Chapter Text
The first time Sansa sees Prince Jon, she is thirteen.
The morning of his arrival, she sits patiently as her mother brushes her hair to a shine and then she puts on her best dress and she goes down to wait in the courtyard with the rest of her family. Her siblings are just as excited to see the prince – they all call her silly for her excitement, and yet they are no better.
Only, when the gates open, it is not a beautiful Southron prince that rides through, it is a Northerner on a black horse with a white-cloaked knight by his side. She thinks they must be mistaken when he dismounts and is introduced, until he speaks and she hears that he is not Northern at all.
“Lord Stark.” His words are clipped, his face is cold and impassive and Sansa does not like him at all. He is not the prince she was promised.
“Prince Jon,” her father greets and bows, and it is the first time she has ever seen her father bow lower to someone. In the North, her father rules, and it is jarring for her to see him like this.
Introductions are made and her disappointment sits even heavier in her breast when the prince simply kisses her hand and nothing else – no flowery words on her beauty, or how lovely it is to make her acquaintance. In fact, he seems much happier to meet the rest of her siblings.
Then he turns to her father and says, “I'd like to see her,” and Sansa is confused until father nods and leads Prince Jon towards the crypts. She may think Prince Jon rude and disappointing, but she cannot fault him for wanting to visit his mother.
She barely sees him for the rest of his visit – only in passing or at mealtimes. He spars in the yard with Robb and Theon, helps teach Bran how to shoot, and the only time she has ever seen him smile is when Arya stole a bow and made a better shot than Bran.
Prince Jon does not speak to her beyond pleasantries when he must, and she dislikes him so immensely that she decides she will ignore him.
So that he knows she is ignoring him, she takes alternate routes through the castle just to walk by where he is, and she will greet Robb or Theon or anyone else, but not him. She grows even more frustrated when he does not seek her out to ask why, or to beg her forgiveness.
It is fine, she does not want his begging. He is rude and solemn and not at all the golden prince she had wanted. Arya and the rest of her siblings adore him, and that is also fine. They can keep him. Sansa wants nothing to do with him.
The only time she speaks to Prince Jon after that is when he, father, Robb, Bran, and Theon find six direwolves. She is gifted one of the pups, and she is so delighted that she forgets all about hating the prince and she coos over the white one that he keeps. The pups have softened her, and it seems to have softened him, because he does not even scoff when she ties a pink ribbon around Lady's neck. It is the first and only hint of a smile that he ever gives her. It is the only true smile she ever gives him back.
His traveling companion is Ser Arthur Dayne, who is everything a knight should be. He is courteous to her and tells exciting stories at dinner, though she knows there is a tension at his presence.
Sansa is not stupid, she knows Ser Arthur was at the tower where her Aunt Lyanna died in childbirth. She knows he and father would have gone to battle over it if the war had not ended so soon with Robert Baratheon's death. She knows they are lucky King Rhaegar did not destroy all of House Stark after peace was restored. Father says Ser Arthur is a good man, but when she looks at them, she thinks she can see the ghost of Aunt Lyanna between them. (Arya calls her stupid when she says this aloud in their sewing circle one day, and Septa Mordane scolds her for speaking on such an unladylike topic.)
Uncle Benjen comes to visit and she hears Prince Jon say that he would like to visit the Wall and she thinks that he should go – the Wall sounds just as cold, boring, and depressing as Prince Jon is. It will suit him. She won't miss him at all.
The next time she hears of Prince Jon, she is fifteen.
She has (nearly) forgotten about him when father makes an offhanded comment about a raven he has just received – King Rhaegar seems to be quite upset that Prince Jon has gone beyond the Wall.
Her first thought is that she had not realized Prince Jon was still at the Wall. She knew he had left King's Landing on a tour of the North (there were whispers that King Rhaegar did not know what to do with his Northern bastard, though legitimized, and as such, allowed him to go wandering with only a single knight by his side), but she had not thought to keep track of his movements. She thinks she remembers him saying he would visit White Harbor on his way back from the Wall, but it seems as though he has not gotten there yet. She cannot imagine what has kept his interest so long at the Wall.
“The king has no power over the Watch,” Arya grumbles as she stabs a needle into her cloth over and over. They have been sitting too long and Sansa knows Arya's patience for needlework has run out.
“But the king still has power over his son and Ser Arthur,” she reminds Arya. Her own embroidery is coming along well, she thinks. She is making her mother a name day gift and she is quite pleased that the leaping trout she is working on looks like a leaping trout, and not a blob. “I cannot believe Uncle Benjen allowed him to go on a ranging mission.”
“That's not father's fault,” Arya scowls. “The king shouldn't be writing him about it.”
