A/N: Thank you all for all the lovely reviews—you're really spurring me forward! I'll keep it up if you will! ;)

* Quote from ACOK

Now without any further ado...

SANSA

Sansa took a shaky breath and turned to regard herself in the looking-glass. She had waited for this day her whole life—up until her marriage to Tyrion at least, but that marriage wasn't for true, and afterwards too, once Father—Lord Petyr, she corrected herself, almost giddy—had explained his plans to marry her off to Harrold Hardyng and make her lady of both Winterfell and the Eyrie.

My hair, she thought, as tears formed in the pit of her eye, I didn't even know how much I had missed it... she fingered a lock thoughtfully, bringing it out before her face as if disbelieving, as if to ascertain that it was, in fact, the same auburn it had always been. It was a shade or so darker, she knew—not all the dye had come out so easily—but it was close enough to recognize. And who knows, she thought, this could just be its winter shade. I haven't seen a winter my whole life—how would I know? Her eyes came back to the looking-glass.

The storm-gray gown she wore was a proper winter dress—sleek, shiny satin on the outside, lined with lambs'-wool, so soft and fine after the years of humble, drab, spun-wool dresses and rough-spun cotton slips. It was a practical rather than glamorous garment in the end, though—there were no seed-pearls stitched into a pattern nor any Myrish lace adorning it. I could have put something around the bodice, if I'd had more time, she thought almost ungratefully, tugging at the small and not-quite-accurate smoky quartz direwolf clasp that held her white and gray maiden's cloak in place.

The image reflected back at her, of her shoulders all curtained in white, brought a memory to her of another white cloak, tossed to her almost frantically, as she knelt naked and sobbing in the courtroom of the Red Keep. The course weave had been scratchy against her skin, but no velvet had ever felt so fine*. And again, that same cloak, deposited in her chambers in the wake of him as he left her, hardly white anymore with stains of battle and bravery. It was the one thing from King's Landing she most sorely missed...

But he had left her, and it was silly of her to pine after such a thing.

In her years locked away behind the facade of Alayne, Sansa had tried to teach herself useful things. With the help of Alayne's Lord Father, she learned to anticipate what others were expecting from her, what others were wanting from her, and to keep the two separate. In watching him with his feints and smiles, she learned to deceive without being untruthful, and to lead other's expectations and wants to wherever she needed them to go without letting on to her plots, and though she was yet unpracticed in these ways of slight and deception, she had faith in herself to do whatever she had to in order to reclaim her rights. Prescience, Lord Petyr had insisted; Sansa needed prescience if she was to become a player in the Game of Thrones, and she was not under the impression that she had a choice in the matter. She was the last living heir of Eddard Stark—Winterfell, and with it all of the north, were rightfully hers. She owed a duty to her Northmen, quick and dead both, to right the wrongs that Fate had inflicted on them and bring her people peace again.

Yet she was Sansa still, and no amount of discipline or chiding could wrest from her soul her dreaming nature. She dreamt not of songs, no; the songs she had outgrown. There were no nights glittering in the summer sun or maidens fair swept off their feet by star-crossed love or gallantry, no—those tales were empty and false, as nourishing to her soul as spun sugar. The brilliant ideal that she sighed for now, filling her head in idle moments of bliss, was Safety.

They were memories, mostly, that she dwelt upon, but they had been hijacked by her dreaming soul that filled in vividly any details she might have forgotten. She remembered, more completely than she had ever observed it, the gentle quiet of the godswood, the kindly woeful face etched onto the heart tree, her own face reflected back from the glassy pool fed by the spring, so much younger she felt then and yet it had not been so many years. She thought of her mother running the soft bristle brush through her hair, and of Robb when he'd dance with her at feasts, always finding some point in the music to pick her up and swing her in a circle. She thought of Arya, the way she never wanted to be cross with her sister but always just was, and Bran, who had always asked her to watch how high he could climb. And baby Rickon, clinging to her skirts and confusing her with Mother, and Jon, who would give Theon sidelong glares and smacks if he took to staring at her, which Theon often did, and Jeyne, her closest friend, and Jory, whom they both thought was so handsome, and Father...

Her dreams would dip dark after Father—she was responsible for his death, she'd decided, and she always would feel that way, even though she knew Joffrey and Cersei had tricked her into confusing her loyalty to them with her loyalty to her family, but she would push past that and think of him fondly, think of his smile, just starting to wizen, and the strength and assurance in everything he was, his presence alone the embodiment of Safety itself, and how it felt when that Safety would clasp his hand on her shoulder or on her wrist...

