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She has wanted this for as long as she can remember – has practiced the steps, the mannerisms, the courtesies to perfection – but as she watches the Queen she knows that there is so much more she must learn, will learn, to please her prince.
She stands in front of her looking glass for hours, pursing her lips and arching her brows, tossing her hair behind her shoulders with an innocent flick, holding her goblet with a commanding presence like it is a scepter. Late at night, she recites her prayers over and over, trying to mimic the fluid sounds of the southron accent, until Arya kicks her, demanding silence.
He smiles when he catches a mistake, and it is so beautiful to see, like a beam of sunshine on a snowy drift. She smiles back, shyly, hesitantly, bowing her head as she resolves to do better the next day.
And she does do better, and he smiles, and the days pass until, suddenly, she does not seem to be making mistakes and he never smiles – only mocks. The Queen never makes mistakes, and her King only mocks, never smiles, and she thinks, perhaps, that she ought have chosen another model, one not polished and perfected beyond feeling.
But it is too late. He wants a summer queen, and her heart is ice. He wants a frightened maiden, and her heart is fire. He does not know what he wants, and that scares her most of all.
---
The smell is overpowering, the stench of wine and smoke and blood, and it is somehow worse than the feel of the sharp blade at her throat or the terror she had felt when she saw his hulking form in her bed. Despite his threats, he will not harm her – this she knows, has known since the riots really, though she cannot explain it.
Her hair seems to dance like fire in his dark, scarred eyes; eyes that seem to look straight through her, to her core, searching for another’s innocence, another’s dreams. She does not know whom he seeks – sister, mother, brother, self – but it is not her, never her.
He does not want her to go with him, not really, could not bear to put her in such danger even if it means her salvation. A hound will die for you, but never lie to you, he had said. But lying is easier than facing the flames, and sometimes it is worse to say nothing – she, of all people, knows this well.
Her tremulous voice starts to sing the hymn once more as she looks out at the unnatural green sky above the city. He pauses at the door.
“Little Bird,” he says sadly, turning to leave the chamber, his voice breaking with the weight of things left unsaid.
But she is not so little anymore and she is no bird, trapped as she is, with no possibility of flight.
---
The look in his mismatched eyes as they leave the sept is wild and cruel, and she is not sure if it is meant for her or for his sister or for himself. He is distant throughout the feast, swilling wine and muttering angrily into his cups.
He stands in his – their – chamber, monstrous and swollen, and she trembles at the naked lust in his bright green eye. And yet, in the other, the black one, there is such sadness that she almost pities him, a lion abandoned by his pride, just as she is a wolf forgotten by her pack. She extends her hand, reaching out to him, but she pulls back at the last moment, frightened by her own empathy. He sighs deeply, blinking away any emotions, and thus their routine is established.
They do not touch, they barely speak. He does not say her name again. She does not say his.
He leaves her gifts – one day it is a book of songs, illustrated with scrolling, twisted vines of green and gold; the next, it is a ribbon the color of robin’s eggs, of the sky on a brilliant sunny day, but she cannot to bring herself to wear it.
She mends his clothes, trying not to think about how they might have been Bran’s or Rickon’s but for the golden lion. She lets him listen to her sing – she will not sing for anyone again – she accompanies him throughout the castle, eyes downcast, never meeting his, afraid of what she might see there.
It is not until much later, after the journey to the Vale and the Moon Door and Sweetrobin, that she understands his longing, the confusion in his eyes. A friend, he wanted a friend.
---
She is back in Winterfell, playing at kisses with Jeyne Poole under the warm furs, dreaming of a heroic knight on a white steed, of passionate embraces in the Godswood, of tourneys and favors and songs. She is sharing secrets with Myranda Royce, eyes wide at her brazen conquests, laughing at her ribald stories.
But no, it is Petyr’s sharp eyes that look down at her, cruel and calculating, Petyr’s lips, soft and thin, that press against hers, and she is not a virtuous daughter of the north, not a beautiful bastard, but the dead brought to life once more.
