Chapter Text
VII. In which there are more Targaryens
She missed Robb.
It seemed to Sansa that they had been always together to share their worries when one of them felt apprehensive, ever since the day they had first received news of Father’s pardon, on the night that felt like a lifetime ago.
Robb had already gone, however, escorted by soft-spoken, elegant Princess Rhaenys, with her purple gown and dark curls, and Bran as well, with silver-haired Princess Daenerys. The two girls had wanted to leave as soon as they had known from Robb about Rickon, whom Mother had left in their quarters, as he was too tired to attend and too old to be carried around all night.
He might wake up scared, all alone in a strange room, Princess Daenerys had coed, and Robb had sent her a grateful look.
Sansa and Arya were to be accompanied by the princes instead, thanks to some strange custom she could not quite see the point of – we only need someone to show us the way, it doesn’t need to be all of them! – and they had both taken their time, exchanging courteous words with every knight or lord who stopped to greet them.
By the time they made it out of the ballroom, Sansa was eager for some quiet. Robb and Bran must already be back in the Maindenvault by now.
Her escort was the older prince, the fair-haired one, who had offered her his arm with a smile and a bow of his head. She took it, as Mother would have wanted her to, noticing just how much slower one had to walk while linked to someone else’s arm. It was only after a moment that she realized with a wince that the person she was walking with would one day be the king of all Westeros.
“Lady Sansa, is everything well?” The prince inquired, managing to sound pleasant and interested at the same time, and Sansa had to repress a nervous giggle from escaping her mouth. It was all so unbelievable, ridiculous even, how in two moons she had gone from wandering through the fishmarket of Braavos to walking arm in arm with the future king of the Seven Kingdoms who called her Lady Sansa.
But she wasn’t about to tell him as much, and wouldn’t have known how to explain it even if she did, so she smiled and shook her head. “Yes, thank you.”
After a moment she remembered she should have added, My Prince, but now it was too late and, besides, he probably hadn’t even noticed the difference. She considered making some sort of conversation, before dismissing the idea. What would we even talk about?
Her knowledge of topics of conversation was limited to the brief exchange she’d had with Marica the bedmaid, and it was probably not that suitable for a prince’s ear. There was also the fact that she still could not remember his name. Why are all Targaryens named the same anyway? Rhaegar and Rhaenys, Daena and Daenerys… She imagined for a moment asking, Excuse me, my prince, I do not seem to remember your name, in the same polite way he’d asked if she was well, and barely contained another burst of laughter.
Behind her Arya seemed to be thinking the same thing, only talking to her own escort when he asked her something about their journey, and living in the Free Cities – he seemed to have a fascination with Tyrosh. Well, he surely wouldn’t ask of Braavos. Braavos hates dragons.
Arya’s answer was a clear and straightforward as she herself was. “I don’t remember much of Tyrosh,” she says, and Sansa noticed how she wasn’t the only one forgetting to add a title to her answers. “And please don’t call me Lady Arya, it is odd. I like Arya just fine.”
Mother would so not have liked that answer, but Sansa herself rather did – she only wished, with a pinch of envy, she had been as bold as her sister to say the same, and as young as she was to get away with it. To her great surprise both the princes seemed to like it as well, their laughter echoing loudly in the vast corridors of the keep.
“It that is the case,” Sansa’s escort intervened. “You may call me Aegon. And him,” he added, pointing at his brother, turning to wink at Arya. “Jon. And I like Arya just fine as well, it’s a very pretty name.”
“Thank you,” Arya answered, looking somewhat taken aback, and Aegon laughed again.
So that’s his name.
“Jon?” She asked, raising an eyebrow at Aegon’s younger brother. Then she remembered exactly whom she was talking with, her father’s sister’s son, the reason why an entire kingdom had gone to war, the reason why Father and Mother had to leave. She didn’t say a thing, and couldn’t bring herself to laugh much anymore.
