FIC: Ever After, for envielestrange
Recipient: envielestrange
Title: Ever After
Author: munditia
Rating: PG
Characters: Sansa Stark & Sandor Clegane (Sansa/Sandor, if you squint)
Word Count: 3,000
Summary: Five fairy-tale endings for Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane.
Author's Note: I have managed to squeeze in angst, Alayne, and a bit of manipulative Sansa, but I'm afraid that there's not much romance, no smut, and nary an erotic moment in sight. I hope you'll like it anyway!
***
As Sansa huddled in her chamber, straining to listen to the roar of flames and the clash of steel outside the keep, the raging wildfire consumed the dreams of her childhood. The songs and stories lied, she realized, and the thought pierced her heart as sharply as any sword.
If only she could, she would wish death on her false prince, death by blaze and smoke, blade and stroke, but wishing had never helped any princess. When the Hound entered her chamber, a wounded, howling beast, she knew she was the maiden destined to be ravished in the ballad, to be left bleeding to her death.
And yet, he did not take her maidenhead. He only claimed a song. Before Sansa had barely hummed the first notes, throat raw from weeping and voice shaking from fear, he yanked her by the hair, ungently, and drew her across the room. ‘Bugger that, little bird,’ he snarled, and his breath reeked of wine. ‘No time for warbling in your cage. Come with me now, and sing in freedom.’
Sansa clung to him, trembling on the huge and unruly horse, which seemed to like the firestorm along the river as little as his master. But flee from King’s Landing they did. In the din and strife of battle, no one thought to stop a pair of panicked commoners in ragged, sooty cloaks. Sansa’s heart fluttered wildly in her breast, a trammelled, frightened thing. ‘Might it be…?’ she wondered. Could the monster not be a monster after all?
Every night when she went to sleep on their journey north, she curled up in a tight ball, as tiny as possible, a newly-hatched chick, bony and fragile in her nest. She edged away from the Hound, even if it meant missing out on his woollen cloak and the dying embers of their campfire. One morning, she awoke with his heavy arm flung across her back, and she lay in the twilight, utterly still. He never lifted a finger to touch her otherwise.
From that day, Sansa sought to share the warmth under the billowing cloak, and it came to her mind which tale this must be. Snatches from one of Old Nan’s many stories returned to her memory - the wildling girl, beautiful and brave, who tamed a beast of the forest with her music.
She smiled when she remembered, and Sandor eyed her across the fire. ‘Spare your smiles for your brother’s court,’ he said, and before she could think twice, the courteous answer tumbled from her lips: ‘I’m smiling at you, se - Sandor.’ He roared with laughter and poured himself another tumbler of wine, but he didn’t mock her anymore.
Robb gaped in astonishment when she untangled herself from her lady mother’s arms and threw herself at his feet, to beg a boon for her faithful dog: a place at her side, under her brother’s banners. The King in the North granted the princess her wish, though, and Sandor stayed.
Sansa often meant to tell him about the wildling maiden and the creature from the woods, but she could not recall how the story ended. It was not until she attended her brother’s wedding that it all came back to her. The wildling and the beast were captured by the Rat King, ruthless and wizened and cruel, and they were slain at the feast in his den.
Fairy-tales did not always lie, she thought, dimly, as the Hound broke down before her, his throat slit like that of a common mongrel tossed to the wayside. They just did not always have a happy ending.
***
Each night, Sweetrobin insisted on his story before bedtime, and each night, Alayne demurred. She stroked the boy’s sweaty hair and hummed a soft lullaby, fed him sweet lemoncakes and sweeter lies. Mayhap the lies were kindly meant, but lies they would remain, poisoning young Robert’s ear as surely as Alayne’s lord father poisoned his meals.
She watched Robert growing weaker by the day, not stronger, and every recovery would be followed by another bout of grievous illness. Even the maester shook his head, muttering how the young lord had always been a sickly child, and his lady mother - may the Seven grant her peace - had much worried about his health.
