**This chapter contains descriptions of and allusions to physical and sexual assault as well as torture and execution. Please be aware of your own sensibilities and proceed accordingly.**
...
..
.
A little over four moons had passed since the Red Wedding occurred.
The Red Wedding. It was a foul title for a foul event, and one that made Sansa's blood run cold every time she heard it. Tywin never mentioned it to her, he would talk about it only if she presented the conversation, otherwise taking noticeable pains to have it removed from their day-to-day life. He had told her she was to avoid court - and Joffrey, without exception - and the few times the King had summoned her, or them, for whatever reason, Tywin put an end to it promptly. But that was over four moons past and she was noticing disparaging looks and stares when she would walk about the castle or the grounds.
Not that she particularly cared about what people thought of her, bias and contempt were nothing new, although now her growing concern centered on what, and how, those same people viewed her husband. More so, how they viewed him in relation to her; she didn't want to be a weakness, his weakness, present or considered. So she made the effort and attended court.
As expected, it took no more than a few minutes for Joffrey to notice her arrival, and immediately for the business of the realm to be steered to that of the dead wolf-king of the sinister North, and his army of skin-changers.
Tywin was sat to the side of the King, his face calm and his eyes furious. She could tell by his angled posture that his fury was aimed well away from her.
For every badly-veiled taunt that failed to find a foothold in her humiliation or embarrassment, Joffrey became angrier. It was when his face was reddened from screaming and he was all but spitting his words directly at her, that he called her forward by name.
"Lady Sansa," his pitch broke, causing him to squeak her title out loudly.
No one in attendance dared to even snicker.
Lady Sansa approached at a calm pace and with a demeanour that made her nothing less than glorious; she came to a stop at a position in front of the dais that had seen more than its share of her blood, curtsied perfectly, and spoke with the appropriate reverence.
"Your Grace."
Joffrey was visibly shaking in his anger.
"And what do you think of the slaughter of your brother and the rest of the northern criminals?"
Her voice was built of a familiar cadence and familiar words, it was a mask she donned as though it were an old friend, and said, "My brother was a traitor, Your Grace. He died as he deserved."
The King was not finished. Not even close.
"My grandfather thinks I shouldn't bring you his traitor head. Would you like that? To see another Stark? It would be a family gathering - you and the remains of your brother - all about as useful as Starks normally are."
He laughed at her, cruel and degrading.
She didn't budge; she didn't cry or even bristle at his words. It was as if she were made of metal.
"I am a Lannister, Your Grace," she demurred gently. "By law and in the eyes of the Gods."
Sansa smiled then, genuine and sweet. A smile fit for a queen. In the same heartbeat, she watched Tywin blink slowly, emphasizing the close more than the open - a gesture that reminded her of the Hound when he would pinch her to prevent her from saying something stupid, from being punished further.
Her insides went cold, her outside showed no signs of distress.
The King stood in a graceless scramble, making his way down the grand steps and stopping right in front of her.
His voice was calm, nonchalant even. "You should bleed gold then, should you not?"
Joffrey did not give her time to even consider an answer before sneering his whim into the deathly quiet room. "Ser Loras, Ser Osmund, secure my grandmother."
The King flung his command then stepped back a pace. Without hesitation the two summoned Kingsguard marched their approach, each gripping one of Sansa's arms.
She let it happen, she did not fight, she knew this part as though it were a game from her childhood. However, her exceedingly calm disposition was new, and it was that which further enraged the King.
There was no noise in the great chamber, no whispered voices aflutter with gossip or anticipation of carnage. The ominous quiet was palpable.
Joffrey stepped in closer to Sansa and spoke loud enough for this words to travel to every corner of the room. "If I remove your head, not only will it prove you are not a Lannister, but I will have carried on the tradition of my grandfather and ended the line of a troublesome house." He looked around, pleased as the courtiers nervously muttered their approval.
She took the opportunity and looked up at the dias. Tywin was now standing - everyone was now standing, she noted - he was outwardly furious in that he was flexing his right hand. She noticed the subtle sway in this right arm, the one that had been practiced for decades, the one that would unleash his sword.
For a moment she wondered exactly who he would choose, but thought, in the very same moment, that it didn't matter. Either way she would be dead.
Sansa returned her focus to the sad, bitter boy standing in front of her.
"What do you think of that, grandmother?" he sneered. "Would you care to die for the sake of the rest of us knowing?"
Her words were again calm, and again spoken without hesitation. "It is not my place to question the will of the realm, My King."
She could feel the hate cascading off him.
"Very well," he hissed.
No sooner had the words left his mouth, there was a cacophony of steel being bared. Using her peripheral, Sansa could see that Tywin had his sword drawn and was at the midpoint of stairs on the dais, but was held at bay by three Kingsguard. He was emotionless and it seemed to make him fiercer. She could also discern that every Gold Cloak and Lannister soldier had pulled their blades as well.
This will be a bloodbath, she thought.
She brought her eyes back to the green set seething in front of her. Sansa was no longer fragile, and there was nothing King Joffrey could do to her physically or emotionally that would see her break. Tywin may have been a reprieve at the beginning, by way of their marriage, but at the end of the day the Great Lion of Lannister was only but a subject to the King, and it was Sansa's own resolve that consolidated her will and inner strength. The King had nothing left to remove or threaten her with; nothing she would allow him to have. Her life was her own and if the King chose to take thataway she knew, looking again at her husband, that she would be avenged - not by the family she once had, but by the one she had worked hard to create from nothing.
Joffrey was bested, and he knew it, and he utterly despised her for it.
"You will see your traitor brother again, but it will be in thislife, not the next."
The King flicked his hand at the two knights that held her, and she was just as quickly let go.
Sansa dropped her eyes to the toes her Joffrey's boots and extended the courtesy that was expected when spared by a king.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Her life may have been spared but her attendance certainly hadn't been dismissed, and as she turned to take her place amongst the crowd in the room she looked over to see Tywin. He was still standing on the steps, his sword replaced at his hip, and was watching her carefully under a heavy stare.
His wife smiled at him. It was nothing smug or triumphant, he could see that clearly. She was humble and her smile was meant to speak to him alone, meant to assure him she was alright. He gave a curt nod in return and watched until she found a place in the audience - one of prominence as was expected of the Hand's wife.
At the first break in proceedings Tywin walked directly to his lady wife and offered his arm. He did not speak a word, he simply led her from court and down the hall to the outer gardens. Before they reached the massive archway that would usher them outside, Tywin turned abruptly and opened a narrow door. The room inside was small, it had tools and implements she supposed were for tending the greenery just without.
Tywin turned her by the shoulders in order to face him, barely brushing his palms down her arms where she had been so recently held firm.
"Are you injured?" His tone was as serious as his look.
Sansa answered gently, truthfully, "I am bruised, my lord, but I am uninjured."
His wife wore her hair up and he could not stop himself from placing his fingers around the base of her skull and pulling her toward him. He rested his lips on her hairline and spoke in his usual serious tone, yet his statement rung with an undertone of something like bewilderment.
"You are a beautiful fool," he breathed.
Sansa smiled to herself at his backhanded sentimentality, but at the same time her proximity allowed her to feel his heartbeat. It thumped rapidly, completely belying his exterior. Pulling away from him slightly, looking up as she did so, she could see Tywin's face - his mask was stern, but his eyes held something else entirely.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
As they met for supper there was no mention of what happened earlier that day in court. Such was their way; if there was no immediate need or consequence, Tywin had no interest.
