AEMON THE DRAGONWOLF
Part 1 - A Rose and A Mockingbird
Sansa II
Sansa had never gone near the castle forge in her childhood. She knew Arya had done, and her three eldest brothers, but this was one corner of Winterfell with which she was not familiar. She was lucky to have Jon with her, though it spoiled the surprise a bit.
"Come, Sansa, tell me what you've done," the King in the North asked her curiously. "I have a sword, my ringmail is in good condition, and I don't usually carry a shield."
Sansa huffed. "Really, Jon, what do I know of armor? I didn't commission a full set of plate, if that's what you feared."
"Well, what is it, then? I doubt it's a new set of silver spoons."
"Patience, your grace," she told him, grinning when he flinched. She wondered how long it would take him to accept his new title.
"Ah, Princess Sansa!" greeted Mikkar, the smith. He'd been recently married when Jon and Sansa had left Winterfell, and an apprentice to his father, Mikken. Sansa had met him in the Great Hall, and heard much about his family and the murderous Ironborn, as well as his hatred of Theon and the Boltons, when conspiring with the smith to make Jon's surprise.
"Jon—your grace," Mikkar added, bowing respectfully when he saw Jon.
"Good morning, Mik. Do you know why I'm here? Because I don't," the King in the North told the smith.
"Of course I know, your grace," he replied cheerfully. "By the old gods, it's strange calling you that, King Jon! It's in here."
He reached under his worktable and found a metal box, square and no more than six inches tall. A running direwolf adorned the lid. Mikkar offered it to Jon with a flourish. Puzzled, Jon turned to Sansa.
"Open it," she commanded, smiling.
Jon did so, and his breath caught. Inside the padded box was a circlet of hammered bronze, adorned with nine iron spikes shaped like swords. Every Stark king in the crypts until King Torrhen had worn a similar crown, and Riverrun's smiths had made an identical one for Robb. Instead of the First Men's runes of the first and second crowns, Mikkar had embossed the words Winter is Coming onto the bronze band.
"We don't know where Robb's crown is," Sansa admitted. "The Freys must have kept it. But you need a symbol of your new title, too. I hope you'll wear it, at least for important occasions when you need to be kingly, like Littlefinger's execution."
Jon reached for the crown with careful fingers. Sansa knew he was not the type to flaunt his position, but the lords and smallfolk of the North needed to see their new king as he was now, and not as the bastard boy he'd been. She knew that even Jon struggled to see himself that way, and she did as well; she didn't feel any different from before, when she'd been a lady instead of a princess.
She and Mikkar watched as Jon placed the crown on his head, and adjusted it to his liking.
"Do I look like a king yet?" he asked dubiously.
"Not just a king. You look like a Stark," replied Mikkar, grinning, giving Jon a small bow. "Your grace."
"What about you, Sansa?" Jon said suddenly. "If I have to wear a crown, you should, too. You are a Princess in the North, and I have no children; that makes you Crown Princess."
Sansa shook her head. It was so like Jon, and unlike anyone else, to name her his heir without an ounce of ceremony or hesitation! Foolish, too, since no Northman would follow an untrained woman into battle, but she loved Jon for it, all the same.
"I thought of that, your grace," the smith told him, now grinning wider. "I took the liberty of making this for the princess."
He produced another box, this one quite a bit shorter. After a nudge from Jon, Sansa opened the box and found a circlet of iron, slightly thinner than Jon's bronze one, and embossed with leaves. Instead of swords, this crown bore nine winter roses made of bronze.
"Good work, Mik, that's beautiful," said Jon, following the edge of a rose petal with his gloved finger.
"When m'lady Arya returns, I'll make her another," the smith offered. His simple faith that Arya lived and would come home warmed Sansa to her bones, especially after her conversation with Littlefinger.
"I can't see Arya wearing roses in her hair, even if they're made of metal," murmured Jon.
"Aye," agreed Mikkar, laughing. "Her crown would have swords as well, or perhaps running horses."
Sansa had taken her new crown thoughtfully. Never in her life had she imagined such a thing; her childhood dreams had involved delicate circlets of silver and gold, studded with sparkling gems that caught the sunlight and matched her eyes and her gowns. But the winter rose crown was a beautiful reflection of herself. She had been easily crushed by careless hands, but remained resilient and beautiful in the growing cold. She put it on and faced her brother.
"Very pretty," he approved, tucking a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear, and straightening her crown. "Petyr Baelish will see the Winter Rose of the North before he dies, standing unbroken despite all he did to our family; let the sight haunt him forever in the seven hells of the southron gods."
"Is it my turn to have a nickname?" Sansa japed. "Robb was the Young Wolf, you're the White Wolf, and I'm to be the Winter Rose?"
"If you like," her brother said agreeably, taking the two boxes from Mikkar and offering her his other arm. She took it, and they bid the smith farewell, heading back to their own quarters. They met a few wildlings, who jeered and bowed in jest at the sight of their crowns. Sansa knew better than to take offense by now. "A rose has thorns, and you have your needles. I think Winter Rose suits you well, though Fiery She-Wolf would do for the Free Folk."
"Why?" Sansa asked, puzzled.
"The Free Folk say that hair like yours is kissed by fire, and lucky," Jon explained.
Sansa inspected a lock of hair with her free hand. "It hasn't brought me much luck."
She looked up at Jon's face, and was struck by the sadness there. "What is it, Jon?"
He sighed. "I never told you this," he said slowly, "but I broke my Night's Watch vows once. I was sent on a mission north of the Wall, and infiltrated Mance Rayder's camp. That is how I came to befriend people like Tormund. And I spared the life of a girl I found while scouting with the Halfhand, so she said I'd stolen her."
