A/N: A new chapter, in which Sansa suffers from an ailment and does some research. I am rather satisfied with how this one turned out!
Hope you enjoy, and share your thoughts with me! Love ya!
The morning came rather quickly and unexpectedly; Sansa felt like she hadn't slept at all, tired and heavy. The sun pierced through the windows, making her wince. Waking up somehow turned out to be painful - her head pounded in a dull ache, her jaw clenching in response. She could feel and sense the rush of blood in her ears as she tightly closed her eyes and folded herself in two to wait out the pain. It didn't want to go away, though. Additionally, she felt a tight knot growing in her stomach, the kind she couldn't fully comprehend - it might be hunger, but also nausea. Either way, she needed food.
Standing up made her feel dizzy and she almost stumbled, falling backward onto the bed instead. The left side of her head was on fire, the world dancing before her eyes, her stomach both excruciatingly empty and too full at the same time. Somehow she managed to reach the door on the second attempt and ask for her handmaiden. The woman came quickly and handled her chores with no participation from Sansa whatsoever. The maid inquired hesitantly whether her lady felt all right; her lady only mumbled she did not.
If it wasn't for the hunger-like feeling in her belly Sansa would stay where she was, but she needed food. The notion of someone else bringing it to her became lost in the overwhelming pain clouding her mind.
The Great Hall seemed miles away - the pounding in her head only grew and the light hurt her eyes, making the road difficult. Slowly, she made her way to the chamber, moving her hand over the stones for support, followed by her guards on either side of her, ready to catch her was she to fall.
After an eternity of torture, Sansa managed to reach her usual chair in one piece and, without any word of greeting or as much as a bow, collapsed onto the furniture like a rag doll, her eyes down, fastened on whatever there was in front of them at the moment.
"You look rather unwell, my lady," Roose noticed immediately. She heard him like through the mist, and when she looked up she discovered her vision was also slightly blurred.
"I am feeling rather unwell," she murmured. The headache grew and grew, quickly becoming the strongest she had ever experienced. She felt confined to her chair, unable to move without the world spinning around in a wild whirl.
"Shall I send for the maester?" His voice echoed in her head and she wished he would just stop talking, and for the world to go still in its silence.
She shook her head, believing it would be better than having to utter a response. It wasn't; the world spun violently around and she gripped hard onto the edge of the table in a desperate attempt to stop it.
"I'll eat and recline in my chamber to rest," she muttered, her eyes focusing on the plate before her. Food. She had wanted food, hadn't she? Now it looked rather... appalling.
It probably wasn't hunger after all.
"O-or not," she stuttered, doing her best to stop her insides from finding their way out of her body, nausea overwhelming her.
"Escort lady Sansa back to her room." She heard, but no longer saw as she closed her eyes tightly and tried to breathe steadily through the nostrils to calm her raging body.
She felt someone lifting her from the chair, her arms thrown around two people as she forced her legs to follow them. The pain in her head hammered, pounded, pierced; it seemed too much, enough to tear her to pieces.
Next thing she knew, she was lying in her bed, something wet and cold on her forehead, nausea overcoming her to the point she could no longer control it. Her stomach contracted and when she started throwing up, it continued for the whole day. People were coming and going, exchanging the wet rags on her forehead and the bucket into which her insides spilled; apart from noting those facts, she remained mostly unresponsive. Her world got limited to the steady pounding in her head and the waves of nausea returning in steady intervals. She tried to get some sleep, but the desired rest just didn't want to come, and so she floated on the border of consciousness, unable to fall asleep, unable to function. Someone might have covered the windows, or maybe it was already dark outside, she had no idea - the only thing she knew was that once there was a light, hurting her eyes, and then there wasn't.
