Daisy lay on her side in bed, her eyes tracing over the scars along Sansa's back. Whatever had caused it was rigid, they weren't scars from a whip, but clearly, she'd been struck with something. These scars were older than the thin slices that were almost certainly from Ramsey. She trailed her fingers across the one that reached almost to Sansa's shoulder. Daisy had her own scars, but she wondered at the differences in how they'd acquired them. And what the difference killing the ones who gave them made.
Sansa made a quiet sound, clearly still mostly asleep.
She was helpless to stop the smile spreading across her face. Daisy glanced up at the soft light of dawn starting to peek through the window. The rest of the world would be rushing in again soon. Closing her eyes she focused on the vibrations of the castle around them.
It was Seth guarding the door, she recognized his familiar vibrations. Beyond the door outside the room, however, she could feel the thousands of heartbeats, the low hum of stone, the higher ringing of the pipes in the walls, and the hundred other unique vibrations. Nothing felt different than any other day; guards on the walls, courtiers in the noble quarters, various servants bustling around, the chaos of the kitchens. Someone was lighting up the forges already. Her lips twitched, Ser Mouser was being chased by at least two Order members.
Daisy's attention was caught by the faint change in the beating of Sansa's heart. She let her focus on the vibrations fade, though it never faded to nothing now. Her eyes opened as she watched Sansa sluggishly come to.
Sansa stretched slightly to clearly realized Daisy was there, and then her eyes snapped open, a faint whisper of panic before she recognized her. Her eyes widened as her face heated up.
Who could resist that? It was laugh or kiss her. So Daisy kissed her, smiling into it as she did. Cause she got to kiss Sansa Stark now!
"Morning." Daisy's smile was in her voice as she pulled back.
Sansa softened. "Morning."
"So…everyone is going to know aren't they?" Daisy absently trailed her fingers along Sansa's arm.
She gave a hesitant nod. "Yes."
"Sounds fun." Daisy snorted, it was weird. Nobody had cared who she was sleeping with before. "I'm going to have to punch some idiots for your honor at some point aren't I?"
Sansa reached up, threading her fingers into Daisy's hair, and kissed her. It was all slow purposeful heat. The sensation and press of the other woman, had Daisy melting back into the bedspread beneath her.
Far too soon Sansa was pulling back. Turning away from her she sat up, the blankets pooling off of her as she climbed out of the bed.
Daisy let out a huff. That was just unfair. But fine, challenge accepted. Sliding out of bed she started picking up her clothing as she followed the trail of it to the attached office thing. Pulling her shirt on over her head, she stepped back into the bedroom. Wow, this was going to be the most public walk of shame ever. Not that she felt anything close to shame. More giddy excitement at the dawn of something new.
She raised a brow at Sansa utterly ignoring her clothing on the floor and instead pulling new items from her chest of clothing. Although fair, but seriously rich people. With a slight shake of her head, she stepped forward, kissing Sansa's bare shoulder, one of her hands curling around her waist to hold her gently. "One of the servants will be here in about forty seconds."
Sansa pulled a fresh shift over her head. "Thank you."
"Totes." Daisy grinned as she stepped back and pulled on her pants. Which… "I need to go check with the Order, make sure Fitz is alive and remembered to sleep." She noted the pause and increase in heart rate just outside the door. The servant def knew what they were about to walk into. "Probably clean clothes, but I'll be there for the meetings on the whole Dragonstone thing."
Sansa blinked but neatly replied. "Of course, if you could have two to three of your Order in mind for the diplomatic party."
"I can do that." Daisy cocked her head considering Sansa and ignored the poor servant who was cleaning up Sansa's clothing from the night before. "You know Tyrion, better than Jon seems to think he does. What do I need to know?"
Sansa gave a faint hum as she clearly considered that. "He likes intelligent people. And he has a soft spot for those whom society trods upon. Not enough to help, but he finds them more interesting." Sansa sighed. "He's a drunk, a whoremonger, and very clever. He likes being the smartest man in the room, which he usually is. While he might not be cruel for sport he's capable of it should he need to be. Don't underestimate him, he'll talk Jon into something stupid in less than a week if you don't interfere. "
"Noted." Daisy pulled her coat thing on, lacing up the front. "Are you going to send Loras?"
Sansa shook her head. "No, so long as he is here and by my side the Tryells will not support an attack on the North unless they have no choice. If this Dragon Queen's chief supporters can keep her focused away from us for as long as possible it will only help our position."
Daisy paused...it felt slightly awkward with a servant there, but fuck it. She stepped forward. One hand curled around Sansa's waist, the other gently cradling the side of Sansa's face, as she leaned up pressing her mouth against hers. She wasn't leaving any doubt that she wanted more than a one night stand in Sansa Stark's head.
