Sansa snorted and covered her face, the laughs returning uncontrollably.
Rating: 16+
Triggers: Fire
She was writing another letter to Stannis. She would send the letter with Torghen Flint, simply called “The Flint” by those loyal to him of the Northern mountain clans, a man Stannis had come to trust as much as he trusted any man who was not Davos, brave Davos who died to bring Rickon home, just one in a list of tragedies Rickon’s new life had been privy to. The Flint had gone to Stannis when Sansa raised her banners and begged him to align himself with the Queen in the North, the daughter of Eddard Stark who had lived and died by honor, but not before telling Stannis the truth of Robert and the children who were not his. Stannis had called Sansa “just another usurper” and promised to give the Flint clan and any who would join them to the lord of the light when his armies were stronger and they could be a priority. Sentimental was not a word that any would use to describe Stannis Baratheon, but Sansa hoped that what the clans once meant to him, how they must have seemed like the key to his reign and the hope it must’ve brought him might spur him to listen to The Flint. Women may rule as fiercely as men, but war is a man’s game.
Stannis Baratheon may never bend the knee to her, or leave her the North at the least, this Sansa knew, but neither would he be able to break into the walls of Winterfell. Repairs and rebuilds had gone exceptionally well. The men she had taken from the Boltons seemed truly glad of her as the weeks had passed and worked diligently. Sansa took no pride in this; only the gods knew what kind of leader Ramsay Bolton had been. They may be glad to be led by Mad Aerys reborn at this point. Sansa heard tales of what he did to his men, even those who escaped such fates as Theon’s, but she dare not ask. If someone wished to confide, as the queen, of course, she would listen, but Sansa had enough horror stories of her own. She needn’t add more. Sansa found that she could no longer focus on the letter to Stannis. For now, she set it aside and sifted through the pile of ravens Samwell had left for her to see to personally. She could leave all of the ravens to him, she knew. I’d be happy to do it, Sansa, to make this any easier for you. You’ve had a hard time of it, he’d said. Sansa knew that Samwell meant it, but some matters, she thought, some matters a queen must see to directly. One of those matters was Rickon Stark.
Lord Manderly sent her updates regularly. Part of her was glad of it, but part of her wished the updates would cease. Every word of Rickon twisted in her stomach like a knife… she felt such guilt, thinking on his days spent alive and alone, none of his family with him, how he had been held down and forced to eat Osha, the wildling woman who had come to care for him, the son of Winterfell reduced to rags, finding solace in riding his direwolf and commanding a hoard of cannibals, ripped from that, forced back into civilization… And oh, how civilized we are, Sansa laughed. Taking a deep breath, she opened the letter.
To my Queen,
Rickon’s behavior, in most respects, improves daily. He still takes a breakfast of rare meats and insists on eating upon the floor with his direwolf, but he has been more agreeable with dinner, dining at the table with the others, even making it through most of a meal with guests of honor to Lord Manderly’s table without a fit, though he did throw his soup at the end.
We are having trouble keeping the direwolf under control. He howls uncontrollably some nights and we fear it disturbs your brother’s rest, as he is always found in a cold sweat when this happens. The little lord refuses to sleep in a room without his pet, however, so we do not know what to do. Our kennel master refuses to approach the thing. It did kill three of his best dogs on respective nights after he tried to train him. The wolf will not hunt without your brother and sometimes he returns with blood upon his mouth. We fear he may never be truly civilized if he is allowed, as he calls it, “Shaggydog”, to stay with him. Lord Manderly tried to sit the boy down himself and explain these things to him. Your brother did then bite him and proclaim over and over, “You are not my father, my father is a ghost”.
Your grace, have you any notes on how to train direwolves? You did have one for a short time, we know, and your brother, the late King in the North, may the Old Gods give him peace, did find a great ally in his Greywind. We wish that this could be so for Rickon, but we are at a loss.
Lord Manderly wishes to extend another invitation to you to see your brother. He thinks it would only help.
Your servant ever,
Septa Dylann
Sansa should have been horrified, she knew, but she had to laugh. Through the good and the bad, the Starks were who they had always been. Could there be a more genuine family in all the history of Westeros? This is what had gotten them killed, she knew, what had made her family nearly extinct, but she loved it all the same. She felt a fierce pride rise inside her. Winter is coming, she thought, and then, No, Winter is here. And the wolves are rising, however broken. Sansa would have to find a way to tell this sweet Septa that under no circumstances could she separate Rickon from Shaggydog. Through every trial Skagos had presented, Rickon’s wolf had stayed faithful to him, as faithful as Lady would have stayed to her, she had no doubt, had Cersei not taken Lady away from her. It may have been mere remnants of foolish, child-like musings, but Sansa felt certain that tragedy only befell the Starks harder once they were separated from their wolves. She moved on to the next raven. Samwell had written on the outer side Of Great Import. She turned it over and felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Already broken by Sam, but still clear, was the green seal, flecked with bits of gold, of a rose, a rose that could only belong to House Tyrell.
