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7deadlycinderellas · 6 years ago

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If the summer of lives could just come again, ch16

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Over the Wall

Several moons into that year, Rowan stills in the middle of a sentence, and quietly says,

“I think we have a visitor.”

The visitor, causing Jon’s heart to leap into his throat with joy, turns out to be Ghost. Ghost, dragging a dead doe at that. Ygritte attacks the dead animal with a knife and gusto, and they all eat terribly well for several days, Jon scratching Ghost under the muzzle and feeding him the best bits.

And Ghost is excellent for making the caves warmer at night. Sometimes, he even lets them use him as a pillow.

He even allows Ygritte to do it. She pets his head idly.

One night, when Jon is resting his head on the opposite side of him she is, Ygritte quietly asks him.

“I suppose it would never have worked out. We’re just too different.”

Jon doesn’t respond, but it doesn’t really feel like a question.

“I wanted to see over the wall. I’d wanted that since I was a little girl. We saw it together. But it wasn’t enough. You still left me for them.”

“I did swear a vow.”

Ygritte exhales loudly.

“How long were you a crow?”

Jon thinks back, remembering when he took his vow, and the start of the great ranging.

“A little over a year.”

“Do you think any of them are still looking for you?”

Jon feels his insides twist. Sam, Sam would never quit, but he could be overcome. Commander Mormont, he would never willingly leave a man behind. Pyp and Grenn…

“Maybe a few...but I suppose most of them must think I’m dead.”

Ygritte’s silent for a long time, and eventually it’s Jon who breaks it again.

“Once whatever this is is done, I can take you over the wall again. I can show you the south.”

Ygritte sounds half asleep when she responds with,

“That better be a promise.”

Gilly and the other women spend the days up and about, marking on bits of parchment.

“None of us learned to read,” Gilly tells him, “But Rowan wants us to help her map the caves down here, and I can draw well enough.”

Mapping the caves is just one of the things Rowan does. Her and the others occasionally disappear for half a day, gathering something or another.

In the early days, she led him to the heart of the cave, where the corpse of the old weirwood lay, and where Rowan had planted the bulb of a new seedling.

“This was what I was traveling further south for, to find this little babe of a tree,” she tells them, gently petting the turned earth where it will reach upward for the sun.

Jon reaches into his jumbled memories of his last night with the others.

“My brother...he said the three-eyed Raven taught him to see through the weirwoods.”

Rowan nods.

“We fed him from the seeds of the weirwoods, and that allowed him to see through their wood. It was a poor choice.”

Jon tries to imagine Bran, who seems so small, so young, in his memory.

“You said because he was a child.”

Rowan shakes her head softly.

“Not just that. He was a human, and humans cannot carry the weight of the power these centuries old trunks bear. Even the humans gifted with what you call greensight are often afflicted with illness by it.”

Jon watches Rowan stand, and touch the dead roots.

“My name is not truly Rowan. The common tongue has no word so specific for the sound a rowan tree makes when caught in a summer storm. But our language does. We call it the True Tongue. This is the tongue shared by the children of the forest, the plants and animals and the soil of the earth.”

She looks at Jon, gently, like a grandmother might.

“The only human who is said to have ever understood the True Tongue was your ancestor Bran the Builder. He knew how to listen. This is what makes you special Jon Snow, you can speak, and you cal listen. I’m not going to teach you to see through the weirwoods, I’m going to teach you to talk to them.”

King’s Landing

It’s just a normal, clear, sunny-but-cold day when Sansa touches Lady on the neck and slips into her skin.

She creeps through the Red Keep, quiet as a septa, neat as a maid, not even drawing the attention of a mouse.

Not even when she winds up outside the Small Council chambers. She doesn’t linger, doesn’t want to jinx this whole thing. Stannis and Renly have both lingered, seemingly lacking will to leave their brother’s side, even as their feuds rear their heads every other day.

It really does incense Sansa sometimes. Was this was raising her and Arya had been like, she wondered. Did Father and Mother fear that they would still be quarreling well into womanhood?

“It makes me sad,” Shireen had told her one day, out in the garden, The flowers had been dusted with snow, their petals beginning to wilt.

