Tyrion
The Half Man woke, and wondered whether his dick had frozen off during the previous night. If he were a man to believe in silly things like omens or premonitions, Tyrion Lannister would have wondered whether his longtime fascination with seeing the Wall, one he could trace back to his childhood, had instead been a warning, from one cryptic set of gods or another, that he should have followed his grandfather's example instead of his father's and stayed in Casterly Rock all his life, drinking and whoring himself to an early grave, whichever dynasty sat on the Iron Throne be damned.
"What are the chances father can get some good wine up here," he asked, trying his best to not spit up the nasty, bitter ale that was his accustomed breakfast since his arrival.
"Who's he supposed to ask," Jaime scoffed. "Benjen Stark? That man doesn't know the different between good wine, decent wine, or horse piss."
"You don't think much of the Lord of Winterfell, do you?"
A shrug from his brother, whom he had missed dearly most of his life, their reunion the only pleasant aspect to his exile.
"He's not the worst." A look upwards, where the steps of the Lord Commander's boots echoed through the wooden planks. "But father would have never allowed his wife and children to be taken captive to the opposite side of the country."
Except they aren't Benjen Stark's children, are they? Not all of them, anyway.
"No," Tyrion rebutted, "he's only allowed that for his daughter and grandchildren, and for his two remaining sons to keep him company in a frozen wasteland. What a sterling legacy for the once mighty Hand to King Aerys, Second of His Glorious Name, scourge of the Reynes and Tarbecks."
It would seem his words would drive his brother to drink as well, as Jaime stole a sip from his cup, and actually did not wince after swallowing. Tyrion wondered if he'd ever get used to the stench of these rotten ales.
"You thought you could've been the girl's Hand one day, didn't you," his brother asked with half a smirk.
"That would've given father a healthy stroke."
They both laughed, but Jaime's laugh was heavy, and Tyrion had a feeling that their sister's captivity never fell far from his mind.
"She'll be fine," Tyrion said softly, patting his brother's hand with his own. "She's stronger than both of us. To be honest, she'd probably prefer Horn Hill to Winterfell. I remember her complaining about how the cold dried up her skin, last I saw her."
"She took surprisingly well to the North," Jaime said wistfully. "I didn't expect that."
"Having her family close by to her didn't hurt," Tyrion replied, looking carefully for any reaction from Jaime. He saw nothing. "Did father ever visit her?"
Jaime shook his head. "She never came to Castle Black either."
Of course not. No reason to be excessively suspicious, Cersei knows that.
Picking up his bowl of what his so-called brothers, along with his actual brother, decided would pose for soup, Jaime forced down what remained of his breakfast and rose to leave.
"Another ranging expedition?" His brother nodded. "Think you'll find any snarks or grumpkins this time?"
"A few terrified wildlings if we're lucky," Jaime replied, hands polishing the hilt of his sword, "but anything to keep the men busy...anything but restless, really."
He recognized the King's son on his way to see his father. Having met the eldest surviving child of Rhaegar Targaryen his last visit to Winterfell, Tyrion wasn't entirely surprised, hearing of his self imposed exile following the actions of his father in King's Landing. Jon Stark was exactly that, a Stark, and two decades in the snow had clearly frozen out whatever dragon left hiding in the man's heart to begin with.
"Jon."
"Tyrion."
"I see you've become acquainted with my father."
Jon paused in the cramped hallway, not sure what to say to the man. Apparently Tywin Lannister still retained his abilities to leave people of all sorts speechless.
"He wants me to learn from your brother, says I may follow in his footsteps as First Ranger one day."
"Hmm," Tyrion said, not exactly caught off guard. "I'd say it's funny to ask a Stark to learn the ways of the north from a Lannister, but then, the two of you have been northmen for about the same amount of years now, haven't you?"
The would be heir to the Seven Kingdoms looked awkwardly around the hallway. "Ser Jaime's skills with a sword are unmatched."
"That it is," Tyrion stammered, the conversation dying in the ice. Jon nodded, and watching him walk away, Tyrion pushed open the door to his father's room without knocking.
