Lewyn: Year 297

Why me?

It's the question he's asked himself nearly every day since that fateful day at the Trident. Robert Baratheon died that day, yet they'd still lost the battle, and then the war. For that, Lewyn Martell blamed himself. Because he'd broken his vows, because he'd taken a lover, several in fact. That was why he'd been cursed to live, while finer men like Barristan Selmy perished at the hands of Robert Baratheon's ghost.

Yet, what was he to do? Rhaegar was losing the duel to the young stag, that was certain, Lewyn could see him wearying with every blow. His Prince was going to die on the battlefield, and stain the river with royal blood. After that, the battle was surely lost, wasn't it? So Lewyn charged forward, and he knew in his mind that the moment his sword pierced Robert Baratheon through his gigantic back was one moment before the man was about to deliver to Rhaegar the killing blow.

"The storm is strong," the beautiful girl said, hair and robes drenched already, standing next to him upon the bow of the ship. Daenerys Targaryen, the youngest child of the Mad King, who survived where her mother did not. "Was it as bad as this, the day I was born?"

"Worse," Lewyn replied. He had not heard her approach him by his side, until her voice echoed against the wind, refusing to die amidst the torrent. "Tenfold worse."

His lover, a courtesan from a minor house named Anna, had died in King's Landing when Tywin Lannister took the city. Yet, Lewyn did not mourn, because what right did he have to mourn a woman he had no right loving in the first place? Besides, his honor had been stained already by his actions upon the Trident. Rhaegar never chided him for taking paramours, never cared about that particular part of his vows, yet his Prince did not speak to him more than what was necessary for months after so dishonoring him during the battle, not when he was at times Rhaegar's only companion as they fled, first to Dragonstone, then east across the Narrow Sea. But what was done was done. Truly, his honor had lost been lost the first time Lewyn had broken his vows, so what difference did one more stain upon his cloak make, even if it'd brought upon him Rhaegar's scorn? Rhaegar still lived, that was all that mattered.

"Did she fear death? My mother?"

"No," Lewyn replied, his heart breaking every time he thought back at the sad memories of his last Queen, who'd yet remained strong until the end. "She'd been through far worse to fear a thing as trifling as death."

Daenerys nodded, understanding. They'd not minced words to her or Viserys as to the man Aerys actually was, in his last years...the monster he'd become. War was coming, they'd been preparing for it through all her life, this youngest child of the Targaryen dynasty, and none of them could afford to bath in lies and fantasies.

"I'm not afraid either," Daenerys began, before the girl changed her mind. "I am afraid."

"You shouldn't be, child," Lewyn said gently. "You'll stay in Pentos with the King, once we land. He intends to keep you far from battle."

"So I'll be shirking in my duties, to my House."

Lewyn placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, feeling the fabric slipping off under the downpour.

"You'll be useless in battle, girl, we both know this."

"I won't be," Daenerys insisted, though Lewyn could tell she knew better.

He'd been useless during that last battle too. They'd saved Rhaegar's life, Barristan Selmy jumping quickly into the fray the moment Robert fell from his horse. Yet, if anything, the death of their leader spurred the rebel army to a greater rage than any of them could imagine. Treachery, they cried, and not wrongly so, charging forward, threatening to envelop them from the get go.

"Protect your Prince," Barristan had ordered, closer to the rebel front, and though neither held command over the other, without another word Lewyn had obeyed, barely leading his exhausted and wounded charge through the lines of the rout. His own men, his people, the Dornish right of Rhaegar's army collapsed without Lewyn leading them, and his own eyes witnessed the resolve of their center buckle as Ned Stark and a half dozen northmen overwhelmed Ser Barristan in the river where Rhaegar would've fell.

"You will. Your duty is to marry, to help your brother, your King, seal alliances with the great houses of the realm."

"I know." She did not seem enthused at the prospect. But she had no choice. Neither did he, not after he'd failed so completely, sixteen years before. They'd all do their duty, they'll all serve their king. Or die trying.


Sansa

I must be strong.

She did not feel strong, the eldest surviving child of the King, a father gone, never to hug her again, or read her a story by the hearth. Her throat was dry, her eyes chapped, having bawled through the night upon receiving the raven from the Iron Islands. When Sansa finally fell asleep, by the time the morning light was already beginning to creep up above the horizon, she dreamed she was a wolf, wandering lost in dark and endless woods, her feet...her paws, leaving tracks through snow, which she'd never seen before through all the years of her short life.