Alayne smiled sadly. She did not know if she was sad because she wished to save Sweetrobin or wanted to hasten his passing. Soon, she would run out of bedtime stories. Now, she was telling him about the princess in the tower, gazing in longing at the world below; about the step-mother and the ogre who held her captive, all alone in the heart of winter; about the knight who would come to save her.
She did not explain to the ailing boy that the princess was a liar; that she was alone because she’d killed the other prisoner; that her not-knight, scarred and battered, had abandoned her with the memory of a kiss. Robert would not understand.
Nor could she tell him how the princess’s heart leapt when she met her not-knight again. Alayne had braved the ride down from the Eyrie to visit her friend in the Vale and, more importantly, her beloved and (hopefully) soon-to-be betrothed. It was her friend, though, who brought her the news about the Holy Brother asking for her.
Miranda’s giggles said very loudly that she did not believe the Brother’s tale of remembering an orphaned bastard from the motherhouse. She might not even believe in his vows of celibacy, but what could be more daring than a secret tryst with an old suitor? Alayne would be wedded and bedded soon enough, and thus it was time to learn a lesson or two for the wedding night.
Alayne’s heart seemed to beat in her throat as the Brother removed his hood and laid bare the hideous scars below. Her smile, however, did not change: Polite it was, yet distant, betraying not one trace of recognition, not one spark of joy.
He must be mistaken, she informed the Brother, cool and puzzled. Alayne Stone was a bastard of the Vale, and she had never seen King’s Landing in her life, let alone the strongholds of the North. If the holy man would depart now - Harry would be wondering why she tarried - but she thanked him for his kindness, nonetheless, and would pray for him tonight.
‘I’m not kind,’ the not-brother, not-knight growled, but Alayne was not afraid. If she called for her not-father, his life would be forfeit. She was still kind, and so she would tell another sweet lie if Miranda should ever want to know more about the mysterious guest.
Unperturbed, she took her leave. The not-knight would not save her. He could not slay the ogre (only the princess could tumble him from the tower, when the time was right). He could not give her back her father’s castle. He was not the hero of this tale.
And yet, moons later, when Robert was buried and Alayne-Sansa married, when the wedding was done and the bedding had begun, she found herself remembering the knight. Panting and sighing under an eager young husband, Sansa dreamed of a kiss forever unbestowed.
***
‘A most uncommon proposal.’ On this matter, the bannermen - quarrelsome as they were wont to be - spoke in unison. ‘Unheard of’, they called Sansa’s request. ‘Unthinkable.’
Most of her father’s surviving lieges agreed that spending too much time at court could give even a Stark girl, born and bred in the north, fanciful ideas about knighthood. Up here, a man did not need anointing or a smack with the blade to be considered a warrior.
The southern lords contended that the Lady of Winterfell, raised in uncouth lands, had not been properly educated in the code of chivalry. ‘Only a knight can make a knight,’ they said, again and again. Sansa did not deem it polite to explain that she’d heard them the first time.
There was only one person in the tent who hadn’t spoken up so far: Sandor Clegane. The Hound seemed torn between scowling and laughter.
‘It’s no use,’ he said, eventually. ‘Just for once, high-born lords, noble knights and me agree. I don’t want to be a knight. They don’t want me to be a knight. Seven Hells, I’d be a bloody shitty knight.’
‘You are mistaken, my lord,’ Sansa said, talking as loudly as she could over the noise. ‘They don’t want me to make you a knight.’
Sandor’s snarling grin softened a little as he looked at her. ‘Why then do you insist so much?’
She armoured herself in courtesy and brandished her sweetest smile like a weapon.
‘You once asked me for a song. Would you like a story, too? Have you ever heard how Ser Galladon of Morne, the gentle parfait knight, became a ser?’
The Hound shrugged, but his grimace had given way to a half-bored, half-indulgent expression. She knew she had his attention now. Soon every man would hang on her lips.
