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There were many things that Sansa Stark, Queen of the North, did not like. She wanted to believe that it was a well rounded list born from her years of experience. A lifetime of experiences. Dogs, but not wolves. Men with roaming hands and loose tongues and leering eyes. Especially a few of her own men that hadn’t quite learned the lesson of the queen with two former husbands. Being alone, the only remainder of a pack that had been strong once but now dispersed.
Unwelcome visitors, however, were the top of her list at the moment.
Especially the sort that hadn’t bothered with any communication and decided to merely show up in the court of a foreign ruler.
Sansa sat upon her throne (simple, really, except for the intricately carved wolf that extended above her head like a protective shadow), and she stared at her guest. Her lips pressed together for a moment into a tight line.
“Your Majesty.” Yara Greyjoy’s smile was nothing pleasant, and her bow was every bit as sarcastic as Sansa imagined it would be.
It needled at Sansa, bore into her skin and made itself at home inside of her.
Her hair was wild, windswept and unlikely brushed. She had carried the sea with her inside of Winterfell, as if the salt had become part of her skin. She smelled of it, filled the room with it. There was an air about her, cocky and unbearable, and Sansa realized that it was very much like the Theon she had grown up with.
And that, that was what began to ebb away the irritation in her. Not by much, but enough.
“Lady Greyjoy. To what do I owe the pleasure of your… visit?” What need would she have of being so far North, was what she really wanted to know.
They had met only one time before, at the summit where her brother had become King of the Six Realms and she had secured freedom for the North. But Yara, Yara had not quite gotten anything, had she? She knew of the alliance between her and Danaerys, and she could only imagine the sort of promises made to her. And in the end, Yara had lost everything except a broken throne.
No Dragon Queen, no freedom, no… No Theon.
Her heart ached.
“I thought it might be wise to see the home that my brother thought of as his own,” she said, her mouth twisted in a sardonic smile after.
“A strange request for someone who shows up unexpectedly.”
Yara shrugged.
Sansa tried to ignore it. This was Theon’s sister, and that had to count for something. Didn’t it?
“Figured you couldn’t turn me away if I was already here.” Yara took a few steps closer to where Sansa sat. Guards tensed. Sansa tensed. “So how about it, Wolf Bitch? Care to give a weary traveler a meal?”
“You dare to speak with the Queen--” A guard seethed and rushed forward, sword drawn, until Sansa held up her hand. It quieted the room, but she never let her gaze falter from Yara’s.
She wore a smile, as soft as she could manage, although she had no control of the arch of her eyebrows. “A night, Lady Greyjoy. To properly mourn the passing of our brother.”
It was an intimate affair, having had no time to properly prepare a feast that would put her and Yara far apart. But she had to say, as they sat at a table in her chambers with the meal before them, the sun falling slowly below the horizon, it was nice. It was nice to not eat alone.
It wasn’t particularly nice to deal with the anger that rolled off of Yara like an illness. That part made her stomach turn, and she took small bites to keep herself from getting sick from it.
They were quiet, painfully so, each watching the other.
“Why you?” Yara finalled asked, draining her third cup of wine. Sansa still worked on her first.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to elaborate.”
“There’s this nagging thought that Theon chose you. Theon died for you, for this stupid fucking family instead of his own.”
“We were his own,” Sansa said, her voice soft and even. Getting angry with Yara wouldn’t solve anything, but how she wished she knew how to throw a punch just to get that smug, Theon-like look off of his sister’s face. “He was as much a Stark as he was a Greyjoy.”
“He was stolen from us.”
Sansa’s fingers curled in towards her palms, nails biting skin. "What are you after? Do you want to fight for custody over his spirit?"
He was gone. She couldn't bring him back, no matter how much she wanted to know. And after seeing the results of what could happen when the dead came back to life…
She didn't want that for him.
"I don't know," Yara admitted. She shoved her plate away, leaning back in her chair and eyeing Sansa with a chill demeanor. "He deserved to be put to rest at sea, but that never really crossed your mind, did it?"
It hadn't, but she wasn't going to admit to that.
"You fucking Starks don't think of anything but yourselves. Must be nice, to say that my brother is also a Greyjoy but you don't know shit about us."
Sansa knew all about grief and loneliness. And she wasn't dense enough to ignore that a chunk of Yara's anger was a swirl of those emotions.
Yara was on her feet before Sansa could react, and when she reached her, all she could do was push her chair from the table. Her heart hammered in her chest, fear a bird with wild wings. Her eyes widened as Yara leaned in, face too close, her hands calloused and rough as they grabbed her cheeks and held her head in place.
That damnable smirk twisted along her lips like the tentacle of a kraken. "Tell me why you."