“The king can do whatever he pleases,” Septa Mordane cuts in and grabs Arya's wrist to stop her from ruining the fabric further. Sansa nods, though secretly she agrees with Arya. It is not father's fault what is happening at the Watch. It is not father's fault that the prince is foolish enough to go running off beyond the Wall.
The subject is dropped under Septa Mordane's watchful eye and Sansa eventually goes back to (almost) never thinking about Prince Jon.
She hates Prince Jon, she decides.
It is all his fault.
It is his fault that her father is calling their bannermen. It is his fault the Seven Kingdoms are gearing for war.
She is seventeen and she is to be made a sacrifice for him, for this war he has brought upon them.
Others.
Monsters from Old Nan's stories, used to scare them into good behavior, that's all they were. They were just stories, they were not real. The Wall was meant to keep out the Wildlings (Free Folk, she has been told she must call them. The Free Folk are their allies now, also because of Prince Jon).
King Rhaegar does not completely trust the North, she has been told – not after the rebellion, though her father has sworn his loyalty. With Prince Aegon already married to Lady Arianne of Dorne and Princess Rhaenys married to Willas Tyrell of the Reach, that leaves only Prince Jon to marry Lord Stark's eldest daughter, to secure that loyalty.
If only Prince Jon had not gone ranging beyond the Wall, if only he had not met and spoke with the King Beyond the Wall, if only he had not stayed there so long, this never would have happened.
(She knows in her heart that it still would have – she and the rest of the Kingdom must face the truth that the Others are real, and they would have come no matter what. Prince Jon has only given them an advance warning that may have saved them all. But she hates him and so she refuses to give him credit for this.)
She is to marry Prince Jon in the Winterfell godswood, and then she will be sent south to Riverrun with mother, Arya, Bran, and Rickon to wait out the war. Father wishes them to be as far from the fighting as possible. She thinks, if he could, he would send them across the Narrow Sea to Essos, but mother will not allow it. Sansa has heard them fighting about it, mother can be just as fierce as father, and she refuses to be sent so far away.
Robb will be fighting.
The idea ruins her. It is one thing for father to fight – he is father and he is invincible. Robb is just Robb.
Prince Jon arrives in Winterfell with an army of Free Folk, Brothers of the Night's Watch, and hill tribesmen he has gathered along the way. Father's bannermen are not far behind.
Sansa stands on the battlements with Arya and they stare out in silence at the approaching horde – there are even giants, and she has heard there is more than one warg. Jon arrives with Ghost at his side – grown more massive than her own sweet Lady. Down in the kennels, she can hear Ghost's siblings howling for him, like they can sense he is near.
“It is like something out of a story,” Sansa breathes as the army marches ever closer.
“Aye,” Arya agrees.
A guard stands close by, watching them. Sansa has been told it is to keep them safe with all the strangers that will be arriving, but she suspects the guards are really to watch Arya. Sansa is not the only one who expects Arya to run away – do something foolish like cut off all her hair and pretend to be a boy just so that she can fight. The Mormonts will be fighting, Arya had yelled at father one night, before stomping off to her room.
Sansa is grateful for the guard. She knows Arya has been secretly practicing with a sword Prince Jon had gifted her before he left, but the idea of another one of her siblings fighting against these monsters from the cold wastelands of the far north... it twists her up inside. She could not bear it if she lost Arya. She refuses to think about losing Robb. Losing father is an impossibility. He is invincible.
When Prince Jon enters the courtyard, she and Arya are down from the battlements waiting with their family. And just like the first time, Sansa had gone to brush out her hair and put on her best dress, though she does not know why.
“No need for that,” Prince Jon says, waving away her father's attempt at a bow. He shakes father's hand and hugs Robb and says, “I wish I were coming back under better circumstances.”
She knows father and Robb have seen Prince Jon since he was last here – they had both gone to the Wall when a raven arrived from Uncle Benjen with the first word of these Others.
It has been nearly three years since she last saw the prince and she barely recognizes him at first. He has grown a thick, dark beard and his hair is so long that he ties it up like father does and there is a new scar through his brow that only barely misses his eye. It is as if he has become a true Northman – she can even hear a slight Northern burr to his voice now, a roughening of his Southron accent that she actually finds quite pleasing.
“I've been practicing!” Arya says excitedly as she grasps the pommel of Needle.
“So I've heard,” Prince Jon says, his face and voice solemn, though Sansa can see a spark of amusement in his eye. “I shall be honored to spar with you.”
Sansa can hear mother sigh in exasperation, but she does not tell the prince he cannot spar with her daughter. Sansa suspects Arya will get a talking to later, in private.
Prince Jon also promises to spar with Bran and he ruffles Rickon's hair, as though he has missed them, though he was only here for six moons, years ago. But when he turns to Sansa, his face sets to stone and he only bows stiffly and then kisses her hand and says, “Lady Sansa,” as though he wishes she were not here amongst this joyful reunion with the rest of her family.
