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Sansa I
A small dais had been raised at the entrance of Winterfell and she stood tall and straight upon it. As tall and straight as the ghostly aspen that shaded her from the harsh sun.
The never ending rows of men, carts and horses passed before her and she smiled. They were safe. This made her feel safe and she knew now that whatever happened they had supplies and they had bought peace for a long time.
As the last cart lumbered on inside the gates of Winterfell, she stepped down the dais and walked inside too, towering over her ladies in waiting who soon followed, scurrying like ants at her heel.
She had to see everything with her own eyes.
It was so much. So very much that parts of the supplies had been stored in Winter Town and the rest went directly to King's Landing.
Winter could come now. She was ready for the cold. Even though, deep inside, she knew and could feel that winter was far from coming.
The heat is as deadly as the cold. Maybe deadlier.
This strange, long, scorching summer had brought death, pestilence and hunger and the small folk depended on her and she felt helpless. What her father had said about long summers haunted her every day. What will come after this summer is over?
No one knew how helpless she felt. She never looked it or told anyone.
Her dresses were just as pristine and made of the finest silks, her hair longer than it had ever been, falling in luxurious waves down, bellow her hips, covering her like a mantle. With the summer she had learned to wear it free, sometimes fully unbraided, flowing behind her like red, fiery weirwood leaves, framing her milky skin better than any lavish, painted veil from the South.
Her red stained lips, her delicate, silver crown twisting and shinning through her hair, her perfectly arched eyebrows, her long, marble white neck and regal demeanour created this mask that never came off. Her trustiest guardian, her pillar, her armour.
She walked by a dozen large carts full to the brim with produce and grain.
"All the perishables in the cellars, the grains in the granary. Follow the guards. The kitchen servants will know what to do hence forth." she commanded and moved forward to the next carts, the ones pilled up with tightly sealed wooden chests.
The treasury, the gold, the jewelry... She couldn't wait until she looked through it, kept some, see if any of the items were of particular importance and send the rest to King's Landing. It would cover most of the debt they had with the Iron Bank. It would keep the hungry bastards satisfied and well fed for a while. She would have to wait and see if her brother found some other sources to fill their fat bellies and cover the gaping hole that Cersei dug with her very claws and left in place of an inheritance for the Crown.
With the Golden Company wrecked by Daenerys and all the other nick knacks that Cersei had bought with money from the bank, in hopes of killing the dragons, the dept hole was as big, if not bigger, than the one Robert Baratheon had left.
The Iron Bank was left without an army. In the end it was good that Daenerys vanquished the Golden Company, but that didn't leave the Bank powerless. Their strength extended over things she couldn't even fathom and were still able, had they wanted, to punish them harshly for the fortune owed.
Her brother had seen what they had in store for Westeros and it was horrifying. It had to be prevented.
For now, the treasure had to stay here, disguised as unremarkable war booty, among the grain, cheese and wine barrels.
The dept almost payed in full, the dragon secured, the Realm at peace. At least for a while.
"You did good." Royce's deep, raspy voice came from behind her shoulder.
She turned to him and smiled proudly.
"Did I? The results are indeed above my expectations. I almost didn't believe the king when he told me what we would find on the isles. The means, on the other hand..." She spoke the last two words quietly, unsure if the old man heard her. But he did.
He smiled sadly and nodded.
"Ruling calls for a sharp, cold mind at times. It is what makes the difference between a wise ruler and a less than wise one. There was no other way... We spoke of this at length." He said behind her as she started walking towards the Healer's Hall.
He was right. Assassination attempts, rebellions and betrayals needed to be payed in kind. Once a house was under the dominion of the Crown, obligations were inevitable. The North was free of the Crown, but it still worked for the Realm and in the interest of the safety of all, enforcing the necessary rules. They didn't bow to what needed to be done for the greater good, on the contrary, they rebelled and tried killing the king and getting the Iron Bank on their side. Things that could have brought a cataclysm upon Westeros.
That was now over.
