Daenerys
"Any word?"
"No."
The King shook his head. Most would take his silence for, well, nothing, because the King...her brother, was a quiet man, a solemn, sullen man for all the years Daenerys had known him. But because he was her brother, and more than that, Rhaegar was as much of a father to her as any man can or ever will be, Daenerys knew the difference between a sad Rhaegar, and a vexed Rhaegar.
"You're worried."
The palace of Illyrio Mopatis in the Free City of Pentos was a great and beautiful work of art, every step, every inch perfectly manicured to suit the tastes of the richest man in city, though he was certainly not the richest man in the Free Cities, or would even be considered as such in the Daughters. Daenerys knew all this, because all her life she'd spent in manses like this one, magistrates and princes and archons and the such treating her and her family as the royalty they pretended to be. And so they were in the eyes of these rich men, these merchants, but Daenerys did not live so many years with the gilded not to know well of them. The noble classes of Essos had no knights, no codes, little sense of honor. They may proclaim to worship R'hilor, or the Many Faced God, some the Harpy, or a few even the Seven, but all of them knew of one thing and one thing only...gold. Money. That which made them rich, and will keep them rich, alongside all their servants, slaves really, and their roasts and muttons and fruits and wines and blackberry tarts shipped all the way from the finest shoppes in Lannisport.
And the only reason these men who worshiped their gold treated Daenerys and her family like royalty was because they expected more gold from them in return one day, in one way or another.
"It's war," Rhaegar replied, slumping deeper into his chair. "Wars are worrisome things."
They'd always provided him with a fine chair, wherever they went, set in the middle of a grand hall to further the illusion that her brother was a King, but Daenerys knew that Rhaegar knew well that were he ever to believe these chairs an actual substitute for the Iron Throne, these rich men of the east would have no qualms in slitting all their throats in less than half a heartbeat.
"You're worried about Viserys." From behind her brother, she glimpsed a smirk from Ser Lewyn. "The war's in his hands now," Daenerys said, her small legs pacing the room thoughtfully. "But I do wonder, do you worry more about what the war could do to Viserys, or what Viserys could do to our war?"
The King of eastern palaces and merchants chuckled mirthfully. "You've been giving this quite a lot of thought, haven't you, Dany?"
"I've got nothing else to do but think. And wait."
Rhaegar reached out his hand, and one of the servants handed him a glass of wine. Daenerys could see Ser Lewyn eyeing it greedily.
"Would you rather be out there, helping your brother fight the war?"
"Wouldn't you, brother?" She turned her eyes to the Dornish Kingsguard, gray having seeped into the fine hairs of his beard more than three years before. "Or you, Ser Lewyn, in the field, or anywhere beside this gold covered cage?"
She knew she'd just struck a raw chord with the two men, considering what had transpired the last time they'd fought together, upon the banks of the Trident, the great river of her homeland. But Daenerys Stormborn did not care, because she wasn't lying, because it was terribly boring, having to just sit, and eat, and wait, and nothing else.
"There's nothing I want," Lewyn Martell replied, perfectly perfunctorily, "than to serve my King, and carry out all his wishes."
"I know you worry for our brother," Rhaegar said, his voice echoing with its usual deadness, "but he is a Targaryen prince, he is a dragon, and we must trust he will rise to fulfill his role...the destiny he's always been meant to fulfill."
Gods, he believes these words.
It wasn't that Daenerys disliked the younger of her two brothers, or wished him death in this war, far be it, but the youngest child of King Aerys, Second of His Name, would not have been too terribly upset were she to hear the news that Viserys had been captured, and sent to a permanent exile to the Night's Watch in the far north of Westeros. They'd been close once, her first memories told her that, playing on a small beach with Viserys outside the same mansion they resided now in Pentos, Rhaegar watching both of them fondly, the only times she thought his eyes weren't completely laced with sadness, a sadness she understood, that she could almost feel in her own bones, even whilst she was an unthinking child.
