authorsnote: my first asoiaf wip for 2024! and well clearly I have the hotd fever!
and you know I can't resist mixing up the timelines and throwing characters together, sue me, I can't help myself. this will be heavily influenced by fire and blood part 1, and the asoiaf novels, but will include some bits I like from the tv show (and ditch many others)
and so we go to ... a bit of a dance, of a kind.
do let me know if you'd like more of this
songrecs: the power of prophecy - house of the dragon s1
'You only lost one eye, how could you be so blind?'
- Otto Hightower to Aemond Targaryen
-x-
When she woke, she knew something was different.
She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did. The air felt different for one, warmer, once she'd ached for warm weather, for the feel of the sun on her cheeks, for a heat on her arms, not for summer snows but for no snow at all, she'd craved that, but then she'd been a fool.
A fool for so long.
Her time in Kings Landing had permanently put her off the heat, she'd cringed from it when she'd been in the Vale and a sunny day had come overhead, even back home in Winterfell, she had never got too close to the fire, revelling in an open window at night and the chill of the snow as she'd stood on the battlements.
Now though, there was a gentle breeze on the air, but it was the warmth that persisted over the breeze that unsettled her.
The smell was different too, gone was the crisp scent of winter, and instead the smell of … fish? Hung in the air, fish and salt, but there was a sweeter scent too, and as she turned her head, realised she was lying in a bed, she forced herself to open her eyes and saw flowers to the side of her head.
Flowers on a dressing table, next to a bed she was lying in, that weren't her own, as she sat up, and the sun streamed through the open balcony window, she knew, this wasn't her room, this wasn't her home, and this wasn't Winterfell.
It was all she could do to supress a scream.
But Sansa Stark had not gotten where she had, survived countless tragedies and tortures, survived near rape, accusations of murder, near been killed herself time and time again, even debated taking the tumble at her own hands. She hadn't survived all of that to crumble again.
I am turned from porcelain, to ivory, to steel.
Though the shriek only stayed in her mouth by sheer force of will, and the scent of flowers, so long gone in the snow of Winterfell near choking her nose, she hated the smell, it threatened to choke her.
She lashed out a hand, unladylike but necessary, dashing the flowers, vase and all onto the floor.
Only then could she breathe a touch.
Only then could she allow herself to smother the panic threatening to claw up her throat and take in her surroundings.
She knew where she was in an instant, as she looked around the room, the gold lined wallpaper, the balcony covered in white drapes, the ornate four poster bed, the wardrobe stuffed full of gowns of red and gold.
She knew where she was and threatened to upturn her stomach onto the floor, to scream and wail and not care what it meant, to run to that balcony, said inviting breeze trickling in from there, and fling herself from it.
She'd thought a few times, in this very same place, in her youth to do so, to take it, anything, something into her own hands, to step out into the breeze, and the foul smelling air, to put first one leg over, and then another, a tremble would be in her hands but she would steady herself, turn to face the pale stone worn streets, and then let go.
Tumble and tumble, smashing like an overripe fruit onto the ground below.
Had considered it many a-time, only talked herself out of it by thinking about her Mother, Father, brothers, sister, what they would think of her, how they wouldn't want her to give up.
But could they begrudge it her now?
And yet, this time it was outside intervention that stopped the pure panic from thrusting her onto the balcony and onto the streets below, as the door opened.
"Princess"
What had they just said?
A serving girl, nervous, dressed in red; and now she might truly vomit, Lannister colours. This was her worst nightmare come real.
She pinched herself sharply under the covers, once, twice, three times enough to draw blood, and yet she did not wake.
The nightmare was real.
She was awake, apparently alive, and somehow in Kings Landing.
And this nervous serving girl, fluttering to her side to clean the flowers had just addressed her as Princess.
Had she perhaps gone mad?
Because how else could she have gone to sleep in her bed, in Winterfell the night before, snow falling outside, a crisp beautiful wind in the air, her chambers near freezing (as Jon often joked), tucked in and comfortable, awaiting a new day on the morrow, a new day of standing by Jons side as he ruled, offering council, discussing food and provisions, and the upcoming battles.
A battle that would be at their door in just days, a battle far more important than one with Queen Cersei brooding in Kings Landing, or the Dragon Queen who had ignored them and she her, as she focused on Kings Landing, but they looked North.
