SANSA V

The day was a warm and sunny one, as ever in the Red Keep, as Sansa sat eating her lemoncakes and drinking iced lemonwater in the gardens outside. The palm trees and lindens were shading her somewhat from the sun, as Marla and Jeyne sat beside her, holding her company. Ser Balon stood guard a couple of feet away, his sword on his hilt, looking as handsome as ever in his white armour and cloak.

The morning had been a calm one at first, as she ate breakfast with her friends. Father had only joined them for a short while, before excusing himself and going to his hearing in the throne room.

Robb had stayed for longer, though, trying his best to juggle an orange on his head and then throwing it at Gerion, and after that the table had erupted into a battle of the foods as Septa Mordane screamed for the boys to stop their misbehaviour, and Ser Marlon, Ser Barristan and Ser Jory all stood by with grumbled faces, as an orange hit Barristan the Bold on his gleaming white breastplate. That much, at least, had caused Robb to seemingly calm down, but Gerion had only laughed even more, before running out from the room, while Robb reached for a napkin and gave it to Ser Barristan, bowing and begging an apology for his uncourtly behaviour. Ser Barristan had accepted the apology, only somewhat curtly, and wiped his breastplate and forehead from the orange juice.

Sansa had sighed. Boys... Even her mostly sensible brother Robb was not free from their growing affliction. As Grand Maester Pycelle and Septa Mordane both had told them, and as anyone with eyes and ears could see and hear, young men often acted rather like wildlings when they grew fast and their blood riled up high, making them forget all of their fears and courtesies for a couple of raging years as they matured. Sansa sighed again when she thought about it. It was not very much like in the songs. The boys were all too loud.

But her own golden Joffrey had quite the opposite problem, it seemed, which was her mission to rid him of for during the day. For the last couple of days, since their dinner, he had been at his chamber with his uncle Tyrion almost all the time. He seemed almost to be afraid of her. Sansa had wondered if she had done something wrong, and she had asked the Septa about it, but Mordane said the obvious answer which she had somehow not thougth about in truth: He was still scared after Nymeria and what had happened at the Trident. She supposed that she understood. And so, her mission was clear.

She wanted to teach Joffrey that he did not need to be afraid of the wolves, or at least nof of Lady. He could fear Nymeria, of course, and perhaps even Robb's Grey Wind, but not her own wolf, not Lady, surely, if they were ever to be anything more than courteous strangers to each other in truth, if they would ever go on to marry eachother some day.

And so she had sent Naesha over to Joffrey's and Lord Tyrion's chambers with a message to him to come and join her for a walk in the castle gardens outside. Naesha had soon returned with a smile.

But now it had been more than two hours since then, Sansa was sure, as she sat beneath the palm trees, drinking her tea eating number three of her four yellow lemoncakes that she had on her plate in front of her.

"When will he come?" Sansa complained. "It is almost an hour ago now. Why is he taking so long?..."

"Perhaps he is freshening up", [Wylla?] suggested.

"Freshening up how? He is a boy. Boys don't freshen up."

"I think Joffrey does, actually", Jeyne said, sniggering somewhat. "He needs to curl his long hair."

"Oh, please, Jeyne.", Sansa said. "Everyone has long hair. My Father has long hair. Ser [Arys?] has long hair. Ser [ ] has long hair."

Sansa knew why Jeyne out of everyone would say something like that. Her own father, Vayon Poole, the lord steward, had grey short hair, almost beginning to be bald, with bandy legs, wrinkles underneath his eyes signalling his somewhere around forty years of age and a slowly growing pot belly. He was not handsome.

"Ser Balon has short hair", Jeyne said, signalling to Ser Balon where he stood, pretending not to hear the girls' talk from only a couple of feet away, as he had his gaze turned towards the invisible terrors lurking in the rose bushes and green maze-cut hedges further away. "Cropped and clipped."

