...
..
.
It took four full days until Lady Sansa could afford Lord Manderly the time he had requested prior to Jon's arrival. He assured her apologies were misplaced, offering his lady understanding instead of consternation. Though as they sat together in a solar Sansa could hardly think of as hers, speaking to and resolving current inventories and land matters, Lord Manderly bluntly interjected the truer reason for his requesting her time in the first place.
"Your brother, my lady," Wyman started, shifting rather easily in his chair. "Rickon - I believe he lives."
The large man said the words like he was relaying a store counts, or the details of a petty quarrel between tradesmen tasked to the rebuild of the castle. Lady Sansa immediately withdrew. Her countenance became stony, any outward demeanour toward the lord sitting across from her matched her physical rigidity.
"My brothers are dead, my lord," she said with all the warmth of winter. "And your jape is in poor taste."
"No jape, my lady. I sent King Stannis' Hand to search for him," was his unflinching reply.
Lord Manderly sat, convinced in his truth, searching Lady Sansa's eyes for a sign of trust - a sign that she in any way believed him. Long tense moments slunk by while she scrutinized him, assessed his every feature, disassembled every statement and confidence he had ever given her. Lord Manderly knew this time was as best as any to lay his tale at her feet, he had no other recourse but to sit in silence, open and unguarded, and let her pick his sincerity apart.
There was nothing in the man that told her he was lying. No muscles that twitched, his eyes didn't look away, nothing in him garnered attention to insist Lord Manderly spoke anything but out of honesty. Lady Sansa had a moment of dizziness; first Jon, now Rickon. If she allowed a flood of hope to envelope her she knew it would be her downfall.
Gods, but how she wanted to be washed away.
Her approach to this information, this tiny grain of triumph and jubilation, had to be treated no differently than anything of impact presented to her.
Sansa began slowly, "When Stannis' man finds him-"
Lord Wyman did not fail to notice Lady Sansa said when, not if.
"-you must not bring him here, you must not establish him as Lord."
Wyman felt the sting of the girl's presumption, and immediately let his gall speak on his behalf. "You've certainly been moulded into a Lannister, haven't you?" he judged. "Need I remind you that here in the North, the right of succession falls to sons, to Starks, not who has the most gold."
The fat lord knew his error even as the words fell out of his maw; the woman sitting across from had grace of blood, not wealth. Her muted agitation only confirmed his recognition.
"Do you think Lord Tywin secured Winterfell out of romance, Ser?" she questioned, her tone so flat it cut an edge, and finished, "As a prize for his wife?"
The words she chose were thoroughly caustic, but her overall demeanour never really changed from being accommodatingly kind. It was a curious puzzle to be sure, one that the older man could only envy, and not think to ignore.
"My husband fought, bled, and removed the lineage of a house and its vassals for his son to sit this seat," Lady Sansa continued. "Do you think one boy rescued from exile, Stark or not, my brother or not, means anything to him?"
She had given him a gift with that statement and Wyman knew it. The information and opinion from her lips could end her life if used against her, and she handed it to him with the trust Lord Manderly had once earned and admired in Ned Stark.
"You must keep him safe, my lord," she said. "If not for me then for my father. Do not put my brother into the mouth of a lion for the sake of honour."
"If your brother lives, this is his seat my lady." His tone was no longer accusatory, more beseeching.
"I do not dispute that, my lord, but he will die for it if you assert your ambition."
There was no room for voice in the quiet that enveloped the room. It was needed by each to measure, appraise, and tally the worth of information and the trust between them. It wasn't threatening, it was necessary.
After the passing of what could have been an hour, it was Lady Sansa who breached the silence with her soft, confident promise. "If my brother lives, and you keep him safe, there will be a Stark in Winterfell. The North will be whole again, my lord - that is what I work toward and sacrifice for, but it takes time and patience."
Wyman Manderly knew that what she was saying, with words and allusion, was truth. It would be folly to accept Tywin Lannister as a man of conscience. He swept the North from the lord who killed its king, and the Great Lion expected the North to pay its debt.
With a thoughtful nod to Lady Sansa, the large man pondered aloud. "Your seat is now the West, my lady. Even if Tywin Lannister dies, his bannermen would never agree to give up his son's seat in the North."