In truth, they were not off this land. Their blood was cursed. It had brought nothing but death and destruction from the moment they stepped foot on these shores. She wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. To scour the land clean of the black blood of the Valyrians. She had done a good job of it until now.
Years ago, she really did believe that the houses that were merely of Valyrian descent would be of no threat. After all, they were not Targaryen. She later realized that they had Targaryen blood. All of them had been tainted by that cursed blood. She would have tolerated the Velaryons and Celtigars, merely descending from Valyria, but they carried that dark blood too. Even the Baratheon bastard, who Daenerys foolishly legitimized, had rebelled and he only had one great-grandmother who was Targaryen.
Or maybe all the Valyrians were dangerous, cursed. Maybe they had cursed their own blood with the unspeakable things they did in Valyria, eons ago. This was her personal belief, that they had cursed themselves for eternity and they had to be purged from the Realm. Enough coin flipping, in search of good and bad Targaryens. Life was infinitely more precious than gambling.
It was cruel for the little ones, but she would do anything for the North and her forefathers' legacy. Anything.
She considered taking them in as prisoners, sending them somewhere across the sea, far away from Westeros, or across the Wall, to her equally accursed cousin, but it had been done before and it turned out worse. Also, there were too many, from different houses, some of them older, with potential to ally and return for revenge. Exile was cruel to children. The proof was in what happened to Daenerys and her brother, in how it twisted and destroyed them. Death was more merciful in this sad situation. It had to be done.
The Reach was now frozen, surrounded. They probably wanted to rise against them, but they knew they were outnumbered and overpowered.
"Will you join me tending to the sick? We can speak more."
"Of course, your grace!"
Royce had been like a father from the time she was still in Littlefinger's clutches. The father she had wished she had. The ambitious, cunning father she wished Eddard Stark had been. If he had been like Royce, maybe he could have still been alive today, by her side, guiding her, helping her, saving her.
The Healer's Hall had been expanded since the plague had started to make victims. Now they had divided it in two, with thick wood and hide panels so that the soldiers who survived the sacking of the dragon isles could be treated safely, without the risk of catching the infection from the sick, while vulnerable, healing from their war wounds.
As they walked in the high hall, healer women ran to them and bowed deeply. They were dressed in thick, white linen garments, their faces covered in shawls made of rough, spun hemp. Supposedly the coverings protected them from the infection. They were carrying the same shawls in their hands , ready to wrap their queen and her trusted advisor in them.
She wasn't sure, nor convinced of the efficacy of these coverings, but she was willing to do anything to protect herself from whatever sickness plagued the North.
It had come suddenly. Many suspected merchants from Dorne had brought it. After all, so much rot and degeneracy came from there, along with the oranges, olives and silks. It wasn't as deadly as other diseases, but it incapacitated the ones it chose for weeks. They would lay in bed, wheezing and defecating uncontrollably, boils covering their bodies from head to toe, for a week or two and then they needed two or more moons resting to be passably human. A very inconvenient sickness, especially now when she needed all the men she could get.
"Your grace." Their voices were muffled by the shawls.
The two women curtsied prettily and came to wrap the coverings around their faces. It was a very intricate way of tying the thing and very unpractical.
"Can't we create simpler, smaller coverings? This is absurd." She said with a hint of boredom in her otherwise clear voice.
"My queen, this has been advised by the Maester. It has several layers if wrapped like so." One of the women spoke as she wrapped the linens around her face, twisting it at her nape and then unfolding it again, for a second layering. She had to pay extra attention to the words spoken to her, muffled as they were underneath all those rags.
"I'll speak to him myself and we'll find a better option. This is very unpleasant..." She spoke as the third and final sheet covered her mouth.
The same had been done to Lord Royce and they both stood there like walking corpses, wrapped for burial.
They followed the healer women around the hall, speaking to the soldiers, asking questions, doing their duty. It was proper of her and good for the morale of the troops to see their queen. She even helped some of the healers here and there, giving water and food to the soldiers and carrying various necessary items used in sewing and cleaning wounds. Royce was behind her all this time, presenting the situation of the goods, how they were to be shared among the people, or traded across the borders. They spoke of the plague and its spread a lot, which was indeed her deepest fear.