Reluctantly she pulled back. "See you in a bit."
/
Jon desperately wanted to pull his sister aside and ask her what on earth was going on. Because he hadn't been aware she and Daisy were going to fake being paramours? They were faking, right? The whole courtship was fake. Some forewarning would have been appreciated… was it because of his actions in court? It made no sense to him. But then half of what Sansa did was baffling until she explained it, at which point you felt like an idiot for not seeing it. Now wasn't the time for that.
"What do we offer to this Targaryen for the dragonglass then?" Greatjon asked, his arms crossed. His clear hangover from victorious toasts the night before clear to be seen.
Sansa spoke slowly. "With Daisy willing to fly word from Dragonstone to Winterfell and back we can have proper negotiations. But what Danaerys will want is for the North to bend the knee. Which is something we cannot give to her. Not for all her armies, dragons, and supplies together." Her voice was decisive.
There was unanimous agreement from the various Lords there. Including some muttered swears at the concept of bending the knee.
Jon's fist clenched, hidden by his cloak. He understood, of course, he did. But they would die without this help.
"We promise our aid against Cersei, I'd rather a mad Targaryen than that Lannister bitch." Manderly grunted, another victim of a hangover. The whole damned court had overindulged the night before.
Sansa gave a nod. "If she can be convinced that the Dead are coming, her own self-interest might move her. After all, she wants to rule over us, not be killed by our corpses." She laid her hand upon the table the map was over. "We carve up the Riverlands. By right they owe the Winter Throne their allegiance, but they are unable to fight anything after the wars. Any war over territory there would ruin what wreckage has survived. And with the Dead marching, we cannot retake them. It's semantics at this point, but it is land that can be seeded to her without harming our position. The Riverlands will need food and aid we can little afford to survive the winter besides."
"They swore to your brother." Cerwyn's voice was disgusted.
Jon was gruff as he responded. "We die without this help."
"A fact we're all aware of." Sansa cut over. "Until we've rejected her initial demand to bend and begin proper negotiation we cannot settle on everything." She looked around the various Lords. "Twenty men at arms will be sent with our emessarial party. Jon, as my Hand and as my brother you will hold my authority in these negotiations. That said, Lord Manderly, your cousin Marlon Manderly is to join the party when they reach Whiteharbor. Lord Greengood, you are to accompany my brother with this party as well. Tormund, is there a clan leader of the Wildlings you would recommend to go with Jon?"
Tormund rubbed at his beard. "Aye, I can think of a fucker or two worth sending."
"I will trust in your choice then. Have them prepared and ready to depart on the morrow." Sansa looked at Daisy. "You as well as two members of the Order if you consent to it."
Daisy was easy as she nodded. "Of course."
"If I may," Baelish spoke, his face smarmy and punchable, "perhaps a Lord of the Vale as well?"
Sansa's gaze turned on the man. "Do you have one in mind?"
"Ser Moore and Lord Shett would make a statement of the Vale's support of your rule, and our fight against the Dead." Baelish deferred as he made the offer.
And it was all so irritatingly proper and pointless as the diplomatic party's members and various options for the acquiring of the dragonglass were argued.
Jon spoke as soon as they reached the top of the battlements. "We'd have traveled faster with a smaller party."
"And you'd have met a foreign Queen in a position of weakness." Sansa snapped, as she turned and 'oh'. She was furious. "Do you know the position you've put us in? The position that is only salvageable because of Daisy?"
"Without help, without dragonglass, and without more men, we will die. That is a fact." Jon stood his ground. "You, and all those Lords and all of your pride will get us killed."
Sansa's eyes flashed as she took a half step forward, her arm snapping to one side. "Pride? You think this is about pride!? This is about survival, you idiot!"
He barely resisted taking a half step back.
"You threatened to commit treason yesterday! You, my Hand, my brother! If Daisy hadn't stepped in I would have been forced to lose the respect we are depending on or have had you locked in chains! Do you think the Lords of the North will go into almost certain death on my orders if my own brother refuses? We are on the brink of open war against the monsters that made our ancestors build a wall seven hundred feet high! The Long Night, the darkest time in all of our known history is upon us! Even if we survive the Dead that doesn't mean the cold, endless night of a years long winter won't."
