The night before
It was the night before the wedding. Tyrion and Sansa were alone in his chambers. Tyrion couldn't stop himself. "Sansa?" he said and she lay down her embroidery, "There's one thing that is bothering me a little…." He took a deep breath and said: "You didn't, you haven't mentioned love."
Sansa blushed. "I don't know why," she said. "I feel I don't really know its meaning anymore."
"It's when…" Tyrion said, "when your heart lights up when you're with a person and it begins to sing. Or when you think about them and you feel all warm inside. Or when you think about them perhaps not liking you and the ache of that is overwhelming."
"Oh," she said. "I do feel that. I thought it was about other things. What they mention in the songs…"
"All the things I'm not," he said. "The handsome warrior, the gallant knight, the sweet poet, the glorious bard."
"If that's what it means," she said, disregarding his words, "then I love you, Tyrion."
"Good," he said, "that is what it means."
"A while ago," Sansa said, "You said you'd given up on fierce passion and falling head over heels. I think I have too. The songs are all about summer love, not winter love. All about tourneys and flowers and maiden fair, but not about growing to love someone. Not about growing old together or about friendship deepening." She blushed a little. "In the stories, it all happens in a lightening flash and not slowly over time. It's never about respect and sharing hope or pain. Only about bravery and beauty."
"Never about imps," he said.
"Never about them," she agreed. "Perhaps we'll be a song one day…."
He laughed. "I'd hate to hear it, I believe," he said. "They'd be mocking the pair of us."
"It will probably be a drinking song," she said, "where you have to drink at the end of every verse and there will be so many verses, you won't be able to stand on your feet at the end of it."
"My kind of song," Tyrion smiled.
A little later Sansa shifted uncomfortable in her seat. "There is one other thing," she whispered, biting her lip.
"Tomorrow night…" she said. "Tyrion, I… I am a little scared. With Ramsey…." She closed her eyes but the tears sprang into them regardless. "It hurt," she whispered. "Very much."
"I promised not to hurt you," he said sternly. "So I won't."
"But what if it does?" Sansa said.
"One of the great things of having bedded many a whore," he said, "is knowledge of the female body. I'll find a way that won't hurt."
"You will?" she said. "You think you can?"
"I will," he said confidently. "Don't think about it anymore."
He hesitated and then added. "Whilst we are confessing, I'm worried about something too." He looked straight into her eyes and said, a little hoarsely: "Sansa, do you pity me?"
Her eyes grew wide. "What's there to pity?" she replied, a hint of sharpness in her voice. "I see a man belonging to a great House, who is Hand of the Queen, no less. He is healthy and protected. Chances that he will die in battle are thin, because of his build. He has his wits about him and is about to get married to an honorable Lady of another great House."
"Thank you," he whispered. "I quite envy this man…"
Sansa laughed. "You better," she replied.