They are to be married, and he looks at her as though he wishes she did not exist.
“Your highness,” she says, just as stiffly, with her most formal and proper curtsy.
She will not ignore him like she once did – she is no longer a child and he is to be her husband. Instead, she will be the most perfect lady, so that he can never complain.
Their wedding is a rushed affair, and she must wear a gown that she has already worn, for there is not time to sew a new one. Not when she and mother have been so busy mending or sewing new garments for the soldiers. It is not the wedding of her dreams, but just like her mother before her, she will do her duty to the realm. She will marry a man who is practically a stranger, mere days before he sets off for war. Her heart races with something she cannot describe as she wonders if she will also get with child while her husband is away fighting. Her mother did.
Sansa has always dreamed of being a mother, and yet faced with it now, she feels apprehension. In her dreams, she had a loving husband by her side, they lived in a nice castle and everything was peaceful and always summer. Now, though, she is faced with winter and war and a husband she barely knows who cannot seem to stand her and who may die without ever seeing his child.
He cloaks her in Targaryen colors in front of a Septon, per the king's orders, though the ceremony is performed in front of the heart tree in order to honor her father's gods, as well. The meal after can hardly be called a feast. Food will be scarce in the coming days, and sacrifices must be made. There is music and an attempt at dancing, though it is a sad celebration. No one is in the mood.
The prince will not allow a bedding ceremony, and though there are a few grumbles, most of the guests are deep in their cups. The men march for war in only a few days. Sansa had thought the men might become raucous, that the wedding would be a drunken revelry, but this is no normal war. There are giants outside Winterfell, and soon they must face the monsters from their childhood stories.
Sansa is led to her room by her mother, who sighs and places a kiss on her cheek. There is something sad in her expression when she leaves.
Prince Jon arrives soon enough and Sansa has already removed her dress and outer layers, until she is only in her shift and stockings. The floor is cold against her feet, through the thin silk of her stockings. Sansa has never been truly cold inside the halls of Winterfell, not with the hot springs that heat the castle, spidering from its heart like veins pulsing with lifeblood. But now she shivers. An icy, piercing cold has followed the prince and his army from beyond the Wall, turning that lifeblood slow and thick. Soon the Others will follow.
“You look cold, you should get under the furs.” His first words to her are like a slap, and she shrinks back, curling her arms over her front.
She has never been so unclothed with a man before, not since she was still clutching at her mother's skirts and splashing about with Robb and Theon in the godswood hot spring. Now she is a woman grown, this man is her husband, her shift is so thin as to feel almost nonexistent, and yet all he has to say is that she looks cold.
He has not once today said that she looks lovely.
She knows it is a silly thing to want. They are on the brink of war, and this is a marriage of need, not love. Yet still, he has not given her even that smallest of courtesies.
“I am fine, your grace.” She is cold, but though she had promised herself she would be the most dutiful wife, she finds her feet unmoving. He is across the room, facing away from her, and she can see from the movement of his arms and shoulders that he is untying his doublet. He had no fine clothes of his own, since he has been away from the capital since he was barely more than a boy, and the piece had been one of her father's, quickly tailored for the day.
He shucks it now, folds it and places it over the back of a chair, a heavy sigh escaping him. “Can you not call me Jon?”
She has never called him by his given name, it wasn't proper.
She cannot now.
She tries to, but the word catches on her tongue. It feels too new, too intimate. She is already barely dressed and soon he will take her maidenhead. Courtesies and manners are all she has left to shield her.
He drops into a chair and begins untying his boots and she decides to be brave and asks, “do you need help?” It seems the wifely thing to do, to help her husband ready for bed.
Instead, he looks up at her sharply. For a moment he only looks, and she could swear his eyes drop down to where her arms are still held protectively over her chest, before he says, “I know how to undress myself.”
“Of course.”
She does as he says then, and gets into bed and crawls under the furs, humiliation stinging hot at her cheeks. Behind her, she thinks she hears him let out a sigh, but he says nothing.
When he finally approaches the bed, he has divested himself of his shirt and breeches and is left only in his smallclothes, and her nerves begin to thrum when she sees that beneath them, he has begun to harden. Mother and Septa Mordane have told her about what happens in the marriage bed, but Sansa has also seen animals rutting before and she knows this will not be pleasant, even though mother tried to console her and said that it might not be so bad, if her husband was a good man.
Sansa does not know if her husband is a good man.
He is kind to her siblings, and courteous enough to her parents, but she cannot recall a single time he has been kind to her. When she tries to think back, all her memories are blank. Her mind is mostly blank, fear taking over as he moves to the other side of the bed and gets on, sliding beneath the furs himself, against the cold that seeps into the room.
She lays on her back and widens her legs and reaches down to pull her shift up to her hips, unable to look at him as she does.