“Do you like living with your uncle?” Sansa had asked.

Shireen nods,

“He doesn’t pay a ton of attention to me, but he’s always light-hearted and up for a laugh. Father always went on and on about how irresponsible he was, but he’s always made sure I ate and went to my lessons…”

The younger girl trails off. Sansa had seen her speak kindly with Renly, and seemed happy spending time under Brienne’s guard, but she also saw the whisper of homesickness in her.

She recognizes it with ease, having gone through plenty.

It is Shireen she thinks of while Lady watches Renly attempt to defend his current lack of heirs.

It isn’t fair, not really, Sansa thinks to herself. She remembers the first day at court, when she’d caught a glimpse of Renly holding Loras Tyrell’s elbow that the truth had struck her like a lightning bolt.

Even Shireen had seen it, it seemed.

“I don’t think he likes ladies, well not like other men do,” Shireen had told her in confidence, “He was always quite kind to Lady Brienne, and many men can’t even muster that.”

But still, it was his house duty, she thought. And Stannis, on the other hand, could always be counted on to do his duty. Which must be why he’s here tending to his brother, even as he’s shouted and raged at on the regular.

She’s seen no sign of the red woman, to her relief.

She pulls herself out of Lady, when she hears someone call her name.

The voice turns out to be that of Lady Margaery, flanked behind by many of her own ladies. She is in the garden again, and Margaery is extending her hand to her.

“My apologies, my lady,” Sansa tells her, moving to lift her skirts and stand, “I’m afraid I was somewhere else for a bit there.”

“No offense taken, Lady Sansa,” Margaery replies, her smile seeming natural, though somehow still somehow painted on. “I was merely hoping to invite you to have tea with my grandmother and I.”

Sansa smiles, and allows herself to be lead.

She would be lying if she said she hadn’t been looking forward to see the old Queen of Thorns again. As the years had gone by, her appreciation of the acid tongue matriarch had only increased, along with her confusion as to her motives.

“Lady Tyrell,” she says, “It’s an honor.”

“Oh, dispense with the arse-kissing if you would, I feel I’ve had more than my share being back in this city.”

Yes, that was the Olenna Tyrell that Sansa remembered. She offers her wine and cheese, and she takes lightly of both.

“So,” Sansa starts, finishing a bit of soft goat cheese, licking her thumb, “is this just for pleasure, or did the two of you want something from me?”

The older woman nodded to herself, though it was her granddaughter who spoke up first.

“Well, you have lived here in the Red Keep for far longer than we have been at court. I imagine you’ve noticed my courtship of Prince Joffrey-”

As if anyone could miss it. Margaery was not subtle when she wanted people to notice her. As she called it ‘her courtship’, which she couldn’t imagine most proper ladies doing.

“-and I was hoping you might tell me about him. He has seemed gracious and gallant to me, but I imagine you know as I do, that men have the same carefully constructed masks we women do.”

“And we would like some insight,” Olenna interrupts, “Into why you, a lovely young maid yourself, seem to have no interest in him yourself.”

Sansa snorts softly, then meters her voice very carefully.

“Because he’s a jackarse that’s why. Met him years ago back home in Winterfell, first thing he did was insult my little sister.”

Her voice is casual, light.

“He likes to slap around his younger brother and sister too. I’ve seen him leave nasty bruises on both. “

Only a small fib. Myrcella had once confessed to Sansa that Joffrey hadn’t hit her since she had learned to stop reacting.

“Both of his uncles give him hell about it. I saw Lord Tyrion slap him once for a comment he made about my crippled younger brother. I’m rather fond of all of them, so I take their words over his. You have siblings, my lady, you must understand.”

At some point, Lady has quietly padded her way into the gardens, and sits by Sansa’s side. She pets the wolf on her head.

“And I am very thankful that Lady here hasn’t even caught his eye, if what poor Tommen said happened to his cat wasn’t just a tantrum.”

If he had ever tried it, Sansa thought, she’s not sure she would have stopped Lady from tearing his throat out this time.

Olenna snorts in response to her words though.

“If you’re assessment of the prince is accurate, than I wonder why wouldn’t tried to dissuade us.”

