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I own Lenora Baratheon, nothing more.

My name is Chloe Jane and oh guys! Did I have a great idea last night. For my next GoT story. Once this one is done. It's fantastic if I do say so myself.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Dark Wings, Dark Words

Sansa

The sky was filled with smoke. It was so thick that she could taste it in the air inside the Red Keep. The Imp had set his men to burn everything between the water's edge and the city walls. The fire had been blazing for days. On the other side of the river, Stannis' men were burning their fair share as well. Stannis was not there, he was on a ship sailing for King's Landing, and the majority of his host had not reached King's Landing yet, but his vanguard was there.

They had appeared two nights before. When she had gone to bed the Southern bank of the Blackwater Rush had been empty, when she woke up it was filled with banners. She had gone to the city wall to see them all. There were the red or green apples of the Fossaways, the turtle of Estermont, the fox and the flowers of Hour Florent, Ser Morrigen and his black crow flying across a stormy-green field.

It was frightening to see so many Houses banded together, preparing to attack King's Landing. But the most frightening standard, the one that still made Sansa shiver every time she thought about it was Stannis' own banner. Pale yellow and long, the tails streamed behind it like flickering flames, instead of the Baratheon stag he had the burning heart of the Lord of Light.

Perhaps that was why his vanguard burned the bank. As a sacrifice to their new god. She had heard that after he gained Storm's End he had burnt the Godswood and offered up the old sacred trees to his new god and his new councilor. They called her the Red Woman. She wondered if when he sacked King's Landing if he would burn the Great Sept for her too. When they had first arrived Sansa had been sure that the Great Sept of Baelor was the most beautiful building she had ever seen.

But after what had happened to her father, after what Joffrey did to him. She could not look at the building without remembering the way her father's blood had colored his velvet jerkin. She closed her eyes and she could still see his head rolling away from his body, his eyes staring up at the sky and seeing nothing.

The Great Sept was no longer a beautiful place, it was a place of horror. A place of blood. A place of death.

And Stannis could burn it all as far as she was concerned. Every statue. Every alter. Every inch.

She would help him if he let her. And she would take joy in it when she was done.

She never spoke the words out loud, but in her head when she thought of Stannis' attack of the city, his sacking the city was inevitable. She could not believe, even for a moment, that Joffrey and his army stood a chance, even with all the preparations that the Imp was making.

They said Stannis' vanguard was five thousand strong. His vanguard. They said that when his full host arrived he would have ten times as many men as Joffrey. He had more ships than Joffrey. More horses than Joffrey. More men than Joffrey.

Stannis Baratheon would win the battle, of that she was sure. And once he sacked the city he would send her home.

It was good that she had another plan to get home because Ser Dontos had done nothing to help her even though he had promised her that he would. When she had seen him that night in the Godswood he had been drunk again. He had told her that he could not get her out of the city now, even though they had all but forgotten her with the upcoming battle. He had nothing to give her - no plans, no comfort, nothing to protect herself. Only patience. That was all he could say, that she needed to be patient. That he had a friend who would get her out of the city as soon as the time was right.

As far as Sansa was concerned the time was right now. But neither Ser Dontos or his friend seemed to agree.

Well, she didn't need them. Once Stannis had taken over King's Landing he would be bound by his honor to send her home. To send her to her mother and her brother. Robb would of course bend the knee to Stannis, he was only fighting this war to kill Joffrey and Stannis would do that for him. Then, with all the fighting behind them they would head north to Winterfell and take it back from Theon. Robb would have his head. Arya would find her way home. And her family could be together again.

As together as they could be without her father of course.

She felt tears spring to her eyes and she quickly blinked them away, she could not understand it but she had been so weepy as of late. Any little thing could set her off. She felt bad for her new handmaiden, Shae, the woman had come in at the worst time. Sansa was always snapping at her, always yelling, always crying. But she was kind and gentle. And she made Sansa feel as though she did nothing wrong.

Whoever had sent Shae to her had been very kind.

She was standing in front of the door to her bedchamber but she could not bring herself to enter it. All of her handmaidens would be gone now, eating their supper in the kitchen. The last thing that Sansa wanted to do was sit in her bedchamber alone. She had been alone so much and it did no good for her.