But as the years went on, she thought she saw more and more annoyance in Viserys's eyes, especially when it was just she and Rhaegar, her older brother reading a book to her, or humoring her while she played with her dolls. She'd been young then, a much lighter thing, her small body not enough to hurt her brother's wounded legs when she sat in his lap. Daenerys imagined there did come a day when she grew enough where she'd become a terrible and painful burden to Rhaegar, yet he hadn't the heart to tell her, not until Ser Lewyn gently pulled her aside one evening and whispered that she ought to start sitting on the floor next time Rhaegar read to her.
"Your Grace."
Brisk footsteps interrupted their solar, except the room wasn't theirs, it belonged entirely to the man who'd just interrupted their very small family gathering.
"My dear Magisters," Rhaegar acknowledged from his seat.
"We have news from Westeros," the Lyseni man who accompanied Illyrio said eagerly, holding up a thin sliver of parchment in his bony hands. Mardos Haegaros was a tall man, much thinner than his Pentoshi counterpart, and much more perfumed.
"Tell me," Rhaegar said, taking the piece of paper from the Lyseni man.
"The Spider writes to tell us that Randyll Tarly has declared for House Targaryen," Illyrio said happily and concurrently whilst Rhaegar read what Daenerys presumed to be the same joyful news in the letter.
"That's great news," Lewyn replied, but Daenerys saw her brother frowning.
"But he believes House Tyrell will remain neutral, though not hostile...until the fate of the war becomes clear."
"Perhaps it's not everything," Illyrio said with a shrug of his shoulders, "but it's something."
"More than just something," Mardos added, the only one of the two magisters who seemed aware of Daenerys's presence in the room, though that was not a good thing. "They tell me Randyll Tarly is a great military mind, perhaps the best in all of Westeros. Surely this reduces the advantage the Starks have with Stannis Baratheon."
The older she grew, the more Daenerys became aware of the eyes of the men around her, the way men such as Mardos Haegaren, who owned several of the most profitable brothels in Lys, looked upon her. Glared at her. Rhaegar had been careful to keep her away from such places, the few times they took refuge on the island city, but one of her handmaidens there had once worked in the very brothels Mardos owned. They lived little better than slaves, Daenerys had learned from the reluctant girl, after some very persistent questioning on her part, and as she tried ignoring the old man in the room, she wondered, left to his own devices, whether a man like Mardos would take her and make her one of his own, Princess of House Targaryen or not. And perhaps that would be her fate, were they to lose this war, the gilded men of Essos seeing no further use for her family.
Yet how much better are we, that we buy slaves to fight and die for our titles, for our own lives?
"Yes, it's certainly better than nothing," Rhaegar said thoughtfully, though his continued silence seemed to indicate to the two magisters that their audience with their King, for now at least, was over.
"Surely this will win the war for you, Your Grace," Illyrio said with a bow, before the both of them exited.
Viserys looked at her that way too, Daenerys had come to realize, his purple eyes always dancing with a mixture of lust, envy, and resentment in her presence. Rhaegar's never did. Did that make them different, Daenerys had wondered, once such thoughts dawned upon her, that neither she nor her eldest brother coveted their own blood? Did that mean that, between the three of them, the last living Targaryens living save for the lone child the usurpers left alive and captive in the north, did their lack of lust for one another make Viserys, out of all people, the truest Targaryen remaining?
"We won't have to worry about your brother, Princess," Ser Lewyn said to her after they'd departed, "not with men like Ser Jorah and Randyll Tarly wielding his sword, not with men like Lord Varys listening to his whispers."
Yes, what a great prince we have, when all his princely duties are left to others.
"I don't care."
She found him sitting on a rock, staring into the sea and across it, as he was apt to do whenever he wasn't by his King's side. Did he think about home, Daenerys wondered, did he think about the family he'd lost, or the family he still had across the Narrow Sea...a family he'd only see again were they to win this war.
Would he give it all up for her?
"What don't you care about, child?"