House Tyrell had only recently taken themselves from the palm of the Lannisters. Mace had reacted foolishly in the wake of gaining another crippled son. The forces of his armies were impressive and he had saved Margaery from Cersei’s schemes, but he did not destroy the Lannisters entirely. She might thank him for backing them into the corner that was the Red Keep if she were simple enough not to realize that he could have destroyed them entirely with a bit of tact and grace. The Tyrells now held Casterly Rock and the Clegane Keep. It was rumored that they held Jaime Lannister prisoner in one of these houses, but both the Tyrells and the Lannisters were eerily silent about his true whereabouts. A feeling of disgust came over her as the golden flecks in the green wax caught the sunlight that came in through her slightly ajar window. The Tyrells had meant for her to die, to take the fall for Joffrey’s death, after they had shown her kindness only to use the horror she lived through as information… they had aided Littlefinger in further destroying her family… She felt hungover from the hope she had once felt at their arrival, the love she had felt for Margaery, even the fleeting, childish love she had felt for Loras, the imagined love she had been willing to feel for Willas… and to think she once thought Margaery the sister she never had, a perfect and fierce lady. Oh, how I’d love nothing more than to leave her to Arya. She put Sansa away and donned the face of the Queen in the North. No one was in her room to see, but she found it helped to pretend all the same. Will I ever stop pretending? She opened the letter.
To my lady, Sansa of House Stark, the Queen in the North,
I reach out to you, a man formerly aligned with the deplorable house of Lannister, humbly and with greatest hope that you might show mercy and meet my house in an alliance. The North is the rightful seat of your family, descended from the First Men, beloved of the Old Gods, and I would raise my banners to solidify your claim. You may face the winter winds of the North and I will manage the new snows in the South and together, we will be prosperous. It plagues me to inform you of the loss of my son, Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, who fought ever nobly in all he did, in the name of the fallen King, Renly Baratheon, though at times it was perhaps unaligned with the favor of your family. For any move that prolonged your suffering, you have my humble apology, and my vow to never wrong you again. Cersei Lannister, that most condemnable of women, did wilt the Knight of Flowers in a trial by battle with her champion, Ser Robert Strong, a knight whose lineage no one seems able to trace, and who fights inhumanely and inhumanly. She did also move to destroy my sweet Margaery, but luckily we did escape. We returned later for justice.
We have trapped the Lannisters in the Red Keep, taking Casterly Rock from underneath them, holding Jaime, the Kingslayer, Goldenhand, captive, and would move to destroy their family entirely, for surely Westeros will not know peace while Tywin and his cubs hold any chance of influence. I urge you, your most true and just grace, to join with me in the betterment of Westeros, in the disposal of the incestuous greed that is the lion’s pride. If you would agree to this new friendship, I would ask that you take a step further and solidify this alliance, for the good of the realm, by joining the North and the South in marriage. My eldest son, Willas, who was so ready to marry you when you were in the lowest of states, would still gladly take your hand. If it would shame your grace to lead alongside a man not entirely able, my son Garlan is a widower, Lady Leonette having passed in childbirth, and might be more suitable to your grace’s taste.
Do take your time, my beloved Queen. An alliance and a marriage are heavy matters on the heart and the mind, I do know, but please send a raven if you would even think on it, to give House Tyrell and all of the South some hope to live on.
With warmest regard,
Mace Tyrell
:::
It was well into the night and Sansa was still reading the letter sent by Mace Tyrell, over and over, taking it paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word, laughing, crying, feeling nothing at all. Harry had told her this would happen. Pinching her waist, he had leaned in close to her face and brushing her hair aside, he whispered, in mock seduction, all the great lords will come for you now, fiercer than they came for little Sansa Stark... The aspiring knaves will come with appetites worthy of a king. She had smirked then, rolling her eyes at him, continuing to occupy herself with her stitching or perhaps her harp, whatever she had used that day to keep her hands busy, as if he had not said a word, as if the jest did not touch her at all. Deep down, she had always known he would be right, but she thought the reprieve from suitors might be longer. It is different now. Men still long for me, for my beauty, and for my seat, but now… now I have power. It was no matter. Her own words could not calm her. Sansa began to pace around the room, stopping to open a window and let in the cold Northern air, hoping the chill might ground and comfort her. And then a queer thing happened…
Sansa remembered the girl she used to be, a bird in a cage, turning to dreams to protect her from the realities of the Red Keep, and she remembered one dream in particular that she used to turn to… Willas, she whispered to the wind. She had thought Highgarden would save her. Willas, with his disfigured leg, was not the gallant knight she had dreamed of as a girl, but she had heard he was kind and smart. She had dreamed they’d sit together, puppies in their laps, and that she’d give him beautiful sons, sons who looked like her brothers, a girl who looked like Arya. In the madness of her life then, she would have been happy to leave and lead such a simple life. She was born and bred for such a life. I wish that I could have that life, she realized. A cry caught in her throat and she swallowed it down. But, oh, how sweet it would be to have sons, sons who could grow to be long-faced like Jon and Arya and her father, the late Eddard Stark, a man no man’s honor had since matched. Sons who might grow to be as brave and beautiful as her brother Robb, or as clever and sportive as Bran, or as wild and free-spirited as Rickon. She may have daughters, too, daughters delicate and daring alike. Would their eyes be the deep and clear Tully blue? Or would they be the melancholy and hooking grey of the Starks? Sansa did not know when she had sat down or how long the tears had been flowing down her face, but all at once she realized she had broken. That would not do. She allowed her sorrow to live the length of a few more gasps and one last round of tears and then she dried her eyes. Brushing her hands through her hair, she stood and headed toward her desk. With the letter from Mace Tyrell in her hand, she ventured into the hallway, looking for her friend, her companion. She was glad to see a slither of light from under Harry’s door.
