For Damonaica4ever, just because she asked
Light, scurrying footsteps neared and the door opened a crack. A little girl, half her size almost, peeked out.
'Lady Sansa!' she said brightly, and opened the door wider. Part of her face seemed to be in shadow. She stood up very straight and looked solemnly at her. 'Please come in.' She frowned at the guard. 'You're not allowed.'
The girl was perhaps eight years old, with a dark curtain of hair. She sat down on her bed and patted it, looking up at Sansa with keen, raisin-coloured eyes, and Sansa could see more of her face. It wasn't in shadow. The skin was scaly and rough, like the underside of old leather, and cracked in places. Dark patches covered most of one cheek, her nose and her forehead.
Sansa sat down. The room was windowless, and so dark. There were soft hangings on the wall, and drawings, perhaps by the girl, of dragons and castles, and a large pile of books, and some small wooden toys on the floor. A wild, deep-purple rose drooped its neck over the lip of a glass.
'You are Lady Sansa of House Stark,' announced the girl. Sansa nodded gently, feeling almost shy. 'You father is Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell and your mother is Lady Catelyn of House Tully.'
'Was,' said Sansa softly.
The girl looked puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared. 'Oh. Yes. Your father was Lord Eddard Stark.' She slipped a hand underneath one of Sansa's, which rested on her lap. 'How many brothers and sisters do you have?'
Sansa's heart felt like a distant, tolling bell. 'Five.'
'What are their names?'
'Robb –' grinning with his face newly shaven before Kings Robert's arrival at Winterfell – 'Arya –' doing curious little dancing steps in their King's Landing solar, her left hand outstretched – 'Bran –' jumping down from a wall, Mother scolding him – 'Rickon –' burrowing his face into Shaggydog, his wild locks merging with his wolf's. 'And Jon.' Jon, broodingly packing all his black clothes.
'I don't have any brothers and sisters,' the girl said sadly.
'I'm sorry,' said Sansa. 'But – who is your father and mother?'
The girl told her.
*S*S*S*S*S*S
My brain's going to soup. No food, half a cup of water slung through the bars in the morning – lucky if I catch it, a few steps closer to dying if I don't.
And the singing, and the light. There are spirits in here. Ghosts of dead men, ghosts of girls. Can't tell if it's coming from down the hallway or through the damned walls.
I try to imagine Sansa singing to me, her voice like a water-fountain. Fat fucking chance. She's forgotten all about me.
*S*S*S*S*S*S
Sansa sat on Shireen's bed again the next night, a picture book on her lap, Shireen pointing to dragons and slayers and kings. Her company lifted her heart, just a little, though she couldn't understand how she could be so full of sunshine when she lived in this dark place.
Sansa found Shireen eyeing her curiously.
'You're not scared when you look at me.'
'Why would I be?'
Shireen shrugged. 'Everyone is, when they first see me anyway. Some of them always are. The guards are. And the maids. Ser Davos isn't, though. He's very kind to me. He's the Onion Knight. He doesn't really have a House. I'm teaching him to read.'
Sansa smiled at her. 'You're very clever, to do that.'
Shireen nodded and turned the page of her book. They looked at some of the pictures. 'Even Father does, sometimes.'
'Does what?' said Sansa.
'Looks scared.'
Sansa put her hand on Shireen's head, and turned another page. 'Tell me about this one.'
*S*S*S*S*S*S
Mouth's as dry as the Red Waste. Hurts to close it, now. Gods, someone kill me.
There's light on the walls again, and this time it comes closer, spreading a dull glow. Fucking gods deliver me. My skin curls a little off my bones. It's still coming closer, and the singing starts again. Humming, strange tunes from the bottom of the sea. I shrink to the corner, in amongst the shit and piss.
Hello says a little voice and my heart fucking stops. I look through my hair. A tiny girl, holding a light, a girl who looks like a crone. Bugger off, I scream.
A scamper of feet, and the light disappears.
*S*S*S*S*S*S
'I know a secret.'
Sansa and Shireen were walking in Aegon's Garden – guards following them of course, as if Sansa was going to make a dash for the cliff and swim back to King's Landing. It was a relief to breathe in the air and remind herself that world still existed out here. She had been beginning to doubt it, looking at those stifling green curtains for hours and hours. It wasn't the most pleasant garden she'd ever been in – the wind screamed through the impossibly tall pines, making them creak like old doors – but Shireen had shown her the cranberry patch in the bogs, and they'd picked some wild roses for both of their chambers.
Sansa had dropped her voice so that it got lost in the wind. 'What's that?'
Shireen was holding Sansa's hand, and it tightened slightly. 'I know where the prisoners live.'
They kept walking. 'Do you?' said Sansa, keeping her voice very calm.
Shireen nodded, matter-of-factly. 'And I can get down there.'
Sansa stopped. 'Can you show me how?'
Shireen shook her head, firmly. 'You're too big. I can only get there because I'm little. I won't always be able to, I suppose, though I don't seem to be getting any bigger.'
Sansa led her to a bench made of gnarled pine and sat her down. 'Have you been down there since – I've been here?'
The girl nodded. 'There's a man there. He's ginormous.'
Sansa took Shireen's hand in both of hers. 'Have you – seen how he is?'
Shireen kicked her legs in the air. 'He sits in the corner furthest away from me. He shouts a bit and tells me to go away, but I'm not sure if he's really talking to me or not. He only has a little bowl of water, like you would give to a dog.'
There was a dull pain in her stomach. Sansa knelt down in front of Shireen, her knees in the mud, so that her back was to the guards, who stood a little distance away.
'I want you to do something for me. Something very brave. Do you think you can?'
Shireen squinted into the pale, cold sun. 'Alright.'
*S*S*S*S*S*S
The girl-crone comes again. One moment it's dark and I'm dreaming of meat, dense and chewy, and water, and the next she's there, at the bars, holding her light up. I roll into the corner. Hello, she says. Must be the Stranger. My stomach is clawing my way out of my throat. Please don't, I say in a voice like a child's. Please don't what? she says and I peek out again and she's still on the other side of the bars, she hasn't come to take me down to the furthest hell.
Who the hells are you? I whisper and she says Oh, I am Shireen, my father is King Stannis although I'm not really sure if he is a king, do you know if he is? My mind's trying to grind awake properly, and she says you know, of House Baratheon, my uncle was Robert, who was definitely the king, although some only ever called him Usurper. Who are you? she says and I say I'm no one, girl and she says everyone is someone. Not me, I say, feeling hollow as an old tree. You're her friend, she says. Whose? I say and she says Lady Sansa's. She's looking at me as plainly as a septa schooling her charges.
She tell you that, did she? I say slowly to my feet. Yes, she says, and she told me you were very brave and kind and strong. The girl pulls something out her pocket and pokes her fingers through the bars. She said to give you this.
I inch closer. Bread. She's brought me bread.
Don't tell anyone she says in the loudest whisper ever as I take it from her, and she runs away, the light shrinking.
I feel like crying.