"House Lannister of Castle Black," he proclaimed loudly to his father, hunched over his desk reading a book. "The Starks have Winter is Coming, I say our new house words ought be Winter is Here, considering how much further north our family is situated from the Starks."
The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch did not deign to turn his head. "Everything still a joke to you, boy?"
"Don't think there's much else to do here. Either joke and keep our wits sharp, or numb our minds through the slaughtering women and children and dressing it as a great cause in shielding the Seven Kingdoms from harm. Is it the latter course you've chosen, dear father?"
"Nothing else we can do, hmmph?" It sounded like a question, but to Tyrion, there was resignation in his voice even as his statement sounded something close to a challenge towards his youngest son.
"Oh, I see you've been doing plenty here," Tyrion chuckled. "First your son, then the actual heir to the Seven Kingdoms as your First Ranger. A Tarly as Steward and understudy to Maester Aemon, another Targaryen, though one you've inherited...a Royce as Master-at-Arms, a Hightower in command of the Shadow Tower...appropriate, a Mallister at Greyguard...I daresay, father, you already have a Small Council prepared whenever you decide to proclaim Rhaegar's son the proper King of the Andals and the First Men. Or is it yourself you seek to crown, this time around?"
"I have use for men of talents," Tywin's back said, his hands flipping a page in the tome.
"Talented men, with more talented names."
"Far more talent than the man who lost Casterly Rock," Tywin said, finally turning to greet his son with his own eyes.
It hurt. Even after all these years, a grown man having served on both a Small Council and a Regency Council, his father's bite still stung.
"I thought you'd rejoice. Your hated imp of a son finally put in his rightful place."
"Your rightful place is Casterly Rock," his father responded, anger brimming in his eyes and voice. "You let your home, my home, be usurped right under your nose..."
"By your brother," Tyrion said, his ire rising, his father never failing in drawing out the most bile from his stomach. "Tell me, father, would you have worried, in my place, about your beloved and loyal Kevan betraying you?"
"I wouldn't have thought it likely," Tywin conceded, "but I would have prepared for it all the same."
Easy to say this now.
A freezing draft blew in from outside. Great, I arrive, and just in time for winter. Just how had his father managed to acclimate himself to this gods forsaken place for over two decades now? But if Tywin Lannister could accomplish such a feat, surely he could bear it.
"Well, I suppose that was the one lesson you failed to teach me. Always distrust everyone, including your own family." He paused, then added with emphasis. "Especially your own family."
Tywin Lannister slammed shut his book and slumped down in his chair.
"You may have not been my favorite son..."
"You're telling me that."
"...but you're still my son. My line. My legacy. Kevan isn't. He insults me, what he did. He never would've dared done so, were I not shut away here."
"Would you put him down," Tyrion asked, eyes carefully studying his father, as he was genuinely interested in his answer, "like you put down the Reynes and Tarbecks?"
And the Targaryen infants.
There was silence.
"You're contemplating something, aren't you?"
"I've had a long time to think."
Tyrion shuddered, knowing there was little in this world more dangerous that a thoughtful Tywin Lannister with time on his hands to think, confined to the Wall or not.
"Targaryen, Stark...Lannister. Practically the entire realm has made enemies out of you now. What are you going to do, melt the Wall and drown all seven kingdoms one by one? Should I have the rangers start digging canals from Riverrun to the Eyrie all the way down to Sunspear?"
"Others take the seven kingdoms," his father muttered in a soft whisper. He looked back up at Tyrion. "What do you think of the man, Benjen Stark?"
"Loyal. Dutiful." It was an interesting question, and Tyrion was sure there was a very specific reason for it. "Surely he has to be those things, to have been married to my sister for so long." He ignored the disapproving glare at the casual insult of his sister. "He's not a happy man, not when I passed through Winterfell this time. He worries...whether for Cersei or...their children, I don't know."
"I think you should find out," Tywin said, his voice commanding again.
"So eager already to get rid of me, father?"
