Chapter Text
Summers in King’s Landing were notorious for the heat. Flocks of both seagulls and college students arrived at the start of every summer season, staying long past their welcomes. The city sat overlooking the Blackwater Bay, and the beach itself was full of half-naked, sweaty bodies and litter and – for the unlucky – half-buried animal or human refuse. Add in those pesky seagulls, nipping at whoever was least guarded, biting at food scraps and unsupervised belongings and dangling bikini laces. It was a wonder how anyone managed to relax at the beach. But the heat also brought along humidity, the worst kind within miles. A combination of the sun and the city’s endless energy consumption created the sticky sort of air. The sort that made you disgustingly wet walking three city blocks, as though you took a casual dive in the beach. And the unescapable whiff of bodies around every turn, inside or out, still wasn’t enough to make people realize that King’s Landing wasn’t at all how brochures made it out to be.
Summers like these – with the endless blue skies and the relentless sun and pinkened flesh – were the sorts of summers Sansa never experienced back home in the North. Oh how she bugged and begged her parents to take the family down South for a single week’s vacation, to know what it felt like to be cradled in the sun’s warmth at any hour. She instead managed to will her parents to go only so far as the Riverlands, which had its own terrible mugginess and never-ending supply of mosquitos. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the seagulls or the mosquitos.
Summers in King’s Landing was its own level of terribleness; its own form of punishment for Sansa’s relentless pleading.
Now she would never leave.
Sansa stared up at the sky, at the expanse of blue reaching over the horizon. The North seemed so impossibly far away now, especially with this change of weather. Winterfell had brisk summers and a lazy sun that felt as though you were being hugged through the chill wind (and the occasional leftover piles of snow. She loved discovering those in the deep woods whilst hiking with her siblings). Winterfell had wonderful weather, her family, and her home.
This was her home now, she remembered bitterly. The man inside – no, the boy – was her betrothed, and this constant humidity seemed to be her only friend. And those seagulls; how could she forget them.
What Sansa would give to go back in time and change everything.
It was midday sometime. The temperature continued rocketing over any humane level. And yet, citizens of King’s Landing went about their daily lives as though the weather was normal.
But it wasn’t. The sky she had been staring at – in an attempt to avoid the music and the alcohol and the people – had been forming small, puffy clouds for some time now. They just appeared, one at a time. Like little sheep grazing about in the sky, gathering friends and family as they traveled towards the coast. White and fluffy and bouncing on and on, looking for their home in King’s Landing too. Sansa wanted to shoo at them, to tell them better weather and better people were found up North. She wasn’t drunk enough for that, though – she was hardly drunk at all.
It was Joffrey’s nineteenth name-day. And despite the heat, he planned to get as wasted as humanly possible.
He was definitely doing a terrific job achieving his goal. And Sansa, well, she was doing her job being here, in King’s Landing, ensuring that her family was safe back home.
No, back at Winterfell. King’s Landing was her home now.
Sansa turned away from the sheep-clouds to glance inside at the party. Even out here on the balcony the stench of drunken breath and sweat and drugs (and something else, something human in less polite form) was suffocating. She wondered if the drink made the heat and the smell bearable.
And there he was: her loving betrothed. At the center of attention, his golden curls bouncing as he flailed to the music with dozens of friends and strangers. The drink in his hand was sloshing onto the clothes of whoever was nearest, and every few beats his free hand would smack into whoever was nearest. He was horribly wasted and a godawful dancer. Though no one in their right mind – drunk or otherwise – would dare cross the Little Lannister Lion.
Sansa had only been in King’s Landing – and been Joffrey’s official fiancée – for two weeks. She didn’t want to think about the next four years being engaged to him as ‘college sweethearts.’ And then the rest of her life being his wife. She wanted to gag and blame it on the stench.
But the Little Lannister Lion had reasons (read: excuses) on why he punished any who dared think to raise a finger against him. His grandfather was Prime Minister, and his father had been shortly before an untimely death. Though late in his prime, Tywin would one day die and pass off the entirety of Westeros to this spoilt child. It was barbaric, thinking Joffrey could run anything other than his mouth when things never went his way. And even then, that mouth more often than not spewed out something along the lines of ‘my grandfather will hear of this.’ And, if Joffrey was in an especially good mood: ‘I’ll have your head, you fucking prick.’