"His son is equally mine." Sansa smiled in the way the older man remembered of her when she was but a babe, and could not stop his own grin from growing in genuine accordance. "And I have changed your mind, my lord."
Lord Wyman Manderly felt an overwhelming cascade of calm knowing he sat in audience of such a remarkable young woman.
"You make your father proud, my lady," he offered with a surprising amount of emotion.
The large man had thought his tears were dried and forgotten after the death of his wife; the death of his son reintroduced the wretched display when he found time to mourn privately. But this young woman, this progeny of a man he more than respected, managed to evoke a happiness he thought was equally dried and forgotten. And with its resurrection came the hint of tears, a direct reflection of that elation.
Lady Sansa smiled at Lord Manderly, her own eyes reciprocating a watery happiness. And for the first time in more years than she cared to count, she knew in her bones that her world, her north and her west, would one day be hale and contented.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
She said she would sleep on the journey, but there she was awake and alert. Every breath and heartbeat accented by the swift thump and push of each swell the Sunset Sea had to offer.
With every passing hour turning to days and days that disappeared into moons in Winterfell, Sansa felt more and more of herself fading along with them. She ached for her children. She ached for the companionship of her husband; and before she could make the effort to investigate the exact impact that particular truth meant she had settled her expectations with Ser Brynden and Lord Manderly, and made her unexpected departure.
Instead of leaving the way she came, Lady Sansa arranged a truer, albeit riskier route. She had initially intended to make the journey on land, but her great uncle struck down any mention of the King's Road. Her mother would surely kill her at the chance, or bargain her for Tywin, or her sons, and Sansa steeled in her acceptance of the older man's counsel.
Lord Manderly worked magic of some kind, levered favour without her knowledge and chartered one of the lowest, longest, fastest looking boats she had ever seen - not that her knowledge of marine transportation was extensive. It was a long-ship, like the Ironborn raiders, but it was stripped of everything pertaining to war, everything heavy, and it made the vessel all the faster.
When she made to leave, it was evident her party of one handmaiden, four sentries, and over thirty grey and gold clad Lannister soldiers were not traveling to White Harbor.
More magic.
They made their way to Torrhen's Square and, after securing one of the swiftest, cordial feasts and local introductions she had ever been party to, continued down the waterway to Saltspear. Waiting for her there was a burly northern captain wearing seal skins and a beard she was sure repelled water as easily as his garments, who ushered her and her entourage onto the northern built, and manned, boat.
"Seems most forget we have just as much wood and water as the rest of 'em, m'lady," Captain Tavver had smiled at her, knowing her question by merely looking at her. "She's fast," he declared proudly. "Not even squid can catch the Baikal. No worries, Lady Stark, she'll see you safe at your Rock."
"Thank you, captain. I am in your debt," Sansa whispered in an air of awe. That she was to make it to Casterly Rock in lesser time than she had planned was a warm and generous revelation. She felt safe with this man, and for the first time in long time she let her adapted tendency to control her surroundings drift away as quick and easy as the ship itself sailed.
They had given the mainland a large berth to better ride the air currents and to avoid any trouble born of the Iron Isles. And true to his word, Captain Tavver delivered his precious, unannounced cargo to Lannisport in just shy of a sennight.
They arrived in the deadest hour of night with nothing of a moon to speak of or guide them. The weather had changed abruptly as the long ship coasted inland toward the harbour, and by the time the boat had been tied to the quay, the sky had opened up with rain that was unseen until it hit you.
Sansa's greatest effort lay in controlling her excitement once they'd made landfall. Regardless of the weather, regardless of the hours still needed to travel inland then up the lengthy incline to the castle proper, she had to hold back the small flickering burn of elation so it would not become incendiary - transposing itself to impatience. By the time her small forward-party met the first gates of Casterly Rock, the rain had ended and the messenger sent ahead of them had successfully relayed notice of Lady Lannister's presence.
Her arrival was nothing grand, nothing planned even, and she knew she would have to explain the reasons for it to Lord Tywin sooner rather than later, but in her ascent to the nursery none of that mattered.
Sleep addled and groggy handmaids rushed to their lady as she walked the well lit corridor with a single minded agenda. Her wet outer cloak was peeled away as she moved; it was a testament to the efficiency and ingenuity of the women she entrusted with her care that they knew not to ask Lady Sansa to stop or change course. They knew her mission and were not going to impede it.
