XX
SANSA
"the red-haired ghost by the heart tree"
⚜️
News of Bran soon arrived on the black wings of a raven. After weeks of unresponsiveness, he'd woken to a daze of confusion. Father had shown the letter to Sansa and sister as soon as it had arrived. For that evening, there was no quarrel between the Stark sisters. Sansa forgot all about the business at the trident, of her anger toward the other girl, just as Arya ignored the unfairness of Sansa's actions and her failure to see Joffrey as the coward that he was.
Their father took them to the castle Godswood, to the grove of elm and alder that crowded around the thin slither of the Blackwater Rush, which ran loudly through the Red Keep. Sansa had always known there were no weirwood trees, with their pale bark and bloom of red leaves, in the south, but when she thought of the Godswood in King's Landing, she had always imagined an acre of the scared trees, large and foreboding, just as the capital was itself.
But indeed, in the castle Godswood, there was no weirwood, only a great, ancient oak that took the place as a heart tree. The lush, red flowers of Dragonsbreath encircled the tree, cushioning their knees as they bent down to give their offerings, and though father could not tell her how to pray, this time Sansa knew exactly what to say.
Thank you for protecting Bran.
She thought of the last time she'd seen the weirwood branches, crimson and vast, or the pale bark, marked with a solemn face. She had prayed for Bran, knelt beneath the watching presence of the heart tree. It had been Lucella at her side, praying with her.
Thank you for answering my prayers.
The moon had risen high above the tree tops by the time Sansa drifted to sleep, her shoulders cloaked beneath her father's cloak, Arya close and warm beside her back.
Sansa dreamed of Bran. He was walking, looking exactly as he had before the fall, if not a little older, but Sansa knew this to be a false image. Father had said that Bran would never walk again, and she'd wept for his lost dreams as if they were her own.
"Sansa?" His voice held a tremor and sent a pinching pain through her heart.
By his side, his direwolf prowled, tall enough to reach far past his hips, and with teeth as huge as a knife. His fur was a silvery-grey, darker than Lady's ever had been. Sansa wondered if Lady would be this large, had she lived. As the thought left her head, something gentle brushed against her hand. Clutching instinctively, Sansa's hand found soft fur.
Before she could acknowledge the direwolf at her side, Bran was running forward, launching into her arms and wrapping his arms around her neck.
"Bran!" She shouted, glee spreading through her with warmth. "I'm so glad you're alright."
"Summer looked after me," he said, smiling, his cheeks a ruddy shade of red. Bran glanced down at the direwolf to his left and gave him a scratch between his ears. Summer rubbed against him, circling him happily before he came to stop at Lady's side.
Lady! Sansa almost squealed when she recognised the direwolf at her side. Bending down, she leaned her face against hers, feeling the softness of her white fur.
"Lady will look after you," Bran said.
But when Sansa looked up again, the murky blue of the sky stared back at her, and the softness beneath her hands was no longer her direwolf's fur, but the fabric of her father's cloak. She'd slept until morning.
"Sansa, are you coming?" Father shouted on her from beneath the shroud of thick hemlock trees, eyes sharp and brilliant as they fell upon her.
Looking up one last time at the vine-twisted branches of the heart tree, past it to the tiny specks of the brightening sky above, Sansa wondered if the old gods could hear her, so far south and in the absence of a weirwood, if they'd shown her those images of Bran or if her brain had made them up for comfort.
"I dreamed of Bran," Sansa whispered. "I saw him smiling."
She wondered if he cried now as he had when she'd found him by the stables, tucked away amongst the stalls, hidden amongst his own fear. It must be a frightening thing, to have one's future ripped away like a page from a book. Sansa held comfort, knowing what would come for her. She would be Queen- Joffrey's Queen- and bear beautiful, blonde babes that would rule in their own right. But Bran would no longer have such consolation. There would be no swords and battles in his future.
Following her father and sister, Sansa wished that their brother would be there in the tower, waiting for them to arrive with stories and treats, instead of all the way north in the cold and damp. Bran would have loved King's Landing, with the mass of knights and the oncoming tourney, Sansa mused. But in Winterfell, he had mother and Robb, even little Rickon, and his own nameless direwolf.
It was not a surprise to see that the sept in the Red Keep was far grander than the one in Winterfell. When Sansa stepped through the dark doors after Septa Mordane, a thick scent of intense clouded her nose, soothing her shoulders instantly. The air was warm, decorated by the light that flooded through the crystal windows, painting delicate rainbows on the floor. Sansa strode around them carefully, kneeling by the front row.
