The Reign of the Wolves

by Adam Targaryen

In an alternate timeline, where Ned decides to take the Iron Throne in the exact moment he encounters Jaime sitting on it with the Mad King's blood on his sword. King Eddard Stark has been king instead of Robert for the past 14 years at the end of the Long Summer. Jaime's at the Wall. Cersei weds Benjen. Viserys & Dany grow up as wards on Dragonstone and at Riverrun, respectively.

3. Chapter 3 - Sansa I

The Reign of the Wolves - Chapter III - Sansa I

NOTE: This chapter is Sansa's first chapter, as she is waking up and has a relatively regular day as a princess in the Red Keep in King's Landing. It is somewhat long and boring in the beginning, I suppose, but I believe that it is very nice with more everyday scenes and descriptions as well, and the chapter does have many specific interesting and important parts to it which will be important foreshadowing and plotpoints in the future as well. In general, it is very fun and interesting and most of all important to build a compact picture of the Starks at court at the Red Keep, and how their daily life is and so forth, so that we see that. I am very pleased with it, at least most of the chapter, but please tell me what you think in your reviews. :)

...

SANSA

"The sky was a light purple dream on the horizon through her tall glass-frame windows in the Red Keep. The hour was still early, no more than one or two glasses after sunrise. She had awakened early and sat up in her bed, as she so often would do, trying to make the most of these precious few hour before the sun came up with the sweltering heat of early noon and mid-day and made the entire world into a hot yellow summer's day once again. She supposed she enjoyed the heat at times, but in truth these past few weeks had been almost too much. And so she was glad to be up now, as early as the blue and auburn little birds that flew and chirped and sang prettily from the window sill just outside her bedchamber.

Her handmaiden, Leyna, had not yet awakened, and so Sansa sat up still on the edge of her bed, looking out through the window at the beautiful sky and the city below, and the vast sea in between, where ships sailed with beautiful sails of orange Martell, bright green Stokeworth, purple red Redwyne, light veldian blue Arryn, sea turquoise Velaryon, dark green and white Manderly, river red and blue Tully and snowy white and grey wolf Stark. She had seen it a thousand times before, and yet there were always new things to be seen, as the sea was constantly changing with new ships, new people and new sails.

She liked to sit by the window and comb her hair in the morning, watching the ships sail by and dreaming of their destinations and the people that were on them. People from different, far away lands, people from her ancestral homeland of Winterfell in the North, and Riverrun, people from entire worlds, and people of different colors altogether. Her hair was long and auburn, shining like red bronze and weirwood leaves against her pale white skin in the early morning light. Or at least so she thought, and had heard as a compliment many a time, though she had only ever seen a weirwood once, at the godswood in Winterfell when she was little, many years ago now, and barely remembered the color of the leaves. She thought them at least two or three shades darker than her.

She was still dressed in her [lilac/violet/light purple ] silk nightgown, listening as the song and play of Symon Silver-Tongue echoed slightly up towards her window from the bailey far down below, and Sansa could only almost make out the words in the song, his newest piece which he would no doubt compose further and play for her later in the day, something about dreams and knights and "the river across the land where the white flowers grew like snow"... It was very beautiful, and she would be sure to thank and applaud him generously when she would hear it in full, she made a note to herself. By the table close to the window stood her own harp, which she now soon considered playing, a flagon of lemonwater with two cups, one for her and one for Leyna, her embroidery, a book on the noble houses of the Riverlands left by Septa Mordane and a plate of figs, cheeses, olives and lemon cakes.

She played on her harp, plucking at the strings with her pink slender fingers. It was important to have slender and lithe fingers to play the harp, as her Mother had, and she was blessed with the same, though it was still somewhat hard work to keep all the strings in place. She wondered whether Symon would hear her, and whether he would think that she were playing well or not. She was always trying to improve, with Lady Pellegara as her teacher, but it seemed to go ever so slowly. She simply wished that the world would move with a swifter pace at times, so that she could grow up and become better at all the things she still needed to master to be a true Princess.

Her father and mother were the King and Queen, respectively, and as such, she herself must strive to always improve herself and rise above the status of any regular highborn ladies, such as her friends, Jeyne and Wynafryd and Marla, and be the epitome of ladylike manners and fine breeding. That included playing the harp, practicing at song, painting, learning tongues such as High Valyrian, Dornish and Pentoshi, learning all of the houses of the Seven Kingdoms, as well as their sigils and house words, learning how to properly behave and be courteous to all the different peoples from all across the land that came to court to apply for an audience with her father or mother or herself, as well as to keep herself beautiful and attractive to any potential suitors. Sansa had mastered some of those arts already, but she still had much left to learn, to her joy.

Leyna woke up from her bed and came to Sansa's side at the sound of her harp.

"Good morning, Princess", she said. "So beautifully you play."