The entourage fell away by increments the dryer and closer to Sansa's destination they became. By the time she pushed open the heavy door to the sanctuary she had been craving for more than half a year, Sansa was alone.
Leaving the door open behind her, Sansa stopped to gather herself. She stood at a physical and emotional threshold, and it took every thread she was composed of not to come apart now that she was finally there. Taking long paces toward the two high-sided beds, set so close together they were touching, she could feel the fabric of herself start to unravel. She felt starved. Emaciated from missing her sons and gaunt from missing her husband. Three entities that gnawed at her with a hunger greater than any lack of food. And when she peered over the edge of Tysan's bed, she let out a silent sob of relief.
She was once again sustained.
There below were her children. Her boys who entered the world together still managed to sleep by the pair. Rykar had been scaling the confines of his nighttime gaol well before she had left, and it seemed that instead of fighting it, the decision had been made to prevent injury and assist with his escape.
Rykar was curled into his brother like a vine. His head was at Tysan's feet and their arms and legs were twined in a manner that defied logic.
Sansa gently raked her fingertips through her eldest son's soft auburn locks, then with that same touch removed the bare foot of her youngest from where it was mashed into Tysan's face - not that he was perturbed in any way by the offense from his younger brother. Her fingers danced from one boy to the next, just touching them. Moving through gold curls and waves of fire, down cheeks coloured a shade of pink that can only be found in the great depths of sleep. The loving touch of their mother traced toes and ankles, and tenderly unfurled tiny fingers so she could count them.
One such fist was found clutching tightly a sword sewn together from only the finest swathes of material and stuffed with something soft, and Rykar would no more relinquish his cushy blade than he would wake up to greet his mother.
Sansa laughed and sniffled at the same time, and hurt all the more. It was as though she had been gone a lifetime.
The ache of missing them had been buried so well and for so many moons while she was in the North, that at the passing of their nameday Sansa woke from a dead sleep, gasping ans choking as the confines in which she kept that burden had decidedly cracked. The pain it once held firm seeped out like clawing tendrils, suffocating fingers that forced her to physically move away from it, to flee and seek reprieve.
To seek them. Her sons. The balm to tend her fissure of misery.
As she looked at her children now, she knew it would take more than a political advancement for her to ever leave them again. Even if her lord husband demanded it of her, she would rail against his command with her refusal. Her twins, her boys, her life, were a year older then when she had struck north, and the amount of innovation and progress they had achieved in their lives since her absence already bound her with an unrelenting guilt.
Never again.
Sansa halted as she made to sit in the rocking chair Tywin had waiting for her when they first arrived at the Rock. It was a grand thing, large and comfortable, easy to sit and sway with two babes in time to the sea that could be heard through the open windows. Across the seat of the rocking chair was what looked like a heavy, cumbersome blanket. However, draped there so haphazardly was actually a long, black and crimson cloak.
Tywin's cloak.
Sansa smiled.
A light shuffle of feet from behind caught her attention. At the same moment she turned to address the noise, she noticed the turn and departure of a tall figure at the doorway of the nursery.
The more delicate sound of approach was one of her sons' nurses, who in turn bowed in greeting to her, then whispered, "My lady, we weren't expecting your return."
Sansa turned back to the two sleeping treasures as she spoke lightly, absently. "No. I assume you were not." Turning her head to the young woman no older than her, Sansa smiled as she proceeded, "I couldn't stand to be away any longer."
The nurse offered a pensive smile. It was something knowing, perhaps between mothers, or perhaps simply common sense. But as the girl made to leave, Sansa drew her eyes back to the cloak on the chair and made to quell her curiosity.
"Was Lord Tywin present tonight?"
The nurse stilled and grinned once more. This time it was an expression of pride, if Sansa were to guess. "My lord has been present every night since his return, my lady."
Sansa listened, and ran her fingertips over the cloak's seams and embroidery closest to her, and as the nurse continued speaking, she wallowed in the nuances of the familiar tactility. At the same time, she held at bay a shameful impulse to run into their bedchamber and wrap herself up in her husband's robe.
"Lord Tywin seeks them," the nurse continued, her eyes flicking to Tysan and Rykar, "in the time after their bath, as they are being put to bed."
