Chapter Text
The day that her father was killed, Sansa broke.
Every single day before that, she had been a soft and pampered lady. She had been what she had been trained to be by her mother, her septa, by everyone that had petted and doted on her, from her father to her brothers. A lovely decoration. Sansa Stark was someone who was meant to be the wife of a king or a lord, and to do needlepoint and sewing, to provide heirs and raise them up (with the help of staff of course) and to oversee the running of a household. To marry the man her father chose, whether he be a young man with no beard or a decrepit old man with wrinkles. To raise up his sons to inherit his lands. And having always been her mother’s daughter, and wanting to please, she had thrown herself entirely into that role.
And then her intended husband, Joffrey Baratheon, king of Westeros after his father died, had declared her father a traitor and executed him in the town square. He did not show the mercy he had promised Sansa he would. And that was the moment that her heart shattered into a million pieces.
And the wolf that had lived in the hearts of the Starks for centuries clawed its way out of hers. The Starks were an old family and a proud one. And they had kept Winterfell in their family for generations and there was a reason for that - they could be as bloodthirsty as any when pushed too far. It had been a Stark that had chosen the vicious direwolf as the animal on their standard, that had coined their phrase, “Winter is coming.” What was winter but cold and brutal death?
When Ned Stark’s head fell from his body and Sansa had screamed in horror before collapsing, that ancient bloodline awakened in her.
And no one in King’s Landing noticed.
More fool them.
She supposed Shae and the other maids all thought she was bedridden with grief. And in a way, she was. Even as she lay there, crying, her mind began to concoct all of the ways in which she could kill Joffrey. But she wouldn’t stop there. His horrible uncle Jaime had been the one that had attacked Ned in the square to begin with, had injured his leg, which had in turn caused her father to be partaking of milk of the poppy and possibly writing the letter that had upset the King in the first place. So Jaime Lannister should die as well for his part.
The only way sleep would come to her is if she coaxed herself there by listing all the possible ways she could bring about their deaths. She was not a man, she could not fight them on the battlefield or even in a duel.
But her mother and septa weren’t the only women that had raised her.
Old Nan had held a part of upbringing to all of the Stark children, including Ned himself. And Old Nan’s people had come from the far North, from beyond the Wall, where the Wildlings lived. Having come to Winterfell as a young woman, Nan had been raised by Wildling women, and learned their ways, which included their medicines.
And their poisons.
And Sansa had always had a head for memorization and an eye for plants. She was the one that mixed up brews when anyone in the household got sick. She was the one that women started to come to if they wanted to prevent a babe. Her mother hadn’t liked it, but her father had told Cat to leave her alone and that his own sister had learned at Nan’s feet, so why shouldn’t his daughter, and that had been that.
Sure, she could sneak up behind Joffrey and stick a knife in his ribs, or offer to give Jaime Lannister a shave and cut his throat. That would require getting a knife and sneaking around, and that was more of Arya’s way, not Sansa’s. Though she could definitely see the appeal. There were times that she imagined that, watching the blood trickle out from a red smile that she had created, and she would shiver deliciously. A violent end for violent men.
But she could also be more subtle. She could pour them tea, sweetened to hide the bitterness, and they would never know. She could poison a needle or a blade and the smallest nick would send slow death into their blood. There were even some that were like milk of the poppy, that would make them act intoxicated, but when given a sufficient amount, would slow their breathing and their heart to eventual death. A quiet end, so subtle that no one would notice.
She would lay on her bed and stare at the wall, picturing her revenge.
A drop or two slipped into a drink at a feast day. A sword pommel with a lovely oil rubbed into it to make it shine that would seep into the skin of any unfortunate enough to handle it. Even a poison that could be put into lip paint so that anyone kissed would sicken and die, though the wearer had to build up an immunity to it and Sansa had not. But if she didn’t care anymore whether she lived or died, it might be a way to go.
She thought of other ways too. There were men that would kill for money, but what riches did she have access to now? Her brother Robb would inherit, and she would have to live off of his good graces, much like her mother, and be married off to whomever Robb thought might aid in his interests. She had no coin of her own.