They had barely begun their meal before it was interrupted by the announcement of a messenger. Sansa looked to her husband, seeing if he would dismiss her for privacy, or himself leave for the same reason. He did neither as he waved the young man in.
The messenger, scruffy in face and clothing from time on the road and evidence that he had made no stop or effort for his own comfort prior to seeking audience with his leige, bowed before them.
"My lord," the young man began. "The Freys have advanced, but seem more disorganized without the Bolton forces."
The information was precise and matter of fact, exactly what Lord Tywin expected.
"Has there been any progress made aside from the idiot family understanding how to walk forward and close a gap?" Tywin said it without a trace of humour.
The young soldier paused then, quickly glanced at Sansa, and cleared his throat. "They have taken to parading Lord Edmure to the gallows every day with the threat of execution, my lord."
Tywin didn't look at her directly, but could see clearly she remained unmoved by the information, her only tell was the clench of her jaw, but even that was delicate. He focused on the young man again.
"And what of the Blackfish?"
"He refuses to treat, my lord. He is holding with limited armament, men, and with those who successfully fled the Red We-" The young man stopped completely, looked at his lady for but a heartbeat, then back to his lord.
Again Tywin observed his wife's strength.
The messenger was given his leave with a short wave of his lord's hand.
Tywin waited for it... and wasn't disappointed when Sansa spoke her question.
"Are Lannister forces aiding the Freys in their siege of Riverrun, my lord?"
Her tone was cool, there was no desperation or easily identifiable panic. He looked at her for only a moment, then opened a missive that was sitting to the side, and clipped, "No."
Again, Tywin waited.
Sansa thought for a moment, knowing her husband would hardly entertain question after question. She would have to ensure their significance.
"My lord, why are Lannister forces - and I assume they are a formidable number - observing the siege of Riverrun?"
He smirked, that was the question he wanted from her.
"War leads to opportunity, my lady, and if the Freys manage to create one that will allow me to take Riverrun, I will."
"But why are Lannister forces at Riverrun to begin with?" She was genuinely curious.
"When I removed my support, and the support of the Crown, I had expected the Freys to regroup with the North." He angled his head slightly. "And between it and the Twins, Riverrun was the better choice, both strategically and for gain. There is less chance of having to strike from a defensive position or being besieged, which, as a whole, is superior." He took a drink and narrowed his eyes - not necessarily at her, more at his own thoughts. "But there is no accounting for the bitter pettiness of some men. It leads to unpredictability."
Sansa raised her eyebrows slightly at Tywin's assessment of Lord Frey, and wondered if he could read her silent accusation toward his hypocritical judgment. The way he paused and further narrowed his eyes told her that he did, but he did not address it.
"The northern position was doomed regardless, the Freys simply enabled a sooner fruition."
Tywin looked down after that, now uninterested in their conversation, reading the parchment opened on the table beside him, and Sansa could not understand why her husband was so suddenly dismissive.
"The North will regroup and follow any heir Robb may have, my lord. His queen lives." It wasn't said to incite, it was a fact.
However, Tywin brushed her off, never raising his eyes and speaking as he would to an annoyance seeking his favour. "Your brother did not sire an heir."
Again, she did not know why he was being dismissive.
"You don't know that," she said, exasperated. "You didn't knowhe would have died, you don't knowif his queen isn't with child." Sansa felt her patience crumble away completely. "Don't say that you do."
He flicked his eyes at her then.
Sansa set her cutlery down and looked at Tywin directly. She spoke recklessly, not out of anger but out of exhaustion. "You are a great man, my lord, but that does not make you a God."
Her annoyance had found a voice, and she could not take it back. She watched her husband set down his own cutlery, and for a moment she thought he would stand and leave. Instead he remained seated and looked at her with a smugness that yanked her back what felt like decades. It was the same look Joffrey would give her as she was being struck and punished.
Her appetite was gone and her muscles were covertly coiling.
Lord Tywin made no move to harm her physically, but he spoke in a tone that would damage.
"Sansa, your brother would have died regardless. More than likely by mydoing. He was young and incredibly stupid." He looked at her pointedly to ensure he had her attention, and continued, "I will admit he had moments of luck and brilliance on the battlefield, but how much of that was his own ingenuity and how much was he led by the men who made him their king?"
Her response was a quiet, beaten, "My lord, you don't know-"
She was not listening. His wife wasn't even trying to comprehend, and Tywin was at the end of his patience. He slammed his fist down on the heavy wooden table with such a force he caused the jump and fall of food and service-ware alike. He stood then, leaning over to his wife, his eyes were livid and his words were fired like arrows.
"He wed a girl from the Westerlands." He was almost frothing. "Who do you think that girl's parents served - their liege lord or a false northern king who couldn't keep his cock out of their daughter?"
She hated this version of him, and this man, she was sure, hated her too.
"Y-You. My lord, you." She just wanted it to be over.
Tywin took a deep breath, reeling himself in from the edge.
"That is how I know your brother will have no heir," he said in his usual serious tone. "That is how I know he was at an end, whether he realized it or not."
Her husband turned to leave then, his meal and work abandoned. Sansa watched, mouth slacked at the knowledge he shared, as Tywin stopped when he reach the door and growled to her without turning around.
"Your mother lives." He pushed the door open. "I have secured her from the Freys." He began walking away, his voice fading. "She will be here in a fortnight." And he was gone.
Sansa looked at her hands where they were resting on the table. They were shaking.
She looked at the parchment haphazardly left near her husband's plate. It laid still as death.
Mother.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
True to her husband's word, her mother took a fortnight to finally arrive in King's Landing. Lady Catelyn reached the Red Keep before the sun was up, and was brought in without any ceremony at all. She was given accommodation and help as befitting her station, and as far as the soldiers that accompanied her from the Twins were aware, she had yet to speak a word.
When Tywin woke he found that Sansa was awake too. Something she was never apt to do unless previously planned. At some point in the night she had curled and hugged herself around his closest arm, and he could feel her shivering - like she would if she were fevered. He felt a pang of panic and turned toward his wife as much as their position allowed, raised a hand, ran it over her forehead, and continued with his fingers through her hair. Her skin wasn't burning, she wasn't damp in sweat, but her muscles were working in waves of tiny spasms.
Tywin frowned and Sansa could see it on him clearly, even in the dim morning light of their bed chamber.
"It has been so long..."
She said it into his arm more than at him, but he heard her and he knew what she was referring too. Tywin had been woken at an early hour to be told of Lady Catelyn's arrival, and thought best to allow both her and his wife time to rest. But now that she was awake, he knew Sansa would make their re-connection her only priority.
"She will always be your mother, Sansa, regardless of the time between you."
The corner of his mouth twitched when she nodded into his sleeve. In any other setting Tywin would loathe and admonish the sort of childishness his wife was displaying, but the small doses she exhibited privately only added to her appeal.
"If you care to postpone your meeting until later this morning, I will accompany you."
When she politely declined his offer, she had no idea how proud he was of her.
Tywin moved and carefully disentangled himself, rose fully and summoned for both of them to be attended this morning.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Sansa approached the room that held her mother with equal parts hesitation and excitement. Tywin had told her she would be wise not to expect the same woman she had left in Winterfell - that war changes everyone.
Sansa knew this fact intimately.
