ASOIAF
Oh
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: The various reactions to Sansa and Podrick's relationship.
"Oh." Brienne spoke dumbly, freezing at the sight before her. Sansa and Podrick leaped apart, Sansa blushing like the maid Brienne hoped she still was and Podrick blushing like Podrick. Brienne was certain her cheeks matched theirs. "I..." Brienne cleared her throat and held her chin highly. "Excuse me, Your Grace. I was simply coming to tell you that if you truly intend on staying at an inn rather than inside the holdfast, you must leave now, before the sun sets completely." Sansa smiled timidly at her. "Thank you, Lady Brienne. I will be but a moment more." She turned to Podrick and extended a hand towards him. "Will you join me for supper at my inn this evening, Pod?" Brienne found herself smiling at the way the boy smiled shyly at her request and took her hand. "Gladly, Sansa." Escorting the pair to where the carriage was waiting, Brienne couldn't help but find the young couple's flushed cheeks, shy sideways glances, and the way their fingers brushed against each other's ever few steps rather endearing.
Didn't stop her from sitting in-between them in the carriage though.
Arya didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or scream with anger. Laugh because her sister, a so-called Lady, was on her back with a boy who she insisted was simply a friend attacking her neck with his mouth. Scream because not very many years ago her sister would have turned her nose up at such behavior outside the marriage bed and called it dishonorable and unladylike. She would have scorned Arya or any other highborn lady for such behavior. Now look at her, the hypocrite! Arya ought to have barged in and given her a piece of her mind. Arya did none of these things, having long learned to control herself. Instead she stayed hidden behind the flaps of her sister's tent, peering in more just one half minute longer to be sure she wasn't witnessing her sister's violation before retreating. "Why is your face so red?" Asked the Bull upon coming across her. He felt her forehead. She swiped away his hand. "I'm fine. Sansa's even better." Arya spat as she continued her irritable march back to her tent, leaving a confused Gendry in her wake.
Children. That's what they were, Jaime decided. No amount of blood on Podrick's sword or political manipulation on Sansa's part could change that opinion. Not when the sight before him solidified it as fact. Jaime had come to collect the two for their meager suppers, in the process stumbling into a miniature war zone. In a snowy clearing, Sansa and Podrick hurled snowballs back and forth, their heads popping up from behind their frozen fortresses to hurl ball after cold ball at the other as they laughed themselves breathless. They even taunted and called each other names!
"You can throw harder than that!" Sansa teased Pod. She let out a shriek when one of Pod's snowballs connected with her face. Pod howled victoriously from across the clearing as he prepared another batch of snowballs for hurling. Sansa returned fire before he could finish, raining blow after blow on his cloaked back. When Sansa ran out of snowballs, she did not set to making more. Instead, she stood and sprinted across the clearing, tumbling over Pod's snowy fortress and onto Podrick. The boy let out a yelp of surprise but quickly had his attacker at his mercy, growling playfully as he wrestled his queen to the snow covered ground where he proceeded to tickle her.
Jaime, only being able to take so much puppy love before being thoroughly disgusted, rolled his eyes and disappeared back into the trees surrounding the clearing and returned to camp. More rabbit for him and Brienne then, he thought.
"He looks kind of dumb." Rickon observed, eyeing the young man sitting next to his big sister Sansa suspiciously. "He's really brave. Ser Jaime made him a knight!" Robin informed his little cousin. "Lots of men who don't really deserve it are made knights all the time." Shireen informed the younger boys sagely. "Don't be fooled by a silly title." Robin glared at the older girl. "Podrick is a great, true knight!" He protested loudly, drawing the attention of Jon Snow, who had been passing by the trio on his way to back his chambers for that evening.
Jon smiled at the three of them and crouched down to their level. "Oh, is he now?" He asked Robin. His dark gray eyes strayed over to where his sister and her knight sat at the end of the table. "I have been wondering about that man who rarely strays from Sansa's side. Can you tell us more about him, Robin?" He implored the boy, who smiled at the prospect and nodded enthusiastically. "Podrick is kind and loyal and brave. He fought in many battles in the South for Sansa. He was knighted after one of them! Sansa said he deserved it, because he's always been very brave and kind, she said." Robin explained. "Has Podrick known my sister a long time?" Jon asked curiously. Robin nodded his head, his long hair flopping all about. "Sansa told me she knew him in King's Landing. He was Lord Tyrion's squire and saved his life at the Battle of the Blackwater; he killed a King's Guard!" Jon gave Robin a disbelieving look. The boy had to be telling lies now, he thought. Shireen chastised him for it. "Do not tell lies. Tell Jon the truth, Robert." She said with crossed arms and a stern look worthy of her father. Robin paid her no mind.
"Podrick is one of the best knights ever. And he'll be the greatest king ever once he marries Sansa." The boy asserted confidently. "He's marrying Sansa?" Rickon asked with a tilt of his head. Robin nodded. "What makes you say that, Robin?" Jon asked, nervous of what the boy might say. Robin looked at Jon as if he were stupid or mad. Mayhaps both. "That's what you do when you love someone, Sansa said. And she tells Podrick she loves him an awful lot lately. Especially when he came back hurt from that last battle."