"And Ser Balon is only half as handsome as Ser Arys", Sansa whispered, so low that she hoped that Ser Balon did not hear her, into the ear of her friend. Forbidden, secret giggles were the very best kind.

…

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity more, as Sansa began to count the number of leaves on the palm trees above, one after the other, Naesha came running up to her and announed swiftly and quietly that Joffrey had arrived.

Sansa arose, as her lady friends all giggled and curtsied, and then they left her and Joffrey to walk together.

Joffrey was looking quite golden, as ever, clad in his golden doublet with white and beige inlays, as well as a scarlet and pink undertunic which sleeved through in slashed parts. He was ever so handsome, and his hair was bright golden blonde in the light of the day. Sansa felt positively in love as she made her first eye contact with him and greeted him. She almost had to hinder herself from hopping up too quickly from her seat, as Septa Mordane had instructed her ever since she was little that a princess always let her suitors and guests of lower rank come over to her. And Joffrey did, as he took a couple of long proud strides along the grey-red pavement of the stone terrace and then bent down to kiss her hand.

"Princess.", he declared, lingering on her slender fingers for a bit. She had doused them with perfume earlier, and he seemed to be sniffing it for a goodly time.

"My lord", she replied, smiling up at him.

Then they began walking, as Sansa whistled and Lady came fro from the bushes to her side. Joffrey became startled at first, but then he seemed to remind himself, and forced himself to try his very best and stay calm.

Sansa sighed inside her head. It was all so terrible, and she almost felt sorry for Joffrey again, but he had to learn the difference between Arya's fell beast Nymeria and her own sweet Lady. That much, surely, was essential if they were ever to last.

...

Father had agreed with his own previous words, and even more so after Nymeria had bit Joffrey and fled on the Trident, and on their journey back through the Crownlands to the Red Keep after that. The wolves might be as pets, but they would not function like so to any other people who did not know them, and he would not become like the new Targaryens by frightening people with them wandering about. But he did, however, have to find a way to contain them when Sansa and Robb were not present to take watch over them.

And so Father, King Eddard Stark, had commanded the construction of a [hage/pen/[ ]] for them in the western part of the godswood. It was a small hage made of simple but tall wooden fencing where Grey Wind and Lady could be, and there was plenty of fresh grass and moss, soft dirt wherein they could burrow for voles and else, as well as trees for them to rest under in the shade. He even had the builders construct a dog house for them to sleep in, a huge work of a house for any beast, near six feet high and six by eight feet in wideness, which had finished for the direwolves in only two days' time, but when they sniffed on it and tried it out, it was clear that they did not like it. They were, after all, wolves, and not dogs, and they did not trust or enjoy things which men had built.

Still, they were happy enough to walk with Robb and Sansa in the castle when they wanted to, or in the gardens outside, beneath the oaks, lindens and palm trees and the flower rabatts. As she did now.

Lady was walking alongside Sansa, her pink tongue lapping in the heat of the warm summer day, as she padded across the warm mosaic pavement with her white-grey [paws/feet]. Sansa was wearing her white and airy summer dress inlaid with red and pink Tully roses, and she had her long auburn hair free-flowing, only tied up in a single broad ribbon at the back, which Leyna had helped her with. Joffrey was walking beside her, though still keeping ample distance between himself and Lady, even though he was on her other side.

"So... your wolf... " He began, uncertainly, a bothered, slightly imputelant strain on his voice.

"Lady", Sansa said clearly, as she had a thousand times before. He should know it by now.

"Lady..." he said, reluctantly. "Has she truly... never hurt you, my princess? Not even once?"

"No,", Sansa confirmed. "Never. Lady is a good girl." She smiled her sweetest smile, as she thought it seemed anyway.

Joffrey seemed to accept her words, even though it strained on him greatly, she could see.

"Well, all right... If you say so... I guess..."

They kept on walking, as Sansa waited for Joffrey to lean himself only the slightest amount further, closer to herself and to Lady on her other side.

