Work Text:
Many thanks to darlking and belana for beta-reading!
“And pink one,” Sansa said.
Sandor was baffled.
“Little bird, your colours are white and grey, mine are black and gold, and you’re having a blue dress. What in seven hells do you want to do with pink?”
“Tongues,” Sansa explained calmly.
Sandor was constantly amazed by the amount of sewing and stitching she did and by the beauty of it. He could mend a torn shirt and like any soldier put some stitches on a wound but Sansa’s sewing was complex, elaborate, and, above all, mysterious: she took simple things like threads and pieces of cloth and transformed them at her will.
Sandor had always regarded himself as a destroyer. Some time ago though he decided that the role of a defender suited him better, but essentially it was the same: he killed, stopped, prevented, and, above all, he didn’t make. Oh, he could dig graves or chop woods all right, but it wasn’t so different from killing, after all: you took a tool, you attacked something, you applied your strength and got the job done. Sansa, however, was a maker: she could take several random things and change them into something which was beautiful and whole.
It was the same with the cooking. Sandor could turn a skinned rabbit into a roasted rabbit, he knew how to throw some food into a pot of boiling water and make a hot and edible soup, but his cooking lacked the element of surprise, if you didn’t take for it the occasional burnt meal. Sansa took a beef joint, some turnips and spices and made a savoury stew, she knew how to change flour, butter and eggs into a plump cake, and while she herself cooked rather seldom, Sandor regarded every mouthful of those dishes as the product of her special magic.
She had conjured their wedding the same way she made dresses and pies: out of allegiances, alliances, interests, bargains and a pinch of spite, all those things that were lying in her pantry but didn’t seem useful or compatible to anyone except her. She planted the seed, she watched it grow, and now she was buying colored threads for her husband’s cloak.
“Tongues,” repeated Sandor. “For the dogs”.
“Of course.”
He stared at her, amazed as ever.
“Little bird, I want you to have anything you desire, but you will wear this cloak only once in your life and just for a small part of the day. Do the dogs really need to have pink tongues? Plain black would suit me fine”.
Sansa patted his hand.
“This cloak will pass to our children and then to their children. Our daughters will wear it on their wedding days, our sons will drape it around their wives’ shoulders. It must be as beautiful as I can make it”.
Sandor was awed. She could conjure children out of hope and thin air, was there really no limit to her power? And then a feeling flooded him, a sense of purpose.
He was born and bred to serve the Lannisters, and after he rejected this purpose he never found another one. He had believed it when Elder Brother and Thoros of Myr told him that gods needed him for some reason, needed him to do something, but he hadn’t been able to find out what it was. Elder Brother taught him to treat every task as if it was his main purpose on earth, and he did. It gave him patience he lacked and satisfaction he craved, but still he felt the gap between “as if” and “is”.
Now he knew what his purpose was and felt proud and indispensable. Sansa needed him to work her magic. She could dream the wedding, stitch the cloaks, prepare the feast, but the wedding itself would happen only when he draped the cloak around her shoulders. She would produce children, sons and daughters, but she needed him to give them to her. And gods was he willing!
“Pink it is, then,” he said and kissed her.