She could feel Royce seethed with impatience to speak of other things. Things he couldn't mention here, with so many ears listening, so as she considered her duties finished she turned to him and bluntly staved off the charade.
"My Lord Royce, do you request a private conversation with me, by any chance? It certainly feels like you do."
He smiled with indulgent amusement at her bluntness. This was usually the kind of attitude she received from all the lords in the North. Unless she was stern, sometimes hard and slightly cruel, they looked at her as if she was still the little lady with an empty head and empty dreams.
They had chanted her name and knelled before her, their swords, offerings at her feet, but they still didn't respect her as they would have respected a man. She was aware of that, but she didn't care. No matter what she did to prove herself, she would always be a woman and therefore, she felt no shame in disregarding most of their expectations.
Lord Royce was different. She knew he respected her, but for a moment his eyes had been those of all the Northern Lords combined.
"I certainly request an audience with the queen." his smile never wavered as he spoke.
"Certainly. Let us go to my conservatory. No one will bother us." She said as she unwrapped the inane scarf around her face and carelessly threw it in the basket that was for this very purpose, placed at the exit from the Healing Hall.
She knew quite well, at least in part, what it was that he wanted to discuss with her. She hated it, but had to go through it once more, in the hopes that this time he understands.
She always walked through Winterfell with pride swelling in her heart. No matter how many times she admired the towers, the winding stairs, the Godswood or the crypts, she never got tired, it never bored her. Sometimes she would take long strolls from one side of the castle to the other. It was her favorite activity when she had the time to spare. She knew every nook and cranny, every stone and wall curve. She had repaired most of it herself, poured her heart and soul into every brick and every piece of polished wood that held the very foundations and walls.
Winterfell was hers and she needed nothing, nor anyone else.
She entered her fragrant, green conservatory and rather than sit inside it, she walked ahead of Royce, guiding him to the small garden the glassy dome opened too.
They sat at her favourite table, underneath a huge weeping willow, she herself had brought as a tender sapling from Riverrun, as a remembrance of her mother.
Willows would never die and they would grow out of a simple, dried branch. It was something that made her think of her mother and the Tullys.
A servant brought them iced tea and small oat cookies scented with rose water. The roses in Winterfell were in full bloom continuously and they thrived in the warm and sunny gardens. One of the small perks of this never ending summer.
She watched the servant leave and made sure she was out of the conservatory before turning her sharp gaze towards Royce.
"You well know what I want to talk to you about, I presume..." He said, ignoring the small treats completely, no preamble or introduction.
She sighed and sipped from her honeyed, icy tea.
"My Lord Royce, I cannot. I don't know how many times I must tell you. I cannot and there's no one to my liking."
He sighed and sat back in his chair, looking at her with slight annoyance in his hard face.
"You need an heir. Your lords are talking, houses are stirring. You may not even know what they are planning behind your back. Remember, 30 is an age when a woman, and especially a noble woman, should have at least an heir and a spare."
That saying enraged her, made her very heart bristle. It was so irritating.
"Stop it. I will make Arya my heir in due time. She's younger than me and she might even return with children." she watched the leaves dancing in the soft, hot wind and thought of her sister, wherever she was.
"Pardon me, your grace, but we don't even know where your sister is, nor if..." he paused and made a tiny, pensive nod before continuing. "...if she's still alive." She looked at him pointedly, but he didn't stop. "It is for your house, for the future of House Stark. You are the last heir. A good, young man, from a lesser house, would renounce his name and take the name of Stark for the sake of such a historical, legendary house, and even more so for such a beautiful, legendary queen."
"How could I not know that? I've had such good, young men from lesser houses and their parents, hounding me for years. The truth is...I can't. The very idea repulses me." she grimaced in honest disgust.
Her disgust was raw and unbridled. She knew Royce couldn't understand and she was ashamed to even talks such things with him, but she tried suggesting it, subtly making him see what had been happening to her for over a decade.