Daenerys bristled. "I'm not a child anymore."
"You might think so," Ser Lewyn replied, refusing to look at her. "Viserys thinks the same thing too. Maybe Rhaegar is right, he'll rise to the occasion..."
"I don't care," Daenerys repeated, sitting next to him upon the same rock, taking and wrapping her hands upon his right arm, his sword arm. Across the bristling horizon, the last rays of the sun were settling down into the lands of her family, the lands where she was born. "Let them lose this war, let them win the war...I don't care."
She could feel his breath come to a standstill, before he drew his arm away from her. Yet it had lingered, Daenerys thought, longer than before.
"I won't tell your brother...your brothers, what you said," Lewyn said, still refusing to meet her eyes.
"I mean it," she replied, feeling her teeth grit upon each other. How could she care about those battles, when this was the only battle Daenerys truly wanted to win? "What will happen if we win this war? My brother Rhaegar will sit in a chair all day...no different than what he's doing now. Viserys will be Viserys, except worse, were he to actually believe he had any part of winning this war. And Rhaegar will sell me to this grand lord or that, some old man probably..."
"I'm an old man."
"I don't care about them." She grabbed his arm again, and caressed it through the armor with her hands, because Daenerys had never been someone who gave up easily. "I care about you."
I love you.
"You should care less about me," Lewyn grumbled, and she wondered how long she would have to fight this, before he would finally surrender to her.
"Leave," she suddenly whispered. This caught his attention, and Lewyn turned his dark eyes upon hers. Sensing her opening, Daenerys continued, tugging his body towards hers as she spoke. "Let's leave together. Let's run to the harbor, and find a small boat...we can sail it east, all the way to Slaver's Bay. Or Qarth, I've always wanted to see Qarth."
"What about Rhaegar?"
"He doesn't need us. You said it yourself, he's got men like the Spider and Randyll Tarly. They'll help him sit on a chair just fine, whether here, or on the other side of the sea."
"And we'll have the gold to pay for passage to Qarth how," he asked with a smile, and Daenerys knew that he was just humoring her, but it was better than nothing. "Hmm? What's to say all those slavers in Slaver's Bay don't make us their slaves?"
"Those dragon eggs the magister gave me, for my last name day," she answered, having made up her mind before she sought him out by the sea. "I'll sell them. We'll sell them."
Was there hope? To her dismay, Lewyn shook his head and withdrew his arm from her again, but then her heart quickened as he raised it towards her face, touching two fingers upon her left cheek.
"You know it'll never happen."
"Because of you!" She wanted to slap him, for his obstinacy, but as usual, her protests fell on deaf ears.
"Yes, because of me. And because of you, and Rhaegar. Because of who we all are."
She gave up. She buried her head into his chest, and pounded against him lightly with her small fists, careful not to actually hurt him, though she knew she couldn't even if she were to try.
"Why do we have to be who we are?" Her voice was muffled. "Why can't be who we want to be?"
She felt his embrace...gentle...careful...and wished it could be so much more.
"You'll understand when you're older, child."
This time, it was she who pulled away from him. "Is that how you'll always think of me? As a child?"
"It'll always be what you are to me, Daenerys Stormborn."
When she walked away from him, one foot carefully after another up the sea kissed rocks back to her palace for the day, Daenerys Stormborn did so with the satisfaction of knowing that the most honorable Lewyn Martell, valiant knight and most loyal Kingsguard, had just lied to her.
Varys
He could see the Western Hills in the distance, and Varys thought of Tywin Lannister, the old lion, for surely he was an old man now. They'd never been foes really, in the traditional sense. While he'd been wary of the man when they served together on Aerys's Small Council, more often than not he'd cautioned his king to heed the advice and whispers of his then Hand, so as to keep Tywin Lannister close to the court and on the side of the Crown. How well that had worked out for him, Varys mused, though he'd been right, after all. With the Lord Tywin's steadying hand during the years when the man had retreated to Casterly Rock, the Targaryens may never have fallen, the rebellion may never have broken out in the first place, and this Stark girl who sat on the throne now would have never been born. They said Ned Stark had fallen in love with the Dayne girl at Harrenhal. Would he have been much happier living a life as a minor knight in Starfall, rather than reluctant king and scion of his house? Varys thought so.
