Sansa
So this was to be her latest new husband. She'd little regarded his significance this time around, even knowing he'd reigned as king for several years after Joffrey's death. When she told Tywin Lannister he was too good, she meant with regard for herself as well, for what was she but a younger Tywin Lannister now, with all her plotting and planning since waking up a child again. She'd wonder whether the youngest and nicest Lannister would see her fearfully the same way she did Tyrion and Ramsay when they married her off before, except she was good to look at, and she supposed that helped the boy digest his new engagement.
"Lady Sansa," he said, bowing to her, out of all things.
"Tommen," she said, she muttered, lost for words for once. Cursing herself, she wondered whether she was being bashful, out of all things, next to yet another future husband. No. I understand, more than anyone, how awkward this is for Tommen.
Shy as he was, he continued speaking to her. "This...this will be us one day," he said, looking around the vast Sept, empty as it was now, the lords and ladies filing in slowly one after another.
"It will be," she said, wondering where the boy's mother was. Defanged as Cersei was, she was still to be her mother-by-law, and Sansa knew how the woman who'd become the first of her sex to rule from the Iron Throne would reckon with those who would take her children away from her. "How do you feel about that?"
"Confused, to be honest," he said, his innocence overwhelming her. He's me, and I'm his Ramsay at worst...his Littlefinger at best. "I've never been married before..."
He looked down immediately, embarrassed at the obviousness of his remark...and in doing so, failing to see her own uncomfortable look in return, because she could not honestly say the same, though she had to pretend otherwise.
"It may not be for years. It won't happen...not until you're ready." Or until I am, with any luck. Though that may be never.
"I don't remember the sea at Winterfell," he said, eager to keep talking to his betrothed, seeking subjects in his mind to discuss.
"No, we're very far from the ocean," she said, waiting for her family to enter the sept.
"I've never lived anywhere far from the water before." The tone in his voice, the apprehension in his eyes, and Sansa realized that, however much she was a girl, however much she wasn't Tyrion Lannister or Ramsey Bolton, she, and the idea of marrying her, terrified him.
"We have waterfalls," she replied, her voice gentler, actually paying heed to him as she addressed him, "and hot springs. The snow on the hills, on the first warm day after the storm...the woods and the gentle babbling creeks...it's not all barren wastelands in the north." Though she could imagine why he'd think of it as such. "I'll show you my favorite places, when we do marry. We can visit them together."
"I'd like that," Tommen said, seemingly comforted by her words. He frowned. "Mother said you're my enemy, that you're a wolf, disguised. But now they tell us we're friends...grandfather, he says I'm to trust you as family some day."
"Lord Tywin said that," she asked, less amused than impressed by herself, really, that she could win over Tywin Lannister, so quickly. "There were liars, Tommen," she said. He wasn't that young, really, what was he, two or three years younger than her? Except he seemed so much younger, because of his innocence, a miracle considering his family. He also seemed younger, she reminded herself, because of the fact that she was not really a girl of four and ten years, and no amount of distance would take away her past life, weighing upon marriage or any relationship she had in this new life. "There were some reasons for our family to be at odds with one another. But there are more reasons for us to find common ground, now that there's peace."
"You found the common ground for us," he said, eyeing her with admiration. Tommen was not fit for war, she realized. As King, he hadn't handled the peace well either, but that was Cersei's fault. And Margaery's. "They said you were the one who brought peace between all our families...and my unc...the King, also."
Stannis had disinherited Robert's surviving "children", though he legitimized them as Lannisters, for the sake of the peace, to save face for Tywin Lannister. It was a fair gesture, made by a man who could be fair...when he was at his best, she supposed.
"You could have been king, Tommen. Would you have wanted that?"
Quickly, he shook his head. "No. I was afraid, honestly, after Joff...after the riots. I'm glad I don't have to follow him."
She squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. "I wanted to be queen once, too."
They watched as the soon to be bride and groom walk into the Sept separately, Robb with their mothe. Talisa walked in alone, her beauty shining through the building, adorned in yellow colors which did not hide her exotic nature, while Robb...well, she'd never seen Robb wearing robes so proper. She had been surprised that Stannis and his priestess would allow this marriage in the Great Sept, much less leave the building standing at all. But Stannis was a practical man, and his throne secure, perhaps he would be less observant of the Lady Melisandre's more...fiery...aspects. Sansa did not lie to herself about who this woman that she sought out as an ally was, but with Tywin Lannister as an additional ally, she would need her less now that she and Melisandre both had what they wanted.
