Chapter Rating: T
Chapter Word Count: 2339
Chapter Summary: Discussions are underway for the future of Jon's campaign with Sansa at his side.
Author's Note: The enthusiastic response to this fic has been very inspiring. Thank you to all my lovely readers!
Chapter Two
Sansa sits alongside Jon, the place he reserved for her. The only thing that separates them is Ghost, who sits beside Jon and allows Sansa to bury her left hand in his thick fur, as gentled to her touch as Lady ever was. It makes the day just bearable. Jon has included her in his council in honor of her position as lady of this place—the one thing he's done well other than swing a sword, Jaime declared, when Sansa marveled at his decision, which she feared might prove to be unpopular with his men. She has listened to the men argue for what seems half the hours of the day. They have talked in endless circles, goblets have been refilled half a dozen times, voices have been raised, and she has sat, the silent observer, at her brother's side. Her strength is in listening.
Until he turns to her and says something that she wasn't expecting. "What do you think, Lady Sansa?"
Her place here is honorary, surely, but his unwavering gaze seems to say otherwise, and her heart skips. She doesn't want to embarrass him. She would give good counsel of which he can be proud, even if he must decide against her opinion.
Petyr's advice to her begins to race through her mind. A patter of softly spoken commands against the shell of her ear. Don't blink. Don't fuss with your hands. Keep your back straight. Look them in the eyes. Courage in the face of a challenge. Use your strengths. You're beautiful when you smile.
She takes a breath, because Petyr always said it is better to take a breath and think before one speaks and commits oneself to something. Use that mind of yours. Beauty, brains, and birth, my dear, and the world will be ours.
But Petyr is dead.
She is still the heir of Winterfell, however, the role for which Petyr groomed her. First the Vale, then the North…
She pinches the skin at her wrist under the table to silence Petyr's voice in her head, as it turns into the hiss of a snake that coils about her neck.
She scans the room. Some of these men were her father's bannermen. Some of these men may have fought alongside Robb. They fight for her brother now. They call him king. She can feel the weight of their stares as heavy as the fresh, wet snow that fell last night.
"I have no wisdom to share about war, Your Grace. I am but a woman." She sees several of the men nod in agreement, and she regrets her words—so much for speaking with care. She would not have these men think her incapable. She has not fought with plate and sword, but she has fought and survived. "But in terms of broader strategy," she says, as her shoulders square, "it seems wise to press forward, to march south, and engage Aegon's forces before they have time to regroup."
Her men, those who represent the Vale, murmur their support, for they already have knelt to her and benefited from her leadership, but not all of the men approve of her—a lady—speaking her mind in a war council. She can see it in their fearsome scowls, which are evident even underneath their thick winter beards.
"Aegon's forces are weak," a man announces, derision dripping in his tone.
"It is the Dragon Queen we should prepare for," another adds.
"Let them limp back to King's Landing. The dragons will finish him off," the first man says rather more loudly than is strictly necessary, but that is the way of most men: they mistake loud words for wise words.
Sansa fights back a smirk at such a clear weakness in one who is old enough to know better. Some people never learn, but Sansa knows Jon is a wise leader, and that gives her strength to continue.
"I would finish off Aegon before the Dragon Queen reaches King's Landing," Sansa says, looking down the length of the table, lined by battle hardened men, who know more about swordplay than she could ever hope to learn even if Jon had given her a sword, instead of their sister. But she knows something about games: she has been a pawn and she has been taught to be a player. "Aegon must know his forces are the weakest of the three and stand to fall first. With dragons at the gates, he will seek an alliance with Daenerys."
"The lady is a soothsayer," a Northern man says with a chuckle that is cut short by Jon's hand coming down hard on the table.
"Careful," Jon says, his voice nearly a growl.
In the space made by the reverberating shock and Jon's command, Sansa speaks again, "I know what it is to be given in a political match, ser. They are as important a part of the game as what takes place on the battlefield, and I suspect that Aegon will propose marriage to unite nephew and aunt, so that they might rule together. Your Grace," she says looking to her brother, "may not care to propose marriage to Aegon, however pretty he might be." At least half of the men laugh at that, and she flashes a smile, her confidence blooming. "So, you can only hope to prevent that alliance by smashing his forces before it comes to fruition."
"There is a problem with your counsel, Lady Sansa: the Dragon Queen will never accept such a proposal. She rejects his claims and calls him a pretender," a craggy faced lord she does not know objects with some attempt at civility.
"Yes, you could wager on that," Sansa says with a tilt of her head, "but she's made worse matches from what I hear. She could use a consort like Aegon. The smallfolk prefer Aegon to her foreign ways and dragons. She might be made to see the wisdom of the match if Aegon lives to make it, and I would rather not wager my brother's throne on a woman's heart."
Sansa thinks she can see a smile in Jon's grey eyes, and although he speaks not a word, she can hear him whisper to her, Well done.
…
Sansa dismisses Ser Jaime from her chamber when her serving girl comes to brush her hair out for bed. She watches him go in her mirror, while she wraps her fur lined cape she has draped over her shoulders more tightly around her to fight the cold night air that seeps into her bones. He disappears around the door, as her girl takes the pearl handled brush in hand and brings it to the crown of her hair—red now after nearly a name's day turn since Petyr's death. The same amount of time she has known Jaime Lannister as someone other than the despised Kingslayer.
