Synopsis: In the years that pass through a harsh winter, many things can be forgotten, many wounds can be healed, many battles can be won. But for the Queen of the North, for her, she finds that the feelings once felt are still the strongest of them all.
A/N: My first GoT fic and it's for the first day of Femslash February 3 Feels 100% right, gotta say. Hopefully it'll not be the last I write for GoT, but this being the first it has a bit of experimentation to it. Also a VERY hopeful idea of who will be surviving in the aftermath of the main storyline, I have to admit lol. But I am pining for some Sansa reaction to Margaery's death after the destruction of the Sept.
I'll get around to happier AUs eventually
Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire and related characters © George R.R. Martin
story © RenaRoo
Wherever a Rose May Bloom
The Direwolf hung on banners across the courtyards of Winterfell with the magnificence and dignity that Sansa had not learned to truly appreciate until she had come of age. And even by then it had almost been too late.
A Direwolf – the Stark Direwolf – was not delicate and beautiful the way even her own Lady had been in the poor pup's short life. It was fierce and in some ways savage.
Sansa remembered growing within these very walls of Winterfell and feeling a disdain for it. She wished for the nobility of a lion or the the beauty of a stallion.
It was a time of stupidity and immaturity. When the banners of other houses did not burn her eyes or make her mouth fill with ash as she dared to say them.
The war was over, but even Jon could not say as much to her with a straight face. Winter was still there, and they had fought for House, life, and home for every moment since the unexpected death of King Robert.
Perhaps before then? Since Lady had died at her father's hand, perhaps?
Surely not as far back as Jon Arryn, though the Queen of the South, in all their currently testy relations, would dare to stake claim that their unending battles had carried on since far sooner.
Age had made perspective both so much easier and so much harder than when she was a girl.
Sansa was a queen. It was the only thing she had ever wanted to be.
And that, that ambition reminded her much more of Margaery than of the current Queen of the South.
"Your Majesty," a familiar voice called out as Sansa walked across the courtyard.
She turned and forced a polite smile toward the blossoming young woman who had stood by the Starks since her House had been called upon by Robb himself.
"Hello, Lady Mormont," Sansa said gracefully.
Lyanna bowed respectfully to her and then looked at her with the regard and confidence that she had maintained since she was the child wrapped in a bear's skin that Jon and Sansa had first encountered.
"It's bitter cold, are you leaving the grounds?" the lady asked. "And without your guard–"
"There are some things even queens must do in private," Sansa said with her smile pressed with years of practice.
The younger woman stared at Sansa with that unreadable expression that Sansa had always found unnerving, even when she stood more than three heads taller than the girl. "I would think Brienne of Tarth would think ill of that plan. And she is the captain of the Queen's Guards," Lyanna said as a matter of fact.
It was logic that was difficult to refuse.
Without further input from Sansa, Lyanna glanced to her own guards and nodded from one to the other and they took the hint and began to flank Sansa's sides. It was immediately discomforting.
"This is really not necessary," Sansa attempted to interject.
"They'll go wherever you need, and bite their tongues on whatever matters you need them to stay," Lyanna offered without hesitation. "As I have said to both you and your brother since the day you called upon my House, there is no loyalty like Mormont loyalty."
"And it continues to be proven," Sansa said awkwardly. "But still–"
"My Queen!"
Closing her eyes so as to remain dignified among her people and not show off Westeros' grandest of eye rolls, Sansa let out a small sigh and then turned toward her ever present, ever diligent Captain of the Queen's Guard.
Brienne and Podrick joined her side and took the place of Lady Lyanna's guards rather readily. With how breathless Podrick was, no doubt he had spent quite a bit of time attempting to keep up with Brienne in her search for the queen.
"I have walked to the Weirwood tree on my own since I was a child," Sansa said in aggravation.
"When you were a child you were not a queen, madame," Podrick pointed out the obvious.
Lady Mormont, seemingly satisfied to have her sworn queen guarded adequately, bowed and took her leave.
Sansa looked at Brienne long enough to get a sense that the fiercely loyal woman had no intention out of being talked out of her sworn duty. As if she ever were.
With a heavy sigh, Sansa marched forward through the snow. "Come on, then."
"Yes, your Grace," Brienne said with satisfaction. "In step now, Podrick."
"I am no longer a page," he began to argue before being shot a look. He sighed and joined in flanking the queen. "Yes, your Grace."
Sansa waited until they were outside the wall, her stride slowly losing the learned nobility and easing into comfort. Her head shook with annoyance that Brienne aptly ignored and Podrick remained oblivious to.
"Even queens have some right to privacy," Sansa said. "There are some things which cannot be forced to be shared. Even with the Queen's Guard."
"As you say, your Grace," Brienne said without hesitation or miscalculation in her own stride.
"There's nothing quite as private as the counsel of your personal guard, your Grace," Podrick added with only mild hesitation.
Sansa shot him a look. "Privacy, Sir Podrick. Privacy is quite a bit more private than counsel. That is why there are different words." When she saw the recoil and shame the crossed her guard's face, Sansa sighed and lowered her chin. "I apologize for the sharpness of my tongue. It was undeserved."
