Sansa
She kept telling herself that whatever happened today, it didn't matter in the long run. But it would make things much easier, and it was indeed personal, standing beside the King, who displayed little emotion watching his little sister carried away to a strange and faraway kingdom. Beside her, Prince Tommen cried, and Sansa reminded herself that not all Lannisters were rotten. Not Myrcella either; both had been doomed to pay for their mother's sins before. If she could help it, she would do what she can to save these innocent children, who were not so much younger than her. That Ned Stark kept her sheltered from the world, that was no surprise, but she wondered how these two younger golden haired Lannisters managed to remain pure with Cersei their mother.
Walking past the High Septon, she found Joffrey on their way back to the Keep, wedging herself between him and the Hound.
"My King," she said, looking around nervous, "I know that I'm just a dumb girl..."
"Yes, you're very stupid," Joffrey answered dismissively.
"But the smallfolk seem angry. My dream..."
"It was a nightmare," he said, groaning impatiently at her as Sandor Clegane rolled his eyes above her. "Kings don't have nightmares, and we certainly don't have to worry..."
The manure hit him in the head, same as the last time. For a moment, Sansa had worried that she would stand between the shit and its target, but it hit true, and as she remembered, Joffrey went berserk, yelling at his Kingsguard to slaughter all the starving cityfolk around them.
"Your Grace...it was terrible. They threw...dung at you...and they flung themselves at you...there were so many of them, they pushed over the Hound and tore him limb from limb...oh thank the Gods, you ran! You found the High Septon and stood by him, and the Gods protected you both, from the crowd...and they took me too, trapped me in an alley, they were going to do horrible things to me, until Ser Meryn found me and took me back to the Keep..."
If she were honest with herself, she'd had little memory of that awful day, besides the fact that Joffrey lived, she almost died, and the High Septon did die, screaming. This time, she wanted to say Joffrey's high pitched screams, as the smallfolk tore him limb from limb, rang louder than the High Septon's, but she had no proof. Her body standing between Sandor and the King, the Hound had been helpless when Joffrey ran back towards the rear of the procession, fear overwhelming his feeble mind as he sought solace with a fat and doomed priest.
"Joffrey! Joffrey! My son! My dear son!"
She'd hoped that they'd take Cersei with him, but the Kingsguard, shaken out of their temporary paralysis, dragged the shrieking and hysterical woman away, though she heard Ser Meryn muttering to her how he'd personally slaughter every man, woman, and child in Flea Bottom, as if that would bring Joffrey back to his mother.
"It's your fault," Cersei pointed maniacally at her when they arrived at the Keep, even as Tyrion did his best to calm his sister, "you whispered your poison to him."
But no one knew of her private conversations with the King, and what little the Hound gleaned before the riot started, she trusted that he would keep to himself even if he did harbor any suspicions. As to herself, she was an expert enough liar to cry and weep and scream in fear all the way back to her own quarters where, with all her handmaidens otherwise occupied in lieu of the ghastly death of the King, Sansa laughed and laughed and laughed until her throat was dry and she couldn't utter another sound without choking. Then she laughed some more.
Arya
"The King's dead? What's the point of fighting this war anymore?"
She nearly choked upon hearing the words. Sparing a look at Tywin Lannister, she thought she saw genuine sadness in his eyes. But more, she saw rage, and anger, and knew that his fellow lords were better off giving the old man some time alone. But she couldn't help herself.
"By the Gods, how," she asked, before hurried adding, "apologies milord...it's just...shocking to hear."
He regarded her, and she didn't need to feign her surprise, because the news was indeed shocking; she just needed every ounce of her control to keep from smiling, laughing, or crying out in joy.
"There was a riot in Flea Bottom," Tywin said, his own voice already carefully controlled and modulated before his vassals. "It would seem that a few dozen penniless paupers were enough to overwhelm the Kingsguard..."
"Your daughter was a fool to dismiss Ser Barristan," Amory Lorch snarled, and Arya knew the man was far too dumb to realize his own mistake.