:::
Harry had been laughing for a very long time, so long that his face was beginning to turn red, and he could not stand up straight. Sansa found it incredibly obnoxious, but it was contagious, so she laughed too, until her belly ached, until for the second time that evening the tears began to stream down her face. “For the good of the realm,” he roared again, throwing a fist in the air, and collapsing with laughter onto a chair in his sitting room. Sansa let out a loud cackle and wiped the tears caught in the corners of her eyes. Finally, a calm settled over them and they were quiet. In this moment, she was so glad of Harry. She could always count on him to make her laugh. “The incestuous greed of the lion’s pride!” he called out and Sansa snorted and covered her face, the laughs returning uncontrollably.
“They do dabble in both of those things,” she said through chokes of laughter. “Mace does not lie… well…”
Harry crossed the room to his flagon of wine and poured a cup for each of them. “Oh, no thank you, Harry, really…”
“You may as well, Sansa. Truly. Have a glass, woman!” He placed the goblet in her hand then brushed a finger over her nose. She squinched it up in response and took a drink. Giving her a look, the one that told her she best enjoy herself a bit, he crossed back to his chair and sat down. “I know you’ll consider it.”
“Yes.”
“When did you read the letter?”
“This morning.”
“Ah.” They sat silently. Sansa swirled the wine in her cup and stared deep into it, as if all of the answers might lie there.
“Sansa…”
“Yes?”
“You know I will kill every man who knocks at your door, if need be.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to marry one of these Tyrells?”
“I do not know.”
“Could it mean peace?”
Sansa swallowed hard and gulped down the wine before answering, “It could.”
“Would you be happy?”
“It is no matter.”
“Sansa, lis-“
“No, Harry, no… What matters are my people… my people, my father’s people, and Robb’s after him, the people who belong to no one who I have vowed to save… it matters if they are happy!”
“But what do you want?”
Sansa laughed. “Oh… Harry… I think we are well past that.”
Before she could fight the vulnerability she felt his arms were around her. “Never,” he whispered.
“I want what every stupid little girl wants, Harry,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, afraid to confess aloud. “I want to love. I want to be loved. I want children, beautiful babies, and I want them to sit by the fire and listen to their father tell stories while I brush the tangles from their hair. I want them to see me with him and think that we are perfect, to think that every love story must be, at least a little, about us. I want what my parents had. I want what I was foolish enough to believe I would have! I want boys who compete with wooden swords and girls who fight over every little thing. I want a family, Harry. I want a family… and I want to mean it… I do not want my household to be a powerful Cyvasse piece. I want my household to be full of the love I used to feel within these walls!”
Sansa stood, pushing Harry away from her, and stood resting her hand on the side table, telling herself to be calm, but instead, her hand wrapped around the flagon and threw it on the ground, smashing it to bits.
“Sansa,” Harry said, but the words he meant to follow with were never heard. From down the hall they heard screams… the screams of Sandor Clegane.
:::
“I’m on fire! I’m on fire! HELP ME!”
“No, you aren- SANSA NO! STAY BACK!”
“I’m burning!”
“You’re mad is what you are, you’re fucking mad!”
Sansa, tired of being thrown back by Harry, now stood in the corner, her limbs shaking, desperate to help, watching as Sandor thrashed about the room and Harry tried to reign him in. His screams were horrible, piteous things, things born of darkness, and it made Sansa feel as hopeless as she had in the first few days after her father was murdered. She had felt hopelessness over and over again, yes, but this was deeper, damp, pure…
Sandor was still screaming, HELP ME, HELP ME, over and over, and Harry was returning all manner of curses, trying to approach Sandor without being run down by him. He was plenty strong himself, but not a large man, only a few inches taller than Sansa, and slender, though well-muscled. Sansa could be silent and still no more and when she saw an opportunity, she took it. Harry was distracted as Sandor lumbered into a chair, knocking it over. She darted, bounding around them, and grabbed the flagon at Sandor’s bedside. Before Harry’s face could finish its turn from shock to the not unfamiliar expression of Sansa, what in seven hells are you doing, she threw the contents of the flagon onto Sandor and used the moment in which he was dazed to take his head in her hands and make him look at her.
“It’s out now, I promise. See? Doesn’t that feel much better?”
The fear on his face melted away and Sandor simply looked tired. Harry tried to pull Sansa away, but she knew that he would not harm her. She helped him to sit on his bed and she took his hand in her own. Recognition seemed to wash over him. He swallowed hard and looked around. His eyes then locked on hers. Exhaustion and confusion sat on his brow as it would on a child’s. “Sansa?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
“I was…”
“…having a nightmare?”
“Yes. Yes, I was.”
“Must’ve been some bloody nightmare, friend,” Harry supplied bitterly from the corner of the room.