‘It was no knightsmaster that heard his vows. It was a maid, in gratitude for the selfless services he’d rendered. No one ever dared to gainsay her, for she had been a messenger from the Maiden herself. ’
‘Never took you for a Septa,’ the Hound rumbled. ‘And my services weren’t very selfless. B’sides, you helped.’
Shuddering, Sansa remembered the spectre of his brother looming over her - armour full of black blood and darkness amidst Winterfell’s broken walls and blackened stones - the Hound, lying in a bleeding heap and hewing at the creature’s harmstrings - the weight of the sword as she drove it into the ox-like neck of the thing that had once been Ser Gregor Clegane.
‘Besides,’ a minor Stormlord interrupted her musings, ‘Ser Galladon’s only a story - a fairy-tale for boys dreaming of heroic deeds, and pretty words for maidens who dream of marrying them.’
‘Good ser,’ Sansa said, ‘a man whom I hold in high esteem, otherwise, once told me that a knight’s oath, too, is only pretty words. A fairy-tale to hide the fact that sharp steel rules this world, and nothing else.’
She firmly held Sandor’s gaze, her face burning, and she felt oddly satisfied to spot the merest hint of a blush on his stubbly cheeks.
‘I do not believe this, but it appears that an anointed knight like you does. If the knights themselves do not hold with tales of chivalry, who will? They are only stories, you say, and such they will remain if we do not make them true.’
The ring of steel quieted everyone as she drew a gruesomely stained sword from the scabbard at her feet.
‘Kneel, my lord Sandor, to raise a knight,’ Sansa said - no, commanded - and, to her own faint surprise, he did obey.
***
‘It’s like a fairy-tale!’ Esmara, Tyene and Obara’s youngest sister, exclaimed in delight. All the ladies laughed indulgently before the Queen and her courtiers remembered that it was time to attend to matters of the realm. Since Her Grace was unwell, Mistress Sallera urging her to rest for the sake of her unborn babe, it would fall to the Hand to address today’s petitioners.
As Lady Sansa stepped into the great hall, seating herself demurely before the Iron Throne, she glanced around, satisfied. Restored from the ravages of war, the Red Keep did look like a marvel from song and rhyme, but even the splendour of the castle could not rival the marvels of the court: dragons with wings like Balerion the Great - a beautiful queen with violet eyes and silver hair - a lady warrior who guarded her majesty against Faceless Men and wights alike.
Cheerful and radiant, Sansa bid the guards to let the first petitioner in. She was not in the least surprised when an irate Sandor Clegane marched up to the steps and greeted her with the barest of bows.
‘Whose hare-brained idea of a piss-poor reward for my services was that?’ he barked, waving a parchment before he ripped the paper to shreds and strewed the remains across the floor. The guards took a step forward, hands clenched around their sword-hilts, but Sansa beckoned them to desist, with a dainty wave of her hand.
‘Mine, my lord,’ she said. ‘I mentioned your valour in the Battle of the Wall to the Her Grace, and she was gracious indeed. She gave me leave to speak as Her Hand, in Her Voice, on this matter. If you want, a place as a knight of the Queensguard is yours, and a large keep with rich lands to boot.’
‘I don’t give one fuck for a knighthood, as you well know.’
Sansa raised her eye-brows at his distinct lack of courtesy, but her smile did not fade.
‘Lady Brienne is not a knight, either. Ser Barristan has never objected to her serving under his command.’
‘What if I don’t want to serve under Ser Barristan?’ Sandor replied. ‘I’ve had my share of the Kingsguard - all those honourable knights.’
Only Sandor Clegane could make ‘knight’ sound like a curse. For a moment, Sansa wondered whether he would spit on the costly carpet in his rage.
‘Just give me a flagon of wine, and a woman to bed, and let me crawl home to my kennel,’ he said.
