We'll Never be Royals

Sansa Stark walked nervously into her new school with three new notebooks, two new binders, one of her mother's old skirts and a shirt she'd taken from her brother.

Weirwood Heights looked small on the outside but extended back into the ravine behind the school. It was the typical suburban Canadian school, seedy, nothing special, incorrigibly terrifying.

Sansa's brothers Jon and Robb walked ahead of her with their friend Theon and his sister Asha. Ninth grade seemed like such a joke. Catelyn and Ned Stark had told her these were the best years of her life but so far it didn't seem like it.

The front yard of the school was a grassy field with a driveway and a cover of trees. Several teenagers sat under a tree at the far end of the yard passing a bong around the circle, Sansa moved closer to her brothers and hurried into the school.

"Sansa, let me see your timetable." said Asha, she was tall and gorgeous, with pale skin and curly black hair. Sansa passed the older girl her timetable and she read it, "Ohhh, you have Ms Hightower for Homeroom, she's pretty chill, you'll like her. And Mr Lannister is kind of weird but you learn a shitload of math and... Ooh, you have Ms Rougement, remember, just call her Melisandre." Theon shoved the front doors open. The lobby was completely empty and the announcements were just starting to come on over the PA system.

"Shit." said Robb, "Sansa, we need to go, find your Homeroom and try to make friends!" he yelled as he ran away with Asha, Jon and Theon. Sansa was on her own. She made her way down the hall to room 210.

"...And that is what you can expect from this course! Welcome to Academic English everyone, I think we're going to have a very good year!"

Sansa opened the door slowly and every eye in the room turned to stare at her. What a colourful bunch. Sansa thought to herself as her eyes scanned her classmates, finally settling on her teacher. Ms Hightower was tall, with brown hair that had streaks of grey, she seemed nice, but her face was severe.

"Hi. I'm Sansa Stark."

"You're ten minutes late." said Ms Hightower. A ripple of laughter ran through the class. Sansa felt her face turn red, Fuck... "That's alright, sweetheart, it's only the first day." Thank God... "You can sit right here behind Ms Targaryen."

Ms Hightower pointed to a short, skinny girl who was wearing a leather jacket that looked to be about five sizes too big for her and her hair was so blonde it looked white, or maybe it was just dyed. Sansa sat down behind her and tapped her on the shoulder, she turned around, heavily-eyelinered eyes looked Sansa up and down,

"Is that your natural hair colour?"

The girl's dark purple lips bent into a smirk, "...Nope. I'm just soft grunge like that." When Sansa's only response was a blank look, the girl stopped smirking, "It's a recessive gene, my brother has it too."

"It's pretty."

"Thanks..." said the girl, turning around slowly. Sansa glanced to her right at a girl with brown hair and green doe eyes, she was grinning.

"Hi, I'm Margaery!" she chirped, "That's my mom!" she said, pointing to Ms Hightower, "I think we're gonna be really good friends."

"Me too." said Sansa, smiling nervously,

"You're here for four years, you don't want to get mixed up with the... wrong people." She glanced at the girl in front of Sansa,

"Why don't you just go on down to 11th Grade Math and suck Renly's dick for a few hours, Margaery?" her purple lips spat,

"You know what Dany, at least my boyfriend isn't wasted all the time."

"DROGO IS NOT WASTED ALL THE TIME." Dany shouted, standing up quickly, Ms Hightower cleared her throat and motioned to Dany to sit down.

"Girls..." said Sansa softly, Dany's Doc Marten-ed foot shot out and clipped Margaery in the shin, who struck back with a delicate manicured hand to the back of Dany's blonde head. Sansa felt suddenly vulnerable. She looked to her left. There was a girl there with darkish skin and curly black hair like Asha's.

"They do that every class they have together." she whispered, "They can't stand each other. Did you go to Baratheon Elementary?"

"No, I moved here in the summer from Toronto."

"Oh, my brother lives there." the girl put out her hand. "I'm Irri Khatchadourian."

"Sansa Stark. So what's this school like anyway?"

"How am I supposed to know? You could ask my brother, he's in 11th grade."

"Do a lot of people smoke drugs here?" Sansa whispered, Irri burst into stifled peals of laughter, her face started to flush red as she laughed silently,

"Okay, word of advice, don't call weed drugs."

...

Second period came too fast. Sansa told herself she wouldn't be late for Geography. On the staircase, Dany popped up behind her.

"Hey, what do you have next?"

"Geography." said Sansa softly.

"Me too! Ms Rougement, right?"

"Yeah."

"Apparently she's insane."

"...Is that actually your natural hair colour?"

"There are weirder colours than this, kid." Sansa and Dany continued up the stairs in silence, when they got to Geography, they were the first ones there, a woman with dark red hair and a dress to match was writing something on the board.

