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I’m so curious you might got me feeling some type of way
The first time Sansa met her she was six. She was a weird looking kid, no doubt about that, with her long straight hair that was almost white, blue eyes and brown eyebrows.
“This is Dany.” Her brother, Jon, said. “She’s my new best friend.”
“We gonna be the bestest of friends!” Dany kissed Jon’s check and the boy blushed. Sansa watched with brows furrowed, mainly confused because her older brother was a shy guy. It was weird of him to make quick friends.
“I’m Sansa.” She held up her chin high, protective of her brother.
“Nice to meet you Sansa.” Daenerys was polite for a seven year old. “I hope we can be friends too.”
Sansa didn’t want to be her friend, but her mother had taught her not to be rude, so she just shrugged. “Okay.”
Dany chuckled and opened her mouth to say something, but Jon was already dragging her to the monkey bars again.
Sansa was so confused.
//
I’m so furious at you for making me feel this way
Dany became a premature fixture in her life after that. She was always hanging around in her house, matching clothes with Jon and giggling. Sansa didn’t like Dany. She took all her brother’s attention and worst of all, she didn’t become Sansa friend as she promised. She barely looked at her.
It was all so infuriating. Especially when Dany grow to be this confident teenager, with her hair always down and all the boys trailing behind her. She was gorgeous, and it made Sansa’s blood boil because it made her feel some type of way she didn’t want to feel.
Sansa was very beautiful too and she wasn’t unaware of her beauty. She could have any boy, too. But she didn’t want boys. She didn’t understand why.
At her thirteenth birthday she got a big white husky. It was love at first sight and she called it Lady.
Lady took a liking to Dany, running to her every time the blonde girl was in her house, which was pretty often since her friendship with Jon never faded. That only made Sansa hate her more, if it was possible. Whenever she saw Dany her stomach churned in cold anger. And the girl only smiled and talked in that southern British accent of hers.
You should take it as a compliment
That I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk
“You speak like if you have a potato shoved in your throat.” She told Dany once, making it sound like an accusation. She wasn’t this upfront about her distaste for the girl but the two sips of wine she stole from her father’s cabinet was making her feel bolder.
Dany raised her eyebrows, amused. They were all British, but Dany’s accent was heavier and more marked than the rest of Northampton.
“Well, excuse me princess.”
That was another infuriating thing about her. Once Dany found out about Sansa’s fascination for fairytales and romantic love stories, she started to call her princess.
“I’m a queen.”
In any other situation, her reply would have been laughable, cringy even. But right now it only made Dany look her in a way that got her feeling like a real bloody queen. Sansa wanted her to look at her like that for the rest of her life.
“Queen of the north!” Arya screamed, coming out from behind the couch with a wooden sword, and made a show of vowing at Sansa, promising to be her knight. Dany chuckled, and Sansa laughed at her little sister antics, their moment gone.
But Sansa didn’t forget. Lying awake at night she wondered for the first time if there was any fairytales about not a prince and princess but about two princess and if they got to have a happy ending.
//
Sansa was fifteen the first time she met Margaery Tyrell. The girl was everything she wasn’t, with strawberry blonde hair and eyes glinting with mischief that promised a lot of secrets. She shared some classes with her and looked at Sansa in a funny way.
Sansa had a grow spot the last summer that made her taller than all the boys in her grade. They stopped asking her out after that, no boy wanted to be with a girl bigger than them. She felt both relieved and insecure. It was hard to blend in when she was always standing out.
The first time Sansa saw two girls kissing that wasn’t in the screen of her old computer, was in the theater club room. Everyone was supposed to be gone since the class ended twenty minutes ago and Sansa rushed back in from the bus stop to get her hoodie back. She couldn’t lose that hoodie, it had a wolf stamped on the center and the word ‘STARK’ below it. Her family got them every three years, and if she lost hers now, she would have to wait another two years before getting a new one.
She found the door unlocked and sighed relieved, grabbing the handle and stepping in, only to be greeted by Margaery pressing another girl against the left corner, kissing her.
It was nothing like Sansa had seen. In her search for answers, she had found some people saying that love between two women was the purest thing, a sweet and innocent thing.
But there wasn’t anything innocent about the way Margaery was cupping the other girl’s breasts, the hunger and desperation in their shared kisses. It made Sansa’s head spin.
She grabbed her hoodie from the chair where it was draped over and left, closing the door quietly.
She didn’t sleep that night. Instead, she tiptoed her way to the living room and sited in front of the family computer. For the hundredth time in her life she searched ‘girls kissing’.
“You saw us.” It wasn’t a question. Margaery sitted beside Sansa in the benches of the football field. It was empty during the second break and she liked the quiet.
“Yes.” Sansa turned, looking at Margaery. How could she be so brave and so reckless?
“You can’t tell anyone.” Fear flashed in her eyes and for the first time Sansa thought they weren’t that different. Both were afraid. One of the way she was and the other of what consequences it would bring the way she was.