And she suspected that were the new King ever to encounter troubles with his crown, the new High Septon and all those who'd follow him would be the first Melisandre would have burned at the stake.
"Do you still want that," Tommen asked. "To be a queen?"
"No. I just want my family to be happy."
"They look happy," Tommen said softly. "She's pretty," he remarked, not caring that she came from a different continent. Nor did Robb care. That was a kind of innocence as well, though wasn't innocence the weakness of Stark men? Hadn't innocence destroyed Tommen along with all her family the last time?
"She's beautiful," Sansa replied, her heart so full, so thankful, that she could bear witness to their marriage this time around...and that they'd live, they'd be happy...that at least one of Ned Stark's children could find a permanent and lasting love, and live to see their family name passed down.
"So are you," he said, before he even knew it. "I mean...," he said, his face suddenly reddening.
"It's no crime for a man to compliment his betrothed," a deep voice uttered behind them, startling them both, and she swore she glimpsed a twinkle in Tywin Lannister's eyes. "And it's no crime for a lady to accept the compliment."
"Lord Tywin, apologies," she bowed, "I did not see you coming."
"You can't see everything, can you now, girl?" He scanned the gathering crowd. "Your sister?"
"Lurking, somewhere," Sansa said with a smirk despite herself. "She'll be here, before it's too late. Else mother will scold her." Except that was the least of Arya's fears, weren't they, after all she'd been through?
"She had me fooled." A rare admission from the man, in front of his surviving grandson no less. "Not many get such a privilege."
"No," she said, a smirk of her own forming. "Only Ned Stark's children." He glared at her, in a way which said to her that caution was still a virtue. "A secret, Lord Tywin."
"Yours, or mine?"
"She's not meant for buildings like this, or fancy dresses. Where you saw her...in the wild, hidden in plain sight...that's where she should be."
Tywin grunted. "This more of...," he glanced at Tommen, "what you...believe?"
Sansa nodded. So he'd seek to preserve his innocence too.
"And you? What are you meant for...Lady Sansa?"
"This," she said, as her mother walked into the building. "Watching my family. Keep them safe. Seeing them happy." Because through their happiness, she could maybe glean some for herself.
"I'd hope so," Tywin said, his eyes a mystery. "Tommen will be your family one day."
"Then I'd see him safe too," she said perfunctorily, except she meant it also.
Leaving the Lannisters, she turned to greet her family and give her blessings to her sister by law to be, when he heard Tywin's voice behind her, having trailed her as she walked.
"Like you saw Joffrey safe."
Stunned, she spun to turn and face him. "I...I didn't know..."
"They say you were the last to speak to him, before the riot began." His eyes were cold, not furious, as she would have expected based on his words. "I won't go as far as to speculate what you said to him, or what it may or may not have incited him to do. But I find it impossible to believe you could know all you've spoken of, and not seen the death of your own betrothed, the King."
"It's," she stammered, caught off guard for once, "it's the truth, Lord Tywin."
"It's not." He said this plainly, as if it were a common enough fact, as in the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. "It's a good thing you sought me out after the council, the way you did. You owe me a dynasty."
So it would be, and she, who had faced down twice Daenerys Targaryen, who had lived death by burning and survived to live, would not be intimidated by an old man. "You owe me my father's head."
It was not her best comeback, but it was the truth, and the plainness and uncleverness of her words did not blunt its dull, raw, truth. Knowing who Tywin Lannister was, she was fully aware that he was assessing her, gathering her measure, calculating just how much of a threat she would pose him. And by the gods, he seemed satisfied by her defiance.
"Hmmpff," he grunted, chest puffing, "you'll do anything for family. Good." He craned his neck backwards, at Tommen, who was now talking to another older man, Kevan, Tywin's brother, she remembered. "We'll be family soon. I gather you hate me, and my children, and I don't blame you. But as you've said, Tommen is an innocent. He's a good boy." Standing as they both were under the statue of the Crone, his next words came as a whisper. "He'll learn from me, but you'll teach him too, so that when he sits on the Throne, King of Six Kingdoms, his reign, and his dynasty, will be long lasting."
She should have expected this. But she'd overlooked Tommen in the grand scheme of things, just as everyone had overlooked him once before. Part of her wanted to ask Tywin to reconsider whether kingship was truly the right fit for this most decent Lannister.