Sansa thanked her and bid her sit next to her. Leyna did as she said. And so they sat, listening closely, as Leyna watched over her like an older sister, the way she always did, her dark hair tousled from sleep before she decided to put it up with a silver hairpin in the shape of a seashell. Her family were originally shellfishers from the harbour of King's Landing, and so she wore it with pride.

There was a knock on the door. Was it that time already? She supposed it was. Her soft playing had awakened the corridors of the castle outside outside her room, or so it felt. Leyna stood up and opened the door for Demarra and Naesha to come in.

Naesha was a beautiful blond young woman of nineteen years, with blue-green eyes, a light white complexion, soft features but with a sweet bird's-beak-like nose. Her hands were soft and smooth, and she was always good at scrubbing Sansa gently with the bath brush, and drying her ever so smoothly with the towel afterwards. She liked to talk of Robb and the other young men at court, and gossip at times, which Sansa indulged her in with glee those rare times she brought it up. She was wearing a white and green dress which further emphasised her fair greenish blue eyes.

Demarra was taller than Naesha, and somewhat older, with a dreamlike maturity hidden behind her large honey-coloured lugg of hair on her pale forehead, resting on her long beautiful alabaster marble neck like a sculpture of perfection. Her hands were long and slender, somewhat narrow and malnourished, Sansa supposed, though she would never think anything wrong with it; rather the opposite. Her entire body frame was like that of some fairytale princess, or some creature from the enchanted woods, prettier in shape than Sansa herself for her age and fine upbringing close to Duskendale in the Crownlands, and more specifically House Shellwater, from where her forefathers had come from a baseborn child some past generations back. She wore a white dress today, with pink details, as she often did.

They both entered her chamber now, and helped pick away the food and other things from the night before as she and Leyna waited, still sitting by the window. Then the three of them all began helping her with her morning routine, and Naesha and Demarra carried a wooden bathtub into her room, the murky gnarled lines of the wood shining beautifully against the yellow golden sunlight of the morning light coming in from the windows beside.

Leyna washe her hair and face as always, Demarra scrubbed her arms, armpits, breasts and chest and Naesha scrubbed her back, her stomach, her nether parts and they both helped together to scrub her legs and feet, Demarra taking her right leg and Naesha her left.

When they were done, Sansa stood up from the wooden bathtub and saw her thin legs standing like two pale pillars below her, ending in her now clean feet, making the towel on the floor wet with water and suds and bubbles/soap. Naesha wrapped her in a comforting towel and dried her with nifty care, her thrifty hands pocketing the towel towards Sansa's young girlish shape and rubbing at the parts she felt needed drying the most, namely her back, her butt, her lady's parts, her thighs, her stomach and her chest.

Sansa felt the water dripping down in simple drops from her long, flat hair made dark and slim wet with water from the bath, slick against the shape of her head, and looking so beautiful and surreal in the mirror before her, almost like a mermaid from the Summer Sea, she mused in her own daydreams, imagining sitting on a rock somewhere, or why not deep beneath the ocean, with a large pink shell conch in her hand, playing it like a harp and making all the beautiful fishes and sea-creatures of the deep dance in harmony from the sound.

Her dreams made themselves real, and she grew into it, imagining it all surrounding her own naked, towel-clad young and beautiful shape in the mirror standing before her. There were blue and green and red fishes, fishes with long shapely fluttering fins, sharp-mouthed swordfishes with their long lances, jousting with eachother like knights,sharks swimming with sharp vicious teeth, the green seahorses, the sigil of House Velaryon, although much smaller, as Sansa thought, and also eels and needlefish and loonteyfish and lanternfish and hagmouths and marulks and seagriefers, pussets and slimeyfish, lobsters and crayfish, rayks and crabs, great heirline mantas and spiny stingrays, fat flockfish and small snapfishes, dolphins and great enormous leviathans singing from the deep blue somewhere far below. All of them were bowing down their heads in respect, and singing the praise of her, their mermaid queen. Pickerfishes picked snugly at her arms, and she gave them of her wonderous food, which grew from her hands. They ate from her hands gladly, their scales glinting in the sunlight from the other world far above. Her hair was still as straight as on land, with purple anemones snirkling around the sharp slings of her hair, as if gravity still did its work on her down here, but there were leaves rising from the depths towards the surface, arising and flocking together until they covered the surface of the ocean like a mat towards the sunlight, making it shadeful and dark. They came from a great field down below, somewhere beyond the behemoth shapes of the leviathans who were serenading her reign with their beautiful orphaic song. She had never ever looked so beautiful, nor felt more a princess.

Leyna put another towel, a light blue one, on her head and gathered up her long flat Tully hair in it, to make it dry faster. Sansa wanted to let it dry slower, letting it drip silently to the floor one drop after the other, and with her hair so slim and pretty just like in her dream, but she did not say anything. Instead she let Leyna bundle her up like a honeyholt coop and then sat down on the edge of her bed as Demarra and Naesha began preparing to dress her.

"May I choose my own gown today?" Sansa asked. She wanted to wear the purple pink one, which made her think of the purple pink sea shell conch in her dream.