"They're trailing us still," Randyll muttered, his eyes following the same line of ridges in the far distance, where keener eyes saw dust rising through the misty morning air.
"Serretts and Lydden," Ser Jorah added, "my scouts say. Only a few hundred men, a thousand at most."
They were in no hurry to break camp, and both Randyll and Mormont would linger here for longer, Varys knew, for more of his birds to the west to bear fruit, were it not for the need to continue north so as to threaten to cut Stannis off from King's Landing, keeping him from committing completely against Connington's men. And, there was the fact that staying too long in any one area would tax the smallfolk too much with their...requests...for provisions, which would go against their goal of winning not just the war, but the true fealty of the Seven Kingdoms, for House Targaryen.
"Not enough to threaten a crossing," Randyll said, watching carefully the men packing up their camps, the sound of the rushing river echoing through a mild and cloudy morning. "By tonight we'll be north of the Blackwater."
"Most of the Lannister bannermen are held up east," Jorah agreed, "defending King's Landing. I've word that Stannis is holding steady between Harrenhal and Darry, waiting to see where Connington's men cross the Trident."
The Lord of Horn Hill bit his lips, deep in thought. "The question will be which side of the God's Eye we march..."
They were interrupted by a very happy prince, accompanied by Anders Yronwood wearing an equally hungry grin. To Varys's surprise, Viserys almost hugged him in front of all gathered in the camp, before the Prince gained his bearings and backed away, almost a blush upon his face.
"My applause to you, Lord Varys, your efforts have come to fruition!"
"They have?"
"The Lannisters," he said happily, "they've joined our cause!"
"A raven," Randyll asked, as perplexed as Varys.
"No," Anders Yronwood said in his deep, throaty voice. "A messenger, asking an audience with the Prince at the break of dawn." He handed Varys a small scroll. Reading it quickly, he nodded carefully before handing it to Randyll next to him.
"The war's won," Viserys exclaimed, before the old soldier had finished reading. "The Starks have entrusted the defense of King's Landing to them, and they'll open the Mud Gate to us once we besiege the city!"
"Where is this messenger," Varys asked, exchanging a glance at Jorah Mormont, who was now in possession of the scroll. The seal seemed real enough, but something did not add up.
"He left," Viserys said casually, "he rode back to King's Landing."
"Obviously he couldn't dally, lest the Starks get suspicious," Anders added.
"You were there," Randyll questioned the Dornish lord.
"I was."
"You trust this?"
"Aye," Anders nodded, "it was a Westerling boy, I remember him from the last tourney as part of Lord Tyrion's household."
"Alright," Randyll said, deep in thought. He then looked at Varys. "Whoever your contacts are with the Lannisters, tell them we accept their pledges of fealty, tell them to leave King's Landing north by any pretense necessary, and march north along the Kingsroad towards Harrenhal. We march along the west banks of the God's Eye, and Stannis won't have any escape..."
"What are you talking about?"
The Prince's tone took them all by surprise.
"Excuse me...Your Grace," Randyll said, the hardened soldier not accustomed to being addressed so disrespectfully. "I'm speaking of our strategy..."
"Did you not read the note, man?" With a mouselike reflex, Viserys snatched the letter back from Ser Jorah and waved it in Randyll's face. "Our strategy is to take King's Landing and the Red Keep, and toss the Stark bitch out from the highest window of the castle!"
"Your Grace," Varys began, having observed the conversation carefully with barely a word thus far, "if I may...I believe the best course of action to be the one we've determined upon previously, the same strategy your brother has approved..."