"You're right," his father admitted, one nostril twitching, "we ought time it better."
He's serious. By the Gods, he's serious.
"Surely you're not thinking of...making a move?"
"Surely you're not thinking of doing nothing," his father scolded, his voice as mean as Tyrion remembered in his worst nightmares, "while they hold and threaten and demean your sister and her children, my grandchildren, the only grandchildren I'll ever have, apparently?"
It was time to leave him be. He started walking away at first, but something unseen tugged at his sleeves.
"Tell me what you need me to do."
The game never ended. Especially not for a son of Tywin Lannister's.
Sansa
The King's supplicants looked more the proper part of pirates than the pathetic old man they'd executed at the Sept, before everything went so awfully awry. The boy, older than Robb though, really, looked as confident as she'd expect a pirate King to appear, though Sansa was growing to understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. The girl seemed to possess more of the former, preening not so much as her younger brother, but there was a hardness in her eyes that suggested that Yara Greyjoy, self-proclaimed Queen of the Iron Islands, did not fear anyone, not her uncle, much less a crippled old man sitting on an Iron Throne.
"King and Queen of the Iron Islands," Sansa mused out loud. They obviously did not allow her to participate in their Small Council meetings, so the Queen took every opportunity she could to attend to court herself, in hopes of maintaining her knowledge of the comings and goings and, as always, the splits and conflicts between the many quarreling noble families of Westeros. "Are you married to each other? You should know that incest is strictly forbidden in the Seven Kingdoms now, even between Kings and Queens, though it took three hundred long years for it to happen."
Were you there when they killed father and Robb, Sansa wanted to ask. Was it one of you who struck the killing blow?
"Married," the man called Theon scoffed. "To Yara? No offense sister, but I can surely do better."
"He can't," Yara replied, rolling her eyes.
"Nor can he oust your uncle from Pyke," Sansa chided. "Nor can you. Euron Greyjoy won your so-called Kingsmoot fairly. Why should the Crown support a band of usurpers who would wish to disrupt the will of the people and the tranquil peace of the Iron Islands?"
A careful look of reproach from Rhaegar and his Spider, neither of whom had missed the insult buried not so deeply in her words, and Sansa shrugged, looking innocently at her stomach, from whence Rhaegar's spawn would emerge within four moons. Would he look a Targaryen, Sansa wondered. She hoped not. Jon had taken after his Stark mother, and Sansa did not know whether she could love a child who bore the appearances of her enemy, not to mention the madness of their blood.
"Not fairly," Yara Greyjoy disputed. "He killed the Harlaws, who would have spoken for the claims of Balon's children, then Euron held the Kingsmoot while Theon and I were away, raiding off the coast of Kayce..."
"Raiding? Reaping, disrupting the Queen's law, I believe, I believe that's the proper way to describe piracy," Sansa replied firmly, figuring this would have occurred before her reign had been usurped with the help of the two pitiful supplicants standing below her. "Unless, Lady Yara, you had permission or, dare I say, even encouragement, from certain Westerosi highborns to raid the Seven Kingdoms, to spread the heresies of your false sea god in a land most faithful and dedicated to the Seven? Not the Queen, I know certain of that, but, perhaps others in this must fair court may have been in contact..."
"The Queen's wisdom is appreciated," Varys interrupted with a nervous chuckle. "Her Grace is correct, the Throne of the Iron Islands belongs rightfully to Euron Greyjoy, by the laws of your own people."
Rather than pay any heed towards the Ironborn, Rhaegar just stared sullenly at his Queen for her impudence.
I will defy you. I will always defy you. And you can't stop me, you need me, to bear your dragonspawn, to hold this realm together.
"He's a madman, Your Grace," Yara continued pleading. "Believe you me, the shores of Westeros, your people will suffer and there will be no lasting peace, not with Euron Greyjoy leading the Ironborn!"
"Then the King will crush the enemies of his people," Rhaegar spoke sternly, his deep voice echoing throughout the throne room, and Sansa could not help but wonder whether his ire was felt more towards the pirates, or his disobedient and flippant wife.