"I'll kill them all," her younger sister Arya swore, from across the small solar, holding their youngest brother Rickon in her small arms, "every last one of them. There won't be a Greyjoy alive by the I'm done with them."

"I want them dead too," Sansa replied, her voice scratched. "But killing them won't bring father back. It won't bring Robb back."

In her hands she held her brother Bran, younger than Arya by a year. Within minutes they could come, and announce to Ned Stark's children which one it would be amongst them who was to sit next upon her father's throne. It was to be her or Bran, they all knew. Sansa would wish it upon Bran, except she knew he dreaded the thought, perhaps even more than she.

"But we'll avenge their deaths."

"Father never cared about revenge. Or Robb. I think...I hope...wherever they are now, they're not bothered by such angry thoughts." She rarely recalled seeing her father angry, at them, or in court. Serious, for sure, most of the time, but it had always broken Sansa's heart to see father angry. Especially on the rare occasion where she'd been the cause of it.

Even in grief, they argued. It wasn't that Sansa didn't love her sister, but there were many times when she didn't much like Arya. But not now though, now more than ever, they needed to stay together, because while her sister's...temper at times was a bit much, the sentiment was needed. They had enemies, enemies their family had made long before any of them had been born...enemies which would destroy them entirely if they could, now that they were weak, now that their King, their father, was dead, and a child soon to replace him on the Iron Throne.

"What now," Arya asked, the fire still lit in her eyes. "One of you will rule, by the end of today. Do you plan on forgiving the Greyjoys, dear sister, dear brother? Letting them keep their crown, their islands...our father's body...his sword?"

Sansa shook her head. "Neither Bran and I will rule. Mother says there's to be a," she stumbled upon her words, trying to recall what their mother had told her last night, holding both her and Arya while they cried into her bosom.

"A regency council," Bran said. He was a clever child. "Maybe Uncle Benjen will bring the northern armies south."

They all said Sansa was clever, but she thought Bran grasped more at his age now than she did at ten. Even Arya was clever, in her own way. Sansa was good at singing, at remembering all the words to her favorite songs, at knowing where to place her feet and which way to swing her hips during a dance, at sewing pretty dresses for herself. All talents she'd expected to be useful as a Princess, as a Lady and a wife and mother one day. But what use were such trivial talents were they to ask her to sit on her father's throne and wage war against their enemies?

"I suppose the war must continue," Sansa admitted, biting her lips. "Maybe we'll see cousin Jon." Arya smiled at that. Sometimes Sansa thought Arya loved their cousin better than she loved any of her own siblings. "They say he's becoming a fine swordsman, and an even better leader."

"I'd like to join him out there." Arya smiled, and it warmed Sansa's heart to see that, because when they'd heard the news, she feared none of them might ever smile again. "Your Grace," Arya added mockingly.

"Shut up," Sansa replied, her own lips breaking into a soft grin. Bran giggled too, and Rickon next to Arya, even though Sansa suspected that he was laughing only because the rest of them were.

"I don't see why we can't be there while they figure things out," Arya continued, her eyes squinting in concentration. "Especially the two of you, if they're to decide which one of you to take the throne, then you should be part of the decision too."

"What use would we be in there," Sansa scoffed. "What could we tell them that they don't already know? That we miss father? That we're terrified, that we'll do our duty if we have to, just like father did when they crowned him, but none of us want it?" Though her sister's words weren't entirely untrue. She would have liked to listen in, if only so she didn't have to wait, so she'd know whether she should be feeling dread coursing through her veins...or relief.

"I trust mother," Bran said, clutching her arms with his small hands. "She'll know what's best, she always does."

"And Grandpapa." They said it'd been Hoster Tully who'd decided the matter of the Throne at the end of Robert's Rebellion, whose arrival at King's Landing convinced the lords to crown their father...and their mother, rather than Stannis Baratheon. "You should marry Jeyne, if they name you King. She'll be a good Queen."

"She's pretty," Bran said, thinking over the matter way too seriously, and Sansa regretted making the remark. Of course Bran couldn't marry Jeyne, he needed to marry a lady from a powerful southern house, not a northern girl from a minor family.

"She'll make a far better Queen than you, sister."

"Hush Arya, that may already be treason," Sansa replied with a smirk, knowing that her sister taunted her in jest, because if there were anyone Arya hated more than herself...or the Greyjoys after this day, it was Jeyne Poole, who'd ridiculed her when they were younger. That had been the one time they'd nearly come to blows, when Jeyne kept calling her sister Horseface, and Arya had decided to turn her anger on Sansa, rather than Jeyne, for not stopping her friend. Which she did want to do, Sansa could tell how unhappy Arya was, that it'd become far more than just a harmless joke. But Jeyne was her friend too, and she did not want to chide Jeyne, to make her angry at her, for how many friends did she truly have in court, who liked her for who she was, who'd known her since they were both children...who cared not for who her father was.