All that peace and reprieve in the first years after her crowning, didn't lessen the nightmares, the fear, the horror at every, innocent, casual touch from any man. She fought with herself for years and could now live a moderately normal life and hide and control her flinching, her instinctual cowering or torment at things that for the normal woman, went completely unnoticed.
Having a man touch her again, be inside her or worse, have a baby, a huge baby, come out of her, after everything men had put her through, sent her into a frenzied panic. Her soul and mind were in frenzy, in torment and fear, but no one saw. No one knew. It was a weakness she didn't afford showing.
She remembered the satisfaction that had coursed through her, years ago, on the eve of the very Apocalypse, when she told, the big, scary Hound that what Ramsay did to her only made her stronger. She smiled thinking how surprised he looked and how well she put on a show, making him believe that she truly walked unharmed through it and only came out stronger, rising like a phoenix from the scorching ashes. Hilarious.
"Maybe you should find someone, a healer, a maester that could help you with that. It needs to be solved, before your men rise against you." He was brutally honest and it sent a shiver down her spine.
"Did you hear anything...?" she spoke quietly, dismissively almost, feigning the confidence she didn't have at that moment.
"I may have. But, you understand, these people do not trust me enough to speak freely in front of me..." He trailed off and took the steamy glass of tea in his hands, sipping slowly and staring thoughtfully at the swaying willow behind her.
He meant to say more, she was certain, and say he did. His thoughts and words were like the lava of an old volcano, bubbling to erupt uncontrollably.
"It may not have been... prudent of us to send Lord Snow to the Wall..." He spoke calmly as he bit into a cookie. The crunch of the small confectionery resounded in the silence between them.
She coughed and drank some more of the cooling, calming drink.
"Why do you insist on vexing me, Lord Royce?" she all but hissed. "With all due respect, what would you have had me do? Marry my own cousin? The cousin I grew up with, knowing he was my brother? A Targaryen. A legitimate Targaryen in our midst for the people to rally behind to rise against King Bran?" Her voice was rising to a shriek and she reigned herself in, regaining control.
"Jon, or Aegon, how you insist calling him, would have supported house Stark to his death, and you know it." Royce declared calmly, but sternly.
"Imagine having Aegon here, now, with the uprising of the Valyrian houses and the Reach. They would have done anything in their power to dethrone Bran and put their dragon spawn on the throne!" She said quietly, her control regained. "And yes, I will call him by his proper name. The one that, for whatever reason, my impulsive, immature aunt decided he should have, despite there already being a half sibling with the same name. The one which reminds everyone who he is and what he's done."
"Or maybe they wouldn't have rebelled. Maybe his presence would have been reassuring for those houses that have fought alongside him and Daenerys."
"This is bordering on treason, Lord Royce!" Her voice was calm, but full of fire as she said those words.
"It was not the King who decided him being sent there. I do not question the Kings decisions." He was confident. Disconcertingly so.
Sansa stood up, towering over him, intentionally looking down at him.
"Yet you questioned him bringing the dragon in King's Landing, even though you knew the alternative."
"That's a talk for another day." He dismissed the topic of the dragon with a wave of his large hand. "Cousins married cousins in the Stark family for years. You wouldn't have been the first, nor the last." He went on, seemingly utterly unable to stop. "I'm quite sure that Jon would have renounced his Targaryen name and fully took on the Stark name and house, as he already had... and as Robb himself had planned for him." He added for good measure, just to put some more wood on the fire that roared in her chest.
"W-what?" She asked incredulously.
"When your true brother, Robb, was King in the North, he had wanted to legitimize Jon. Presumably, he did, just before his death. He had his lords sign the will, sent it, but it somehow got lost somewhere in the tragedy. It never reached Jon. See? Your lords don't talk to you enough. How do you not know this, but I do?" He asked her and fear coursed through her.
Indeed. Why did she not know?
"I will ask them about this. It is preposterous that I never knew." She said indignantly.