The faces of the seven were sculpted flawlessly from marble, their complexions porcelain and perfect. Her lady mother would have kneeled in front of each face, head bowed and prayer silent, moving to each after dedicating enough time to one. But Sansa went to the Mother, bowed her head beside her marble dresses, and gave her thanksgiving. She gave thanks for the mother's mercy on Bran's life, for her protection, much as she had said to the Gods of old by the heart tree. She prayed again that they would watch over him in his subdued state, that his life would be wholesome and fulfilled, even without his legs.
When she opened her eyes, in the face of the Mother, she saw Lady Catelyn Stark. They had the same eyes- caring and warm- and when she looked into them, she felt as if a hand was wrapping around her, holding her close. The Mother protects us all, she could imagine her own mother saying. Just as I protect you.
But her mother was in Winterfell, far from King's Landing, and it was Bran she protected now. And Sansa could be brave like Robb, kind like her father, courteous and gentle like her mother, even observant like Jon and proud like Arya. Mother give me strength in marriage, she prayed, just as she knew to do, because the Red Keep was her home now, the crown Prince her future family.
XXI
ARYA
"the water dancer"
⚜️
The walls of the Red Keep were dusty beneath Arya's fingers as she ran past them, shoulder skimming the chalky bricks, now layered in dust. She was not yet used to the relentless sun of the south, her face blistered from the heat, her cheeks warm and ruddy. Her toes were light as she scurried forward, keeping her breathing shallow and eyes trained on her target.
The old black cat seemed to lead her all across the castle. She'd first spotted him from the window of her bedchambers in the Tower of the Hand, the black tom noticeable by the missing right ear. He'd hopped from the window below hers, sprinted across the middle bailey, and ducked beneath the fencing of the pig pens.
On two hands, Arya could count the number of times she'd followed the black cat over the Traitor's Walk to the squat tower above the dungeons and back to the barracks of the gold cloaks. This time, it was by the gate to the Godswood that she lost the tomcat, finding him bolting across the thin walls, out of sight down a crevice by the sept.
The cat eluded her when her eyes instead found the figure of Lucella Clegane, leaning against the door of the sept, staring in but never passing through the threshold. Arya could not see what she gazed at, but before she could scurry away in the direction the cat had fled, Lucella was turning, eyes placing instead on her. She didn't seem surprised to find Arya dressed in her trousers and with dirt smeared on her elbows and knees.
"I see you've replaced me."
Arya didn't question how Lucella knew about her dance teacher. While father had forbidden her to carry needle about the Red Keep, she'd spent the past fortnight practising in every space she could find, whether that be doing her flips and tricks on the river wall, or navigating the outer yard blindly.
Arya said nothing and turned, choosing to ignore her as she had in the past weeks. The seven outer walls of the septa had no ledges for the tomcat to hide on, nor did the walls of the library beside it. Instead, she looked to the maiden vault, to the slate roof that would be a safe spot for the old cat.
"Running about the Keep is a far cry from the adventures I'd expected from you," Lucella said from behind, following her across the yard, past the taller walls of the Hand's Tower. "Your chaos along the Neck gave me false expectations."
Arya wished she had needle. She wanted to stick her with the pointy end, with the amount she was talking.
"I thought you might want to talk a walk through the Keep with me," Lucella said. "I know how to get to one of the tunnels in the yard."
Arya ignored her, no matter that the promise of a secret tunnel excited her. She didn't need Lucella to show her, Arya could find them on her own.
"Can you not even bare the decency to look at me when I talk?"
Arya pulled the black silk tie from her pockets and held it to her eyes before she spun around to face Lucella. Even with her gaze covered, Arya could feel the other girl's annoyance, radiating hotly like a fire. Before she could step back, a hand was plucking the silk from her eyes, revealing a flushed, angry face above hers.
"You are not your sister, Arya Stark," Lucella said, brows pulling into a troubled look. "Just as I am not my brother. Don't punish me for his doings."
Arya considered her words, thinking of the talk she'd had with her father earlier that day. 'You will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a high Septon," he'd said, leaving Arya to wallow in a frown. But that was Sansa's tale, Sansa's future, and Arya had said as much aloud.
Perhaps Lucella was no different. She might've held the same last name as the hound, had the same face and scars, just as Sansa was as much as Stark as she was, the same puckered lips and high cheekbones and all. That didn't mean she was the same.
"Tomorrow Syrio is having me chase cats. I want to practise," she said, sighing first, but handing out the strange activity as an offering, an invitation. Lucella recognised the outstretched hand and smiled, nodding along.