“I won’t tell anything. I promise.”
Relief flooded Margaery’s eyes. “I’m glad it was you who found us. You understand better than anyone.”
Sansa wanted to scream. She wanted to stand up, yell at her and tell her she had no idea of what she was talking about and run away. But she was so tired. Instead, she hunched her shoulders in defeat and sighed.
“What does it feel like?” Margaery watched her puzzled. Sansa looked around, making sure they were alone and lowered her voice. “To kiss a girl?”
Margaery smiled at her. It was the most earnest smile Sansa had seen in her whole life.
“Worth going to hell for.”
“Oh.” Sansa liked that reply but she didn’t know what to say. “Cool.”
Margaery chuckled.
“Yeah, cool.” The blonde looked her with interest, pink suddenly tinting her cheeks. “I can show you, if you want.”
Someone could have slapped Sansa in the face and it would have the same reaction as the one she had when that particular words left Margaery’s mouth.
“What? Don’t you―don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend. We are just fooling around.”
The concept was alien to Sansa. People like her didn’t get to fool around and yet.
She gave a slight nod and leaned towards the shorter girl’s face. She closed her eyes, her heart beating in her ears. Margaery closed the distance and then they were kissing.
For the first time, Sansa didn’t feel so lonely in the world.
//
After one year of secret kisses and hands holding, of exploring each other bodies until someone screamed, of flushed faces and whispered secrets, Margaery had to go away.
She was moving to the US because her grandmother got sick and her family had to take care of her. Sansa thought as she kissed her girlfriend goodbye, with tears covering their lips, that fairytales with two princesses don’t get a happy ending after all.
When she got home, Dany was there, draped over the couch as if it was her house. Jon was nowhere to be found and when the blonde caught sight of her, the lazy smirk whipped off her face. She came over to her in seconds and held her in her arms as Sansa collapsed, wetting her shirt.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Sansa shook her head and tightened her grip. She just wanted someone to hold her. Dany understood.
They didn’t talk about it the next day or the next week or the next month. But something had shifted. Sansa was no longer irritated when the blonde was around and Dany was paying her more attention than normal, making up excuses that she herself didn’t even believe to go check on the redhead. Sansa started to think that Lady’s affection for Dany was cute. They even would laugh together now.
Yes, something had shifted. But they didn’t talk about it.
//
Guess I'll just stumble on home to my cats
Alone, unless you wanna come along, oh
Dany had a black cat called Drogon. She used to have three, gifts of her uncle Jorah, but Rhaegal and Viserion got sick and died. Dany cried for a week. Sansa bought her a dragon plushie, her favorite animal, to cheer her up. It was weird going to her house, but she had not seen the blonde in days and was worried. She even asked Jon about it, but he only said that Dany wanted to be alone, and went back to texting Ygrette. Sansa should had respected her wishes but she was going crazy. So she showed up in her house, her heart threating to go out of her chest.
“Sansa?” Dany looked like a zombie. Her hair messy and deep purple shadows under her surprised eyes. Sansa had never seen her like that.
“Hey.” She put the plushie in front of her face and smiled, insecure. “This is for you.”
“Come in.”
Drogon despised Sansa, he meowed and hissed at her. But she didn’t care. Even when she got a deep scratch in her leg. It was all worth it because Dany smiled for the first time in days.
They spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies, Dany curled up against Sansa on her bed, the dragon tucked under her arm.
As Dany’s breathing eased into a quiet slumber Sansa thought that she was falling. Hard.
//
Sansa went to Dany’s the next week. Drogon tried to scratch her again but she brought Lady with her who chased him away when she was not busy rubbing her head against Dany.
They are laughing in the kitchen, dancing to ‘What’s Up’ by 4 non blondes. Sansa is trying to teach Dany how to cook.
“I can’t believe you can’t even do noodles. Everyone knows how to do noodles Dany!”
“Not me.” The blonde girl says, clearly amused by the redhead.
Half an hour later, somehow Dany managed to burn water when Sansa lefts her unsupervised for five minutes when she took a break to go to the bathroom. She also burns the noodles. And whatever thing they put in the stove, Dany managed to burn it. It’s a wonder how she didn’t bring the kitchen down in flames yet.
Dany is throwing the remaining of her burning when Sansa chuckles. “You really like to burn things.”
“It’s not intentional!”
“You are queen of the ashes.”
“Huh?”
“Look around you, it’s pure ashes. You are the queen of them.”
“Well, I guess if you are queen of the North I can be queen of the ashes.”
“Yeah, I guess you could,”
Dany tickles Sansa and they spent the rest of the day laughing, ruling kingdoms that only existed in their minds.
//
If you got a girlfriend I’m jealous of her
But if you are single that’s honestly worse
The second time she saw two girls kissing it broke her heart.
Dany and Yara Greyjoy, under the benches of the football field. The same benches were Sansa first shared a kiss with a girl.