“Sansa,” he says, turned onto his side to face her, solemn and unreadable as ever. “You need to relax.”
“You relax,” she snaps, then presses her lips together and stares up at the ceiling when she realizes what she has said. She must keep her wits about her. He is a prince, and now her husband. She must not insult him or speak against him so.
To her confusion, he lets out a rush of breath that almost sounds like a laugh, but when she dares to look at him again, his features remain impassive. He shifts closer, and her heart feels as though it might break right out of her chest. Under the furs, something moves, and she nearly jumps when she feels the rough pads of his fingers against her thigh, just above her knee.
“You need to relax,” he says again, a murmur as he watches her face, as his fingers rest on her leg, not moving. “It will hurt if you don't.”
It is going to hurt no matter what, she wants to tell him, but she stops herself. Septa Mordane told her so, in great, horrifying detail. Sansa well remembers those lessons when she was just a girl, before she had even flowered. And she remembers listening to her handmaidens and servants giggle about laying with boys, but she could not understand why. Their mothers had clearly not warned them about the horrors of lying with men, like Septa Mordane had warned her. Sansa thinks that kissing might be nice, though she has never truly been kissed, unless she counts the times Theon had done it when they were younger, when he used to tell her they would be married someday. Those kisses had been alright, but nothing to swoon over, not like in the stories.
Her husband has not kissed her, except for a quick peck at the ceremony.
This, of all things, is what she chooses to say aloud.
The words leave her lips and the prince stares at her, and when she dares to look at him, her nerves spike. His eyes are darker than she has ever seen them and she thinks, for just a moment, that he looks like a predator, ready to eat her alive.
When he kisses her, though, it is... gentle. A bare brush of his lips against hers, like the way he kissed her at the ceremony. This time, however, he keeps going, becoming firmer, and though Sansa has little practice at this, she responds as best she can. His lips are plush and full and they send warmth curling through her body. At the first brush of his tongue against her bottom lip, she parts them with a gasp and then his tongue is in her mouth and that heat turns sharper, a bolt of something hot and heady shooting down to her core.
She does not know how long he kisses her, but it is long enough that she needs to breathe, and she pulls away to take in air. Instead of waiting, his lips trail down her chin, to her throat, and she is dizzy with the sensation of it, her lungs straining, her chest heaving. He latches onto a spot that makes a whine escape her, and her hands move from where she has been clutching at the furs to his head, and she winds her fingers into his hair. She wants to push him away, dull the overwhelming sensations, but she does not. Instead, her fingers grip at his curls and hold him in place, and she swears she hears him groan against her skin.
Her eyes fly open as his fingers brush against her womanhood, her mouth opens to... well, she does not know. They are as gentle as his lips had started out, stroking her center, and to Sansa's horror, she can feel herself becoming slick. It happens sometimes, at night, and causes Sansa to shift restlessly in her bed, trying to relieve an itch she does not know how to reach. One time, she had rubbed herself between her legs until her fingers were covered in that wetness and she was panting and breathless, and afterwards, she had felt such shame that she had never done it again.
Now, the prince's lips and teeth and tongue are at her neck, where her pulse hammers, and his fingers work between her thighs, faster and firmer, hitting a place at the top of her womanhood that causes her hips to jerk whenever he touches it. Then, one finger pauses at her entrance and begins to press in, and her whole body goes rigid.
“Relax,” he murmurs against her throat, lips moving back to hers and capturing them in another kiss. It is so distracting that she barely notices when his finger sinks into her. It does not hurt, she thinks distantly. It feels a bit strange, but that is all.
He moves his finger in and out of her, his tongue in her mouth following suit, an imitation of what she knows will happen later, and she wonders if Septa Mordane had been wrong. Perhaps what her Septa told her only applies to true ladies.
Sansa does not feel like a lady. Not with the noises she is making in the back of her throat, the way her knees have bent towards her body, legs spreading further apart as the prince slides his finger out, then pushes two back in, his thumb working that nub at the top of her sex.
She tears her lips from his because she feels dizzy and too breathless, and she turns her head to the side to try and suck in air, though she cannot... it is too much... his fingers working between her legs, the obscene wet sounds of it, his lips back at her throat, his hard body lined up against her side, his manhood pressing hot against her thigh. She squeezes her eyes shut as all her muscles go rigid and pleasure crashes through her, and she distantly hears a cry that she knows must be her, for it is not him, and there is no one else here.
She is still coming down when the shame begins. Surely that was not proper, surely her behavior was more akin to the whores she knows Theon and Robb sometimes visit in Wintertown, surely her actions were not becoming of a true lady. But there is no time to dwell on it, as the prince lets out a groan and settles himself between her legs, his manhood finding her entrance and pressing in.
