"Perhaps, Princess Sansa, what you have experienced is not warging," the maester serving House Martell, a man named Caleotte, said. "There have been no records at all of anyone warging into dragons. It is not possible without a drop of Targaryen blood to have any bonds with a dragon, and we all know that you are no Targaryen."
Deciding to rebel, just for the sake of it, like her one attempt with her Septa just after they had reached King's Landing, and also after a shared mischievous look with Elia and her sisters. "Who's to say that I can't be one?" Sansa asked.
"Dear Princess, you are not the right age to be even suspected to be a Targaryen," Caleotte told her. "You are born three years after Robert's Rebellion, however... there is another Stark..."
Sansa noticed a hesitant pause. "Another Stark...?" she asked.
"There are other Starks, who are descendants of the First Men who possesses a variant of the gifts they shared with the Children of the Forest, and it is called the Greensight," the maester quickly continued, completely concealing his blunder in the eyes of the other girls, but not Sansa. However, she had never heard of the Greensight before, and decided to let him go for now. "It is the ability to see past, present and even the future. Perhaps you are able to see things that happen simultaneously with... current events."
However Elia raised an eyebrow. "Maester, can Sansa not be both?" she asked. "A warg and a Greenseer?"
Caleotte sighed. Ah, the minds of children. "Perhaps one can, Elia. We never would have thought that dragons existed, and now there are three in the world. Perhaps their return brought magic back?" He then showed everyone in presence a certain link in his chain. "This link was made of Valyrian steel, and it is only granted to those who have masted the 'Higher Mysteries', your Maester Luwin, Princess, was a compatriot in my ventures when we studied together. So rest assured that I can be some help in your... abilities."
"I never doubted you, maester," Sansa said sweetly. Oh, she wouldn't doubt him at all, most of all, because she knew that he knew something. Maesters were a wealth of knowledge, but this particular maester had something of interest to her and he did not reveal it to her willingly. He must have almost said something that someone had told him not to.
The day's lesson went on, for Sansa and Elia, in how ladies destined to be diplomats should act and compose themselves. It was different than a Septa's lesson. Septa Mordane would tell Sansa that a lady should always be graceful and courteous, so that she would be regarded as being refined and sophisticated; superficial things. Caleotte's lessons, on the other hand, ran a little deeper.
He told them that most men were pigs who only had bedsport in their minds and were easily entranced by beautiful women. With enough alcohol, any woman would seem exceedingly beautiful to them. That was why for women who served higher causes should always make sure that their gowns were cut just right. They had to show just enough to tease and withhold enough to keep them from wanting more. Margery Tyrell immediately came to mind for Sansa as they went about their lesson.
Ever since she had married Oberyn, Sansa was told that she could choose. Choose who she wanted to be, what she could do with herself, and with Oberyn and Ellaria, who she wanted to take to her bed, even. Here, in the schoolroom, faced with so much information, Sansa realized more than anything was that she was not going to be the courtly flower that her mother had raised her to be. If she was going to be one, she would be one who spoke and made decisions, but she would not be foolish like Cersei or one that was too aggressive like Margery, to the point that she even alarmed Cersei.
The first thing that she must do, she decided, was to uncover the secret that the maester had tried to cover. Another Stark who could have Targaryen blood? Who was that Stark and why would a maester in Dorne know of it?
"Khaleesi?" Jorah asked Daenerys after the peasants of Yunkai had brought her back to the ground. She had looked ecstatic that the Yunkai freedmen had taken to her so happily, but now, she behaved differently.
"We're being watched," Daenerys said. There was a quiet hint of unease in her mind, she could not know what it was. "I... felt the same way in Astapor as well."
Barristan Selmy raised an eyebrow. "Watched, Your Grace?" he asked. "You have no spies around you, I can be sure of that."
"No, not by a spy," Daenerys said. "It sounds strange, but it is as if some... eye in the skies. I feel someone's gaze on me but I can't tell who it is."
"The Masters are slave owners, Your Grace, not magicians," Selmy added. "Even if there were magicians, your dragons would teach them a thing or two."
Knowing that her two advisors did not believe her at all, she knew better than to press the matter further. She wondered who could be watching her, and why. It seemed that only Rhaegal seemed to understand her.
"What is it?" she asked. Rhaegal hovered some distance away from her and coughed up a ball of flames. From the green veins of his flames, she could see a face. It was a girl, a little younger than she was. Did Rhaegal see this girl before?
"You must've fed your dragon too much," another voice interrupted her thoughts. It was Daario Naharis, the new Captain of the Second Sons, who had helped her take Yunkai, wearing that dashingly handsome smile as he spoke. . "He's burping all over the place."
Daenerys rolled her eyes. "Maybe you should mind your business," she shot back and left his company.
"You are hiding something from me," Sansa told Oberyn that very night, just before they fell asleep after a bout of lovemaking. Ellaria had retired to the chambers her daughters were housed in, and Sansa had missed her weight on the bed. It was a statement. There was no anger, no hurt, only a statement that she was aware of a secret that he was keeping from her.