He had also been informed that her mother was suffering injury, but had yet to see or speak to her himself and couldn't prepare her for what kind of wounds she may have. It didn't matter. Sansa would work to make her mother well, regardless of her injury. The only thing that mattered was that she was alive and here.
When she arrived at the door, one of the two Lannister guards immediately stepped aside as the other opened the door and escorted her inside.
The small sitting room was empty, save for the maid tending the fire. Sansa inquired of the maid as to the whereabouts of her mother before politely dismissing her.
The guard remained at her side as they entered the attached bedchamber.
The room was bright enough, and would only get brighter throughout the day - Sansa smiled at that small comfort. Her mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, stock still and silent. Sansa could see that she was awake. She could also see, quite clearly, the terrible gashes and lesions running down her mother's face and neck. Sansa inhaled quickly, loudly, but it did not seem to disturb her mother's concentration. The other change in the physical appearance of Lady Catelyn was that her Tully hair, the beautiful auburn she shared with her daughter, was now streaked in brittle swatches of white. There was no pattern or distinguished flow to the white, it simply appeared in patches.
Oh mother, what have they done to you? Sansa's mind was reeling in the despair her body refused to cry out.
Continuing to observe, Sansa quickly noticed that her mother's wrists had been bound. What made it worse was that she had been bathed and clothed in the one of the gowns she had personally selected, then had her bindings reapplied. Her mother was no longer a prisoner, no longer in the hands of the enemy. She was with family and, however unconventional the circumstance may be, they were together and that's all that mattered.
"Why is she bound, ser?" Sansa was edging on anger. "Untie her at once, she'll not harm me."
The guard looked at her rather sheepishly and hesitated before answering at a whisper, "My lady, your mother is restrained for her own safety."
Sansa frowned at the man, her frustration now plainly read on her face.
The guard continued, he could see that his explanation was insufficient. "The... wounds on her face... My lady, she inflicted those herself. The bloody Freys just let her, but Lord Tywin would never approve of us allowing her to continue... So we tied her and found a healer."
Her mother had not moved a fraction, not even to lay eyes on her daughter. Catelyn just sat there, staring blankly, clean but slightly tousled, and obviously hurting.
"Untie her please." It was said with the kindness she was known for, but it also sounded tired.
The guard did as he was bade and Lady Catelyn still didn't move, didn't look at Sansa. When the man left, Sansa pulled a chair close to where her mother was sitting on the edge of her bed.
"Mother?" She said gently, not wanting to startle or provoke her.
The wounds on her face and neck were gruesome - long, deep gashes - and for her mother to have inflicted them on herself only spoke to the horror she was witness to. Yet the woman before her remained silent, seemingly despondent. However, Sansa was patient if anything. She settled into her own thoughts and waited. Her mother was right in front of her and she would gladly wait for her to find her way back.
"Your blood should have been at my feet, too." Her mother's voice was as shredded as the flesh on her face and neck. "It would have been better that way."
Sansa was surprised by the dreadful words. They had been sitting in silence for hours, but jumped at the opportunity to finally talk to her beloved mother.
"Mother, I-"
But Lady Catelyn barreled over her daughter as though she wasn't in the room, let alone addressing her.
"Bolton. I thought it was Lord Bolton who ended Robb's life, but when they..." Her voice became airy and her words drifted for a moment, almost thoughtfully. "They didn't even have the decency to use a broad sword. Did you know that?"
Lady Catelyn looked directly at her daughter, but her eyes held no acknowledgement. She merely kept talking.
"Raymund Frey, he used a dagger... with a blade no longer than the width of my hand." Her eyes drifted again, looking at her hands. "It took so long, sawing with that tiny blade. He was still bleeding and breathing. He was still gurgling. I screamed for them to stop, but they just held me down and made me watch." Her face was serene, like she was speaking of nothing more than household assignments. "Even when they twisted and twisted, his body was trying to breath. They had to get an axe to finish it. He was quiet after that."
Sansa felt her hands getting clammy. She was aghast and didn't want to hear any of this, but she could not find the command that would make her mouth or legs work.
Her mother looked right at her then, and said, "You've been sullied, you know. By him."
Sansa didn't know why, but she felt defensive. She found her words and spoke them softly, respectfully. "I have been treated fairly, mother. Lord Tywin has been kind."
Lady Catelyn smiled, but it looked more like she was in pain.
Sansa tried to gently change the subject, "I wrote you-"
Her mother became vicious at her words. "Yes, letters from the Westerlands addressed to the woman that freed the Kingslayer. I know."
Sansa clenched her jaw in hurt and frustration, she didn't know what she meant about Ser Jaime. It was as though her mother had built a curtain wall out of iron and all she had were her bare hands to conquer it.
Again Sansa spoke softly, "You are not a prisoner here, mother. You will never see a cell again, I promise-"
"A cell?" Catelyn looked at Sansa as though the young lady had sprouted another head, then sneered, "Is that where you think I've been kept?"
Her mother laughed then and it was nothing like Sansa remembered, nothing of the mother that used to brush her hair at night.
"No," the woman said. "I was quite the prize and claimed as such."
Sansa knew she didn't want to hear any more, tried to make her thoughts become words... "I don't-"
But the woman talked right through her.
"No." Catelyn's eyes were wild. "I still had your brother's blood in my mouth when they cut the clothes from me, lashed me to the end of a table and took their turns. Boltons and Freys." She then had a faraway look with a voice that matched. "I was there for days." There was a twitch in the lower lid of her mother's right eye, subtle and frightening all at once. "I was fed, at least. They delighted, after a sennight, to tell me I had been eating Grey Wind." She closed her eyes, smiled awkwardly, and momentarily sounded like the mother from Sansa's dreams. "Your brother's wolf... You remember him, don't you?"
I remember them both, her mind wept, but her mouth didn't allow.
Her mother snapped her eyes open then, the sunken orbs were bloodshot and it made the blue radiate a purple. As though she were looking through the hottest part of a fire.
"I begged them to kill me after the first fortnight. Instead, they pissed on me and threatened to kill my brother if I did the deed myself. The only mercy I had was after three moons when the wretched spawn they had forced into me dripped out and most kept their distance."
She looked her daughter in the eye and spoke sweetly, "Then I was sold."
Sansa reached out for her, she couldn't help it, she was horrified, but her mother was in pain and she wanted to help her, comfort her, anything...
Lady Catelyn wanted nothing of it, she recoiled from her daughter's hands as though they were the same ones that had held her down.
"I- Mother... Please..."
"Do you think you can have me too, Lannister? I belong to no one!" The woman bellowed at her at the same time her anger contorted and tore the scabs and scars on her face and neck into something even more grotesque. "Do you think the North will want you now? You're no Stark! You dishonour them, all of them, all of those who died because of you!"
Sansa stood up with a force that toppled her chair. How did she know? She was backing away and talking, trying to make her mother understand, but her voice was no more than a whisper. "I... I have done my duty..."
"To whom?" Catelyn sat up straighter and narrowed her hot, unnatural eyes. "You say you've done your duty, yet Tywin Lannister still breathes. You let that man slither inside you and flaunt his payment besides." The woman was focused on Sansa's necklace as she curled her lip in disgust. "Even a common whore would have the decency to die for the right amount of coin."
Sansa was winded, wounded, as though she were being struck by gauntlets. Again.
"His first wife died birthing the abomination he had fucked on her, I can only hope the same for you and yours."