"Treason is those who betrayed our father," Arya muttered, clutching Rickon closer to her chest, any lightness vanished again from her eyes.

"The lone wolf dies...," Sansa began.

"The pack survives," they all chanted after her, even Rickon.

"Father and Robb aren't here to protect us now. Whatever happens today, they'll try to tear us apart. We can't let that happen."

They were mature words, the kind to be uttered by a grown woman, a proper lady, but Sansa felt neither mature, nor grown, nor a woman. Saying them, hearing her own voice echo against the walls of the keep, she felt a fraud, and wondered how worse it would be for her to have to speak thusly before an entire realm.

"I'll continue my lessons with Syrio," Arya said seriously. "I'll be your Kingsguard, or Queensguard, whichever one of you they choose."

Firm knocks interrupted their private sanctuary, and all four children turned to look anxiously upon the large wooden door, as if awaiting their execution, rather than the coronation of one of their own. Father followed daughter inside, and though they all wanted to leap into the arms of their mother and grandfather, none dared do so, because all of them, even Rickon, were aware of the seriousness of the occasion.

Sansa had never seen her mother so worn, so frail, looking as if she were about to collapse upon the floor at any moment, even as Sansa knew full well just how strong Queen Catelyn of House Tully was, the strongest woman she'd ever known all her life. The Queen would not fall, she would reign firmly, and though she'd been born a trout, Sansa trusted her mother to guard over her pups for the rest of her life, as fierce as any wolf north of the Wall.

"Arya, Rickon," the Queen acknowledged first. Dowager Queen, Sansa corrected in her mind sadly, though even thinking it meant a lasting reminder that her father was dead, never to return. She's the only Queen I've ever known, she'll always be my Queen...my mother.

"Who's it to be then," Arya asked, bold as always.

"You understand, children," Hoster Tully began, "this has nothing to with your worth, whoever is to be crowned, or not. Your mother and I love each one of you dearly, each one of you would make for a great King, or Queen."

"Except Sansa," Arya cracked. Sansa laughed with her sister, and brothers, but neither adults seemed to find the humor in her words.

Mother and grandfather knelt before her and Bran, both of them shrinking back from the family they loved, the only time she'd ever had cause to truly fear them, Sansa realized. Her mother reached out towards her, and took her right arm, wrapped around Bran's chest. Sansa did not want to let go, to relent and give it to her, but she had no choice. Watching her hand be pulled away, as if it no longer belonged to her, Sansa's eyes widened in terror when she saw her mother lowering her head, lips brushing against the back of her hand.

"Your Grace."

Her grandfather followed. Mother rose, and bowed to her in reverence, before standing back up. Would this be how it'd be between mother and daughter for the rest of their lives?

"Your Grace," Hoster Tully whispered, after his own coarse lips had brushed against his granddaughter's hand. "My Queen."

By the time she took back her hand, her entire body was trembling. Letting gently her brother go, the Queen stood, and they all knelt again, even Arya. First, she hugged Bran.

"You'll be a good Queen, sister." Sansa heard relief in his voice, rather than disappointment.

"Thank you, Bran."

"Your Grace," Hoster continued, as she embraced Arya, "your Small Council awaits you."

"I need a bit of time," Sansa said, her small, delicate feet taking her to the corner of the solar. She should've been preparing her mind for this occasion all day, how to act, what to say, were they to name her Queen. But she'd spent the day wishing it away instead. Now, it was too late.

"Of course," mother replied, taking all her younger siblings into her arms, her dress as black as a raven's feathers, the mark of the widow.

"Grandpapa, can you stay?"

"Of course dear."

Lord Hoster, you may stay. That was how a Queen ought speak, Sansa reminded herself. Even to family, because the Throne preceded even blood.

Sansa saw that her grandfather was eager to sit. The Kingmaker, many called him. The Queenmaker now, Sansa supposed, one of the most powerful men in the land, yet growing older and frailer by the day, before her very eyes. She took the chair opposite him.

"Why me?"

Hoster Tully sighed. "Your mother wanted Bran in her heart, I think. She wants to protect you both, she wants to protect all her children...but she wanted to protect you more. Jon Arryn seemed inclined to Bran too, earlier today...but by afternoon he'd favored you."

