THE SHAMED QUEEN
Tears squeezed behind her eyelids as she bit her lip, willing the flush of rage in her cheeks to subside. Her heels clicked loudly as she fled the horror she had just witnessed. She ignored the cries for her to wait as she escaped down the abandoned hallways of the Red Keep. The only consolation being that the majority of courtiers were occupied in the main hall and that she was able to flee without an audience.
Shamed by her own sister. The image of Arya's toned legs wrapped around her husband's waist was burned in her retinas. When she had married Gendry, she had known that she was not the first choice. She knew that the newly legitimized Lord of the Stormlands had wanted the second Stark daughter. But as kingdom after kingdom had pledged to fight to put him on the iron throne, they had all demanded he sacrifice his desire and take the eldest daughter instead as his queen. Arya certainly had her virtues, but it was Sansa that had the will and tact to sit beside him on the throne.
When they had married, she had been cautious not to bear her heart to a man she knew cared for another. But he had been sweet, deferential and kind to her, knowing that he needed her to solidify and legitimize his rule. And over time, her walls had come crumbling down. She found his fumbling and lack of refinement endearing and they had developed an understanding between them. She had even dared to hope for more.
And so now, seeing the two of them together...it broke her heart. That moment of absolute shock had her feeling like she was standing on the battlements of Winterfell with no fur, not in the sweltering heat of the Red Keep. Anger, shame, bitterness, and horror wrapped around her throat and choked the air from her lungs, causing her to gasp aloud, bringing the attention of the rutting pair to the alcove she had stumbled upon. Whether the smugness in Arya's eyes had been imagined or not, she did not know. But it broke her heart all the same.
Sansa had never quite been sure of how her sister had felt about her marriage to her sweetheart. Arya had always been guarded, but even despite their estrangement, Sansa had detected a bit of falseness to her sister's claim that she did not want to be queen anyway. That wedding the king would mean that she could not have the adventures she wanted. That Sansa could have him.
But now Sansa knew that her sister had won yet again. All Sansa ever wanted was to be loved. And yet it seemed her destiny to be outshined in all ways by her little sister. Sure, Sansa was more accomplished. Classically more beautiful, learned in all ways a lady should. Her stitches were neater, her dancing more graceful, her whole being more refined than her brash sister. Yet over and over again, Sansa had been usurped in the hearts of men she had desperately wanted to be loved by. Her father and her brothers had been proud of her, but Arya they had cherished. And now her own husband...the man who had sworn to love only her...
She had lost again.