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Sansa wants Margaery to like Winterfell.
She knows how southlanders talk about the North. It isn't just that it's cold. It's heartless, they say—there's no room for warmth of any kind. There's only room for ice and snow and the next storm hovering perpetually on the horizon. There's only room for the deep yawning crevasses carved by the wind.
High Garden is a place of beauty, she's heard. It's all lush greenery and warm breezes. It's so full of flowers that you can fill your arms before you take three steps.
Sansa belongs to the North, even though she'd thought she didn't, once. She knows it's not easy to love, for an outsider.
It's one of the many things she and the North have in common.
---
"I hope it wasn't a difficult journey, my lady," she says when Margaery alights from the carriage. The whole of Winterfell has turned out to greet her, though the courtyard still feels far too empty. Ned Stark had once towered at the head of the family, and Robb beside him.
Sansa is short and slight. Rickon is still too young to properly lead, and Bran has no wish to. Sansa finds that she does, but she hates that she has arrived at it like this.
The air is chill, though it's not true winter yet as Sansa knows it. Margaery is wearing a long cape lined with white wolf's fur—a gift from the remaining Starks of Winterfell for Sansa's new bride.
It looks beautiful against the shine of her hair. Sansa thinks it suits her, though she wouldn't say as much out loud.
To some, it might seem an insult.
"It was long," Margaery says with a smile, "but I've taken far more difficult journeys. Your gift kept me warm." She strokes the soft fur, and the smile on her face looks genuine.
It's not enough to give Sansa true hope, but she supposes it could be much worse.
She could still be in King's Landing, and so could Margaery.
---
Sometimes Sansa still wakes in the night not sure if she's been screaming. Her breaths seem to rasp against the stone walls of her chambers.
The Lannisters are dead in their graves, put down by an alliance of six kingdoms.
She has to remind herself of that again and again until she can fall back asleep, her blankets held close about her in the dark.
---
They say their vows before the old gods and the new, in the Wildwood and the little sept her father had built for her mother. Margaery's veil is spun of flowers and lace over her long fur cloak.
When she tucks a flower into Sansa's hair before the ceremony, Sansa lets her. The smell drifts with her throughout the day, and she finds herself touching it from time to time.
Once, when she does, she catches Margaery's eye by accident. When Margaery smiles at her from her place beside Sansa at the wedding table, Sansa feels her own lips curve in return.
The celebrations carry on all day. Sometimes, it doesn't feel like there's much to celebrate, but Sansa thinks this might be one of them. At least, she hopes it might be, one day.
The North needs something to celebrate. Sansa knows she certainly does.
She fears the chill will kill Margaery's gift to her, and perhaps Margaery senses it. At some point into the third course, she leans in to say: "I chose it because it thrives in the cold."
---
Night falls early in the North, so by the time Sansa slips into the catacombs, it's already past full dark. The torch in her hands is warm and bright, but beneath the earth it only lights a small, dim pool around her.
Her father's face looks colder in stone than it ever had in life, and Robb looks far sterner. She understands, now, why her father had hated to come down here.
Still, somehow it feels wrong not to.
After long minutes, she senses another presence at her back, soft footsteps moving lightly across stone. She doesn't need to look to know who it is, even without the faint, blooming scent of flowers.
Margaery is silent as she stops beside Sansa. She examines Ned Stark's face carefully, and then Robb's.
Sansa thinks she loves her, more than a little, when she doesn't say anything—how sorry she is, and how much the figures look true to life (they don't), and how brave they were, and all the other platitudes.
She loves her even more when Margaery slips an arm through hers.
But then—Margaery has always been easy to love.
---
After the catacombs, the chill freshness of the air is a relief. Sansa thinks it might snow, tonight; the air smells so crisp, and the moon looks like it's made of ice.
She tries to quicken her steps towards the keep in the moonlight, but Margaery seems to be in no hurry. She just looks up at the stars and strolls, and doesn't seem to mind to the cold.
Her arm is still linked in Sansa's.
"I hated King's Landing," Sansa says abruptly into the silence. "I don't want you to hate it here." She doesn't know why both halves of that feel like so much of a confession. This is a political marriage, she knows, meant to strengthen ties with the south and backed by the new Queen, but once upon a time, Margaery had been the only one to be kind to her.
"There was a great deal to hate about King's Landing," Margaery says lightly, "and there is a great deal I already like about Winterfell."
The way she says it—Sansa steals a glance sideways at her. Margaery's face is thoughtful. Sansa knows some of the mazes of the mind that lie behind it; she finds she wants to know even more.
"I'd like to see High Garden one day," she says, and then amends: "one day soon." Sansa is made of the North, but Margaery makes her want to see flowers, too.
Margaery smiles. "I'd like that very much," she says, and Sansa—
Sansa can tell she means it.