"I...I don't think I can teach him anything? Not to see visions at least...and without those, I'm rather useless."
"Don't speak to me as a fool, kin of mine. Yes, you see...visions. The stupid, the insane, they may all glimpse the same visions, and fail to use them as you have. Ned Stark could have seen the same things, and gotten himself killed all the same." For a second, he almost looked apologetic, as if he didn't mean to invoke her father's name in that manner. "Had you been born a man, I'd already be missing a head. So would Stannis, and many others; they'd all be laid at your feet, sitting on that throne."
"Why not Jaime?" She'd thought she could eventually talk Tommen into staying at Winterfell, with her and her family. Now, it would seem that Tywin Lannister wanted to keep her in King's Landing, or Casterly Rock, or wherever the Lannister patriarch would roam.
"He'd never take it. Tommen doesn't want it either, but he's Robert's rightful heir. He's young, and his wife will show him the wisdom in wearing a crown." His lips thinned, and when he spoke his next words, they bore a rawness similar to when she invoked her own father's death. "If Stannis doesn't want him as a Baratheon, so be it. When he does take the throne, he'll take it as a Lannister."
He doesn't believe it, Cersei and Jaime. He truly doesn't see the truth. It wasn't the anger in his voice, but a hurt, the tone of one who believed himself wronged, that revealed to Sansa his weakness.
I'll play your game then, because you're not as sharp as you think you are. Not when it comes to your own family. "His mother needs to not see me as an enemy. If Cersei believes me a threat, she'll do everything she can to pull Tommen away from us, and it'll wreck him, along with your dynasty."
Did he gather that this came from yet another taste of her so-called visions? "I'll speak to my daughter," he said, a pointed look at her, "but words alone won't be enough to satisfy her."
An idea came to Sansa suddenly. "There's another thing I'd ask."
She drank more wine than she ought to have, forgetting her body was still that of a child's. But it felt freeing to celebrate. The last time she'd done so was after the battle at Winterfell, except they were all celebrating with the woman who would destroy their family a mere three moons later. But now, seeing so many of her family together, laughing, eating, dancing...even Arya sharing an awkward dance with Tommen Lannister, she dared to dream of a future where they could all continue to be happy.
Sansa sought her out, because the thorns grow thick on a rose unheeded. "Lady Margaery, my apologies, the war has not been kind to your family."
"Lady Sansa," Margaery curtsied politely. As with Tywin, this would be their first time meeting, and Sansa knew these minutes with the would be queen, as this Margaery assessed her for the first time, may prove crucial. "My father's lords never even saw battle. Many of them are unhappy, but I give thanks to the gods they keep their limbs and lives."
"Your brother Loras," she approached, as delicately as possible, "I hear he was very good friends with King Renly. Please, I ask you to relay him my sympathies for what happened to your husband, just as I offer them to you now."
If she could guess, it was Loras Tyrell who had been just as instrumental in dragging his father to war alongside the Lannisters as Margaery, his motives even more personal due Renly's murder. And word was he'd already fled the realm, taking a ship to Essos after the peace.
The quick flutter of her eyes, glancing about their surroundings, observing who nearby could overhear their conversation, indicated that Margaery knew she knew.
"I thank you for your kind words, Lady Sansa." She started walking down a row of hedges, turning her shoulder to indicate that Sansa ought follow. "There are whispers that it was you who crowned Stannis king. An impossibility, I'm sure, for someone like Stannis to owe his throne to girls like us...though I must say it makes for a great song...the maiden who made kings and brought peace to the realm."
Sansa laughed nervously. "I'm not sure what to think about that. No one seems particularly happy about this peace."
"Which means it's a good peace," Margaery said, eyes sharp, catching her reaction. "Except our new King, of course, he got everything he wanted."
"If he got everything he wanted, if King Stannis won his throne through battle, then my brother Robb would be burning alongside Tywin Lannister and all his surviving children and grandchildren."
"And the Tyrells also," Margaery said cryptically. "Does it disappoint you, Lady Sansa, that Stannis has a wife?"
"I've enough of kings already," Sansa said demurely, tying to shove the conversation she'd had with Tywin earlier that morning far from her mind. Her eyes hardened. "After Joffrey took my father's head, after he promised mercy, he dragged me to the battlements, and forced me to stare at my father's head, and my septa's next to it. He said he'd take Robb's head, and serve it to me at our wedding feast. That was after he had me beaten in court by Ser Meryn Trant, every time my brother won a battle."