‘What about the lands, my lord?’ Sansa was nothing if not dogged. ‘They would help you with the wine and the woman. With the tithe, you could purchase the finest vintage from Highgarden and, since you refuse to take the white cloak, you’d become a suitable match for any lady you wished to wed.’
His laughter was as loud and bellowing as ever, and as cynical too.
‘Little bird,’ he said. It suddenly seemed to Sansa that no years at all had passed since the last time he’d called her thus. ‘Sometimes, I think you’re still that foolish girl who believes in songs and stories. And sometimes I reckon you’re the greatest conniving liar of them all.’
‘Aye, these lands would fetch me any woman I wished to bed. They might even fetch a lady who’d wish to wed me.’
‘Can’t I be both?’ Sansa asked. When he blinked, confused, she didn’t point out to which of his remarks her question referred. Obviously, Sandor had not yet realized that her tale would end happily, even if she had to make up the ending herself.
***
Septa Eafa sighed and closed her eyes while the wain rattled along the road towards the Saltpans. The journey north had been long and arduous, and she longed to reach the destination of her pilgrimage.
If her family, both her blood-kin and her sisters in the Faith, considered her desire to live among the hermits an unusual wish, so be it. She simply wanted to rest for a while: do nothing but look after the unhappy women who came to the island; pray in a small sept by the sea; speak to no one unless she must. After all that noisome toil, a few moons’ silence - even full of deprivation and hard work - would come as a blessed relief.
Septa Eafa had tutored her nephews and nieces for years, secretly thanking the Mother that not all of Lord Edric’s offspring took after his wife, the She-Wolf of Starfall. Of course, Lady Arya had never been anything but welcoming to her sister turned governess and counsellor. Together, the women would laugh at the fate that led one to take the veil and Arya to become the married mistress of a holdfast, admonishing her children to perfect their needlework. (Septa Eafa only taught the kind involving embroidery.)
Pledging herself to the Maiden, Mother and Crone, Sansa Stark had become Septa Eafa with a light heart. Nobody would force her to re-marry. The rich and educated Most Devout could gain their fair share of power in the capital, but after some years at that game, she had lost her taste for it, too. Every time Septa Eafa passed the Sept of Baelor, Sansa Stark still wept inside.
So, helping to raise unruly children and run a noble household had become her choice. At least, it gave Septa Eafa leave to indulge in the little frivolities forbidden in the more pious motherhouses: sharing sweets, and mending ball-gowns instead of altar cloths, and reading about Jonquil and Fair Florian rather than the Seven-Pointed Star. Sansa Stark missed the tales of knightly deeds and doomed romance most of all.
It was no good to dwell upon the past, Septa Eafa chastised herself. When she’d finally made her way to the Isle, she thought it unwise to go to sleep with her mind full of memories. Despite her exhaustion, she accepted the Elder Brother’s offer to take a walk around the septry.
When she trailed across the cemetery, lighting a candle for the Stranger on each unmarked tomb, she gasped. Even after decades, she would have recognized the hooded Gravedigger anywhere. Had the Seven decided to tempt Septa Eafa, or had they sent Sansa Stark a strange sign of mercy? She did not care.
‘M’lady,’ the Gravedigger rasped, his voice rough from years of disuse. ‘I hadn’t expected to see you again.’
‘Neither had I,’ she replied, disregarding the vow of silence as blatantly. Her voice sounded hoarse, too, threatening to fail her. ‘They told me you were dead. Have you been here all the time, since the War?’
The Gravedigger nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, leaning on his rusty shovel. ‘It’s … peaceful. Have -‘
Smoothing her grey gown, she seated herself on a weather-beaten gravestone. Surely, the dead wouldn’t mind. ‘Pray continue,’ she said and smiled, an odd mien for a cemetery, but she couldn’t help the aching joy that lit up her face.
‘Have I ever told you about the first dead I buried?’
Mutely, she shook her head, and her brilliant smile grew sadder, for his sake.
‘Her name was Sansa, a pretty name, and she was my little sister…,’ the Gravedigger begun.