"And you're a fool to leave Clegane without a leash, to be destroyed by Robb Stark," Tywin said in response, voice never rising to a shout but his ire enough to catch the attention of all in the room. He stood, and pointed at the knight. "Take his head for his treason."
"My lord," the brute protested as he was dragged out of the room.
They'll tear themselves apart, before my brother even gets to them.
"The Riverlands are lost," Tywin's brother Kevan sighed dejectedly. "Casterly Rock may well be lost, and Stannis Baratheon will slaughter everyone with Lannister blood if he takes King's Landing."
"You're suggesting we cede all the northern kingdoms to Robb Stark, to protect an empty throne," Tywin asked, though his voice was tinged now with despondency rather than anger.
"Clegane lost us more than a third of our fighting men," Kevan replied, even-toned. He seemed a decent man. It shocked her that there could be even a halfway decent man amongst the Lannister brood. "What men remain loyal to House Lannister, we need to find, to lessen our weakness, and it just so happens they're all in King's Landing, or further south. Your daughter, your son, my son, your last grandson...Robb Stark can nip at our heels on the way to the capital...but he'll get to us sooner if we wait uselessly in Harrenhal."
"The Red Keep has never fallen," another knight whose name Arya did not know sounded. "If we get there before Stannis, we can reinforce the city's defense..."
"I'm sorry for your grandson," Arya dared say to him after he'd dismissed what remained of his war council, smaller and smaller by the day.
"You're not," he said, seeing through her lies immediately. "You had no love for the King...nor should you have, being a northerner."
"You're right," Arya admitted, knowing how pointless it was to lie to Tywin Lannister. So she told him the truth. "But I know what it's like to lose family."
"You'll stay here," Tywin decided, standing up to leave. He did not seem the type to waste time, so if he were to ride for King's Landing, he'd likely depart before sundown. Which gave her and her friends a chance to escape. "You'll keep to Ser Amory, I'll spare him..."
"But...milord...I thought you ordered him dead..."
Tywin Lannister shook his head. "I need someone to man the rearguard before the Stark wolf tears his head off."
"The riot in King's Landing," Arya dared broach. If she wanted to smile, she tempered her expression by her fear for Sansa. Shit as she was...cunt as she was, the other boys would happily call her...she didn't want her to die, or even hurt. Too badly, at least. "It must have been a dangerous one...to get to the King. The Queen lives?"
"She'll take to drink of course, to sooth her nerves, for her grief...it's always been her weakness."
"She wasn't hurt by the rioters?"
"It would seem the gods love tormenting me, always having to clean up after their mischief...they killed only my grandson and the High Septon..."
"No one else was killed...no one else important...," Arya said, daring herself to say Sansa's name, but knowing it would be risking too much. "Prince Tommen too, he was unhurt? I imagine he'll be king now."
Tywin scoffed, admitting to her what she imagined he'd never admit to anyone else...of importance at least. "If I were a betting man, I'd place my gold on Stannis or even the Stark boy to be sitting on that throne before the next moon."
"But you're not a man who bets against himself."
A rare smirk from the old lord, a sight she'd become accustomed to seeing. "Careful girl. You know too much, yet you've yet to learn that it's wiser sometimes not tell others of what you know."
Sansa
The next time they sought her out, it was Tyrion and Varys together.
"The Queen wants your head," Varys began. "My friend here is more than inclined to give it to her."
"For what crime," Sansa asked. And true enough, while Cersei had no evidence that would point her complicit in Joffrey's death, she'd still kept her imprisoned for all intents and purposes, keeping her confined to her own quarters, rather than the dungeons. They'd taken her handmaiden away as well, though she thought that could be Tyrion's doing, in order to further keep his secret. "I was merely speaking to the king..."
"It's a fantastic accusation, to be sure," Varys said, "but both Lord Tyrion and I have seen some fantastic things from you of late."