Her mind projected some images from a lifetime ago - a little red-haired girl, struck with cold, curled up on the bed, in need of comfort. Someone's arms were wrapped around her as they held her in a tight embrace, making her feel better. Was it mother? Or maybe her older brother? She didn't know, she didn't remember; maybe it wasn't even a memory, but a creation of her imagination, so her spirits could improve. But it only made her feel worse - there was no one around to hug her, to bring her comfort or peace. Maybe there never had been. Even before, in this other lifetime that seemed like a dream, she had been no one's favorite child. Mother's was Robb or Bran, she wasn't sure; father's was Arya, undoubtedly. Maybe she had always been alone. Maybe her family, everything that was perceived as a pleasant memory was just an illusion of her tired, suffering mind to brighten her days against the darkness and numbness of reality, a sweet lie she was telling to lure herself into thinking life had been good once and could become like that again.
Nothing more but a lie.
Hours had passed, and finally, Sansa managed to drift into sleep, repeatedly waking up in a cold sweat, her head pounding, her throat sore and aflame. But every single time the pain was lesser until it transformed into a well-known, dull headache, something she could tolerate.
The next rays of the morning sun didn't hurt her as much as before; they weren't exactly pleasant, but she only narrowed her eyes against them, without flinching in pain. The headache was still present, though it was nothing compared to that overwhelming agony that had taken her senses away. Was it the following day already? Or maybe it had lasted hours at best, stretched by the pain and her unresponsiveness to what seemed like an eternity?
"How are you feeling, my lady?"
She would startle if she had any strength to do so; instead, she just slowly turned her head, careful not to do that too quickly.
Maester Wolkan stood at the foot of the bed, looking at her with a gentle smile. She suspected he had been here the whole night, checking on her well-being.
"Is the pain any better? Do you need anything?"
Did she? She had no idea, and for a while just stared at him, the room still slightly too bright for her liking. It was cold even though she was covered in sweat; she felt dreadfully tired even though she had slumbered the last few hours at the very least.
"No, thank you." She slowly shook her head. Maybe "food" was the right answer, but she feared that anything she would swallow would be returned immediately. She was hungry, even morbidly so, but didn't want to risk it so soon. "I… I feel much better now. What was that?"
"Mygrayn, my lady. You've been stressing yourself too much. You'll be fine."
Stressing herself too much? She almost scoffed at that. Her life had been a constant wave of stress for the last few years; that tension seemed a pivotal part of it, engraved into it irrevocably.
"Unless you've been suffering from other ailments…?"
Sansa shook her head absent-mindedly - she couldn't recall anything else bothering her, but her mind wasn't in its right state, tiredness taking over her. She wanted to sleep, the kind of fruitful sleep she hadn't got that night. If he would just go away, maybe alone she would be able to...
The door opened, and although she didn't see who came inside she guessed that immediately through the way Wolkan straightened up, his whole frame tensing.
"Lady Sansa needs to rest, my lord," the maester announced and she wanted to laugh suddenly at the tense silence that followed. What was Wolkan even thinking? Clearly, she was in no condition to do anything else rather than resting, and Roose wouldn't use her like that, she knew that much.
But... no one else did, didn't they? The thought struck her like a lightning: the only people who knew that he was actually gentle to his wife and even considerate towards her physical needs - at least on most occasions - were just them, husband and wife. What other people saw were appearances, what they heard were her cries that actually might have meant a lot of things.
It suddenly seemed like Roose Bolton's secret only she was aware of.
"I can see that." His voice was colder than usual, more on the edge. Sansa forced herself to turn her head to gaze up at him. He noticed her efforts and moved closer to the bed. "I've brought you some meal, my lady."
Her handmaiden appeared behind him with a tray of food in her hands. She left it on the bed and quickly scurried away.
"Thank you," Sansa murmured, wondering whether he had at least a grain of caring for her. In a twisted, political way, he had to care: was she to die now, as his wife, under his protection, there would be nothing he could do to stop the North from rebelling against him. Especially considering her newest discovery of their own secret - no one as far had seen his fair treatment of her, and her death or severe illness would ring suspicious, threatening to destroy his house once and for all. He needed her alive and well, now even more than ever. Her power here was evident; she had to think it through carefully - how could she use it to her advantage?
Now wasn't probably the best time to mull over it, however.