Sansa's steps backward had finally brought her in contact with the wall. She used it to guide her to the door. The scarred woman followed her every move with her burning eyes, and Sansa wanted nothing more than to put as much distance between this repulsive stranger and herself.
At the same moment Sansa knocked to signal the guard, the woman dropped her rancour and became serious. "I don't care what you do to me," she said in a voice like the bitter cold. Then, "I will kill them all."
The door opened and Sansa slipped into the hall with so much momentum her personal guard had to catch her before she tripped and fell. The three men were left staring, blinking blankly at Sansa. The door was thick and the sound could not penetrate, they had no idea what was said beyond it.
Lady Sansa stood straight, gathered her bearings and spoke as she always did: pleasantly and confident. "Please ensure Lady Stark is tended to by the Maester." She brushed her hands down her skirts to straighten them, and continued, "Have her maids ensure that if she is served meat, that it is identifiable."
The request was odd, but the sentries dared not question it or even raise a brow.
Lady Sansa turned then and made her way up to the battlements. The familiar freedom from the cage that had kept her for so long. There was freedom up there, a kind of peace, and with every rounded corner there lived a part of her that expected the drunken terror of the Hound to block her path, and felt a strange kind of disappointment when it didn't happen. However, those were thoughts and expectations from a time before. Before she had a husband; when only her father was dead.
When she still had the dream of seeing the rest of her family.
There were no alternatives now. There was no hope for reunion or reconciliation. Sansa was truly without the family she had been born to, raised amongst, nurtured in, and loved by.
But she was not alone.
No, she was the companion, advisor, lover, and wife of a man who, if she had never been in King's Landing to begin with, would have more than likely been the same man that saw to her death in one fashion or another.
But she was not alone.
Sometimes it was enough. Sometimes it ate through the loneliness. Sometimes it was empowering. Mostly though, she could see the further conclusions, the ones that stemmed from the man but ended where she herself desired.
Tywin was right, war changes everyone. And just as much as the woman she met was no longer her mother, Sansa had come to the crashing realization that she was not longer the daughter Catelyn Tully knew either.
She was a Stark, no amount of raving would remove that part of her, but she was not the girl who left Winterfell.
She was more.
Her most powerful weapon was her heart. She would balk at Tyrion for his telling her so, believing it more of a weakness, but as she looked out over the city that had tried so hard to murder that part of her, she knew he spoke at least some truth. Her heart would never break completely, she was sure, but with enough emotional pain the damage could be crippling - and there always seemed to be a barrage of it.
Sansa knew the relief she wanted, needed, to help with that particular pain, and she would no longer be ashamed of that want.
It was hers to have, she only had to take it.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
His personal solar within their apartments a was smaller than the sitting room, but because it was not openly accessed it offered far more privacy. Tywin had instructed Sansa to meet with him there after her visit with her mother. He wanted to know essential details, he also didn't want to interrogate her when she was still emotionally vulnerable. Privacy was determined the safest environment for her debriefing, and if she didn't seem responsive here he would wait until they were readying for bed.
She found him sitting on the small, heavily cushioned bench inside the room, instead of at the desk. From what she could determine, the fire provided a better light for reading anyway and the roomy expanse of furs and feather pillows looked a more comfortable seat.
When he heard her enter and close the door behind her, Tywin chanced a glance upward and was pleased to see a look of contentment on her face. She wasn't carrying any unnecessary stress as far as he could tell and went back to the missive he was reading.
As she walked to a place beside him, beside the arm of the bench, Tywin asked absently, "I presume your visit was satisfactory?"
He expected an answer, instead he felt her fingers caress his face - twine and fiddle through his side whiskers. He subconsciously let out his breath and leaned into her touch. She knew he liked that, that he was malleable when she gave him that tender attention, and when he turned his head to look at her, his eyes almost bleary, she kept his gaze and rounded to a spot in front of his legs. Once stopped, Sansa leaned into him further and planted her lips over his.
Tywin groaned into her mouth when he felt her fingers curl around to the back of his neck and take hold of him. It was commanding and liberating all at the same time. She had never taken control like that - it was bold and aggressive. Sansa had always been sophisticated and understated in her intimate advances. What she was instigating then was almost hurried, it had an element of desperation. Her approach notwithstanding, his cock was hard, but he supposed that was what she wanted. That she wanted him compliant...
Sansa felt Tywin's hands roam over her, causing her breathing to deepen.
This was what she needed.
One of his hands snaked its way up and over her breasts, up the side of her neck, then down again to the collar of her gown. She could feel him hold her there, like he was looking to control her angle - which was exactly what she wanted, she wanted to be free, she wanted him to take her, pleasure her so she could be lost in it...
His hand was still tightening on her collar, but he wasn't maneuvering her. She kissed him even harder as if to prompt and encourage him, but when his grip on her gown tightened, his fingers twisting the fabric so taut that it was tearing the stitching and taking skin with it - pinching and hurting - it was then that she realized his mouth was a solid line.
He wasn't kissing her back.
Compliant.
Sansa blinked in confusion, and when she saw the frightening fury simmering in his eyes she was instantly afraid. He had never thrown her a look so spiteful and she found herself combing her mind, trying to determine what particular action would see him so angry. She simply couldn't find her deed, she couldn't understand why he was hurting her like that.
Tywin straightened his arm, pushing her back a couple of stumbling steps, but still held her gown in a vicious grip. He felt a rage seep into him that was so violent, so malevolent, it unlocked his darkness and his mind flashed the image of him running her through just to be rid of her. Rid of girl who proved him a fucking fool.
But there was no cunning in her eyes, nothing of a game, just fear and confusion - and that only made him indignant.
"Is this what your mother advised you to do?"
Tywin was snarling at her, near rabid, he could not stop himself. He shook the fist that held her, causing Sansa to keen out a whimper at the pain it produced.
"I- No, my lord-" She was all but pleading.
"Tell me what she said! Tell me how she instructed you to fuck for her freedom! Tell me!"
He was trembling in his rage; however, what he witnessed in his wife, the scared girl at the end of his cruelty, caused him to shiver for completely different reasons.
She became a ghost.
Her eyes became terrible in their emptiness, her skin greyed, her body slumped into his hand like dead weight, and when she spoke, her voice was distant and hollow. But it was what she said that would forever haunt him.
"My mother told me that she would have rather seen my throat slit in front of her, dead like my brother, than have me married to you."
Her tone was droning, like ten thousand bees had infested the room.
"My mother told me that if I had any love for the North, or for my father, or for my brothers, I would kill you then find the highest battlement, the tallest tower perhaps, and throw myself off."
His grip on her collar was the only thing holding her up.
"My mother told me I was less than a common whore for sharing your bed."
He watched as Sansa's throat worked, as she seemed to focus on him once more, her voice had life again, but it was so broken.
"My mother told me she wished death to any children I may bear you, and hoped I would befall a fate the same as Lady Joanna."
Tywin felt bile rising in his throat, his mind was rushing from fact to reference; he tried picturing his own mother speaking to Genna that way, of Joanna speaking to Cersei with such poison. He couldn't and it was making him furious. He looked at his wife... There she was, sublime and shattered once more. He cursed the Gods, all of them, old and new and foreign, as he slowly lowered her, her legs long since working to keep her upright. She came to rest on her knees between his feet, her arms draped over each of his knees - they were the only things preventing her from crumpling to the floor completely.
Tywin was swallowing hard, over and over again. He thought to give her peace by retrieving her mother, he had never imagined this. Never imagined he could be so wrong about Catelyn Tully.