What a charming young man Sansa managed to ensnare.
A charming young man who just upturned his stomach of booze onto another poor young man. As though the party hadn’t smelt terribly already.
Some were running for the balcony or the other side of the apartments. Others laughed and chugged more beer, Joffrey included. In his drunken stupor he glanced at her, and she had to smile like it was all some laughable faux pas. He accepted her smile with a drunken wave of his head, and went searching for someone else who disapproved of the future-PM’s antics.
Chatter began to drown out the music again as the party-goers brushed off Joffrey’s puke (figuratively and literally), continuing to drink the afternoon away.
Sansa was turning back to check up on her flock of clouds when she saw
Even with – what Sansa could only assume – the deathly stench of vomit on her betrothed’s breath and body, she sidled right up next to him, double-fisting drinks. Joffrey took a drink in one hand and her waist in the other. He seemed torn: booze or women.
But why her.
Margaery Tyrell. Sweet and beautiful, and a completely conniving snake.
The whole of King’s Landing and their cousins knew that Margaery – and the Tyrells in particular – were dying for Joffrey’s hand in marriage the moment his father overthrew the Targaryans and proclaimed himself Prime Minister. The wife of the future Prime Minister of all of Westeros; one couldn’t get any higher than that unless they were the PM themselves. And Margaery was the Tyrell’s pawn that seemed oh-too-eager to cozy her body against whoever got her there. Who at the moment was Sansa’s betrothed himself.
Sansa didn’t hate Margaery because she was currently grinding her hips against Joffrey’s. In fact, Sansa was almost relieved that she hadn’t needed to take part in any of the name-day pleasantries other than show up and be there. If Margaery was more than willing to take Sansa’s spot as Joffrey’s plaything for the night, Sansa wouldn’t dare pass up the opportunity.
But Margaery was so two-faced. She was pleasant at first, when Sansa arrived at King’s Landing, throwing out an invitation of friendship. Admittedly, Sansa was thrilled that someone other than Joffrey (and his mother) noticed her and wanted anything to do with the transplanted wolf. But not even a day passed before Sansa caught Margaery practically undressing herself (I’m just being casual) before Joffrey and trying to worm her way into the Lion’s bed and marriage vows.
She still kept up the façade of friendship.
They were practically fucking, if it were possible to have sex fully-clothed and fully-drunk in the middle of a dance floor with alcohol in one hand. Sansa wouldn’t know.
She turned away, setting her near-full drink on the railing, and began counting sheep.
For each one she gave her engagement band a twirl. One. The clouds were closer, way closer than Sansa would have expected. Two. And it wasn’t so much a flock rather than an army. Three four five. Was it possible for sheep to build an army? To train against humans forcing them in an endless cycle of jumping fences in dreamscapes. Six. Anything was possible if the sheep put their minds to it, Sansa supposed. Seven eight. And this army of grey sheep were calling their brethren forward to storm the beaches.
“Bitching party, right?” Someone slurred beside her, almost falling down on the railing. He caught his balance, but his drink tumbled over the edge and down the six floors to the pavement.
“Yeah, Joffrey is having a wonderful name-day,” she replied. Sansa continued to twirl her ring as she turned to face the boy.
He was about her height, an inch or two taller, with dark hair and dark, wild eyes, with a smile that would have looked bent even without the drink. She smelt that pestering odor of heat on him, but for some reason she didn’t smell the drink. He probably just arrived, she thought. Only to lose his drink to clumsiness.
He pulled one hand away from the railing and offered it to her. “I’m Rams. Like the sheep.” She gripped his tentatively in a light shake as he let loose a pathetic baaa.
He’s definitely drunk, she thought. “Sansa. Spot-on impression. Can you do any others?”
Rams wavered against the railing. He cleared his throat once, twice, before unleashing an even more pathetic whine. It sounded like a cat drunk on catnip, falling off a couch and lazily calling out for help.