Had he said that on the battlements, or afterwards? It didn't matter, and Joffrey's proclivities was one secret she was free to reveal, with Stannis the power in King's Landing. Margaery's astonishment and horror seemed genuine, and Sansa wished that her description of the man Margaery had sought to take from her could dampen somewhat her disappointment at losing her opportunity to rule beside the King...though Margaery would likely believe herself able to handle even the worst of men, as she had the first time.
"You have to marry his brother."
"Tommen and Myrcella are nothing like their older brother," she replied. Though Tywin would have her change that, as part of their bargain to give Robb a throne. She changed tact. "They say Stannis's wife will not bear another child. And he's a man of honor, he's not likely to take another wife. Perhaps...his heir need not be a Baratheon."
"I don't see him appointing my brother Loras," Margaery said, understanding her true meaning. "I doubt any of your brothers will get it."
"What about Jaime Lannister?" They both burst out in laughter. "I wouldn't count the Lannisters out in anything, though." She reached out to Margaery, squeezing her hands softly, as she'd once done to her, when Margaery had been the more experienced woman. "Or House Tyrell. Perhaps...Ser Davos is old, but Stannis trusts him...maybe his son Matos may prove worthy of his inheritance."
"You know much of our houses, Lady Sansa? Or the Onion Knight's, for the matter?"
"Father made me study them all," she lied, "once it was decided I was to be Queen, all the way from Winterfell to King's Landing."
They had made their way back to the head tables, where she saw Robb drinking and laughing alongside their uncle Edmure.
"Shame he's spoken for after tonight," Margaery remarked, eyeing her brother, before curtsying again and leaving her to her family.
That would have been an interesting match.
"I'll visit him on the Wall," Robb said, once they were out of their mother's earshot, "once I take back Winterfell, and find Bran and Rickon." His lips quivered, and Sansa suspected he was trying to pry the secret from her, Jon's secret. She felt awful, having to keep it to herself, but she needed Stannis, and Daenerys, and this time, she would not say a word until both of them were dead, and the North secure and protected from all the awful politics of the southern kingdoms.
"You won't find him there," she replied. Trying to remember his stories beyond the Wall, she placed where Jon was most likely doing at this time. Probably making love to that wildling girl, she hoped. Not sulking, and being happy, for once. "He's with the Freefolk, actually, accompanying them to climb the Wall and raid villages in the Gift."
As she'd expected, her brother's jaw dropped. "Jon betrays the watch?"
"He does this for the Watch. He's spying on Mance Rayder, and he'll return to Castle Black in time to warn them of his attack."
In time to see his heart break. He loved her, she'd come to know, both from the way Tormund described it, and from the way Jon refused to describe those years of his life. Maybe he loves her more than he'd love Daenerys. Perhaps if he could continue loving her, he'll never fall for Daenerys.
"They're not the enemy, you know," she told Robb, "the wildlings. All they want is to flee the White Walker; they don't want to die, as is their right."
"Aye," Robb said, groaning as he took a sip of his ale, "I'm going to have a hell of a time with everything once I get back to Winterfell."
"They'll raid villages in the Gift. Keep men stationed there, in secret, so you can catch them. Keep watch for a wildling girl in particular, Ygritte. She's got red hair, and she shoots a mean arrow."
He looked at her cross eyed. "Why?" Then he understood, even in his inebriation. "Jon loves her?"
"And she loves him," she answered, smiling at her brother. He needed to keep his wits like this, if he was to survive. "But she's wild to the core. Disarm her, take her to Winterfell as our guest, let her keep to our tables and our meals."
"If she's so wild, she'll slaughter everyone in the castle first."
"Not if you give the wildlings what they want."
He choked on his ale. "Let them cross? Give them lands in the south? Stannis will have my head, if not my own lords first."
"Your own lords will hate you for it," Sansa said, remembering why many of them had sided with the Boltons. "The Umbers may betray you for it again. But you must do it, for their sake, and simply for the fact that if you don't let them cross, they'll all become part of the Army of the Dead."
"I'll think about it," Robb conceded, and suddenly, Sansa felt guilty for troubling him so at his own wedding. But they had so little time.
"And kill Smalljon Umber while you're at it."
Robb shook his head, incredulous at her despite the drink and the festivities. "You'll have save a hundred thousand wildlings, let them south, while killing every lord who serves under me?"
"I'll have you doing whatever it takes to protect our family," Sansa replied back stonily. She saw Arya, listening in to their conversation, nod approvingly.