"Hmm?" Oberyn asked innocently, drawing Sansa into a kiss. "And what would that be?"
She let him play around with her. After all, it was what Maester Caleotte had taught her. She would put his lesson to practice. "The maester told me that it was impossible to warg into a dragon without any Targaryen blood."
Oberyn chuckled. "Of course you aren't a Targaryen, my wife," he told her, tipping her chin. "You are Stark and Tully through and through, kissed by fire." He threaded his fingers through her long hair and pressed a kiss on her jawline.
"He told me that there was another Stark who had," Sansa slipped, looking intently into his dark eyes. "Oberyn, the Targaryens killed my grandfather and uncle, how could there be a Stark with Targaryen blood?"
Oberyn groaned. "I will skin that old fool alive," he hissed. It was too late now. His wife had already caught on and he knew that he could ever hide anything from her. They had passed through the Tower of Joy when making their journey to Sunspear and then to the Water Gardens. She knew that her aunt Lyanna had died there after being kept there for one year by Rhaegar Targaryen. However, she knew nothing else that the history books did not say or what her father had not revealed.
Sansa knew that Dorne was hiding something. "You can't tell me?" she concluded.
"Not many that know it still live, my love," Oberyn replied. "Your father was one of them."
Sansa's eyes widened. "My father?" she asked. "What did he know?"
"I will tell you tomorrow, in Doran's presence," he said. "It is a fact that I cannot present by myself."
"Why?"
"Hush, my love," Oberyn silenced her, tapping his finger to her lips. There was nothing more to speak of the matter. He would let it rest until Doran would open it tomorrow. "Now tell me, how do you find your stepdaughters?"
Luckily for him, his wife decided to humor him. "They are lovely," she answered. "I was afraid that they would not like me, but... I feel as if I have a gaggle of sisters more than I have stepdaughters now." Strictly speaking, she was much younger than the older Sand Snakes and was a few months younger than Elia, who was born in the same year as she was. If there was any mother-figure in their lives, it would be Ellaria, not her. She was only their father's wife.
However, Oberyn had laughed at her description of his daughters. "A gaggle of sisters," he repeated. "Every one of them, even Loreza, can easily murder a man in his sleep if they so wished." They were given a precarious life, his daughters. They were highborn bastards, born to not only luxury but freedom from too much responsibility. Their education was different from how Sansa had been educated. All of them were trained to bear weapons and Sansa knew that Loreza liked to play with morning stars for the matter. "You say the most peculiar things, my love. They are endearing, truly."
"Your daughters won't murder me in my sleep," she reassured him. "We're not going to be fast friends, but I hope that one day, they'll trust me enough to be one." Determination. It was a strong trait in all of the Starks that some would mistake as stubbornness. Catelyn Stark had been a determined woman, yet she was too defensive. Sansa's readiness in accepting Ellaria might have been weakness in her mother's eyes, that she was a victim of circumstance, the result of a political marriage, but Sansa saw an opening. She could be like her mother, but Sansa knew that it closed more doors for her if she had chosen to do so. He could see that deliberation when they had been still betrothed. He had introduced her to Ellaria and she was immediately drawn to her. It would be the same thing with his daughters, if Obara and Nymeria were any good indicators.
"They will love you," he promised her. "In time, they will."
"I hope I survive that long," she sighed. "You never know..."
Once again, he had interrupted her with a kiss. It had become a habit that she had hated and loved. She hated it because it deprived her for a chance to speak her mind, but loved it because she knew it came from how much he had come to understand her. "You have survived horrors that most cannnot, my love," he told her in all seriousness, tipping her chin towards him so that she would not look away. "You will survive everything you face, I promise you."
Sansa could do nothing else but nod, and press her lips to his forehead in affirmation. She loved her husband, but she had hoped that once she outgrew her dependence on him, for safety and warmth, she would be able to stand on her own two feet instead of using him and Ellaria as her crutches. She had needed him in King's Landing. She needed his infamy as a half-mad warrior on the loose to free her, she needed his family name to avoid marriage to anyone the Lannisters wanted her to marry, she had needed Ellaria's softness to comfort her. Could she live another day without them by her side? Could she have done it? She did not know. Would it be monstrous of her to dream of such a day, when they had given her so much?
"What are you thinking about?" Oberyn asked her. He had known from the beginning that Sansa was not one for much words. She was an observer if anything.
"What if one day, I will leave Dorne?" she asked. "What if I told you I want to cross the Narrow Sea and venture through Essos... on my own?"
"My heart will be with you when you go," Oberyn told her simply. "If you decide to venture north of the Wall, or if you decided you will be a Khaleesi by conquering other Khals in the Dothraki Sea, I will wait for you to come back, even for a day. You are so young, my love. The world is yours to see and experience. Say it, and a ship will be prepared for you." Sansa had been from the North and she had come to Dorne in her marriage to him. She had already seen most of Westeros. He doubted that her heart would be rooted in their continent. "Or... if you would one day find yourself in the bed of a certain Silver Queen..."