"What about you, Grandpapa?"

Leaning forward, the old man took her small hands into his, holding them closely. He'd always had a lighter touch than father, Sansa thought.

"I was full of ambition, when I was young. I have my duty to my lands, of course. But duty had little to do with seeking a Stark husband for my eldest daughter...or marrying Lysa to Jon Arryn."

"You wanted to overthrow the Targaryens." The Mad King, the worst of the worst, who would've massacred all her family, had father and Robert Baratheon not raised their banners to oppose him.

"I wanted power," Hoster admitted, eyes downcast. "I wanted fame. Not to be a King, or to father a Queen...or even to live in King's Landing these last sixteen years as I have, and sit on a Small Council, not at first...but I wanted my name out there all the same...a man who helped overthrow a dynasty, who'd helped cast out the dragons...the man who'd sealed the terms that decided the fate of Seven Kingdoms, and their new dynasty."

Something was wrong. Most men would list off such accomplishments with pride. But her grandfather was not most men. Neither had been her father. She'd never heard her grandpapa speak of this past, or speak of it like this, his aged voice dripping with shame. Why was he ashamed? Wasn't it a good thing, to overthrow the Mad King and Prince Rhaegar? Was it even a bad thing, to want power for yourself, your house, wasn't that the desire of every house in the realm, so long as they paid fealty to their liege lords and the Iron Throne?

"Do you regret it?"

He smiled, and clasped her hands in understanding, a melancholic chuckle upon his face that Sansa could not read.

"I've come to know...I've come to love your father. Not as my son by law...or my King...but as my own son. All of you, you're my dearest grandchildren, each and one of you make me proud in every way. Robb...he would've been a great warrior...and a wise and noble King..."

The old man's hands shook, and one hand left her grip to wipe a tear from his eyes.

"To think, that had I not played with Kings and crowns so many years ago...that they might still be alive. That you may still have a father, an older brother. That I may still have my own brother alive..."

Sansa could feel her own nose sniffling, her grandfather's sorrow evoking her own deep sadness, never far from the surface since she'd heard the news. There'd been word too that the Blackfish had been killed alongside his King, her great uncle, a beast of a man who'd always challenged and jibed her brother Robb whenever he was in the capital, yet treated her and Arya with such sweetness.

"And now, I put you, or Bran, in greater danger. Because understand, Sansa, there is great peril, for our families, for whomever holds the throne. Yet we've no choice in the matter, because of my decisions after the fall of King's Landing."

"You weren't the only one who wanted father King," Sansa tried, consoling her grandfather, the only one of her parents' parents she'd ever known all her life.

"Any other family save ours, you must understand Sansa, Bran would be King. Most of this country will never be happy being ruled by a woman, they'll fight you, my dear Sansa, every step of the way, every day you sit on the Iron Throne, every day you draw breath..."

So make Bran king then.

"Is it because he's younger?"

"Aye," Hoster admitted, his eyes distant. "I'll sit on the Regency Council, it's my duty, and it'll be my greatest honor, serving my Queen. But I can count with two hands how many times I've been home since your father took his throne, since I watched my daughter sit beside him, his Queen. Jon Arryn too, he has his own son to raise..." He shook his head again. "It won't be easy, for you. It wouldn't have been easy for Bran, either. Your dynasty is young, fresh...not at all established, in the eyes of so many across the realm...not with the Dragons lying in wait across the Narrow Sea. Had we named Bran the King, it would have taken longer for him to come of his age. And you, Sansa, you would have need married."

It was all she'd expected all her life. Sansa imagined, had she not grown up a Princess, she would've dreamed of marrying a fair Prince. But all the princes of the realm were her own brothers, save Dorne...yet the songs did not discriminate between fair princes or knights, a noble man was a noble man, a beautiful man was beautiful all the same, whether a Prince, or a Lord.

She'd been singing Florian and Jonquil last night, when they'd brought her the news. Could she ever sing that song again, or even bear to hear it sung by others?

"Perhaps your husband would have been selfless, and honorable. Perhaps not. Perhaps he would have sought to use you against your brother."

"I'd never go against Bran," Sansa replied, horrified. "I want him to be king, grandpapa. I don't want him to suffer, having to sit in that chair, and have to fight our enemies all the time. But I don't..." She hesitated. It mattered not. She was Queen now, and it didn't matter what she did or didn't want.

"It's alright to admit it," Hoster whispered. "We must be honest with ourselves, because if not ourselves, if not our family, then who else?"

