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Sansa was in the capital.
She was having a lovely time. Unlike in the Stark house, Sansa being a lady wasn’t a bother— it was something useful, something celebrated. While she thought living with Aunt Lysa would be terrible, Aunt Lysa noticed her. She brought Sansa with her on her travels from Riverrun to Highgarden, then to King’s Landing, all so different from the North. She wore beautiful dresses, she spent her days learning more about art beside other ladies her age, and she flourished in the South.
But Sansa still worried for her family, even if most of them didn’t understand her. Sansa did move to Aunt Lysa’s manor because Bran was sick, and was still sick before she left.
It didn’t help that she knew Bran was alone. Robb had just married Talisa Maegyr, who seems nice enough, and Arya moved to Braavos to pursue her water dancing.
“What did they write?” Aunt Lysa said, looking at the letter Sansa was holding, “Your troublemaking family.”
“Father doesn’t say anything about Bran,” Sansa said, disappointed. “I feel like I should go back, but they all say to stay—,”
“You can do nothing if you go back,” Aunt Lysa snapped, “The boy is sick, not dead.”
For now, Sansa thought, still worried about her beloved brother.
“And you shouldn’t go home until you and Hardyng are properly engaged,” Aunt Lysa added.
“Yes, and until I completed all my painting lessons, of course,” Sansa said.
“Oh, yes, yes,” Aunt Lysa looked away.
Despite her enjoying the South, she knew that her painting wasn’t too important to Aunt Lysa. Painting was just a skill to learn in order to bring up her standing, just like embroidery and the harp. Her lessons only existed because Aunt Lysa wanted her to marry Harry Hardyng, who was decent enough.
But she had skill. She drew all over her room in the Winterfell house, and when that wasn’t enough, she drew over her clothes and embroidered it. Here in the South, she drew everything she saw, like the columns at the Sept of Baelor, the gardens in the Reach.
They continued their ride. Aunt Lysa, of course, was talking about Harry Hardyng. Sansa was looking out into the capital’s scenery, not listening as she looks onto the King’s Way, the bakeries with lemon cakes, the forges with the steel armor… So many subjects to sketch, so many scenes to paint.
But Sansa’s eye gets caught on a boy. A boy she hasn’t seen in many years, walking past her carriage. She lets out a gasp. It was her childhood crush, Jon Snow.
With his hands in his coat pockets, feet crunching the leaves that have fallen, he still has those black ink curls that Sansa adored. He was still as gorgeous as he was the day he brought Robb and Arya home, as the day she hid in his house after she got in trouble. He was still the same way he was the day he brought her and her siblings to the beach, and the day he saved her from Acorn Water.
Joy leapt in her heart, almost like the Christmas mornings in the Stark house.
“Stop the carriage!” Sansa yelled.
“What are you doing? No, Sansa—,” Aunt Lysa said, but Sansa paid no attention as she got down from the carriage, and ran to her childhood friend.
“Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon!”
Jon turned, grey eyes wide, first from surprise, then recognition, as a woman in a light blue dress with a white fur shawl ran to him.
“Sansa,” Jon said, thick with his Northern accent.
They hugged.
“My, you’ve grown so much,” Jon said, “You’re even taller than me now.”
And she did. She was a proper lady now, taller than him with her Tully height. Pale and slender, hair kissed by fire, dress and hat matching her light blue eyes, she looked like a proper snow maiden.
“You didn’t meet me at the hotel!” Sansa admonished at the same time.
“Maybe I didn’t recognize you because you’re so beautiful now,” Jon teased.
Sansa brushed away the compliment, “Oh, stop it.”
“I thought you like that sort of thing,” Jon said.
“No,” Sansa said, “Where’s your father?”
“The Crownlands,” Jon said, “Still traveling, I’m traveling on my own now.”
“Whoring, and traveling, and drinking,” Sansa teased.
“Well, don’t tell your father,” Jon teased back.
“Right, right,” Sansa said, “Are you chasing some other girl across Europe?”
Jon turned serious. “No.”
He was still not over Arya then.
“I couldn’t believe Arya turned you down,” Sansa said, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, Sansa,” Jon said, “I’m not.”