"I don't think so, Princess. Your lady mother would want you to wear a nice red dress today, same as her."

"But I wish to wear the pink and purple dress today. Please would you bring it, Demarra", Sansa said.

"You know we can't do anything the queen hasn't ordered, princess", Demarra answered in a fleetingly avoiding tone.

"Then go and ask her", Sansa suggested. The two chambermaids looked at each other, exchanging glances for a couple of seconds, and then Naesha finally subliged and went out of the room to go and ask her lady mother about it. Her Mother would be in her own chambers, no doubt, but hopefully awake at this early hour, and were she not, Sansa would command them to giver her the pink and purple dress all the same. She would not leave her room without it, she had already decided. It was a beautiful day, far too beautiful to not be dressed as a slim and cool mermaid of the sea for before when the heat of day started to press on later in the afternoon.

"Very well. What would you like to break your fast with?" Leyna asked.

Sansa thought about that for a while, her mind still in her dream.

"Could you fetch me some fish for breakfast? Portgappers, perhaps. Or kippers."

"Certainly. What kind of kippers, princess?" Leyna asked. "Smoked boecklings with butter and lemon pepper?"

"Boecklings would be fine, yes", Sansa answered, in a nonchalant tone. She was not in any mind to be having conversations about the food now, not before she had eaten it properly. Besides, Leyna knew how she liked to have her boecklings when she wanted them, usually only a couple of times every other moon or so. This was one such suddenly pressing day.

She was feeling particularly crazen and feisty today, just as her mother had warned her would happen if she woke up too early and played on her harp without eating for an hour or more. But what were she supposed to do, when the only hours of the day truly suitable for playing the harp to a beautiful sunrise were so early before the breaking of the fast, and she seemed to awake so early from her own instincts at times, and the rest of the day was too hot and warm to do almost anything more on.

"What more, princess?" Leyna asked. "Bread?"

"Yes, the same as usual, though with extra blackberry marmelade, some buttered garlic snails, garlic and snipes, water and lemonwater, and lemoncakes."

"Your mother won't be happy with all of that, princess", Leyna said. "You shouldn't be eating cakes more than once a day. They have far too much sugar in them according to the Queen."

"It is one such day today", Sansa said, focusing on the shape of her wet eyebrow as it was holding on to a drop of invisible dreams in the mirror, a tiny droplet in which all the world's oceans seemed to be able to hold themselves without ever falling down to the carpet on the mirror stand below her.

Leyna only obliged silently, as usual, lifting the old plates from yesterday from the table and going out the room to the kitchens with them.

They dressed her in her pink and purple gown, at last, and brushed her auburn hair out, settling it with a [ ] in her hair, parting it in a line along the middle and then smoothening it into two semi-spheres so glistening and shiny so that it looked almost like Dornish redberry ice cream. After that, they twirled and braided her long hair on the side into two thin braids at the front close to her temples, two thicker braids at the side and two broad ones at the back, which they bound together in a sick-sacking fleated pattern like a ruddy wheatlength of bread. Then Leyna carefully tied small pink rosettes and patterns into it, and sprayed her hair properly with rosewater perfume.

Sansa ate her breakfast slowly, taking her time to imagine the tables at the mermaids' court before her, but then she had to rush when Leyna told her that it was nearly the hour of the morning dove.

Septa Mordane stood outside her door in the corridor, waiting, and took her under the arm to follow her to the [ ].

"Did you have a good night's sleep, Sansa?" Septa Mordane asked.

"Yes, indeed", Sansa replied. "I dreamt that I was a mermaid princess underneath the sea, with fishes and sea-creatures as my subjects, and they all sang such beautiful songs to me, and I was just as beautiful as on land. Even more so!"

Septa Mordane laughed heartily at that. "Well, that does sound like a wonderful dream indeed", she said.

They went in to the Common Hall and sat down. Jeyne Poole, Wynafryda and Marla Piper were already there, sewing and talking quietly, and Arya and Haelda Wendwater. Sansa sat down next to Jeyne and Marla. She immediately told them about her dream as she began sewing. Jeyne soon became fascinated from hearing the story.

"I wish that I had such exciting dreams", she said. "All I ever dream about is what happened the day before, although people are either more angry at me or much happier, or just strange. And sometimes being back at Winterfell again, though those dreams are always the same", Jeyne said.

"Every time? Don't you have nightmares some time?" Wylla asked.

"Oh yes", Jeyne remembered suddenly. Sansa knew about those. "I dream that I'm running through a dark path in the forest, being chased by hounds or wolves or..." She did not know whether to whisper the last word or not. It was a shame to her, being a northerner, Sansa knew.

"Wargs", Jenye said quietly.

"All right, Jeyne, that's quite enough talk of the North", Septa Mordane said. "There are no wargs left south of the Wall, and the men of Night's Watch protects us from anything beyond. You have no reason to fear for them down here in the capital, child."

"I don't fear for them. It's just that... well... sometimes at night I remember the stories that Old Nan used to tell me, and..."

