Loki: Game of Thrones

Chapter 30 - Sansa Begs

Sansa inhaled and exhaled quietly, hoping to calm her beating heart. She was about to be presented to King Joffrey to plead for the life of her father. Ned was languishing in the dungeons, and Sansa had been held in her chambers by the Hound. No one knew where Arya was, and they almost assumed that she had been killed in the chaos of the overthrow of House Stark in Kings Landing. Except for the part where they found no body. Sansa had no idea where her sister was, but she was going to try to save her father if she could. She was simply waiting for the nobles to cease talking about affairs of state. Finally, the last one was waved away. "If any man in this hall has other matters to set before his grace, let him speak now, or go forth in silence," the chamber master said. Sansa knew this was her chance. To speak up for her father, even if he was a traitor.

"Your grace?" she asked, her voice sounded small. Cersei caught sight of her from her little chair beside Joffrey's throne. She tilted her head slightly in her direction.

"Come forward my lady," Joffrey bade her. Sansa stepped away from the wall, and made her way towards the center of the throne room, before Joffrey and Cersei, and a line of Kingsguard.

"The Lady Sansa of House Stark," the chamber master announced.

"Do you have some business with the king and the council, Sansa?" Cersei asked. She smiled at her, and again, Sansa believed what Loki had said about her was wrong. Except, he had not been lying when he said it.

"I do," Sansa said, and she went down on her knees. What better way to plead her case, than from a submissive and humble position. "As it please your grace, I ask mercy for my father, Lord Eddard Stark, who is Hand of the King."

"Treason is a noxious weed!" Grand Maester Pycelle piped up from his position near the dais. Sansa looked at him sadly. "It should be torn out! Rooted-" he continued before Joffrey interrupted him.

"Let her speak," he ordered, and Pycelle took a more meek posture. "I want to hear what she says."

"Thank you, your grace," Sansa said. She smiled a little, thinking Joffrey was so benevolent.

"Do you deny your father's crime?" Petyr Baelish asked.

"No, my lords. I know he must be punished. All I ask is mercy." Sansa was hoping that she had learned something of Loki's methods of persuasion in her manner of speech. "I know my lord father must regret what he did. He was King Robert's friend, and he loved him, he always loved him, and you know this. He never wanted to be Hand, until the king asked him. They must have all lied to him: Lord Renly, Lord Stannis... somebody! They must have lied!"

Joffrey was looking at the floor for a moment, before he glanced back up at her and said, "He said I wasn't the king. Why did he say that?"

"He was badly hurt. Maester Pycelle was giving him milk of the poppy. He wasn't himself, otherwise he would never would have said it," Sansa stressed, using Loki's technique of shifting blame.

"A child's faith. Such sweet innocence," Varys suddenly said, sounding so soft from his position beside Lord Baelish at Joffrey's left. "And yet they say wisdom oft comes from the mouths of babes." It was a compliment, but Petyr Baelish gave him a quizzical sideways glance.

"Treason is treason!" Pycelle pushed. Silence followed this statement. Sansa's blue eyes shifted over to Joffrey.

"Anything else?" Joffrey queried.

"If you still have any affection in your heart for me, please, do me this kindness, your grace," Sansa said, hinting to their unofficial betrothal. Joffrey leaned back in his throne, tapping the arm with his fingers.

"Your sweet words have moved me," he told her. Cersei smiled a little from her chair, thinking her boy kind. "But your father has to confess. He has to confess and say that I am the king, or there will be no mercy for him."

"He will," Sansa said, speaking for Ned Stark. Joffrey smiled at her, and nodded his head.

"Very good, my lady. You may leave us," Joffrey said, waving her away. Sansa bowed her head, and rose to her feet. Turning from the throne, the nobles all parted for her as she made her way out of the throne room. Once the doors were closed behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief, and her heart was filled with hope. Ned would confess, and Joffrey would spare him. He would most likely be sent to the wall, but at least Jon Snow, and her Uncle Benjen were there, and he would be alive. Sansa made her way to her chambers, closing the door after her. She locked it, as she did not feel like a surprise visit from the Hound. She still remembered when he found her in the halls, running after Septa Mordane told her to. Sansa had not seen her septa since that day, and guessed that Joffrey was holding her as well. Maybe when he spared her father, he would release her as well. Sansa knelt before her bed, and began to pray to the Mother. Her lips moved silently, and her hands were clasped tightly together.

"Oh, a child's false hope. An erroneous faith. I'll have to cure her of that," Loki said to himself as he finished casting the spell that created a sanctuary for him, outside Westeros, but still within the Known Realm.

Careful, Loki. You are a man of no faith, and she clearly believes in her gods. Oil and water. Night and day. You two are opposites, and you cannot strive to change the things about her that make her Sansa Stark, Frigga warned him. Loki grinned as he put a powerful dimensional spell on the door. Now, whenever he desired to go home, he could walk through any door, and he would enter his abode.

"I'll get a kick out of walking into broom closets, and not coming back out," Loki said. With a wave of his hand, a phrase in runic burned itself into the great wood, before it vanished from his sight. Loki turned around, and looked down the arching, beige stone hallway. The floor was a beautiful mosaic of the interloping triangles, the symbol of the Norse gods. "It will be time to introduce her to the world I'm from."

The time of sorrow for her has begun. Will you watch? Frigga asked. Loki paused, knowing what she meant.

"No. I will not," he told his mother.