"I had not expected it to be so warm here, Sansa. Even the walls are warm to the touch." Daenerys said to her as she stepped into her hot and steaming bath.
Since her miscarriage, Daenerys was ever kind and solicitous to please Sansa. No longer was her company rebuffed, but instead courted with zeal. Sansa could hardly refuse her, not with so much bad blood between Daenerys and her family. Bran did not have to say it, but both Aegon and Sansa knew that their marriage was a diminishing hope. This did not make her glad though, her fear of the prospect that whatever tenuous bond of friendship existed that between Winterfell and King's Landing would be destroyed was too great. For the sake of the peace, Sansa was most gracious in receiving Daenerys' invitations. They spent much of their time together alone, Daenerys had dismissed her handmaidens and there was a tense undercurrent of discord between Daenerys and Aegon that implied that his presence was not wanted.
Daenerys was still too weak to leave her rooms, so much of their time was spent bathing. Daenerys was very fond of hot baths, as the dragonlords of Valryia were of old. When ladies bathe, there was not much else to do but talk and nibble on sweets. Daenerys had been most free and easy with Sansa, and her conversation was surprisingly short of pleasantries or shallowness. She told Sansa about her childhood, her marriage to Khal Drogo and her marriage to Aegon, her accomplishments and her failures. Sansa listened in awe, she had heard these stories before but not with the intimate details that only who had lived them could provide. So great were Daenerys' deeds that it seemed as if she came forth from the very age of heroes, and could walk proud amongst those legends like Brandon the Builder, Lann the Clever, the Grey King and Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. Still, while Sansa could admire Daenerys, she mistrusted her and her armor of courtesy remained implacable.
They bathed several times a day and Sansa knew the hot pools outside the Guest House, heated by the hot springs would delight Daenerys once her health returned. Daenerys' eagerly looked forward to this event, jesting that they and the other ladies would be like Jonquil and her sisters. She often begged Sansa to sing the song Six Maids in a Pool and teased that perhaps Aegon would perchance to come upon as Florian had with Jonquil. She would have me love her, Sansa thought. In her chambers, she plays the supplicant, but outside it she plays the sovereign.
"Bran the Builder built Winterfell over natural hot springs and those hot waters rush through the walls of the castle like blood through a man's body," Sansa said.
"Though when I was a child I believed that the the source of Winterfell's heat was a great sleeping dragon who lay underneath in the bowels of the earth," she continued remembering the silly little girl she had been once. That girl's dreams were full of songs and stories. How her adult self pitied that little girl, and how she envied her.
"And would this dragon ever wake? And would a brave knight kill it?" Daenerys asked smiling gently at her.
The little girl Sansa had told Jeyne Poole of her fanciful notions. And her friend had replied that the dragon did not need a brave knight to kill it. The dragon would kidnap an ugly maiden and she would turn him to stone with a look. Haha, the ugly maiden will be Arya Horseface. Some maidens do not need any knights to save them, Jeyne had japed. The little girl had given Jeyne a disapproving look for Arya was her sister. The look held the seed of the lord's face she wore as an adult, but that face held no power then and had only made Jeyne laugh harder. Poor Jeyne, Sansa thought, and her ferocious anger at Littlefinger came rushing back red-hot and blinding. Would that I could kill him every night. One death was not enough to atone for the evil that he wrought.
But Jeyne had named Arya the ugly maiden and nothing could be farther from the truth. Arya was a beauty of surpassing loveliness, the Wild Rose of Winterfell, as men named her. Visitors would come to Winterfell and Sansa could see their eyes moving from Sansa's face then to Arya's as if to judge who is the greater beauty. The lecherous ones would still their eyes on Arya. Sansa's beauty was the beauty of the innocent, the maiden fair to be worshiped and yearned for from afar. Arya's beauty was the beauty of the temptress, the woman no man could tame but who promised good sport for he who dared.
"The dragon was a noble creature. I could never decide whether he would wake when Winterfell was in great peril to defend the castle's people or whether it would wake only at the end of time ... but I suppose I know that answer now," Sansa replied. She did not want to dwell too deeply on the fate of Winterfell's smallfolk at this moment, the blow would be too heavy.
"Is it hard coming back here? With all the reminders of what you've lost, and those you've lost?," Daenerys asked.
"I had thought it would be. I was anxious about returning to Winterfell, though the hunger for it drove every one of my actions. At first I was very afraid of going to places that were too tied to one beloved person. I didn't enter the sept for months too afraid that it would be a sharp reminder of my mother's absence. But when I dared to go there at last, I found that I felt nothing. It made no difference. Her absence is no more keenly felt there than anywhere else. Her absence is like the sky above, it is spread over everything. For me, this is what it is like to lose a beloved, no place holds the power of absence. What has changed is my life, the very act of living has changed," Sansa paused here feeling Daenerys was powerfully moved.