"Well perhaps they should tell nicer stories up in Winterfell", Septa Mordane said with a curt tone to her voice. "Not all this talk of monsters and wargs and winters that never end. It's still the high of summer. Let's talk about something more pleasant again, shall we?"

"Yes, Septa", Jeyne said, dismayed, lowering her head. Sansa felt sorry for her friend. Septa Mordane was usually nice, but when it came to things of superstition, she was not one to be argued with. Unless it came to the many stories about the Seven from the Seven-Pointed Star, of course. Those were all true, no matter how absurd they all sounded, Sansa thought quietly to herself, minding her needlework.

"I once dreamed that I was going to be married to the Lord of Winterfell", Wylla confessed. "And then Sansa and I would have been like sisters."

"Cousins, Wylla", Septa Mordane corrected.

"Yes", Wylla agreed. "Cousins."

"You dreamed that you were going to marry my uncle Benjen?" Arya said outright without thinking. "He's almost as old as Father, and besides that he's already got a wife. He's married to Lady Cersei", she continued.

"I meant the young lord of Winterfell, his son Willam", Wylla said politely.

"Then why did you call him the lord of Winterfell?"

"Well, I suppose because one day he will be the lord after his father."

"You mean after Benjen dies?" Arya became upset. "Don't you dream about my uncle dying! That's not fair, he's not an old man yet"

"You just said he was as old as Father", Sansa put in.

"Aye, I said he's old, but not as old as that. He's not like Grand Maester Pycelle!"

Jeyne and Marla giggled at that, and even Sansa had to smile a little, though she tried stopping herself. Grand Maester Pycelle was old and ancient indeed, with a long white beard and eyes full of wisdom from a thousand books, and wrinkles and spots all over him, almost a hundred years, Sansa was sure. He had served three old Targaryen kings before her father became king, and if they had all reigned for as long as he had, or more, that would be nigh on fifteen years times four. Sixty in total. Sansa knew her sums. Though their uncle Benjen was nowhere near that, and had only been Lord of Winterfell for Father's reign. She stopped her giggling and turned to her sister.

"Honestly Arya, you are so stupid at times", Sansa said, with a certain warmth to her voice all the same. "Of course he's not as old as that. But what Wylla meant was simply that he will be the next lord of Winterfell, just as Wylla will be the next lady of White Harbour."

"But how can she be a lady of Winterfell and of White Harbour at the same time?" Arya said. "Now you're the one being stupid."

"That's enough of calling each other names, girls!" Septa Mordane said. "If you don't have anything nicer to say to each other than that, don't say anything at all. A lady should never be rude or impolite in her speech, only ever if absolutely necessary."

"It was necessary to me", Arya said.

"Quiet, child!" Septa Mordane said, moving to sit beside her and Lady Haelda, who was almost too quiet by comparison. The septa almost seemed like a plump hen mother now, Sansa thought, so close to the smaller girls, taking care of her two dark-haired little chicks and wrapping her wings carefully around them.

"We all belong to the same castle", she said, "and we must not be rude towards each other. Or towards anyone else, for that matter."

"What, I can't be rude to anyone? Anyone at all? Not even if I don't know them?" Arya said.

"That is the very last time you should be rude to someone", the septa said, "because you don't know their story or what they've been through. We are all highborn ladies, and as such we need to act like our status, and be better than the squabbling smallfolk. And you shall not be rude to them either, Arya", she added.

"Are you highborn as well?" Arya said. "Before you were a septa, I mean."

Sansa had to giggle at that. She hoped Septa Mordane didn't think it was directed at her. It was just Arya who said such stupid, un-thought-out things at times like these.

"Yes, princess Arya, I am too highborn", the septa said.

"You are too highborn? You mean you are more highborn than you would like?" Arya continued trying to vex the septa, as she always did when she became in a mood like this.

"No, I mean that I am highborn as well!" the septa said, with real anger in her voice now. Thankfully, Arya finally shut her stupid horselike mouth at that.

They were all silent for a while, sewing and trying to calm down. Septa Mordane really did look like a henmother now, Sansa thought, adjusting her weight on the cushions of the bench and looking down on the head of Arya and poor Lady Haelda with disapproving eyes and the sharp crone-like beak of her nose. Lady Haelda looked terrified, the poor little bird, but she sewed on well in silence nonetheless, perhaps even faster now, and at least two times faster than Arya did.

Lady Marla showed her stitches to the septa, and she nodded in silence at the work, showing her how to continue on the next row and color. Sansa wondered how long time it would take Marla to finish her swan-lake picture, as she had been ill for almost a fortnight before, and as such was still behind on her work. Sansa's own piece was already showing the baseline of the model, and Wylla was close to her as well, almost faster than Sansa herself sometimes. At certain times Sansa almost thought that she was holding back her pace to not compete with her, or show herself as better. Now was one such time. And she wants to be the Lady of Winterfell, Sansa suddenly thought to herself. Although I suppose that she should be distraught that I would be the princess of the sea, like her family is. I didn't tell her it was the Summer Sea, did I? She wasn't sure.