Every time she was alone all she could think about was the day they had sent Myrcella to Dorne. Every time she closed her eyes she could hear the crowd, she could see the hatred in their eyes, she could feel the blood dripping down her cheek when one of them threw a rock at her. Every time she was still she could feel the men's hands on her, the ones that had chased her into the stall. Every time she was silent she could hear the ripping fabric as they tore open her dress. They would have raped her, she knew it.

And what scared her even more than all of that was that Joffrey had not even cared. She was his Lady, she was to be his wife. If anyone cared for her honor it should have been Joffrey. But he hardly cared that she had been missing and he did not care when the Hound returned her to him.

She could not understand his indifference. And she could not forgive it either.

Going into her bedchamber would mean that she would have little to do, but sit and remember the events she so desperately wanted to forget. The very walls of the room made her feel trapped; even with the window opened wide it felt as though there were no air to breathe.

So she could not leave the Red Keep and she could not sit in her bedchamber alone. There was very little else for her to do.

She turned away from her bedchamber door and back to the twisting staircase. She climbed it to the roof, feeling that here she might find some air to breathe, even with the smoke from all the fires.

There was so much smoke that it blotted out the stars. She could not see a single star, nor the moon. Though it was still early in the evening the sky was as dark as midnight. But, if she looked down instead of up, she could see everything from the Red Keep to the city gates. The flames from the fires were reflected by the smoke in the sky, making everything shine in an eerie orange light. The river running to the south and west looked black, as did the bay in the east.

She shook her head, they were called Blackwater for a reason, of course they looked black. Though they were darker now than she had ever seen them.

Soldiers crawled over the city walls like ants, each carrying a torch. They crowded the hoardings that had sprouted from the ramparts. Down by the Mud Gate, if she squinted her eyes, she could make out the shape of the three catapults that had recently been erected. They were the biggest catapults anyone had ever seen, everyone said so. And she could see why, they stood taller than the city wall itself, by at least twenty feet.

If her father were still alive, if Joffrey was still kind to her - all of these things would have made her feel safe, but instead they left her feeling fearful. What if she was wrong? What if Stannis was unable to take the city? She would be trapped here with Joffrey forever if that happened.

A stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at her belly. She might have fallen, but a shadow moved suddenly, and strong fingers grabbed her arm and steadied her.

She screamed at the feel of the fingers around her arm. "Let me go!" she commanded as her fingers scrambled at the rough stone in front of her, trying to find something to hold on to. "Let go of me!"

"The little bird thinks she has wings, does she?" he asked. She knew him by the sound of his voice. And as much as she knew the man would hate it she calmed a bit once she knew it was him. No harm would come to her as long as he stood guard. "Or do you mean to end up crippled like that brother of yours?"

Sansa twisted in his grasp. "I wasn't going to fall," she told him. "It was only ... you startled me, that's all."

"You mean I scared you," the Hound told her, he would have the truth from her, even if it had to pull it from her one word at a time. He looked at her face, the burnt side of his lip twitching, "And still do." It was not a question, he knew that he did.

Sansa took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down even more. "I thought that I was alone," she told him, looking away from him.

She heard the man snort, "The little bird still can't bear to look at me, can she?" he let go of her arm and moved a step away from her. "You were glad enough to see my face when the mob had you, though. Remember?"

If only he knew how much she remembered. She had thought that she was going to be raped and then killed. The Hound had saved her from that fate. And so, she made herself look at his face now. She made herself really look. It was the polite thing to do and he would never be satisfied until she did. The scars were not the worst part, she realized, and she could overlook the way his lips twitched. It was his eyes that truly scared her, she had never seen a pair of eyes that were filled with as much hatred and anger as Sandor Clegane's.

"I should have come to you, after," she told him, stuttering her way through the words. "To thank you, for ... for saving me ... you were so brave."

"Brave?" The Hound parroted back to her. He laughed, half snarl. "A dog doesn't need courage to chase off rats," he told her. "They had me thirty to one and not a single one of them would face me. They did not dare. Too scared."

"Does it give you joy to scare people?" Sansa asked him, her voice bitter and angry.

"No," the Hound bit out. "It gives me joy to kill people." His lips twitched and he watched the way she flinched away from him. He chuckled, dark and low. "Look as disgusted as you wish, but spare me the false piety. You were a high lord's get. Don't tell me that Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell never killed a man."

Sansa shook her head, defending her father. "It was his duty. He never liked it."

