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Once upon her time she had thought Ser Loras to be her soulmate.
He was everything the story books had told her a soulmate ought to be.
He was handsome and charming.
When he gave her a flower at the tournament, she was certain it was a sign. There was also the matter of the sigil that he bore. The flowers of House Tyrell which she had often fancied were represented by the mark upon her wrist.
Though nothing had come of those thoughts. After all, she had been sworn to Prince Joffrey (though his wrist was bare, showing no soulmate marking), sworn to become the future queen, and silly fantasies about knights in shining armor were a dream that Sansa would never be a part of.
Dreams had a way of turning to ruin, after all, and war followed with curses and the word traitor falling too easily from far too many lips.
Some nights, locked alone in a room too small, like a bird in a cage, she would trace the marking on her wrist – the proof that there was somebody out there meant for her – and try to imagine a happier reality.
On those nights she would dream of soft brown curls and wide eyes that lit up when they met hers, she would dream of mischievous smiles and soft familiar kisses on her lips.
Those dreams were shattered though every time the sun rose.
Until the day the night was lit in a sickening green, when everything changed.
She had thought the joy that she felt at once was due to having seen Ser Loras again, for some nights she still fancied him to be her soulmate, but then she looked past the knight to the woman that stood by his side.
His sister.
And at once all breath seemed to have left Sansa’s lungs.
There was no way to describe what the other woman’s presence did to her.
Every moment seemed lighter when Margaery was around. For the first time in what felt like forever she found a genuine smile finding its way onto her lips in Margaery’s presence.
Margaery changed everything.
Sansa told herself that time and time again that they were simply friends. She fooled herself into believing that the reason everything felt better when Margaery was around was because she saw the other woman as the sister that she had only dreamed of having.
When Margaery took Sansa’s hands in her own and said that they would be like sisters, everything felt right at once.
She had never met Willas, but Margaery spoke of him in nothing but kind tones.
Surely, if Loras was not to be her soulmate, then Willas must be the one.
It became easier to be in King’s Landing those days, fancying that one day she would be in Highgarden and that everything would turn out as she had always dreamed it would.
Though there was still one part of her that was unsatisfied. There was a tiny hint of loneliness that grew like a seed inside of her every time she thought of leaving this wretched place, for as nice as that would be, the idea of being apart from her dearest friend was not one easily accepted.
Even all of Margaery’s insistences that she would visit as often as possible once she was queen were not enough to assuage the sorrowful feeling that overtook her whenever leaving was brought up.
Going to meet one’s soulmate was not supposed to have been this painful, surely.
She never understood that, and in the end it would matter not, for Sansa’s happy endings were never to be.
Sansa had confessed her deepest fears to Margaery one night, wondering if she was doomed to never have anything wonderful in her life, though she looked away too quickly to see the sadness in the other woman’s eyes following those words.
It wasn’t until later, on the day that Margaery presented her with a flower and told her about the fancies of pretty girls that she realized how wrong she had been.
Her eyes were not drawn to the familiar yellow and red hues that she had seen on her wrist all of her life, but rather to the other woman’s wrist, where the ribbons and jewels she normally wore had slipped down to reveal a symbol that could only mean one thing.
“Oh, but that means you’re-”
“Yes.”