All of her muscles still feel weak and loose and though she instinctively wants to clamp her legs closed, she cannot make them move. The sensation is like his fingers, but bigger, thicker, stretching her until she is sure there is no way it will fit. Yet it does, he keeps going, until he stops, pausing long enough that she finally opens her eyes. He is hovering above her, his lips parted and his breath coming in pants, sweat beaded along his hairline, eyes half-lidded and so dark she cannot tell that they were ever grey to begin with.
He dips down and kisses her, a slow, gentle thing that makes her eyes flutter shut again, and he presses forward, breaking through her maidenhead. It... it is not the sort of pain she had imagined. A pinch, perhaps, a dull ache at the stretch, but nothing worse than what she experiences during her monthlies.
As he begins to move, he pulls away from the kiss and drops his forehead to her shoulder. She can feel his breath coming in harsh pants, all of the muscles in his body held tight as he moves achingly slow. In, until she is breathless and too full of him. Out, until she feels empty and strangely needful.
She has no time to adjust to the movements, it is over almost as soon as it begins, signaled by one word choked out into the space between her neck and shoulder,“Sansa,” and she feels something pulse inside her as he spills his seed.
After, he lays nearly boneless atop her and she does not know what to do. It is too hot now, their sweat-slicked skin still pressed together through the thin silk of her shift, his warm breath still fanning out across her collarbone. Now that her head is clearing more, the shame is creeping back in, her mind racing back through all of it, the wanton way she acted. Not fit for a lady, and certainly not fit for a princess.
“Your grace,” she whispers, hands coming up to find his shoulders and pushing at them. His muscles stiffen again and his manhood slips out of her and he rolls away with a muttered apology that makes her belly clench. She is empty now, her sweat quickly cooling and making her shiver.
Her husband stands up from the bed and moves over to the wash basin near the hearth, and she quickly averts her eyes as he begins to clean himself, unable to look at the play of his muscles in the flickering hearth light, the swell of his bottom. There is movement, then footsteps, and he moves into her field of vision, now wearing a night shirt to cover himself and handing her a wet, warm cloth. “If you want to clean yourself,” he says stiffly, before walking back to his side of the bed.
She scrambles out and ducks behind her changing screen and begins to wipe at the stickiness that covers her thighs and her womanhood, her face feeling hot at the mess. It is only then that she realizes she should be laying down to make sure his seed stays inside her, and she hurries back to the bed, where he lays on his back, staring unblinking up at the ceiling.
Is he disappointed in her? Is he horrified by the way she acted? Is he thinking of someone else? She is too afraid to broach the subject, and so she lays on her back as well and tries to tilt her hips up to keep his seed in.
Is this how her mother felt, she wonders. Laying in bed next to a stranger, wanting to cry but refusing to in front of him? Unable to untangle her feelings about her new husband going off to war and possibly dying?
No, Sansa decides. No, mother and father love each other so much, there is no way it was like this.
At some point she must have drifted off to sleep, the exhaustion of the day outweighing the turmoil in her head.
She wakes to darkness, her husband's arm around her middle, pulling her tight to him, his face buried in the back of her neck and his manhood hard against her backside. She does not know what to do, but she does know that the king had written of the heirs he would expect from their union, and so she turns in the prince's arms to face him.
The second time he takes her, he is still half asleep, eyes barely open and hands fumbling at the hem of her shift, pushing it up around her belly and letting out a deep, rumbling moan as he thrusts inside her. It is more careless than the first time, but his hand moves between their bodies and rubs against that place above where they are joined that makes her see stars, and soon she is slick and gasping, her arms unwittingly circling around his shoulders as her legs wrap around his waist.
She is certain he is still mostly asleep, because this time, he places his lips near her ear and whispers the most horrid things to her. How beautiful she is, how good she feels, how he wishes he could stay inside her forever. He makes her wanton again, makes her throw her head back and cry out as her peak hits her, his quickly following, sloppy kisses pressed beneath her ear, her cheek, the corner of her mouth.
He is half asleep, and she knows he is thinking of someone else.
She is awoken again by a knock at the door, a voice calling through. It is the maid, come to stoke the fire.
Prince Jon appears dead asleep, this time on his stomach, face turned away from her. She quickly pulls the furs up to cover his naked back and her own barely covered front and calls the maid to enter, for she does not know what else to do. It is near freezing in the room, and it should be warm for her husband when he wakes. A good wife would see to that.
The maids do not blush or titter at their state, one simply builds the fire up to roaring, and the second brings in a fresh basin of water and informs Sansa that they have been invited to break their fast in the Great Hall in a half hour.
When they leave, she gets out of bed and quickly hurries to wash and dress. It is only then that she decides to rouse him, and she shakes his shoulder until he blinks awake.
“We must break our fast soon,” she tells him.
He pushes up from the bed, the muscles in his arms flexing, and she turns away from him. “You're already dressed,” he observes, his voice flat. She does not look at him while he washes and dresses.
