There was a tension in the air.
It was almost palpable, like a fog had descended on the city, stolen a march through the night and now it was here outside the city gates. Word had fully come from the south of just how large of an army that Stannis Baratheon had amassed. After the death, or murder depending on who was asked, of Renly Baratheon, many of the lords had sworn their swords to the Crowned Stag of The Flaming Heart. Thousands of men-at-arms and knights all now fighting for the former Lord of Dragonstone and now self-proclaimed heir to Robert Baratheon.
Sansa Stark didn't know what to think about it.
She, like everyone else within the city, had heard of the tales coming from the south. Murder and betrayal were now as commonplace as tales of gallantry had once been. Brothers fighting one another and shadows from the far east entrenching themselves in the hearts of men. That the gods themselves were being burned and those who did not submit soon joined them. Kingslaying and kinslaying, wanton murder, and brittle wills.
It seemed as if the Seven Kingdoms had gone to madness.
Within the city of kings, life had gone on as normal, or as normal as it could be due to their circumstances. There was an army marching upon them, that was an indisputable fact, and each day they came closer. Sansa had heard the whisperings of servants in the hallways and dark corners of another sack. She'd heard tell of hammers and anvils converging on the city. Of burning men and fires in the ground.
She'd heard tell of a rose with thorns like Valyrian steel.
But that was the gossip of servants and court, and Sansa did her best to avoid them, for she had no desire to learn about such things. This "War of Five Kings" had already taken so much from her. Father was dead, Ned Stark's head had rolled, and she'd been forced to watch by that monster that called himself king, his laughter and cruel smile still ringing through her nightmares. Arya was as good as dead, not seen since the chaos of father's death, simply disappeared from the Red Keep. Bran and Rickon were actually dead, their bodies burnt black by Theon Greyjoy, a man marked for death in her opinion.
He had betrayed everything they had done for him. Everything that House Stark had given him was spat upon. Sansa had cried angry tears as the news of that tragedy had settled, and she had vowed revenge on Theon Turncloak after that day.
Robb was captured, his army defeated and scattered to the wind, any hope for a Stark victory gone as well. The only consolation that Sansa could take from that situation was that Robb was still alive, not dead like the rest of their family. He was alive and whole, Lord Gerold had assured her of that much, he was mostly unharmed. He would stay that way if he bent the knee and gave up his crown, he had to, it was the only way.
"Lord Jason is honorable." They would tell her. "He would see that your brother keeps his life in exchange for recognizing the Iron Throne."
To recognize Joffrey as king.
Robb would get to go home if he simply bent the knee. But there was no home to go to, Winterfell had fallen into the Greyjoy's hands, savaged and brutalized by the Iron Born. Even if Robb bent the knee there was no where to go, and a part of her did not want him to bend the knee just yet, for if he did that meant coming to King's Landing. The last Starks to come to this city had either been killed or been taken prisoner.
Sansa knew that she was officially a ward of the crown, that title had been given to her by Queen Cersei, but she knew what it really meant. She was a prisoner and a hostage, something to keep the rest of her family in line. They had taken advantage of her and used her for their games. Sansa had been wrapped up in her dreams of knights and princesses that she had failed to see the jaws closing in on her until it was too late.
But at least she was still free to walk the halls of the Red Keep.
Even know, Sansa Stark sat in the Red Keep's Godswood whilst the Queen Mother and the King himself sat within Maegor's Holdfast. It brought a smile to Sansa's face as she sat beneath the branches with the overgrown smokeberry vines of the heart tree. Cersei and Joffrey no longer had power over her, they couldn't do a thing to her, they couldn't even leave Maegor's Holdfast. Gerold Lannister had done more to hurt them than Sansa ever could and even though he was a Lannister, she was grateful that he had done so.
She is grateful still when something she has dreaded has come to pass. Sansa had awoken one morning to the sight of blood on her sheets. She had panicked at first, her body had felt sore with pain and her legs were sticky to the touch, everything seemed to have gone wrong all over again. A part of her had thought that she had been stabbed, that this was the end that she was to meet, but there was no one in her chambers. The only person who could have caused this was herself, and as she lifted her shift, she was met with a sight that she had imagined would have been different.
Sansa was a woman grown now.
She didn't know what to do at first, and the servants had found her in that same state, still in her blood-soaked bed looked at herself. They had overcome the shock of her moonblood coming like it was nothing and moved to ready her. A bath was drawn, and new clothes were fetched. The sheets were disposed of and replaced. They had said words that sounded comforting to her, and Sansa had simply nodded along to them. She didn't know if they were true or not, but they sounded as such.
