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janie_tangerineSansa Stark used to fancy herself a princess, when she was young.
She doesn’t quite do that anymore, these days.
But she still has her old books, one of the few possessions she had that survived the new world order.
Those books were full of stories where young, beautiful princesses or maidens, held prisoner by some evil king of queen, fell for a beautiful, gentle, strong and kind knight who’d sweep them off their feet and bring them away towards the sunset.
Her father used to tell her that such a knight would have come for her, too --
But that was before the new world order.
That was before a nuclear blast changed everyone’s life for the worst… well, mostly everyone’s.
She had been in King’s Landing when it happened.
She survived it.
Sometimes she wishes she didn’t.
King’s Landing used to be a thriving city, with gardens and markets and her old university and a busy shipyard.
Now it’s a wasteland where people kill themselves for water and gas, and she can only see desert, if she looks on the horizon line.
She closes her book, putting it on her bed. She wishes she could tear apart her bright white linen dress, but if she did -
If she did, it would be an extremely bad idea.
There’s a knock on the door.
“Sansa,” Jeyne’s voice comes timidly from the other side. “I’m sorry. He wants you.”
Sansa sighs, thinking of all the princesses in those books who endure a cruel husband before their fair knight finds them.
“It’s all right,” she tells her as she opens the door. “I’m coming.”
--
Would it be better, she thinks as she makes her way towards the main hall in the Red Keep - it used to be a museum, before, but it’s not now -, if she hadn’t been here, when the world ended?
From what she knows, the North fared badly. Her family might be dead, for all she cares. Maybe she’d be dead, too.
But how could it be worse than being stuck in a place that was once a castle, where all the worst elements in the city who survived the blast regrouped after hoarding most of the gas and the water therefore pretty much enslaving the rest of the city, at the whim of a prick who used to be in her economics class a lifetime ago and now fancies himself king of Westeros, for what it’s worth?
Never mind his mother.
Gods, Cersei Lannister could have given a run for their money to all the evil stepmothers in her books, not that she’s Sansa’s stepmother. Sansa is just… one of the many girls they forcibly took from their rooms just before the world ended because somehow they knew it would and then locked in an underground bunker before it did, and now -
She used to dream her first kiss and her first time would be special, with someone she loved.
She’s definitely gave up on that dream now.
She opens the door, smiling as she always does, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t reach her eyes, walking straight towards the throne where Joffrey Baratheon is sitting.
“How does his grace want me?” She asks, and keeps her mouth shut until he lets her leave.
--
Her dress is bloody and half-torn as she makes the way back to her room.
She looks out of the window as she walks, slowly, her eyes lingering on the castle’s little mechanic shop where he works.
Joffrey calls him the hound. Sansa knows that his name is Sandor Clegane. He used to work in the museum doing the medieval fairs during the summer, but he’s good with motors, and he’s ended up fixing cars and bikes here, unable to get out.
Sansa knows that he hates it as much as she does.
And while everyone else gives him a wide berth because he speaks little and half of his face is burned so badly you can see bone in a few places (and it was even before the end of the world), Sansa -
Sansa has spoken to him a few times.
He always was bruque to her, but he wasn’t unkind, and the few pieces of advice he gave her did help her survive in this hellhole, and she has seen him scaring a few of Joffrey’s friends off her a few times, and he’s tall and strong and quiet, and so what if Sansa has maybe fancied him a knight, a few times?
She found pictures of those fairs, hidden in the castle’s abandoned library. He looked so very… like the part, in armor and sword.
She has wondered, would he come to my room, sweep me off my feet and bring me out of here?
She knows it’s ridiculous. There’s only desert behind the city walls, and at least here she has water and food, which isn’t a given, but -
She wonders what his father would think, if he knew how she ended up. He wouldn’t resent her, he knows, and neither would his siblings, but she doesn’t want to be here. And now she feels like she’d rather die than keep on going like this, except that she knows she won’t take her life. The one time she tried, she couldn’t.
Sandor Clegane looks up at her, nods in her direction as their eyes lock, blue and gray, and then he looks back down at the bike he’s trying to fix.
Sansa goes to her room, takes a bath and cries into her hands, imagining strong and gentle arms bringing her away from here.
She knows it’s never going to happen.
But still, it can’t hurt to imagine it.
--
Days later, she’s risking a walk in the used-to-be-gardens. Now they’re full of cars and smell of gas.
Sandor is standing to the side, in his usual place. Her sandals aren’t a good choice for the burning sand under her feet.
She also knows that she and the other girls get better food than most people working for Joffrey and Cersei, and so she had stolen a lemoncake from her table, that evening. She thinks no one noticed her.
Thing is, yesterday Joffrey made her leave the room with nothing on because he hadn’t been satisfied with her.
He had given her his jacket as she walked back to her room, and she still hasn’t brought it back.