Sandor’s eyes searched the room once again. He let out a growl, his jaw stiffening. “Did I… Did I wreck all of this?”
“‘Fraid so,” Harry supplied, more softly this time.
“Why in seven hells am I soaked with wine?”
Sansa looked up at him and laughed.
“What, girl?” She did not answer, only continued to giggle. Harry began to laugh as well.
“Your nightmare… you thought you were on fire… Harry could not calm you, so I… well, I put the fire out, Sandor,” she finished, keeping her face and serious and still as she could manage. She heard Harry cackle behind her and she released a snort.
“Bugger the both of you,” Sandor growled, but Sansa thought she saw the reminiscence of a smile along his lips. It placed a queer feeling in her stomach, a dip and float that she had felt descending the Eyrie. It was as if her heart were gasping and sighing, all at once. She was beginning to believe something he had told her on one of their walks. “The Hound is dead and buried,” he had told her. “I don’t know who Sandor Clegane is… but he isn’t the
Hound…”
“Harry, leave us.”
“What?”
“Leave us. Please.”
“If that is your command…”
“It is.”
“I won’t hurt her,” Sandor said. “I see that look, boy. I don’t know what kind of fit I was having, but I’m free of it now. I’d never touch her.”
Sansa feared she’d soon have what Harry called a pissing contest on her hands, but Harry simply sighed deeply in response. Biting the inside of his left cheek, he bowed. “Your grace.”
Sansa mouthed the word go at him.
As the door shut, she spoke, “He only means to protect me.”
“I know,” Sandor said, growling. “I cannot say I blame him. I’d be wary of someone like me, too.”
“I’m going to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“What do you dream of?”
He turned from her then.
“These dreams of yours… they are getting no better. Perhaps if we knew what troubled you, we could find a way to help.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well... it may make you feel better to talk of it. It may ease your burden…”
Sandor simply shook his head.
“Humor me,” Sansa said, bumping her shoulder into his. When he continued with his silence and his averted eyes, she said, “I am your queen, you know.”
“I dream of Gregor,” he said, his brother’s name leaving his lips like a curse he promised to never utter again. “But more horrible than he ever was in life, if you can believe that.”
His breathing deepened and his jaw went slack. He glanced upward, wide eyed, and Sansa saw that his grey eyes were clouded by moisture. Clearing his throat, he continued, “I’m in King’s Landing again, in the Keep, and it’s so bloody hot. And then I see it, the fire, coming towards me, and I try to turn and run, but I see it has surrounded me. I’m a boy again… and I feel Gregor’s hands on me, but when I turn, it’s not him at all… it’s this man, a man I’ve never seen before. He’s old and he looks so kind, but I don’t trust him, not at all. I think… I think he must be a maester, he wears a chain, but the links start to fall from his neck and the man turns to dust and the links… they form huge pieces of steel, great white things, armor. The armor starts to move, but I can’t see. The fire is so close and so hot that everything is distorted. I try to crawl away, but I feel steel hands clasped on my ankles. I’m pulled into the fire. The last thing I see is Cersei, more beautiful and more terrible than I’ve ever seen her, and the fire around her turns green. And then I have a sword, out of nowhere, a great sword, and Cersei screams, and my ankles are let loose, but I burn all the same.”
The gasp and sigh that Sansa had felt within her at the sight of a near smile only moments ago now turned into a great weight. She knew what it was to be haunted. She smoothed his hair back and looked up into his eyes. “That must be terribly frightening.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it means anything?”
“I hope not.”
He did not look away from her any longer. Her fingers cupped his cheek and his hand found her wrist. For a moment, Sansa thought he meant to push her away, but instead his thumb gently caressed her inner wrist. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, curling her free hand into his soaked nightshirt. He kissed her forehead gently, something she did not expect, and it sent a chill down her spine. Sandor moved a hand to cup the small of her back and to pull her further into him and she let his scent intoxicate her; He smelled like warmth, something like cedar, like amber or perhaps leather, something that reminded her of her father, something that made her think of fields of wheat, and she realized she missed him. This was the closest she had been to him in months, the closest she had been to him since he had awakened. She had allowed herself to become so very intimate with him when he was just a memory come back to life, struggling to live in her mother’s bed, and this was the first time that she wanted it with everything that he was, and she wanted it whole heartedly. Sansa could feel herself falling asleep and so she pulled back.
“Are you alright, Little Bird?” Sandor asked.
“Yes… I… I should go to bed, I think.”
“I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“No… I hadn’t slept yet.”
“Are you having nightmares to,” he asked with a laugh.
Not this night, she thought. “Oh, no. I was up reading a letter.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. The Tyrells… they want an alliance.”
“That’s a good thing, yes?”
“Yes. Only… It is no matter. I should let you rest.”
Sansa moved to leave, but he pulled her back down beside him. “Bugger my rest, girl. What is it?”
“There is always a price.”
“Aye, and what’s theirs?”
“Marriage.”
Sansa saw a flash of anger in his eyes before he looked down. She pretended not to see and stood.
“You should change. It won’t do for you to catch cold.”
“No, I suppose it won’t,” he said, turning his back to her, and removing his shirt.