How had she gone from the closest thing to happiness, battle looming or no; she could have ever hoped to feel again, to living her worst nightmares come true?
"Leave it" She snapped, wanted to scold herself, she was never impolite to servants, her Mother had raised her better than that, and yet she allowed herself this sin for now, her hands shaking beneath the bedsheets, her stomach churning, fainting surely not off the cards for the day.
For it was day, sunny and bright, the kind of sunshine you couldn't get in the North, the oppressive heat she'd once yearned for but then had been glad to see the back of, forever.
Once home, she had promised herself she would never step foot in the South again. It didn't matter why, it didn't matter at all, she would never let even a toe cross below the Neck for as long as she lived, and even beyond, would see her bones interred at Winterfell, where they belonged.
And yet here she was, in Kings Landing, she was sure of it, and ignoring the servant girl, a handmaiden she realised, she swept past her, onto her bare feet, even the floor beneath her was warm as she hurried to the balcony, flung the drapes aside, and looked out.
Out as she had known she would, onto the streets of Kings Landing, the orange roofs, the lined up houses giving way to shacks on the edges of the City, the stinking fish smelling docks, and there, she knew as she looked left, her breathing shaky, hands fluttering, she saw the courtyard her room sat adjacent to.
The courtyard of the Red Keep.
Her eternal prison.
Perhaps she had died, passed in her sleep and now was haunting the seven hells. Had she deserved to go to them? For causing her Fathers death? For being cowardly in not taking her own life but clinging stubbornly onto an existence she'd had to fake and lie her way through? Had the Gods, Old or New sentenced her to an eternity of suffering in the gilded cage she'd once escaped.
What other explanation was there? Especially as her handmaiden spoke.
"Princess are you alright?"
There it was again; Princess.
She couldn't explain what was happening, but Sansa allowed herself a moment, just a moment, the panic still threatening to bring her to her knees, a moment to breathe in the air that tasted wrong, breathe it in all the same, settle her pounding heart, screw her hands into fists, the crescent moons of her fingernails digging hard into her palms, hard enough to draw blood; and yet the pain, the trickles of blood beneath her fingertips focused her, focused her enough to be able to think.
Think, think, think.
She didn't know what was happening, the balcony could still be the best choice, and yet she backed away from the edge, turned to her handmaiden then, hopefully not looking too crazed; she had survived Kings Landing once, for now she surely could again.
Sansa had survived this place on her courtesies, a pretty smile, an empty head to outsiders all whilst gathering information, learning, understanding, reading peoples actions, their body language, the words they said and didn't say. She had learned at the knee of first the Queen, and then the greatest deceiver of all, had learnt it, used it, and now she would again.
What had Littlefinger said to her once? One of his many lessons, useful as they were.
'Learn a man, and you will know how to move him'
Learn, and now she would.
Even as her heart pounded, and blood trickled over her palms, she spoke with a calm voice, serene, stepping back, letting those walls of ice she had relied on in Kings Landing fall back into place, her eyes shuttering, her gaze still.
It was like slipping on an old cloak, it came easy to her.
"Apologies" She said kindly to her maid, "I had a nightmare, and was not quite myself for a moment there I fear"
"O…of course Princess, I'm sorry for intruding I just wanted to check you were alright" She stumbled, and stuttered, Sansa offered her a smile, one so utterly false as it looked kind.
"Quite well now" She said, and then, she knew she needed to be alone, to explore this room, to understand what had happened. Had she been captured? No, they could not have dragged her the month to Kings Landing without waking her, so what had happened?
She glanced down then, at the sigil stitched onto the handmaids clothes, and only managed to school her face, smother a mad gasp and offer that smile again, "Leave me please, but I would like some tea"
A task that would take some time as the handmaid nodded, smiled and left.
Left in her red dress, not stitched with the lion of Lannister, but the dragon of the Targaryens.
Sansa had been asking why, and then she realised, once again on the balcony, but not looking down into the City she so hated now, as she looked up at the skies, to the Gods, Old or New, looking down upon her, she should have perhaps been asking something different.
Especially as a roar boomed over the City, and Sansa knew she only stayed standing by gripping the balcony, her knuckles and face turning white, she should have been asking when.
there we have it
all will be explained next chapter, well not all, but some ...
do tune in, and let me know if you want more
next chapter, we meet the second hero (tho I really can't call him that) in our story
speak soon