The Hound laughed at her, cruel, "Is that what he told you? Your father lied. Killing is the sweetest thing there is." He drew his longsword, showing it to her, "Here's your truth. Your precious father found that out on Baelor's steps. Lord of Winterfell, and Hand of the King, and Warden of the North, the mighty Eddard Stark, of a line eight thousand years old. But Ilyn Payne's blade went through his neck just as easily, just the same as a thousand others with less noble names." He paused, watching her for a moment, his eyes glittering in the firelight. "Do you remember the dance he did when his head came off his shoulders, Little Bird?" he asked.

Sansa wrapped her arms around her chest, shivering as she took a step away from him. "Why are you so hateful?" she all but sobbed. "I was thanking you."

"As if I were one of those true knights you love so well, yes. What do you think a knight is for, girl?" He swung his longsword slowly, bringing the point of it just under her chin and lifting her eyes up to meet his gaze. "Do you think it's all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold plate?" He shook his head. "Knights are for killing. I've lost track of the number of men I've killed," he told her honestly. "Lost track a long time ago. They were all too afraid of me to try to kill me." He pulled his sword away from her throat and looked at it, the distant firelight reflecting off the steel, "So long as I have this there's no man on earth I need fear."

Sansa stared at him. He is a dog, she realized. Just as he says. A half-wild, mean-tempered dog that bites any hand that tries to pet him, and yet will savage any many who tries to hurt his masters. A beaten dog. "Not even the men across the river?" she asked, thinking it wise not to share her thoughts with him.

The Hound's eyes turned toward the fires across the Blackwater Rush, "All this burning," he muttered, shaking his head as he sheathed his sword. "Only cowards fight with fire."

"Lord Stannis is no coward," Sansa argued with him. He couldn't be. She meant for him to save her.

"He's not the man his brother was either," The Hound told her. "Robert would never let a little thing like a river stop him. Neither would your brother."

"What will you do when they cross?" she asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders, "Fight. Kill. Die, maybe."

She hoped he would. She hoped that they all would. It was the only way that she would make it back to her family. If the Lannisters and all their guards, all their soldiers, all their dogs died. The Hound had saved her once. He had been kind to her a few times, as kind as a rabid dog could be. But she wanted him to die almost as much as she wanted Joffrey dead.

It was as if he could read her thoughts. His face darkened and he shook his head, "Fly away, Little Bird," he told her, waving his hand dismissively. "I'm sick of you peeping at me."

She did fly away, not because he told her to, but because she was tired of him. Tired and disgusted. And she was afraid of him.

And yet, a small part of her wished that Ser Dontos had a little of Sandor Clegane's ferocity.

If he had, he might have agreed to take her out of King's Landing before the battle.

-.-.-.-.-

Lenora

Dark wings, dark words.

Was there ever going to be a time when a raven did not mean bad news for the Starks? Lenora did not know the answer to that question, but she desperately hoped so. She could still remember the raven that had brought him the news that his father had been beheaded as a traitor. This raven would hit him just as hard. And he was injured. There was a part of her that did not want to tell him, she wanted him to live in a world where he did not know what she knew. But she could not do that.

He needed to know.

She went to his bedchamber as soon as the maester had seen to her wounds. He had stitched the gash at the back of her head nicely. It was well hidden under her hair, but if she reached her hand back there she would be able to feel the row of neat little stitches. He believed the cut would heal with little to no scarring.

The wound on her left hand was not as kind. She should have known better, the block had saved her life, but if the man had swung with just a bit more force he could have cut her hand in half. He had not made it all the way to the bones and as the maester had her bend and straighten her fingers he told her that she was lucky he had not cut any of the tendons in her hand. The stitches on her palm were thicker, not as neat. He had put a bandage over them to protect them and keep them from sight. He had warned that they might bleed more as they healed.

It had been barely and hour and her bandage was already bloody. She would need to change it sooner rather than later.

But first she needed to see Robb.

There was a guard standing outside the door to the bedchamber they had put him in. But when he saw her he smiled and bowed low to her. "Your Grace," he greeted her as he rose and straightened up. "All the men have been talking about you. They all say that you are as fierce as the Warrior out there. Gods but I wish that I could have seen you."

Lenora smiled at him and nodded, she took pride in her fighting, she always had, ever since Jaime had given her a sword. But it still surprised her that these Northmen took pride in it as well. It had taken some of them longer than others, but it seemed that they had all, from bannerman to guard, claimed her as their own.