Sansa turned and headed for the door. As it closed behind her, she felt sick.
Rating: 16+
Triggers: Fire
She was writing another letter to Stannis. She would send the letter with Torghen Flint, simply called “The Flint” by those loyal to him of the Northern mountain clans, a man Stannis had come to trust as much as he trusted any man who was not Davos, brave Davos who died to bring Rickon home, just one in a list of tragedies Rickon’s new life had been privy to. The Flint had gone to Stannis when Sansa raised her banners and begged him to align himself with the Queen in the North, the daughter of Eddard Stark who had lived and died by honor, but not before telling Stannis the truth of Robert and the children who were not his. Stannis had called Sansa “just another usurper” and promised to give the Flint clan and any who would join them to the lord of the light when his armies were stronger and they could be a priority. Sentimental was not a word that any would use to describe Stannis Baratheon, but Sansa hoped that what the clans once meant to him, how they must have seemed like the key to his reign and the hope it must’ve brought him might spur him to listen to The Flint. Women may rule as fiercely as men, but war is a man’s game.
Stannis Baratheon may never bend the knee to her, or leave her the North at the least, this Sansa knew, but neither would he be able to break into the walls of Winterfell. Repairs and rebuilds had gone exceptionally well. The men she had taken from the Boltons seemed truly glad of her as the weeks had passed and worked diligently. Sansa took no pride in this; only the gods knew what kind of leader Ramsay Bolton had been. They may be glad to be led by Mad Aerys reborn at this point. Sansa heard tales of what he did to his men, even those who escaped such fates as Theon’s, but she dare not ask. If someone wished to confide, as the queen, of course, she would listen, but Sansa had enough horror stories of her own. She needn’t add more. Sansa found that she could no longer focus on the letter to Stannis. For now, she set it aside and sifted through the pile of ravens Samwell had left for her to see to personally. She could leave all of the ravens to him, she knew. I’d be happy to do it, Sansa, to make this any easier for you. You’ve had a hard time of it, he’d said. Sansa knew that Samwell meant it, but some matters, she thought, some matters a queen must see to directly. One of those matters was Rickon Stark.
Lord Manderly sent her updates regularly. Part of her was glad of it, but part of her wished the updates would cease. Every word of Rickon twisted in her stomach like a knife… she felt such guilt, thinking on his days spent alive and alone, none of his family with him, how he had been held down and forced to eat Osha, the wildling woman who had come to care for him, the son of Winterfell reduced to rags, finding solace in riding his direwolf and commanding a hoard of cannibals, ripped from that, forced back into civilization… And oh, how civilized we are, Sansa laughed. Taking a deep breath, she opened the letter.
To my Queen,
Rickon’s behavior, in most respects, improves daily. He still takes a breakfast of rare meats and insists on eating upon the floor with his direwolf, but he has been more agreeable with dinner, dining at the table with the others, even making it through most of a meal with guests of honor to Lord Manderly’s table without a fit, though he did throw his soup at the end.
We are having trouble keeping the direwolf under control. He howls uncontrollably some nights and we fear it disturbs your brother’s rest, as he is always found in a cold sweat when this happens. The little lord refuses to sleep in a room without his pet, however, so we do not know what to do. Our kennel master refuses to approach the thing. It did kill three of his best dogs on respective nights after he tried to train him. The wolf will not hunt without your brother and sometimes he returns with blood upon his mouth. We fear he may never be truly civilized if he is allowed, as he calls it, “Shaggydog”, to stay with him. Lord Manderly tried to sit the boy down himself and explain these things to him. Your brother did then bite him and proclaim over and over, “You are not my father, my father is a ghost”.
Your grace, have you any notes on how to train direwolves? You did have one for a short time, we know, and your brother, the late King in the North, may the Old Gods give him peace, did find a great ally in his Greywind. We wish that this could be so for Rickon, but we are at a loss.
Lord Manderly wishes to extend another invitation to you to see your brother. He thinks it would only help.
Your servant ever,
Septa Dylann
Sansa should have been horrified, she knew, but she had to laugh. Through the good and the bad, the Starks were who they had always been. Could there be a more genuine family in all the history of Westeros? This is what had gotten them killed, she knew, what had made her family nearly extinct, but she loved it all the same. She felt a fierce pride rise inside her. Winter is coming, she thought, and then, No, Winter is here. And the wolves are rising, however broken. Sansa would have to find a way to tell this sweet Septa that under no circumstances could she separate Rickon from Shaggydog. Through every trial Skagos had presented, Rickon’s wolf had stayed faithful to him, as faithful as Lady would have stayed to her, she had no doubt, had Cersei not taken Lady away from her. It may have been mere remnants of foolish, child-like musings, but Sansa felt certain that tragedy only befell the Starks harder once they were separated from their wolves. She moved on to the next raven. Samwell had written on the outer side Of Great Import. She turned it over and felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Already broken by Sam, but still clear, was the green seal, flecked with bits of gold, of a rose, a rose that could only belong to House Tyrell.