"You will," Theon asked rather casually. "You'll lead your armies yourself, Your Grace?"
Somehow the obtuse man did not even realize his own insult, or perhaps he thought it diplomatic. His sister knew immediately, and cast her brother a mix of annoyance and anger, but the damage was done.
"Ser Lewyn," Rhaegar ordered impatiently, "please have the City Guard escort the Lord and Lady Greyjoy back to the harbor."
The King's pet Martell did as he was told, while his grand nephew cast her an amused grin, which Sansa pretended to ignore.
"Who's next," Rhaegar asked impatiently.
"A lady from Volantis," Kevan Lannister announced, attending to the court this day in the place of the King's Hand. "Kinvara, was the only name she gave, though she claims to be a High Priestess..."
Both the Queen and King looked up eagerly towards the entrance of the throne room at the news, though for entirely different reasons. A small but assuredly looking woman approached the Iron Throne, casting barely any notice towards the austere furnishings surrounding her, her eyes burning solely in the direction of the broken man sitting upon the Iron Throne. Through the many dresses she'd sewn, Sansa had never seen a vivider red than the lace of the robes which clung very tightly against the woman's body, and the corner of her eyes flew to the High Sparrow standing next to Kevan Lannister, satisfyingly noting the disapproval in his demeanor.
"Rhaegar of the House Targaryen," the priestess said in a deep voice, after the most cursory of a knee bending.
"Kinvara," Rhaegar recognized by name. "It has been a long time."
"Yet mere seconds in the eyes of the Lord." Again, an unhappy twitch of the eye from the High Sparrow.
This was going even better than Sansa could have ever hoped. The Red Keep was her home, she knew her way around the halls and solars, and Sers Balon and Trystane were too happy to take her where she wanted to go, and keep her secrets afterwards. All she'd needed were a few minutes sitting behind Rhaegar's desk, writing and sending a scroll to Volantis with her husband's seal upon the parchment. She could not have expected the respondent to have been a woman familiar to Rhaegar, perhaps even the priestess he'd supposedly met in his distant past, the same one who'd driven him towards lust and war.
The woman's intense eyes burned upon her too, and Sansa found herself too entranced to notice Rhaegar's gaze of...eager anticipation, was it, in the direction of his wife.
"Lord Kevan," the King said, his voice softer than Sansa had ever heard. "You may dismiss the court. There are things the Lady and I must discuss in private."
She noted the confusion and...yes, it was disapproval, in the Lannister usurper's face as he obeyed the King's orders. Oddly enough, Sansa saw Varys observing at the red priestess with the same muted hostility as the High Sparrow.
"My Queen," Rhaegar said to her rather tenderly, "you must accompany us. Listen to the Lady Kinvara's words, and you will finally understand your role, our role together, in the great war to come."
This invitation came at a cost. Rhaegar did not trust her, she'd seen well enough to that, for good or for ill, and Sansa had expected him to dismiss her as he'd dismissed everyone else, and it would be far better if she were not seen partaking in the same appearances of heresies she'd plotted for her enemies.
"Of course, my King." The Queen rose, a burden as always these days, and as she watched Ser Lewyn helping the king down the steps and into his chair, Sansa called out to the High Sparrow. "Your Grace," Sansa said politely, "a Priestess of a strange religion seeks the audience of the Most Faithful Crown. We know little of her practices, or her ways, though it is good, because the Light of the Seven ought be the only words from the Gods which meet our eyes and greet our ears. Would it be appropriate, my King, for us to meet this most kind priestess without our conduit to the Gods accompanying us, so that he may advise us of the wills of the Seven whilst we speak to those who would deny them?"
There was indecision in the King's eyes, the first she'd seen of it, and a hidden rage beneath it, Sansa thought. Then Rhaegar was all calm and control again, he turned to the High Sparrow, but not before shooting her yet another bitter look of resentment.
"Please, my good man, I bid you join us."