Sansa’s breath hitched. Jon Snow surely wasn’t flirting with her, was he?
“Sansa Stark!” Aunt Lysa shouted, “You come back here right this instance!”
“Oh, Aunt Lysa,” Sansa smiled apologetically.
Jon nodded, and they walked to the carriage. Sansa pulled herself back to her seat, while Jon snuck a kiss on Aunt Lysa’s cheek. Aunt Lysa frowned at him.
“We need to be somewhere,” Aunt Lysa directed to the coach, and the carriage started moving.
“Come to the New Year’s party,” Sansa said to Jon, blue eyes sparkling, “It’s a ball, and everyone’s going to be there, including Harry!”
Jon said, “Alright,” and jumped onto the street.
“Oh!” Sansa said, almost forgetting, “Dress for festivities! Top hat and silks!”
“I will! I’ll wear my finest silk!” Jon shouted back.
Satisfied, Sansa smiled, and sat back on her seat. Aunt Lysa looked at her with that look. The standard look of disapproval. Pursed lips, and a tiny frown.
“It’s Jon,” Sansa tried to defend.
Aunt Lysa sighed and said, “I know.”
Sansa looked back at Jon. She kept smiling, excited for the party, and the chance to see him again. Not that she was still in love with him.
The ball in the Red Keep was splendid, of course. As splendid as high society in King’s Landing usually is. A lot of dancing, classical music, and a chance for Sansa to dance again with Harry.
Harry Hardyng was a man in high society. Wealthy, educated, well-mannered, and set to inherit the Eyrie, he was the sort of man Sansa expected to marry. It also helped that Harry was handsome, with sandy blonde hair, deep blue eyes, a straight nose, and dimples that formed every time he smiled.
And he was always smiling around Sansa. He was easy to like. It was easy to talk with him, to laugh with him.
It was all too easy.
Aunt Lysa kept pushing her towards him in the capital. For this ball alone, she was dressed to the nines— a dark blue dancing dress, made with a shimmering, thick floral brocade, lined with white silk, red hair braided and pinned in a bun, and neck and ears embellished with sapphires. Of course, her finger wore the Tully sapphire ring, the ring Aunt Lysa gave her as a promise to save her family.
Sansa knew she can do it. She knew she had Harry in her grasp, that he was going to ask her any day now.
But Sansa kept worrying about that dark-haired boy, who didn’t meet her in her hotel at 8.
As if she summoned him by her thoughts, she frowned as the ladies around his shoulders seem to be half carrying him, not wearing his tux, as if it was too hot for him. They set him on one of the sofas. He’s already drunk.
“Excuse me for a moment, please,” Sansa said to Harry, and marched towards Jon.
“Jon.”
“Sansa.”
“I waited an hour for you,” Sansa said patiently, waiting for his explanation.
But Jon offers nothing, just looking at Sansa as if she was Aunt Lysa scolding her nephews, offers nothing but, “I feel caught.”
Unbelievable. Sansa turned away.
“Sansa, please—,” Jon said, leaving the girls behind him, reaching for her arm.
“Do you want to know how I honestly think of you?” Sansa said.
“I don’t know—,”
“I despise you,” Sansa said, and Jon’s hurried whispering stopped.
“Why?”
“Because you have every chance to be good, and useful,” Sansa said, “Instead you are lazy, miserable—,”
“This is interesting,” Jon said.
“Well, selfish people love to talk about themselves—,”
“Am I selfish?” Jon challenged.
“Very selfish,” Sansa said, raising an eyebrow, “With your money, talent, beauty, and happiness—,”
“Oh, you think I’m beautiful,” Jon pointed out.
“Yes, you would love that,” Sansa spat, “With your vanity, good things to enjoy, you can find nothing to do but dawdle.”
“I’ll be good, Saint Sansa,” Jon mocked, as he pulled her hand, “I’ll be good.”
Sansa pursed her lips, in the very image of Aunt Lysa. She took her hand away.
“Aren’t you ashamed of a hand like that? Look like it never done a day’s worth of work in its life,” Sansa retorted, “And that ring looks ridiculous.”