Sansa stared at him, dumbstruck. “Lovely, um, seal?”
He guffawed, hideously, slapping the railing at her guess. His eyes flared wider as he stared at her with a ridiculous, drunken grin. “Not even close! You need to get out more, meet some things…and do some things.” Rams brought his hand up to cover a burp, but missed. “A dying wolf, actually.”
Sansa’s heart missed a beat. “A…what?”
“That ‘seal.’ It was a dying wolf,” he clarified. “Animals make some of the most beautiful sounds as they die, you know.”
She had nothing to say, nothing to respond to something like that.
Still he persisted. “You’re, um. You’re Joffrey’s thing, right?” Was there even an actual definition for her? What she was, what she was doing for the sake of her family. Sansa saw him look inside where Joffrey was most likely still grinding against Margaery. “You know, um,” Rams began, scratching at his chin. “If you ever wanna get back at Joffrey, you could, with me.”
She blinked her eyes, in disbelief and in shock. Sansa could not deny that Rams wasn’t unattractive, but she couldn’t see herself going so far to be petty towards someone like Joffrey. Rather, she figured it would work out worse for her if she accepted Rams’ offer. Joffrey was not the sort of boy that liked sharing.
“I’m fine,” she said flatly, and Rams – finally – took that as his awkward cue to leave. He staggered back inside in search of another drink and a girl more willing (and plastered) to laugh at his jokes. Just before he became lost in the throng of strangers, he looked back and gave another of his howls.
Sansa shivered at the memory of Lady.
Her parents, her siblings, her wolf. They were all lost to her. Joffrey’s father mysteriously died a few months ago, and her own father was well-known as being an old acquaintance of Robert’s. Eddard was not content to accept Robert’s death as an accident, as much as his now-widow and father-in-law proclaimed. Her father knew there was something wrong, with the death and these Lions that so eagerly grabbed at the leadership of Westeros. So Eddard did what he thought was best, for him and the nation: a succession of the North. Nearly all the houses of the North loved Eddard Stark, would have followed him across the sea and into infinity if Eddard gave the command. Because they knew Eddard would be there beside him.
Scant weeks after the North declared itself an independent nation free of Westeros’ control, the Lannisters paid the Starks a kind visit. A façade, of course. A political meeting to discuss terms to repeal the succession and keep the North in the Lion’s claws. The North was the largest county of the whole of Westeros, though much of it was wildlife and mountains. It had been suspected had even one of the smallest island families planned a succession instead, the Lannisters would have done anything to keep the whole of Westeros in line and under their control.
The meeting was hardly a meeting. A threat: stay under the Lannister’s claws, or declare war against the entirety of Westeros with succession. Eddard – against the crying rallies of some Northern houses, and even Southron houses that detested the Lannister Lions – agreed.
But Lions are not so easy to forgive. They required (read: forced) Eddard to give up his eldest daughter as leverage, as a contingency should the North entertain any other whimsy of leaving. Any part of the North squeaking ideas of succession again, and Sansa would never see another dawn.
And on their journey from the wild North, Sansa brought Lady. Her only companion amongst this dreadful sea of Lions and animals drunk on the Lannister’s illusion of endless power and wealth.
Lady made it three days’ journey South before Lady ran away because someone accidentally failed to tie her leash properly. There were strands of wolf hair on the coat of Joffrey’s favorite guard the next morning. She knew Joffrey ordered it; he hated Lady because Lady would not bow to the future Lannister Lion.
A loud crash brought Sansa back to the party. Someone knocked over a table and was running out the door for their life, but Joffrey, it seemed, hadn’t noticed. Sansa felt exhausted, the weight of Lady’s death dampening the raucous aura of the party, and began shoving drunkards aside in search of the exit. There were so many of them. No way Joffrey had this may friends. No way he even had one, she thought with a small smile, continuing to weave her way through the bodies (and the stench). Sansa hoped whatever she was stepping through was just alcohol.
She was halfway through – she knew because Joffrey was there, four feet in front of her, the proverbial center of attention in whatever he did. Even the light seemed to shine particularly on his curls, almost drawn to his presence. And Margaery was there, too, clinging on to him, clawing at his arms and chest as though she was afraid of losing him. “A blessing, losing him,” Sansa murmured.