They walked in silence to a small solar nearby. The Priestess walked strangely at the head of their procession, as if she knew already where she was to go, and the King's eyes never left his priestess along the way. They settled in the room, and the red woman allowed her king to speak first.
"I met the Lady Kinvara many years ago," Rhaegar finally began, ensconced behind his desk. "I was riding to Harrenhal, to Lord Whent's tourney, when the Lady found me in camp one night. She knew...of things she ought not know. Of myself. Of my family, my father, my wife...children."
"Witchery, Your Grace," the High Sparrow scolded.
"You do not interrupt your King!"
His voice had been so harsh, and his harshness so sudden, that it stunned even the High Sparrow into silence. All calmness and dignity again, the King resumed his story.
"The Lady Kinvara told me of the great war to come, of the great enemy, who lie beyond the Wall."
The Others, Sansa wondered. Our valiant King is scared of some ancient children's tale?
"...she spoke of Azor Ahai, the Prince Who Was Promised, and how his return was imminent. She spoke of the purity of fire, of the return of the dragons, born of fire, and of how the Dragon must have three heads, as it was for my ancestor Aegon and his two sisters...of how their conquering was but a foreshadowing, an omen, an arrow shot by the Gods, to point the way forward."
He stopped. They all stood quietly, all hesitating in their muted reactions, before Sansa broke out first in laughter.
"You believe you're this great prince?" She looked at Ser Lewyn, standing dutifully behind his King. "He believes he's a figure of prophecy? Has he always been as mad as his father, Ser Lewyn? Was it this dedication to his false Gods and their prophecies the reason he kidnapped and raped my Aunt Lyanna and nearly destroyed this entire country with his war?"
The King did not scold her as he scolded his High Sparrow, but Sansa saw in this moment the fiery rage in the eyes of her husband, and she shivered, wondering if her insults had gone a step too far, wondering whether her grandfather and uncle Brandon had not seen the same madness in Aerys before they'd burned.
Then it was gone again, and when Rhaegar spoke, it was as His Grace, the Most Faithful and dignified King. "Not me, clearly. But the blood of the dragon, yes, the direct line of the Conqueror...and soon. Perhaps it's good my son stands at the Wall today, it's the will of the Gods, that he prepares us for what's to come." He turned to the Red Priestess, who'd done nothing but observe them all, lacking any trace of emotion. "Tell them, my Lady Kinvara, of the true enemy, the great threat. Show them what you helped me see that night, in the flames."
"My King," Kinvara replied with a smile. "There is no enemy. The enemy sleeps. The enemy may never be."
"What?" Leaning forward, he slapped the surface of his desk with both hands, his knuckles straining against his skin. "What...what are you saying? Did you...were you lying to me, all those years ago? What riddles do you speak of, woman..."
"You were supposed to die," the woman interrupted without a second thought, the King strangely obedient when she spoke. Letting her words marinate, the priestess continued. "Only death pays for life. The blood of the dragon would have bathed the waters holy, reawakening the dragons, reawakening the spirits of the old, calling forth the Prince into our world. But the dragon lives, the enemy sleeps, and the war will be forgotten. For how long, I cannot say, but none of us, not even myself, will live to see it, or the Prince's return."
"I..." The King's hands, his jaw, his entire frame of body seemed to shake unsteadily. "It can't be."
"It is," the red woman said coldly. "Do you contest the will of the Lord, my King, for you are but a suckling babe to Him."
"I...do you know what I've done? Do you know everything I've done for you, for your great war..."
The red priestess looked to the King with the amusement of a cat towards her prey entrapped. "I just told you the enemy sleeps, Your Grace. Why does my King not rejoice, all his seven kingdoms, all his false prophets ought rejoice at such wonderful tidings."
When no one spoke, the priestess leaned down onto the desk, until her eyes were level with the King's.
"But the King does not rejoice, because he is cursed. Yes...how can a man condemned to die by the Lord of Light, who yet lives, not be accursed? His presence, his wrongness, in this world as much a blight as the enemy himself. He defies R'hilor, by drawing breath, so all who stand within sight of his breath are cursed also." Her small and curvy frame rose from the desk, and the witch looked first towards Ser Lewyn. "The Prince lives because of you. So you are also accursed, so you will suffer, as you have suffered already."