In spite of Sansa’s own confused feelings, the conversation was much easier after that. The two princes traded quips and banter, with Arya their amused spectator, and even Sansa felt more comfortable.
Her sister was smiling when they finally reached her family’s quarters, looking almost as content as she had been during their voyage to Pentos on the Sister of the wind. When they first approached the Maindenvault she even dared to ask Prince Aemon – Jon, he had insisted – if the Mad King was really locked up in a room somewhere.
“Well,” he said, choosing his words carefully, dragging his answer. “I can guarantee he is not locked up in here.” Arya did her best not to delude him, looking suitably impressed, and Sansa knew she was going to repeat that piece of gossip to Bran and Robb as soon as she had the opportunity.
Sansa, for her part, found herself looking at him, noticed how much he truly looked like Father up close. Except for the attitude, she decided, the easy air of someone who’s never had to worry about anything in his life. His grey eyes twinkle in the light of the torches and Sansa remembered something Mother told her, how the Mad King has grey eyes as well.
Dark grey, almost black, Mother’s voice repeated in her mind and shivered.
Don’t get scared like a little girl. She firmly told herself. It means nothing. Lots of people have grey eyes. Arya has grey eyes. Father has grey eyes, as well, maybe his sister did, too?
It meant nothing, she was sure, but she felt uneasy all the same. We can leave soon, Mother said. Father had met the Prince, sworn his oath. Two or three days and they would go to Winterfell.
And there are no dragons in Winterfell, only wolves.
VIII. In which various people get emotional
They left indeed in two or three days, as her parents had assured her. It truly was two or three days, on a ship to a place called Saltpans, in the riverlands, for them all, while Father alone boarded another ship to White Harbor and the North.
Sansa hated that and, she could see, so did father. Especially, so did Mother. Sansa remembered when she was very little and they lived in Tyrosh or Myr, how Father would go away for weeks or months at the time, fighting for one city or the other, and how Mother would cry into the night for days after he left, when she thought they were asleep and could not hear her. We’re sad, too, Mother, she would think. You needn’t hide if you want to cry. She thought it silly at the time, but now she knew better. A lady does not cry.
Mother wasn’t crying now, of course. She really needn’t to – no one did, except for Rickon. Not even Bran, who could not remember what was it like with Father being away, had cried, but they still did not like it.
But Father had to go to Winterfell, which had been without a lord since Benjen Stark had died, and he had to go as soon as he could; while Mother had a family she had not seen in more than a decade, and she needed to go there as well. In the end they had decided to split, as she had heard Father tell Mother.
“It will be for the best,” they both had explained to Sansa and the others on the day after their arrival in King’s Landing. “This way you will have time to get to know the Seven Kingdoms as well as your Mother’s family, and the people in Winterfell will have time to prepare for your arrival.”
The people in Winterfell already had two months to prepare for their arrival, but Sansa had not said that. What Father likely meant was that he needed time to get used to Winterfell again, and she wondered just exactly for how long Father and Mother had been planning this.
They had left King’s Landing two days after their arrival, and the only thing Sansa had managed to see of the city, besides the harbour and the Red Keep, had been the Great Sept of Baelor. It was much bigger than the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea in Braavos, and much grander as well, made of marble and gold and crystal and, had they been willing to stay four days more, they could have heard the High Septon himself address the crowd, as he did every fortnight.
Mother had also arranged for a septa and a septon to be sent to Winterfell, for Father had promised he would have a sept built. Sansa remembered how melancholic and wistful he seemed to get every time he told her about his Northern gods, and was glad Father now had that back, too. She idly wondered what a weirwood would look like.
They had quite an odd road to travel, by ship to Saltpans and then riding to Riverrun following the river called the Red Fork, and then to Seagard to sail yet another ship, to a cove called Saltspear. It would take a ridiculously long time, Sansa mused, mostly because of the amount of riding involved. As soon as we are settled in Winterfell, I’ll ask Father to teach me how to ride well. Though she would probably have to take turns, as Arya, and especially Robb, had already said the same thing.