He let her go, his fingers cramping from holding so tight for so long, but he kept his fingertips over where he knew he'd marked her.
"Sansa... I..."
He was at a loss. For everything.
"I'm sorry."
It tasted caustic, but not because he didn't mean the words. He was sorry - because her mother gave her venom instead of love, because she was hurting again, because he hurt her again. Because he was failing her. Because he was failing himself by doing so. Beyond who this girl was, she was his wife. Beyond her name, her claim, and her womb, he pledged vows to her - in front of the Gods he hated, but believed in nonetheless.
"I am... sorry..."
He had no idea he was muttering until he felt her hand lightly squeeze his forearm and heard her speak. He concentrated on the poor girl clinging to him; still there, with him. He wondered then if it wasn't the tenacious creature herself that was preventing him from failing their union entirely.
Tears welled in her eyes but didn't fall. "When does it end, my lord?"
He tilted his head in question.
"The suffering," she said in a harsh whisper, sounding of both fury and sadness. "When will I stop suffering?"
Tywin found himself choking down a thick tightening in his throat and clenching his jaw in an effort to regain his determination. Leaning forward then, resting his elbows on his thighs and cupping her face in his palms, the old lion traced his thumbs where the tears would have been if she had allowed them.
"It doesn't end, my lady." He knew it was brutal, but it was the truth. "There will always be suffering, in one capacity or another waiting for you in this life." His features were stony and emotionless, but his touch on her was in complete contrast.
She closed her eyes in defeat, the pooled tears finally pushed out, sliding into the thumbs that were ready for them.
"Look at me, Sansa." His throat was still tight and it made his voice gruff. He marveled for a moment, as she opened her eyes, at the delicate tears clinging to her eyelashes - it was like rain on a spiders web, and was sorrowfully beautiful. When he was confident she was focused on him again, he continued. "But there is always a choice. Whether you allow it to bury you, or whether you fight your way through it."
Tywin leaned in further and kissed her softly on the mouth. Pulling back from her again, he whispered sternly, "What do you choose?"
Sansa looked at her husband, first in blurry indecision, then with a steely resolution; she raised her hands and gripped his wrists hard, her voice was gritty but confident. "Fight," she said, squeezing his wrists harder. "I choose to fight."
Her husband's eyes narrowed, dissecting her sincerity, determining if she meant her words or if she were simply trying to appease him.
All he saw was the truth of her.
And when his wife sat taller on her knees and kissed him soundly, again Tywin surrendered to her. He kissed her deeply, tasting the salty flavour of tears pronounced on her tongue; he devoured them for her, not wanting her to ever taste them again. She wrapped her arms around his neck, moved her mouth away from his and rested her head on her own shoulder. Tywin could feel her hot breath on his cheek, and when her arms pulled tighter, he took his cue and wound his own around her back; holding her close, holding her up. Simply holding her.
"Make the pain go away, my lord. Please. Just for a little while."
What a sad, pitiful thing it is to have to ask to be bedded in order to wash away the torment of what waits on the outskirts of accepted memory. But it was a sedative no different than drinking; something to numb the pain. Tywin knew the trick was to alleviate the source of the pain before it could become troublesome, but what his wife had endured that day, and the more recent moons before it, was something that would fracture most men. The fact that Sansa had the wherewithal to trudge through the leagues of horror she had been subjected to, recently and before, more than earned what she asked of him. He would not question her.
He would not deny her.
Cinching his arms tighter around her back, Tywin stood with her as she was: arms wrapped about his neck, face buried in his cheek, feet dangling loose at his shins. That was how he walked them both to their bedchamber, dismissing servants as he went with a glare or a flick of his fingers.
He laid her down on their bed and crawled to a position above her. She reached between them and brushed her fingertips across the bulge in his breeches where the laces were straining, and he swept them away with his.
"You will have it..." Tywin said. Then set to kissing and sucking on her neck, speaking through his ministrations. "...When I am done with you."
He stripped her slowly, uncomplicated her hair, made a point to kiss her through every reduced layer: her breasts, her collarbone, her hips, her center; allowing her to appreciate the gradually building sensations. By the time he had her naked, Sansa was panting and visibly wet. Her blatant arousal ushered even more blood to his groin, prompting him to divest himself of clothing as fast as he was able. Naked at last he leaned down again, slid his hands behind her and lifted both of them until he was sitting on his heels and she was poised over his lap.
She looked at him. Just looked, then smiled a tiny amount.
Using the strength of her thighs, Sansa raised herself a little higher, reached between them for the second time, and aligned his cock with her entrance.
Sansa never took her eyes off her husband, and when she sank onto the full length of him the air seemed to leave the room. She rested her head on his shoulder as he manipulated her arse, lifting her up then setting her back down in long strokes. Every impale was met with a sigh-turned-moan and Tywin knew that this was what she had wanted all along.
Such simplicity, yet he tended to complicate it despite all of his knowledge, despite all of his experience.
A fucking fool, indeed.
After a several minutes, he could feel her hands gripping onto his back and he knew she was looking for release of a different kind.
Nuzzling his mouth beside her ear, Tywin gave a clear and concise instruction.
"Fight."
Sansa leaned away from him slightly, looking him in the face, her hips grinding, she used her hands and pushed him back a tiny amount - not enough for him to lose his balance.
He watched her lean into him again, her lips making contact with his neck. She was kissing and licking and nipping him in a way she knew he liked. Tywin responded with a deep growl in the back of his throat. She kissed down, over his collarbone, and concentrated her effort on one spot high on the muscle of his chest. Her attention was pleasant, thoughtful even, until she forcefully bit down on that same spot.
Tywin was taken by surprise, gritting the pain through his teeth, forcing his hands to stay on her backside instead of shoving her away. The pressure of her teeth intensified, and when she ground her jaw slightly he let out yelp, but he did not stop her. He wanted to fuck into her harder in retaliation, but found out quite quickly that the more violently he moved the more violently her teeth cut into his flesh.
She pulled away as fast as she bit down and looked at him with anger in her eyes.
Tywin gave the look right back, still guiding her to ride his cock, but when he glanced at her breasts, as beautiful as they were, his attention was drawn to the ugly blemish his furious hand had marked her with. Considering it further, he realized that Sansa had marked the same spot on his own body.
He twitched a grin at her; his wife was a clever one.
Sansa returned his smile with one that cast an air of mischief, one that he would distrust on any other face save the one looking at him. She moved in closer again, slid her arms under his until they rested on his back and proceeded to dig her nails into the skin and muscle there. Tywin sunk his face into the curve of her neck and tried to concentrate on the feel of her cunt sheathing and unsheathing his prick, but the gouges were getting deep and there was only so much his ego would allow. In a quick move, Tywin laid her back on the bed and pulled her hands from behind him, pinning each of them above her head with each of his, he lowered his mouth and kissed her hard.
"Enough," he growled onto her lips.
Swaying back once more sitting on his heels, Sansa's hips and waist now laid arched down his thighs, her head and shoulders still on the bed. The sight was sparking excitement in his senses. The line of her belly pulled taut, the pronouncement of her ribs, her breasts firm but moving with every breath and every thrust, her arms stretched out above her head, the feel of the clench and release on his cock, the sound of her airy moaning...
His hands wrapped themselves around her hips, thumbs resting at the jut as his fingers dug into her fleshy backside and he started to pivot and angle her as he varied his depth and strokes.