Title: Ever After
Author: munditia
Rating: PG
Characters: Sansa Stark & Sandor Clegane (Sansa/Sandor, if you squint)
Word Count: 3,000
Summary: Five fairy-tale endings for Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane.
Author's Note: I have managed to squeeze in angst, Alayne, and a bit of manipulative Sansa, but I'm afraid that there's not much romance, no smut, and nary an erotic moment in sight. I hope you'll like it anyway!
***
As Sansa huddled in her chamber, straining to listen to the roar of flames and the clash of steel outside the keep, the raging wildfire consumed the dreams of her childhood. The songs and stories lied, she realized, and the thought pierced her heart as sharply as any sword.
If only she could, she would wish death on her false prince, death by blaze and smoke, blade and stroke, but wishing had never helped any princess. When the Hound entered her chamber, a wounded, howling beast, she knew she was the maiden destined to be ravished in the ballad, to be left bleeding to her death.
And yet, he did not take her maidenhead. He only claimed a song. Before Sansa had barely hummed the first notes, throat raw from weeping and voice shaking from fear, he yanked her by the hair, ungently, and drew her across the room. ‘Bugger that, little bird,’ he snarled, and his breath reeked of wine. ‘No time for warbling in your cage. Come with me now, and sing in freedom.’
Sansa clung to him, trembling on the huge and unruly horse, which seemed to like the firestorm along the river as little as his master. But flee from King’s Landing they did. In the din and strife of battle, no one thought to stop a pair of panicked commoners in ragged, sooty cloaks. Sansa’s heart fluttered wildly in her breast, a trammelled, frightened thing. ‘Might it be…?’ she wondered. Could the monster not be a monster after all?
Every night when she went to sleep on their journey north, she curled up in a tight ball, as tiny as possible, a newly-hatched chick, bony and fragile in her nest. She edged away from the Hound, even if it meant missing out on his woollen cloak and the dying embers of their campfire. One morning, she awoke with his heavy arm flung across her back, and she lay in the twilight, utterly still. He never lifted a finger to touch her otherwise.
From that day, Sansa sought to share the warmth under the billowing cloak, and it came to her mind which tale this must be. Snatches from one of Old Nan’s many stories returned to her memory - the wildling girl, beautiful and brave, who tamed a beast of the forest with her music.
She smiled when she remembered, and Sandor eyed her across the fire. ‘Spare your smiles for your brother’s court,’ he said, and before she could think twice, the courteous answer tumbled from her lips: ‘I’m smiling at you, se - Sandor.’ He roared with laughter and poured himself another tumbler of wine, but he didn’t mock her anymore.
Robb gaped in astonishment when she untangled herself from her lady mother’s arms and threw herself at his feet, to beg a boon for her faithful dog: a place at her side, under her brother’s banners. The King in the North granted the princess her wish, though, and Sandor stayed.
Sansa often meant to tell him about the wildling maiden and the creature from the woods, but she could not recall how the story ended. It was not until she attended her brother’s wedding that it all came back to her. The wildling and the beast were captured by the Rat King, ruthless and wizened and cruel, and they were slain at the feast in his den.
Fairy-tales did not always lie, she thought, dimly, as the Hound broke down before her, his throat slit like that of a common mongrel tossed to the wayside. They just did not always have a happy ending.
***
Each night, Sweetrobin insisted on his story before bedtime, and each night, Alayne demurred. She stroked the boy’s sweaty hair and hummed a soft lullaby, fed him sweet lemoncakes and sweeter lies. Mayhap the lies were kindly meant, but lies they would remain, poisoning young Robert’s ear as surely as Alayne’s lord father poisoned his meals.
She watched Robert growing weaker by the day, not stronger, and every recovery would be followed by another bout of grievous illness. Even the maester shook his head, muttering how the young lord had always been a sickly child, and his lady mother - may the Seven grant her peace - had much worried about his health.
