Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sansa could see him from her window, covered in blood and sweat, looking for all the world like the Warrior made flesh as he swung his sword, thrusting and parrying against three Goldcloaks at once on the ramparts. He made the act of conquest look like a dance and Sansa stood transfixed. The Red Keep was filled with the sound of screaming, of swords clanging, and the roar of dragons. Half the trees were aflame, illuminating the dark-haired man. At this distance, she couldn’t make out the sigil on his armor.  As if sensing someone watching him, he raised his eyes and met hers. Sansa gasped and dropped to the floor, heart pounding wildly.

Her cheeks flushed deeply, ashamed of how the sight had stirred her. She had seen him before, she knew, in her dreams. But they were the sort of dreams no maiden would admit to ever having. She remained there on the cool floor and didn’t move for what seemed like hours. It had all happened so fast. First, Aegon had taken Storm’s End and from there ten thousand Golden Company soldiers had poured into the Stormlands, marching north through the Kingswood to lay siege on the capitol. Then Stannis Baratheon’s fleet had been decimated before he could even attempt to beat the approaching Targaryen fleet to Blackwater Bay, leaving the paltry thirty Lannister ships to face off against Rhaenys Targaryen and her dragons.

Tywin Lannister and his army were being tied down in the Westerlands by the combined armies of the North, the Riverlands, and the Vale, under her own brother’s command. Joffrey had strutted around the Red Keep for days, boasting to anyone within earshot that any day now Mace Tyrell and his fifty thousand Reachmen would arrive to lift the siege. It had been something of a nasty surprise when the Tyrells were ambushed on the Roseroad just outside Bitterbridge by a mix of Dornishmen and sellswords. Queen Cersei had descended into a near-incoherent rage when she received that bit of news, given that Princess Myrcella was in Dorne and betrothed to Prince Trystane Martell.  She had ranted and raved for hours about treachery, destroying anything she could get her hands on and there were none who could check her. Not even Lord Tyrion dared to, even as busy as he was leading the defense of the city.

After a fortnight under siege, tensed with fear and barely able to sleep, the great gates of King’s Landing were breached. They’d reached the gates to the Red Keep by dawn of this morning, when another standoff had commenced. Nobody had expected that the Targaryen men-at-arms would know all the secret passageways into the Red Keep. By the time she heard heavy footsteps making their way down the hallway near her chambers, an eerie calm had come over Sansa. It was almost a relief that at last, she had reached a point where she was beyond terror. So this is how it will end, she thought resignedly, picking herself up off the floor and dusting off her skirts. The first thing she’d done after barricading herself inside was to slowly, methodically take down her Southron hairstyle and redo it into twin plaits along the top of her head, leaving the rest of her hair to fall in loose waves over her shoulders. She still wore one of her best dresses- a lavender-gray with intricate, muted gold embellishments. She would face her death as a Northwoman.

Cersei certainly had relished filling her head with all sorts of horrific outcomes of what would befall her at Targaryen hands. Rape, torture, execution. Sansa was a traitor’s daughter twice over, after all. Rhaenys and Aegon would certainly feed her to the dragons they had inherited from their aunt after she fell in Meereen. She didn’t dare hope that her brother and mother would be given any mercy- the rebellion of the North and Riverlands in the Westerlands notwithstanding.

The clang of doors being thrown open and noise of rooms being searched reached her ears. When, at last, her doorknob rattled, Sansa swallowed hard and smoothed her skirts down once more. The door shook from the force of the fist pounding on it. “If you do not open up by the count of ten, I will break this bloody thing down!”

I am a Stark, I can be brave.

She didn’t give the angry male voice until even the count of four before she undid the bolt and opened it. “Good evening, Ser.” She dipped into as graceful a curtsy as she had ever managed.

The man standing there had dark hair worn long, shot through with gray, and a scowl on his face. She would put him at some years older than her father’s age, had he lived. On the front plate of his armor was a distinctive-and familiar- sigil. Sansa saw the black bat and smiled up at him. “You are from House Whent!” she exclaimed softly.

He scowled at her suspiciously, clearly not having expected that reaction. “Aye, that I am. Ser Oswell Whent at your service, my lady.” Sansa was not about to trust his good manners. She had survived too long in King’s Landing to believe in the facsimile of kindness. He nodded before swinging a hand in the direction of the hallway. “I’ve orders to bring everyone to the great hall.”

Sansa nodded. “Well then, we mustn’t tarry.” She fell into step with the grizzled knight, seeing the hallway full of perhaps a dozen other men in strange uniforms who barely cast more than a curious glance her way. She accepted his arm when they began to descend the stairs.

“You were kin to my grandmother, Minisa.”

Ser Oswell’s head shot to the side, studying her more closely. “Gods’ blood!” He swore. “They weren’t japing when they said you had your mother’s look. You’re Cat’s girl, aren’t you?”

Her silence was her assent. “Ser Oswell?”

“Hm?”

“Since we share kin, I wondered if I could ask you a favor. It is not a small one, I fear.”

He sighed and shook his head, somewhat regretfully. “Now, I’m not sure I can-”

“I would prefer a quick and clean death, if you would please. Perhaps outside where the air might be fresher. I’m told a good swordsman can cut a head off clean through with one blow.”

He gaped at her then, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. Sansa thought he looked more than a little insulted. “I don’t know what kind of lies they’ve been filling your head with, Princess, but we aren’t here to slaughter, not like Lannister and the Usurper.”