Suddenly a chambermaid came over to the septa and whispered something in her ear. She nodded silently and thanked her. Then she arose from her cushions and spoke to them all.

"Right, girls. I want you all to listen very carefully now. You are not to go anywhere near the young Lord Robert's chambers, nor to Lady Lysa, nor any other room in the Tower of the Hand. Lord Arryn has fallen sick again with fever and we must take care so that we are not afflicted by it."

"Why would I go inside the Tower of the Hand to visit Sweetrobin? He's more of a baby than Rickon", Arya said.

"If I don't misremember you were playing with him as late as the day before yesterday", the septa said.

"Only then", Arya said. "It was because we found a glass marble with an eagle inside it, and then we threw it back and forth between us."

The septa ignored Arya's retelling of that day, and how they had stupidly broken the glass marble belonging to his father Lord Arryn, and how Arya had sent Sweetrobin into a fit afterwards. Either that, or she did not know. Only Ser Merlon had been there, and told both the King and the Hand about it.

"Good. There is no knowing what kind of illness the Hand has caught, and whether Lady Lysa or Lord Robert have become sick as well. So far they have shown no signs of it, but we must take all manner of precautions. Lord Jon is starting to be even worse now than last time, I am told."

Sansa thought to herself that she never went in to the Tower of the Hand. She didn't even think she had ever been in there, except for that one strange fleeting memory she had of when she had followed Father up the stairs that one time all those years ago, when she was only as tall as Arya when she was three or four. At any rate, she reminded herself to steer far clear of Sweetrobin were she to see him. She did not wish to catch a fever.

After a while when the sun shone brighter through the pillars of the Great Hall, Septa Mordane decreed that it was time for their lessons with Grand Maester Pycelle. Sansa eagerly took Jeyne's arm and walked with her along the corridors, following the trail of the dragons on the wall mural as she did every day. There was her favourite, the red dragon with its long sharp open mouth and spiky red back, flying slightly above the ground and turned facing towards the left, with its jaws frightening to behold, screaming in defiance towards the smaller golden one which stood below iton the ground. Their riders were Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen That Never Was. When Sansa had been little, she had thought that the black-haired woman had been a Stark, perhaps her ancestor. She had been enormously disappointed when she found out that that was not the case. Rather, Lady Rhaenys had been black of hair from her mother, because her [father/mother] had been a Baratheon. After that, she had felt sad every time she had looked at the painting, but now she thought that perhaps that Baratheon in turn had had some Stark in them. She could not believe that her Father would have let the painting stay up otherwise, and she knew that a Targaryen princess had once been promised to a Stark.

She had once hoped that she might marry a Targaryen herself, like Prince Viserys, whom she had never met but often dreamt of, but then she heard that he had been married to a lady his own age of house Velaryon, and she had cried herself to sleep that night, for the loss of her Targaryen match and the chance to ride on her own dragon some day. She knew that the dragons were all dead, of course, but that had not stopped some previous Targaryen kings to try hatching them again. Viserys and his family still lived on Dragonstone, after all, except for lady Daenerys, who lived with her grandfather at Riverrun. Sansa still could not explain that to herself, and neither had her Father been able to when she had asked him. It was only one of the many secrets the grownups held to themselves.

When they came down the stairs and into the side alcove, Grand Maester Pycelle was seated in his chair beside the table with the heraldry book in front of him. Bran came in from the side gallery corridor behind with Erryk.

"Good morning to you, Prince Brandon. Princess Sansa. Princess Arya. Ladies..." Pycelle mumbled, as he leaned forward to read from the book.

"Good morning, Grand Maester", they all said in turn.

"Today we will be going over the houses of the Westerlands again. Do you remember those?"

Bran nodded enthusiastically, Sansa mumbled in agreement, Jeyne did as well, and the others said little but agreed.

"Princess Arya. Do you know who are the lords paramount of the Westerlands?" The old maester looked at Arya with an inquisitive gaze.

"House Lannister."

"Good. And what is the seat of House Lannister?"

"Casterly Rock. Or... The Rock."

"Very good, yes. Casterly Rock, named after the Casterlys of old, or sometimes only called by 'The Rock'. It is a huge castle carved out of the working gold mines of a cliff, from where House Lannister gets all of its enormous amounts of gold and silver and other precious metals. It is the largest castle in all of Westeros, bigger than Harrenhal even, higher than the Wall and with thousands of rooms and corridors stretching deep into the mountain."

Bran looked on with fascination in his eyes, and Sansa began to fantasize about Casterly Rock as well. Her Father the King had been there once, to attend the wedding of Lord Benjen to Lady Cersei Lannister, many years ago. He had not spoken much of it, though. He seldom spoke of any such things unless asked, and barely even then. Grand Maester Pycelle always spoke to great length on any question she asked him, but he spoke almost too much instead, and then soon began to drift away into other matters and often forgot what the original question was about.