"You mentioned mountains in your letter to your brother," Tyrion said, accusingly, yet eyes looking hurt that she would betray his trust, after he had shown kindness to her. As if she owed him anything for displaying basic human decency in this pit of vipers. "Coincidentally, your brother's armies then went to surround those of Ser Gregor Clegane, before destroying them. Rather than march north to Winterfell, they give chase, and they tell me they'll arrive at King's Landing merely a day or two after my father relieves the city."
"I...I...," she acted, as a twenty year old woman accustomed to acting, in the form of a shocked little girl of four and ten, overwhelmed by events beyond her control. "I can't believe Robb would leave our home in the hands of our enemies!"
"Either you underestimated your brother," Tyrion said suspiciously, "or I underestimated you."
"Then kill me and give Cersei my head," she spoke, the voice of a woman now, startling them both with her boldness. "But you won't do that, will you? Not with my brother's armies bearing for the capital...not with both your own heads on the line for so many reasons." She stood, and watched as they backed away from her. "Tell me, how did Queen Cersei deal with her grief? Did she order the slaughter of all of Flea Bottom?"
"Half of it, perhaps," Varys said, in a way that suggested he was most displeased at his own inability in preventing such a slaughter.
"And now the very city you're so keen to defend despise their own defenders, don't they? They have no king to rally towards, and you can't even man your own walls without thousands of rioters shouting for the heads of all the Lannisters."
"Perhaps all we need is the head of one who was once betrothed to a Lannister," Tyrion tried threatening again, though they all knew how empty they were.
"Then do it. But you won't, because you need me. Stannis and the Northern and the Riverland armies together will more than outnumber the Lannisters and Tyrells. Stannis will never compromise with Robb...but my mother could convince him to bend the knee to Stannis, if only to save me, and rid the seven kingdoms of your family for good. Your days are numbered, you're practically all dead men walking...so you want to know if I can help you, even as you threaten me and accuse me of betraying you."
Varys shrugged his shoulders at Tyrion. "Be it witchery or magic or the olds gods or the new, you've dropped your pretense, and I'm glad of it."
"Glad," Tyrion asked.
"You're too sensitive towards how others see you," she volunteered him. "That's a weakness you offer too freely to others."
"I'm less concerned with the feelings of my friend here," Varys said, daring to approach her, as Tyrion pondered the truth of her words, "and more eager for you to get on with it and tell us what is it you want. In exchange for preserving our own heads, as you'd say."
"There was something I wanted once," she said, daring him back. "You were quite useless about that."
"There's something you want still," Varys challenged her, not backing down. "Or else there's nothing stopping you from playing mute while you watch happily as we all get slaughtered."
"What I want," Sansa sang, as if she had not yet made up her mind yet. "What I want, is for you to follow my every instruction to the dot. Until the battle is over, to heed my words as if I myself sat on the Iron Throne. In return, I will save your lives." She turned towards Tyrion. "I'll save even Cersei's life, even though she deserves none of my help. I'll also save your nephew Tommen's life, because he's an innocent child who deserves not his awful family, and out of everyone in this wretched castle, his is probably the only life deserving of saving."
"You're practically promising us the world," Tyrion said, "in exchange for the world."
"I do because I can." Taking a deep breath, she stretched out her body, so as to loom over the Hand of a dead king in every sense of the word. "And there is one more thing I'd ask."
As strong a front as she'd put in front of them, there was still some of the girl left in her. Descending the steps of the dungeon for the second time in this second life, she was reminded not just of her own father's suffering, but her abject failure in the first item she tried to accomplish upon her return.
He stunk worse than her father. He'd suffered much in his life, but this part of it solely the fault of hers.
"You'll be happy to hear your brother's dead. They say he suffered, wounded as he was in the battle. They say it took four hacks of the sword for my brother to get his head off...though not out of cruelty or weakness in Robb's part."
To her dismay, Sandor Clegane reacted with little joy in her words. If anything, his expression changed from mild indifference and discomfort to rage.
"Fuck off," was all he said in response to her.
"It wasn't your fault, Joffrey's death," she said, ignoring his harsh insult. "The Queen is unfair to blame you."