Down in the Great Hall, they join her family at the high table. Robb, Arya, and father cannot seem to look her in the eye, while Theon throws poorly concealed glares at the prince, though Bran and Rickon act normal. They are too young to understand the act of consummating a marriage. Mother only gives her one questioning look, to which Sansa forces a sunny smile that does not match the scowl on her husband's face.
The next night, he does not touch her, though they sleep in the same bed. With the influx of guests in Winterfell, he has yielded his guest quarters for hers, and they lay beside each other and do not speak.
“When would I know if I am with child?” she asks her mother the day after, as they pack. They must pack lightly, she must leave behind most of her things. She had thought she would be saddened by this, but as she passes over frivolous items, she cannot find it in herself to be upset. They are just things.
There are only two things she wishes she could pack up and bring safely with her, but they must stay. Father and Robb must stay.
“Not after two days,” mother says with a light laugh. “You will know if your next moonblood does not come.”
Sansa frowns. That is too far away, her last moonblood had ended mere days before her wedding night.
“We must try again,” she tells Prince Jon as he strips out of his breeches, leaving him only in his nightshirt.
“We don't have to,” he says, taking time to carefully fold his breeches and place them on a chair, though the night before he had dropped most of his clothes to the ground in a heap. He is stalling. “You must still be sore-”
“I am not,” she protests, and it is true. She had been quite sore yesterday, but today she feels better. “Your father demands heirs-”
A sharp bark of laughter cuts her off, and she snaps her mouth shut. “Well,” Prince Jon sneers. “If my father demands it.”
Tears spring to her eyes and she quickly blinks them away, and she keeps her lips pressed tightly together so she does not say the things she wants to say.
I know you hate me. I know you think me silly and useless, like everyone else does.
I know you were thinking of your Wildling lover.
Theon had told her about that, the night before her wedding. She knows he had the best intentions, for Theon is like a big brother to her, but she wishes she did not know. Then she could live in blissful ignorance, pretending those sweet words he had whispered in her ear had truly been about her, not some Wildling girl who is, in all likelihood, camped outside the walls of Winterfell.
When Sansa leaves for Riverrun, he will be free to visit her bed again.
The thought makes Sansa feel sick, and she wonders if her family will even care that her husband is unfaithful. Sansa has been told that is the way of men. Look at Prince Jon's own father. Her family all love Prince Jon more than her anyway, they will likely turn a blind eye to her humiliation.
Her husband approaches the bed, jaw clenched tight and eyes flashing, and she thinks she should be fearful, except instead of fear, there is a sudden flare of heat between her legs, and she can feel herself growing wet and slick for him, remembering the peaks of pleasure he brought her on their wedding night.
The awkwardness of their first time is back, and she thinks it will always be like this, unless he is barely conscious. Unless he is lost in his own mind and thinking of someone else.
Still, though, she takes pleasure in the touches he does give her, though he holds himself rigidly above her, barely touching, his eyes focused on the furs next to her head. Her peak is not as sharp as it had been that second time, that lovely second time when he whispered sweet things to her and she had let herself believe them.
He does not collapse on her this time. He gets up and cleans himself up and then she follows suit once he is back in bed, and they fall asleep facing away from each other and she does not know why she wants to cry.
The Winterfell courtyard is bustling with activity, the last of the women and children gearing up for their departure south. In a normal war, Sansa thinks they would not be sent away. This time, though, they leave with instructions that if the Others breach Winterfell, if they wipe out the North, to flee further south, or across the Narrow Sea to Essos.
Sansa cannot deny the cold that pierces through her layers. She is a summer child, this is her first winter, but even the older men and women are whispering that this is something different. Something new, something otherworldly.
“So you're the lady wife,” a voice says, and it makes Sansa turn from where she was slipping one last thing into her saddlebag.
“I beg your pardon?” she asks, as politely as she can, though she knows from the rough accent that the woman standing in front of her is a Wildling. Most of the Wildlings are camped outside the walls of the castle itself, by their own choice, but a few of the leaders have come inside.
The Wildling woman looks her up and down, clearly unimpressed, her wild orange hair gathered in a messy braid and a bow and quiver strapped to her back. With a sinking sensation, Sansa knows, in that instant, that this is her husband's mistress.
She is not even that pretty, a petty part of Sansa's mind whispers. Petty and angry and embarrassed, as she stands here in the middle of the courtyard, with her family and her people surrounding them, facing the woman her husband chose. She is frozen in place, her training taking over, her posture perfect and her face impassive.
“Gods but you're a cold one,” the Wildling woman snorts, face twisted into an amused sneer. “Are you that stiff when he fu-”
“Ygritte.”
Both of them turn at the sound, and Prince Jon cuts in, grabbing his Wildling's arm and dragging her away.