"I'll try to eat later." Her voice was hoarse, her mouth dry. "I feel better now, I just need to sleep it off," she informed him in case he was interested, forcing her lips to create a small, weary smile.
He nodded, acknowledging her words.
"Rest as much as you need to. I'll leave you to it." He bowed and left, and she thought she was grateful he had come. She would somehow feel worse if he hadn't.
She looked up at Wolkan and smiled at him.
"Thank you for your assistance, maester. I think I can fare on my own now."
"Of course, my lady." Wolkan nodded, smiled at her, and moved hurriedly towards the door. "I'll be nearby if you would require my services."
And then she was left alone, her blood pulsing in the same rhythm as the dull pounding in her head. Her mind was filled with thoughts, but she deliberately pushed them aside, covered herself tightly with furs, and closed her eyes, chasing the sleep she couldn't have truly achieved probably the whole week.
It came at last, bringing her the best kind of dreams - the sweetness of oblivion.
Waking up sometime later, Sansa felt much better. The pain was reduced to the slight flickering in the back of her head, the world stood still, while her stomach...
Well. It probably demanded food, but not necessarily. She wasn't quite sure where her current appetite was exactly - the idea of having a meal landed somewhere between "appealing" and "appalling".
After a few minutes of wondering whether she should move, she managed to sit up, waiting for the world to start spinning again. Luckily, it didn't.
As suspected, the food on her bed looked both delicious and revolting; she forced herself to take one hesitant bite either way. Her throat burnt from vomiting, and there was still an unpleasant taste of bile left in her mouth, but she managed to swallow the piece and it remained in its designated place. Emboldened, she slowly started eating further until there was nothing left on the plate. Though it wasn't much, she already felt bloated and lay down again to prevent her stomach from rebelling.
The ceiling wasn't the most engaging thing to stare at, so she turned around, facing the hearth this time, thinking about the revelation she had had upon experiencing Roose and Wolkan's confrontation. Her value in the North, especially in a fairly decent state, was undoubtedly of great importance. Until the Northmen saw with their own eyes or heard from someone they trusted, the Stark heir fared well, they wouldn't believe it. Or maybe they wouldn't believe it even then, their mistrust towards the Boltons too severe to be overlooked.
If there ever came a day she would find herself with a babe, what would they possibly think? Probably that she had been taken against her will, raped, and abused. They would feel sorry for their poor lady Stark. They would pity her.
She didn't want their pity. They will never truly respect her if they followed her or saved her out of pity. Pity didn't evoke reverence or power: it could only make them see her as weak, as a victim, not a leader.
She wasn't weak. And she most definitely was not a victim any longer.
Suddenly fuming, she sat on the bed once again. They had to see and believe she truly was the Wardeness of the North, not a "passive bystander" to the tragedies taking place all around her. Not the Warden of the North's wife, but the Wardeness in her own right.
They needed to see she was her husband's equal. For that, she had to become her husband's equal and live up to it. Through knowledge, through perseverance, and through the bedchamber.
She knew how exactly she was going to spend the remaining hours of the day. Under her bed, stashed carefully for no eye to see, were the books she had ordered her guards to carry from the library. Most of them were innocent and had served to disguise the true content of the other ones that were... not so pure.
With the crimson of shame already crawling up her cheeks, she slowly left the bed and crouched on the floor to retrieve the books. A single glimpse at their worn covers was enough to know which one will be her ultimate pick.
The book firmly in her grasp, Sansa returned to the bed, lying down on her side and covering herself with a fur - if anyone came in unannounced, she would be able to hide the shameless object underneath the material. Never before in her chaste life would she have thought there could be books on the matter within Winterfell walls. Some things had been shameful to think about, unfathomable to discuss in speech; writing and reading about them seemed to constitute an entirely different level of unholiness. Though she had seen and heard a lot in King's Landing, spent long moons in the company of the brothels' keeper, and was growing slowly comfortable with the idea of the act itself, her thoughts still weren't devoid of judgments and moral learnings from the Septa. Such conceptions would have to die out entirely before she could move on with her plan. It wasn't easy to transform her entire set of beliefs on the topic and her approach to a body's needs, even despite everything that had already happened. It had to take time, and just recently her mind had started to open up for it all, as she had realized the last time Roose had visited her before her mygrayn. Her plan demanded more from her, but she also couldn't deny that her body craved more as well. It wished to discover what it was exactly that he was hiding from her, what could be changed from both sides to fulfill those yearnings she hadn't even known she possessed.