"It is like that for me as well. I loved a man, my sun and stars, and I yearned for a childhood home, the house with the red door. Through all my trials ... daily I said to myself that if I look back I am lost. Lest I drown in all my sorrows," Daenerys said.
"Returning to Winterfell holds no sorrow for me only joy and peace. My greatest joy is to see it restored to its glory and to see my all of my siblings restored to their rightful place." Sansa said.
Daenerys looked at her and they both knew that here Sansa was stressing her point about Jon.
"Your Grace, he may be Jon Targaryen, but the name he claimed in life was Jon Snow. His dying wish, his wish, was to return to Winterfell, to be buried in the ancient lichyard where the faithful servants of Winterfell are buried. But we took his body and the body of his direwolf Ghost, and buried it in the crypts where the Kings of Winter lie. He sits there now, on his stone throne, with his stone Ghost by his side and his stone sword Longclaw on his lap. King Stannis had offered him Winterfell when Jon was the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Jon denied him because he would not forsake his honor and his duty to the Night's Watch. But it must have been a great temptation, for I know he loved his place well and in his boyish fantasies he had thought that he might be worthy of the title of Lord of Winterfell. His siblings honor him in death with his heart's delight and the Kings of Winter have accepted him. He walks amongst them now, as one of them. If you take a single bone, his spirit will haunt you forever. He will not rest easy in that marriage bed that you have prepared for him and you under the circle of stone." Sansa said, her voice firm but there was no trace of anger.
Daenerys replied, her eyes welling up with unshed tears, "Sansa, my barrenness was a curse placed upon me by an evil maegi whom I had saved for I had a child's sense of judgment then. This maegi prophesied that I would never bare a living child. But prophecies are not written in stone, I knew that well to my bitterness for her prophecy forestalled another one that I found more to my liking. I lived with the Dothraki, as their Khalessi. All men know they are the greatest horsebreeders in the world. They have a saying that to breed a matchless foal, one must have both a stallion and a mare without peer. That is why Khal Drogo sought my hand. I was of the blood of the dragon and the last female scion of a House that ruled the Seven Kingdoms. With my blood and his seed, our son would be the Stallion That Mounts The World. Or so the crones of the Dosh Khaleen had prophesied. That future died with Drogo and our son Rhaego, the maegi had destroyed it, abetted by my own naive trust. But I hoped that if I had found a sire without peer, a great hero, that I might at last bare a living child. Jon was that sire, he was the Last Hero and he was of the blood of the Dragon."
Daenerys continued, "Jon's death robbed me of my heirs. I will never be a mother to a little girl or a little boy. Fate robbed me even of Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion. The Mother of Dragons, men call me. But the dragons are gone. Rhaegal and Viserion fled me long before their deaths, to find other masters who I knew not. The earth has swallowed up all my hopes and dreams, I had hoped that when I returned to the earth, that I might lie next to those dreams."
"Do you know what Jon was like?" Sansa asked.
Daenerys sank into her bath, her voice faraway and dreamy. "I imagined that he would be a man much like Khal Drogo, my sun and stars. A fierce warrior with a warrior's body, a fierce lover who kisses could not be denied, fond of laughter and the pleasures of the world."
"Jon was lean and quick, but not muscled. You can see this in his statute in the crypts, it was carved by a man in the Night's Watch who knew him well. As for his qualities as a lover, I know not, but he took his vows seriously and one of them was of chastity. He would not have practiced his ... um, swordsmanship ... without great guilt. As for loving laughter and pleasure, Jon was my father's son, though not of his seed. My father would say that it grows so cold up here in winter that a man's laughter freezes in his throat and chokes him to death and that's why the Starks have so little humor. Jon was gentle and brave and strong. But Your Grace ... he would have bored you to tears if you had known him."
Daenerys laughed at this and Sansa's laugh followed. They left their bath at last, the water had grown tepid.
Daenerys' took Sansa's hand in hers. "Sweet Sansa, sweet sister. If I cannot have Jon, will you grant me another request?"
"What is your request? If there is no dishonor in it, then it is yours." Sansa said, wary and unsure of what the Dragon Queen might ask of her.
"Will you call me Dany? My brother called me Dany and I call myself that in my head. But no one calls me that now. A subject can hardly call their Queen by her childhood nickname. Only an equal can."
Sansa smiled and said "Dany" then kissed her on her cheeks as she would do with a sister.
"Do you have a name that only your loved ones call you by?" Daenerys asked.