Jon blanched at the word 'treason'. He hadn't meant it like that. "Sansa-"
"Don't Sansa me!" She half snarled, it was startling from his prim and proper sister. "We have to be smarter than them. We have to be stronger, smarter, everything, or else we'll die. And if we survive the cold, the Dead, starvation, and endless winter. If we survive all that, do you think this Targaryen won't be waiting to burn us and our land to ashes? The North won't follow a leader who bows, not after the shame and bloodshed we've been through these past few years."
He swallowed. "We make them understand it's needed. If that's the cost of surviving the Dead. You haven't seen them Sansa, we have no hope without this."
"We have no hope for any of it! We never have." Sansa reached up, touching her brow. "That pride is all they have. It's all any of us have. But that's what life is."
Jon's throat was tight. "I have to believe there's a chance Sansa."
"So you are going to walk into a trap. You will beg a woman from a family famed for madness for aid. A woman who hates us. And maybe, if you are very lucky, and you listen to the Lords I am sending with you, and trust Daisy, you might return with dragonglass." Her hand dropped back to her side, her anger draining out leaving an exhausted sorrow. "If the gods themselves show you favor, and this Targaryen is of a very different mold than her ancestors, you might bring back the army, dragons, and dragonglass you want. But the chances are slim, and for that chance, you abandon the good you certainly could accomplish here."
He reached out, taking his sister's hands in his. His voice was low but near to cracking with emotion. "I've spoken with Mors, Glover, Flint, and Cerwyn. They'll ensure our strategy for the Dead is advanced. You keep the men digging ditches where I've marked on the map. Dig the ditches, and prepare barrels of oil to be stored by them. The Crannoman already have agreed to focus their manpower and time on extracting as much oil as they can from where it wells near the bogs. Send men to ensure the roads between us and them remain clear. You don't need me for the ditches and oil. But you do need me for the south."
Sansa closed her eyes. She gave a tense nod, her eyes snapping open, their cold blue cutting into him. "You cannot challenge me before the court like that again."
"I can do that." He agreed, imprinting the promise into his bones. "You have my word."
She squeezed his hands. "Don't die."
"I'll do my best." He released her hands so that he could wrap his arms around her, hugging her as tightly as he could. "I'll find us some hope."
She squeezed back just as tightly, burying her nose into the fur of his cloak. "You're an idiot."
"I know." He agreed.
/
Loras Tyrell had carried his writing tools and a sheet of wood to write on, out into the gods' wood. He needed to write his family. The faith of the old gods was a curious thing he'd found. But it was a faith he actually could feel instead of mock. Standing before the eerie face bleeding red sap he felt something. Something real.
As he came closer he paused at a sight before him. It was surreal, ethereal nearly. Daisy stood before the face tree, though her feet were not upon the ground. Her eyes were closed, chin tipped up towards the tree's canopy. Her hair and clothing rose and fluttered in a wind that didn't exist. The leaves of the tree danced in the same breeze, despite the near absolute stillness of the air. It could have been a trick of the light, but he could have sworn there was a flicker of gold beneath Daisy's skin.
If he hadn't been frozen in terror and awe, he'd have fallen to his knees.
Daisy dropped back to the ground silently, the nonexistent breeze vanishing from whence it'd come. She raised an eyebrow at him. "You ok over there?"
He realized his heart was racing in his chest. Swallowing, he took a step forward on the sacred ground. And that's what it was. Sacred. "I just came for wisdom, I meant no disrespect interrupting, your Holiness."
"You're fine." She glanced at the tree. "I think I'm starting to learn to speak tree though…so that's a new and very weird skill."
Loras…wasn't sure what to say to that. His grandmother hadn't prepared him for gods in human flesh speaking to ancient tree gods. But he'd also see this god allow a child to shove frozen slush over her head. And she put up with Umber. Terror or no terror, daring might serve him. Actually… "If I could beg a small favor of you?"
"Sure, what's up?" Daisy looked at him curiously.
He blinked. "Truly, Holiness?"
"I mean figure I probably owe you after last night." And suddenly her behavior made sense.
Loras couldn't help it, he laughed. Well if she meant to treat with him the same as the others. "I cannot say I was expecting our Queen to be as daring as that. But as her sworn sword it was naught but my duty." He dared then to approach more closely. "If I entrusted a letter to you, would you perhaps pass it to whichever of my family is in Dragonstone?"
"Sure, just one letter? Or do you have a couple for them?" Daisy picked absently at the cuffs of her sleeves. A habit of hers that he'd noticed.
Loras set his writing things down on the bench by the tree. "Just the one, it'll be passed around to the rest of my family. My grandmother will never forgive me for swearing to her Grace."
"Do you regret it?" Daisy asked a genuine curiosity there.