It was as though her husband was looking for something.
He knew he had found his mark when she gasped deep and looked dazed. The tip of his cock was nudging that roughened patch of secrecy inside her. He kept her in place and fucked with short hard thrusts, stroking it repeatedly. Sweat was rolling down his back, stinging the lines she'd carved there, spurring him on. He could see beads of it glistening in the valley of her breasts as well and wanted nothing more than to lick it away; but no, his duty was to her first. Placing the palm of his hand over her pelvic bone, he pressed down, increasing contact inside, causing Sansa to groan from somewhere deep in her chest. Several minutes of careful ministrations saw his wife start to tense, he knew she was close, and when she opened her eyes in panic, her arms swinging down and her nails digging into his knees, he knew how to sate her.
"Sansa." He slowed to a stop in order to talk to her.
She was embarrassed, he could see that plainly, but she looked him in the eye regardless.
My brave girl.
His hands traveled up her body, massaging every part of her, calming her.
"Do you trust me?"
He watched her breathing heavy, considering her answer, and he found himself once again feeling flawed because she had to consider her trust in him in the first place.
"Yes," she breathed.
Tywin started moving again - short, hard thrusts - a steady rhythm aimed at her most elusive spot.
"You'll not make water," he said, and watched her existing blush intensify. Tywin couldn't help but smirk at her scandal. "When you feel that way again," he continued. "I want you to close your eyes and relax."
Her breathing was deepening again, but she pulled her brows together in a silent protest.
"You'll not Sansa," he said between breaths, grinning in his own way. "I assure you."
Sansa looked at her husband then. This was the version of him she adored. This was the version of him that made it easy to forget a name, forget who they both were. It was the man whose eyes smiled. It was the man who was capable of caring in small bouts.
He continued moving inside her, pressing his palm low on her abdomen. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and off his nose by the time her body started to tense again. When she felt the deep flutter start again, Sansa closed her eyes; he watched as her hands fisted into the bed linen, her head lolled to the side and he heard a continuous low mewl spilling from her parted lips.
All at once Sansa inhaled deeply, her inner walls clenched around him like a vice, she let out a moaning cry and his cock and thighs were soaked in her wetness. But it was the pleasure he could see rippling through her that was of greater value. Tywin stretched out over top of his wife, gathered her in his arms - the pliable thing she was - and fucked her in long lazy pushes and pulls.
She was moaning sheer joy through every movement.
He knew in that moment she was someplace better, somewhere that suffering did not exist, and he worked to give her respite for as long as possible. When he felt her fingers find purchase on his back again, he allowed himself a faster pace, a deeper push, and as she breathed his name beside his ear he murmured a name-prayer of his own and spent hot inside her body.
It was long minutes they stayed like that, him over top her like a shelter, before he heard her voice reemerging as something coherent.
"Wha-"
She was still shuddering in waves, talking into his shoulder, holding onto him for fear of being washed away completely. He induced her silence by rolling his hips, fucking her with his softening cock.
It was enough to make her forget her questions and bought him reprieve from telling her that it was his first wife who taught him the intimacies of women. That after a year of marriage Joanna presented him the filthiest, gods-send of a book he had ever allowed his eyes to view, and that particulartechnique was something that took moons to conquer. That he'd willfully forgotten it after Joanna died because no one deserved that kind of happiness, least of all him. That he'd forgotten about the book altogether until a servant found it years later in the room his children played in.
Her silence prevented him from confessing that just looking at her, in any setting, in any context, Sansa made him want that joy again, and that it scared him more than he would ever admit.
Instead, he held her tight, buried his face in her neck and hair, absorbed her humming contentment and hoped, hoped, his actions would speak a fraction of what he felt.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Tywin stayed with his wife as long as he could, but it was early afternoon yet and he would eventually have to leave in order to fulfill his duty as Hand.
She was awake and sated for the most part when he finally called for a bath and to be attended. He didn't have to look at her to know she wasn't smiling though, her pain once again a blanket on her. However, she was neither weeping nor grieving; she was processing it - registering and calculating it. Tywin knew with every confidence that his wife would once again prevail. Once again move forward.
It was as he finished the tedium that made up the majority of his days that he knew he had one more matter that needed resolving, and he made his way to the small set of rooms assigned to Catelyn Tully. A large percentage of himself knew his wife was speaking the truth of what her mother said to her, but there was a tiny amount, the smallest of fractions, that could not really believe it. He had known Lady Catelyn as a young woman at Riverrun; he would never claim to know her more than decorum allotted, but he knew enough of the girl from speaking with her, that her house words were more than just a series of letters.
When he entered her rooms he immediately dismissed her maids, but spoke to one in passing. "Is she well?"
The young woman did not meet his eye. "Yes, m'lord," the maid said. "She eats, she drinks, she bathes. But has not said a word other than to Lady Sansa."
With another flick of his fingers the girl promptly left.
Lady Catelyn was sitting at a small table within the bedchamber, it was near the window, the view was of the water. Her face was covered in bandages and judging by the amount of them, Tywin knew her wounds were significant. The room smelled of the poultice that must have been used under the dressings, and it somehow added to the unease he was feeling.
"Lady Catelyn."
She did not bother looking at him.
"So she sent her old lion," she scoffed, a bitter sound. "Whatever you've done to her, you've certainly made her weak." Catelyn flicked her eyes at him then. "But I suppose that's the way you like them."
Tywin raised his eyebrows at her entertaining show of bravado, scoffed his own bitter sound and attempted to retort.
"Sansa is a stro-"
"My children are dead, Lannister. No thanks to you."
"No." His tone was that of a parent scolding a child. "Your daughter lives, and wishes to have her mother by her side."
"And which daughter is that? The one you lied about having, or the one you fucked into a traitor?"
His mind cringed. If this was the woman Sansa found that morning Tywin fully understood the pain she had been dealt.
"Stop being a damn fool, my lady" he spat. "Your daughter came to see you. Need I remind you of your duty as a mother?"
The face of Lady Catelyn softened to one that was familiar, one that he remembered from Riverrun and various tourneys. One that he would be happy to inform Sansa had reemerged.
"No, my lord, you don't." Even her voice was the one he recalled, and that please him... Until she finished, "That is why I am asking you now to honour the wishes of her mother, and kill her. It would be a mercy."
Tywin's fury was simmering. "I will not," he growled. "And you would do well to get over your stupidity, my lady."
Her features and tone did not change, but the look in her eyes was deadly.
"Tell me, Lord Tywin, was it the prospect of bedding a child, or was it the prospect of bedding a Stark that prompted your own stupidity?"
His fury consumed him then, he leaned down and brought his face a mere hands width away from hers. "You will not request to see Lady Sansa," he seethed. "She will not be denied access to you, but the choice will be hers." His demeanour switched to something made of pure menace. "But if you disturb her, like your folly today, I will personally see to it you suffer to a degree that will make your time with the Freys seem favourable."
Lady Catelyn did not so much as flinch, and when she spoke her voice was cold and distant. "Threats, my lord, lose their edge when you have been through what I have." She wore a smile, and it would have been sweet if it weren't so empty. "Women are resilient, I've discovered. Resilient in both body and mind to the depthless treachery of men."
Tywin leaned in closer then, ensuring his words were felt as much as they were heard. "I am well aware."
She didn't know or understand the reference, but Lady Stark knew the implication of his statement.
