CLOSED | au | USURPERS of the VALE

[weirwood]

usurpers of the vale | A U as high as honor. family duty honor. winter is coming. the north forgets. move or be moved. SANSA STARK IS MISSING ROBB STARK IS DEAD PETYR BAELISH IS MERCIFUL

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[weirwood]

[ How much is the dignity of an honorable man worth? How much gold, how much influence? How much blood?

It is a question that Sansa Stark is quite familiar with, even moreso now that she is a Lannister. She herself has had her own dignity auctioned off to the highest bid of convenience and treachery like a commodity. She had been tainted goods, of course, being the daughter of a traitor and the sister of a usurper; but even then the final cost had been terribly high: her maidenhead (or the promise of it), along with her womb, her bloodline, and the promise of the North. All of these dealings had made her a wife and then, having watched as Joffrey Baratheon cough and spit and wheeze out his last breaths, had made her a bastard in turn. To some it would have been the final insult, the greatest sacrifice, the very edge of reason. What was to become of her and her brother if they were stripped of everything — even their name Stark, even their Tully hair?

When Sansa had learned that her red locks would lose their color and that her brother would be scarred and shorn to hide his identity she'd wept into her hands for hours without end, tucked tightly beneath Robb's arm, clutched hard to the laces of his vest. Is it too much, lord brother? she'd moaned and looked up at him with her tear-streaked face. Would father find this cost too dear?

The answer had been no, of course; Lord Eddard himself had laid his throat and the honor of his name down upon the block so that his children may live. That made their lives precious, more precious than gold or gilt even though they were wretched, and it was their duty as children of the North to honor their dead father's last wishes in full.

That is how they find themselves here, in an inn of no meaningful repute or infamy, a pair of shears in Sansa's trembling hand and a basin of water held in Robb's arms. These had been the conditions that Sansa herself had pleaded with Littlefinger, and he had listened with a passive sort of smile on his face. By rights they all knew she was in no position to ask for terms, but the little bird's tears have been known to move the coldest stone.

Carefully, hesitantly, she touches her brother's shoulder. There are tears already in her eyes, her own hair drawn back and still bright red but not for long; the dye is already acquired. ]

You musn't hate me, [ she says. Sansa knows she will be loathe to forgive the hands that wash her Tully red down the river. ] I would not be able to bear it if you did.

[discrowned]

I could never hate you, Sansa.

[ for this is not sansa's doing. sansa had not decreed his curls shorn nor his face scarred, and the bitterness is assigned to petyr baelish, thought robb does not ever put words to it.

not too short, he wants to plead. not too close to my scalp, for the memory of our lady mother if not for me. but he does not need to say these things, for sansa must know, and kings do not beg. even fallen, dethroned and disgraced kings. robb stark will never be the begger king, that he swore to himself when the irons fell from his wrist and he straightened up to consider the terms set before him.

his knuckles are white where they clutch the bowl, thumbs dipping just below the surface of the water within. he closes his eyes, and does not think of his lady mother, thrown into a river, the way she'd screamed for mercy for her son. this moment is no better, no less painful, but it is a different kind of pain than that.

the air in his lungs had been bought at a dear price. robb stark does not forget that. ]

Do your work, dearest sister. We both know my hair will grow back.

[ the auburn curls of robb stark, always much spoken of and admired in winterfell, growing like ivy and thoroughly unmanageable. it is a false hope, to think that he would ever be allowed to keep them once they'd grown back but it is the only comfort he has to offer. their helplessness does not escape him, but he has no way to rectify it here, powerless and hunted and collared more thoroughly than he'd ever thought he'd be. ]

[weirwood]

[ She does not ask after their mother's final moments just as she does not allow questions of their dead father's. There are some truths that are too difficult to share, however important or meaningful or necessary. One parent dies so that their eldest son and heir might live, the other dies so as to save the sun and moon that are their differing daughters. In the end, Lord Eddard had gone quietly and with resignation — an acceptance of faith and what was needed to be done. Sansa imagines in her most horrible of dreams that her mother had been anything but quiet; that she raged hot and bright, full of that Tully fire, the love that fueled her every action in the hopes of keeping her children safe.

Had she called upon the Seven? Had she sworn a curse on Frey's head? Had she called to her son before the blade found its mark to remind him of winter and honor, that it was up to him now for these things to live on?

The North remembers, or at least that is how the saying goes. But Sansa Stark, how she longs to forget. Vengeance is not hers and never will be, as weak as she is, as small. So the reminder serves nothing but to deliver more pain, like a splinter of glass caught beneath her skin that she has no hope of pulling clean. ]

If I'd never asked— [ she whispers, biting back her tears, wishing not to sob. ] If I'd never once asked to marry that horrible boy— If I hadn't begged father—

[ It's too much for such a little bird, the burden of guilt, the weight of blame. How many hands had looked to move the Starks since Robert Baratheon's arrival in Winterfell long ago? And yet, fault found a way to take root in the soft earth of Sansa heart and bloom, blood red and unrelenting. The hand on Robb's shoulder tightens. ] You must promise that you forgive me. I didn't know. You believe me, don't you?

[ These are words she's said a dozen times already. Again and again, forgive me, Robb, forgive me. But no matter how much grace he visits upon her, how much forgiveness or love, Sansa's hands do not wash clean. ]

[discrowned]

[ robb had only ever asked once. our father, sansa, tell me of our father, the words whispered and frayed with grief. secondhand tales had reached the king in the north, of course, but those were one thing. sansa was a different matter. sansa would have told it truely, robb had hoped, without the gilt and trappings of flattery that so many of his messengers had dressed their tales in. but she did not speak of their father, nor ask of their mother, and it is robb alone who bears his questions in stubborn silence.

it is the duty of the eldest. if sansa wishes to forget, then it is robb's duty to remember. the lord eddard stark had told robb of this, long ago, before robb's boyhood had died an agonizing death, crushed under the weight of the iron crown. his lord father had taken robb to the weirwood and spoken frankly of the responsibilities that awaited him, and robb's back had straightened and he'd sworn to make his father proud.

years later, and all robb has left is his sister. he will do right by sansa. he will do his duty and bear these burdens as best he can. he will not fail in this, as he has in all other tasks put to him. and when he has the lannisters three at his sword point, he will take their heads and mount them on pikes upon the utmost turrets of winterfeel. a warning, for all who dare take against his family. ]

I do. You could not have known what trecherous creatures the Lannisters were. You were but a girl.

[ if robb had not married jeyne westerling ( the very name rips him apart from the inside, his lady wife, where is she now? does she hold his son in her womb, or had he failed in that business as well? ) then his mother would be alive and he still in possession of an army, of noble men who had sworn themselves to his cause. there would have still been a chance for him to set things right and retrieve his sisters.

gently, he covers sansa's hand with his own. outside of this room, this will never be allowed him. he will be the lowest of the low, a servant, whatever petyr baelish makes of him, and he will not speak with his sister, nor touch her hand to offer comfort, nor flash a bright smile her way as he had so often done. he will play his role, for in doing so he keeps her safe.

how can he refuse? ]

I should be the one begging forgiveness, Sansa, not you.

[ but there was no redemption or deliverance for robb, so he did not ask it. he had destroyed everything by making a boy's mistake, and there were days when he wished petyr baelish would finally pull the noose around his neck tight and put an end to this tragic comedy, the play of the young wolf who had once been king. ]