Little Bird, Sansa thought but no one could call her that save Sandor. "You Stupid is a term of endearment of Arya's." At this, they both giggled.
Later that night Sansa laid in bed thinking of the past few days events. Besides her, Arya slept gently snoring.
Sansa was perplexed by Daenerys speech. Dany had said that Aegon is not a dragon, but Jon was? But she also says that her brother Viserys was not a dragon. Is Aegon not a dragon because he is not Rhaegar 's true son or is he not a dragon because he has had no great victories? It was all very confusing. Daenerys was a conqueror, she had won the Iron Throne, and Sansa suspected much of her sadness was that there was nothing else left for the Dragon Queen to do now except live in the aftermath of her achievements and have babies. She told me if she looked back she was lost, but now there is nothing left to do but for her to look back. Her course has run.
Sansa had been mostly truthful with Daenerys, save for one exception. There was one lie she told her. The lie was "this is what it is like to lose a beloved, no place holds the power of absence." For she had lost Sandor and she felt his absence in one place most keenly, the place she could not run away from. That place was her own body.
It was not that love's appetite was sharp. She missed lying beneath him, but she could find a remedy that would lessen that desire on her own. It was that she had been his lover, and the act of love had changed her body, it was different now, both her body and his too. My body feels as desolate as an empty house. Sansa thought, pitying herself and her misery. Sansa turned and took Arya's hand in hers. She felt her sister squeeze it gently, though she knew Arya was fast asleep.
In the days that followed Sansa spent most of her time with Daenerys, rather than Aegon. She had hoped that they could spend time all together, but there was a chill between Daenerys and Aegon. The chill was strengthened by Daenerys' illness but it was there long before it. Aegon had said that he was Daenerys' husband and not her lover and Daenerys conversation had all but declared it to be the truth.
Dany had told her If you afraid to love Aegon because you cannot share him, you must rest easy on that point. She also said I am a Queen by conquest, I claim the same rights as Queen Nymeria. When Sansa was ten she had discovered the book The Loves of Queen Nymeria in the Winterfell Library. It was a serious work of scholarship, but to a young girl as racy and as titillating as if it had been the pornographic Lysene treatise The Art of the Seven Sighs. The young Sansa had read it at night, by candlelight, her breathing coming in heavy, occasionally stopping to hold the book to her chest, both delighted and appalled by the words written there. Queen Nymeria was a woman with large appetites that only a succession of great heroes could satisfy.
Sansa enjoyed Dany's company, but there was friction. Not between them, but between Dany and the other ladies that surrounded them, one lady in particular, the lady Arya. Dany and Arya bickered incessantly, subtle insults were traded. Many a picnic was spent with Sansa and Shireen sitting quietly, while Dany and Arya dueled with tongues as Aegon and Arya had dueled with their wooden sticks. Their verbal combat ended when Dany suggested to Arya that perhaps she should seek out Aegon who must be surely boring Bran with their countless hours playing cyvasse.
After that Arya was no longer a part of their party. Dany was relived, telling Sansa, "Your sister is a sore trial. And selfish, she is no help in running this great estate, it all falls on your shoulders and it will fall on Shireen's shoulders when you are gone. Men call her a lady, yet she had not learned a lady's courtesies."
Sansa felt compelled to defend Arya, "Arya is very brave, with the courage and heart of any man."
"Oh yes, a man's heart, but where is her woman's strength? Sansa, it grieves me to see how often you dismiss your own worth. If Arya had traded places with you after your father's death, would she have survived King's Landing? The Gods have given you both trials that sharpened and strengthened you, as a whetstone sharpens dull steel. Do not think because you would not have survived her trials, that Arya would have had the strength and the skill to survive yours. Many a time in my own life the only thing that kept me from despair and defeat was the knowledge of my own self worth. I would tell myself I am of the blood of the dragon..."
"I am of the blood of the dragon" Arya said to Sansa as they lay in bed. She mocked Daenerys by imitating her voice. "That Daenerys is a sore trial. And silly, why she told me she's not worried about infection from the gray plague because dragons never become ill from the diseases that afflict men. I pointed out that Daeron II and many of his grandchildren died in the Great Spring Sickness a hundred years ago. That shut her up!"
Arya turned to Sansa and whispered conspiratorially, "Let's play a game at tomorrow's supper. We'll drink every time she says I am of the blood of the dragon."
They did not play Arya's drinking game at tomorrow's supper. Sansa disapproved of it, Dany may be silly, but at times so was Arya. She would not mock any of her sisters, but defend them, even against each other.