House Tyrell had only recently taken themselves from the palm of the Lannisters. Mace had reacted foolishly in the wake of gaining another crippled son. The forces of his armies were impressive and he had saved Margaery from Cersei’s schemes, but he did not destroy the Lannisters entirely. She might thank him for backing them into the corner that was the Red Keep if she were simple enough not to realize that he could have destroyed them entirely with a bit of tact and grace. The Tyrells now held Casterly Rock and the Clegane Keep. It was rumored that they held Jaime Lannister prisoner in one of these houses, but both the Tyrells and the Lannisters were eerily silent about his true whereabouts. A feeling of disgust came over her as the golden flecks in the green wax caught the sunlight that came in through her slightly ajar window. The Tyrells had meant for her to die, to take the fall for Joffrey’s death, after they had shown her kindness only to use the horror she lived through as information… they had aided Littlefinger in further destroying her family… She felt hungover from the hope she had once felt at their arrival, the love she had felt for Margaery, even the fleeting, childish love she had felt for Loras, the imagined love she had been willing to feel for Willas… and to think she once thought Margaery the sister she never had, a perfect and fierce lady. Oh, how I’d love nothing more than to leave her to Arya. She put Sansa away and donned the face of the Queen in the North. No one was in her room to see, but she found it helped to pretend all the same. Will I ever stop pretending? She opened the letter.
To my lady, Sansa of House Stark, the Queen in the North,
I reach out to you, a man formerly aligned with the deplorable house of Lannister, humbly and with greatest hope that you might show mercy and meet my house in an alliance. The North is the rightful seat of your family, descended from the First Men, beloved of the Old Gods, and I would raise my banners to solidify your claim. You may face the winter winds of the North and I will manage the new snows in the South and together, we will be prosperous. It plagues me to inform you of the loss of my son, Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, who fought ever nobly in all he did, in the name of the fallen King, Renly Baratheon, though at times it was perhaps unaligned with the favor of your family. For any move that prolonged your suffering, you have my humble apology, and my vow to never wrong you again. Cersei Lannister, that most condemnable of women, did wilt the Knight of Flowers in a trial by battle with her champion, Ser Robert Strong, a knight whose lineage no one seems able to trace, and who fights inhumanely and inhumanly. She did also move to destroy my sweet Margaery, but luckily we did escape. We returned later for justice.
We have trapped the Lannisters in the Red Keep, taking Casterly Rock from underneath them, holding Jaime, the Kingslayer, Goldenhand, captive, and would move to destroy their family entirely, for surely Westeros will not know peace while Tywin and his cubs hold any chance of influence. I urge you, your most true and just grace, to join with me in the betterment of Westeros, in the disposal of the incestuous greed that is the lion’s pride. If you would agree to this new friendship, I would ask that you take a step further and solidify this alliance, for the good of the realm, by joining the North and the South in marriage. My eldest son, Willas, who was so ready to marry you when you were in the lowest of states, would still gladly take your hand. If it would shame your grace to lead alongside a man not entirely able, my son Garlan is a widower, Lady Leonette having passed in childbirth, and might be more suitable to your grace’s taste.
Do take your time, my beloved Queen. An alliance and a marriage are heavy matters on the heart and the mind, I do know, but please send a raven if you would even think on it, to give House Tyrell and all of the South some hope to live on.
With warmest regard,
Mace Tyrell
:::
It was well into the night and Sansa was still reading the letter sent by Mace Tyrell, over and over, taking it paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word, laughing, crying, feeling nothing at all. Harry had told her this would happen. Pinching her waist, he had leaned in close to her face and brushing her hair aside, he whispered, in mock seduction, all the great lords will come for you now, fiercer than they came for little Sansa Stark... The aspiring knaves will come with appetites worthy of a king. She had smirked then, rolling her eyes at him, continuing to occupy herself with her stitching or perhaps her harp, whatever she had used that day to keep her hands busy, as if he had not said a word, as if the jest did not touch her at all. Deep down, she had always known he would be right, but she thought the reprieve from suitors might be longer. It is different now. Men still long for me, for my beauty, and for my seat, but now… now I have power. It was no matter. Her own words could not calm her. Sansa began to pace around the room, stopping to open a window and let in the cold Northern air, hoping the chill might ground and comfort her. And then a queer thing happened…
Sansa remembered the girl she used to be, a bird in a cage, turning to dreams to protect her from the realities of the Red Keep, and she remembered one dream in particular that she used to turn to… Willas, she whispered to the wind. She had thought Highgarden would save her. Willas, with his disfigured leg, was not the gallant knight she had dreamed of as a girl, but she had heard he was kind and smart. She had dreamed they’d sit together, puppies in their laps, and that she’d give him beautiful sons, sons who looked like her brothers, a girl who looked like Arya. In the madness of her life then, she would have been happy to leave and lead such a simple life. She was born and bred for such a life. I wish that I could have that life, she realized. A cry caught in her throat and she swallowed it down. But, oh, how sweet it would be to have sons, sons who could grow to be long-faced like Jon and Arya and her father, the late Eddard Stark, a man no man’s honor had since matched. Sons who might grow to be as brave and beautiful as her brother Robb, or as clever and sportive as Bran, or as wild and free-spirited as Rickon. She may have daughters, too, daughters delicate and daring alike. Would their eyes be the deep and clear Tully blue? Or would they be the melancholy and hooking grey of the Starks? Sansa did not know when she had sat down or how long the tears had been flowing down her face, but all at once she realized she had broken. That would not do. She allowed her sorrow to live the length of a few more gasps and one last round of tears and then she dried her eyes. Brushing her hands through her hair, she stood and headed toward her desk. With the letter from Mace Tyrell in her hand, she ventured into the hallway, looking for her friend, her companion. She was glad to see a slither of light from under Harry’s door.
