Sansa was nearly sick with jealousy every time she looked to Lord and Lady Reed.
Not only because seeing them together, able to talk and touch and smile together, made the ache of Willas' absence all the more pronounced, but because here was Father's greatest friend, alive and well, with his lady wife at his side, she just as alive and twice as hale, when Sansa's father had been robbed of his head and her mother had been robbed of her heart. It wasn't fair.
It hurt more than seeing Lord Mace and Lady Alerie together had, during Sansa's early days at Highgarden - it had been next to impossible to look at them or at Garlan and Leonette or at any of the married cousins, because she had looked at them all and seen everything her mother had lost, everything she was sure was out of her reach, because surely a man of Willas' years and learning and experience would never look at her the way his father looked at his mother. She had overcome that, though, because Willas had so quickly given his heart into her keeping, and because she had been part of Highgarden, right from the moment Willas wrapped her in green and cloth-of-gold.
Here, in stilted, stifling Greywater Watch, she was an outsider, and there was no comfort to be had in Lady Jyana's presence. Lady Alerie was ever a balm, no matter what hurts Sansa took, but Lady Jyana offered nothing but a cool practicality and a polite welcome, and saved all her warmth for her husband.
It was too much like the way Father saved the best of himself for Mother for Sansa to ever like the woman, living the sort of life denied her parents, and so she held herself back, allowed Arya to lead here, where she seemed so very at home, and from which Sansa wished to be gone as quickly as she could.
"You are not our first guests who owe their visit to this war," Lord Reed said, tugging on his short, thick beard, watching them with sharply green eyes. "There are some who hide here for fear of what might be done to obtain that which was entrusted to them. Do you wish to meet them?"
"You knew this," Willas said, feeling as if he might lose his mind, "and said nothing?!"
"What good would it have done for you to know," Lannister said evenly, "when your brother was already halfway to Oldtown by the time of our arrival?"
"You knew that a madman has control of a fucking dragon!" Willas shouted, giving up on maintaining any semblance of control because Garlan was in the worst danger imaginable, and he was powerless to help. "A dragon that he is going to use on Oldtown!"
"I understand that your brother is a sensible man, my lord," Lannister said coolly, painfully unmoved by Willas' terror. "Surely he will not put himself in the dragon's path?"
"I am sure that no man on the Field of Fire thought to put himself in a dragon's path, and thousands still burned, you insufferable shit!"
Lannister leaned back in his chair, looking almost... Surprised.
"If you'll calm yourself a little, my lord," he said, "I can explain why we did not think to tell you."
Willas' hands were still shaking, but he lowered himself into his chair and cast aside his crutches in pure temper, waiting for Lannister to begin.
"There is no way to combat a dragon," Lannister said, "but there are many ways of countering Ironborn reavers. Had your brother been informed of the incoming dragon, he might have been distracted from the task at hand, and there would have been no one to defend from the raiders attacking the coast and the villages outside the city. Am I wrong, my lord?"
Willas could not find so much as a single word to explain just how disgusted he was by Lannister's actions. Garlan was marching to almost certain doom, Grandfather and Baelor and Malora and all the rest would surely die as well, if a dragon was set on razing Oldtown, and Lannister knew.
"You have killed my brother," Willas said. "As surely as if you had wielded the sword yourself."
"Well," Lannister said easily, "brothers always prove themselves less worthy of your love than you initially believe, so what of it? He would only have disappointed you."
"You must understand, Lady Sansa," Lady Mormont said, looking more annoyed than anything else, "that so far as your brother and his advisors - myself among them - knew, you were wed into a House which stood staunch behind the Lannister bastard."
"My husband's family murdered the Lannister bastard," Sansa said, "and while my goodsister did wed the kitten, that was as much about removing Cersei and Tywin Lannister from influence as anything else."