Alayne smiled sadly. She did not know if she was sad because she wished to save Sweetrobin or wanted to hasten his passing. Soon, she would run out of bedtime stories. Now, she was telling him about the princess in the tower, gazing in longing at the world below; about the step-mother and the ogre who held her captive, all alone in the heart of winter; about the knight who would come to save her.
She did not explain to the ailing boy that the princess was a liar; that she was alone because she’d killed the other prisoner; that her not-knight, scarred and battered, had abandoned her with the memory of a kiss. Robert would not understand.
Nor could she tell him how the princess’s heart leapt when she met her not-knight again. Alayne had braved the ride down from the Eyrie to visit her friend in the Vale and, more importantly, her beloved and (hopefully) soon-to-be betrothed. It was her friend, though, who brought her the news about the Holy Brother asking for her.
Miranda’s giggles said very loudly that she did not believe the Brother’s tale of remembering an orphaned bastard from the motherhouse. She might not even believe in his vows of celibacy, but what could be more daring than a secret tryst with an old suitor? Alayne would be wedded and bedded soon enough, and thus it was time to learn a lesson or two for the wedding night.
Alayne’s heart seemed to beat in her throat as the Brother removed his hood and laid bare the hideous scars below. Her smile, however, did not change: Polite it was, yet distant, betraying not one trace of recognition, not one spark of joy.
He must be mistaken, she informed the Brother, cool and puzzled. Alayne Stone was a bastard of the Vale, and she had never seen King’s Landing in her life, let alone the strongholds of the North. If the holy man would depart now - Harry would be wondering why she tarried - but she thanked him for his kindness, nonetheless, and would pray for him tonight.
‘I’m not kind,’ the not-brother, not-knight growled, but Alayne was not afraid. If she called for her not-father, his life would be forfeit. She was still kind, and so she would tell another sweet lie if Miranda should ever want to know more about the mysterious guest.
Unperturbed, she took her leave. The not-knight would not save her. He could not slay the ogre (only the princess could tumble him from the tower, when the time was right). He could not give her back her father’s castle. He was not the hero of this tale.
And yet, moons later, when Robert was buried and Alayne-Sansa married, when the wedding was done and the bedding had begun, she found herself remembering the knight. Panting and sighing under an eager young husband, Sansa dreamed of a kiss forever unbestowed.
***
‘A most uncommon proposal.’ On this matter, the bannermen - quarrelsome as they were wont to be - spoke in unison. ‘Unheard of’, they called Sansa’s request. ‘Unthinkable.’
Most of her father’s surviving lieges agreed that spending too much time at court could give even a Stark girl, born and bred in the north, fanciful ideas about knighthood. Up here, a man did not need anointing or a smack with the blade to be considered a warrior.
The southern lords contended that the Lady of Winterfell, raised in uncouth lands, had not been properly educated in the code of chivalry. ‘Only a knight can make a knight,’ they said, again and again. Sansa did not deem it polite to explain that she’d heard them the first time.
There was only one person in the tent who hadn’t spoken up so far: Sandor Clegane. The Hound seemed torn between scowling and laughter.
‘It’s no use,’ he said, eventually. ‘Just for once, high-born lords, noble knights and me agree. I don’t want to be a knight. They don’t want me to be a knight. Seven Hells, I’d be a bloody shitty knight.’
‘You are mistaken, my lord,’ Sansa said, talking as loudly as she could over the noise. ‘They don’t want me to make you a knight.’
Sandor’s snarling grin softened a little as he looked at her. ‘Why then do you insist so much?’
She armoured herself in courtesy and brandished her sweetest smile like a weapon.
‘You once asked me for a song. Would you like a story, too? Have you ever heard how Ser Galladon of Morne, the gentle parfait knight, became a ser?’
The Hound shrugged, but his grimace had given way to a half-bored, half-indulgent expression. She knew she had his attention now. Soon every man would hang on her lips.