"My brother didn't know the Starks were stupid enough to let the Lannisters into the capital," Viserys said, desperation creeping into his voice as it intensified into a scream, now that he'd seen the reception to his news was not what he'd expected when he'd first approached them.
"This is war," Anders said. "Events change, so should our strategy along with them."
"Don't you lecture me about war, child," Randyll chided brusquely. If he could not lose his temper on the Prince, it was obvious that he was taking it out on the lowly Dornish lord instead, addressing Anders Yronwood as a child even though he was a grown man with a grown son. "How many battles have you won?"
"Fuck battles," Viserys screamed right back. He pointed down the river, in the direction of the mid-morning sun. "King's Landing is that way, right along this river. We follow the river, we take the capital, and we win the goddamned war!"
"And what will you do with the capital once you've taken it...Your Grace?" Varys could tell it took all of Randyll Tarly's self restraint to not call the Prince something worse. "Ned Stark took Pyke, that castle ended up being his coffin. It'll be ours too, once Stannis and the Northmen lay siege to it."
"We need to wipe out the Queen's armies," Jorah agreed, "before we take her capital."
For a second his face was blank, and Varys thought the man had finally talked some sense into the Prince. But then Viserys broke out into a fit of laughter. "You're joking with me, aren't you, Lord Randyll, Ser Jorah? Surely the two of you can't both be this dim? We kill the girl and her bitch mother, we kill every Stark, every Arryn, every Tully, and there won't be a Queen or King to command Stannis to march against us."
He'll be a problem. Varys always suspected this, but Rhaegar always had a way of putting his younger brother in his place. Yet it had been Rhaegar's decision to place command into the unsteady hands of his younger brother, except what choice did a near crippled king have? Certainly not the child sister, though Varys did suspect that a younger Daenerys would be a better placeholder to treat with men like Randyll Tarly. After all, wasn't that the strategy Arryn and Hoster Tully determined upon, when they named Sansa Stark to the Iron Throne?
"Your Grace," Varys said carefully, "our goal is to win the country for Rhaegar. Executing traitors, however deservedly, will do nothing to win the realm for your brother. Especially when many of them are children."
"Isn't that how Ned Stark won his crown? By killing children?"
"Ned Stark punished the men who killed Aegon and Rhaenys," Jorah reminded him. His demeanor remained calmer, unlike Randyll Tarly's, but then Viserys had not insulted Jorah Mormont repeatedly. Yet.
"They'll name Lord Benjen King," Varys said, though he feared the battle was already lost. "Or Stannis, or by the Gods, maybe even the fool in Riverrun, Lord Edmure. The realm will not submit..."
"Are you siding with the traitors, Lord Varys? Of course the realm will submit, it's their duty, they're sworn to House Targaryen..."
"House Targaryen no longer has dragons!" The moment had come, Randyll Tarly's patience had finally worn through. "Do you know just how the realm will submit to you, Your Grace? Because of people like me, and Lord Varys, it's my experience and my men and my swords and lances which will put a crown on your brother's head!"
Viserys huffed, his breathing irregular now. "You dare...I'm the Prince! I'm in charge here!"
Rather than addressing the self-proclaimed Prince, Randyll turned to Varys. "I'm not going to risk my head on this foolish venture. Or that of my childrens'. March on King's Landing, and you'll have to do so without my men."
"I'll have your head!"
Calmly, Randyll took two steps towards Viserys, until they were standing chest to chest. Seeing his hand on the hilt of his giant Valyrian blade, Anders readied his stance.
"Try it."
No one moved, and it would be Randyll Tarly who broke the stalemate. Stepping away from the Prince, he clasped Ser Jorah's shoulder first, before departing.
"It was good to make your acquaintance, Ser Jorah. I wish you good fortune in the wars to come."
They all watched him walk away, Varys's eyes in dread, Viserys's in rage, and Anders Yronwood in confusion.
"What should we do about him," the Dornishman finally asked, "Your Grace?"
Viserys shrugged. "We'll deal with him after we win the war."