Sansa shrugs carefully, before meeting Margaery’s eye.

“If you think you can handle it, then who am I to tell you what to do? But you should be aware of what you’re getting into. Not just the prince, the Queen is a whole hornet’s nest herself.”

Sansa feels vaguely trapped inside. This whole game, the politics and the alliances. She had grown good at it, she knows, but she’s become so disdainful of it.

After she finishes her cup of sweet wine, she spies Tyrion walking into the garden and sitting at one of the tables they often played cyvasse on.

“If you’ll excuse my early exit, “ she tells Lady Olenna, standing and brushing off her dress, “Lord Tyrion beat me at cyvasse three days ago, and I believe I am owed a rematch.”

When she approaches the table, she notes Tyrion watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“Tired already of more quality company than me?”

Sansa shakes her head.

“Tired of being used as an unwitting informant.”

Tyrion raises an eyebrow. He has the cyvasse pieces out, and is playing with them idly, though not setting them up properly.

“Seeking advice for the courtship of my dear nephew?”

Sansa smiles wryly. She glances back over at where Margaery sits, with her immaculate hair and gown. Tyrion interrupts her gaze.

“Seemed there was a time you would have wanted the exact place she is in now.”

Sansa laughs bitterly.

“I did. And that wish got me nothing but heartache, abuse and suffering. I was stupid. A stupid little girl with stupid dreams who learned too slowly to even protect herself from her own mistakes.“

Thinking of her younger self, how blind and easily led she had been, nearly makes her want to retch. She shakes the memory off, as she moves to set the cyvasse pieces up. They play nearly in silence until the sun is no longer high in the sky.

“Is it so awful though?” Sansa asks, breaking the silence, in an unusually small voice, “To want to be loved, to want it so much that you let yourself be blinded?”

“No,” Tyrion replies, fiercely, “I don’t think it’s awful at all. Everyone wants to be loved, even if no one admits it. And in my experience, it’s made a great many men and women commit very foolish acts.”

She won’t say to him, won’t admit even to herself, that she’s even sure she would know love anymore. That if it weren’t for her sister, she wouldn’t even be sure if she believed in it anymore.

There’s a flush over their conversation, and Sansa feels a strange warmth bloom in her chest. One she might recognize, if she reached far enough back in her memory.

It’s interrupted, when her father approaches, telling her it’s time for supper.

It’s a simple potato and leek soup tonight, rich with cream and brightened bacon. Over it, Sansa hopes her father won’t bring up the subject she’s been avoiding since they arrived here nearly three years ago.

“You seem quite fond of Lord Tyrion,” he begins, “Any particular reason why?”

Sansa nods softly. She no longer thinks there’s a point in hiding this.

“He was my first husband.”

Ned stares, seeming not to know which word to latch onto. Sansa chuckles. It’s really ridiculous in hindsight.

“It was Tywin Lannister’s handiwork, meant to keep control of the North. We both objected loudly, but didn’t have a leg to stand on to refuse, but we tried to be kind to each other at least.”

She swallows, bitterly.

“I was fourteen, and in retrospect, our complete farce of a marriage was the closest thing to a reprieve I had while I was stuck here, and then…” she trails off, still unsure how to explain the next part, “I didn’t see him for nearly four years, but when we saw each other again, it was the strangest thing...it was almost like we were friends.”

Ned finally cuts her off, with a question.

“You said he was your first-”

Sansa ducks her head, so he will not see her face.

“My second was Ramsey Bolton. He was...not kind.

Ned’s expression of horror is all she needs. She shakes her head roughly again, changing the subject as fast as she can before more questions come.

“Anything new with the council today?”

“Stannis got a raven from the Wall,”

That gets Sansa’s complete attention.

“Who’s in charge now?”

“Alliser Thorne,”

She groans internally. Jon’s words on the man had not been kind. Not that Jon was even there now.

“He’s asking for more men, because wildlings have been attacking the outposts regularly. They sent them to all the Lords.”

Sansa rubs her forehead.

“And of course, Stannis is the only one to take the request seriously.”