"Now", he said, "what are House Lannister's official words? Bran?"

"A Lannister always pays his debts."

"A very good motto indeed, and one most well known to all other houses of the Seven Kingdoms, my young prince, but not their official words, I'm afraid", Grand Maester Pycelle said. "The true motto is one much less frequently used, but nonetheless with a similar meaning. 'Hear me roar'."

The Grand Maester turned to Sansa now.

"And what about you, Princess Sansa? Can you tell me the name of House Lannister's greatest port city?"

"Lannisport", she said, with certainty in her voice.

"Very good, very good", Grand Maester Pycelle inclined. He pointed for them to come closer to the table, Haelda, Marla and Wylla especially, so that they would see better. They crowded in a semi-circle, looking at the entirety of the vast greyish green map from above, yet squinting purposefully with their eyes on Pycelle's order as usual, so that they would not be able to read the text of each keep which gave them the answer. At times Sansa wondered how Pycelle could tell who was looking and who was not. Perhaps he relied on them keeping an eye amongst themselves, as Sansa would tell on Arya and sometimes Bran too when they were trying to cheat by stealing a look on the words.

"Very well then. Who can tell me the house which presides here?" Grand Maester Pycelle said, lifting a spotted hand to point at the great map which lay across the magnificent oaken table in front of them all. The keep he was pointing to lay in the southwestern part of the Westerlands, far enough from Casterly Rock that she did not know what it could possibly be.

Noone said anything, but then Bran lifted his hand up.

"Is it the one with the rooster and the chickens?" Bran said.

"Yes indeed, young master Bran", the grand maester said. "House Swyft of Cornfield. One of the principal bannermen sworn to House Lannister. Lady Dorna Swyft is Lord Tywin Lannister's good-sister."

Sansa remembered now. A lady from House Swyft was married to Lord Tywin's brother, or was it his sister who was married to the lord of the house? She wasn't sure.

"House Swyft, then. Who can tell me their motto?"

Marla raised her hand.

"Awake, awake", she said.

"Very good, Lady Marla. Awake, awake, indeed, to wake the sleepers into honourable battle. It is the call of the rooster of the morning. That way it is easy to remember. Now over to the next one."

After a while Pycelle changed so that he would name the house name first and then ask for the sigil and the house words. They poured over the map, with Pycelle pointing and Sansa, Bran and Marla competing for who was first.

"House Crakehall?" Pycelle asked.

"A brindled boar!" Bran almost yelled.

"A brindled boar", Grand Maester Pycelle agreed, nodding ponderously with his massive old head and bearded chin, with his snowy white beard already starting to sweat from the first heat of day. "It is a black and white brindled boar standing on a brown field. And their words?"

Bran guessed that it was something to do with being strong. "Maybe... 'We are the strongest'?".

"Strong, yes... Or perhaps fierce..." Grand Maester Pycelle fished with his words. Bran still could not come up with it. "House Crakehall's words are 'None so fierce'", Pycelle finished. Arya was beginning to grow restless already, tugging and playing with the laces on Lady Haelda's dress, as Lady Haelda did the same to her.

"House Marbrand?"

"A burning tree", Sansa said, before Bran had a chance to shout.

"Very good, Princess. A burning tree on a smoky grey field. And their seat?"

"Ashemark". Sansa was sure of that, at least. It was easy to remember from the burning tree that it was called ashemark.

"And their house words?"

"Burning bright", she said proudly.

"Very good, Princess", Pycelle aupplauded her. "What about House Lefford?"

"Its sigil is yellow... A yellow golden pyramid or something..." Sansa mumbled, trying to see it clearly before her. "And a yellow star."

"A golden pile, yes, it does indeed look much like a pyramid of the east... On a sky-blue background, and with a yellow sun to the left", the grand maester said. "What about their seat?"

"I don't recall", Sansa admitted.

"The Golden Tooth", Marla said without hesitation.

"Very good", Pycelle said. "House Brax?"

"A unicorn!" Bran shouted.

"Good, my Prince. What colors?"

"Purple, I think. On... a silver background."

"Very good. Their seat?"

Bran had no idea.

"Hornvale", Lady Marla said. "It lies just south of the Golden Tooth, here", and she inclined with her finger on the map.

"Splendid, Marla", Pycelle said. "You are correct. What about House Westerling?"

And so they continued, house after house, until the hour of day was as bright as it would become, and near as warm. Pycelle finally arose ponderously from his seat and they all bowed and knelt to thank him for the lesson. The grand maester kissed the girls on their hands as they presented them, and he patted Bran on the shoulder, before he started his long tiresome walk back to his chambers, rattling with his heavy chain in the heat all the while and mumbling to a servant after a caraff of cold lemonwater.

