The Dragon and the Hawke 38
Stannis and Melisandre share concerned looks as Marian completes her story. Davos, having had first hand knowledge of the event, holds his gaze on the Mage. She gives him a smile, his gruff demeanor reminding her of Blackwall, back in the few short weeks she had journeyed with the Inquisition. The Onion Knight returns her smile, though a more cautious one. They're eyes turn as one back to Stannis as the King stands.
They watch as he paces from one end of the room to the other, before finally asking to the room at large, "Why did Lord Snow not tell me?"
"I believe he did, m'lord," Davos tells him, "But you dismissed his claim, thinking he was making it to remain a neutral party ."
"Mm, a mistake on my part, then," Stannis grunts, not one to easily admit his faults, but this had been a day of new experiences for the King of Dragonstone. He would have to think on how to proceed, and especially on how he would handle the North now that the issue of the Long Night had arisen. Then he sparks upon an idea, "Sansa Stark is wed to Tyrion Lannister."
"Yeah," Marian nods, not sure where he was going
"I would ask that she write to the Lord of the North and declare her loyalty to the Empress, and the Empress's alliance with me."
"Why?"
"I have had trouble gaining their loyalty, even with the routing of the Boltons," Stannis tells her, "Their dedication to House Stark is extensive."
Marian shrugs, "Sure, I'll have her pen some letters while you get your daughter ready for her trip through the sheet."
Stannis nods in thanks as she pops through the sheet and into Meereen.
Nobody was in the Antechamber, and Jon Snow's office was empty on the other side of the chamber, so the mage exited the room. She quietly enters the Throne room, careful to not attract attention as she makes her way around the edge towards the back exit of the chamber. She notes quietly that Hizdahr is the one speaking to Dany, and his subject of choice included the gains from the still growing collection of gold taken from the nobles that tried to knock them off in the arena not so long ago.
Marian knew Sansa would be in her chambers at this time, the girl had gotten her fill of court life back in King's Landing. While the court was organized, she did things like read, sew, or learn how to kill a man with a hairpin from the handmaiden that Tyrion had hired for her.
Sure enough, Sansa was busy dipping a sewing needle into a sickly violet concoction while the handmaiden gave her quiet instruction. Marian, knowing the danger of sneaking up on either woman, made sure her entrance was audible, if not distracting. The handmaiden looked up and nodded to her while Sansa gently pricked herself in the finger with the poisoned needle.
Marian had asked about that one time, and was told in no uncertain terms to fuck off and mind her own business. She'd taken the hint and left well enough alone. Now, though her natural curiosity was yelling at her to ask all sorts of annoying questions, she held her tongue and slipped into one of the comfy chairs in Sansa and Tyrion's suite.
It didn't take long for Sansa to acknowledge her, giving a startled jump of surprise when she realized who exactly had joined her, "Oh, Marian! How can i help you?"
"I just got finished explaining the White Walkers and everything to King Stannis, and he asked me to ask you to write a few letters to the Lord of the North so that he doesn't get murdered in Winterfell."
"Stannis is in Winterfell?" Sansa asks
"Yeah, apparently when Tyrion and I grabbed you, we threw the Boltons off of their game," Marian tells her, "Stannis was able to kick them out of Winterfell with stupid ease because nobody was actually in the Keep, everyone was out looking for you."
"They thought we were still in the North?"
"If you hadn't done it twice now, would you believe that I could take us all the way across the world in a second?"
Sansa furrows her brow, then nods, "True, you're right, they would never have believed it possible."
"Yep, so no more Boltons in your ancestral family home, always a good thing." Marian assures her, stepping over and patting the girl on the shoulder in commiseration.
"You sound as though you speak from experience, your grace," The handmaiden, a die hard believer in the storm god, notes.
"Yeah, My uncle once sold my ancestral home to slavers to cover some gambling debts," Marian frowns, "Me and my brother cleared them out. Come to think of it, that may be where my personal hatred of slavery came from…"
"You didn't hate slavery before then?" The handmaiden asks, slightly horrified that there may have been a time that the god was not the great liberator.
"Oh I hated it before that," Marian tells her, rubbing the corner of her mouth, "But before that it was more of a conceptual hatred. I hated the idea of slavery, but I'd never run into it personally, so it was always something I only knew about, like part of story before the hero shows up."