Sansa wishes Shireen’s death wasn’t such a black mark on Stannis’s life. That his willingness to follow Melisandre so fanatically hadn’t besmirched him so. He was one of the only men in Westeros who truly seemed to consider the needs of the Realm.

Even before that, she muses, he also killed his own brother, so maybe she was being too generous.

Stannis’s actions end up being overshadowed anyhow.

It’s the middle of the year when Balon Greyjoy dies.

Sansa groans deeply when she learns. This is going to be a mess. She doubts Yara will be able to gather any sort of support without Theon to back her up, so somehow she thinks Euron will end up in charge again. She sends a raven, one of Bran’s that she’s been letting rest on a perch in her chambers and rest, back to Winterfell to try and see if Theon had said anything on the matter at all.

Theon had kept Balon in line, but she doubts Euron has any sort of similar loyalty.

It distracts her though, and she blames that distraction for why she lets someone sneak up on her early the next morning, when she’s down at the training yard.

Thankfully, it’s just Brienne.

“Didn’t take you for an archer, my lady.”

Sansa shrugs her off,

“It’s just for fun. Daughter of one of my father’s friends was a great archer. I thought she looked so elegant doing it. So I asked her to teach me.”

Elegant is pushing it. Sansa might describe Meera in her element as having a sort of wild grace, but she’s not sure she would ever call it elegance. But she is a young woman, with thoughts only of gowns and games, and so she admires elegance.

“For fun? Pulling a longbow takes nearly a hundred pounds of force.”

Sansa laughs, trying to sound blithe. She looses her arrow, and hits the target she has set up. It hits close to the edge, but it’s set further away than she’s set them before.

“You’re assigned to guard Lady Shireen, right? Is she about already?”

Brienne shakes her head.

“The girl is a bit of a late sleeper, and I felt the need for some early morning air before resuming my duties.”

Sansa sets down her bow and sits on one of the brick columns that line the ends of the walkway.

“How is she? I remember when I came here for the first time, I felt so alone.”

“She is..coping. Like she always has. She didn’t have many other young people for friends in Storm’s End, or from her stories, before either.”

Brienne frowns as she continues speaking.

“I fear she may always feel out of place just because of how she looks. I feel coming here, with all the power and attention may only make it worse.”

“This city isn’t a very good place for anyone,” Sansa ruminates, playing with the feather on the end of her bow.

What about you? She thinks, but doesn’t say. Here, Brienne looks the role of a knight, even if she will still insist she is not. She spends her days guarding a defenseless girl for no personal gain, and she will still deny it.

And she has no idea who she would have become.

Joffrey and Margaery announce their engagement halfway through the year. Ned spends the back half of the year with his head between his hands trying to get a grasp on the plans.

“Robert’s not going to make it to the end of the year,” he admits one day during supper.

Sansa purses her lips as she sips her soup.

“I didn’t think so. He looks awful.” Robert’s whole body has become swollen, and despite his famous appetite, he rarely eats anymore.

“I can’t help but feel that planning a lavish wedding while his father dies is in poor taste.”

“He will be king,” Sansa considers, “maybe he wants his reign to start with a celebration. Or maybe Robert wants to see his eldest wed before he passes.”

Ned shakes his head.

“I still can’t wrap my head around Joffrey being king. He doesn’t pay a lick of attention in small council meetings, and on the occasion he does, he lashes out and suggests violence for nearly every issue.”

“He will be an awful king,” Sansa agrees, “But I don’t expect he will be king long.

He probably won’t be murdered at his wedding this time, she thinks, or at least if he is, Sansa doesn’t think she will be the tool of poison. She hasn’t received any unexpected gifts anyway. The Iron Islands are in flux, something tells her Stannis still has his doubts about Joffrey’s parentage, and Littlefinger is still manipulating things (his own wedding to Lysa has just been announced).

And, barring all of that, Varys spoke quietly to her once about the songs of his birds from overseas. The thought of Joffrey being eaten by a dragon does give her a certain sense of satisfaction.

‘You don’t imagine Joffrey will want to keep you as his Hand though do you?” she asks out of the blue.