Lord Gerold had come to visit her after she had finished with her bath. The golden haired and green-eyed knight had inquired after her health, spoke of how she was now going to see more changes, and how her position had changed. Sansa knew that things were going to change now. She was a woman grown now, she could wed and have babies, and a part of her had wanted that before. To marry the king and have his babies. How foolish she had once been.
That part of her had been replaced by dread when her mind had caught up to her. She was a woman grown now, able to have babies, and the king was unwed and childless. Even she knew that there would need to be an heir, for all that was left of the Baratheons were Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen. The king needed a queen and children had to come, and Sansa was Joffrey's betrothed.
She had clasped her hands together to stop them from shaking as she stood and tried to look confident in front of the Lord Regent. She had looked up at him and tried to put on the air of confidence that she had seen the other ladies of the court did, tried to keep her voice from wavering, and she had failed utterly.
"When is it to happen?" Sansa had asked.
Lord Gerold had looked at her confused for a moment, his brow scrunching up, his posture softening slightly. His green eyes inspected her own deep blue orbs. Their gazes remained locked for a moment before realization dawned in his expression. He got a small grin to his face as he shook his head.
"You are not to marry Joffrey." Lord Gerold had said. "The betrothal is, or will be, broken in the coming weeks. Needs must be Lady Sansa, and right now House Stark is in open rebellion, so there cannot be a Stark queen."
Sansa had to fight the sigh of relief that had come over her. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, her posture for once not crushed under the dreaded future with that monster who called himself Joffrey, and even though she tried to fight it a small smile came to her lips. She ducked her head to hide it from the Lord Regent, the last thing she needed was for him to see how much she had wanted just this, but she failed in that as well.
"Aye, you won't have to wed him anymore, and gods help the woman who does." Lord Gerold had said. "But that does not mean all is done. Until Winterfell is retaken from Greyjoy hands, you will have to remain in King's Landing, as a ward of the crown."
Sansa hadn't even cared about that fact in the moment. She was free from Joffrey, he wouldn't be able to hurt her anymore, never again. She wouldn't have to marry him or have his babies, no more beatings by his Kingsguard, no more having to hear his taunts and threats.
As she sat within the Red Keep's Godswood, Sansa felt content, the weight of it all not bearing down on her. She knew that there were hard days ahead, Stannis Baratheon was marching on the city, but for that moment, she was glad she could simply sit and bask within the heart tree's gaze.
Mayhaps the Old Gods were watching out for her, in their own special way.
It wasn't every day that Highgarden saw lions entering through its gates.
There were only ten of them, they had come with but a single banner flying and their horses near ridden into the ground, their bodies slick with sweat from hard riding. So hard and fast had they ridden that no sooner had they dismounted their horses did the beasts fall to the ground. The Tyrell guards had looked on in shock, and the stable boys had been dismayed, the animals ridden to death in their haste to get here.
But the message they brought was more than worth it.
Margaery Tyrell, the Rose of Highgarden and the unbedded widow of a king, had watched these Lannisters arrive from one of the towers of Highgarden. She hadn't expected much from these visitors at first, much like how she hadn't expected much from Renly Baratheon. They had come to make promises and claims, just like the Stag had, and Margaery wasn't to keen on listening to them this time around.
Renly claimed that he could give her a crown, that he could give House Tyrell a queen, that a king with Tyrell blood would sit the Iron Throne after him. If only he could actually have risen to the occasion in the bed chamber. Margaery had envisioned many things for her wedding night. The bedding ceremony would occur and herself and her husband would be stripped of their clothes, they would be deposited in their bed, and they would make love.
Only it hadn't happened that way.
Instead, Margaery had gotten a man who much preferred her brother than herself. She didn't know if she should have felt insulted at that, the fact that her brother was more enticing that she was, and she was the Rose of Highgarden! There had been a dozen offers of her hand from the moment she had been born! She was beautiful, graceful, soft, loving, and intelligent. What's there not to like about her?
She knew that any man would jump at the chance to be with her, yet the one man that had actually been in that position, had turned away from her.
If only she had been born with a cock.
Renly Baratheon couldn't rise to the occasion long enough even once. She bore herself to him as naked as the day she had been born and had gotten nothing. The youngest Baratheon brother and self-proclaimed king had simply looked upon her with not a hint of lust. His eyes had surveyed the slender and womanly shape her body, past her hips and breasts and towards her face, and they had not for a second been snagged on anything. He had looked at her as if she were some uninteresting piece of art, something forgettable, something bland.