"What makes you think that that would be possible?" Sansa asked him. Trust Oberyn to come up with the most incredulous of ideas. Her husband had shrugged, but the very fact that he brought the possibility of it...
"Now come, it is time for sleep," he told her, tucking her under his chin. "It is so late in the night that it might be early in the morning." As soon as he had stopped talking, she could hear faint snores from him. She too, surrendered herself to sleep. The Gods knew that she would need it.
"She is a strange little thing," Tyene said to Ellaria when she was asked about what she thought of her father's wife. "I've never seen anyone that could look so afraid but so brave at the same time."
Sarella nodded. "She looks like a huge doll," she said. Sansa was in no way a slight woman. She was as tall as Oberyn and even taller than some of the knights in service of their family. "Does Papa really love her?"
"He and I both, love," Ellaria said. At first, Sansa had been a girl to be saved for them. If marriage was the only way, then let it be marriage. When they got to know her, they marveled at her strength. She carried steel and ice in her blood, nothing else. But it was Oberyn that put her high on a pedestal. She was young and beautiful, the sadness of her experiences made her even more irresistible. A sad maiden was dearly needed by a valiant prince. Sansa was more than that, Ellaria mused. Sansa was not like her mother, hungry for the blood who have wronged her or will wrong her, nor was she flailing about, trying to throw her weight like Cersei. Sansa would one day find herself and when she did, she would shock the world. She and Oberyn were only there to bring Sansa to that next stage in her life.
"Mama, what if Sansa has any children with Papa?" Tyene asked. "What will happen to us?" Bastards were loved as any child in Dorne. But Sansa was not Dornish. She was a Northerner. Northerners were stern and stuck to their rules.
"Your father will never turn all of you away, if that's what you're worried about," Ellaria told Tyene, holding the hands of the two girls around her. "If anything, Sansa will learn to love you and you must do the same with her."
"Maybe she just wants to love us because it's her duty to do so," Sarella posited. "She knows that Papa loves us and she can't touch us."
Ellaria smiled. "That too," she said. Sansa was not foolish enough to ever dare to remove Oberyn's daughters. Ellaria was sure that the thought had never thought about it to begin with. "Do you know that Obara and Nymeria have been made Captain and Lieutenant of the Northern army?"
Both girls nodded. "They told us in their letters," Sarella said. "Tyene pouted all day because she couldn't go with them to start." Before Oberyn, Ellaria, Obara and Nymeria had left Dorne to seek Robb Stark, Oberyn had gathered all his daughters. He had told them that Tyene was battle-ready but he wanted her to take care of the younger ones and Sarella was to help her. Obara and Nymeria were older and far more experienced, so they would personally lead the Dornish spearmen that had hid in the Westerlands and Riverlands as merchants. Thus Tyene and Sarella remained in Dorne, and there they were.
"What about that strange lady Sansa brought with her?" Tyene asked. "Who is she, Mama?"
"She is Brienne of Tarth and is Sansa's sworn sword," Ellaria answered. "Your father thinks that she is a very interesting woman."
"She looks just like a man," Sarella commented. "Does she fight like one?"
"Like a man and more," Ellaria replied. "She won Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers in a duel and was named into Renly Baratheon's Kingsguard before he died."
Sarella did not understand. "What's so special about that?" she asked. "We've beaten Ser Deamon many times and we're not knights."
"Things are different outside of Dorne," Ellaria explained. "The men fight and the women bear children, not arms." Outside of Dorne, her relationship with Oberyn would have been frowned upon. The Sand Snakes would be nothing but outcasts, no matter their military prowess. Sometimes, she felt herself lucky that Winterfell was now in ruins for if it was still strong and in control of the Starks, Oberyn would have had to leave them for his duty to Dorne. She might be able to live past it, but his daughters would not have. She was lucky that Robb Stark had no other choice but to say yes to Dorne's conditions. She was a woman too, a mother and she had to think for her children. "We are lucky to be children of Dorne, for we have far more freedoms than women outside our lands. They even have to wear corsets to keep their waists eternally slim."
Tyene balked. She had to impersonate someone from the Storm's End before and she had to wear a corset. It was the most constricting thing to wear ever and she felt as if she could not breathe. "I'd rather skip that lemon cake for dessert than having to wear such a monstrosity."
"Sansa loves lemon cakes," Ellaria noted. "She eats them one after the other and she still has a lovely figure."
Tyene groaned. She, on the other hand, had to train for hours and hours with her daggers and various other weapons with anyone who would entertain her just to afford herself that one lemon cake.
HAN: This chapter is named so not only because Sansa wants to stretch her wings, but because I'm stretched for ideas on what to write. I've also decided to make Sansa something between a warg and a Greenseer, although she can't control it particularly well, because just warging into dragons is a tad impossible.
HOORAY for Dany's debut on the fic! And that innuendo by Oberyn hmm...
About the maester bit, I thought that SOMEONE had to teach them Sand Snakes how to be sexy for... reasons. They're naturally sexy, all of them, but you know how to apply said sexiness is another thing.
P.S: I really need you guys to help me keep Sansa in check. If she gets too OOC please give me some warning.