He pushes his tongue deeper, slender fingers tangling in her hair as he reaches for her skirts with one smooth movement. Again and again, he cries her name, that enchanting, spirited Riverlands girl, Cat, Cat, my Cat.
She wishes that it were true, that she was that girl, sharing kisses with her father’s ward by the rushing waters and not cold and dying in some foreign hall, cheeks stained with bloody tears. That girl is simple and safe – there is no golden prince, mismatched eyes, or tattered cloak, no father to betray, no family to lose. And so she casts herself into the fire once more, emerging anew from the ashes.
She tries to look away as he finds his release (never in her, he is too careful for that), but he grabs her chin with a firm hand to look into her Tully eyes, seeking another in her tears.
After, she stands slowly, rearranging her skirts and fixing her hair before training her eye on his. The first verse is done, the chorus too, and she moves seamlessly to the second, never forgetting the words, the melody, the tune – a lady never forgets, after all.
“What would you have me do, Father?”
---
“Mother,” he cries softly, “Mother,” and he spreads his arms wide, waiting to be swept into her embrace, his expression impatient and angry, Shaggydog growling at his side. His face is dirty and scratched, his clothes torn, and his hair unruly. His shouts grow louder as he rips through the room, pulling at tapestries, banging cups, and upending chairs.
His little body drips with sweat and blood and tears as he clutches at her, clawing wildly, his desperate cries of “Mother! Mother!” echoing through the chamber as she weeps.
She wants to scream at him, to shake him, to slap him. Sansa, Sansa, Sansa! I’m your sister, Rickon! Sansa! She wants him to see Father’s head rotting on a sunny day at King’s Landing, the mobs and riots in Flea Bottom, the uncaring faces of the court. To hear the whistle of an armored fist as it streaks towards exposed flesh. To feel the cold wind rush through the Moon Door in suffocating, howling gusts. To know what she has seen, what she has heard, what she has felt. To know that he is not the only one who was abandoned, who suffered.
But she has played this role before (too well, almost) and she slips into it like a favorite gown, still warm from the previous day. She pulls him close, holding him tightly to her chest as she runs her fingers through his hair, humming a tune that Old Nan used to sing, rocking him as he grows still.
He nuzzles closer to her, resting his chin on her hair, his chest heaving with labored, exhausted breaths. “Never leave us again, Mother.”
Sansa, Sansa, Sansa, her mind screams.
“No, sweetling, I’ll never leave again.”
---
Father emerges from the snowy mist, his dark hair crowned with frozen snowflakes that sparkle in the sunlight. His grey eyes shine brightly from a youthful, unlined face that breaks into a wide smile when he sees the walls of Winterfell, smoking but still standing.
Her breath catches. Not Father. Jon. Half-brother. Bastard. And who, if the rumors are true, had never truly been her brother at all. Cousin. And heir to the kingdom. Another perfect prince, dark where he had been fair. The gods were mocking her, sending this boy as her savior, this boy who would hope to be met by another sister, a sister who was wild and carefree and devoted to him, not a distant one who was more polite than loving, more fish than wolf.
But Jon is a man now, a boy no longer, a Stark in looks if not in name, and her heart aches as he rides through the gates, just as Father had years ago. But for the corpses and the rubble, she might expect her brothers to ride in his wake.
He stops when he catches sight of her. He did not think to see me; they did not tell him I was here. Perhaps he would not have come, had he known. Robb did not come. She averts her gaze, looking intently at her skirts, her feet, anything to avoid the pained look in his eyes.
He dismounts hurriedly, and the snow crunches loudly under his black boots as he approaches. Her hands fidget against her dress and she chews her lip worriedly, desperately trying to regain control of her trembling body.
He pauses a step away from her, so near and yet so far, an endless chasm between them that seems to spark and crackle. She tries to speak but there is no sound, pleasantries and courtesies failing her for the first time in years.
Falling to his knees, he takes her hands in his, stripping them of their gloves as he clasps them tightly, her cool, smooth palms against his calloused ones. Jon breaks the silence first, his voice rich and deep (so like Father’s) and choked with tears.
“Sansa. My dear, sweet Sansa.”