And then she would think of another pair of hands on her shoulders, the first time she'd felt it them so similar to her father's, when he'd turned her to save her from the fright of Ser Illyn Payne. A different sort of wistfulness would fill her up then, one that twisted an ever-present pain and shock within her, submerged her in the blackness of those eternal months she spent a caged in the Red Keep only to watch shooting out of that blackness pillars of brilliant light, glimmering moments that were too small and too few, when Sandor would emerge from wherever he'd been hiding and make her safe, only if for a moment. 'I'm no ser,' he had said when he had won her Father's tourney, and while he may not have sworn any holy vows with a blade on his shoulder he seemed to be the only figure in King's Landing, or maybe even the world, who showed Knightly valour and kept her safe instead of hurting her.

She dreamt of her childhood, before she knew what terror was, or paralyzing, numbing guilt, or the feeling of clutching a cloak, scratchy and fine about her shoulders, in place of everything she had ever believed in, laying in tatters at her feet.

"Milady?" a woman's voice chirped. Sansa whipped around, a spray of red settling around her gray-and-white clad shoulders. The maidservant's confusion was evident, but she knew not to ask questions. "Milord Petyr is begging entrance."

Sansa wanted to bite her lip before entering the sept, but she had to keep face. She took a sharp breath in and held it tight in her chest, trying to squeeze the nervousness that gripped her into submission and still her shaking. The cold outside had kissed her cheeks pink and left her knuckles white as bone. I have a duty to do, she thought, stilling her heart and mind, a duty to my late father, and mother, and their fathers before them. A duty to Winterfell. "I'm ready," she whispered, her voice sounding low and hoarse in her ears, almost like a rasp.

She didn't wait for the doors to open fully before she strode in, some becoming sort of confidence seizing her and raising her up as she closed the distance between the winter outside and the comely young man within. As she put the first few rows of wedding guests behind her, a gasp rippled forth from the back of the sept. 'A direwolf,' she heard on their whispers, 'A Stark. Sansa.' Harry gave her a knowing half-smile and a little nod, and she fought the urge to beam and cry and laugh and spread her arms and shout the herald of her own return, of her rebirth. And though she left the sept with a cloak of another colour trailing behind her, in the mind of each and every witness was burned the bright white of her cloak, brighter than the sun on the summer snow.

Some hours later inside the Gates of the Moon, Sansa's wedding feast was in full swing. Her husband sat in the host's seat on her right, laughing and jesting with the rest of the small wedding party packed in tight in the great hall of the castle, receiving their congratulations with all the grace of a high lord and heir. Guests had come up to the dais in droves over the course of the meal to greet Sansa as Sansa, offering their respects for her family and professing their delight in seeing her so well. She received her attention graciously, like she knew she needed to; she didn't even mind that all these people kept reminding her of horrible, horrible things they knew nothing about—she had her name back, and that was all that mattered.

Harrold—should she call him Harry?—was doing all the little things she always imagined her new husband would do; he held her hand throughout the meal, his palms warm and dry and his grip gentle, and would occasionally lean over and whisper in her ear, something trivial about the food, just to make a show of giving her affection. Between courses he would lift the hand he held to his lips to give it a chaste, flirtatious kiss. She would smile back at him and their eyes would meet, and a look would pass between them that might have seemed, to the others there, a lovers' longing stare, but they both knew better. Theirs was a look between conspirators, smiling at the progressive success of their plan. The air was thick and warm and all the guests were flushed with wine, yet nobody important seemed obscenely drunk, when Harrold gave her a little smirk and a nod, as if to say now, and stood to address the wedding party.

"My lords and ladies," he began charismatically, bending them all to the sound of his warm, clear tenor voice. It would be nicer if it had a little rasp in it, Sansa had thought upon meeting him for the first time two years before, but then, she knew why she thought such things, and shook her head at her own silliness. "I know you have all had quite a shock today upon seeing my new wife's maiden's cloak..." he caught her eye and gave her that same weighted look he'd been giving her all night, and she returned it with her same little smile. "I have been waiting impatiently to marry her ever since the day I met her," he said tenderly, giving her a look that would have once made her heart skip a beat, "but Lord Petyr told me I had to wait until her husband was captured and killed. 'Captured and killed?!' I cried, 'pray tell, who is this husband of hers? I'll kill him with my bare hands,' I said. And Lord Petyr," he raised his wine glass to the smirking man just to Sansa's left, "You just smiled and said, as if it were no consequence at all, 'the Imp of Lannister.'

"'The Imp of Lannister?!' I cried again. But this man—he is so composed, is he not?—he kept smiling until I had come to the conclusion he was leading me to. He assured me she was a maiden of the fairest beauty the realm had ever seen. And he was right, Lord Petyr," he said, making a show of kissing her hand. "She is the loveliest beauty I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. May I introduce to you, Lords and Ladies of the Vale, the Lady Sansa of House Stark, the rightful lady of Winterfell." A cheer broke out amongst the guests as Sansa stood, unable to contain her grin. They're cheering for me, she thought, giddy, as Harrold took her hand and kissed it again.

"Aye, rightful lady of Winterfell," a voice barked from the shadows as the crowd began to hush, giving Sansa a start. People craned and turned to see the speaker, who sounded so menacing, nearly shouting from the edge of the room. "And Queen in the North."