It had hurt her more than she cared to admit.
But he had promised her a crown, and if she were to be in a marriage of name only for it, then so be it. Her grandmother had emphasized how important it was for the Tyrells to gain this step of legitimacy. They needed kings' blood in their line so that there could be no question as to their position as Wardens of the South. Even near three hundred years since the conquest and their position was not secure.
This marriage was supposed to have fixed that.
Then Renly Baratheon had died.
If she had been asked as to who had struck the final blow, Margaery Tyrell would not have been able to answer, every third telling was different. Some said that it was a Knight of the Rainbow Guard and that the man had been bribed over to Stannis' side. Others claimed that it was the woman, Brienne of Tarth, others like Loras who had nothing positive to say about the Maid from Tarth. Personally, Margaery didn't believe that Brienne of Tarth did the deed, for if anyone looked, they would have seen that the woman was half in love with Renly. She was more likely to die for the man than kill him.
There were also tales of a shadow doing the deed, and as absurd as that sounded, some people were convinced that it was the truth. Margaery even heard tell that it was Catelyn Stark who had done the deed. It had been a shock to see the Lady Stark enter the camp at first, and even more so when they learned that she knew not of her son's adventures into the Westerlands. Was it Robb Stark's defeat that caused her to drive a blade through Renly's back?
No, that was preposterous, the Lannisters had defeated the King in the North, not the Baratheons.
But some claimed that she had done it, and that her fleeing in the dark of night had all but confirmed her guilt, skulking away like an assassin.
Whatever the case was, Margaery Tyrell had come back to Highgarden with her father's host as a widow and not a queen, one that had yet to be bedded and was as untouched as the day she wed the man. At Highgarden was where she remained as the war moved on, as Stannis Baratheon consolidated his power, as the Greyjoys took Winterfell and a new king was proclaimed, as Robb Stark was defeated in the Westerlands, as King's Landing was preparing for siege. The world was moving on without them and Margaery had consigned herself to never getting that crown she had been promised.
That was until the day that the messengers had arrived.
They came offering what she wanted, what her family wanted, what they had joined the war for in the first place. A crown on her head and a kings' blood in the family, just this time it wouldn't be Renly Baratheon, but Joffrey Baratheon. She would get to be a queen and have all it would take would be her father's support in the war. Their men would march for Joffrey Baratheon and their food would start flowing back into King's Landing. They would help defeat Stannis Baratheon and settle their mark in history during this turning point.
Margaery had only entered her father's solar during the latter part of the meeting, the Lannister men who had come with the message were wholly unfamiliar to her. Her grandmother seemed to know of them somewhat, though she had that expression on her face that she had for all visitors, something that hid just how razor sharp her mind was. Her father was acting like the oaf that he was, and for all that she loved him, he could be maneuvered around like no other.
All anyone had to do was lead the man on with empty promises and they'd have him in their pocket.
It was only her grandmother and Willas that stopped him from leading their family off a cliff.
Ser Damion Lannister as she later knew him to be, gave the offer of alliance and marriage rather succinctly, and he expected a response rather promptly. Grandmother Olenna hushed the man and read over the letter that the offer had been written down in, her eyes going over the words with a calculating gaze. Margaery wouldn't get to read the letter until after the fact, but when she did, she had to admit that it was too good of an offer to refuse.
Lord Regent Gerold Lannister and Lord Hand Tyrion Lannister were offering them what they wanted. Margaery would be queen to Joffrey's king. Her father would be named to the Small Council and the wedding would take place in King's Landing after the war was over. Their influence at court would rise to new heights and the sky was the limit. All they had to do was support the Baratheon-Lannister alliance and help win them the war against Stannis Baratheon and Balon Greyjoy.
It sounded simple enough, and her father readily agreed to the offer, simply seeing his daughter with a crown upon her head. Margaery didn't think it was so simple, and neither did her grandmother or her eldest brother. Tales of King Joffrey's rather cruel behavior had made their way to Highgarden through spies and general gossip. Whether these tales were true remained to be seen, but when Margaery had looked over to her grandmother, she saw nothing amiss in that wizened expression.
They would ally themselves with the Baratheons and Lannisters for now. Margaery didn't know how the future would turn out. Mayhaps she would get a crown this time, and mayhaps she might actually be bedded on her wedding night. This might be the start of a great dynasty for all she knew.
Mayhaps the Seven-Who-Were-One were looking out for her, in their own special way.