“Who was that?” Arya asks, appearing at her side like a shadow.
“A Wildling,” Sansa makes herself shrug. “I do not know what she wanted.”
She does, but she cannot admit it. “I wish they'd let me fight,” Arya grumbles, kicking at the snow that has accumulated on the cobblestones of the courtyard. It had been cleared earlier, but is quickly building up again. They must leave soon, before they are snowed in.
Sansa pushes the thoughts of what her husband and his Wildling are up to out of her head, and finishes packing her saddlebags and helping Arya with hers. Her sister is as messy and unorganized as usual, though this time it is worse, for Arya is trying everything possible to stay so that she can fight. Sansa will not allow it. Her sister will come south with them, she will not stay here to battle monsters. The thought makes Sansa more nauseous than she had been, thinking of Prince Jon and that Wildling together.
Father hugs her long and tight, so that she can barely breathe, but she does not complain. Next is Robb, who presses a kiss to the top of her head and whispers that she must keep herself safe. It makes a laugh bubble up from her throat, for it is not her that needs to be safe.
“Do not die,” she whispers to him when he lets go. “I shall never forgive you if you do.”
He smiles at her, in that easy way Robb has, though she can see shadows under his eyes, fear lurking just below the surface.
Theon is next, and he hugs her the same, holding her tight to him. “Keep him safe,” she begs him when she pulls away. “He thinks himself invincible-”
“Don't worry,” Theon takes her face in his hands, staring at her intently. “I'll protect your brother with my life. And when this ends, if...”
He never gets to finish, because there is a sudden shadow cast over them, a harsh clearing of a throat, and Theon's hands drop from her.
“Greyjoy,” Prince Jon says with a nod of dismissal, and Theon bows mockingly and then moves away. When he looks to her, his face softens. “Sansa...”
She turns from him and moves to her horse, wishing it were father or Robb or even Theon here to help her mount. Instead it is her husband, back from... from whatever he was doing with his mistress.
“Sansa,” he says again, hands moving to her waist as though to lift her up, but he doesn't. He stands there, frowning down at her. “I don't know what she said to you...”
“Nothing I already do not know,” she whispers harshly, looking around to see if anyone is close enough to witness her shame. “All I ask is that you try to be subtle about it, so that you do not humiliate me too greatly.”
“What? No, that's...”
“Are you going to help me up, or not?” she cuts in. “People are beginning to stare.” They are. Most of the others have mounted their horses, and yet here she stands, with her husband grabbing at her waist and standing much too close and whispering to her. She can tell he is going to say more, and so instead, she gives in and pleads. “Please,” she whispers, trying to hold on to the last of her dignity.
His face hardens and he nods, hoisting her up into the saddle, then stepping back out of the way.
Only as they are making their way out the gates does she realize she had not actually bid him goodbye. She had not wished him safety. She had not begged him to survive.
Riverrun is lovely, but she cannot appreciate it.
Even here, the beginnings of winter are showing. Leaves have dropped from the trees, bare branches swaying in cold winds. Not as cold as it had been in Winterfell, but colder than it has ever been here, according to the things her grandfather and Uncle Edmure say. Uncle Edmure only stays less than a day after they arrive, before going to join the flow of men heading up the Kingsroad to Winterfell, that they had passed on their way down.
It should have given Sansa comfort, seeing all the men and the different banners and the carts of food making their way slowly towards her home. Southron reinforcements sent by the Crown, to fight the undead that currently threaten the Wall. Ravens from the few men who have stayed say it will soon fall – dead mammoths and giants, massive ice spiders and an army of mindless corpses batter at the ice, throwing themselves against it until it slowly cracks apart.
She cannot help but think of those men still left at the Wall. Men who will stay, because it is their sworn duty. The Lord Commander stayed, along with their Maester, and a few others who are older and less able to fight. They stayed to observe, to send warnings until the last. She grieves for them, though she has never met them.
She finds out later that some of the carts they passed on the Kingsroad were filled with barrels of something called wildfire. It seems that though the Targaryens have lost their dragons, someone has found a way to bottle dragonflame.
Sansa wonders at this. Rumors are that the Mad King had a store of it hidden beneath King's Landing. Barrels and barrels of it, easily ignitable. She wonders if the people of King's Landing knew that they walked streets that might go up in flame at a moment's notice, should anything go wrong.
“What is that?” mother asks her one day, as they quietly sew. It is not an easy quiet. Every woman here has someone they love fighting up north. A brother, a father, a son. A husband.
“It is for Prince Jon,” Sansa tells her, looking down at the direwolf she is embroidering, worried that it must not look like one, if her mother cannot recognize it.
Mother pauses for a while, before chiding softly, “the prince is a dragon, not a wolf.”