Supper was one of the few occasions she spent in close company with Aegon. They had an ease with each other that was truly pleasant. They spoke of alchemy and history and politics. They had even argued sometimes about these subjects. I do not wear my armor of courtesy with Aegon.
Aegon had postponed his mummers' show due to Daenerys illness. It would be the next week instead. Sansa queried him on it, especially on the subject of Yi Ti flowers.
"These flowers are most wondrous, Sansa. Do you remember the red comet that brightened the night sky seven years ago? Well imagine that, but not one, many. These flowers will delight all that see it. It is my special gift to you, a bouquet of exotic flowers, for the Rose of my heart."
"What is their fuel?" Sansa asked.
"A substance called Yi Ti salt. The alchemists of the Yi Ti discovered it by chance while searching for an elixir of immortality," he replied.
"Is it magic then? ... I had thought magic was dead or at least dying," Sansa said.
"No magic, but bird shit." They both burst into laughter.
"Lord Hallyne, is this why he is here at Winterfell? To work in your mummers' show? Yi Ti salt is the new substance of the Alchemists' Guild, now that the spells for wildfire will not work." Sansa asked. At last the pieces fell into place. Yi Ti salt discovered by the alchemists of the Yi Ti and worked on by the alchemists of King's Landing.
Aegon nodded, "Clever girl" he said, smiling at with her with pleasure. He kissed her cheek then, but hesitated for a moment before leaning to kiss her lips. Before he could kiss her, Arya gave a loud yell across the table, "Aegon, sing for us. We have heard of your talent as a singer."
Aegon smiled with forbearance at Arya.
"I hope you do not find Arya's company trying," Sansa said. She had thought he might welcome it as Arya and Aegon and Rickon spent many hours fishing and hunting and swordfighting while she was with Daenerys. Bran was most relived by Arya's arrival, and as Dany had predicted, very bored with cyvasse, he was eager to return to his own pursuits. Bran had a talent for engineering and craft that none of his siblings shared or understood very well. He had built a workroom where he spent his hours with none to attend him save Hodor or Maester Samwell.
"Not at all. Arya is like no woman I've ever met before and I say that as a compliment," he said, shaking his head but smiling as if in both disapproval and admiration.
"She thinks she has everything figured out," he murmured.
Sansa glanced briefly at Arya before returning her eyes to Aegon. "Perhaps she does."
"Well, I hope she does not ask me to water dance or sing on our wedding night, Sansa," he jested. At this point the call for him to sing became raucous, many people clamored for it, and he had to leave her to satisfy them.
Aegon sang to the crowd. His voice was strong and rich, could it be anything else? Someone gave him a high harp, and the strings of the harp and his voice, filled the Great Hall of Winterfell with a sweet sound. He sang of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies, he sang of the Dance of the Dragons translating it from its original High Valryian, which most of the guests could not understand, into the Common Tongue. It was a haunting ballad of two dying lovers amidsts the Doom of Valyria, and most of the maids and even some of the men, were moved to tears over it.
At the end he sang a song that Sansa knew was for her, for when he sang it his eyes never left her face. It was "Florian and Jonquil." Sansa smiled warmly at Aegon, it was only courteous and Aegon had meant well. Tyrion must have told him of my fondness for knights and songs like this one, she thought. She had told Sandor she hated "Florian and Jonquil", that it was childish twaddle. She had meant it, not that loving these songs were detestable, but she hated that people kept reminding her of the silly girl she had been. They did not acknowledge that perhaps she had changed, she had grown, that her tastes may not the same now as they were when she was eleven.
Littlefinger was the boldest, cleverest man she had ever known. No doubt had he lived he would have been King's Hand and her lover, perhaps even the secret father of her children. But when he was fifteen he had been foolish enough to challenge Brandon Stark to a duel to the death despite having little skill in arms. Sansa at fifteen had never been as silly as Littlefinger had been. Children grow and children learn and now she a child no longer. Sansa had thought of herself as a house, and the image was fitting. She was a house with many apartments. In one chamber was the chamber where the child Sansa lived, delighting in nothing but pleasant wonders, but that chamber held doors and through those doors lay greater mysteries, the nature and the heart of Man.
While listening to Aegon sing, Sansa recalled a conversation she had with Lord Davos after Queen Daenerys had made her apologies to Bran. Lord Davos told her he was proud of her, You have a skill in discourse that should be a part of every lord's moral arsenal. Sansa basked in his approval and was her gratified with her ability to make peace between their Houses. It was a real accomplishment, worthy and satisfying. No needlework could compare. She had seen herself as Lord Davos had seen her, a peacemaker and a Queen. They call Daenerys, Queen Daenerys the Conqueror. Perhaps I will be worthy of being called Queen Sansa the Conciliator.