"What the fuck is fairness to you? You're a spoiled little bitch, just like the rest of them."
It was pointless to goad him on, or to convince him to not be an ass when he was so determined as such. Instead, she took the key, and opened the door to his cell, bemoaning that Varys did not let her do the same for her father.
"Follow the stairs down, past where they keep the dragon skulls. You'll find yourself on the bay. There's a dinghy awaiting you there."
Shock, a reaction she was used to now. A reaction that, were she to be honest, she actually enjoyed eliciting this time around. Too much, perhaps.
Rather than insult her again, or ask questions, he simply rose from the grimy floor, and walked slowly and deliberately in the direction she pointed.
"Why him," Tyrion asked, while the Hound could still be within earshot.
"There's still a role yet for him to play," Sansa answered cryptically, as they all awaited until the ring of footsteps disappeared in the darkness.
"As do the two of us, in this grand plan of yours," Tyrion said. "You do have a plan, I assume?"
"Letters," Sansa said, forcing a smile. "Always letters."
Tyrion
"I leave you the kingdom, and you get your king killed in the span of a fortnight?"
"You know full well Joffrey was perfectly capable of dying on his own, without my help."
He let his father stew in his anger, because as much as Tywin Lannister hated to admit it, this was a rare occasion where the blame lay not upon his youngest and least favorite child. Pacing the inside of his tent, Tyrion imagined the insults his father was exercising his restraint upon. As uncomfortable as he was outside the walls of King's Landing, where his father had set up camp upon his arrival, a part of Tyrion feared more what lay within the walls.
"And you're fully capable of losing a city without my help."
"Losing a city," Tyrion replied indignantly. "If everything, I've saved it! What help could you have brought south, your armies defeated and depleted, a day after Stannis's arrival, no less?"
"The Tyrells," Tywin replied. Sansa had not lied to him, not about the Tyrells, at least.
"Yes, well they arrived after Stannis also. Why do you think Stannis has not yet taken the city, or destroyed the Tyrells on his own?"
"Perhaps he should have," Tywin retorted contemptuously. "Perhaps he could have been weakened from having to give two battles, and I could have finished him off."
"Perhaps he could have won both battles, and you would have arrived upon a city of ashes, the last surviving Lannister. Unless, that is, you've finally decided to take that wretched throne for yourself?"
"There's one more Lannister yet remaining." Both their demeanors softened at the mention of their collective favorite Lannister.
"And hostage to Robb Stark," Tyrion said. "The longer we put off this battle, the longer Jaime keeps his head."
"So tell me, oh wise son," Tywin began, uncomfortable at remaining at a disadvantage to him for much longer, "how did you keep Stannis from attacking the city? The wit of a common tavern scoundrel? Did you buy him off with Littlefinger's whores? Or was it your own sister you whored out to him?"
They were insults directed at him solely, both of them understanding that Stannis Baratheon was above being bought off by whores, whether in the form of a faux handmaiden, or former Queen Regent.
"Parley, actually."
Tywin cocked his head, perplexed at his son, not for the first time nor the last time, but his bafflement mixed with rare curiosity. "Parley?"
"Half Man. Surrender the city. I'll spare you, and your nephew, so long as Tywin Lannister renounces any claim his blood has to the throne."
"Lord Stannis," Tyrion mock bowed, "a pleasure as well." He turned, and gestured to Sansa Stark. "May I present Lady Sansa, of House Stark?"
Cersei had called him mad for letting her outside the Keep, much less the city walls. Tyrion had ignored her.
"Your Grace," Sansa demurred politely, and Tyrion wondered how much of this would be an act on her part. All of it, most likely.
"Lady Stark," Stannis said, surprised as he ought to be at her presence, representing the Lannister side of the parley. "Your father was a good man, and honorable. He championed my claim, and I raise my banners against the Lannisters and the false king in his memory."