"Indeed. Then again, few lords who have signed that will are still alive today. It is of no importance. You and him should have been married. For the good of the Realm it would have been ideal."
She all but retched in her mouth at the very idea of marrying a man who she still considered brother. A reprobate, one tainted by the same blood she was now purging, but her brother nonetheless.
"Lord Royce, please stop. I've had enough." She started walking back to the safety of the conservatory, away from him, away from the very same talk she had to face every few months.
Lord Royce stood up abruptly, the delicate tea glasses clinking around and almost falling off the dainty table.
"Your Grace! Sansa! Listen to me." A trace of tenderness and sympathy returned to his voice and she stopped.
"Look at me." He said and she turned around, facing him, though all she wanted was to flee and make her tour around the castle to calm her nerves. "All I wish is for you to rule peacefully and for your heirs to take the throne of the North after you. You need to do something about this while there's still time. While you are still young. Forgive me, but one day you will be unable to bear children, your sister is far away somewhere and king Bran cannot have heirs. House Stark will die out if you don't take the matter into your own hands. There are ways to heal such ailments of the soul and if you let me, I'll bring you the most renowned maesters or mystics - priests, priestesses... Whatever you want. I'll help. You need to do your duty. Time waits for no one."
She looked at him wide eyed. She wanted to scream at him, attack, defend herself, regain her dignity, but she knew he was right and all fight left her as time seemed to crawl, painfully slow between them.
What was there to say?
"Your grace? My lord! Please forgive me!" The voice of her servant finally shattered the discussion.
"Yes, Myara!" She turned around to her servant, cold mask back into place.
"There is a raven from the Wall again, your Grace!"
She plucked the crumpled scroll from the girl's fingers and nodded in thanks towards her. The girl curtsied quickly and slipped away as fast as she had come, the tension of the discussion they were having, palpable to anyone.
"When was the last time you wrote him back?" Royce queried, eyeing the scroll in her hand.
"I don't even remember." She spoke lightly, casually, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. She nodded to him and turned around on her heels.
"We'll talk again, my Lord Royce. I have other business to attend too now. Make yourself at home in Winterfell, as is the custom. We'll speak of those healers again, I swear it." She threw him a small smile over her shoulder and sank in the shadows of the hallway that led out of the conservatory.
On the way out she found a torch ensconced on the wall and lit the scroll, watching the fire eat the paper slowly and dropping it on the stone floors when the flame reached her fingertips.
She could feel Lord Royce's eyes on her the whole time and shutting the door to the conservatory behind her, brought relief.
In the safety of the night she could find her peace. There was no other moment of rest for her and she hungrily waited for the sun to descend and the coolness of the night to swallow the gardens where she liked to spend her evenings, before retreating to her chambers for her night time beauty ritual and then for her well deserved sleep.
After Lord Royce returned to his duties, she returned to the conservatory to savour a spicy, sweet wine she had been gifted from the South and read through some of the scrolls she had received. A raven sat perched beside her, waiting for the small burdens to be tied to its twiggy feet. She gave it a treat and then shooed it away. She had no desire to write letters right now. There was enough time in the morning.
Her life was a controlled mess, but as always, no one knew. I should have been a mummer. I'd make a better mummer than queen.
Her schedule was utterly awry and stupid. She was at the peak of her energy and vigor at midnight and exhausted when she awoke in the early morning. She never had enough time and would scramble from one side of Winterfell to the other from the crack of dawn, until darkness finally descended. These late hours belonged to her alone and they so often were stolen by work that hadn't been completed during the day time.
She sighed and placed all the scrolls back into their box. A silver, ornate thing that mostly held worry, fear and requests from the Northern Lords. A lot of requests they had. Like children they came to her for the first inconvenience.
She gladly did her duty, even the menial, silly tasks. It was ingrained in her.
A Stark does everything for the North and is always dutiful, honourable and bold.
A Tully is also dutiful, honourable and does all for the family. She was precisely that. The embodiment of her father's and mother's houses. The North flourished under her rule. She saved her fatherland and brought it into a golden age, the likes of which has never been seen before.