"Take a seat." she barked, never turning around and continuing to write with astounding velocity.

Dany and Sansa sat down at a table towards the back of the class, some more people started to file in. A girl with dirty blonde hair sat at the front of the class next to a girl with long black curls, a blonde boy came in after them, pausing to wink at Sansa, they were followed by others. Once everyone seemed to be there, the teacher turned around,

"Joffrey Baratheon?"

"Here."

"Shireen Baratheon?"

"Here!"

"Podrick Payne?" No answer, "Great."

"Is she the crazy one?" Sansa whispered.

"Let's just say she is."

"Kyra Snow?"

"Here."

"Sansa Stark?"

"Here!" Sansa screamed, the class turned to stare at her and Dany visibly tried to keep from laughing.

"Daenerys Targaryen?"

"Just Dany."

"Okay, Just Dany."

"Ms Rougement."

"I taught your brother." said the teacher to Dany, "Don't think I don't know about you Targaryens. Loras Tyrell?"

Before the boy in the front row with curly brown hair could answer, a man's voice came on over the PA system.

"Attention, Weirwood Heights. This is your principal Robert Baratheon speaking, it is with great sadness that I disrupt your studies with this news, but as students, you have a right to know, our longtime vice principal, Jon Arryn, is dead."

When Sansa got home, her parents looked frantic. The second she opened the door she glimpsed her father sprinting upstairs and her mother applying lipstick in the mirror in the living room, their 4-year old brother Rickon was eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich with a napkin stuffed into his collar to catch any raspberry-peanut butter traces that could find their way onto his little tie.

"Why are we all getting dressed up?" said Robb, Jon kicked off his shoes and turned on the TV.

"Kids, I need you to go pick up Bran and Arya from school, okay? We're going to the Baratheon's for dinner tonight." said Catelyn, wiping lipstick off her teeth with her finger.

The Baratheons were friends of the family and the founders of most of the schools in the suburb. Apparently Sansa was in a few classes with some of them, and clearly Robert ran the school.

The elementary school was like a smaller version of the high school. Arya and Bran were waiting outside. Arya impatiently tapping her fingers on the handles of Bran's wheelchair.

"Took you guys long enough!" she yelled, Bran wheeled himself over, "Are you still ordering pizza tonight?"

"No, we're going to the Baratheon's, I expect you to clean up nicely." said Sansa. She had never actually met the Baratheons before.

"This is stupid." said Bran, "It's the first day of school and we have to go to a dinner party? That's dumb."

"It's not dumb." said Robb, "It's not your decision."

Bran smirked and rolled away down the sidewalk.

"What a little ass." said Sansa,

"He's eleven, we were both like that."

"Yeah, but we didn't get to play the disabled card like he does."

"Well, then I guess you should break your back too then, Sansa."

...

The Baratheon house was more like a mansion, flanked by two slightly smaller but still huge houses that Catelyn had said housed Cersei Lannister's family.

Robert looked absolutely nothing like the pictures Ned Stark had posted on Facebook of their college adventures. He looked like he'd raided a liquor store and drunk up literally everything in his path, his wife Cersei was a whole other can of worms, tall and skinny and gorgeous with long blonde hair, Sansa caught Bran staring at her ass a few times throughout the night. Their children were clearly making Catelyn jealous, Tommen was 7, Myrcella was 11 and then there was Joffrey, the kid who had winked at Sansa during Geography.

Cersei poured everyone drinks and poured about six for herself, Bran and Myrcella disappeared into another room. After a while Robert and Ned left the room, looking secretive about something. Sansa excused herself to go to the washroom and followed them. She felt as shifty as Arya. She put her ear up to the door,

"...How do you think he died?"

"That's just it, I don't know, Ned. It's gotta be someone within the school board or one of our families."

"What about Lysa?"

"I haven't heard from her."

"I'll ask Catelyn, why do you think anyone would want him dead?"

"I don't know, but I can tell something's going to happen involving the school. I can just feel it, people won't be happy the vice principal is just dead without warning, parents will pull their kids, the school will consume itself, we need to keep it under wraps, but remember, I just know there's something more to it. Jon wouldn't just drop dead of his own accord, he wasn't even sick, someone has to be behind it, I don't know who and I don't know why. There's a shitstorm brewing, Ned, I'm never wrong about these things." Robert paused, Sansa suddenly felt as if she'd heard too much, "I want you to take his place."

"What, me? I'm not qualified."

"Neither was Jon and neither am I. You helped me take over the school board now help me keep it."

"I'd have to let Catelyn know, and the kids."

"I'll tell them myself. It'll be just like college, now I've gotta get back out there before Cersei poisons herself." Sansa heard footsteps heading towards the door and she sprinted down the hall to the living room.