Sansa
"...most of you may only know me as the daughter of Eddard Stark, your King. Some of you rode with him more than six and ten years ago, leaving Winterfell to fight the right and just war against the Mad King and his cruel son. Many of you may have joined along the way, from places like Riverrun, or the Twins, or Raventree, Gulltown, Runestone. And many more of you raised your sword against my father, until after the war, when you pledged your undying fealty to King Eddard..."
She knew her hands would be shaking, were she to be holding the piece of paper that they'd written for her.
"...many of you left behind with you your wives, children, sons, and daughters. Some of you brought them here to King's Landing, for the sake of serving your King and lords. Some of you didn't, but they remain with you in your heart, your mothers, your fathers, dear friends and family..."
The night was humid, more humid than most nights in the summer. Or maybe it was the armor she wore, still shining after being freshly forged for this occasion of the Queen's first battle. Sansa's eyes settled upon the rough, dirtied, bent, and broken armor of some of the men below her, men who'd survived battles probably since before she'd been born, and wondered just what they truly thought of their new Queen, whom they would be dying for upon this night.
"...years before, the Mad King and his son, Rhaegar the Rapist, through their heinous crimes against their realms, their peoples and lands whom they were sworn to protect, forfeited their right to the throne, forfeited their right to rule over all of us, over our families. Six and ten years after, they return, but not before they conspired with the reapers and rapers of the Iron Islands to betray your King, not before they've falsely convinced the Rhoynar into treason even after King Eddard gave them justice for the crimes committed in his name...and not before they've brought with them soldiers of fortune...savages, who know nothing more of their lives than war, and all the spoils they would seek to reap in its name..."
At least her memory was flawless, no matter how awful her delivery, having spent hours ever since they'd handed her the speech the day before, reciting the words in her chambers through the night, until she fell asleep with the parchment in her hands, then dreamed of the same words echoing through her head over and over again.
"...many of you will die tonight. I ask you to fight for your Queen, and your lords, whom you owe your fealty to. But I also ask you to fight for love, for your homes, for your families, your mothers and fathers, your sisters and brothers, your sons and daughters, against Rhaegar the Rapist, and his armies of foreign savages and reapers..."
At least she didn't see any of the men yawn or roll their eyes. Arya had, when she'd first rehearsed the speech for her sister. Sansa thought her sister may have been the only person in the city who was not terrified for the oncoming battle. Or was Arya just that good at hiding it?
"I can't believe they won't let me on the walls with you."
"Not even mother is coming out," Sansa said, dreading the inevitable moment when she would feel naked without her family, delivering a speech to thousands of strange and ferocious men. "They'll move me back closer to the Keep, Lord Arryn says, before the battle really begins."
But away from the fighting as the Keep was hopefully to be, she was to remain on the Walls for the duration of the battle, unless it was truly lost. Then what? There was a boat in the harbor, Grandpapa said, which would take her and mother and their family first to Dragonstone, then hopefully somewhere further to the north, where they could perhaps take refuge in the Eyrie, or maybe even Winterfell. What a short, glorious reign that would be for her.
"I'd win the battle for you with a single stroke of my sword," Arya replied nonchalantly.
"Your sword is made of wood, stupid," Sansa shot back. "I bet you couldn't even beat cousin Robin in a spar."
"You take that back!"
"You can't order the Queen," Sansa shouted, though she was smiling, as was her sister, a rare lighthearted occasion since the war began, and in that moment, Sansa thought she'd never been more thankful for her little sister.
"Maybe you'll die in the battle, and they'll make me the next Queen," Arya said, though Sansa knew in jest.
"Then I'll be dead," Sansa answered. "You still won't be able to order me around. You'll never be able to order me around, ever!"
Her sister's little beady eyes stared back at her for a moment, before she spoke.
"Fuck you, Your Grace."
Then they both broke out in laughter, at the absurdity of it all.
"I swear, father will come back from the dead and whip you for that."
"I'd take that, just to see him again."