They took pride in her skill as a fighter even though it was a Lannister that had given it to her. "Next time, perhaps," she told him, gesturing toward the door. "Is he awake?"

"Aye, Your Grace," the guard told her though he did not step out of the way. "Though I do not think there will be a next time. Soon as King Robb finds out that you were injured he will have you back with the Silent Sisters if he doesn't send you to Riverrun to wait with his mother."

Lenora shook her head, "He could try," she told the guard with a smile as he finally stepped away from the door. "Thank you," she nodded to him and opened the door, walking in without being announced.

He was awake as the guard had told her, but he was not alone.

He was sitting in the bed, his back propped up by a mountain of pillows. And to his left, gently wrapping his arm in a bandage sat a young woman. A pretty, delicate little thing with auburn hair. She was dressed in cream colored silks, a southern dress with her small breasts laced tight and pushed up, no doubt for Robb's benefit. She did not look up when Lenora entered the bedroom, but Robb did.

"Lenora," he called out and it warmed her heart that he did not sound ashamed, but relieved. No matter how fair and pretty little Jeyne Westerling was he still preferred his bruised, dirty wife who was still dressed as a man.

Jeyne lifted her honey brown eyes from the bandage and quickly stood from her seat, sinking into a deep curtsy, "Lady Lenora," she started, but she shook her head, quickly realizing her mistake, "I suppose it's Your Grace now, isn't it?" her voice was soft and breathy. She was the picture of a maiden, like one out of a song. She sighed when Lenora still hadn't spoken, "My apologies, Your Grace, I had thought to take care of the King while the maester saw to your own wounds."

Lenora nodded, her lips pursing. She was sure to Jeyne it looked as though she was trying not to be angry, but Robb knew her face, he knew that she was fighting back a smile. And when her eyes lifted to his, they were sparkling back at her, though his brows were furrowed with concern, "Your own wounds?" he asked her, echoing the younger woman's words. "What happened to you, Nora?"

"It's no matter," Lenora told him as she moved closer to the bed. "I was more concerned about you." She looked him over, making sure that there were no other injuries besides the arrow wound to his arm. She nodded at the wound, "At least they were kind enough to save your sword arm," she told him.

He chuckled at her and shook his head, patting the spot on the bed next to him as if Jeyne Westerling were not standing there staring at them as if they were something strange or foreign to her. "I don't know if it was kindness," he told her, "though I am grateful."

Lenora did not sit on the bed beside him, she moved around the bed, smiling a bit when Jeyne quickly skipped out of her way. She leaned over him, pressing a hard kiss to his lips before she sat down in Jeyne's empty seat and picked up the bandage she had left, preparing to finish wrapping his arm.

"Your Grace," Jeyne called out, reaching out as if to take the bandage from her hands. "I beg you, let me. You should be resting your hand."

"Your hand?" Robb asked, turning to look at Lenora's hands.

She sighed, placing his bandage down so that she could lift her hands for him to inspect them. He grimaced as he reached out and took both of her hands in his, flipping them so that her palms faced up and he could look at the blood soaked bandage. "What happened?" he asked her as he dropped her right hand so that he could use both of his hands to unwrap the bloody bandage on her left.

"I went to war," she told him with a shrug of her shoulders. "And I came back injured." She nodded to his upper left arm. "You know something of how that goes, yourself."

He had finished unwrapping the bandage and was holding her left hand tight in his, staring at the messy stitching. "It looks like you ..." he paused, unsure of how to finish his sentence.

"Caught a sword?" Lenora asked him, raising her eyebrows. "That's close enough to what happened." Robb raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to explain the rest. She sighed, pulling her hand out of his grasp so that she could rewrap the bandage. "It happened at the beginning," she told him as she wrapped, explaining how she had used her sword to block a soldier's swing at her head and how it was her own blade that had done the damage.

Robb shook his head, his eyes closed. "I shouldn't have let you come," he moaned out.

Lenora laughed as she began to wrap his arm again. "No you shouldn't have," she told him. "Though not for the wound." He opened his eyes and looked at her from under raised eyebrows, she grinned wider. "You will not be able to send me back to the Silent Sisters now," she promised him.

That made him chuckle. And it was his laughter that reminded her of the bad news she had come to bear. Now that he was laughing, and safe under her hands she did not want to tell him. But she had no choice. None of his men wanted to be the one to tell him, it would be up to her.

