Dawn reddened the valley blanketed in winter snow.
In the warm ballroom of Moon Gate Castle, guests enjoyed a pre-wedding breakfast.
There were lemon honey cakes, pickled chicken, bacon, breadcrumb-fried eel sticks, Dothraki-style blood sausage, various stuffed buns "invented" by the Dragon Queen, and chilled Dornish blood-orange soup.It was a lavish feast blending many different styles.
Servants wove through the tables, carrying large jugs of warm milk, mead, and low-strength golden sweet wine, filling the cups of any guest who needed more.
Musicians wandered the hall, playing flutes and harps, singing songs of blessing.
A moon boy rode a broom-stick hobbyhorse, constantly making silly gestures and faces, delighting the guests around him.
After breakfast, the food and chairs were cleared away. Under the watchful eyes of all the guests, Jon Connington, solemn in his bearing, fastened the groom's cloak onto Aegon as a father would.
It was a deep-black velvet cloak embroidered with a red dragon and a golden sun-piercing spear.
These represented the groom's paternal house, Targaryen, and his maternal house, Martell of Dorne.
"Sigh. This cloak is new. You should have had a better choice," the old man said with a sorrowful sigh.
The cloak that the groom places on the bride's shoulders should carry the weight of heritage. The fewer the family's traditions, the newer the cloak.
Had Rhaegar not caused trouble, had House Targaryen endured, Aegon could have used his father's true-dragon cloak or his mother's sun-spear cloak.
Both families were ancient and storied; their cloaks had been worn by countless ancestors.
"This is fine. My house and my future are both new. I should use a new cloak," Aegon said.
He was in splendid form today, full of vigor. He wore black outer garments, with a ruby-stitched three-headed fire-breathing dragon on his chest, its claws gripping a black greatsword—a deliberate imitation of the late Rhaegar.
In truth, the original Targaryen sigil should be a red three-headed dragon on a black field, but Aegon and Daenerys represented two branches of the family and could no longer use his aunt's sigil. He added a sword in the dragon's claws—the king's sword, Blackfyre.
The change was small, yet any Westerosi noble with a sound mind would understand immediately: Aegon had formally separated his branch from Daenerys.
What Aegon did, however, contained a great deal of filial respect.
This was no mockery. Without even consulting his Aunt Daenerys, Aegon had voluntarily renounced his claim to the traditional family sigil.
Although Daenerys herself had long considered changing the sigil to a five-colored dragon and did not care much for the three-headed dragon, sigils carry enormous significance among the nobility. Aegon's action was essentially the founding of a new house.
With a new sigil, even if the old man had acquired Rhaegar's relics from an antique dealer in King's Landing, Aegon could no longer wear them.
Before long, the bride arrived as well.
She wore a pearl-colored silk blouse and a grey-blue Myrish lace gown embroidered with tiny six-pointed snowflakes in threads fine as hair.
These were the colors of Winterfell—solemn, elegant, noble, and graceful.
On her head and shoulders she wore a pure-white velvet cloak embroidered with a silver-grey direwolf, placed there by Littlefinger.
It was also Littlefinger who stood in the place of her father, holding her hand as he walked her to the wedding altar and gave her to Aegon.
A side note: weddings under the Faith of the Seven are particular about attire. You cannot simply wear whatever colors or styles you please.
Sansa had once been married to Tyrion. If Tyrion had died, she could not dissolve the marriage. She would have had to remarry as Tyrion's widow and wear the gold and red colors of the lion.
For example, when Cersei married Euron, she used the Baratheon colors—gold and black.
Now Sansa wore the Stark colors, white and grey, without a trace of lion red or gold. This signified purity, even virginity.
At least, the Seven recognized her purity and maidenhood.
Ahem. The Black One refused responsibility; it was entirely Septon Meribald's doing.
He served as both her annulment septon and the officiating septon. Aegon had personally flown a dragon to the Claw Peninsula to bring him.
Do not think annulment is an easy task. The burden of responsibility is enormous.This was also why Lynesse could never divorce the Great Bear—no septon was willing to take on the role of her annulment septon, and only when the Great Bear became a White Knight was she truly freed.
But old Meribald did not deceive Aegon. Before the wedding, he arranged for a septa to examine Sansa's hymen. Naturally, it was not intact.
Sansa swore she broke it riding a horse. Margaery Tyrell had said the same, and years earlier Cersei had also claimed it before her marriage to Robert.
Everyone believed it.
Horseback riding and hunting are required skills for noble ladies; plenty of girls tear it that way.
Three queens did the same thing—had affairs and told the same story. Sansa was lying, because she only liked gentle, ladylike pursuits such as music, poetry, singing, dancing, and embroidery. If Arya had said this, it would have been believed eight times out of ten.
As for Margaery, who knew whether she was lying? She certainly began taking lovers early, but riding, hunting, and hawking were extremely fashionable in the Reach.
Cersei, on the other hand, might have told the truth. She had been involved with Jaime before her marriage, but it was entirely possible that her first time had indeed been taken by the saddle.
Old Meribald trusted Stark upbringing and had also asked the Imp personally.
The dwarf shook his head in humiliation and said, "I truly regret it. I do."
And he really did regret it.
Because by pitying another, he ended up becoming the most pitiful one.