‘It was no knightsmaster that heard his vows. It was a maid, in gratitude for the selfless services he’d rendered. No one ever dared to gainsay her, for she had been a messenger from the Maiden herself. ’
‘Never took you for a Septa,’ the Hound rumbled. ‘And my services weren’t very selfless. B’sides, you helped.’
Shuddering, Sansa remembered the spectre of his brother looming over her - armour full of black blood and darkness amidst Winterfell’s broken walls and blackened stones - the Hound, lying in a bleeding heap and hewing at the creature’s harmstrings - the weight of the sword as she drove it into the ox-like neck of the thing that had once been Ser Gregor Clegane.
‘Besides,’ a minor Stormlord interrupted her musings, ‘Ser Galladon’s only a story - a fairy-tale for boys dreaming of heroic deeds, and pretty words for maidens who dream of marrying them.’
‘Good ser,’ Sansa said, ‘a man whom I hold in high esteem, otherwise, once told me that a knight’s oath, too, is only pretty words. A fairy-tale to hide the fact that sharp steel rules this world, and nothing else.’
She firmly held Sandor’s gaze, her face burning, and she felt oddly satisfied to spot the merest hint of a blush on his stubbly cheeks.
‘I do not believe this, but it appears that an anointed knight like you does. If the knights themselves do not hold with tales of chivalry, who will? They are only stories, you say, and such they will remain if we do not make them true.’
The ring of steel quieted everyone as she drew a gruesomely stained sword from the scabbard at her feet.
‘Kneel, my lord Sandor, to raise a knight,’ Sansa said - no, commanded - and, to her own faint surprise, he did obey.
***
‘It’s like a fairy-tale!’ Esmara, Tyene and Obara’s youngest sister, exclaimed in delight. All the ladies laughed indulgently before the Queen and her courtiers remembered that it was time to attend to matters of the realm. Since Her Grace was unwell, Mistress Sallera urging her to rest for the sake of her unborn babe, it would fall to the Hand to address today’s petitioners.
As Lady Sansa stepped into the great hall, seating herself demurely before the Iron Throne, she glanced around, satisfied. Restored from the ravages of war, the Red Keep did look like a marvel from song and rhyme, but even the splendour of the castle could not rival the marvels of the court: dragons with wings like Balerion the Great - a beautiful queen with violet eyes and silver hair - a lady warrior who guarded her majesty against Faceless Men and wights alike.
Cheerful and radiant, Sansa bid the guards to let the first petitioner in. She was not in the least surprised when an irate Sandor Clegane marched up to the steps and greeted her with the barest of bows.
‘Whose hare-brained idea of a piss-poor reward for my services was that?’ he barked, waving a parchment before he ripped the paper to shreds and strewed the remains across the floor. The guards took a step forward, hands clenched around their sword-hilts, but Sansa beckoned them to desist, with a dainty wave of her hand.
‘Mine, my lord,’ she said. ‘I mentioned your valour in the Battle of the Wall to the Her Grace, and she was gracious indeed. She gave me leave to speak as Her Hand, in Her Voice, on this matter. If you want, a place as a knight of the Queensguard is yours, and a large keep with rich lands to boot.’
‘I don’t give one fuck for a knighthood, as you well know.’
Sansa raised her eye-brows at his distinct lack of courtesy, but her smile did not fade.
‘Lady Brienne is not a knight, either. Ser Barristan has never objected to her serving under his command.’
‘What if I don’t want to serve under Ser Barristan?’ Sandor replied. ‘I’ve had my share of the Kingsguard - all those honourable knights.’
Only Sandor Clegane could make ‘knight’ sound like a curse. For a moment, Sansa wondered whether he would spit on the costly carpet in his rage.
‘Just give me a flagon of wine, and a woman to bed, and let me crawl home to my kennel,’ he said.