The iron bronze ring on his hand gleamed, the standard Northern ring that Robb himself had, that any upstanding Northern man would wear.
“Arya gave me this ring,” Jon said.
A pause. Sansa’s eyes look down in pity to Jon.
“I am sorry for you,” Sansa said, “I just wish you would bear it better.”
“No need to be sorry, Sansa, you’ll be the same as me,”
“No,” Sansa said, eyes flashing, “I would be respected, even if I couldn’t be loved.”
Jon turned away. “What have you done anyway, oh great artiste,” Jon said, pulling his fallen tux from the ground, “Are you fantasizing on spending Hardyng’s fortune away?”
The crowd around them starts to murmur.
“Harry Hardyng, ladies and gentlemen!” Jon shouted, as he threw the champagne of his glass into the air.
As Jon shuffled out of the room, drunk, the dancers stared, moved aside, and whispered to each other.
“Harry,” Sansa said, as she walked toward him. Of course, Jon had to ruin her chances with him, of course.
Harry stared at Sansa, not knowing what to do.
“Harry, I’m so sorry,” Sansa said, as she rushed to the fiance she hoped to have.
Sansa was still angry the next day, as she neatened up her painting.
She knows that she can paint well, yes, but Jon’s words still ring in her head, especially the words on her work. She can paint. But she’s not painting anything new— she did see Margaery Tyrell’s impressionistic version of the same man she was painting, and she felt so discouraged over how far she seemed to be.
She was just putting paint on a canvas, not being an artist. She would never earn enough to save the whole Stark family from poverty alone.
It hurts her, but Jon was right in the sense that she had no choice but to rely on Harry Hardyng to save her and her family.
Of course, Jon barged into the art studio, the way he barged into anything.
“Hello, Sansa,”
“I don’t want to see you,” Sansa said, coating the canvas with oil.
“Sansa,” Jon said, trying to go to her.
“Have you been drinking again?” Sansa said, not looking at him.
“Why are you being so hard on me?” Jon asked.
“Well, someone has to do it,” Sansa said, cleaning her brushes, and moving back to her painting.
Jon’s eyes follow Sansa’s, and sees the canvas she was working on.
“When are you working on your great art, Pytho Malonon?” Jon asked. Pytho Malanon was a great sculptor from Essos.
“Never,”
“Why?” Jon asked, sitting down on one of the chairs, curious.
“I’m a failure,” Sansa said, matter-of-fact, “Arya’s in Braavos, becoming a water dancer, and I’m a failure—,”
“That’s quite a statement to make at the age of twenty,” Jon said.
“Well, Highgarden removed all the vanity from me,” Sansa said, while cleaning her fingers of paint, “And King’s Landing made me realize I would never be a genius, so I’m giving up all my foolish artistic hopes.”
“Sansa,” Jon tried to reassure her, “You have so much talent—,”
“Talent isn’t genius,” Sansa threw a rag in the dustbin, “And no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great or nothing, and I don’t intend to try anymore.”
She stacks her canvasses one by one, unoriginal still lives atop each other.
“What women geniuses are there anyway?”
“The Martells,” The Martells, the Sand Snakes, of course, were Oberyn Martell’s bastards, and all of them found their craft in multiple fields such as war, dance, alchemy, writing, and painting.
“That’s it?”
“Yes, I think so,”
“Well, then you have very little competition,” Jon argued.
“That’s a very complicated argument to make me feel better,” Sansa said, going back to her other tools.
“Well, do you feel better?” Jon asked.
“I do think,” Sansa said, considering her words, “That male or female, I am of middling talent.”
“Middling talent,” Jon repeated.
Jon hopped on the small platform in her art studio, propping himself up on one of the chairs, and raising a leg on the other. Sansa laughed at his ridiculous posing.
“May I ask your last portrait to be of me?” Jon asked.
“Alright,” Sansa smiled at his antics despite herself.
“Since you’re giving up your foolish artistic hopes,” Jon started, “What are you going to do with your life?”
“Polish up my other talents and become an ornament to society,” Sansa said.
Jon sighed. “That’s where Harry Hardyng comes in, I suppose.”