On the day of their departure they were escorted to the harbour by some of the Prince’s men, his very own household guards, which Mother said it was meant as an honour. Sansa, who could not quite appreciate the courteous behaviour of Prince Rhaegar toward a man he himself had exiled in the first place, didn’t really know what to think.
They would be escorted to Riverrun as well, Mother had said on the ship, and then to Seagard, by Tully men. Sansa had been worried at first, asking if there was a bandit problem, but Mother had laughed and told her not to worry, it was simply a customary favour to offer.
She also explained that they would be escorted to Winterfell from Saltspear by Stark men Father would sent, and only the odd feeling of realizing that Father would have people to send to meet them was enough to distract her from the annoyance of realizing that, from now on, she would be escorted by men everywhere she went. And, most important, the fact that Father would have the time to get to Winterfell and send men while she was stuck in the riverlands, on a horse.
Eventually, the journey wasn’t as dreadful as she had feared. There was mud, of course, and every sort of insects, and saddle plagues – which apparently she wasn’t supposed to talk about, as it was most unbecoming of a young lady. Not the complaining, Sansa learnt, but talking about saddle plagues was, especially in the hearing of Lord Tully’s household men.
The Tully men were also the reason why Robb didn’t complain, despite being allowed to, if he wanted. Instead, he looked at the easiness with which the men rode and at the swords they carried with a look that was quite close to envy. I am going to be as good as them in a year, you’ll see, he told her, and Sansa had smiled. Of course he would; Robb managed to did anything he set his mind to.
Riverrun was beautiful, Sansa decided, perhaps not quite as big as the Red Keep but still grand, with its pale sandstone walls, rising tall from the waters. Mother had a small quiver when they saw it for the first time, the rivers shining under the sun, and when she averted her watery eyes to look at her saddle, Sansa thought she herself might cry.
Once they were in full sight of the walls they were met by yet another river, a man who came galloping as though he had a mob at his heels, who called Mother, Cat and hugged her, laughing and sobbing at the same time. Sansa found herself staring, a little, wondering for a moment what she was supposed to do before deciding that looking at Mother being this happy was enough.
Glancing around she noticed Robb and Bran both with a stupidly content look on their face, and she would have called them on it had not the Tully men been staring with the same expression. She exchanged an amused eye roll with Arya then, and turned back to Mother when she raised her voice to introduce them to her uncle Brynden Tully, who made his way to where they stood and looked at them, one by one.
He started at Sansa the longest time.
“You look just like your mother did at your age,” he said, and laughed.
They spent the last part of the trip to Riverrun listening to Ser Brynden, whom Mother said was called the Blackfish. In fact, he was the only one talking. You can tell us everything tonight when we can all listen, he said, and your children as well.
He had joined the City Watch of King’s Landing right after the war, he said, when Edmure had been fostered there. Mother already knew this, thanks to the rare letters they had exchanged through the years, but it was new to Sansa. Of Edmure, Mother’s brother, he said that he hadn’t married yet.
“How so?” Mother asked, curious. “He must have made many acquaintances in King’s Landing.”
“I have no idea,” her uncle answered. “He should, but then again, I am the last person who should tell him to.”
Of his brother, Lord Tully, Ser Brynden said he had been unwell lately.
“A summer chill, he will be well soon. He wanted to welcome you in my place, but Maester Vyman forbade him. Edmure wanted to come as well, but” and there he smiled, a fond, lenient smile. “I do believe the lad is nervous, and it’s making him silly. You haven’t seen each other in so long, and he was so young, he was probably afraid you wouldn’t recognize him.”
It was silly, Sansa decided, once she’d had a good look at Edmure Tully. There was no mistaking his red hair, and she wondered if Robb would look like him, someday.
They met him in Riverrun’s main courtyard, him men all lined up like Sansa herself and her family had done in the Queen’s Ballroom their very first night in King’s Landing. She tried to keep her back straight and her face composed, and act properly, but Ser Edmure didn’t seem to have such qualms – he merely laughed and ran to embrace Mother very much like the Blackfish had. She told him something Sansa could not quite hear – some jape about his age, maybe, or about his fierce red beard – and he laughed even harder.