:::
Harry had been laughing for a very long time, so long that his face was beginning to turn red, and he could not stand up straight. Sansa found it incredibly obnoxious, but it was contagious, so she laughed too, until her belly ached, until for the second time that evening the tears began to stream down her face. “For the good of the realm,” he roared again, throwing a fist in the air, and collapsing with laughter onto a chair in his sitting room. Sansa let out a loud cackle and wiped the tears caught in the corners of her eyes. Finally, a calm settled over them and they were quiet. In this moment, she was so glad of Harry. She could always count on him to make her laugh. “The incestuous greed of the lion’s pride!” he called out and Sansa snorted and covered her face, the laughs returning uncontrollably.
“They do dabble in both of those things,” she said through chokes of laughter. “Mace does not lie… well…”
Harry crossed the room to his flagon of wine and poured a cup for each of them. “Oh, no thank you, Harry, really…”
“You may as well, Sansa. Truly. Have a glass, woman!” He placed the goblet in her hand then brushed a finger over her nose. She squinched it up in response and took a drink. Giving her a look, the one that told her she best enjoy herself a bit, he crossed back to his chair and sat down. “I know you’ll consider it.”
“Yes.”
“When did you read the letter?”
“This morning.”
“Ah.” They sat silently. Sansa swirled the wine in her cup and stared deep into it, as if all of the answers might lie there.
“Sansa…”
“Yes?”
“You know I will kill every man who knocks at your door, if need be.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to marry one of these Tyrells?”
“I do not know.”
“Could it mean peace?”
Sansa swallowed hard and gulped down the wine before answering, “It could.”
“Would you be happy?”
“It is no matter.”
“Sansa, lis-“
“No, Harry, no… What matters are my people… my people, my father’s people, and Robb’s after him, the people who belong to no one who I have vowed to save… it matters if they are happy!”
“But what do you want?”
Sansa laughed. “Oh… Harry… I think we are well past that.”
Before she could fight the vulnerability she felt his arms were around her. “Never,” he whispered.
“I want what every stupid little girl wants, Harry,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, afraid to confess aloud. “I want to love. I want to be loved. I want children, beautiful babies, and I want them to sit by the fire and listen to their father tell stories while I brush the tangles from their hair. I want them to see me with him and think that we are perfect, to think that every love story must be, at least a little, about us. I want what my parents had. I want what I was foolish enough to believe I would have! I want boys who compete with wooden swords and girls who fight over every little thing. I want a family, Harry. I want a family… and I want to mean it… I do not want my household to be a powerful Cyvasse piece. I want my household to be full of the love I used to feel within these walls!”
Sansa stood, pushing Harry away from her, and stood resting her hand on the side table, telling herself to be calm, but instead, her hand wrapped around the flagon and threw it on the ground, smashing it to bits.
“Sansa,” Harry said, but the words he meant to follow with were never heard. From down the hall they heard screams… the screams of Sandor Clegane.
:::
“I’m on fire! I’m on fire! HELP ME!”
“No, you aren- SANSA NO! STAY BACK!”
“I’m burning!”
“You’re mad is what you are, you’re fucking mad!”
Sansa, tired of being thrown back by Harry, now stood in the corner, her limbs shaking, desperate to help, watching as Sandor thrashed about the room and Harry tried to reign him in. His screams were horrible, piteous things, things born of darkness, and it made Sansa feel as hopeless as she had in the first few days after her father was murdered. She had felt hopelessness over and over again, yes, but this was deeper, damp, pure…
Sandor was still screaming, HELP ME, HELP ME, over and over, and Harry was returning all manner of curses, trying to approach Sandor without being run down by him. He was plenty strong himself, but not a large man, only a few inches taller than Sansa, and slender, though well-muscled. Sansa could be silent and still no more and when she saw an opportunity, she took it. Harry was distracted as Sandor lumbered into a chair, knocking it over. She darted, bounding around them, and grabbed the flagon at Sandor’s bedside. Before Harry’s face could finish its turn from shock to the not unfamiliar expression of Sansa, what in seven hells are you doing, she threw the contents of the flagon onto Sandor and used the moment in which he was dazed to take his head in her hands and make him look at her.
“It’s out now, I promise. See? Doesn’t that feel much better?”
The fear on his face melted away and Sandor simply looked tired. Harry tried to pull Sansa away, but she knew that he would not harm her. She helped him to sit on his bed and she took his hand in her own. Recognition seemed to wash over him. He swallowed hard and looked around. His eyes then locked on hers. Exhaustion and confusion sat on his brow as it would on a child’s. “Sansa?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
“I was…”
“…having a nightmare?”
“Yes. Yes, I was.”
“Must’ve been some bloody nightmare, friend,” Harry supplied bitterly from the corner of the room.