"Of course," Sansa chuckled, then inclined her head to encourage the girl to keep going.
"He talks to them, my lady," the girl giggled, returning her attention to Lady Sansa. "Lord Tywin sits in that chair and addresses them as though they were proper lords." The nurse immediately looked away, abashed and afraid. "I know they are, my lady," she nervously whispered. "I apologize..."
It was a blunder her husband would never tolerate; it was a twist of words Sansa hardly noticed.
"It's quite all right," Sansa soothed, trying to lighten the mood. "Please tell me he hasn't decreed taxes from them yet."
The nurse smiled and looked up once more. "Not yet, my lady, but they wait until their father finishes his speech then babble right back. It's the funniest thing - they have an entire conversation like that, of nonsense, until the children talk themselves to sleep."
The young nurse once again giggled softly, and Sansa felt an overwhelming sense of anticipation in what she was about to be told.
"Sometimes," the nurse mused quietly. "Sometimes my lord is the one talked to sleep, my lady. More than once we've found Lord Tywin asleep with a little lion tucked in each arm."
The anticipation Sansa felt thawing in her belly wicked through her. It spread a feeling of such contentment she felt fit to weep for no given reason other than that brimming warmth embracing her.
Regardless of whether her husband had initially sought the company of their children out of obligation toward her, it was obvious he found something in the practice that compelled him to continue - every night. She didn't care what it was, or that she was not involved in its inception, what mattered was that her babes - and yes, Lord Tywin - were prospering from it. And she would help to ensure that singular measure remained habit.
Sansa smiled, focused once more on her children, and spoke in a kind of hushed dreamy state. "Thank you."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Tywin Lannister stood as his wife entered the large lord's solar of Casterly Rock. She approached with steps that could be described as hurried, excited even, but his rise was not for the tact of decorum. Rounding his desk until he was leaning back, his knuckles white at the grip he held on the edge of the burnished wood top, Tywin looked at the happy young woman with eyes like razors and the bodily presence of a man wont to harm.
Sansa smiled at him all the while treading closer, and Tywin felt cornered. He felt more than that, of course, but it hit him with such a force, the impact made everything except sharp waves of ire undecipherable.
She stopped more than a pace away. Sansa may have been absent for moons, but it made her comprehension of Tywin's behavioral nuances no less ingrained. His abrupt departure from her bed in Winterfell sprang forward, and Sansa realized his behaviour then was more than his usual fickleness, that his anger now was not the kind he usually forgot and never mentioned again. In light of that, instead of carrying ahead with her greeting as she had planned, Sansa waited.
Her steadfast patience had always rewarded her, even in the most unlikely of circumstances, this was no exception; it was her husband who ended the impasse.
"I was expecting a raven summoning the children, not your person."
Sansa quirk her brow in confusion. "Summon the children?"
It was like he didn't hear her question, he just kept prattling on, angry and distracted, "You didn't have to make the journey. I would have sent them."
"Tywin..." She stepped closer, her concern becoming apparent.
He snapped his eyes at her then and snarled low, "Don't think to patronize me, girl-"
"Tywin..." She was concerned. This version of him revoked his own natural poise and made him seem ungainly.
Lady Lannister made a gentle reach for her husband and it was as if she were about to slit his throat. He grabbed her wrist in a manner he hadn't in ages, with a grip meant to control and demean. But she was no longer the girl with fear and tears in her eyes.
No, the woman in his clutch was intrepid.
She grimaced at the pain and growled through her teeth, "You're hurting me." Her own confusion twisted itself into a base-burning anger, but mostly she wanted to know what was wrong with the man in front of her.
Lord Tywin stared at her, his eyes burning in impotent rage.
Sansa had the inclination to feel amused.
He sneered at her, his whole face shifting to accommodate his hate. "Why did you come back?!"
He flicked his eyes, so tormented and loathing, directly at hers. It was like she was reading a book - words dancing clear and unbidden - and Sansa knew her lion was broken.
Hurt and shattering.
This man.
This great man with so much, yet so little. In front of her stood a man so rich with gold and power that he crumbled knowing the only thing he ever truly desired was dignity.
And he had none. Not one fraction.
But she did.
Sansa possessed the wealth the Great Lion envied, more so she radiated it. It oozed out of her with every word and action, but her husband had only ever appreciated it. He could have claimed it for his own - taken her treasure and squandered it.