Sansa, Jeyne and the others went to the [ ] and sat down to rest. Her Mother was already sitting in her [decorated wooden throne/chair] next to Lady Piper and Lady Wendwater and all the rest. She greeted Sansa and Arya with a warm smile when they came in. The day was almost at its brightest, now just before noon, but would continue to heat up as the great hourglasses of the corridor ran down, ever so slowly, and were emptied of sand. Sansa asked a servant to her side to fetch some more drinking water.

The yellow rays of sunlight shone in from the sparkling colorful mosaic of the tall stained glass windows, and Sansa almost prayed for autumn for a while, though this was all that she had known. It was nice to have summer, of course, but in autumn time, she had heard, one could dance and play all throughout the afternoon without getting tired. The air was cooler and more... airy, somehow. She did not know what was meant by that, but she trusted in Septa Mordane's words, and dreamed quietly of an autumn sea as she sat by Jeyne's side sewing slowly, with her large colorful book by her side in her lap.

After a while, just as they were beginning to become bored, Moonboy came into the Great Hall, making a mocking mummer's farce about some horses, though which horses that had had the energy to run around like that yesterday she could not say. The fool was supposed to make japes about what had happened in the city of late, but Sansa seldom knew what those things were, since they were only ever allowed to be inside the Red Keep. She often had to ask Septa Mordane or her Mother. It was only ever Arya who was stupid enough to run out into the city, and Arya was not one to have as an example. Septa Mordane explained the antics of Moonboy as he galloped laughing across the floor with the stickhorse between his sweaty motley breeches.

Septa Mordane lowered her head down and explained the news quietly to Sansa.

"They say that there were some horses that escaped from the king's stables this past night, and somehow made it into the Street of Steel. But most people would agree that they were stolen. And now the City Watch is looking for the thieves to put them under arrest and have their heads."

"Horse thieves?" Arya said, who was sitting beside. "How do you steal a horse?"

It was far too easy.

"I could steal you away by throwing a glass marble outside the city walls", Sansa said with a shrug of her dainty shoulders. "You would chase after it in a heartbeat."

Lady Wylla started to laugh at that, coming as a shockwave from within her chest, and then more and more, and laughed hysterically at the joke, and Jeyne also sniggered somewhat, but then Wylla remembered herself, covered her mouth in front of the septa and the Queen, doing her very best to calm down, and begged for forgiveness for her impropriety.

"I'm sorry, septa. Sorry, Your Grace. I did not mean to laugh, it just came out of me", she said.

The Queen looked to Septa Mordane to tell her off about it. Septa Mordane in turn was only moderately angry, but angry nonetheless, as she scolded her.

"Silence. You must not make such mean jokes, Sansa. A true princess never says anything ill like that of anyone, least of all her own sister."

"Do you hear? Do you hear how they mock me? All the stupid time, they call me Arya Horseface! Well it's not funny! If you say that one more time to me, I'll throw a marble right at your stupid fish face instead!" she screamed at Sansa.

"At least I don't have water for wits", Sansa said, as calmly and prettily as a bird, adjusting her long sleeves to sit neatly streaming from each arm on her lap.

"You don't have any wits at all! You're stupid!" Arya cried, and then she was off into the next corridor, tears streaming down her long face, with Lady Haelda following her uncertainly, and Septa Mordane doing her best to catch up with the girls not far after. The heat was making it difficult, and the septa looked annoyed at each heavy step she had to take in the sweltering long hall. She called out to the guards that stood at the far end of the [corridor? Gallery? [ ]], telling them to catch Arya when she ran past, but Sansa knew that they too would struggle. If Arya was ever similar to a fish herself, it was in being as slippery and fast as one when she wanted to get away. She sighed to herself, adjusting her sleeves again and turning back her head towards her friends. Her Mother pointed a meaningful stare at it.

"Don't speak like that to your sister", she said. "You girls are so mean to poor Arya, and then you somehow wonder that she is rowdy and wild and doesn't behave like a lady in turn?"

"She honestly asked for it", Sansa said, shrugging again. "Did you see how they threw that ball around when they had found it lying in Lord Arryn's solar?" she asked Jeyne. "I'm honestly surprised [ ] didn't have her whipped for doing that to Lord Arryn's gift!"

"Was it a gift?"

"I think so. Sweetrobin said it was a gift to Lord Jon on his [seventieth?] name day, from one of his bannermen. It was made from the finest jewellers and glassmakers in the Vale, no doubt".

"Well yes, then she would have deserved it", Jeyne agreed.

"That is enough!" The Queen decreed, rising from her chair, and Jeyne swiftly shut her mouth and looked down to her lap in shame. Sansa became somewhat remorseful as well, and didn't dare to look at her Mother's face.

"You will go after her now, and tell her that you are sorry, the three of you!"

"The three of us?" Sansa asked. "What about Marla?"

"She did not join you in your laughter as far as I saw. Now go", she said, with a voice as dour and hard as brick stone.

Sansa went silently, slowly and diligently, taking her punishment with acceptance, and soon met Arya in the corridor. She was just being comforted by Septa Mordane and one of the guards, someone who Arya no doubt knew the name of but Sansa did not.