‘What about the lands, my lord?’ Sansa was nothing if not dogged. ‘They would help you with the wine and the woman. With the tithe, you could purchase the finest vintage from Highgarden and, since you refuse to take the white cloak, you’d become a suitable match for any lady you wished to wed.’
His laughter was as loud and bellowing as ever, and as cynical too.
‘Little bird,’ he said. It suddenly seemed to Sansa that no years at all had passed since the last time he’d called her thus. ‘Sometimes, I think you’re still that foolish girl who believes in songs and stories. And sometimes I reckon you’re the greatest conniving liar of them all.’
‘Aye, these lands would fetch me any woman I wished to bed. They might even fetch a lady who’d wish to wed me.’
‘Can’t I be both?’ Sansa asked. When he blinked, confused, she didn’t point out to which of his remarks her question referred. Obviously, Sandor had not yet realized that her tale would end happily, even if she had to make up the ending herself.
***
Septa Eafa sighed and closed her eyes while the wain rattled along the road towards the Saltpans. The journey north had been long and arduous, and she longed to reach the destination of her pilgrimage.
If her family, both her blood-kin and her sisters in the Faith, considered her desire to live among the hermits an unusual wish, so be it. She simply wanted to rest for a while: do nothing but look after the unhappy women who came to the island; pray in a small sept by the sea; speak to no one unless she must. After all that noisome toil, a few moons’ silence - even full of deprivation and hard work - would come as a blessed relief.
Septa Eafa had tutored her nephews and nieces for years, secretly thanking the Mother that not all of Lord Edric’s offspring took after his wife, the She-Wolf of Starfall. Of course, Lady Arya had never been anything but welcoming to her sister turned governess and counsellor. Together, the women would laugh at the fate that led one to take the veil and Arya to become the married mistress of a holdfast, admonishing her children to perfect their needlework. (Septa Eafa only taught the kind involving embroidery.)
Pledging herself to the Maiden, Mother and Crone, Sansa Stark had become Septa Eafa with a light heart. Nobody would force her to re-marry. The rich and educated Most Devout could gain their fair share of power in the capital, but after some years at that game, she had lost her taste for it, too. Every time Septa Eafa passed the Sept of Baelor, Sansa Stark still wept inside.
So, helping to raise unruly children and run a noble household had become her choice. At least, it gave Septa Eafa leave to indulge in the little frivolities forbidden in the more pious motherhouses: sharing sweets, and mending ball-gowns instead of altar cloths, and reading about Jonquil and Fair Florian rather than the Seven-Pointed Star. Sansa Stark missed the tales of knightly deeds and doomed romance most of all.
It was no good to dwell upon the past, Septa Eafa chastised herself. When she’d finally made her way to the Isle, she thought it unwise to go to sleep with her mind full of memories. Despite her exhaustion, she accepted the Elder Brother’s offer to take a walk around the septry.
When she trailed across the cemetery, lighting a candle for the Stranger on each unmarked tomb, she gasped. Even after decades, she would have recognized the hooded Gravedigger anywhere. Had the Seven decided to tempt Septa Eafa, or had they sent Sansa Stark a strange sign of mercy? She did not care.
‘M’lady,’ the Gravedigger rasped, his voice rough from years of disuse. ‘I hadn’t expected to see you again.’
‘Neither had I,’ she replied, disregarding the vow of silence as blatantly. Her voice sounded hoarse, too, threatening to fail her. ‘They told me you were dead. Have you been here all the time, since the War?’
The Gravedigger nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, leaning on his rusty shovel. ‘It’s … peaceful. Have -‘
Smoothing her grey gown, she seated herself on a weather-beaten gravestone. Surely, the dead wouldn’t mind. ‘Pray continue,’ she said and smiled, an odd mien for a cemetery, but she couldn’t help the aching joy that lit up her face.
‘Have I ever told you about the first dead I buried?’
Mutely, she shook her head, and her brilliant smile grew sadder, for his sake.
‘Her name was Sansa, a pretty name, and she was my little sister…,’ the Gravedigger begun.