There was only one other thing she had that men would want. She thought of the women that worked in pleasure houses to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Could she lay with a man in order to bring about the painful deaths of her enemies? Perhaps so, if she could find one willing to try to take on a king and a knight, all for the pleasures of her bed. That didn’t seem likely.
She was pulled from her dreams of exquisite revenge by one of her targets one fine morning.
“You will attend me on a matter of importance,” Joffrey said, standing in front of her bed, arrogance practically dripping off of him and onto the floor. At his side, his bodyguard, Sandor Clegane, otherwise known around court as the Hound or Dog to Joffrey, stood silently, his dark eyes watching her with intensity. “You must rise and dress.”
Sansa wondered what Joffrey’s Dog would do if she flung herself at Joffrey, brandishing a dagger, and plunging it into his body over and over again. He was such a big man, he could probably break her arm easy enough. Wrest the knife from her hands with nary a thought. Snap her neck like a twig.
She remembered the night of the Hand’s Tournament, when he had walked her back to the Hand’s Tower on Joffrey’s orders. He had made her look upon the ruin of his face, the burns that took up one side, and told her the true story of how he had received his scars - for daring to touch a toy of his brother’s. She had heard tales at court of the women the Mountain had bedded, wedded or otherwise. There were no stories like that about his little brother.
And she felt his eyes on her now.
Lady had been loyal only to her and would have died to protect her. But she was a Direwolf. Were Hounds that loyal? Could a starving Dog offered a lovely little morsel be persuaded to turn on its master?
She wasn’t moving fast enough for Joffrey’s liking, and he reached over and pulled her bodily from the bed. The sheet fell from her and she was only in her night shift, hair mussed from sleep loose around her shoulders. Her pale arms and bosom were exposed more than she had ever shown at Court. Joffrey seemed to notice and take a moment to enjoy looking, but it wasn’t his eyes she felt trailing every exposed inch.
It was the Hound’s.
“Get dressed, or I’ll have my Dog dress you himself,” Joffrey said, catching the Hound’s eye. “Since he likes looking so much.”
The Hound pulled his eyes away from her body and looked down. “As you command, Your Grace.”
“Tell me, Clegane, is it true that the whores you frequent make you fuck from behind so that they don’t have to look at you?” His grin was ruthless. “Do they charge you more than, say, Ilyn Payne? And he’s an ugly bastard and old to boot!”
Sansa saw the other man react as if Joffrey had slapped him. His jaw twitched from barely controlled anger and something about that stoic control made her want to defend him. Or at least redirect some of Joffrey’s ire. “Leave him and me be,” she snapped. “We have both only done as you have commanded and what do we have to show for it? A lot of nothing, that’s what.”
Both men now stared at her as if she had lost her mind. And maybe she had. Or maybe it was the Wolf of the Starks that now spoke in her voice. The one that craved the blood of its enemies.
Joffrey twisted her arm around to make her cry out. “I have done nothing but show you mercy, wench, which you will be seeing less of if you don’t do as you’re told now.”
“You promised me you would be merciful to my father,” she spat.
“I was merciful. I never promised to spare him, and I gave him a clean death. That’s merciful.” He shoved her toward Sandor Clegane. “Since she won’t do it on her own volition, you dress her, Dog.”
Sansa glanced up at him, eyes huge as he neared her. He ducked his head in a way that made his shaggy hair fall into the burnt side of his face, as if he was trying to hide it from her. Those dark eyes seemed to try to swallow her up. Up close, he felt impossibly large and intimidating.
He took the dress that Joffrey tossed his way and shoved the garment over her head. Numbly, she held out her arms to allow them into the dress. He fumbled with it, like a small child trying to dress a doll, and once again, she thought of his story about the little toy soldier and his brother’s wrath. Now he was playing with something of Joffrey’s, and facing something worse than fire. He didn’t seem to understand how to tighten the sleeves or the bodice, so she did it herself.
Right before he stepped back, he leaned down to her, tying up the back of the dress, his head down to her. “You do what he says, Little Bird,” he said softly and not unkindly. “Or he’ll have your head next.” Something in those dark eyes said that he didn’t wish to see that.
Sansa had only a moment to slip on her shoes before Joffrey grasped her arm and pulled her away. She heard the Hound moving at their back and noticed several of Joffrey’s guards all standing around the open doorway to the battlements. She stopped moving. There was no way she was going up those stairs.