She turned toward Jeyne, not wanting to take her eyes off her smiling husband, though it would be rude to address the girl without even looking at her. "Lady Jeyne, do you think that you could leave us?" she asked, smiling softly so that she would not seem rude.

Jeyne bit her lip and swayed a bit on her feet, as if unsure of herself, "My mother sent me to see to King Robb's wounds," she told her.

Lenora nodded, trying not to scoff. Lady Sybell could use some work on her subtlety. "And now that I am here, the king is no longer in need of you looking after his wounds," she told the girl. "I am sure your mother will understand."

Jeyne nodded quickly and dropped into a low curtsy before she almost ran from the chamber. Robb laughed, "You didn't have to scare her, Lenora," he scolded playfully, though he was far from upset. "If I were wiser man I would say that you are jealous, my love."

This time Lenora did scoff. "Jealous?" she asked. "Of that girl? Your wolf would eat her up and spit her out."

"She is very," he paused, searching for the right word. "Sweet."

Lenora smiled, "Pretty, you mean."

Robb shook his head, "I would use simple to describe her, truly," he told her. "Her mother might be scheming, but I do not think the girl knows enough to scheme."

"An innocent woman?" Lenora asked, arching her eyebrows. "How rare!"

Robb nodded, "It's shame for her mother really," he told her. "That I am already in love with my scheming, sword fighting, wild wife. In another life Jeyne Westerling might have been just the sort of woman that I would marry."

Lenora smiled at him and shook her head, "Better than a Frey girl, I suppose," she agreed, turning to look toward the door.

She closed her eyes when his right hand grabbed ahold of her chin and turned her back to face him. "What's on your mind, Nora?" he asked her, once again displaying his unnerving ability to guess when she was afraid or worried about something.

She sighed, there would be no more stalling, she had to tell him. And she had to tell him now. "There's been a raven," she told him. "From Winterfell."

His hand fell from her chin and his face became dark and stormy, "My brothers?" he asked, his voice as hard as stone.

He was putting up a wall, he could tell by her face what the news would be and he was trying his hardest to shield himself from it. Lenora's heart broke for him. She sighed, shaking her head, "The Wildling woman and Hodor tried to run with them, north to the wall, to Jon. Theon and his men found them and killed them."

"He killed them?" Robb asked, his teeth clenched tight.

Lenora nodded, swallowing around a lump in her throat. "And burned the bodies." She knew that it would be the worst part. Robb still held dreams of retaking Winterfell and when he did he would want to bury his brothers in the crypt with the rest of his family. But Theon had stolen that from him as well.

His fists clenched on the bed beside him and when she looked into his blue eyes they were glassy with his tears. His jaw line twitched as he fought hard against letting the tears fall from his eyes, "He will die for this," he promised her, as if it were her own siblings that Theon had killed. "He will die for this."

Lenora nodded and stood from her chair, quickly moving around to the other side of the bed so that she could sit beside him and pull him into her, cradling his head in her lap as she might have done for a child. It was then, with his face pressed into the thick fabric of her pants and her fingers running through his auburn curls that her strong, brave husband cried himself to sleep.

-.-.-.-.-

Cersei

She had scrubbed at the stain. She had tried to cut a hole in her bedsheets. When that hadn't worked she had tried to set the bedding on fire, mattress and all. The Stark girl was beautiful, Cersei could admit to that, but Gods she was a fool.

Cersei almost laughed when the maid she paid to spy on the Stark girl told her of what had happened in the girl's bedchamber that morning. Almost. No doubt she would have if it hadn't been for the insult to her son.

She sent the maid away, ordering her to see that Lady Sansa was washed and dressed promptly before she was brought to Cersei's chambers. She wished to have a word with the girl.

She was brought to her as Cersei sat down to break her fast. The girl was pale, her eyes rimmed red. No doubt she had been crying all morning. Cersei sighed and nodded to the empty seat across from her. She waited until the girl sat down before she offered her some food. She gestured at the table, there was porridge, honey, milk, boiled eggs, and crisp fried fish. "Are you hungry?" she asked the girl.

She looked ill as she looked at the food and quickly shook her head. "No, thank you, Your Grace," she murmured when Cersei arched an eyebrow at her, silently telling her that she was expected to speak out loud.