But he didn't.
He let her keep it, and instead, with enough distance and time between them, convinced himself to resent her for possessing such an exceptional quality to begin with. The emptiness of the trait he so coveted was made even more apparent and intolerable by the act of her arrival. He never expected her to remove herself from the North. He painfully came to terms with letting her go, only to have her breeze back into his life in order to flaunt that which he would never have - her included.
She was taunting him.
The cruel malicious thing.
Tywin's gaze flicked away, well past her, his vicious clench still held on her wrist. Sansa took her free hand and squeezed her own grasp around the chin of the man who seemed to despise her. Her nails dug little white curves on either side of his mouth, and Sansa used the distraction to force his attention toward her.
"I didn't come back!" she seethed, all wrath and resentfulness. Sansa could feel his jaw clench as his eyes narrowed, and she watched as something curiously resembling defeat came to rest in them. The grip on her wrist loosened, something like defeat, and it only compelled her to tighten the one she had on his face. She shook that same grip with every word spit at the man before her. "You... old fool!"
Three words snuffed out Tywin's animosity with no effort, like it had never been there to begin with.
She hurt him, she knew.
She meant it. It was necessary in order to dig him out of the petty furor he was buried in.
His eyes were no longer livid, no longer burning; his features softened like that of a child. Tywin was waiting for her to strike the final blow, to end them, end him, but what was worse was that her husband looked as though he had been expecting it. And it was that knowledge that prevented her from faltering, prevented her from succumbing to her disposition of wanting to bow and submit and augment herself for the benefit of others.
For the benefit of Tywin.
Sansa no longer dug her nails into his flesh, but cradled it with her fingertips. The grasp was light, yet he followed her tug to lean closer, regardless.
Everything about his wife was fire. She scorched to the quick of him and kept going. His face was close enough to hers that Tywin could smell the elements on her; like she bathed in the sky of the North and slept in the cradle of the Sunset Sea. His wife was an ethereal plane that existed overtop his own narrow world, and she was about to remove that part from him altogether. The anticipation of such an amputation was dreadful, it stirred in him the kind of fear he knew he would be lucky to survive.
"I came home, Tywin."
Her words didn't make sense though. His wife surely said she was going home, and he'd misheard. He opened his mouth to cast her out with whatever ferocity he could scrape together, but was shut down with the sound of her voice once again addressing him.
This time louder. This time without the possibility of misunderstanding.
"I came home."
Lord Tywin could do no more than blink stupidly at the creature he towered over, that held him rapt at her every word and inclination.
...and he was truly hers.
He watched her head tilt minutely to the side, as though in question, and felt her soft fingers slowly brush their way under his chin and down his neck.
Tywin closed his eyes and inhaled slow and long through his nose as Sansa's fingers stopped their journey at the top of his collar. Her fore and middle fingers curled themselves between the lush fabric of his doublet and course unshaved skin behind it.
Elegant knuckles gently pressed into his throat and the old lion swallowed involuntarily.
"This ends. Now."
Her voice seeped through him, crawled into his ears, to his mind and flickered there. It was when he truly registered her words that he was able to look at his wife once more.
She gave him his own command. A command hissed at her so long ago. One she embraced despite its venom.
"You trust me or you don't, my lord. There is only one choice, and no middle ground." Her face was wiped of everything save seriousness. "If your trust is something I have not yet earned, I ask you tell me and I will gladly take our sons and leave."
Tywin Lannister had never been a man to take kindly to ultimatums or intimidation, but this was something entirely different. This was a negotiation of emotional veracity in which there was no place for conniving arbitration.
It should have been the simplest task to tell his wife the truths she was seeking.
It should have been even easier to hide behind his ire and let his irritation speak for him.
Anything gained easily has the highest of prices, and Tywin knew his soul could no longer pay the toll of living without her.
Her husband was in caught in a whorl of turmoil, like a wounded animal. Such as a lion that has been hunted for too many years, Lord Tywin snarled and paced and swiped at those close to him with deadly claws; all the while limping and bleeding.
His struggle was plain on his face.
Sansa's fingers shifted to lay against the side of his neck, twisting her palm upward, she allowed her thumb to sweep idly along his jawline. The rasp of his unshaven stubble loud between them.
"Did you truly expect me not to return?"