Then, her strange eyes stared into Sansa, and for a moment she saw flames where her irises should have been, and inside the flames she saw...a castle? Waves, crashing against rocks. A sword, flying into the ocean, as if it had its own will, as if it were an arrow shot by an unseen hand. A flock of crows, growing and multiplying against a blue sky, until their cover made it night. Then the sky cleared to reveal a full moon over what she recognized as Blackwater Bay, and closer to her, as if she were standing there, and not here, stood a balcony, and two glasses of wine half poured set upon its railing.
The witch's words broke her reverie.
"So you are accursed too, because you carry the seed of the man who cursed you. So you will suffer too, as you have suffered already."
"You," Rhaegar began, his chest heaving angrily underneath his vest. "How...how dare you? You will die, witch, I will order it, I will have Ser Lewyn take your head before the sun sets tonight!"
But the red priestess did not seem scared in the least by the King's threats. "Then I beg of you, give release to the words, it will be a relief, to no longer have to carry this great burden of mine." The King shrank from her, as if it was the priestess, and not he, who held the power of life and death. "You speak of the night," Kinvara continued boldly, "so I will tell you of it. The Long Night will not come, because the accursed Prince lives. But the dragons burn once more. You will see morning, Rhaegar, of House Targaryen...but it will be the death of you."
"Out with you! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! OUT! OUT!"
Finally, the Lord Commander, who seemed himself in a trance, same as Sansa during this most unpredictable audience, stirred himself back into obedience, grabbing roughly the arms of the priestess. Turning towards the rear of the room, Sansa saw that only the High Sparrow remained unmoved by the witch's pronouncements.
"I did warn you, Your Grace," he said, echoes of gloating in his raspy voice, "towards allowing such vile heresies to..."
"Your sins are grave, young man."
The High Sparrow looked bemusedly at the priestess. He chuckled. "Young, I am not. And yes, I have sinned, a lifetime ago. But I did penance for my sins, I confessed before the Gods..."
"You sin still," the priestess interrupted. "You will sin until your dying day. I will see you again, on your dying day. Then, you may atone, for one life, weighed down by sin."
Trystane frowned while she told recounted him the strange tale.
"You say she cursed you all?"
"That's what you got from it," Sansa asked, smiling, leaning her head back to feel his breath upon the brow of her upper lip. Running one arm around the back of his neck, she traced the tip of one finger gently across his eyebrows, as elegant as any woman's. "Not Rhaegar's lunacy, not his tales of White Walkers and grumpkins and snarks, but...the Red Woman's curses?"
Yet, her words did not sit comfortably upon her mind either. She ought to be thrilled, absolutely delighted, at Rhaegar's comeuppance, at his embarrassment of having been spit upon and rejected by his prize witch, though his shame had been witnessed by only a very select few. And the Queen had gotten more than what she'd wished for from the witch's arrival...a public audience in the Throne Room, Rhaegar acknowledging his familiarity with a High Priestess of R'hilor before all the lords and ladies of his court, then a secret meeting between the King, the Priestess, and the humblest new High Septon. Yet, something seemed wrong, and Sansa could not but blame it upon what remained of her childishness, that she should worry about the curses of a woman who spoke the same riddles as the Mad King probably did before he'd ordered his entire court burnt for his own amusement.
Yet what I saw in her eyes...the flames. I felt those flames. And everything else...
"I was cursed once," Trystane replied, his own eyes distant. "It was during the war."
"When you fought my uncle's bannermen?"
"Before," he replied with a whisper. "We defeated a Mallister scouting party. Connington had the young knight executed, when he refused to surrender."
"Jaquil Mallister." She'd remembered reading the lists of names, of young lords and knights who'd died for her. Whose deaths had been in vain, for a lost cause, though not entirely lost yet.