Was she honourable?
She sipped from her chilled wine, letting the sweetness and sourness run down her throat. She drank more, until the gilded cup was empty and she had to fill it again from the glass carafe. She drank until mellowness, calm and content took over her racing mind.
No, father, I have passed no sentence. I merely swung the sword of my army. As you said, "men swing swords". I am no man.
She sat up from her table, letting a tendril of her mother's willow slip around her neck as she walked towards the exit.
"Myara, I shall have my ritual now. Is everything ready?" she asked her favourite servant, a small, wispy brunette that reminded her of Arya, minus the fire her sister had. Myara was gentle and subservient and she deeply admired her queen and Sansa loved having her around.
"Of course, your grace? Do you want dinner?"
"No. It's too late for dinner." She dismissed with a small smile and walked to her chambers.
She had occupied her father's solar, as it was natural for the Queen. It was a spacious, rustic room, with large windows, she had decorated to her liking, bringing flower pots with crawling roses and aromatic herbs that made the place smell heavenly. She had painted certain areas in lighter, sunnier colours and brought in Dornish carpets, drapes and bed covers. There was a special place in her heart for the Stark austerity and simplicity, but the colours of spring and summer were hers. She was of the reds, whites, light blues and yellows and they went so well with the heavy, time polished wood beams and window sills.
Her large, bronze tub was full to the brim with steamy, milky water and floating, swirling herbs. She took a deep breath in, letting the fragrances reach the deepest corners of her mind.
In a corner of her room, just by the doors to the balcony, facing East, there was a small altar. She didn't follow any gods in particular. She only trusted herself and her own powers. The only god figures on her altar were the small statuettes of the Mother, the Maiden, the Warrior and the Stranger, and she never truly prayed to them. They were there more as a remembrance of certain people she held dear and would never forget and around them several objects belonging to said people were carefully laid. She would speak to them as if these dear people were there with her. She would have done it now, had she been alone.
Behind the small statuettes, hung the three house standards that made up her ancestry. They were no larger than her hand, but sewed exquisitely and in striking colours, with golden and silver thread shinning in the darkness, catching the flickering of the candles. First stood the Stark wolf and the Tully trout and in the back, on yellow, a flurry of black bats flew for house Whent, her grandmother's house. She wanted to add to her wall of standards, but she needed to find out more about her ancestry. Once upon a time she imagined that the standard of her husband's house would hang there too.
She lit the candle in the middle and looked at it for a long while, letting the tiny, dancing flame empty her head. It was soothing and addictive. She could look into fires for hours, especially when she was particularly turbulent.
She slipped out of her soft, pale blue, summer dress and took off her sandals. She walked, naked and pale, to the bathtub and sank deep into it. First one foot, then the other, then her thighs, her chest, and finally her head, until her red hair was swirling about on the surface with the flowers and herbs.
When she resurfaced, Myara was there with a small phial, the contents of which she let flow in her opened palm and then slowly, meticulously, applied on Sansa's face and neck.
It was blood. The phial contained fresh blood mixed with oil of immortelle. Every time she received this treatment, a combination of revulsion and excitement filled her. It had been recommended by a medicine woman, renowned in the Riverlands and who often came to visit and treat her. Some whispered that she was a witch, but Sansa dismissed it all. Brella was a talented, exceedingly intelligent woman, with powers people didn't understand. Powerful women were shunned and despised in Westeros, it couldn't have been otherwise for Brella.
The proof was in how Brella looked and how Sansa felt after following her lead. She didn't need old men telling her what she should do with her obviously female body.
Blood on her face, her body submerged in a concoction made of goat's milk, water and various flowers and herb oils, she tried emptying her mind of needless thinking.
Milk and flowers for life, blood for death. If there is a god or goddess, it is one of life and death. No other things are more real.
She needed and deserved this. Indeed, time waits for no one and her face wouldn't have been as fresh as it was, had she not made the effort of religiously following her nighttime ritual.