He shook his head. "No. My father is dead, my sister is dead. When winter comes I'll have my vengeance. And if the Lannisters get burned by dragons first, so what? I know that they will fall. Winter always comes, and I need not lie about who I am here."
"Fair." Daisy didn't insult him by questioning further or attempting to pontificate or showing the faintest flicker of pity.
Loras decided to leave her to her thoughts. If she didn't mind, and she didn't seem to, he would write his letter here as planned. Sitting down he began the slow work of writing to his family.
He was just writing down his eighth justification for grandmother when Daisy sat down beside him. Loras paused in his writing, and honestly, no justification would help cool his grandmother's fury. "Did you need something, your Holiness?"
Daisy looked at him consideringly. "I'm not ignorant of how quickly the current gossip about Sansa and I could turn against her. How do I prevent that from happening?"
Loras wasn't almost certain that wasn't true. The reverence these people held for the Starks, and for the god beside him was terrifying. The general mood had been celebratory in the hours since her Holiness's suit had been accepted. But…he did swear his life to Sansa Stark. And ensuring her position was beyond reproach was his duty. "Indication of your esteem would be a credit to her and to you."
"Right…how do I do that?" Daisy stared at him with a 'duh' sort of expression. "I mean this is not how we do it on my world. Like…flowers and jacket sharing not really your guys' thing."
Loras wanted to bang his head against something at that moment. The absolute ridiculous scale of this god's gestures suddenly made a horrible amount of sense. She hadn't the faintest idea of what she was doing and had likely heard some ballad or something and was just mimicking it. The over the top courtly love routine… she was winging it. "How exactly would one court another in your world?"
And Daisy replied.
Twenty minutes later Loras was struck by the fact they really hadn't been giving this god enough credit. Her oddities were frankly nothing to what they could have been. "Would you be amenable to a luncheon with Mira Forrester and me tomorrow?" He needed help.
/
Sansa was going to strangle her brother. She needed years to beat basic political negotiating skills into his head, not a single evening. It was not a thought she'd ever state outside of the privacy of her head, but it was shocking Jon had survived as long as he had as Lord Commander. "We cannot go to her to beg for aid. It doesn't matter how badly we need it. Meeting with her as anything but an equal will doom us from the start."
"Why all these pretensions? Tyrion is a good man. If we can make them accept the Dead are coming it'll be in their best interest to aid us." Jon insisted as he'd been doing for the past hour. He seemed convinced that belief in the Long Night would unite them all.
Sansa set her pen down. She'd been writing down various options for negotiation and lists of houses with Targaryen sympathies. "Jon, doing what is smart and right is not what men do. Do you think half the North wouldn't fall away from us if they didn't know my reprisal would be the end of them?"
He let out a sound of frustration. "Who's in power shouldn't matter. Who rules what land is nothing in the face of the Dead."
"It shouldn't, but it does. And you have to be smarter than father was, than Robb was, than our grandfather and uncle were." Gods Stark men were clearly cursed with the political minds of rocks...honorable and just rocks, but rocks all the same. She held out some hope her grandfather had had some skill at it. The alliances he'd arranged had overthrown the King who'd burned him alive after all. Still. He'd died in the south as half the Stark men seemed to.
Jon's shoulders remained heavy as he sat in his seat before her. "If it wouldn't all fall apart I would say you should go. But even I know that would never work."
"No it really wouldn't." Sansa could move within the North with the right Lords and Rickon in Winterfell. But to leave for the south? Impossible.
Jon's sad puppy eyes looked up at her. It was unfair. "Am I really so bad at all this?"
"You're a good sight better than half the men I've seen in positions of power. It's the other half I worry about. Please listen to the men I'm sending with you." She was giving him the best advisors she could. The most prestigious party that could be spared. No accusation of disrespect could be given.
Jon huffed. "That bad then"
"You're a good man Jon." She reached out laying her hand over his. "If anyone can make them listen it will be you. But the south isn't the North. Honor means less, trust no one. And for gods sake keep your wits about you. The lies people tell are as important as the truths they share."
Jon looked at the parchment in front of her. "You'll have written me a novel for Daisy to hand me by the time she joins us in Whiteharbor."
"Probably." She admitted with a faint twitch of her lips.
He sighed and gave a slow nod. "Right then. I'm leaving Ghost with you while I'm away. He wouldn't like the south anyways."
"He'd be a powerful reminder you are a Stark." She cautioned though a part of her didn't wish to part with the animal. He was living proof her brother lived.
Jon shook his head. "You named me Stark, I don't need ought else to be a Stark. Besides, I'd feel better knowing he was here to protect you and Rickon."
And Sansa...knew that it was done. The path had been set, all that was left was to walk it.