As though he heard her, Joffrey pulled his mouth away from Margaery (but not his hands, they were in a death-grip upon Margaery’s ass, the latter of which was practically exposed). His eyes blinked as he stared at Sansa, trying to draw her into focus, trying to remember that the girl currently pressed against was not his intended. Joffrey’s mouth was red and bruising from Margaery’s.
“My betrothed,” he drawled through the alcohol coursing through him. People immediately dropped their conversations at the sound of his voice, too terrified to disobey the Lion, and equally as curious about this lost wolf. The music continued to thrum in Sansa’s head, her heart.
Joffrey managed, with some effort, to disengage one hand from Margaery’s ass to clamp onto the girl’s face. He twisted her neck so they were both looking at Sansa, observing her, with half-lidded eyes and open, red mouths. He didn’t say anything else before he reunited their mouths, his hand on her face stumbling up into Margery’s hair to painfully yank it back. His other hand, Sansa unfortunately noticed, was gleefully making its way underneath the short dress.
Sansa had half a mind to close the gap and slap some much, much-needed sense into her betrothed.
But she also had the half a mind to know that every pair of eyes were on her. She could feel the anticipation of the party-goers, itching Sansa to do something wonderfully stupid and bring some life back into the party. Something like slapping her fiancé and his Tyrell plaything.
But Joffrey was drunk. Riotously drunk. Sansa did not want to encounter Joffrey drunk and pissed at her. He’s already showed sober displeasure enough in bruises under her clothes. Here, with tens of guests and with an open affront to the Lion himself… Sansa could only imagine the horrors he would come up with to punish her.
So she balled up her emotions and her fists and stormed out.
She felt her tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, her knees wobbling as they carefully avoided the discarded bodies and cups littered throughout. Between her family and Lady and this gods-awful marriage… Sansa had to congratulate herself on not losing her temper.
Sansa made it as far as the elevators before she heard the heavy slam of the door slamming against the hallway and the even heavier stomp of feet towards her. The elevator, as always, was never around when you needed it.
Her body whirled around and collided against the elevator doors, stars flickering behind her eyelids. Her teeth bit her tongue and she tasted her own blood.
“What. The. Fuck. Do you think. You’re doing?”
He was so impossibly drunk he barely had the breath for three words. The air around him was thick with booze and vomit, that Sansa nearly gave Joffrey a taste of his own medicine, managing with some difficulty to swallow back the bile.
She opened her eyes, and wished she hadn’t.
Joffrey was furious. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, staring directly into hers for an answer. The flush in his cheeks from the booze only highlighted the temper, and even his bruised mouth gave him an otherworldly demonic appearance. The fingers in Sansa’s hair tightened as she remained silent, and his other hand pushed her shoulder further into the metal.
“Huh?” he demanded.
“I’m… I wasn’t feeling well,” she managed.
“The fuck!” He cut her off, banging her head into the door again so hard she swore she heard something crack. “The fuck?”
But he let go, backing away a step. Sansa cradled her head, digging through her hair for any sign of blood.
Looking up at him made her head dizzy, and she wanted to throw up so badly. To vomit her stomach all over him, and to vomit the words that caught in her throat: I hate you.
Behind Joffrey, people were starting to crowd the hallway. They did nothing to stop him. At least, in some twisted way, they were smart enough to know not to cross him. Unlike me, she chided.
Margaery stood there, too. Sansa caught a glance at her before someone else stood in her way. She was… She wasn’t smiling, but her face didn’t hold concern the way some of the others did. She looked almost relieved, thankful.
Relieved that someone stupider wound up in the marriage.
Sansa glanced back up at Joffrey. He was still fuming, his clenched hands shaking, but he had stopped. Stopped yelling and hurting his future wife.
What a wonderful Prime Minister he’ll turn out to be, Sansa thought.
And it seemed like that flash of the thought crossed Joffrey’s mind too. Surely his grandfather and mother warned him countlessly about his appearance and his actions. He was nineteen name-days old now, still far too young for major leadership. But he had to start young, they would tell him. Had to build up the appearance of strong, trusting leader like Tywin.