On the second look, the book turned out to be some kind of a journal, written by a traveler who "tasted a lot of women" in his long and eventful life, and he decided to share his experiences, reporting his adventures using both words and drawings. Sansa felt even the tips of her ears burning when she saw the first hurriedly drawn picture. It could have been a manual for whores, if only they were literate. With proper imagination, though, the slightly blurry drawings could be enough to understand the meaning.
The sheer ideas of some... positions made her grimace in distaste. She felt like her mouth got violated by the reading alone. Her lips... in places... She shuddered at the thought, nausea threatening to overcome her once again. She managed to calm her stomach and looked further into that peculiar account of events. The majority of what she saw was really unlady-like, putting the female part in the most humiliating and degrading situations. Some elements made Sansa wonder how exactly the human body could be so flexible, or endure so much. There were other ones, however, that got her attention.
Her cheeks burnt wildly, her heart speeding as the already known heat appeared between her legs. Reading further, her soul aflame from shame at the words that were used there, she found a need for some friction as the fire only grew, but forced her legs to remain where they were.
It was a man's journal, written most assuredly for men; there was almost no place for a woman's pleasure. Sansa frowned, thinking, her perceptions changing. She had always known she had been treated well in the darkness of the night, but only now did she realize how well exactly. Almost every single one of their encounters began with Roose bringing her pleasure; the only time she had been left entirely unsatisfied happened two days prior and considering the frequency of his visits one time meant almost nothing. As far, she hadn't also been forced to do anything she didn't give her consent to. Satisfied, content Stark meant satisfied North, sure, but as she had already established no one would ever know what was happening between the closed doors of her bedchamber. She was now positively convinced his goal was to win her over by bringing her pleasures.
Despite the book being mostly about the sources of man's enjoyments, Sansa also realized which parts of the pleasures Roose might have been withholding from her, and she could feel it in her body. Her breasts suddenly wanted to be touched, possibly even kissed and devoured. Maybe... maybe one day she'll ask for it, as a bold part of her game.
Once during her reading, there was a knock at the door; frantically hiding the book under the covers, Sansa prayed for it to be Wolkan and not Roose. Luckily, the gods listened to her this one time. The maester noticed she was unusually flushed, and voiced his concern about a possible fever; she managed to appease him, so he could leave the chamber as soon as possible. Alone again, she breathed through her mouth, trying to slow down her speeding heart. She didn't want anyone to discover things she had been reading and what it did to her body - her cheeks scarlet, her skin on fire, her small clothes dampened by her desire. Ladies definitely didn't behave like that, didn't lose control in such a way.
Deciding she had already seen enough, Sansa chose something for herself and, though the feeling of shame didn't want to entirely leave her, planned her future steps accordingly. She altered her past resolutions a bit - there were still some discoveries to do before taking the initiative, plus, she had to feel better both with her current condition and with her body in general. But it was a good place to start.
She hid the book even further under the bed, to be more certain no one would ever find it. It should remain there if she ever felt the need to seek the new… ideas. She wondered how something like that had made its way to Winterfell's library. Of course, men had their needs, but... The idea of her parents doing anything of the kind made her nauseated again. Their marriage had resulted in five children, so they had to do something... but the thought seemed more disturbing than everything else Sansa had imagined this day.
Pushing it quickly away she lay down, staring at the flames, mulling over her life and various lessons people had taught her on the road to the place she was now, willingly or not. The crackling from the hearth quietened her mind as the tiredness embraced her once again, and soon she drifted away into a peaceful dream filled with elusive pleasures, just out of her reach.
A/N: Next time: Sansa makes her move!