Cersei pursed her lips for a moment before she nodded, "I don't blame you," she told the girl. "Between my brother and Stannis everything I eat tastes like ash. And there you go, trying to burn down the castle. Tell me," she leaned closer to the girl. "What did you hope to accomplish by burning the mattress?"

She looked mortified and quickly ducked her head to hid her shame. "The blood," she told Cersei, her voice little more than a whisper. "The blood frightened me."

Cersei raised her eyebrows at that. Surely the girl had been prepared for it. Lenora had, the blood had disgusted her, but she had not tried to burn down the Red Keep when she flowered for the first time. She had dealt with it with grace, had celebrated what it meant. "The blood is the seal of your womanhood," Cersei told Sansa, her voice colder than it had been when she had this same discussion with her own eldest daughter. "Your mother might have prepared you. You've had your first flowering, no more."

Sansa shook her head, though it seemed she was not disagreeing with Cersei so much as trying to pretend that they were not having this conversation. "My mother warned me," she told the queen, her voice somewhat defiant, for only a moment before it became meek again. "Only, I thought ... I thought that it would be different."

"Different how?" Cersei asked her, curious.

"More magical."

Cersei smirked at that. Of all the things a flowering was, especially the first, it was not magical. "Wait until you birth a child," she warned. "A woman's life is nine parts mess to one part magic, you will soon learn that." She paused for a moment, thinking of her children, remembering each of them when they were small, even Lenora, her heart ached a bit when she remembered all the time she had lost with her eldest daughter. It had been her own fault, she could see that, but it still stung.

Her children were her magic. But what had happened to them? Her eldest daughter was half a world away, held by her enemy and each day, no doubt, being turned further from her family. Her eldest son, was evil in a way she could have never predicted and completely beyond her control. Her youngest daughter shipped off to Dorne and lost to her now. She only had Tommen, though in time she most likely lose him too.

"The parts that look like magic often turn out to be the messiest of all," she warned Sansa as she took a sip of her watered down wine. "You're a woman now, Sansa. Do you even have the slightest idea what that means?"

"It means that I am fit to bear children now," Sansa told her, looking down at her lap, her lower lip trembling. "For the king."

Cersei smiled at her, it was not a kind smile, but it was all she could manage. "That prospect once enticed you more than it seem to now, Little Dove," she told the young girl. She did not blame the girl, but she wanted her to know that her mask was slipping. "You used to speak of your excitement at the thought of bringing little princes and princesses into the world." She rolled her eyes, "The greatest honor for a Queen."

Sansa's eyes darted to her face for a moment before she looked away quickly. Cersei sighed. "Joffrey has always been difficult," she confided in the young girl. "Of all my children, he was the most painful. Much worse than my first, which was a shock. After having Lenora I was sure that I would never feel a greater pain than that. But then came Joffrey. I labored a day and a half to bring him into this world. You cannot imagine the pain. I screamed so loudly that I was sure that Robert would hear me in the Kingswood."

That caught Sansa's attention. She looked shocked, "His Grace was not with you?" she asked.

"Robert?" Cersei laughed. "Robert was hunting. That was his custom. Whenever my time was near, my royal husband would flee to the trees with his huntsmen and his hounds. When he returned he would present me with some pelts or a stag's head, and I would present him with a baby."

She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering that first time. When she had sworn for nine moons that the baby she carried was a boy. And it had turned out to be a girl. He had been so angry when he stormed into her chambers. Something had stopped him though, he had looked at Lenora. And with that one look he had softened, so much as to admit that he should not have run away. Cersei wondered if she had bothered to look at the child so early on, if it would have made a difference. Probably not.

"Not that I wanted him to stay, mind you," she told Sansa, continuing with her story and pretending, not for the first time, that she had been happy and grateful for all those times that Robert had fled to the woods. "I had Grand Maester Pycelle and an army of midwives, and I had my brother. When they told Jaime he as not allowed in the birthing room, he smiled and asked which of them proposed to keep him out."

She smiled at the memory, that had been at Lenora's birth. Before things had changed between them. He had not been at any of the other births, he had not seen her birth their children.

She turned back to Sansa, the smile falling from her lips, "Joffrey will show you no such devotion," she warned. "You could thank your sister for that, if she weren't dead, and your brother too. He's never been able to forget that day on the Trident when you saw her shame him, so he shames you in turn. And your brother, he may not say it often, but Joff cares for his sister, loves her. Your brother's marriage to Lenora was hard for him. Another shame dealt to him by your family. More of a reason to shame you. But you are stronger than you seem. I expect you'll survive a bit of humiliation. I did."