Ned’s words are rough,

“I can’t imagine. The boy dislikes me, his mother dislikes me more, and they’ve both been vocal about it.”

“Perhaps, once his graces passes, then we’ll be able to go home.”

It’s the only hope they have to hold on to, as the wedding draws near.

Sansa’s not in a good mood the day before. Aside from her general distaste for weddings, she has also just got the raven telling her that she was going to miss Arya’s...again.

Ned is at least as upset about that as she is.

“At least there are still four more of you.”

Sansa is quiet for a long time, then suddenly interjects,

“Robb was married. No one was there but Mother. I don’t even remember his wife’s name. She was from Volantis, I think. None of us got to meet her. The three of them all died the same day.”

Ned reaches out and touches the back of her neck. The gown she’s dressed in for the wedding is a light gray, with long sleeves and a full skirt. She’s tall enough at seventeen that she can now look him straight in the eye.

She stands beside him during the ceremony, and he watches her eyes drift over most of the room.

Joffrey and Margaery say their words, and Ned and Sansa try their best not to roll their eyes.

There are performers after, but scanning the crowd, Sansa lets out a sigh of relief, seeing only one dwarf. The pigeon pie doesn’t choke anyone.

Sansa quietly sips at her wine, and watches.

At one point in the evening, she sees Ned take a sip from Robert’s goblet, and wince. Pycelle is accompanying the King, who is barely holding himself upright. He has not eaten or drank anything at all during the festivities.

“I’ve never tasted anything that strong, I’m almost frightened where he found it,” Ned comments, off hand. Sansa wonders at his words.

Time comes for the bedding. Sansa notices Shireen looking a bit apprehensive, and so grabs her hands and the two of them linger at the back of the mob of women.

“Trust me, you don’t want a hand or eyeful of any of that,” she assures the girl.

The dancers and celebrators still linger in the hall. Sansa notices Cersei still at the high table, seemingly quite drunk. That’s a mess she wants no part of either.

Her and Shireen sit alone, sipping lightly from one cup of wine.

"Do you like it here at all?" Sansa finally asks her.

Shireen shrugs.

"I like meeting other people. I like seeing things happen even if I can't be involved. Renly told me when he was helping me get my gown and everything for the ball last year that it was a shame a girl like me had been kept from the world for so long."

"Aren't people sometimes mean to you though?"

"Of course they are, but they don't matter. Maybe in this life I'll be alone, but that's why I like my books and stories. That's I think what I'd like to do with my life. I want to write stories, whether they're real or not."

Sansa sees in her eyes a touch of resentment, she figures for her parents having kept her trapped for so long.

And slowly, and very quietly, she asks her.

"If I told you a story, a very complicated one, could you keep it to yourself, whether you believed it or not?"

Shireen looks at her oddly.

"I wouldn't tell a soul."

And just like that, Sansa has another confidant.

It feels like things should change all at once, but it still somehow happens slowly.

It’s a few days after the wedding, while guests are beginning to leave. Sansa is wandering the halls, again in Lady, when she comes upon Cersei leaving the royal apartments, with an empty bottle.

Sansa-in-Lady takes a moment to heel behind a statue in the hall, when Littlefinger comes in her direction.

He barely even stops upon encountering Cersei, he merely nods in her direction.

“Such a shame it is,” he says, eyes on the bottle, “For a man to be leveled by something he loved so much.”

And Sansa finds herself slipping out of Lady’s head, a heavy sensation causing her stomach to sink.

Of course it wouldn’t be hard, the way Robert drank, to spike his cups even more heavily. Even if someone were drinking first from his cups, they wouldn’t likely notice.

A death he may have brought on himself, hastened by someone who desperately wanted him gone.

A death that comes barely a moon after his eldest son’s wedding.

“I have to make funeral arrangements,” Ned tells her that evening, when the are sitting and talking, “And arrange for Joffrey’s coronation.”

“And after that?”

Ned sighs. It seems to be his primary vocalization now.

“After...we’ll find out.”

Sansa stares out the window in her chambers that night. It’s a deep, dark, clear night, and the raven for winter flies through.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #gendrya #sanrion #jongritte #time travel fix it #fic

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