Lord Hoster was abed in his solar, and only Mother was allowed to enter.
“It would be too much,” the Maester argued. “He is already coming to the feast tonight, he needs to be careful. You go in first, Lady Catelyn, the children can come later.”
She did, and Ser Edmure told his steward to show them to their rooms before going into his father’s solar as well. “I’ll call you when your mother gets out,” he promised.
Sansa’s room in Riverrun was bigger than the one in the Maidenvault had been. She and Arya shared a whole set of quarters as big as their home in Braavos, and they had a bedmaid to themselves as well.
There was to be a feast for them in Riverrun, the young maid informed Sansa, and her talking of clothes remembered Sansa how she only had the one gown to wear, I hope there won’t be another feast after this while we stay here, she thought, and idly wondered what Mother’s family if she wore one of her Braavosi dresses.
She finally got to meet Lord Hoster shortly before they were to go to the feast, and he too commented on Sansa’s resemblance to Catelyn. He himself had his daughter’s bright blue eyes, which twitched when he talked and lighted up his whole face, and Sansa liked him immediately.
They were feasted in Riverrun’s Great Hall, which was much bigger than the Queen’s Ballroom in King’s Landing but not, Mother informed her, as big as the Great Hall in Winterfell. She must have sensed Sansa’s disquiet at the thought, for she smiled. “I stayed in Riverrun through the whole war,” she confessed. “I have never been to Winterfell either.
Sansa had never known that, and she found it hard to believe. The North seemed to be such an important part of Father’s story, of who he was and, as close as he and Mother obviously were, it was odd to think that she did not know that side of him at all.
“So, you see,” Mother continued. “We will see it together.”
And Sansa had never loved her mother as much as she did in that moment, sat at the high table in Riverrun’s Great Hall, all eyes on her.
“We will.”
IX. Nature and Nurture meet again. Or, Sansa will like lemon cakes, no matter whichever universe she's in
They spent ten days in Riverrun, ten days of sun and laughs and stories, ten days of swimming in the river and running in the godswood, and Sansa loved every minute of it.
I was silly, she thought, thinking back to how she had been nervous to meet her mother’s family and would have rather gone straight to Winterfell with Father instead. She told Ser Brynden as much on the last day, sat on the green in the godswood, promising she would be back soon.
“The North is vast,” he said, and it wasn’t much of an answer. “And Winterfell is right in the middle of it, four hundred leagues from here.”
He was carving a twig, the blade of his knife reflecting the light of the sun. It was a while before he spoke again.
“But we will see each other, that much is sure. Cat’s sister Lysa will make the journey, and her husband is very fond of your father. I might go with them,” he added, and she smiled in delight. “I’ve always wanted to see the North.”
The Blackfish had spent the most time with Sansa during their stay in Riverrun. With Robb as well, of course, and with Arya and Bran, but they could always play together and Robb could always go with Edmure and his friends, leaving Sansa with Ser Brynden – Uncle Brynden, he had asked to be called – who still did not seem to mind much.
“But I will be coming back, I swear.” She repeated, stubborn. The North might be as interesting and beautiful as people kept telling her, but there was something magical in the fortress among the waters. “Maybe this time Father will come as well. He wanted to.”
“Did he.”
Brynden kept his voice even and his eyes on his lap, making notch after notch on the wood, and Sansa raised her eyebrows. She had never given much thought to the relationship between Father and the Tullys – after all, the marriage had been Lord Hoster’s idea, Mother had said.
A daughter for an army.
She pushed that thought away. “They love each other very much,” she said instead. “Mother loves him.”
“I am sure she does,” her uncle answered, and Sansa felt heat rush to her face.
“She does. She would have left him if she didn’t, and I wouldn’t be here at all.”
Brynden didn’t say anything, and Sansa knew what he must be thinking.