And just as quickly, the levity vanished, and melancholy returned.
Staring at the faces of the soldiers manning the King's Gate, her eyes fixed upon their blades, rough, sharp, and true.
I'll be dead.
The words seemed less a joke now, and Sansa wondered truly how painful death would be, impaled at the end of one of the many swords and spears like the ones raised below her now. It'd be a kinder fate, she knew, than to be captured, because though her family and her Council would try to spare her the truth, Sansa knew what happened to little girls who fell on the wrong side of the war...Queen or not.
In the distance, they could hear the beats of hooves, the sound of drums and the dim glint of banners barely visible under the glint of a full moon.
"They're going for the Lion Gate," Jon Arryn said from behind her, though Sansa knew he was speaking more for the benefit of the soldiers and knights, rather than a girl who'd have little to do with the outcome of the battle, now that her speech was given and history. "Or the Gate of the Gods."
That was where grandpapa held his command. She wished it could've been him, rather than Jon Arryn, who accompanied her tonight. Her Hand was her Hand, and her Hand had never been anything but kind to her. But he was a cold man, unkempt in many ways with his occasionally foul breath, who'd never had a tender word for her either, who'd seen her as little more than a piece of furniture in her father's castle, until she'd become his Queen.
Until he decided to make me his Queen.
"Why not go for the Keep directly," she asked.
"It's likely a feint," Jon answered directly, though Sansa thought she could hear the impatience in his voice. "They'll keep us distracted on the southwestern walls, then send a smaller force along the river."
She thought he looked less old in his armor, the splendid silhouette of the falcon branded upon his chestplate, and Sansa wondered what the man may have looked like, when he was a younger knight, and dashing. Had he been handsome in his youth? Had Jon Arryn ever been young? The Queen wasn't sure.
Her Hand gestured impatiently to Balon Swann, the Queensguard who'd accompanied her all the way out to atop the King's Gate.
"The battle commences soon. Ser Balon will accompany the Queen back towards the River Gate."
He was trying to get rid of her, and she was thankful for the fact. Arya would want to see the battle unfold, her bravado was true, Sansa believed, but the Queen had no urge to see arrows flying towards her, to see iron and steel spit the flesh of the men she'd just spoken her heart to.
"Your Grace gave a good speech," Ser Balon said, as they walked along the walls rising above the river below, and Sansa pondered morbidly how many men would fall off and die along these same walls later that night.
"They wrote the speech," Sansa said, her pace slowed by the armor that made her feel twice as heavy as she was, "Lords Hoster and Jon Arryn."
"Still," Ser Balon said with a grin, "you said the words. You speeched the hells out of it...Your Grace."
Would they tell her to name Ser Balon the new Lord Commander of her Queensguard, once the war was over, provided they won it? Probably not, Sansa thought, having overheard Uncle Petyr telling her mother before he left that Balon Swann was still too young for such a serious command. She'd always liked the knight, he'd always been kind to her, but Sansa had a feeling he liked her wooden sword wielding sister more.
"Maybe I should take up practicing with a sword after the war is over," Sansa thought out loud. "That way, once the next war comes, I'll be of more use than just remembering how to say words others write for me."
Ser Balon smiled good-naturedly. "I'm sure Rhaegar is quivering in his boots as we speak."
It was a lie, but it was lie made out of kindness, and Sansa was thankful for such small acts of kindness before her war truly began.
.
.
.
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.
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Notes & Responses: Regarding why Robb died with his father...he is a "grown" man of 16 at that point, and I'd imagine Ned believes it a serious duty to train his heir and future king in the field of war...and what better than a nice little starter war against some pirates they thought would be easy to win. Also, it's not as if Ned isn't known for the occasional bout of stupidity.
As for Samwell/Sansa...that's definitely an interesting pairing! Whether it'll happen here or not...I do have a feeling that Randyll Tarly despises his eldest son here just as much as canon, and would definitely be angling to send him up to the Wall..