She watched the girl for a moment, her hands clasped in front of her on the table, "You may never love the king," she told her, "but you will love his children."

"I love His Grace with all my heart," Sansa told her, quick and practiced.

Cersei sighed, sick to death of the girl's lines. "A pretty lie," she told the girl, shaking her head. "But a lie all the same. You had best learn some new lies, and quickly, Lord Stannis will not like the sound of that one. I promise you."

"The new High Septon said that the Gods will never permit Lord Stannis to win, since Joffrey is the rightful king."

Cersei smiled at that one and nodded, "Robert's trueborn son and heir," she murmured. "Though Joff would cry whenever Robert picked him up. His Grace did not like that. Lenora always had smiles for her father. His bastards had alway gurgled at him happily, but not Joffrey. Robert wanted smiles and cheers, always, so he went where he found them, to his friends and his whores. Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved, Sansa?"

"Everyone wants to be loved," Sansa told her, no question in her voice. She was sure that she was sharing a fact, not an opinion.

Cersei sighed, "I see flowering hasn't made you any brighter," she sneered at the girl. "So permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is a poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same. The more people you love the weaker you are," she told the girl, repeating the words she had told Lenora on their first morning at Winterfell. "You'll do things for them that you know you shouldn't do. You'll act the fool to keep them happy, to keep them safe. Love no one, but your children," she commanded, her voice hard. "On that front a mother has no choice."

Sansa watched her for a moment, "But," she hesitated, "shouldn't I love Joffrey, Your Grace?" She asked, echoing Lenora's very words when she had asked her mother if she shouldn't try to love the Stark boy for the sake of any children that they might have.

Cersei watched her, for a moment feeling sorry for the child, the little girl who still believed in her love stories and songs of knight with their maidens fair. "You can try," she told the girl, her voice heavy with the belief that Sansa would fail, "Little Dove."

Author's Note:

Seriously guys. I have the best idea for a Jon Snow story. I know my OC, I know the story, I know the title. And I just hope that I don't forget it before I finish this story. I refuse to have multiple in progress stories at once so it will have to wait. And we've still got a long way to go on this one.
A long way.
Anyway ... I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you did you should write a review. It'll make me happy!
Huge thanks to those who commented on the last chapter. You guys are wonderful, wonderful people.

writingNOOB: He didn't cheat. I decided that Jeyne's going to be pretty simple. There was never any evidence in the books that she was in on the scheme to get Robb to betray his agreement with the Freys, it seemed mostly to be her mother and her uncle. I need the scheming Westerlings, but I didn't need or want Robb to cheat.
I hope that you enjoyed this chapter too!

DannyBlack70: You're back! Not going to lie I had missed your reviews. I'm so glad that you're back! I'm glad you enjoyed the catch up and you are wonderful for saying that this is one of the better ones in the category. That is a HUGE compliment that I do not take lightly.
Robb is one of my favorite characters in the series too (him and Tyrion if I'm being honest) and I would never lower him to sleeping with Jeyne. Though I can't make any promises about the Red Wedding yet.
Thank you for the information about the swords. I am the queen of useless information, but I must say that I have no knowledge of swords really. So now I'm off to do research so I don't make the mistake again. Thank you!
And don't worry, I won't let the haters get me down. I'm going to keep doing this until people stop reading (and then probably after that ... because I really want to get to the end of Robb and Lenora's story).

HPuni101: Hello! I'm glad that you enjoyed the last few updates. And I hope that you enjoyed this chapter too. I'm really excited about where this story is headed and it's wonderful to know that you guys are too.
As for Jon ... he is coming back. Though it's going to be a while before he does. But he will come back. I can't not write about the Battle of the Bastards ... and you can't have the Battle of the Bastards without Jon Snow.

CaliforniaDreams: Hello! I'm glad that you are enjoying this story! You are more than welcome to ask any questions you like. I will answer some of them, tease you with some of them, and refuse to answer some. Don't worry, I won't ruin the story for you.

That's all I've got for now, friends!
Perhaps we will meet back here tomorrow! (It's going to be a good chapter, I promise!)
Chloe Jane.