Jon gaped at the child and swore under his breath. This was going to make things even more complicated, he thought dismally.
"I heard that Stark girl is fucking the Targaryen bastard." Olyvar remarked over a cup of mead to his neighbor. Other men in the small tavern table looked his way curiously. "Which one? The little one they say got her face cut off by those Faceless Men, or the older one that I heard dyes her hair with blood?" A man at the end asked. One of his companions slapped him upside the head. "Don't listen to those stupid tales. They're just girls. Not creatures who crawled straight up from Hell." He chastised the other man. "I was just askin'!" The man complained loudly. "Not like I know any other way to describe 'em."
"Well which is it?" Olyvar's neighbor asked him. "The little or big one?"
"The elder. Sansa Stark. The one who was supposed to marry Joffrey before the boy cut off Eddard Stark's head." Olyvar answered.
"And they say she's fucking that Jon Snow fellow?"
Olyvar nodded. "Heard from my brother when he came back from the fighting at the Wall. Told me and mine a lot of stories. The one about Queen Sansa and the Targaryen bastard sounded the least mad of all of them."
"It's not true, though." A man from the next table over called. "I fought at the Wall too. Was part of the forces Lord Willas lent to the effort. Sansa Stark don't care about that bastard as anymore than a brother from all I saw and heard." He leaned across the space between tables with a grin. "If you want the honest truth, the Stark girl is truly spreadin' her legs for a knight called Podrick Payne."
"Who's that?"
"Some knight who squired for Sansa Stark's husband, the Lannister Imp."
All the men laughed and whooped at that. "The sly dog! Right under his Lord's nose!" Olyvar chortled.
"Sansa Stark is pregnant." Daenerys' Master of Whispers, a nefarious old businessman from the Free Cities whose name was an unpronounceable mess of 'S's. He sounded like a snake when he introduced himself. Tryion had taken to calling him Fatfinger, as the man reminded him of Littlefinger only portlier and only an ounce or so less conniving. At the head of the table, Daenerys' eyes widened a fraction as if she had received a pleasant surprise. Anyone who truly knew the young queen knew she had not. She and Sansa hated each other, both being ardent believers there was room for only one queen in Westeros. "I was not aware she had wed recently or taken a paramour." Daenerys said coolly.
"If she had one, she would not flaunt it, Your Grace." Davos, Master of Ships, informed her. He was prone to the position of reminding Daenerys that Westeros was not Essos and other women were not her. Daenerys narrowed her eyes at the word 'flaunt'. "She is a queen. Who would stop her if she decided to, Davos?" Daenerys did not shy away from critiquing Sansa's submissiveness towards social conventions; she was a queen, Daenerys said, restrictive taboos attached to her sex should not rule her.
Davos looked to his fellow men. Tyrion pointedly turned his head in the other direction. "No one, could stop her, Your Grace. However, they could assassinate her lover, and now that it is clear she has one, all of Sansa Stark's suitors will be on the look out for this man. She will likely send him away now, to protect him." He explained.
"Quite the opposite. She sent the suitors away, I hear." Fatfinger interjected. "Seems she has no desire to be rid of her lover, even for the man's own good."
"Unless the lover is among the suitors she just cast out." Tyrion countered. "If so, one man will be scorned more than others and will likely try and claim his bastard when the time comes in pursuit of status. If he cannot be King, let him at least be the father of the Queen's bastard."
"Lord Tyrion, you have known Sansa since she was a girl and she was your wife. Will she legitimize her bastard as her heir?" Daenerys asked him. Tyrion quickly thought over all the political ramifications of such and act and Sansa's character. "Without thinking too hard on the subject, I would like to say, yes, Sansa would be inclined to make her bastard a Stark. However it would be a foolish move on her part. Her enemies would multiply over night." Tyrion went back on forth on how different Sansa was from the girl he had know. Was she still enough like that girl to do something as romantic as legitimize her bastard despite consequences? Or was she far too savvy and cautious of a player to do such a foolish thing?
Daenerys looked thoughtful. She then dismissed the small council, announcing that she would contemplate this matter further in private. Tyrion expected a raven would be sent to Jon at dawn, encouraging him to marry and start producing heirs. Aegon's many maesters were likely to be chastised for their lack of progress in treating the prince, and Arianne was without a doubt going to be frigid towards her queen the next day. As if the lack of a babe in her belly was anyone's fault but Aegon's. Yes, Tyrion suspected a race was about to get underway to see which queen could procure more heirs the fastest.
Tyrion adjourned to his quarters, shooing away the maid servants and the guards. "Wine, Leonard." He ordered his cupbearer. When the chalice was full, Tyrion sent the boy away like the others and made himself comfortable at his desk with his work and his wine, an amused playing on smile on his lips. He raised his chalice in a toast and took a large gulp of Dornish Red. "Pod, you never cease to amaze me." He laughed under his breath, shaking his head.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this story. I love reviews so please leave one!
Ps, this story ties in with pretty much every other Sansa/Podrick story I have written excluding the "Fawn"-verse stories. If you'd like to give any of those a gander to better understand this fic, feel free. Sorry if the lack of background is confusing. I'm a mediocre writer.