"Is that what you do to Sansa?" Her personality folded in on itself again, her smile was malicious.
"One more suggestion like that, my lady, and the unpleasantness starts here and now."
It was all he could do to grit the words through his teeth without reaching forward and choking the life out of the woman in front of him. He watched as she considered him for a moment, then tilted her head slightly - as a dog would at an unknown sound.
"You love her." Her statement was delivered in a tone of absolute victory.
Tywin stepped back, as though she breathed knives instead of words. He didn't speak just held her icy gaze with one of his own, and all too soon he realized that the gap of silence had turned into an admission on his part, and that to speak and deny it would be a confirmation, and to give her the words she wanted to hear would be a weakness... He did not love Sansa, not like what he knew love to be, but-
Lady Stark started laughing, loud and unbidden, startling Tywin out of his contemplation. Hers was a laugh the lion was familiar with. One that he could still hear echoing through the very halls he traversed daily. It was a laugh built primarily on paranoia and, as was the case with Lady Catelyn, anchored in grief and suffering.
It was madness.
Lord Tywin then took the only recourse remaining: he turned without word and left.
It wasn't long into the trek back to the Tower that he decided Lady Catelyn would not stay in King's Landing. She would remain a captive, of course, but she would do so at Casterly Rock.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
She didn't know the specifics of the emergency that shuffled her from the sitting room of their apartments, she only knew that it was staged for that particular purpose: for her particular purpose. Sansa had been pulled and led through corridors and crevices within the walls of the Tower. Ones she never knew existed, and was quite happy to be ignorant of given their extent and potential use. The idea was frightening. But it had been a soft, calming voice that guided her through stagnant air and dark catacombs. That same voice had eventually brought her to a hooded figure waiting by two horses in an unknown thicket of the King's Wood.
There was still plenty of light in the early evening, but as she stood and looked about she could not obtain her bearings in relation to the castle, and that was frightening too.
Lord Varys left her in the company of the hooded stranger, didn't make introductions, just turned and shuffled off to his next task.
The hooded figure spoke first and in a rather stunned voice, said, "My lady?"
The voice was vaguely familiar, something from far away. Even when the man pulled back his hood to reveal a dirty ruddy face covered in a shaggy beard, she felt she knew him but could not place him. It was uncanny.
"Harwin, my lady," the man said quietly. "Do you remember me?" He smiled small and pained. "My father, Hullen, was the Master of Horse in Winterfell."
Sansa was quickly inundated in a tide of memories and remembrance of a kind man, of kind men, all who followed her father to King's Landing. All who died because of her.
Blood through her fingers.
Sansa smiled at him, equally small and equally pained. "I remember," she said. She had to gather herself from her remembrance, she had to know. "Where have you been? Have you come from the North?"
"No my lady, your father sent me with Lord Beric Dondarrion to apprehend Lannister raiders..." He looked at her, embarrassed, his line of thought looked to have snapped. Harwin cleared his throat and continued, "After your father... We... We stayed as a company... Out there..." He nodded in some unknown direction through the trees.
Lady Sansa knew exactly who they were.
"The Brotherhood Without Banners," she breathed.
Harwin nodded, but Sansa didn't need his confirmation. She had been reading missives and enduring various commanders and lords cursing this same Brotherhood for well over a year. After the death of her father, the hunters had become the hunted and instead of disbanding, surrendering, or running, The Brotherhood Without Banners chose to stay, be labeled outlaws and fight a semblance of the fight her father had charged them with.
"How did you..." Sansa was going to say, get here, but the question, like the thicket, would have been an enigma. "Were you in King's Landing?" She settled on.
The man in front of her swallowed hard before speaking. "We saw Lannister men taking a prisoner from The Twins, I was told to follow and observe." He furrowed his brow and continued, "It was Lord Varys that found me." Harwin stood up straighter. "Told me that Lady Stark wished to meet me - had a task for me."
She smiled genuinely at his pride, and offered, "It is said Lord Varys knows your business before you do."
He smiled back. "I can believe that Lady Sta..." Harwin drifted his address of her, not feeling comfortable branding her with the name he knew had been tossed aside.
"Sansa," she finished for him as her smile reduced. She knew she was just as much a traitor now to those of the North as she was, before she was married, to those of the South. It seemed a label she would always wear; however, as her meeting with the man from The Brotherhood Without Banners suggested, one she would never conform to.
"Lady Sansa." He said it with a smile and a familiar tone, the tone his father had. It reminded her of home, if her childhood. It ached in its comfort.
She smiled back at him, genuine again, before she became serious. "The task I am asking you to shoulder is the care and responsibility of my mother." Sansa continued before he could ask the questions she knew he had on his lips. "That was who you followed from The Twins. It is who I am asking you to... rescue." It seemed the right word, from unrealistic songs or not, for what she was asking of him.
He looked surprised but didn't speak as she expected him to. Instead he looked back at the two horses, two of Lannister's finest, that were tacked, hobbled and grazing nearby.
"You will be provided for," she said confidently. "In the saddlebags of the black horse, you will find enough gold to get you back to the Riverlands... Or... Or wherever you decide to go... Quite safely, and then some."
He glanced back to her now, his voice and look not as pleasant as before. "The gold will provide for the people your husband set his dogs on?"
She concealed her grimace. She knew Tywin had let loose Gregor Clegane to burn and pillage, and even though Robb was dead he had yet to bring The Mountain to heel. He and his men were still out there.
"Outside the well being of my mother, I trust you to spend it as you see fit." She kept her tone a practiced neutral. "Lady Catelyn has her own agenda, one that is in line with yours. One that I will support to the best of my ability."
Harwin laughed at that, full bellied and equally mocking. "The wife of Tywin Lannister is going finance the same men her husband wants dead?"
"The very same," Sansa bit out.
He narrowed his eyes then. "What kind of trick is this?"
"There is no trick!" She was exasperated, her point had been made, surely. "The gold is there, see for yourself."
And she watched as he did just that.
"There will be more if you require it. Lord Varys has given you means to contact him, and that is what you will do. Any attempt to reach me directly will, as you can imagine, have dire consequences."
His smile was back, but this one was made more of misbehaviour. "Dire for us both I'd assume."
Lady Lannister answered without missing her cue. "I don't recommend trying to live on assumptions, ser."
Harwin lost his mocking smile. The girl had control somewhere and he would be a fool to try and determine whether it was actual or perceived. He nodded his agreement in the end.
"Harwin, I feel I have to advise you... My mother isn't..." She had practiced this part in her head many times, but the reality of it was something she could never truly prepare for. "Lady Stark is not the same woman you remember."
"Your father's death, King Robb, the war and all has changed us, every single one, my lady."
His voice was laced with the kind of sincerity Sansa trusted. That of the North. Sansa tried to smile, she truly did, but the hurt of those losses the man had mentioned made it looked forced.
Marching ahead, leaving her dead behind, Sansa explained, "She has been through a tremendous amount of torment and it has... affected her."
"Then would it not be better if she stayed here to be cared for, my lady?"
Sansa shook her head solemnly.
"She would not thrive here, or anywhere she felt a captive." Sansa closed herself off from thinking of her mother's torture. "She is driven now by her need for vengeance, and I want to ensure she has it within her grasp."
Harwin looked at her warily, not quite knowing if, or how, to interpret Lady Sansa's intent for her mother.
"My lady, I do not live in a place of comfort. There are no amenities and it is no true place for a lady - highborn or otherwise."
