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She could not look at him. It made her cringe in disgust when she thought of his face and she wanted to puke when she thought of how she will have to see it tonight. She had known him as the Devil Monkey, the Imp that killed his own mother. His own family was repulsed by his sight, how did they expect her to spend the rest of her life with him?
She could not deny that he had saved her from Joffrey but her gratefulness did not make him any less horrifying in her eyes. She could not help but shudder at the thought of having to spend the night with him and commit the acts of a woman with a man half her size. She wanted to deny reality; she hoped that the man she was walking towards was a tall, handsome knight like she had always dreamt her husband would be. Recent events had snatched her childhood and innocence from her but a part of her continued hoping that she could relive those dreams. The torture that Joffrey had inflicted on her haunted her day and night. It pained her to think that if she took a few steps she would be able to see her father’s chopped head, her father who was wrongly convicted. It pained her even more to think that her father could have lived if she had agreed to leave with Arya. Now, she had lost her father and sister, and was set to marry the Imp of Casterly Rock. With the thought of her brave father and strong sister, she looked up at her soon-to-be husband.
He was staring right at her as if waiting for her to look up. She looked straight into his eyes. His eyes were magnificent, they seemed to enchant her very soul. She could not understand the emotions that were running through his eyes but she knew that he was scared. He was not the same man who saved her from Joffrey, she realized, he was a man who was about to be married to a stranger and he was scared. His eyes called her to him and she could not stop herself from walking towards him without a second thought. The looks of others, the sneers that Cersei and Joffrey threw towards her remained unnoticed as she walked towards her Imp husband. It was when she stood beside him that embarrassment came flooding to her. Her husband was half her height and could not wrap the robe around her. She knelt beside him at his request and she could feel her cheeks heating up in embarrassment and disappointment.
Her husband was not manly, he was not a knight, he was hardly a man!
She was truly furious at the way her life had turned around and, at that moment, all she wanted to do was weep. Weep for her father; weep for her lost sister; weep for her family who could be attacked by the Lannisters at any moment but most of all, she wanted to weep for herself.
For the rest of the time, she felt numb. She could not recall how she reached her chambers but there she was. With her husband behind her, she could feel her fingers moving to remove her clothing but she had no idea who was controlling her hands. She could vaguely remember that her lord husband stopped her from stripping any further. She could remember feeling shocked at his words but found little comfort in them. She went to sleep.
For the first few days of her marriage, she could see her lord husband working hard to talk to her. His first attempt was the morning after their wedding. Shae had left with their bedding and, from the corner of her eye, she had watched her lord husband’s eyes trailing after her handmaiden. He had gotten up and asked her to join his family and him for lunch. She had tried not to flinch at the grin he displayed and nodded her head as a proper wife. The rest of the day was spent talking to her handmaiden and answering her questions regarding her wedding night.
“My Lady, are you okay?” Shae asked.
Sansa broke out of her reverie and simply nodded her head. The flowers, birds, and wind were providing her solace from the loneliness of being a Stark surrounded by Lannisters. It did not surprise her that no one had come looking for her but it still saddened her to know that her only company on this searing land was Shae.
“Was your wedding night pleasant, my Lady?”
Sansa was not sure how to answer that. Was it any of her business to know? It must have been clear that her Lord husband and her had not consummated the marriage based on the lack of blood on the sheets. However, Shae’s curiousity disturbed Sansa; she felt as if indulging in a detail regarding her personal, married life was a violation of her trust with her husband. Her husband, whom she wanted to despise but could not because of his caring behaviour. She wanted to hate Tyrion for his name, for his height, for his appearance but also understood that he was simply trying to do right by her in the circumstances they were forced into. It was a situation where neither could be happy or experience anything pleasant, but he tried. So she responded.
“Yes.”
If Sansa had turned to look at Shae at that second, she would have found the handmaiden frowning with concern as she stared at the Lady trying to comprehend her thoughts. Shae was feeling left out and far away from Tyrion ever since it had been declared that the youngest Lannister would marry the Stark Lady. She had tried to talk to her lion to sway him from his decision but he had simply responded with, “This was not my decision.” He had not laid a hand on her since then and she could only feel jealous when she heard Lady Sansa’s response. She knew that nothing had happened between them when Tyrion had looked at her with slight pride when she was picking up the sheets, but it still hurt to know that they had spent time together alone. Guilt rose within her when she realized that she was wishing bad upon the poor Lady who herself had been forced into a marriage with the ugliest man, with a man she could never love. Sansa was probably trying to make the best of the situation by acting like a proper wife to not give the Lannisters a reason to chop off her head. Shae could not afford to think ill of this poor girl, not when Tyrion was clearly trying to protect her.
The next days passed with Sansa and Shae spending the time in the garden most of the day with dinners between the Lady wife and Lord Husband. Sansa was starting to enjoy the company of her husband and it shocked her when she started smiling at his words out of genuine happiness and not forced compliments. Shae had seen her smile and, while a part of her wanted to strike the both of them for being so comfortable with each other, she could not help but feel relieved that the young girl still remembered how to smile. Unfortunately, the day came when Sansa truly forgot to smile when the news of her eldest brother, Robb’s, death reached her. Tyrion had delivered the news, instead of Joffrey, it in the hopes that she might find comfort in a friend delivering the news; but he had wrongly assumed as his name was still followed by Lannister.
When he told his Lady wife the news, the hatred in her eyes for him was shining bright and clear. It hurt him that she could feel such resentment and yet he could not blame her.He had only tried to make her days brighter in a prison, he had not tried removing her from the prison. Now, the only hope she had of leaving this prison was gone and his family had taken that from her. The guilt was too much for Tyrion for he had never felt smaller in his life. He did not know if his presence was needed or wanted so he simply took a step back and watched Sansa get up, dust her robe, and say, “My Lord, it is time for dinner. The King must be waiting to give me this news himself.”