"Arya, I'm sorry. I should not have called you that. It was not proper of me."

"It was not nice of you! Who cares about proper! That's all you ever think about! Do you think that you will ever find a handsome lord or knight who wants to marry you if he sees that you have a mean heart like some evil witch?"

"Now you're the one not being nice", Sansa remarked.

"Stop it, the both of you!", Septa Mordane finally said. "I've had enough of the constant arguing between you two of late. If I hear you calling her a bad name one single time again, Sansa, I will see to it that you and Jeyne won't see each other here in the castle for a full three days, and I mean it. I don't care who I'll have to lock into your rooms, one or the other, or both. You are a bad influence on eachother. I don't see how I could have been so blind to this previously. I hoped better of you."

"What? Me and Jeyne? What about Wylla? She was the one who laughed the most!"

Wylla still stood a couple of steps behind her, most like hearing her every word, but Sansa did not care. She was much too upset for that when the septa threatened her with talks of separating her from Jeyne. She was her best friend, as close as she should have been with Arya, and they were always together. She could not bare to think about having to spend three full days without her. One would be torture enough with all the rest of them, and especially in this terrible heat.

"Will you make your apologies now?"

"I already made it!" Sansa said.

"A true apology", the septa said. It was not fair, far from it, but she supposed that she would have to be the older sister once again, and most of all to be true to herself, painful as that might be, and feel deep inside her. Arya was not as bad as all that, she supposed, not in truth. And she did not deserve that particular joke this time when it came ot of her; it had only been too good of a joke not to say it when it came up.

Septa Mordane still stood staring at her with a serious look. Sansa steadied herself, prayed a quick prayer to the old gods and the new alike, and then spoke to her sister silently.

"I'm sorry, Arya. I did not mean to say that. Or, well, I did, but... If I could go back again and unsay it, I would. I did not mean for you to become so sad over it. I don't want you to be sad", she confessed. "I only don't want you to act like you always do, is all."

The septa looked as if she were considering the apology's value, and stood like the Crone incarnate, only the lantern missing to make the image complete. Then she turned to Arya. Her sister stood in silence, still holding the guardsman's armored gloved hand for comfort, then let go of him carefully and took a small step forward.

"I did not mean to call you fish face", Arya said. "It just came out of me as well."

Septa Mordane beheld the sight of the two sisters. She took a [sunfeather?] and discreetly waved it about her bosom as she waited for their final coming together.

"I don't want to fight with you", Arya said. "If only you were nice to me."

"I'm sorry", Sansa said. "I don't want to fight with you either. I will try to be nicer towards you, even if it's hard for me, I promise."

They stood silently for a while as Sansa watched her younger sister's dark hair covering her eyes. She had cast the hairpin from it and thrown it in the hall, as she was wont to do when she became upset. Sansa finally felt like she could understand that now, if ever she had been able to before.

"Do you want to practice playing the harp with me today?" Sansa said.

"Sure", Arya said, a slow smile emanating on her face. Sansa leaned forward and gave her sister a hug. "I'm sorry", she said again. "You are a kind sister, and sweet, when you are not causing so much trouble. I only wish that were more of the time".

"And you are a kind sister, when you are not stupid and mean and calling me names", Arya replied, her voice muffled from beneath Sansa's hair and the lacings of her gown pressing against her mouth and cheeks. She could feel her poor sister's warm tears, burning against her skin, and then she felt even more sorry for her, kissing her on the top of her head and holding her against her in a close hug. She would take better care of her from now on, she decided. She would teach her all she knew, and never let her out of her sight, and instead help her with all her difficulties. She did love her, after all. Perhaps she only needed some more of Sansa's love back, she thought, and she would give it to her. She kissed her on the head again, mumbling softly to her.

Their Mother had come up behind them, and Sansa looked up towards her with a small short look. The Queen smiled down on them, and gave an approving nod to Septa Mordane, who replied with a breathless nod of salute from beneath her sunfeathered hand. Sansa only smiled.

"What song do you want to play?" she asked Arya. "You can choose. I will tell Lady Pellegrara to listen to whichever I say. Any of your favorites."

"Are you sure? Not some one of your old songs about some knight?" Arya asked with intrepidation.

"No", Sansa said with mild annoyance. "Whichever you like. Choose your own song."

"All right then", Arya said. "I want to play the one about the Dornish warrior prince who was sent to the Wall and became Lord Commander."

"That one? We only heard that once, at a feast, that night when Father and Lord Robert and Jory all became so drunk and laughed", Sansa said, and she did not fully remember the contents of it, but Arya seemed to be certain of her choice.

"I liked that one. Particularly because he was Dornish. The Dornish prince going up all the way to the cold North, and winning over the men of the Night's Watch with his spear... It was fun to hear it. And not like all the rest of them."

Sansa laughed heartily at that. "You are so strange", she said, with a warm smile to her sister.

And Arya smiled back.

"Yeah", she said, "you too.'"