“Oh,” Sansa says. Mother is right. Her husband is a Targaryen. She is a Targaryen now, he had cloaked her in red and black. For some reason, the thought had not crossed her mind. Perhaps because she has never met another dragon. Perhaps because she has only ever seen him in Winterfell. Perhaps because he looks so Northern. “It is Ghost,” she says, trying to cover up her misstep.
Mother lets out a hum, and Sansa quickly switches from grey to white thread.
When her moonblood comes, she does not know how to feel.
She wakes one morning to the stickiness of blood on her thighs and she stares down at it. She is not with child. They had only lain together three times. She thought that would be enough.
She goes through her day in a sort of daze, only the dull ache in her belly keeping her grounded. When she cries after breakfast, she tells her mother and Arya that it is only her moonblood making her moody. It looks as though mother might say something, but she does not. She only brings Sansa tea and sits with her and strokes her hair.
It is fine. It is better, actually. Prince Jon is likely to die in battle. She knows he is going to throw himself into the thick of it, out of some ridiculous sense of duty, and she will never see him again. Now she will be able to remarry and never think of him. If she had his babe, it would be a reminder.
It is easier this way.
Still though, she cries off and on for the rest of the day and well into the night and tells herself it is only her moonblood causing it.
The world gets colder.
It snows in Dorne.
In Riverrun, her mother wars with herself. There is a desire to see her children safely away, and a desire to stay as close as possible to her husband and the child that remains behind.
She tries to send them away with the women and children who are choosing to run further south, but Sansa will not go, and neither will Arya.
“I am a woman grown,” Sansa argues. “Wedded and bedded.”
“You are still my daughter,” mother says firmly, as the maids bustle around them and pack bags for Bran and Rickon.
“No, I am a princess,” she snaps, which causes both mother and Arya to stare at her. It is the truth, but it is the first time she has said it aloud, and the word feels strange and wrong on her tongue. When she was a child, she had wanted to be a princess so badly, dreamed of a beautiful golden prince that would love her and take her away from the cold, dreary North. Instead, she got a sullen man, slow to smile, who hated dancing and could not play an instrument, who seemed to embody the North itself. No matter that he was never cruel to her. No matter that her siblings love him like one of their own. No matter that he could bring Bran out of his quiet moments, or get Arya to brush her hair, or Rickon to eat his peas.
He would be a good father, something whispers in the back of her mind. It makes her heart quicken.
Then she remembers that he is likely sharing his bed with that Wildling woman, and that he resents being forced to wed Sansa, and that she will likely never see him alive again.
“I will not leave,” she says, holding her head high and marching out of the room.
Word from the North is nearly impossible to receive. Ravens do not seem to make it, if they are ever sent, and messengers are few and far between, often freezing before they reach the Neck.
One makes it through, and they soon receive an updated record of known dead, a thick stack of papers bundled together. A list that is too long.
Mother reads it aloud to the women and children that assemble in Riverrun's Great Hall. It is silent except for mother's voice, ringing clear, and the occasional sobs and cries of loved ones when a name is read. Sansa stares blankly at a far wall, but is drawn back when her mother's voice falters, and the papers fall from her hand.
“Mother,” Sansa cries, catching her as mother's knees give out. Arya scrambles for the papers, eyes scanning quickly through them, until she freezes. “Arya, who is it?” Sansa asks. She deposits mother into a chair and grabs the papers from Arya's stilled hands. She searches the page, down the list of names, until the last one mother read. Underneath that...
It takes long moments before Sansa can get her throat to work, and she announces, “Eddard Stark,” to the assembly. Mother leaves the room and Sansa can hear her cries echoing through the halls, and Arya sits still and dead-eyed on the floor, and so it is up to her. There are still pages to go, still more names, still more families waiting to hear.
She swallows thickly and wipes at her eyes and continues.
“Tristan Ryger.”
Days pass, and they continue on.
There are still mouths to feed and clothes to be mended and dragonglass weapons to be forged. Mother had wailed through that day and night and spent the next day near catatonic, and Sansa and Arya had worried they had lost her forever.
On the third day, though, she had blinked out of her daze and picked herself up and said, “there is work to be done.”
Sansa fills her days with work, even finds herself down in the yards binding dragonglass arrowheads to their shafts, her hands bleeding and raw, often cut open on the sharp edges. She goes to bed so tired that she does not have time think.
In her dreams, she sees her father pale and lifeless, though his eyes are blue and bright and open. Mother runs to him as Sansa tries to hold her back, but she cannot. Then Robb is there, Theon. Jory and Rodrick Cassel and Vayon Poole and Hullen and Miken, but the one that finally catches her, hands cold as ice and locked around her throat, is Jon.
When she wakes, it is the only time she allows herself to think on it. She allows herself to cry for her father, and pray for the others, but only for a short while. Then she wipes her tears and gets up and gets dressed.
There is work to be done.