“Don’t make fun,” Sansa chided.
“I just said his name,” Jon said, “You’re not engaged, I hope.”
“No,”
“But you will be,” Jon asked, grey eyes trying to search for something Sansa doesn’t know, “Once he goes properly on one knee.”
Sansa looks away, cleaning her palette, “Most likely yes.”
A pause. Jon grinds his teeth together.
Sansa spots this, “He’s rich. Richer than you, even.”
“I understand,” Jon said, “Although it does sound odd coming from one of your Mother’s girls.”
Sansa frowned.
“I’ve always known I was going to marry rich,” Sansa said, “Why should I be ashamed of that?”
Jon, looking intently at her, with those serious grey eyes, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you love him.”
Sansa scoffs. “Well, I believe we have some power over who we love, it isn’t just something that just happens to a person.”
“I think the poets might disagree.”
“Well, I’m not a poet,” Sansa said, “I’m just a woman.”
And in her mind’s eye, Sansa’s brought back to Aunt Lysa’s Riverrun manor, brought there to ensure that she would not get Bran’s scarlet fever, seven years ago.
“You are your family’s hope now,” Aunt Lysa said, then, while placing the Tully sapphire ring on her finger, “Bran is sick, Arya’s a lost cause, and I heard that Robb’s got his head turned by a Volantene nurse. It would be up to you, to support them all. And your indigent father in his old age.”
Aunt Lysa never approved of Mama Catelyn’s husband.
“You must marry well,” Aunt Lysa had said, the very words that brought her here today.
At present, Jon and Sansa hear the sound of some horses, trotting nearby.
“That’s Harry,” Sansa said, breathlessly, “Can you unbutton me, please?”
Sansa turns her back to Jon, buttons on her back waiting to be released.
Jon sighed, and stood up. Then takes note of Sansa’s beautiful red hair, shining under the sunlight, the delicate arch of her neck.
Sansa feels his hands behind her, removing each button one by one, and untying the belt of her smock. She fidgets under the heat of his fingers (has his touch always felt like this?), and the heated gaze of his grey eyes.
“Thank you,” Sansa said, stepping away from him. She hangs her smock, and ties up her embroidered blue and white shawl.
Jon, silent, takes his coat.
“How do I look? Do I look alright?” Sansa asked, checking her clothes for possible paint smears.
“You look beautiful,” Jon said, softly.
As Sansa ties up her shawl, Jon’s eyes meet hers, “You are beautiful.” And he forces a smile, slightly strange upon his face, but Sansa feels confused at the motion, and… flattered. To say the least.
She smiles herself, and takes her leave.
Jon smiles at Sansa, smiling as she draws his figure, charcoal on paper, on a lovely spring day.
They were in the godswood in the Red Keep. It was not as impressive as the godswood in Winterfell, of course, without the Weirwood trees, but it had many Southern trees and flowers. It was mostly empty, but other artists were there, as well as other couples.
“What are you doing?” Sansa asked suspiciously, feeling his gaze upon her.
“Looking at you,”
“I mean,” Sansa’s voice goes deeper, “What do you intend to do?”
Jon considers the question. “With life?”
“Yes,”
“I’ve been trying to write an opera—,” Jon started, but Sansa looks back at her work.
“It’s a waste of time.”
Jon’s face falls. But he leans forward and asks, “What would you have me do?”
Sansa looks at him, in consideration. Jon smiles as he poses.
Sansa looks back at her work, “Go back to your father and make something out of yourself.”
“I knew it,” Jon said, moving from his pose, “You’re not playing fair.”
Sansa just smiled serenely. Jon walks away, but—
“Here,” Sansa presents her scrapbook, page open to his portrait, and she looks at his reaction.
“It’s very good,” Jon admits, but as he closes the book, he sees an older drawing.
“Did you do this one?” Jon brandished the drawing.
“It was the day on the beach,” Sansa said, reminiscing, “The first time I met Harry.”
“That’s right,” Jon said, and gives her back her drawings, “What’s he doing?”
“He went to Gulltown on business,” Sansa said, busy neatening her sketch, “He’ll be back in a few weeks.”