Everyone knew Yara was gay, she had no reservations about it and it was rather masculine. She got called all types of names. Names Sansa knew she would be called too if she had one ounce of Yara’s bravery.
She was so deep in her rage, crying all the way home and busy destroying her fairytales books, that she didn’t think of the biggest implication about this new situation.
It didn’t hit her until 3:00 am. She had been turning and tossing for an hour, the kiss replaying in her mind, when suddenly it clicked.
Dany was kissing Yara.
Dany was kissing a girl.
Dany liked girls.
“OH.” Sansa squealed and then mindful of her family sleeping, she screamed into her pillow. She squealed and felt twelve instead of seventeen.
“Dany likes girls so maybe there’s a chance―” she whispered into the nothing, the sentence hanging in the air and finally closed her eyes, her body begging her for sleep.
//
There's nothing I hate more than what I can't have
“I saw you and Yara kissing.”
Dany froze, her drink stopping mid-air.
“What?” She looked at Sansa as if the girl had grown another head, but the redhead didn’t let her resolve crumble.
“You and Yara. In the football fields.”
Dany settled her glass down in the counter. They were alone, in the Stark’s living room. She didn’t say anything.
“I’ve always wondered why you and my brother didn’t have anything. He was so in love with you, it was so painfully obvious. And you looked fond of him too. You two would have been perfect.”
“Sansa―” Dany was avoiding her eyes, but her voice was full of warning.
“But of course, you weren’t attracted to him. Because he is a man. And you don’t like men.” Sansa concluded.
“Yes, I’m a lesbian. That’s what you wanted to hear?” Dany’s voice is shaking with anger. She knows It couldn’t have been easy for her to utter those words. Sansa feels a little bit scared, but she doesn’t let it show. She needs to keep pushing or she’s gonna go crazy.
“Yes! And you know what else what I want to hear? That is not all in my head!”
“What are you talking about?” Dany has the nerve to look confused.
“I can’t keep pretending that nothing is happening!” Sansa finds her own anger. Her face matches her hair color. “It’s killing me because sometimes you look at me like if you want me and we act like a couple and then the next day we don’t talk about it! We never bloody talk about it! And I’m tired! I won’t keep playing this game. You need to make a choice.”
Dany’s mouth hangs open, her eyes wide. “You―I―we―girls―like”
Dany was stammering like a broken record. That only made Sansa angrier. She needed to be angry because if not her courage would left her.
“Yes, I like girls too. Don’t act so bloody surprised about it.”
“You like girls.” Dany repeats, unfazed.
“Yes.”
“And you like me.”
Sansa doubts a little before replying, “Yes.”
Dany’s face flushes red then too, her eyes sparking with barely contained ire. Sansa is caught off guard, she had expected many reactions from Dany after her confession, but wrath wasn’t one of them.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?
“What?” it was Sansa’s turn to be confused.
“I have been in love with you since forever. But I thought you were never going to want me back. So I kept my distance because I only was torturing myself. Trying to be cold but polite.” Dany was frantic, her hands moving with her words. Sansa looked horrified. “All these years... Do you know how hard is wanting but not be able to do nothing about it because no matter how hard you try these are things that you can’t control? It's like lossing the race without playing. “
Sansa knew that sensation all too well. But she knew better than interrupt Dany, so she kept her mouth shut.
“So I was just trying to do my best to ignore you, because any moment with you was agonizing, seeing all that I couldn’t have. But then that day when you came crying, I couldn’t stay away of you. And after that I got a taste of what it was like to be with you and I knew I couldn’t let go. So I pretended nothing was happening because I could only cope that way. I pretended I didn’t want to kiss you every time you looked at me, that I didn’t want to run my hand through your hair, that I didn’t want to push you into a wall until we were both out of breath. And then yes, I went and kissed Yara because I couldn’t get you out of my bloody mind. You were intoxicating me and I needed an out.”
“Did it work?”
A single tear rolls down Dany’s check.
“No. Millions will come and go into this world but there will never be another like you.”
Sansa laughs, dry and loud, her eyes are flooding with tears too, overcome by emotions, “We are both assholes then. If one of us had said something earlier―”
But Dany doesn’t let her finish. A lazy smirk forms into Dany’s face and before Sansa can react the girl is closing the distance between them, scoping Sansa into her arms and kissing her.
It’s a hungry kiss, the liberation of feelings accumulated through the years. It feels like taking the first breath out of water.
“We could have done this much earlier.” Dany says between kisses and Sansa thinks she is going to burst with all the things she’s is feeling right now.
“Yeah, but we can make up for the lost time.”
Dany smiles and leans for another kiss
“I’m in love with you too.” Sansa says before she gets too caught up in the moment and forgets to do it.
“I suspected as much.” Dany replies wittily, their lips still touching.
Sansa allows herself to think that maybe, just maybe, two princesses don’t get happy endings. But two queens surely do.