Tywin's brows pinched low and deep on his forehead, it wasn't a look of suspicion more than it was a look of boyish insecurity. "Why would you?" he asked with an edge of petulance.
Three words. These held so many questions, so many uncertainties. So many hopes. Sansa couldn't think or do much more than stare in something akin to wonder.
When she failed to answer him, Tywin fell back on close-minded supposition. "You can't tell me Winterfell is not where you would prefer-"
She cut him short, her words each their own accusation, her hand tightened minutely on his jaw, blue eyes burning just as hot as green. "What's there for me, but ruins of a place I once knew and memories of people I will never see again?
"I will dedicate myself to the betterment, rebuilding and ruling of the North. I will always love the North, it will always be a part of me. But my home is with my family, Tywin. And my family is not in the North."
Of course they weren't. His wife had endured each parent and sibling, in one form or another, die around her. He sobered at her words. His eyes focused, finally, sincerely.
Sansa presented a soft smile at her husband's wash of stubborn, brittle understanding. Blinking slowly at him, she leaned forward purposefully, gently bumping the length of her body against his.
"May I come home, my lord?" The whisper was loud in the somber atmosphere.
His countenance was severe, but his touch was amazingly delicate. Tywin slowly wrapped one arm around her waist, keeping a tender hold on the wrist he'd punished with the other - his thumb drawing careful little circles - and gently pulled his wife against him.
Other than his deepened breathing and the occasional throaty growl, the old lion said nothing. Curling his shoulders, Tywin nudged his face into her thick hair and rested his mouth on her neck, on the silky expanse peeking out above her high collar. It was an act of bliss he dreamt of when she wasn't near.
He nodded over and over again, speaking hoarsely into that sanctuary of skin, "It's yours, my queen."
Sansa laughed, and for him it was a sound that set him free.
"Ours, my king."
She could feel him smiling into the column of her throat; then, at once, heard a rumbling that started deep in his chest only to bubble over his lips.
Lord Tywin held his lady flush, held her tight.
Her lion was laughing with her.
He felt weightless in his joy, in their joy, and it began to frighten him.
Joy bred complacency, and complacency was naught but death...
Joanna.
The insidious pull of bleak gravity tore away in him again, trying to hollow him, trying to leave nothing more than a husk.
Sansa.
Tywin notched a tighter hold on his wife - his wife, his wife, his wife - and nuzzled into her neck, then up to her ear. There was no trace of mirth in him by the time he dragged his jaw along hers, his side whiskers snagging loose strands of auburn as he journeyed. He pulled his head back but kept her body intimately resting against him. Oh, what relief that brought. Lifting his hands to cup either side her face and neck, Tywin marveled once more at the woman in his possession.
Lord Tywin was vaguely familiar with beautifully frightening realizations, the ones he knew would inherently change his life.
This was one of them.
Sansa had always been.
Since the moment she had been pulled into his world, into him, when she fearlessly spiraled through her pleasure at his touch and unknowingly dragged him along into a new existence, he knew.
Tywin had always known.
The old lion could do no more than stare and breathe.
Sansa observed and concluded.
Using her toes, she pushed up and elevated her upturned mouth to his that was inclined. Her lips simply grazed his, a feather's touch, over and over again sweeping back and forth until her lion retained nothing of resolve.
At first, he did no more than lean his mouth onto hers. His wife didn't cajole or pressure her want, she allowed him the choice. It was more minutes than were rightly appropriate for him to hold her static, on her toes, his thumbs caressing lines over her cheeks, but his mind was only permitting flecks of solace and Tywin was at its mercy.
It seemed hours, but the two entities in the room prickled heat between them that refused to diminish under the scrutiny of time. And yet it seemed in only an instant the clunking shallow hurt that had burrowed deep into the lion's chest caved in upon itself taking with it the tiny space his conscience had allotted for repose.
Tywin angled his mouth against that of his lady and could feel her open a fraction for him, inviting him in. His throat purred, his lips twitched a curve, and he gladly took her offering.
The caress of her tongue welcomed him.
The twist and pull of her fingers in his doublet anchored him.
The radiating hum of her need embraced him.
The shift and grind of her body seduced him.
Absolutely.
Yes, sang bold the thoughts of Lord Tywin Lannister, We are home.
...
..
.