Eventually he did, and though yet he still looked troubled in his face.

If he won't let her lick him by the end of our walk, I shall marry someone else, Sansa decided. Perhaps Lord or Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, whom she had begun to have heard much and more about of late, or even Gerion Buckwell, though she did not think it too feasible, neither on her part nor on his. And he was not particularly handsome either, at least not handsome enough for a princess, nor was his rank as only a small lordling from the Crownlands, regardless of how kind he was or how ever good friends he was with Robb.

But she would certainly choose someone she desired, at least. She deserved as much. She would not marry a husband who did not care for her friend. Lady was almost like a part of herself, of her soul.

Towards the end of their walk, Joffrey finally eased up, however, and as Sansa sat down on the stone bench and wall at the farthest end of the walk, by the outside of the castle's red tiles, overgrown by muralgreen ivy just here, she asked for Joffrey to put out his hand.

He questioned it, she saw, but he did as she told him, only flinching somewhat with his eyes all the while, as Lady stay perfectly put, her tongue lapping happily where she sat down on Sansa's rigth side in her place.

Then Sansa took Joffrey's hand and put it in front of her. She petted Lady on the neck of her fur with her other hand, and told Joffrey and her both to relax.

"Lady. … Relax. Relax. Calm down. … You too, my lord. Come now... There it is... Yes, Lady... Good Lady."

Lady turned down and bent forward with her head and face, coming close enough to sniff on Joffrey's hand, as he did his bravest to have his hand stay put, surely seeming to wonder if this was all some trick, and if she would not turn out at the last moment to be as wild as Arya and her fell beast, but then finally, Lady came to, as she sniffed once more on Joffrey's hand, on the sleeve of his golden and scarlet arm, and on his golden and black rings... And then she licked him.

Sansa smiled. And then she laughed, as one of Lady's whiskers brushed by her own hand.

"Good Lady. See, that was not so bad, was it?"

Joffrey looked up at her with a terrified look, but then he switched to, and made almost to smile for a moment. He flinched, he gasped, and then he was finally able to move and speak.

"No... No, I... I suppose it was not, my princess."

Sansa looked at him extra carefully, to see if there was only trust and truth in his words, and then finally she was content. She stood up and nodded at him, at them both. She was content. And his voice was handsome as well, and so sweet and kind/[ ] for her to hear.

"Good. Then we can carry on our walk, my lord. And perhaps you might walk a little closer to me now? A princess has good and sore need of both her Lady wolf and her lord to be betrothed."

Joffrey smiled at her now, with the [ ] of [ ].

"You... You really mean that, my princess?" He held her hand, tightening on it a bit as he smiled.

She smiled. She had him now, he wanted to ber hers, hers for true, again, and he was only ever as beautiful as that day on the Trident, before everything had gone to muck. It was all fine somehow, finally all good and fine and beautiful and pretty all over again. Just like in the songs.

"Well..." She said. "I do not know if I can find a better match... But surely the heir of Casterly Rock is a suitable one for the princess of the Red Keep? … Or am I wrong, my lord?"

Joffrey smiled, and bowed down. He seemed glad, but also strange... Flustered, almost, with pride.

"No... No, of course not, my princess... … Sansa."

She smiled at him. Her butterflies inside her stomach had returned. He was ever so golden and gallant. She loved him. She was sure to her innards that she loved him when she looked at him so. His beautiful green emerald eyes gleamed again, in the warm mid-day of the sunlight, just as they had done that day on the Trident. But now they were here, at home again, in the gardens of the Red Keep, and she had her golden prince with her... and he still wants to be mine, she thought. She was so glad. She was ever so glad for that.

And she swore to all the seven of her Father's kingdoms that she would not ever let Arya or anyone else try and spoil it for them again. Not ever. Now it is he and I, she thought. My golden Joffrey,... my golden gallant beautiful prince."