A nervous twitch of his mouth. Sansa knew that had he been present before the red witch, if he could ask of her his greatest wish, it would be that he'd never once raised his sword against his Queen, his love. "Before he died...I remember, I remember his eyes. They...they looked not like the eyes of a young man, but...an old knight...a madman, even, perhaps. He cursed us all, right there on the spot, I remember how the birds sang, while he spoke. Then, we met Lord Stark in battle, and we lost. Many were slaughtered. My uncle..."
Knowing how much his uncle Oberyn had meant to him, knowing also that he'd been reluctant to make war against her, Sansa squeezed his hand. Then she awkwardly turned her body, so that her chest faced his, and though her stomach lay wedged between them, she ran one hand in between his arm and around his back, and buried her head into his thinly clothed chest. Yet, even as she comforted him, she could not dispel her own ill thoughts.
"Connington lives. Rather well, I think. So it would appear that wasn't much of a curse at all."
"And I live." She felt upon her forehead a soft kiss. "And I get to protect the woman I love. I get to repent, to make up for the war I made against her. And I go to sleep, knowing that I have in my heart the love of a Queen, the Queen whom I'd dreamed of every night since she made time to speak to a poor hostage in Winterfell."
Snuggling her face as deeply as she could into his warm body and softly heaving chest, Sansa gave thanks to the only unexpected blessing which had arisen from the disaster that was her reign. "Hmmm. Had I known you'd been so besotted with me so many years ago, I would have broken my betrothal to Viserys, then sent Lancel Lannister to the Wall. You'd make a far better King Consort than any of them."
"King?" Trystane laughed, a magical, musical sound. "Prince is more than good enough."
"Really?" Sansa frowned, her eyebrows tickling against her lover's skin. "Everyone wants to be king, seems to be the only lesson I've learned in this rotten business."
"I was a born a Prince," he said contemplatively, his head nestled comfortably above hers. "It's what I know. It's all I need, so long as I have you."
"It would seem," Sansa said, though more to herself, "that you're the first good choice I've had for a man in my life." A sword swallower, a fool, and an idiot, before she'd found her truest prince.
"A dangerous one."
"I know." Their moments together were few and precious. Only Ser Balon knew, and he covered for them, so they could only spend time together while he stood guard outside her door. Sansa knew what all men wanted, including Trystane. She remembered how frightened he'd been, their first night together, fearing that he might hurt the child in her stomach on that first wonderful night, when she'd finally learned of the true pleasures a woman and a man could enjoy together. She wanted it too, but not this day. Her body hurt, her head ached, but of course Trystane had understood, content to only rub her neck and back while she tried forgetting the disturbing encounter in the King's solar. He was so patient, and she did not deserve him.
Especially considering how she risked both their lives even when they lay chastely together, as they did now.
"Have you decided yet, what you're going to do to all your traitors."
"Hmm," Sansa pretended to consider. "I'd have the Lannisters hung, to start with. You can take Mace Tyrell's head, then we can both watch Tarly and the High Sparrow be stoned in the streets..."
She chanted this like a song, the same way she sang whilst she picked the flowers in her gardens, when she'd been a child.
"And the dragons?" Trystane knew better than to mention Rhaegar's name out loud to her.
The words of the Red Woman resurfaced in the Queen's head.
"But the dragons burn once more." Surely the priestess hadn't been speaking of the Littlefinger.
"Wouldn't it be funny, if they burned?"
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Notes & Responses: As to why Edmure had to marry a Frey even though he didn't need the crossing? It was noted several times in prior chapters that he was struggling to rally together enough men to come to the relief of KL, due to the disapproval in the more Andal and Seven worshiping houses of first Sansa's "unfaithfulness", and then disgust at the destruction of the Sept, so he needed the men whom the Freys commanded. And oh, in fact, wasn't that the very reason Edmure had to marry Roslin in canon? Not for the crossing, but for the Frey banners to help Robb take Casterly Rock.
A note here that I will no longer waste my time posting responses here to certain reviewers/reviews who think themselves much smarter than they are, yet are obviously lacking in reading comprehension, logical sense, and/or knowledge of the source material.