"And installing your goodbrother on the Kingsguard?" Lady Mormont challenged, jaw set in a way that made Sansa think of Arya. "That was surely just to influence the boy king, and had nothing to do with gaining prestige for the roses of Highgarden."
"My goodbrother is dead," Sansa said sharply. "Installing him on the Kingsguard was the best chance my goodfather saw of protecting my goodsister from harm while they worked their schemes, which of course were about gaining prestige for House Tyrell. Not all lords have motives so pure as my father or brother, Lady Mormont. Perhaps that is why they survive where we Starks seem to die so much more readily."
"You have survived as well, Lady Sansa," Lady Mormont said, cool and drawn back. "You have grown strong under the protection of your husband's family. A pity their protection did not extend to your brother or mother, or to my daughter, or-"
"A pity you are so eager to blame someone for treason that you will turn your anger on a girl who was powerless to help, my lady," Lord Reed said quietly. "You know well there was naught Lady Sansa or her husband's family could have done to stay the hands of the Freys and Boltons - those wheels were long in motion by the time she was made a Tyrell."
"I was in the High Tower of Oldtown when I was told what had happened," Sansa said, queasy at the memories. "The Queen had ordered us to King's Landing, but my husband wished to spare me that, and so he took me to meet his mother's family. I had no idea of any of it, not even of Robb wedding the Westerling girl, not until it was done. All I could do was pray for their souls, that they would find their rest. I was... I have been powerless for a very long time, Lady Mormont. My House has been powerless to stop our fates for a long time."
Lady Mormont had taken to Arya immediately, congratulating her on having survived so much, for so long - but she had no such warmth for Sansa. Master Glover had at least hidden his disdain a little better, but Lady Mormont was not a woman for false courtesies, and had made it clear that she had little sympathy for what Sansa may have suffered, in the face of what comfort she had had since marrying Willas. Not so long ago, Sansa might have quailed before her, cowed by the old woman's righteous anger, but she knew that Lady Mormont's anger was not meant for her so much as for all that has been lost, and Sansa's own removal from it.
"I did not ask if you cried for your mother or not, my lady," Lady Mormont said. "I mean only that it is not for you to say what good any choices have made - this war has barely happened for you. Safe as a hostage at court, and then an illustrious marriage? Hardly a difficult few years."
Arya moved to defend Sansa, which surprised her, but she held up a hand to forestall Arya's words.
Her cloak whispered to the floor, and Lady Mormont looked confused when Sansa's hands went to the fastenings of her gown.
"I was not safe as a hostage at court," she said. "From the moment Joffrey Baratheon made me watch Ilyn Payne take my father's head, I was not safe."
Arya helped her pull her arms from her sleeves, helped her arrange her shift and stays to show off the worst of her scarring.
"From the moment Robb went to war," Sansa said, "I was his whipping girl at court. Every time Joffrey Baratheon was displeased by something, whether done by my brother or by Balon Greyjoy or by Stannis Baratheon, the Kingsguard were set to beating me."
She turned, and Lady Mormont and Master Glover and Lord Reed all stayed silent.
"I spent half my time out of my mind on poppy's milk," Sansa said, "because I had to heal well enough for the King to have me beaten again when next his temper snapped."
Arya gave her a grim little smile as she helped tug Sansa's clothes back into place, and Sansa was grateful for it. It was hard to even think about all that Joffrey had done and threatened to do, but if it made Lady Mormont take her at all seriously, Sansa would do it.
"Do not tell me that the war barely happened for me," Sansa said, fastening the silver roses to hold her cloak in place when Humfrey settled it around her shoulders. "I carry my brother's victories on my skin every day, Lady Mormont."
Lady Mormont looked her in the eye properly for the first time since they had been introduced then, and had the nerve to smile.
"There is more of your mother in you than I believed," she said. "Good. We will need her strength of will if we are to sort the mess the Boltons have made of the North."
"Let's begin with Robb's will," Arya said, sounding grateful. "I think we can all agree that it is null, given that Rickon is alive?"