Sansa regarded him thoughtfully, and said, "You followed her for a reason, Harwin. Whether out of duty to my father or to Winterfell, it matters not. What matters is that you, and those you companion with, are who she needs right now."
Harwin slacked some at her assurance, then straightened suddenly, as though he remembered something important.
"Your sist-"
All was left forgotten the moment they heard footfalls, the pair became silent. Harwin, without prompt or hesitation, drew his sword and placed himself in front of Sansa. Using his hand, in the event he would have to swing to defend her, he gently pushed and placed her at a safe distance behind him. She stood frightened, though couldn't help but smile internally at the honourable north man. Her father would be proud.
Lord Varys emerged with her mother in tow. She was heavily shrouded under a dull cloak.
Harwin sheathed his blade and bowed to the hooded figure. "Lady Stark, my name is Harwin, son of Hullen, Master of Horse at Winterfell."
He watched as the figure pushed back her hood and was concerned regarding the bandages she wore on her face and neck. Other than the auburn hair, white streaks and all, and the blue of her eyes that were distinctly Tully, Harwin would not have known this was the same graceful woman who held the hearts of every soul in Winterfell.
...a tremendous amount of torment...
At that thought, any apprehension he had regarding the want to be responsible for his liege turned to dust.
"I am at your service, my lady."
The woman didn't smile, didn't nod or acknowledge him verbally, she simply walked and took her place beside and in front of him.
It was then she turned to Sansa, extending the same cruel demeanour as their first meeting.
"And what exactly do you want, Lady Lannister?"
"The same thing you want, Lady Stark."
Sansa returned an outward posture she was sure was plucked directly from a memory of her husband... and felt her heart break a little more. This wasn't the way it should have been between a daughter and a mother, but her sadness was forming its own version of resolve and it only served to confirm and fortify her current position toward the woman wearing her mother's skin.
"You told me you wanted them to pay, my lady. Is that still your desire?" Gods, she even sounded like Tywin.
The woman in front of her almost growled, "Yes..."
"My marriage does not change the fact that I am the daughter of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully," Sansa stated, and was gratified when the woman winced. "Just as it doesn't change the fact that I am of the North."
The woman's eyes softened slightly and Sansa knew she was speaking to more of her mother. She leaned in a little and chanced holding her hand, her fingers really, before she continued.
"The North remembers, mother." She squeezed the fingers she was holding as she spoke in a soft urgency. "The North remembers."
The woman looked at her for a moment as though in careful thought, and squeezed her fingers back only once before letting go completely and resuming a look of distance. Sansa was about to give up her hope of granting her mother revenge. The notion was drifting away as the woman barely acknowledged her words. Sansa would have to carry on with her contingency plan and provide for Harwin and his men, and rest easy knowing her mother was at least no longer a captive...
That was until the woman nodded at her. Lady Catelyn must have read the confusion in Sansa's eyes because the woman nodded again at her before turning to Harwin and speaking. "I want their blood. I want their lives." Her tone carried a lethal ferocity. She looked back to Sansa. "Lannisters will die in turn, be warned."
Sansa wore a carefully arranged mask of indifference and simply nodded. It would be something to deal with when the time came, not now.
The woman turned her back without another word and walked past Harwin toward their waiting mounts.
"My lady."
Harwin bowed to Sansa and held a look in his eye that she knew meant her mother would be cared for, and she smiled small and sad at the man, but nodded her every assurance. She watched as he helped her mother onto her horse and mounted his own and, not that she was expecting it, neither spared a glance to her as they began to ride.
The soft shuffle of feet and even softer voice behind her reminded Sansa that she wasn't alone.
"I'm truly sorry for what has happened your family, my lady - to your mother."
Varys always sounded sincere, but Sansa was never sure if it was just part of his act. As she watched the figures shrink into the distance, her voice cut cleanly, quiet but hardened.
"My mother died at The Twins, my lord," she said, still looking at the tiny silhouettes. "Butchered with my brother and his northern allies." She turned finally, once the figures were gone completely and addressed Lord Varys with thoughtful sadness. "No, my lord, that woman is nothing of Catelyn Stark. Nothing of the mother I loved, with her warm and good heart..." Sansa clenched her jaw and started to walk past him.
"No. That woman is made of stone."
She took his silence as understanding and kept walking, following the path he had shown her, the one that would place her back where she needed to be to conclude her ruse. However, it was the truth. All of it. The woman set free was not Catelyn Stark, but a creature broken to the core and bent on revenge. So, when her husband found her in the small room off the other sleeping chambers in their apartments, a room she designated as her bower and used when Tywin needed privacy; when he asked her pointedly, angrily, if she was in any way responsible for the release of her mother, she truthfully answered, No.
She watched as he huffed and raged and scrutinized her until he was satisfied she wasn't being devious. Whether he suspected something outside what she told him he would never say, or even let on, but she knew her husband better than anyone. She knew he was well aware of what she'd done, but he was also well aware of her debt. And it was the latter that was of far greater concern for Lord Tywin of House Lannister.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
As to be expected, in the fortnight that had come and gone since the escape of Catelyn Tully, there had been no mention of it between Lord and Lady Lannister. There had, in fact, been airs and sightings of the fugitive here and there, but nothing that prompted the concern or pursuit by Crown or Lannister forces. Neither was there a break in the siege at Riverrun, and Sansa concluded that that would be where her mother would aim her rage. Freys and Lannisters both, sitting in wait for what she could only imagine was bloodshed at its finest.
She cringed at the thought.
Before she could think any more on the matter, long fingers turned and pushed a letter across the desktop in her direction. A part of her didn't want to pick it up, let alone read it. The part that found every death and scheme and theory and complaint that were laid out in words, leeched her strength. She took a long look at her husband then; Kevan had told her he'd been this way since they were children. Sansa remembered playing and gossiping and enjoying her friends from that time in her life, and she could not help but feel sorry for him in a way.
He never looked tired though, not like how she felt, drained and exhausted. To him every letter was a puzzle, or a piece to a greater riddle. And it was the challenge of choice and ascertaining answers that gave him a particular joy. Sansa found she shared that same joy, just not with the same intensity, and sometimes not even toward the same element of the riddle. Her husband told her she had an abstract perspective, Tyrion told her she was sly. Either way, it was that part of her which picked up the letter and focused her eyes to read.
After several minutes, she lowered the missive and looked at her husband with concern. "The Boltons hold the North?"
"Let them." His tone was cool and distracted, as though the news meant nothing.
"But-"
"What are your house words, my lady?"
He looked at her then and raised an eyebrow expectantly.
"Hear Me Roar."
The stare Tywin gave her made her feel as though she was a small child failing the simplest of tasks.
Little Sansa Stark, always trying to please.
She did feel stupid and looked down then. Smiling and scoffing at herself before raising her eyes at him again. Tywin himself was wearing a tiny smirk.
"Winter Is Coming," she amended.
He kept the smirk as he nodded his head, reiterating, "Let them."
Her brows bunched in mild confusion and she spoke her thoughts as they were emerging.
"Do you mean to attack in wint- No..."
The pictures lined up fast and she knew she had the answer.
"Let winter destroy them." Her smile was gone. "We will take Winterfell at the onset of spring."
Sansa hadn't realize but she was speaking in a lowered tone, a voice built on the notion of violence, and watched as her husband, the Great Lion of Casterly Rock, carved his smirk into a grin.
...
..
.