The Starks are honest, simple, and well-taught, and since the dwarf himself admitted he was "incapable," everyone acknowledged the bride's purity.
After all, once this became known, everyone mocked Tyrion privately for his impotence—just as in King's Landing, when Joffrey the Great sneered that he should help his uncle consummate the marriage.
Because other people cannot understand how a dwarf thinks, just as modern women cannot comprehend how the older generation could find happiness in marriages without a house, a car, or a million in savings.
Tywin, however, seemed to understand Tyrion very well. Not only did he refrain from mocking him, he even urged him to eat the meat quickly to avoid unnecessary trouble. The old lion seemed to have a talent for becoming a moon singer.
After breakfast, they did not immediately head to the sept. Next came the gift-giving segment.
It was essentially a round of social obligations.
In the past, in the countryside, whenever a family held a wedding or a funeral, guests would at least be served lunch and dinner. A funeral might even last two or three days.
Because of this, people usually fulfilled their social obligations in the evening before dinner.
Nowadays, everything is contracted out to hotels. The food is not as good as before, and often not enough, yet there is only one meal at noon. As a result, the gifts must be delivered at midday.
In Westeros, the timing is even earlier.
At dawn, after the morning meal and before the wedding ceremony of the bride and groom, everyone begins offering their gifts.
Moreover, gifts must be given twice, or even three times.
Today, the gifts were presented separately to the groom and to the bride.
On the day after the wedding, there must be another round of gifts, this time for the married couple together.
Old Jon gave Sansa a small vest sewn from wyvern scales, and to his adopted son he gifted a bow made of wyvern bone.
Arianne gave her pretend cousin a fine steel spear said to be Prince Oberyn's favorite. She hoped he would be as brave as her uncle Oberyn.
To Sansa, she gifted a pair of pearl earrings made from chrysanthemum clams.
Littlefinger gifted King Aegon a rare shadow-lynx fur cloak, and to Sansa a Dothraki Sea white-lion fur coat.
The dwarf gifted Aegon a hefty tome titled The Valyrian Empire Chronicle, and to Sansa The Diary of Channa the Moon Singer.
"I've heard that all Starks have special gifts. You should study this. I used to think only Slaver's Bay was a battleground of gods and demons, but it seems Westeros has become unfamiliar as well.
We need our own extraordinary power," he said with a complicated expression as he looked at his former wife.
The dwarf had earned his title as the Wildfire General. With dozens of fire mages under him, how many supernatural secrets did he learn?
Using his position, he managed to squeeze quite a few valuable treasures out of his subordinates.
Unfortunately, he himself had no talent and could not learn any of it.
But he had often heard the Dragon Queen lament that "the Stark family is full of bugs."
Sansa glanced at Aegon. Seeing her fiancé nod, she put the book away and thanked the dwarf.
Afterward, nobles from the Vale stepped forward, offering riding boots, saddles, brooches, spurs, and silk tents.
Then Illyrio, visibly emotional, presented Aegon with a three-headed dragon crown forged of Valyrian steel and red diamonds. The diamonds were set in the dragon's eye sockets, lifelike and vivid.
To Sansa, he gifted an equally magnificent coronet.
Finally, the guests from Dragonstone stepped up one by one. Bronn gifted King Aegon a dragontooth knife with a weirwood hilt, and to Sansa a string of pearl necklaces.
Old Crab was absent, so young Crab came instead. He gifted Aegon a galley with one hundred oars, and to the queen a rare female cat with bright purple fur.
At the very end, just as everyone thought the gift-giving was finished, Old Jon rose from his seat again. He looked around and announced loudly, "Her Majesty Daenerys gifts Prince Aegon a full set of refined Valyrian steel armor, and gifts Lady Sansa a wyvern and a jewelry set named 'Heart of the Ocean.'"
"A wyvern?!"
"Such extravagance?"
"Does the Dragon Queen have that many wyverns?"
"It seems the Queen truly dotes on her nephew. But she isn't as shrewd as the stories say… she can't even tell real from—" The voice grew softer and softer until it faded completely.
Old Jon continued speaking, but once everyone heard the word wyvern, they burst into loud exclamations. Though the crowd was shocked, Aegon and Sansa simply maintained poised smiles.
After all, Aegon had already received a Valyrian steel armor set long ago and had even worn it in a duel.
And Sansa had already met the striped dragon. She was willing to change her faith.
In fact, Sansa had begun learning the teachings of the Seven much earlier, because when Ned took her south to King's Landing, he had already betrothed her to Joffrey.
In the North, no one cared if Sansa worshipped the Old Gods, but as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, converting to the Faith of the Seven allowed her to better integrate into the noble circles of King's Landing.
Even Ned did not oppose it.
Now that she was to marry King Aegon, changing to the common faith was inevitable.
Since she had to convert to the Faith of the Seven, how could she give the wyvern to Brienne?
Even though Brienne had long sworn her loyalty to her and would become Aegon's Kingsguard knight after the wedding, mainly to better protect Sansa.
After the gift-giving, the crowd finally escorted the bride and groom to the sept.
Littlefinger took Sansa by the hand and placed her in Aegon's care. The two newlyweds interlocked their fingers and walked together up the altar.
(End of chapter)
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