Maybe Brella could help heal her mind to, mend what Ramsey broke. And if too much time would pass, Brella could be capable of breathing life back into a withered womb as well, she was certain. She would send a raven to the medicine woman, immediately after coming out of the bath.
Anything for the North.
Just as the thought of ravens went through her mind, a flapping of wings and a sharp pecking at her solar window, pulled her away from her inner world.
"My queen. A raven!" Myara's soft voice called from her chair at the window. "Should I let it in?"
She sat up, rivulets of water, milk and herbs running through her hair and down her back. She opened her eyes, her vision blurry with the concoction on her face that had reached her eyes. Even through the haze she recognized the bird. She would recognize it anywhere, even if her brother's ravens weren't much different than all the others, just slightly bigger, somehow darker and annoyingly persistent.
"Let it in, of course. Its from the King of the Six Kingdoms." She called through the darkness and silence of her candle lit solar as she washed the now dried, crackling potion off her face.
Myara only had to extend her delicate, pale arm to reach the window and open the gilded latch for the bird to hop right in. The creature knew exactly where the place where he would be received quickest was.
Another particularity of Bran's birds, their incredible intelligence. Ravens and crows are intelligent, crafty birds by nature, but these were disturbingly so.
Myara gave it a piece of dried meat and untied the small burden attached to its leg.
Sansa hoped that the thing would immediately go away, fly off and leave her in peace. It didn't. It made itself comfortable on the sturdy branch of a potted lemon tree that sat at her window.
She looked at it as it preened its feathers and after they made eye contact, it answered her in a quiet, but determined quack.
It had been commanded to get an immediate answer from her.
Her hand hanging on the side of the copper tub, Sansa, languidly waved her fingers towards Myara and the servant proceeded to unroll the scroll and read it out loud.
"Sansa,
I need your urgent assistance. It appears the dragon refuses to cooperate. I hoped I could let it fly and feed by itself, for its health from time to time, but it can't be done. I brought him here easily, but now he refuses my intrusion completely and fights me. I cannot warg him anymo..."
"Give me that, Myara!" Sansa almost jumped out of her bath and the girl stopped mid reading, her mouth half opened.
She complied and scurried at her mistresses' side with the scroll. Sansa took it from her quickly, uncaring of the fact that her hands were still wet with the milk bath water.
She barely stayed her trembling fingers as she read the crumpled paper.
"I have sent a raven to Jon, but you need to send one as well. I'm sure two ravens would be more persuasive than one. I know it is not something he wants, though he must and shall do.
Considering the threat and the fact that we haven't yet located the horn, we need someone who could keep Drogon in good shape, in the eventuality of a disaster. I know you understand.
You did well, sister."
Bran The Broken, of House Stark, First of His Name, King of the Andals , Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Six Kingdoms "
Her wet hand crushed the scroll and pulled it in the depths of the bathtub, destroying it, letting it melt. Her brother, or whatever was left of him, never practiced subtlety or diplomacy. A man of few words as his kingly stationed fully allowed.
"I need out." she whispered and the girl was just behind her, a large bath cloth in her hands. She nestled in the soft fabric, searching the comfort she desperately needed.
After thoroughly scrubbed and dried, she dressed in a creamy, silk nightgown and sat at her desk, ready to answer Bran back. She would get to Jon's letter afterwards, or tomorrow.
She had just put quill to paper when a soft knock came from the door. Myara ran to open and whispered for a long while through a tiny crack in the door with a guard. She ignored her, focusing on the words to send Bran.
After a while Myara returned and Sansa placed her quill down to face her young servant.
"What is it again?"
"We have more sick, your grace. A soldier came to tell me the healers are resting the plagued on the floors of the Healer's Hall."
A ball of anxiety twisted in her gut. The sickness was spreading. All the more reasons to write to Bran and warn him. He would know what to do. It seemed her urge to summon Brelle earlier was prophetic. She needed her more than ever.
She nodded her understanding and returned to her writing, after commanding Myara to send for the medicine woman.