“You don’t understand. The Free Cities… it is different from here. She wouldn’t have had to stay with him if she hadn’t wanted to, believe me. I know things, I’m not stupid.”
He laughed at that. “No, that you are not. Like your mother…”
Brynden took a breath. “Well, I’m truly happy for her, then. Truly. Cat, of all people, deserves it.” He gave Sansa a smile, and went to spar in the yard.
Robb went to spar in the yard as well, for hours every day, under the watchful eye of Ser Brynden and the men of the garrison. He had been shy at first; ashamed of his own inexperience, until Arya had pointed out that he would likely never see the men at Riverrun again for years, at least. You might look like an idiot now, but it’s better than looking like an idiot at Winterfell, she had said, and Robb had smiled.
And at least you have held a blade before… Sansa had heard a jealous note in her sister’s voice, remembering how Arya had always been fascinated by the small dirk Father had gave Robb to carry around when he had started working for old Tasco, loading his boats on the pier. She had wanted one as well, Sansa remembered, and Father told her she would have when she was older.
Had we stayed in Braavos, Sansa thought, Father would have given one to me as well, by now.
And so when Arya had begged Ser Brynden and Ser Desmond Grell, the master-at-arms, to please show her how to hold a practice sword, Sansa had met their bewildered looks with her best suffering gaze and an eye roll of her own and asked Ser Desmond to please teach her as well, so that she might play at swords with Arya and keep her away from the rest of the men.
And he had, that day and the next, and Sansa had learnt first-hand that practice swords had lead in them, and holding one tight, for hours on end, was nowhere as easy as most knights made it look. Arya, for her part, had loved every minute of it.
There were two more feasts in Riverrun during their ten days of stay, one on the very last night, and another one on the day Marq Piper came to visit, kiss mother’s hand, and take away his good friend Edmure for two days. Edmure and his friends reminded Sansa of Tasco’s sons in Braavos, who liked to laugh long and hard and always tried to get Robb to come along on their adventures.
Edmure’s friends seemed to do the same, in truth, to corrupt him, as Brynden had said, half jesting and half meaning it. To that, Robb had answered that Edmure’s friends likely only wanted to ask him whether he had ever seen a Braavosi courtesan, causing Edmure himself to spit in his cup and Brynden to cast a meaningful glace Sansa’s way.
“Do not worry, uncle,” she had said. “Robb has never seen a courtesan up close.”
“I have though,” she had added after a moment, remembering the day she had gone to the seamstress. And Mother has as well, she had wanted to add, but Ser Desmond’s face was already red enough.
Mother had another new gown made for her on the occasion of Edmure’s feast for Ser Marq, a purple one that was woollen instead of silken, one she could wear in Winterfell as well. Sansa took the opportunity to ask for breaches as well, to ride in, and Mother sent her an amused glance.
“Please,” Sansa told her, fervently.
She had her breeches, four pairs, delivered from Edmure’s own hands on the day they left, together with a leather bag.
“What is that?” She asked, curious.
“Oh, lemons. I told Father that you seem to like our lemon cakes well enough,” he answered, grinning, and Sansa blushed. I do. “Dried ones, I’m afraid, fresh lemons would never make it to Winterfell, but still…”
Sansa had never expected Edmure Tully to pay attention to such a thing. “Thank you,” she told him, slowly. “I appreciate it...”
And she clutched the small bag all the way to Seagard.
X. In which everyone lives happily ever after, for a while
The North was as vast and cold as everyone said.
Sansa had learnt as much two days at after leaving Saltspear, as the harsh wind sweeping mercilessly under the coats Mother had insisted they all brought from Braavos and the pelts Lord Mallister had gifted them with.
“You get used to it, m’lady,” one of the Winterfell men told her, rather cheerfully. His name was Harwin, and he was perhaps ten or so years older than Robb, witty and jaunty. He had been the one to tell Sansa not to worry; it wasn’t much different than Braavos. Isn’t Braavos just south of White Harbor? I bet it gets cold there, too, he had said, friendly, and Sansa had nodded. It snows in Braavos, sometimes, she had answered, and he laughed.Only sometimes?