Maybe amidst all the ‘fuck off’s, Joffrey Lannister actually learned something.
The elevator dinged behind Sansa, and she stumbled backwards into it. She was thankful to finally be gone, at least for the day. Clutching her head with one hand, her other traveled to the Close Door button.
“Wait,” Joffrey muttered. Or tried to; it came out as a mangled half-yell. He started backwards, moving through the crowd.
Sansa’s hand trembled. She was so close.
Her fingers, against all her desires, pushed the Door Open button.
Seconds later Joffrey stormed through the crowd again, shoving and yelling at them to “Move!” He barreled into someone double-fisting beer, and the whole gathering held their breaths as they awaited the murder.
But Joffrey just told him to “Fuck off,” and continued towards Sansa.
Once inside he slammed the Basement button. “My fiancée isn’t feeling well,” he shouted as the doors started closing. “I’ll meet you fucks on the roof for the after-party.”
Sansa wondered what sorts of murders could be carried out in the span it took an elevator to descend seven floors.
To her surprise, Joffrey didn’t enact any of them.
As the doors dinged open and they walked out, Sansa then wondered how well screams could be heard from this basement. How acoustic were the walls, and how loudly would she have to scream for someone to come to her rescue.
Joffrey stumbled towards his car – one of his cars – and took some time managing to figure out which button unlocked the doors. Sansa crept towards him and the vehicle, still clutching her head, and silently prayed that when he crashed it would be a quick death.
He revved up and tore through the parking lot, nearly clipping columns and cars on his way up and out onto the streets. And still he hadn’t said anything. But Sansa could have sworn, even above the sound of the engine and of pedestrians cursing him off, she heard Joffrey’s teeth grinding. His knuckles were white against the steering wheel and clutch. It was going against every Joffrey instinct, it seemed, to be a nice human being.
Sansa looked out the window and prayed to the gods a mixed message of ‘Thank you for not letting me die,’ with a PS of ‘Why did you let this happen to me?’
The sheep army was advancing so fast that Sansa hadn’t realized how dark the streets were despite the hour. They were dark and weighed down towards the earth, conglomerated into a single monstrous sheep beginning to storm the beach of King’s Landing and take back the city. She thought she heard people screaming in the distance as the sheep began their attack.
With a final swerve through a stop sign, narrowly dodging a prim-looking woman walking her small dog – both of which yapped at the car – Joffrey pulled into the winding lane that led towards the Red Keep. It housed the highest government officials and their families, as well as numerous workers for the seemingly-endless tasks and chores. The castle was perched atop a cliff edge, overlooking the Bay and the entirety of King’s Landing. Back in the day, when castles were structures for protection rather than merely symbol, the Red Keep stood tall and unyielding to whoever dared overthrow the rulers. In a way, its purpose held true to this day. It was nearly impossible to get in and assassinate the Prime Minister. Managing to take out even a servant was a feat in and of itself.
And yet, the Lannisters managed it some twenty years ago. Dragons stood proudly at this castle for hundreds of years. Then Stags trounced and crowned themselves rulers. And now Lions lie in the den.
Sansa thought Joffrey had half a mind to dump Sansa at the bottom of the lane leading up to the Red Keep. It was at least a half-mile trek. But Cersei Lannister, Joffrey’s mother, held her own sort of gala today in recognition of her son’s name-day. Sansa hadn’t caught much information concerning it other than: one, it was for the rich and pampered ladies of the Keep; and two, that Sansa was the only lady who was definitely not allowed to attend.
Maybe the gala wouldn’t have been as terrible as Joffrey’s own party.
So Joffrey drove up and up and over towards the back entrance, in an attempt to hide his betrothed from the prying, gossipy eyes of all of Cersei’s own ‘friends.’
Sansa had opened the car door and began embracing the weightlessness of not having to deal with Joffrey for the rest of the night (and most of the next day, depending on how drunk and drugged-up he got) when he grabbed her arm. His fingernails dug deep, almost producing blood.