Sansa frowned, half at him calling her ‘Princess’. “But my father-”

“You think we don’t understand the position Lord Eddard was in? Do you think your aunt and cousin would want their own kin dead when they have fallen victim to the same enemy?”

“Aunt Lyanna is with Rhaenys and Aegon?”

“Well, she remains at Dragonstone for the time being, but your cousin the Prince Jon battles now for King’s Landing.”

Oswell felt like a prize idiot. They had claimed victory, most of the surviving men-at-arms having surrendered their weapons and the vast majority of the Goldcloaks and Kingsguard had been killed, but then it had become a matter of locating and securing all the people who had been inside the Red Keep. Oswell had taken charge of three dozen men: a mix of Dornishmen and sellswords, and set them about the business of clearing the chambers in the Maidenvault. When the red-headed chit had opened the door, his first thought had been ’she looks like Minisa’. It had been so long since he had seen her at Harrenhal, two little flame-haired girls toddling after her. He should have known, he thought, as he led the princess into the Great Hall where the soon-to-be new Queen and King awaited.

Servants were clustered, trembling and wide-eyed, under the watchful eye of the Unsullied towards the back. Oswell led Sansa towards the gathered nobles, all chattering noisily with one other. Even through his mail, Oswell felt her fingers tense around his arm. “Peace, my lady. None will harm you here.” From the furrow of her brow and the polite but blank look in her eyes as she nodded at him, he knew she hadn’t believed him. It smarted that she had expected such violence from him and the Targaryens. Oswell fervently wished that the fighting weren’t over right now so that he could make some of those responsible pay.

Spotting Ser Arthur off to the side, he met his fellow knight’s eyes and of course, where Ser Arthur was, so went Prince Jon. “Let’s go introduce you to your cousin, shall we?”

Neither him nor Arthur could have missed the surprised look on Jon’s face, the way his mouth went slack and a light rarely seen entered his eyes. Oswell could have roared with laughter at his adoptive son’s expense. Looks like he’ll have no problem finding his bride comely!

Chapter Text

“Lady Sansa.”

Sansa gasped, startled, and spun around, dropping her hand guiltily against the small of her back as she met Prince Jon’s amused eyes. The overcrowded platters of lemoncakes covered nearly half the banquet table behind her, mocking her even now. It had been so long since she had permitted herself the pleasure of consuming one- only the safety of her present circumstances gave her the desire to indulge herself.

She had been wandering through the Grand Hall, not having planned on changing into one of her new dresses for the feast for another two hours, and spotted the table with dozens and dozens of glistening lemoncakes. If she pilfered just one, surely nobody would miss it, and she could enjoy devouring it in privacy without any one seeing how unladylike she was.

That plan was dashed now, thanks to the prince.

Her betrothed.

“Your Grace,” Sansa breathed, face flushing as she trained her eyes downwards. She hardly knew how to comport herself around him, despite having known him for two moons’ turns since he and his half-siblings had re-taken King’s Landing. She had experienced the unpleasant attentions of cruel, selfish men. Covetous. And she’d known what they wanted when they looked at her- it had made her skin crawl.

She wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel that way when Jon looked at her. Maybe it was because he often looked at her with awe, like he just wanted to please her, whereas all those other men didn’t seem like they would care if she begged them not to.

A sennight ago, she had allowed Jon to press her back into a dark corner behind a tapestry and kiss her senseless. She had clutched at his shoulders and gasped like a wanton at the hot sweep of his tongue. And his hands! Those broad palms and fingers, callused from heavy use of the sword, had caressed her hip through the layers of her skirts and shift.

“I requested that the kitchens make those for you, you know.” Jon explained, jerking his chin in the direction of the sweet treats.

It was such an odd, consuming sense of gratitude that swept through her then. “You hardly had to go to such trouble, Your Grace,” she murmured, cheeks hurting from the grin threatening to split open her face. “But thank you all the same.”

Only her years in the Red Keep kept her from asking how he had found out that particular piece of information.

“Of course, I didn’t realize your love of lemoncakes would drive you to petty thievery.” There was no censure, no threat in Jon’s voice- just amusement. He certainly looked handsome today with his hair unbound (perhaps Queen Rhaenys had been successful in her campaign to get him to sit for a trim) and a smart doublet in a shade of blue-gray that could only be a nod to his mother’s heitage, and that of his betrothed.

A giggle escaped her throat before she could stop it, startling her with how light it sounded. Perhaps I could be happy with him, perhaps I could hope and dream again.

“Everyone has a weakness, Your Grace.” She playfully pointed out.

“Jon,” he reminded her once again. “We are to be married within a moon’s turn, after all.”

And Robb and her mother would be here for the joyous occasion- she was actually more excited to be reunited with her family than she was for her impeding nuptials, and she didn’t think her husband-to-be would be cross about that.

“Jon,” she acceded.

“Though I suppose it’s good I’m learning about your weaknesses now- you never know when this information might come in handy later on.”

Jon bowed before her, reaching out for her hand, which he brought up to his lips. He placed a warm, gentle kiss over her knuckles. Sansa couldn’t help being bold and giving him the answering stroke of her thumb over his forefinger. Silly, after the liberties she had already allowed him, but still.

“My lady,” he said in farewell, taking his leave of her. The possessive endearment caused a strange, fluttery sensation to erupt behind her ribcage.

My Prince, Sansa thought to herself, turning over the idea in her head and trying it on for fit. My Jon.

As she wrapped a single lemoncake in a piece of cloth, the memory of his lips on her skin tingled.