"Your Grace," Sansa repeated again, "on behalf of House Stark, I thank you for your efforts. My father respected you as a man of honor also, and of duty. But the false king is dead."
"There's one false king left," Stannis said, the man going as far as to threaten a helpless girl. So he would think helpless still, in his ignorance of all things Sansa Stark. "Your brother Robb still refuses to submit to the authority of the Iron Throne, no matter who sits upon it."
"Three, actually," Sansa said in a shy, feminine way which somehow managed to avoid offending the ghastly man. "Balon Greyjoy has declared himself the King of the Iron Islands...again. And the King Beyond the Wall Mance Rayder has rallied a hundred thousand wildlings, marching south against Castle Black."
The usual look of surprise at her words, but Stannis shrugged them off easier than most. "Triflings, to be dealt with in short order."
The girl bowed again. "My apologies, Your Grace," she said politely, before turning to Stannis's red priestess. "Valar morghulis." The girl's words confused everyone except the priestess, who then took note of her for the first time.
"Valar dohaeris," she responded back, to Stannis's befuddlement.
"Lady Melisandre, I've heard of your arrival on our shores. And not a moment too soon."
"Lady Stark," Melisandre answered, puzzled as well. "I thank you for the kind words, but I'm afraid I'm less acquainted with your name."
"You don't need to be," Sansa replied, with false humbleness so well acted so as to fool a witch. "I'm but of a girl of the north. All you need to know is that the cold of Winter flows through my blood. But you share more in common than you know with us Northerners."
"Is that so?"
"We both know who the real enemy is," Sansa said, suddenly so capturing the Red Lady's attention, that for a moment Tyrion thought she'd forgotten her own champion and king. "Death. The dead. An endless night."
When the Red Woman spoke again, it came out as a whisper, as if the skies themselves had darkened, midday, outside the walls of King's Landing.
"You know this? You've seen it too?"
"The Great War is coming," Sansa said, nodding, all traces of childishness lost in her voice. "You champion Stannis Baratheon, because you believe he is the Prince Who Was Promised." A pause. "You are correct in doing so."
King and witch exchanged a glance. Dwarf and eunuch exchanged glances. This they had not expected.
"But one man alone does not defeat death. There are more, with roles to play to in the Great War."
"Tell me who." The Red Woman leaned forward, captivated now, the girl somehow masterfully validating her own petty superstitions. Clever.
"There's a bastard on the Wall, whom men will learn to follow. A girl with three dragons in the east, to wage fire against the ice of the dead. The magic of the godswood, and a man lost beyond the Wall for hundreds of years. Armies of Dothraki and Unsullied, sailed across the Narrow Sea because the Great War is not about kingdoms or thrones, but about humanity and life itself, so must many other living play their parts against the darkness...men burnt, broken, cut apart, lost before finding themselves anew in the last battle. A man with one hand, whose story lies yet unwritten. The greatest knight of the seven kingdoms, yet not a knight in name. An exiled man, shamed, who serves his queen out of love unrequited. A maester, who takes for himself a wife, and claims two sons as his own. A lord with a patch over his eye, brought back many times from the dead by the drunk priest of Myr with red hair."
"Thoros," Melisandre and Stannis both exclaimed at once. Melisandre continued. "He has this power?"
"Look into the fire tonight, my lady, and tell me tomorrow whether what I speak of is true. Why do you think the Lord of Light has brought all of us here before King's Landing...Stannis Baratheon, the True King and the greatest military commander of the realm...Robb Stark, a boy who holds the love of the north and who will never lose a battle...Tywin Lannister, the richest and most powerful man in Westeros...if not for the fact that all of us have a role to play in the Great War ahead? The realm needs to be strong for us to prevail against the Night King and his Army of the Dead...and the realm needs its strongest men working together, rather than fighting each other...else Prince of prophecy or not, we'll all be doomed to fall to the dead."
They were all stunned into silence for a minute. Even Varys. The so-called Prince of prophecy and True King broke it, speaking bluntly at Tyrion.
"What did you Lannister dogs do to the poor girl?"