"Arry, is it?"
The perpetrator of the Red Wedding arrived to pay his respects to her newly married brother.
"Lord Tywin," her sister replied boldly. "I see you survived King's Landing."
"I see you're quite relieved." He turned to Robb. "My congratulations on your wedding, Lord Stark. And though my words mean little to you, I offer you my blessings, on behalf of my family."
"Be wary of Lannisters and their wedding blessings," Sansa replied bitterly, not taking her eyes off of Tywin as she spoke.
"My apologies for what happened to your son Jaime," Robb said more diplomatically, as was his duty. "War is war, but the way they treated him was...unnecessary."
"It's a good thing the Boltons are both our enemies now," Tywin said quietly, within earshot only to the few of them at the table. He looked at Arya, then at Sansa. "It's time."
"Time for what," Robb asked, confused. Sansa leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek.
"He has a gift for Arya," she said innocently, "in return for her faithful service at Harrenhal." Looking over at Talisa, tolerating politely the drunken ramblings of Mace Tyrell, Sansa said, "go tend to your sweet wife."
"A gift," Arya asked, caught off guard. There was still some innocence left in her, unlike the Arya she'd known before. Were it possible that she could learn what she needed to learn, without losing all her soul? Having Robb and mother helped, Sansa hoped. "Do you trust him?"
The sounds of the wedding echoed softer and softer as they happened upon an abandoned section of the gardens. Standing on patrol in a darkened square stood a dozen Lannister soldiers, their heads covered by their signature helmets.
"Surprisingly, to a degree," Sansa answered. They came upon a small courtyard, lined by more Lannister men, and Arya eyed them all warily.
Tywin took the lead, all the soldiers standing at attention in sight of their lord. Walking over to one man in particular, he stopped.
"Remove your helmet, soldier."
The man obeyed, and as recognition, and hatred, dawned in Arya's eyes, she discovered at the same time the tiny sword attached to his armor.
"He's the one?"
Arya nodded. "That's my Needle."
"Hand the girl her sword, soldier."
Looking uncertainly at his lord, the man they called Polliver did so, Arya grabbing it in an instant. Tywin stepped away.
"Restrain him," he ordered, and several of his other men stepped forward to grab Polliver, who, caught off guard, suddenly looked as he was about to piss himself. The Lannister lord then turned to Arya. "Go on then." When she did not move, he continued. "Do with him as you wish."
"Lord Tywin," Polliver said, panicked, "I don't understand." Sansa wondered if he recognized her sister, his killer, yet.
Still, Arya hesitated.
"Remember what I told you," Sansa said gently to her.
"Her dragon burned us?" Arya had asked.
"They say one of her men threw his spear straight through Jon's heart."
Watching her sister speak to the man, before sliding her sword through his neck, she thought about how inappropriate it was for her, a girl who would never pick up a sword, to be teaching Arya how to kill, rather than Sandor Clegane. But if it were her duty, to take on all the sins of those she'd known in her past life, she'd do it gladly, for the sake of family.
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Notes: Thanks to all for reading and reviewing! In response to why Sansa would trust the Lannisters as opposed to Dany or the Boltons, since they all killed Starks...the Lannisters, like the Boltons and Freys, are all potential threats to her family. The difference, however, is that the Lannisters are powerful, while the Boltons and Freys aren't. The Lannisters she can use to get rid of her other threats, such as the Boltons, the Freys, and Daenerys, whereas the Boltons and Freys are pretty useless to her, in addition to being threats. And while all those things happened to her in a past life...to Sansa, it's the same life, and it doesn't matter that she's already stopped the Red Wedding...if they betrayed her family once, they have the heart and the motives to do it again, lacking just circumstance this time.
As for Tommen, this will be the last time I justify my own story in that regard. Sansa knows she will likely have to marry again. She also knows it won't be for love, that she'll never love another man excepting her own brothers. So Tommen is far from the worst, and she recognizes immediately that she could use him as a way to use the Lannisters against Dany...though after reading this past chapter, you can see that it's already starting to backfire for her. Is it an insult? To some, yes. To Stannis, it's a way to keep the Starks and the Lannisters on a leash, without unnecessarily elevating either one of the Great Houses like Robert did, to the latter's ultimate detriment. To Robb, as long as Sansa approves, he's good with it, because he wants peace and to prepare for the war in the North. And again, for Sansa, it becomes yet another means to an end.