"Chasing cats?" she said, coming up to finally stand beside Arya.
It felt good, to finally have someone to walk beside. The Red Keep was a lonely place, with father preoccupied with council meetings, with Sansa stuck in her daydreams, and her father's men often out upon the walls. Syrio gave her some distraction, but most of all, Arya missed Nymeria.
"Syrio says that every swordsman should study cats-"
"I don't study cats," Lucella interrupted, hands on her hips as she walked, her dress too small and straining around the shoulders as she did so.
Arya scrunched her nose and continued. "He says it's because they're quiet and light on their feet and quick enough to evade a sword."
"Who is this man anyway?"
A few weeks ago, it might've been Nymeria walking beside her through the large castle, stalking the cats and helping with her training. But instead, Arya looked up at Lucella Clegane- the Hound's sister- and saw a friend she was thankful for. It would have to do.
"Your replacement," Arya said, making Lucella first scowl and then laugh. "So are you going to show me this tunnel or not?"
The ants milling around the castle atop Aegon's hill paid no attention to the two girls as they made their way across the courtyard. Lucella seemed to know exactly where she was going, skirting through shortcuts around the thin spaces of buildings, skirting down past the granary and the well, all toward the kitchen keep.
"So how is Sansa?" Lucella said once they'd made their way through the lower kitchens, making a detour to steal a hoard of honey cakes and apples. Arya tried not to think about how one of the fruits once would have been savoured for Nymeria.
"Cant you last five minutes without asking about Sansa?"
"Her direwolf died," she said, giving a strange look that Arya didn't understand. She brushed the expression off and looked away, guilty. Sympathy for Sansa was understandable, but something akin to jealousy still sturred every time Lucella spoke of Sansa.
Along the outer walls, the mounds of water that sprouted into Blackwater Bay from the Rush were at their loudest. Lucella lead them down past the kitchen gardens, around the small tower, to the tiny square scrap yard that stunk of rotting food. Without looking back, Lucella strode straight in, heading straight for the gated pit in the very corner, where she lifted the metal barrier, hoisted over a leg, and slipped down in silence.
Arya scurried forward, catching the metal grate in time to see Lucella staring back up at her from the small space.
"Are you coming or not?"
"I can't see!"
"You don't need to," Lucella said, then she stepped forward, disappearing from sight. "It's a straight run from here."
Wasting no time, Arya slipped down the hidden pit, scuffing her knees on the way. As the barrier fell closed behind her, she was left in darkness. Her breath seemed to fill the air, heavy and tense, visible even in the blackness. With her hands held in front of her, Arya felt for the opening on the wall and followed it.
The smell of the sea was stronger here. Soon, the light began to flood the end of the tunnel, a lush, watery blue set against a cloudy backdrop- and then she saw the sea: vast and calm, sparkling against the midday sun. As she slipped from the end of the tunnel, the cliffs came into view, steep and severe and beautiful, coloured a powdery white, flocked with sea birds that squawked and cried.
She sat down against the rocks, feet dangling freely in the air. Down below the water crashed and broke against the boulders, erupting in a great spray of soft white. Above, the clouds were retreating, making way for a brilliant, endless sky. If she closed her eyes, the sharp wind against her face made the impression of being on a ship, sailing out across rough weather on the sea.
"One day, I'll sail away from here," Arya said, staring at the horizon, picturing pristine sails and a mermaid-headed ship. "Off Breakwater Bay and across the Narrow Sea."
"Where will you go?"
Arya thought for a moment. There were too many places to name. She would like to see the Titan of Braavos, to gauge its height and climb to the peak of his sword. The gardens of Lys and the grand temples on the waterfront.
"To the free cities," she chose to say. "Will you come?"
Lucella shook her head softly. "I don't think I could stomach travelling by water," she said. "My journey won't take me east, little wolf."
"Where will it take you then?"
Lucella watched her for a moment then, from where she sat perched atop the high rocks. She was cutting an apple with the stolen knife, tossing it between her fingers, deep in thought. "I don't know," was all she said, her face calm and lips thin.
Slowly, Arya turned away. There atop the cliffs, the noise of the Red Keep was minute and ignorable. She preferred the sound of crashing waves and crackling rocks over the squabbling of maids and even the clashing of practice swords. As much as the water called for her, she would settle for anything other than the castle. I would banish myself to the wall if I could, she thought. Jon is there and he could teach me how to use Needle. But as the sun began to set behind them and her stomach began to rumble, Arya turned away from the sea and ducked into the darkness of the tunnel once more.
*