A hush went over the wedding party so thick Sansa thought she might have heard a pin drop. Then Littlefinger started to chuckle.

"Your wedding certainly does not want for excitement, my dear Sansa," he whispered to her.

A lump rose in her throat, and a familiar wash of fear hit her like a wave. She didn't understand. Was he a Frey? A Lannister man, come to take her back to the Queen? His figure appeared then, stepping out of the doorway with a dark olive roughspun hooded cloak around him, clasped at the throat with some curved, black stone. A gloved hand went to the clasp, pulling it open roughly and tossing off his cloak. He wore dark gray plate thick with dings and scratches, emblazoned with a leaping trout worked on his breastplate in black enamel. A leaping trout, she thought quickly, House Tully. Look at him—you know those eyes like you know your own!

"Uncle Brynden," she said, still not quite sure. But the old man smiled, and the great hall broke out into murmurs.

"You look so much like your mother, Sansa," he said quietly, though somehow still within earshot at the back of the room. "Your mother who was murdered alongside your brother at the hand of the Freys, all while protected under guest rights, by the suggestion of the Lannisters. And now, that turncloak Bolton, who put his blade through King Robb's heart, rules the North and lets his inhuman monster of a bastard son wreak havoc on your people.

"Though I have been in the thick of war this whole time, and the Vale I love so well has enjoyed their peace," he spat the word like a curse, "I think we can all agree it is time we stepped in to help right the wrongs left behind from the War of the Five Kings. The corrections start now," his sword rasped as he drew it from his scabbard and put the point to the floor, kneeling and bellowing "THE QUEEN IN THE NORTH."

Sansa's breath had fled—she knew not where—but something that felt suspiciously like elation was welling up inside her. Bronze Yohn Royce was the first to draw his own sword. "THE QUEEN IN THE NORTH!" Lord Lyonel Corbray was next, and then a torrent of swords came forth, rasping in their sheaths and clanging against the stones of the floor, and before Sansa could process what was happening to her the whole room was on their knees, and Petyr bowed his head, and her husband let go of her hand to draw his sword and kneel, giving her that same, knowing smile and whispered, "The Queen in the North."

Declaring her Queen in the North made her very own Lords Declarant no less bawdy or eager to strip her naked as her nameday and deposit her in her husband's chambers. He was there already, though the ladies had left him his smallclothes for some reason (she'd have thought they'd be quick to rid him of them) and as some lord deep in his cups paused outside the door to slur something that sounded rather like "have fun kiddies" he stood and met her eyes, a look that was for once hers alone. He gave her a charming smirk.

"My Queen," and he bowed deeply. She padded over to him on bare feet and ran her fingers through his hair as he straightened and kissed her gently, as they both knew he should. He sighed and drew his forearms around her waist, blinking at her and staring at her face as she slid her hands down to cup his jaw and neck, staring back. "You are very beautiful, my lady."

"And you are very handsome, my lord," she admitted, calm and content.

He seemed to think on that point for a moment before kissing her again. It was the same kiss as before—lingering, as it should be, and not without warmth or tenderness, but certainly lacking something, she imagined, and unbidden her thoughts flitted to the memory of the kiss that had so long sustained her, his cruel mouth pressed down on her, tasting of blood and sweat and soot and tears and man...but he had left her behind that night, and Harry was here, holding her now and kissing her the way a maiden ought to be kissed. She knew she would come to love him for all he was doing for her someday—maybe even someday soon—but selfishly in that moment she wanted none of his kind, tender kisses, or really the rest of him.

But she had a duty.

She took his hand. "Come," she said. "Let me make your son a king." And she kissed him again.

Harrold Hardyng smiled against her lips at the thought.

Twenty minutes later, a little bit of her blood had stained the bed sheet and his seed was drying on her thighs. Harrold had caught his breath beside her, and slipped an arm around her shoulders to draw her nearer to him.

"You were not in too much pain, I hope?" he whispered, his formality laced with true concern.

"Not too much," she answered truthfully, for it had all been over very quickly. It had been nothing like Myranda had ever told her—she felt no tingling or rush of wetness between her folds; there had been no throbbing, moaning, or exploding on her part (though Harrold certainly had done, she knew) and the only pleasure she felt was in knowing now that she could be with child, securing the alliance between the Vale and the North, for Harrold would be Lord of the Vale; it was only a matter of time for her poor Sweetrobin, she thought sadly.

"You know," Harry began in a low, playful groan, "you're supposed to enjoy the bedding."

"And what makes you think that I did not?" she asked, smiling but indignant.

"Come on, Sansa, you didn't even try pretending."

Sansa blushed. "Just because I...I..." but he silenced her with a forceful kiss.

"I'm just giving you grief, Sansa," he whispered, not rasping, "You get yourself with child. The rest will come with time. Now sleep, love. Our story is just beginning."