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Margaery had always known she had to protect herself. Other girls might find safety in men’s arms, but Margaery had only ever seen men for what they were—rungs on the ladder to the top, and the success she’d craved intensely for as long as she could remember. But there were times when her path grew lonely. Not that she would ever admit it, to others or to herself.
She did not expect, when she first met Sansa Stark, that this innocent, heartbroken girl could ever give her something she’d never truly known she needed.
Things started, as they always did for Margaery, with attraction followed by calculation. Margaery was not stupid, never erred, and chose her conquests with strategic interest. She had to advocate for herself. While her grandmother pushed Margaery to make the hard choices, she never allowed opportunities for Margaery to enjoy the prize spoils of a well-won battle or, say, a bit of rest. Margaery had learned to fashion those opportunities for herself, and it would be lying to say she wasn’t perversely proud of her ability to do so.
So it was with dual purpose that Margaery invited Sansa Stark to tea, cajoled her with compliments, drew her out with sweet words and winning attention. It was almost easy. Margaery sometimes cherished the fact that she lived in a world where a woman’s powerful attention to another could be dismissed as purely social (never mind that the reverse meant she could never be truly free and public with those same affections). But then, Margaery reminded herself, had she born of a different persuasion she could not have freely taken male lovers without utmost caution. She was not the type of woman to regret her circumstances.
Yet Sansa was not like any of the girls Margaery had known before. She was silent, drawn inward, sparing of words. Her economy of conversation was likely because speaking freely had done her no favors in the past—indeed, it may have cost her dearly. So Margaery considered it a victory when Sansa slowly began to share her history, her Northern roots, in small tense anecdotes that bore the chill of atmospheric memory and the difficult weight of Sansa’s knowledge looking back.
Gradually Sansa let Margaery into her heart, then under her clothes, and Margaery did the same. The younger girl tasted just as sweet as Margaery had hoped while she’d stared at Sansa with thoughtful, hungry eyes. But even when she brought Sansa to climax with all the pleasing finesse she’d learned over the years, there was a sadness in her lover that Margaery couldn't access, couldn't melt from the icy grip that held Sansa in its thrall. Sansa had let her in carefully and one step at a time, but not fully. There would always be more passages to unlock in this labyrinth of a girl, whose walls had been built so haphazardly, unexpectedly, and roughly.
So when Sansa began taking Margaery to the godswood, Margaery walked carefully. She was used to stepping confidently into any arena she chose, but this was new. Different. With Sansa, everything was.
Sansa slowly moved through the clustered trees, pressing the palms of her hands to their white trunks. "The trees are smaller here than at home," she said, glancing back over one shoulder, meaning the weirwood in her Northern birthplace. Margaery replied that she would like to see that, someday, and was rewarded by the tightening clamp of Sansa’s mouth into a small but painful smile.
As Sansa walked, she moved with the erect spine that Margaery imagined she could recognize from Sansa’s stories: the stern father, the proud and resilient mother, the green, hot-blooded brother they’d called King in the North. She watched as Sansa stopped to gaze at the sea, over the vista of the Blackwater dotted with ships from every corner of Westeros. Like that, the taller girl looked so utterly alone, like the only statue left from some empire that had crumbled long ago.
Without thinking Margaery came up and took Sansa’s hand. It was warm. After a moment Sansa glanced down with a flicker of gratitude in her eyes. She let go of Margaery’s hand and stepped back, wrapping both arms around Margaery's waist as if their bodies had been made to fit that way before Margaery could feel surprised at the loss of contact. She squeezed tightly and then relaxed her grip, both folded hands resting over Margaery's navel through layers of clothing.
Tears unexpectedly pricked Margaery’s eyes, as sharp as a thousand tiny swords. She could feel Sansa’s chin resting against the top of her head, Sansa’s arms around her, and it was a sensation she’d never allowed herself to acknowledge she’d lacked. Safety. She'd never let anyone to do this before: hold her in their arms, physically or figuratively. She'd never allowed herself to relax against someone’s chest, small and still, feeling their heart beating steadily against her spine.
They stared out over the bay together, Sansa standing behind Margaery, their hearts beating almost as one.
“I wish we could get on one of those ships and sail away,” Sansa said softly. Margaery stirred in her arms, trying not to make a sound as she blinked away her tears, the honest proof of what dwelled in her heart. “Away from all this. Everything.”
Margaery imagined this, wrapped in the strange but not unpleasant idea of Sansa planning a life for her, taking control. She never trusted anyone but her grandmother to plan her actions and yet, within Sansa’s arms, she could somehow see it happening. It seemed possible. It seemed almost—nice.
“I’d like that,” Margaery said quietly. The lump that choked her throat only told her of the impossibility of what she’d finally admitted she might want. Her human impulses upending everything she’d always thought she needed, laughing rudely in the face of her bloodless ambition.
She twisted her neck, eyes still damp, and Sansa met her look with an expression of pain and knowledge. The taller girl leaned down and kissed Margaery, softly at first; but needing more than this Margaery twisted around to face her lover, taking Sansa’s face in her hands. Sansa put both arms around Margaery’s waist so that they arched into one another and kissed back deeply, with a finality that bore the weight of what they’d just admitted and all its attendant impossibility.
There was no sound but that of the ocean bay. If Sansa noticed the tears of Margaery’s cheeks, she said nothing. More likely than not, she saw, and she understood.
Behind them the Blackwater lapped serenely, ships riding up and down on the tide, implacable and unchanging as the circumstances in which they had found themselves.