"You are queen, what's deserved is what you deem," Brienne defended.
"No, not even for a queen may things be unjust. Especially not for a Stark," Sansa said quietly. "I believe Westeros has had enough unduly cruel queens. I have no interest in being one of them."
"Of course, your Grace," Brienne replied lithely.
After that, their walk grew silent.
Compared to the southern heat, Sansa felt comforted by the chill on her skin. Enough so, she let down her hood to allow the snow to land in her hair.
What a fool she had to have been to ever fancy being a southern girl when beneath her bosom rest the armor of a Northern Woman.
By the time they reached the weirwood by the pond, the troubles and difficulties of ruling the North and its people through the longest and harshest of its winters seemed so far away. Sansa was left to what she did nearly every day she could spare.
She knelt by the tree and lightly brushed the snow away from the bushes which grew beneath – those she had planted herself after seeing the poor Lady Olenna Tyrell a last time toward the end of the wars.
Through the snow, a brilliant golden rose bloomed, then another as Sansa dusted it off, too.
"Will you pray while we're here, your Grace?" Podrick asked, shifting uncomfortably as he stood in attendance. He still lacked the discipline and fortitude of Brienne – though, of course, Sansa couldn't imagine who would stand a chance save maybe Arya.
Arya was another case entirely.
"I am not at all pious, Sir Podrick," Sansa said, continuing to clean the bush of roses and tending to it. "The gods, Old and New, have been rather clear through my life that they aren't interested in sorting our mortal affairs."
The young knight nodded slightly before glancing toward the weirwood's sap. "When I take guard of your brother Bran, he speaks to them, you know. He's very certain that we are approaching the end of this winter. Finally."
Sansa glanced up toward Podrick only for a moment before pulling out a sharpened pair of scissors from her gown. "My brother Jon places stock in what Bran has to say. I do not."
Podrick gave a half shouldered shrug. "He hasn't been wrong that I can think of–"
"It's not a matter of being right or wrong," Sansa said – short again, caught herself a moment too late. She took a breath and looked apologetically to the knight. "I take council, but my first and last decision on a matter has to be my own wit. And I have to make…. considerations for all my actions. For every person it effects. Should I not, I'll be making decisions because of prophecy and not because it is what a queen should do."
With the scissors, Sansa cut the most bloomed rose.
"Queens have to be smarter, be stronger, and be kinder than any king," Sansa explained. "We have many queens trying to be kings right now. I'm merely doing the logical thing." She glanced toward the two knights. "I'm being a queen. And to do that I come out here, and I thin of the only real queen I ever met."
"Of course, your Grace," Brienne said, a strong and stern smile that portrayed nothing but pride in the knight.
There were the faintest of cracks in her smile at that. Sansa turned back to the bush of roses, clearing the earth around its roots from the snow, attempting to relieve it, give it warmth in the sea of ice and snow it was surrounded in.
"Podrick," she spoke out again. "Do you know the words of House Tyrell?"
"Yes, your Grace," Podick nodded. "'Growing Strong,' your Grace."
Sansa let a huff of laughter escape her lips, it came out all steam in the bitter air. "Growing Strong."
Standing up, Sansa looked to her dress, adorned with its pockets and sleeves. All places of honor for her favorite blooms of the bush of Tyrell roses. She added the newest and freshest to her collection.
"Sweet Margaery," Sansa said, water welling in her eyes. "No kindness in my life will outdo that which you showed me in my darkest hours. No queen was born better suited for her role. No player better understood how to be a proper lady in the Game of Thrones. And no rose ever grew stronger than you."
Respectfully, the queen's guard remained silent.
Sansa took in a cold breath and pulled her hood back over her head. "Podrick," she said softly.
"Yes, your Grace," he said dutifully.
"I am not pious," she reiterated. "But I believe in the eternal. And I believe nothing proves it more than the lasting effect one person can have another. Or how a heart can long and love for what is no longer there. I do not pray to gods who sit back and watch our affairs from afar, but to make myself a good queen, I come out here and am dutiful to that pain because it reminds me of the cost and the example of a good queen."
When she turned around, she could see slight confusion on Podrick's face. But Brienne was all knowledge – all understanding and mutual feeling. She, after all, served a long line of dead fealty.
"Am I mad?" she asked all the same.
"Your Grace, you are wise beyond your years, and sharpened by the trials of your life," Brienne said humbly.
Sansa smiled, all bitter in the corners. "Sometimes I wish it were a bit mad. Madness helps someone love, I think. I haven't been mad since last I walked the gardens of King's Landing. It was mad to think love of two girls who dreamed of being queens could be anything but tragic."
"You do her affection a great service," Brienne assured her, nodding to the bush of roses in the snow. "Your dedication and love grows golden roses in the worst of winter's snows."
Some of the bitterness left Sansa's smile and she petted the golden rose in its new home. "Let's return to Winterfell," she ordered. "I'm ready to rule again."