Her nerves unwind with each pass of the brush through her hair. Jaime has agreed to come with her, or rather, he has insisted upon it. Let Jon Snow worry about his throne, I'll worry about the heir of Winterfell. Sansa was nervous to tell Jaime of her plans. With Jon having announced to his council that they will pursue Aegon without delay, she knows that she will be at his side whether Jaime follows or not, but she dreaded his refusal, since she has come to rely on him like she does no one else.
With the blood not yet dry on her hands, Jaime had arrived in the Vale and congratulated her on her act. You're not a kinslayer, little wolf, he was never your father. He had informed her of Petyr's crimes against her family, some of which she had suspected and others she had not, and then he had the bravery or foolhardy impetuousness to confess his sins against the Starks as well. When she did not turn the dagger immediately on him, he had renewed his vow, repeating the promise he once made to her lady mother, and she had believed him. This man would see her home, although he had no claim upon the power she might wield should he succeed in that quest. Above all reason she had believed him, because in making plain all his sins, she had seen no reason to doubt his truths.
Sansa likes his plain speaking, and as they had grown comfortable with each other, his vulgar mouth had been what drew the first true laugh from her in many name days. Indeed, he spends as much time drowning his own sorrows as he does lightening hers through his impious comments and crass observations. After so long being in the presence of someone who calculated his every move, Sansa finally feels as if she can breathe easy around Jaime's unguarded tongue.
Sansa likes the way he looks at her. He looks at her not as she is a child, not as something in need of molding and shaping, but as a strong woman. He sees her not as Alayne Stone, not as a pale reflection of her lady mother, but as Sansa Stark, a formidable force. When he had told her what had become of her lady mother—a living death—and Sansa's carefully composed mask had slipped and tears had begun to stream down her cheeks, he hadn't looked away, ashamed or disappointed by her failure to maintain control. He simply had kept looking at her, and she had taken comfort in it as much as if he had held her.
If he left her now, she would not blame him, but she would miss him in a way Jon couldn't understand. She need not agonize about that now, however: he claims that his vow is unfulfilled and he will see her safe, which means traveling with them south.
I'm glad to hear it, Sansa confessed.
Your brother will be thrilled as well, no doubt.
She can't worry about that. There is a great deal to be accomplished before the troops move. As the lady of this place, there is much for her to do.
Her thoughts turn from planning, when her serving girl, Dasha, titters something that Sansa doesn't catch.
"What was that?"
"Your brother is handsome, my lady."
"That man is your king," Sansa says, for she accepts Jon as such whether he is Targaryen or not, whether he has yet to sit the Iron Throne or not.
"Kings can be handsome," Dasha says with a slow smile, sneaking a glance at Sansa in the mirror.
Sansa sighs. "Yes, of course they can." And Jon is a handsome king. Even with his thick beard and clothes in need of mending, she thinks him the handsomest king she has ever seen. Robb perhaps had been this handsome, but she'll never know for sure. All she has is her imagination, and some things are too painful to conjure up.
"It isn't his handsome face that will save us from burning," Sansa says, as if she is far removed from girlish thoughts, and in some ways she is. Life has turned the wheels of time too quickly.
Dasha doesn't respond, and Sansa looks up to see the girl's stricken face in the mirror, looking off to the side at some threat outside of Sansa's peripheral vision. Sansa twists on her bench to see what has frightened her girl, and she sees Ghost standing in the shadows.
"Ghost, to me," she says, holding out her hand.
As Ghost pads forward as quiet as a specter that his name implies, the quiet of the room is disturbed, when the girl drops the brush with a noisy clatter on the stone that makes the already frightened girl jerk.
"It's all right," Sansa says, as she bends down to stroke Ghost's head. "He won't harm you, you see."
"I'm afraid of wolves, my lady," the girl whispers, sounding as if she is about to cry.
Sansa thinks of saying that her lady is a wolf, but she takes mercy on the girl's nerves and dismisses her.
Alone with her brother's direwolf, Sansa slips to the floor, kneeling alongside the animal, who perhaps should frighten her too. It could take her head inside its powerful jaws and put an end to her troubled life with one snap. But Ghost's quiet strength reminds her of Jon, who might be a dragon, but seems all wolf to her.
"Did you hear me speak of Jon?" she murmurs, as its red eyes hold hers.
Better Ghost hears than Jon. When she catches Jaime gazing at her, he stares boldly, unapologetically back at her, but when she feels Jon's eyes on her and turns to face him, he flushes and quickly finds something else to look upon. He doesn't seem to blame her for her juvenile, false superiority when they were children, although she believes it will always pain her to think on it; so, she doesn't think that is the source of his discomfort. Perhaps he is merely unused to being around women, having been at the Wall for so long, and if that is the case, she would rather he not know how handsome she thinks him, as it might only add to his uneasiness.
Ghost gives no answer to her question, of course, but she feels almost as if he does. She can hear him almost as she hears Jon.
She feels calm in his presence. She feels safe. Her dreams often wake her in the night to a pillow soaked with sweat, bed furs twisted about her legs, but she suspects that having Ghost by her side will bring her comfort, not nightmares.
She stands and lets her cape pool on the floor before crossing the room and crawling atop the high bed, which is draped in velvet.
"Come, Ghost," she calls, as she slides beneath the furs, and in two bounds the direwolf is atop the bed and curling against her side.
She doesn't think Jon will mind sharing for one night.