Jon nods, and then looks away. He walks, hand brushing something from his eyes, and he stops himself.
“Don’t marry him,” he said, voice deepened to that rough Northern brogue.
But his words take Sansa’s attention off her portrait, stilling her hand, as she says, “What?”
“Don’t marry him,” Jon repeated, hands in his pockets, looking steadily at Sansa Stark.
Sansa looks confused, “Why?”
“You know why,” Jon said, “I always knew I would marry into the Stark family.”
The realization hits Sansa. Her face falls, eyes tear up, and it’s just so unfair that he would ask her of this, to delay her dreams just because he didn’t get his.
“No,” Sansa said, stepping away from him.
“Yes,” Jon urged, and he reached out to her face.
Sansa pushed his hand away.
“Jon,” Sansa said, tearing up, “You’re being mean.”
“What?”
“Stop it, stop it,” Sansa said, trying to take a deep breath.
Jon stops moving forward, concerned.
“I have been second to Arya my whole life,” Sansa said, hurt, “And I will not be the person you settled for just because you cannot have her. I won’t do it, I won’t.”
She tries to brush away a stray hair, frustrated, almost as red as her hair.
“Not when I spent my entire life loving you!” Sansa cried, and dropped her sketchbook, rushing to leave the gardens where they were.
Jon stared at Sansa’s retreating back.
“Aunt Lysa,” Sansa curtseyed to her, after entering the room.
Sansa came back to the manse she shared with Aunt Lysa, after her afternoon with Jon. It was the manse Aunt Lysa owned, after the death of her Arryn husband.
“Sansa,” Aunt Lysa said, teacup near her lips, “That Targaryen boy was here just a moment ago.”
“He was?” Sansa said.
“Mhmm. What a disappointment he’s turned out to be,” Aunt Lysa said, “Must be the Valyrian in him.”
“When will he be back?” Sansa asked, sitting down on the couch.
“He’s gone. To Dragonstone,” Aunt Lysa sets her cup on her saucer, “Why? What do you need to discuss with him?”
Sansa’s face falls.
“I just told Harry Hardyng I wouldn’t marry him,” Sansa whispered.
Aunt Lysa just sipped her tea.
Sansa stood outside the Eyrie’s courtyard. Dressed in black, she stands, waiting as the coach places her things on the carriage.
Bran has died.
Bran, sweet Bran, whose legs broke from his fall. Who played the most beautiful pieces on the piano the Targaryens gave them, who still visited and gave the Free Folk orphanages food even when his older siblings refused to. Bran, who stayed with her when Robb and Arya left them to go play with the other boys. Bran, who she was parted from when he had scarlet fever.
It’s cruel that the only Stark sibling who understood her was the one she could not be beside.
He gave her the chance to go with Aunt Lysa to the capital, since she had to live with her while Bran was ill. The same chance that was supposed to be offered to Arya, but the chance that Sansa took advantage of. The chance for Sansa to be an artist.
But Bran was gone. And she had no more desire to stay in King's Landing, not with Aunt Lysa disappointed in her turning down Harry.
What was she thinking? Her turning down Harry while Jon decided to finally go make something of himself, to leave her in the Red Keep. Just because Jon told her not to marry him…
She never was rational around him, was she?
He stood beside her, handsome in black, that was always his color, but still sad, still untidy.
They looked at each other. Sansa’s eyes teared up, as Jon pulled her to his embrace.
“I couldn’t let you travel alone, with Aunt Lysa being so sick,” he murmured, while still hugging her, “Even if you despise me.”
“I don’t despise you,” Sansa whispered back.
“Bran was always the best of us,” Sansa said, trying to keep down her tears. She removed herself from his embrace, lip wobbling from the tears she was trying to hold back.
“I’m not marrying Harry,” Sansa said, looking away from Jon.
“I heard about that,” Jon said.
“And you are in no obligation to say anything, or do anything,” Sansa started, looking down, “I just didn’t love him as I should.”
Sansa let out a deep breath, after the confession. Jon’s eyes were wide.
“We don’t need to say anything—,” Sansa said, but Jon rushed towards her, and held a hand on her cheek.
And kissed her.