“I thought you might like this,” she says, slipping him the lemoncake.
Sandor takes it, hiding it inside the jacket he’s currently wearing right now, looking up at her like he doesn’t know what to make of her.
“Thanks,” he rasps, “but you shouldn’t. He’s going to have your head if he finds out.”
“And who says I wouldn’t welcome it?” She whispers back, and then grasps his shoulder once, softly, before heading back up to her room.
He had felt warm and strong under her fingers.
Oh, if only.
--
“Keep that jacket,” he whispers to her later still, as they stand near each other in the main hall, pretending to care about Joffrey sentencing to death someone who displeased him somewhat.
“But -” She whispers back.
“Keep it. I don’t need it. And if you brought it back or I came to your room people would notice. Don’t, little bird,” he says, and then obviously bites his tongue.
“How did you call me?” She whispers back, glad they’re at the back of the room.
He shrugs. “You sing like one. Your room looks over the shop. I hear you.” He’s staring straight ahead, not looking at her.
“Oh,” she says, “I don’t mind. If you call me like that.”
“You have no fucking clue what you’re saying,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he means it.
--
There was a story she used to love where a nightingale’s song restored a dying king’s health.
She thinks about it that evening as she opens her window on purpose and starts singing, sad ballads she used to like back in the day.
He doesn’t turn her way, but she knows he’s listening.
--
“I hear you like singing,” Joffrey tells her, later. She stopped counting the days.
“I - I only do it on my own,” she replies, quietly.
“Too bad. You’re mine, you should do it for me, if I ask.”
He asks.
She sings.
She feels dirty as she goes back to her room with no dress. She thinks Sandor’s face looks guilt-stricken when their eyes meet as she passes by him.
She doesn’t ever sing for Joffrey the songs she chose for him.
Not that he will ever know.
--
Then at some point someone tries to assault King’s Landing.
Most likely for gas. And water. Of course they would. Sansa hears the door lock without anyone even telling her why, but she can imagine that.
She sighs, wrapping herself in Sandor’s leather jacket.
She would love to fancy herself a princess that will be finally freed, but she knows that if Joffrey wins nothing will change and if someone else dethrones him, things might get worse or not change at all regardless.
There’s fire out of the walls when she looks out of her window.
She can’t even bring herself to sing, as much as it brought her comfort, because everyone is screaming and there’s too much noise and she couldn’t hear herself anyway -
That is, until something bangs against her door.
Then again.
Then again -
And then her door gives away and Sandor’s behind it, the scarred half of his face looking blood-red in the candlelight, taking deep breaths, raven hair falling over his shoulders, but when he walks inside the room, he seems almost afraid to.
“What - what are you doing here?” She asks, softly.
He moves closer. “They asked me to go out with them.”
Oh.
“I don’t want to,” he rasps. “I can’t.” He flinches, hiding the ruined half of his face from her. Oh. It’s burned. She reaches out, touching it briefly with her palm.
“Because of this?”
“I really fucking hate fire,” he whispers.
Then -
“I could get out of here,” he rasps. “I mean, I know how. I have a bike with a full tank. I can’t stay here anymore. Little bird, come with me.”
Sansa thinks her heart is about to either stop or beat so fast it will explode.
“Do - do you want me to?”
He snorts. “I should ask if you would want to come with me, not the contrary.”
“Do you think I didn’t spend the last… weeks singing for you only?” She whispers, and he gasps at that, obviously not having imagined that it would be her answer.
“You - you were?”
“Of course,” she whispers, and then she gathers her courage and leans forward and kisses his cheek, the way she had dreamed of, the scar tissue rough and warm under her lips, and he makes a sound in the back of his throat before his hands go to her hips.
“Are you sure?”
“I’d rather die with you than stay here any longer,” she whispers, and maybe part of her is saying that she shouldn’t give safety up, but it’s silenced very, very swiftly as he nods and lifts her up so easily and so gently, like she weighs nothing, pulling her to her feet.
“Do you need to get anything?”
She thinks of her books.
She could bring them.
But they would be useless and slow her down, and after all, she doesn’t need them any longer.
Not when she has the real thing now.
“No,” she says, “just my shoes.”
She puts them on, as ill-suited as they are for the weather, and then he seems to consider going back, but then shakes his head, opens the window and climbs out. It’s just one floor, and he drops to the ground gracefully.
“Come on,” he urges her, “jump. We can’t risk being seen.”
Sansa nods, and she smiles a tiny bit as she remembers how all those stories ended. They all said -
If you’re strong and you keep on believing in true love, you will find it, because it exists somewhere and you just have to be patient.
Maybe they weren’t so false after all.
She climbs out of the window and lets herself fall into his arms, and he catches her at once, so strongly, so gently, so kindly -
Just like a real knight, holding her like a real princess.
End.