“Don’t you fucking dare pull that shit again in public,” he said, meeting her eyes head-on. It seemed the drive sobered him up.
Alone, Sansa had no reason not to try her earlier plan of slapping sense into this man-child. But the message was already well-received at the party: play the obedient, loving wife, and you won’t get hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hating every word. “I promise never to ridicule you again.”
He considered her words and her face for a moment, debating whether or not to reinforce his message. But a pair of servants came rushing out, each carrying an umbrella and a coat. And so with prying eyes preventing him, he let her go without another word.
She had barely closed the door behind her when Joffrey tore at the graveled road, kicking up rocks that bit at her legs, and left Sansa and the servants alone.
One of the servants’ faces was so distraught at failing to give the items to the future-PM, that Sansa felt obliged to take her pair. It was only ten steps to the door, but she put the coat on regardless.
It was getting cold, Sansa thought, even in the heart of summer. She glanced towards the Bay to check up on the sheep battalion. They managed to storm the beach, and were currently gaining on the unsuspecting civilians, who were all screaming at the unexpected rain. In a matter of minutes the sheep would climb their way up the winding path towards the Red Keep, up and up and up, swords and shields and the ready.
The time of Dragons was long gone, and so too would the time of the Lions. A new era of Sheep would reign, and these rulers would be kind to their people. The country would grow prosperous, and the sheep would never harm the wolves. A Sheep-Wolf treaty, then.
Sansa shook her head, laughing at herself, stepping inside the safety and warmth of the Red Keep. She was a girl of eighteen name-days, she had no business dreaming up lands of peace and prosperity. The world wasn’t one of those nighttime tales her mother would tell her before bed. There were no savior sheep or gallant knights to sweep the fair maiden into safety. The world was far worse than she could have thought.
The servants were gone, and Sansa didn’t know what to do with the coat and umbrella. It was still warm inside from the long hours of the sun earlier in the day, but the weight of the coat felt nice upon her shoulders. A hug, if not from her betrothed then the next best thing.
She continued through the halls, swinging the closed umbrella in one hand, stopping off at the kitchens for a glass of water. The rooms were a frantic mess of bodies and orders. With the change in weather, servants ran to and fro to protect the gala, carrying large umbrellas and canopies and their own army of umbrellas. Sansa thought Cersei’s party would be better off moving inside instead, but remembered the force of nature that Cersei was. She would stand her ground even when the ground was crumbling towards hell. Joffrey was, by biological technicality, only half of his mother. Sansa shivered at the idea of receiving the full of Cersei Lannisters’ wrath, drunk or not.
Up and up Sansa climbed, umbrella in one hand and water in the other. She heard the echoes of shouts and screaming drift up the tower with her. Their echoes muddled together against the staircase walls. The noise and the coat – those were her only companions tonight.
Her rooms were modest, nothing compared to the apartments that Joffrey insisted on owning downtown. He claimed that he needed a quiet spot close to campus to study for when he began college in the fall. Sansa had no idea why he bothered with an excuse when his mother doted him with anything he wished. Perhaps for his Tywin, and the idea that Joffrey had to start thinking. Small steps, she supposed.
Sansa set her items down on the table, sipping the water as she searched the radio for something to drown out the screaming. It was old-fashioned, like the one in the family room back at Winterfell. Well, everything in Sansa’s rooms were old an out of style, but she loved them.
Sansa would have thrilled at falling asleep to the sound of rain drumming against the walls. It would have reminded her of home – her real home. King’s Landing – no matter how hard it tried – would never be home, not in her heart. The wolf in her howled as the rain picked up, drumming harder and faster against the walls and windows. Even through the thick panes of glass the commotion of the gala made its way into the rooms. So much screaming, Sansa wondered whether or not King’s Landing ever got rain.
There was only white noise on the radio, regardless of which station Sansa tuned to. She would have settled for a radio talk show – politics or gardening or anything. But the meaningless noise was better than the sounds of the Keep.
She felt the fear wean away as she snuggled into her sheets, thankful for the coat and the rain.
If she pretended hard enough, she was back in Winterfell. Back home.