"I understand."

"It wouldn't have been up to you. Men are brutes, we're monsters, we're beasts, when we're at our worst. We can charm a Princess, court her, sing the fairest songs to her. But the moment we claim her for ourselves...there are many who would've not seen you as a Princess of the blood, my dear...but as a wife...as a lord's wife, a prize...as a breeding mare...at best." Taking his other hand from hers, he clasped his head in what seemed to be agony. "I'm sorry, Sansa. It's the way of the world. It kills my soul to have to tell you these things..."

"They would have used me against Bran," Sansa repeated, the idea so strange in her mind. "Unwillingly."

Men are beasts, her grandfather's words echoed in her head. They'll sing fair songs to me...they'll lie. Though she was still far too young, Sansa was not naive to the idea that many of the men at court would have openly sought her hand in marriage already, had they not feared her father's wrath in expressing their desires too obviously or coarsely. Young and old, fair and ugly, fat or thin...were all their words lies? Telling me tales of my own beauty, my delicate voice, my cleverness?

"They'd never dare go against Robb, or your father, while they lived," Hoster continued. "But a child king would give them a chance, while Bran is still young, and you are not. Look at the Targaryens, with their Dance of Dragons. Excepting the dragons of old, they're not that different from most of the families in the Seven Kingdoms, save maybe Dorne. But we Tully's...we Starks, we understand the meaning of the word family. You've a great father, a great mother, they raised you the right way, despite all their duties to the realm. You all love each other, you all support each other."

"Even Arya," Sansa tried joking. Grandpapa smiled, but he did not laugh.

"Even Arya," he repeated numbly. "Many other dynasties, Bran will spend the rest of his life resisting you, fighting you for a crown he believes his. But because he is a Stark, because he is a Tully...because he is your brother, and he loves you, and because the King has taught him, taught all of you to see the Iron Throne not as a prize to be won, but as a solemn duty...he will support you. As Ned Stark's eldest surviving son, Bran will become a great lord one day, one of the most powerful in the land."

"So rather than a young King whose sister's lord husband may fight him," Sansa recited, trying to piece together grandpapa's puzzle in her mind, "House Stark will have a Queen supported by her powerful brother. That's why you crowned me, instead of Bran."

"It is. Jon Arryn believed the same, too."

They used to play a game, her and mother, when she'd sat at court with her father sitting upon his throne, her throne now. In truth, it was vanity that caused her to attend, so she could show off before all the lords and ladies her newest and prettiest dresses, so that the fair knights of the land could come kiss her hand, and flatter her with their kind words, and tell her of how beautiful she looked.

Lies. They'll all lie to me, through their smiles and sweet words.

And funny enough, that was the game she and mother played. They'd listen to a lord's pronouncements, or pleadings, or beseeching, knelt before father seated in the Iron Throne, and they'd each guess whether they were lying, or telling the truth. Whether they were sincere in their testimony before their King, or whether mother ought warn father later that night, regarding this or that lord she did not trust. Sometimes they would find out whether their guesses came close to the truth. But more often Sansa would forget such serious matters, once she left court, and returned to her lessons, or to play with her siblings.

Yet, if she were to play that nameless game now, Sansa Stark would guess that her grandpapa, whom she loved, whom she knew loved her, more than any of his grandchildren, according to mother...Sansa would guess that grandpapa was lying to her. That the reasoning he'd just given her was not the reason he'd chosen to make her Queen over Bran. Not the entire reasoning, anyway.

I could wait and not marry, not until Bran is a man fully grown. That would solve the problem of this treacherous husband she did not yet have, and could never imagine.

I remind him of his wife, Sansa remembered mother telling her, my grandmother Minisa. That's why I'm his favorite, though he'd never admit it to me, or any of my brothers or sisters.

Was that it, Sansa wondered. Did Hoster Tully convince all the lords to name her to the Iron Throne because of the color of her hair, the fairness of her complexion...because she reminded him of his dear and long departed wife?

And if so, how many similarly crucial decisions in the history of the kingdoms came down to such...trivial reasoning?

Sansa could not tell whether grandpapa could see the doubt in her eyes. But it did not matter. It's done, it can't be undone. She'd remembered father saying those words, when he recalled his own ascension to the throne.

"Come, Your Grace," Hoster said, his voice belonging not to her grandfather, but her advisor now, "your seven kingdoms await."

Not a prize, father had said. But the most serious burden. The most serious responsibility.

Sansa Stark had never felt so weak in her life, until the day she became a Queen.