“It gets better as well,” he was saying now. “It’s less windy in the hinterland.”
Lord Mallister had said as much when they had been in Seagard, after greeting Mother warmly like most of the riverlands lords they had met all seemed to. They had only stayed in Seagard half a day, and Mallister had apologized profusely for not having the opportunity to hold a feast, asking Mother to please accept his gifts instead.
They wouldn’t stop again until they reached Winterfell, and Sansa was glad. There weren’t many villages in the Barrowlands, but Mother was not about to lengthen their road just to ask for hospitality from northern lords she had never even met before.
She hadn’t said as much in front of the men, of course, but she had asked after Father as soon as she’d had the opportunity. He seemed to be doing well enough, Harwin had said. Another of the men, Wyl, had explained that Father had made it to White Harbor in a fortnight, and had been greeted warmly by Lord Manderly. They had all liked Lord Benjen well enough, Wyl had been quick to say, smallfolk and nobles alike, but he had been only a child when he’d become lord, and they had never forgotten the one they had gone to war with.
Even if they lost?
On the eighth day, Sansa decided that the Barrowlands were beautiful.
One small hill after the other, nothing to stop her gaze from staring at the horizon, miles and miles away in every direction; it was as though she were at sea. It snowed that day, a delicate brush of white that melted as soon as it touched the ground, but it melted in her hair as well, and on her nose, and it was still enough to make her eyes shine in delight.
She threw her hood back and laughed.
“Mother,” she called. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
The men from Winterfell all shook their head and grinned and said that it was nothing more than a splash, not even a real summer snow, but to her, it was enough.
For now, it was enough.
Sansa came to love the North in those weeks of travelling, as fiercely and completely as she had never loved anything before but her family. She loved every corner of it, every village they entered, every mile they rode, and every town and forest she hadn’t gotten to see yet, because one day she would.
It was better than Riverrun, she decided, for the riverlands were so green and pleasant and rich, and everyone could love Riverrun – who wouldn’t? But the North wasn’t for everyone, that much had been made clear to Sansa early on, and she loved it the more for that.
It was even better than Braavos, the Secret City the singers sang about, the grandest city in the world, and everyone knew how magnificent and alluring it was. No one ever sang about the North, and Sansa decided she quite liked it this way. It was even older than Braavos, even grander, and so few people would ever know how truly wonderful it all was. The Secret Kingdom, she thought, and laughed to herself.
They sighted the Winterfell one day just after dawn. It was huge and ancient, grey banners hovering in the wind, the walls and towers rising from above the twinkle of the early morning fog, and it truly looked like a dream.
She was smiling as they approached, more than she ever had in her entire life, a full grin she could see reflected on Arya’s face, but she truly didn’t need to. Bran seemed awestruck, eyes wide in wonder, and she really wanted to have a look at Mother’s face, hoping she would like it, hoping she would be as happy as she deserved to, and more. As for Robb, he had on a small, content smile, which somehow conveyed even more emotions than Arya’s wolfish grin did.
Sansa could pinpoint exactly the moment when the people in Winterfell noticed them approaching, saw the movements on the walls and the gate opening, and a single, lone rider coming out.
He had grown a beard since King’s Landing, Sansa noticed, and his clothes were different than the ones she was used seeing him in, but still he was Father, and he was here, and she suddenly realized just how much she had missed him, how odd it had been not to see him every morning, and now they were all together once again, and it didn’t matter anymore.
The men approached to meet him and he dismounted, walking the last few steps, and Sansa stayed to watch with a stupid smile on her face as Mother did the same, and hugged and kissed him the way she used to do when he came home back in Tyrosh, tired and bloodied and still alive.
Sansa made her way to Robb and grasped his hand as they both looked to the castle in the distance.
“Now,” she whispered into his hear, smiling. “Now we are home.”