"Stolen her? You mean—"
"Aye, to her it was like I'd married her," Jon said wryly, watching Sansa's face. She knew her surprise showed. "She was very...persistent. In the end, I did love her. We climbed the Wall together, and when she realized I hadn't truly deserted the Watch, she shot me."
He looked down at his leg, lost in his memories.
"What was her name?" Sansa asked carefully.
"Ygritte," Jon said. "She was kissed by fire, too, but that didn't save her. She died when the Free Folk attacked Castle Black. They were desperate to come south of the Wall, you see," he explained.
"Poor Jon," Sansa murmured, meaning it. "I thought you, alone at the Wall, would be safe from the trials of love, and yet here you are. Bards will sing of Ygritte, who shot a king in the leg and wounded his heart. The maidens will flock to Winterfell, hoping to cheer up their king and take his mind off his lost love."
Her king looked horrified at the very idea. There he stood, the very image of the legendary Kings of Winter, and Sansa could not stop the laugh that erupted from her belly.
"You needn't look so scared, Jon," she giggled. It had been years since she had laughed so easily.
"I have a very deadly war to fight against the Others. The last thing I want is to have the ladies of the North chasing me around Winterfell, hoping I'll make them queens," Jon told her seriously, opening the door and holding it for her.
"You can't avoid it now, your grace," Sansa said practically, turning to face him as she passed by. "You married off Alys too quickly; she would have been the perfect Queen of Winter. Now the chase will only stop when you choose another queen, and then the others will fight to become your mistresses."
Her brother stiffened. "Well, anyone who thinks that can forget it right now. I have no plans to marry for the nonce, but if I did, I would not shame my wife."
Sansa smiled. Good men were rare in this world, but Jon was decidedly one of their number.
"I know you won't," she replied softly.
The King in the North gave Sansa the box for her crown, and retired to his solar. He usually attended to his correspondence at this hour, as well as the household and army accounts, knowing Sansa had no head for figures. That gave her enough time to sneak down to the kennels, where her new friends waited. For a moment, Sansa considered taking off her circlet and putting it away. Then she changed her mind; she was a Stark, a Princess of Winter, and she would make no apologies for it.
Inside the kennels, she was surprised to find the Hound, though really, she shouldn't have been. Why should a kennelmaster's grandson not visit his fellow hounds? He turned, hearing her approach, and raised his undamaged eyebrow at the sight of her new crown.
"You're dressed far too pretty for a visit to the dogs, Princess," he said. "And shouldn't you be in the Hall, telling the useless Knights of the Vale why Littlefinger is about to die?"
"No, thank you," Sansa said serenely. "I've had as much of Petyr Baelish and his crimes as I can handle in a day. And I disagree, ser," she added, kneeling to greet the dogs through the bars. Sansa reached into the bag she'd taken from the kitchen, and pulled out a handful of sausages. The dogs' tails waved frantically as she handed out the treats. "The dogs are my friends, and they've done me a great service."
"Oh really?" Sandor Clegane asked curiously. "And I'm not a ser. Why do you insist on calling me that?"
Sansa met his eyes with her own. "We don't really have knights in the North, unless they squired for a southron or follow the Faith of the Seven. I call you ser because to me, you represent what a knight should be, rather than what they are. You are here to defend us from danger, are you not?"
He said nothing. "And these dogs ate my second husband for me," Sansa explained, running a hand through Kyra's fur.
The Hound's mouth fell open. "WHAT?"
"It's true, I swear it by the old gods and the new," Sansa assured him, noting his disbelief. "Ramsay was fond of hunting women instead of beasts; these dogs helped him. If the woman gave good sport, he would name one of the bitches after her. But before the battle he starved them for days, poor things, hoping they'd eat Jon for him. I locked Ramsay in there after we won, so the women he hunted and I had our revenge, and these beauties had a feast."
Sandor Clegane said nothing. He stared at her, wordless.
"I may have been a little bird when you first met me," Sansa said, "but I am a wolf now, ser."
"You're more like your sister than you thought," the Hound told her at last.
Sansa smiled bitterly at this. "Arya would have stabbed Ramsay to death on their wedding night," she said firmly. "She hated everything about King's Landing, and she knew from the start what Joffrey was. I wish Nymeria had eaten him instead of given him a scratch." Then Lady and Father might not have died for nothing, she thought sadly.
Her thighs burned from squatting by the dogs. She rose, using the kennel bars for support. On the other side, Red Jeyne, Sara, and Kyra whined piteously.
"Oh, hush," Sansa told them. "I'll come back tomorrow, you know I will."
"I did wonder why you were no longer afraid of me," Sandor Clegane said, quieter than he usually spoke. He stepped closer, but did not move to touch her. "I suppose you've seen real monsters now."
The princess blushed. "I have. Can you forgive me for the way I treated you?"
The Hound scoffed. "Forgive you? For being disgusted at the sight of me? I can't fault any woman for that, little wolf. I'm disgusted at the sight of me."
"Well, it was still rude of me," Sansa insisted, falling back on politeness when sincerity was not enough. "And I will prepare something for you to take on your journey north. You once gave me your cloak when I needed it most," she said, fighting back a shudder at the memory of her beatings and humiliations in front of Joffrey's court. "Now I will give you one."
The man blinked, like he could not remember when he'd given her a cloak. Then his eyes darkened. "You don't owe me anything for that."
"I do," she argued. "No one but you and Tyrion even spoke out when Joffrey had his Kingsguard beat me, and you're going to the Wall for all our sakes. The least I can do is make sure that you're warm enough. This won't do at all," Sansa decided, prodding at the Hound's scratchy woolen cloak.
Sandor Clegane looked at Sansa like he'd never seen anything like her. Then he gave her a small bow.
"Then I thank you, Princess," he said in his raspy voice.