"We killed her father," Tyrion stammered out, not appreciating the awkward position the girl had once more put him in. "Were that the key to such...abilities...I assure you, I'd be the first to volunteer my own father."
"I see ancient eyes in her," Melisandre said to Stannis, as if they were alone, "long-suffering eyes...eyes that have seen the truth."
"You believe her," Stannis asked, though Tyrion could tell he more than half believed himself.
"I believe all she's said is true...yet I believe there is a great deal more she knows, that she keeps to herself." The Red Woman dipped her head. "My King, we must take her with us, so that she can guide us in this Great War to come."
"She knows more than you? What use are you me then, if the Stark girl's more powerful."
"I've never claimed to be anything more than a tool for the Lord of Light, seeing only what He gives me vision to. I question not His will, nor others, who have received his gift of foresight."
Stannis grunted, then looked to Tyrion. "Fine. The girl comes with us."
"Your Grace, as much as I wish to, I must stay in King's Landing."
He shook his head in confusion. "Lady Sansa...must I remind you the Lannisters are traitors, and they killed your father. I offer to take you away from those wish to harm you."
"No one can protect me from anyone living," the girl replied, somehow with a disarming smile, "much less the dead. You need me, for this war between Kings, so that you can entreat my brother to bend the knee...and for the Great War, so that I may help guide the Lady Melisandre. If I leave King's Landing, there's nothing stopping you from breaking the truce and attacking the city, wasting more men and lives, when we need to preserve as many men and lives as we can for the Great War."
"So you'll allow yourself to stay a hostage, for the sake of your Great War?"
"It's our Great War. What choice do I have, knowing what I know?"
"We can't give you Lady Sansa," Tyrion said, stepping in, only after she turned to look at him, giving him her signal that she had said all she needed to say. "I can't agree to your claim, or my lord father will take my head himself. But, for the sake of compromise, Prince Tommen, the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, will not take up his claim until after the council."
"You say she insisted on having this priestess of Stannis sailed over from Dragonstone?"
"It was the only way for a successful parley," Tyrion admitted, "to keep Stannis from sacking the city. And it worked." He had no idea how his father could react to such a fantastic tale...except the mere proof that it had, indeed, worked.
"So in truth, it's the girl who rules in King's Landing now, not the late King's Hand, nor his mother."
"She's saved our skins, for the most part."
Tywin sat by the fire, finally letting his exhaustion show. "I knew Stannis. By the Gods, I respect the man...I never figured him swayed by children's tales."
If he was expecting a cynical remark from his cynical son, he did not receive it.
"You believe her?"
"I believe she believes it," Tyrion said truthfully. And I believe she knows far more than any human ought rationally know, much less a sheltered rich girl. I also believe she uses her knowledge, however gained, to her own advantage, and lies to us, if need be, to keep us on our toes and at her mercy. "Did you speak with the Tully's, by any chance?"
"The Tully's?" His father's incredulous look answered his question. "Why would you say such a thing?"
"Perhaps they could be induced to betray their new King of the Trident?"
"Do you know their House words, boy? Do you really I'm foolish enough to think Hoster Tully capable of betraying his own blood?"
You clever, awful girl.
"You'll meet her too," Tyrion said, almost gleefully. "She says she has words for you. I believe you'll see her in a different light after, along with my own actions in heeding her instructions."
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Notes: So Joffrey dies in chapter 3. If everything seems too good to be true right now...it probably is. But Winter is still coming, even for Sansa.
Thanks to all who've read and reviewed thus far! In response to one review, whether this will be a Tyrion/Sansa love story...I won't give away anything, but I'll assure you by saying it looks like Sansa pulls no punches in lying to Tyrion, and he is already realizing this by the end of this past chapter. Plus, he's still very much in love with Shae at this point of the tale.
As for the courageous anonymous reviewer who called Sansa a "whore" in the last chapter, it ought to be reminded that the poor girl's only sexual encounter in all 8 seasons of the show was brutal, traumatic rape and abuse.