Sandor’s eyes searched the room once again. He let out a growl, his jaw stiffening. “Did I… Did I wreck all of this?”
“‘Fraid so,” Harry supplied, more softly this time.
“Why in seven hells am I soaked with wine?”
Sansa looked up at him and laughed.
“What, girl?” She did not answer, only continued to giggle. Harry began to laugh as well.
“Your nightmare… you thought you were on fire… Harry could not calm you, so I… well, I put the fire out, Sandor,” she finished, keeping her face and serious and still as she could manage. She heard Harry cackle behind her and she released a snort.
“Bugger the both of you,” Sandor growled, but Sansa thought she saw the reminiscence of a smile along his lips. It placed a queer feeling in her stomach, a dip and float that she had felt descending the Eyrie. It was as if her heart were gasping and sighing, all at once. She was beginning to believe something he had told her on one of their walks. “The Hound is dead and buried,” he had told her. “I don’t know who Sandor Clegane is… but he isn’t the
Hound…”
“Harry, leave us.”
“What?”
“Leave us. Please.”
“If that is your command…”
“It is.”
“I won’t hurt her,” Sandor said. “I see that look, boy. I don’t know what kind of fit I was having, but I’m free of it now. I’d never touch her.”
Sansa feared she’d soon have what Harry called a pissing contest on her hands, but Harry simply sighed deeply in response. Biting the inside of his left cheek, he bowed. “Your grace.”
Sansa mouthed the word go at him.
As the door shut, she spoke, “He only means to protect me.”
“I know,” Sandor said, growling. “I cannot say I blame him. I’d be wary of someone like me, too.”
“I’m going to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“What do you dream of?”
He turned from her then.
“These dreams of yours… they are getting no better. Perhaps if we knew what troubled you, we could find a way to help.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well... it may make you feel better to talk of it. It may ease your burden…”
Sandor simply shook his head.
“Humor me,” Sansa said, bumping her shoulder into his. When he continued with his silence and his averted eyes, she said, “I am your queen, you know.”
“I dream of Gregor,” he said, his brother’s name leaving his lips like a curse he promised to never utter again. “But more horrible than he ever was in life, if you can believe that.”
His breathing deepened and his jaw went slack. He glanced upward, wide eyed, and Sansa saw that his grey eyes were clouded by moisture. Clearing his throat, he continued, “I’m in King’s Landing again, in the Keep, and it’s so bloody hot. And then I see it, the fire, coming towards me, and I try to turn and run, but I see it has surrounded me. I’m a boy again… and I feel Gregor’s hands on me, but when I turn, it’s not him at all… it’s this man, a man I’ve never seen before. He’s old and he looks so kind, but I don’t trust him, not at all. I think… I think he must be a maester, he wears a chain, but the links start to fall from his neck and the man turns to dust and the links… they form huge pieces of steel, great white things, armor. The armor starts to move, but I can’t see. The fire is so close and so hot that everything is distorted. I try to crawl away, but I feel steel hands clasped on my ankles. I’m pulled into the fire. The last thing I see is Cersei, more beautiful and more terrible than I’ve ever seen her, and the fire around her turns green. And then I have a sword, out of nowhere, a great sword, and Cersei screams, and my ankles are let loose, but I burn all the same.”
The gasp and sigh that Sansa had felt within her at the sight of a near smile only moments ago now turned into a great weight. She knew what it was to be haunted. She smoothed his hair back and looked up into his eyes. “That must be terribly frightening.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it means anything?”
“I hope not.”
He did not look away from her any longer. Her fingers cupped his cheek and his hand found her wrist. For a moment, Sansa thought he meant to push her away, but instead his thumb gently caressed her inner wrist. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, curling her free hand into his soaked nightshirt. He kissed her forehead gently, something she did not expect, and it sent a chill down her spine. Sandor moved a hand to cup the small of her back and to pull her further into him and she let his scent intoxicate her; He smelled like warmth, something like cedar, like amber or perhaps leather, something that reminded her of her father, something that made her think of fields of wheat, and she realized she missed him. This was the closest she had been to him in months, the closest she had been to him since he had awakened. She had allowed herself to become so very intimate with him when he was just a memory come back to life, struggling to live in her mother’s bed, and this was the first time that she wanted it with everything that he was, and she wanted it whole heartedly. Sansa could feel herself falling asleep and so she pulled back.
“Are you alright, Little Bird?” Sandor asked.
“Yes… I… I should go to bed, I think.”
“I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“No… I hadn’t slept yet.”
“Are you having nightmares to,” he asked with a laugh.
Not this night, she thought. “Oh, no. I was up reading a letter.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. The Tyrells… they want an alliance.”
“That’s a good thing, yes?”
“Yes. Only… It is no matter. I should let you rest.”
Sansa moved to leave, but he pulled her back down beside him. “Bugger my rest, girl. What is it?”
“There is always a price.”
“Aye, and what’s theirs?”
“Marriage.”
Sansa saw a flash of anger in his eyes before he looked down. She pretended not to see and stood.
“You should change. It won’t do for you to catch cold.”
“No, I suppose it won’t,” he said, turning his back to her, and removing his shirt.
Sansa turned and headed for the door. As it closed behind her, she felt sick.