Sansa, once a girl in love with romantic tales of heroes, villains, terrible demons, and beautiful princes, knew exactly what Marian meant. The handmaiden, who didn't really understand, just latched on to the knowledge that the god had always hated slavery in one way or another; everything else was ancillary.
Then Marian remembered why she had come by, "Anyway! Letters, you up for writing them?"
Sansa nods, having decided to do so before they had been side-tracked. She slips from her chair, strides over to Tyrion's desk, and pulls a few sheets of paper out. For an hour she pens her letters to the various Lords of the North; she had been brought up a proper lady and thus knew them all, most even by first name at this point due to the deaths of their fathers or other house leaders.
By the time she had finished, Dany had finished with the last of the petitioners and dismissed the court, and her husband had made his way back into their chambers. He had greeted Marian with surprise, saw the concentration on her face, and decided not to interrupt. He had directed his questions at Marian instead, and smiled even more when he learnt that Sansa was playing the political game, at least in some way.
"Tyrion?" Sansa asks when she finally looks up from her work, "When did you get here?"
"Near an hour ago, my lady," the little lion smirks at her and raises his goblet to her, "To the Starks and their return to the political sphere!"
"What!" Sansa's eyes widen in alarm, "Should I have used the Stark name?"
"You did not?" Tyrion asks, surprised
"I am your wife, lord husband," Sansa reminds him, and he smiles.
It had taken some time, but they had gotten their relationship to a good place, where neither felt as uncomfortable as they did at the start of their marriage. They still had not made the leap to the more physical aspects of marriage, but the emotional range of something akin to love was growing between them. It warmed the hearts of nearly everyone who spent more than ten minutes with them, then by the twenty mark they were rather sick of it.
Regardless of emotional fluff, Sansa was afraid she had made a mistake when she had named herself Sansa Lannister, rather than Stark. She had made not that she was Sansa Lannister of House Stark, but there was the chance that doing so would not be enough. Tyrion shrugs, not having much of an answer in him.
It was Marian who came up with the solution, or what could pass as one, "Fuck it. You wrote the letters, told them you're a Lannister and a Stark all in one, and if they don't like it they can all just go… i don't know, do something uncomfortable with large sticks and asses."
"What?" Sansa asks, and Tyrion looks equally confused
"Sorry, I think that got away from me," Marian frowns, "Ignore me while I try to think through what I was thinking when I said that."
Tyrion and Sansa turn to face each other, taking Marian's advice and ignoring the mage. The dwarf pats his wife's side, "As insane as her last comment was, she is right. If the Lords of the North are not receptive to your letter, then as crass as it is, and I am not usually this crass without a few more goblets of wine, fuck them. Who cares."
Sansa nods, picks up the stack of letters she had sealed with Tyrion's wax seal, and steps over to Marian, who was still deep in confused thought, "Here."
"Hm?" Marian blinks, then sees the letters, "Oh, thanks!"
She takes them from Sansa, wishes the couple a nice day, then sets off. Another few minutes of travel, though less quiet than before as she thinks on what the hell she was trying to get at with sticks and asses back in Sansa's room.
Eventually, she makes it back to the antechamber and Stannis's side of the sheet. Shireen, her mother, and Stannis are all there waiting for her. Selyse glares at the mage as she walks through the sheet, but is ignored by the mage in favor of handing over the letters to Stannis, who nods in thanks.
Marian then looks down at the Baratheon Princess and smiles, "Hey again, kiddo! How are you doing?"
"I'm nervous," Shireen admits
"Well that's just natural," Marian assures her, waving her hand and levitating the Princess's possessions in the air, "After all, it's not everyday you get to walk halfway across the world in a single step."
"Haven't you done it six times today alone?" Shireen asks.
Marian smiles, "Yeah, but I'm special. Most people don't break the laws of reality so easily, do they?"
Shireen shakes her head and Marian ruffles her hair, "There ya go, you're about to make history as the youngest person to ever do this!"
The princess smiles, straightening her hair, as her mother glares even more hatefully at the mage. Marian, finally acknowledging the Queen, realizes what she had been going for when she had made her comment to Sansa and Tyrion, "Oh! Sticks up their asses! Like they're stuck up!"
"What!?" Selyse demands in anger
"Huh?" Marian blinks, then realizes what she just did, "Oh, shit, sorry! I didn't mean you! It's just been bugging me for like twenty minutes."
Selyse's squeal of rage was heard all the way in Meereen. Though that really wasn't saying much when it still wasn't heard in the Kitchens of Winterfell.