“Come,” Joffrey said, pulling on her arm so hard she thought it might come out of its socket. “I want to show you what happens to traitors and those who don’t listen to the King.”
“Go on, girl,” the Hound’s raspy voice spoke up from behind them, and Sansa let Joffrey lead her up the stairs of the gatehouse to the battlements.
Once they ascended the stairs, she could see all of the city before them. There was the Great Sept of Baylor, where her father’s life had ended. There was the Gate of the Gods, and then further North…was home. Winterfell, probably even now learning what had happened and mourning its fallen Lord.
“This is what I want you to see,” Joffrey said, pulling her attention to the stone parapet along the rampart…and the heads on spikes that rested there. The heads of her father and Jory and her septa and several other Northmen that Joffrey had killed, now garish tarred decorations.
He wanted her to scream and cry and faint. He wanted her to shake and be teary. But when she looked upon the heads, she didn’t see loved ones. She saw his head. She saw Jaime’s head.
And she would put them there one day.
Joffrey frowned. “This one here is your father. Dog, turn it around so she could see it better.”
The Hound did as he requested without a word. He didn’t look affected one way or the other about it. Maybe he had handled beheadings before.
The head had been dipped in tar to better preserve it, and it didn’t look real, and it looked even less like her father. There was nothing of the man that had told her stories and had laughed at Feast Days there.
“How long do you want me to look at it?” she asked Joffrey. She could look at it all day and not see her father. She would see Joffrey’s face purple and bloated or Jaime’s face bloodless after she cut his throat. Those visions were more real than this.
Joffrey’s face turned crimson. “I’m going to get a new one soon, Lady, just you wait. After my Name Day, I’m going to gather an army. Your brother Robb has declared war against me. I’m going to kill him myself, and then I’m going to put his head right next to your father’s, and I’m going to make you stand here all day and look at them.”
Sansa felt her mouth curve into a snarl. “Or maybe he’ll put your head here instead.”
There was silence on the parapet for a moment. It weighed heavily on all who stood there.
Finally Joffrey spoke. “My mother says a King should never strike his lady. Ser Meryn.”
The Knight was nearest to them, and Sansa had no time to react as he reared back and slapped her hard twice. She felt her lip split under his gauntlet and tasted the salt of her blood. It tasted like sorrow.
Joffrey had turned with a little smirk and was facing Ned Stark’s head now, his attention off of her. And Sansa saw her moment. With his back to her on the parapet, if she pushed him hard enough, he would fall. She took a step closer, all but feeling the silk of his shirt under her fingertips, the weight of his body going off balance, the steel that would run through her back as Sandor Clegane or Meryn Trant would run her through…but oh, Gods, it would be worth it to see Joffrey’s crumpled body beneath her…
Instead she felt an iron grip on her arm, and she was turned to face the Hound. He had a handkerchief out and was pressing it to her mouth. “Here, girl.” His touch was almost gentle as he wiped the blood away. There was some hooded emotion in those dark eyes. As if he had seen her thoughts in that moment and had pulled her back from certain death that had been waiting.
Why had he bothered? Couldn’t he see that she was broken already?
One of his fingers absently stroked the curve of her chin, and he seemed like he was going to say something else, but Joffrey had turned back to them and was striding their way. The handkerchief was pushed into her hand, and then Sandor Clegane stepped away, back toward Ser Meryn.
“Maybe you’ll obey me now,” Joffrey said, brushing past her. “I will see you in court.” He stalked off down the hall with Ser Meryn at his heels.
Sansa looked down at the handkerchief she still held, and then back to the man whom it belonged to, a man that she hadn’t given much thought to, honestly.
“Save yourself some pain, girl,” he said in that raspy voice of his. “Give him what he wants.”
“And what does he want?” she asked.
“For you to be his pretty Little Bird and to do what he says and give him no trouble.” He frowned. “I’m his Dog and you’re his Bird. We are both his to do what he will.” He nodded to the handkerchief. “And you’ll be needing that again.” He turned and walked away, following after Trant and Joffrey.
Sansa looked up at her father’s head one last time. “I’ll show him the same mercy he showed you,” she said to it. “One day.”