Tired of pointless drama,
Longing for a colourless day,
I was so naively straightforward,
I decided to play with fire.
(c) Chancellor Guy
Letters sealed with the royal seal and sent by the royal raven travel quickly, and two weeks later, a reply arrived from the Wall, addressed to the king and not written by Jon Snow. From the reply, Lionel learned that Jon was valiantly serving, had been wounded in battle, received thanks from the command, and was now on the mend. It was good news that was too good not to share. However, if someone had asked Lionel at that moment why he had taken the letter to Arya instead of showing it to all the Starks at once, Lionel would have been hard pressed to find any explanation for his behaviour other than stupidity.
"Arya behaved like a boy all her childhood: she rode horses, shot a bow, learned to fence," but she had a woman's heart, and where Lionel saw military exploits and glory, Arya read that Jon had nearly died and might be maimed.
"What are you so happy about?" Arya said angrily, almost crying. "Let's go immediately, we have to get him out of there before they kill him. It's only been six months, and his comrades are already writing letters for him.
"You're out of your mind," advised Lionel, who over the past few weeks had almost shaken off his obsession and tried again to treat Arya as a friend, and therefore blurted out everything as it was, falling into the same trap again. "I'll go, but think about how it will look: as if I stole you away and ran away from my fiancée.
"I'm not going anywhere without Sansa!" Arya said indignantly, lowering her eyes, but this feminine attempt to turn everything around as if it was Lionel who had come up with the scandalous idea of leaving together, and not her who had suggested it first, did not work at all. Moreover, Lionel easily saw that his words had hit much closer to his secret forbidden dream than to an unfounded outrageous assumption.
"We'll talk about it," Lionel promised and quickly left before he could say anything else, which was the right thing to do, because by promising to persuade Sansa to travel to the Wall, he had committed himself and Arya to several months of such close company that it would have been appropriate not only to pray to the Old Gods, but also to offer them bloody sacrifices.
Lionel realised the meaning of his rash promise as he was climbing the stairs, but he did not back down and returned to Arya an hour later.
"I convinced her," Lionel reported succinctly, and Arya didn't like his brevity.
"What did you say to her?" Arya asked, feeling her heart leap like that of a conspirator who had almost been caught.
"The same thing I told you," Lionel replied simply, although he wasn't being entirely honest: he left out the part about how he had convinced Sansa that not going was not an option. "You know Arya, you can't stop her," Lionel said to Sansa. "We'll have to go anyway, but first we'll look for her," and Sansa was unexpectedly a little jealous. "Well, you'll find her," Sansa cut Lionel off, "you'll even carry her home in your arms." Lionel apologised in his usual way, and the persuasion therefore dragged on a little.
"Are you stupid?" Arya exclaimed indignantly, feeling herself blush: it was one thing to dream alone about how she and Leo would ride hand in hand all day long, but it was quite another to imagine the straightforward and naive Leo saying to his sister: "Come on, let's go, or all of Westeros will think that Arya and I ran away like Rhaegar and Lyanna."
"Now it's your turn to write a letter," replied Lionel cheerfully. "I've even thought of what to say, you can write it down: 'Dear Dad! I love you very much, but I also love adventure. And in the capital, adventure is only to be found where it smells bad and people use bad language. And that's not right. So I'm leaving. Don't worry about me, I won't get lost. I know how to fence, and I don't need to embroider on the road."
"And one more thing: we won't stop in crowded places," suggested Lionel, looking at the laughing, happy Arya and pushing away thoughts that if you were jealous for no reason, you shouldn't suffer in vain and unfairly — let there be a reason to be jealous. "Otherwise, the crows will fly after us: 'Another girl has disappeared, her name is Arya, she's four and a half feet tall, with boots on. She has short, thick brown hair, warm, sparkling grey eyes, and the most mischievous smile in Westeros. She also responds to the nicknames Laska, Dove, and Kitty..."
Well, Arya did expose Lionel for that.
When Lionel saw Sansa for the first time, he was blinded and even shaken. Knowing full well what a weapon female beauty could be — Cersei was his mother, after all — Lionel wisely decided to watch Sansa from afar until the initial shock wore off, but the gods clearly did not approve of the prudent Baratheons, and so Lionel walked arm in arm with Sansa in the solemn procession before the dinner in honour of the king's arrival at Winterfell, sat next to her during the dinner, but could not get used to the red mane that flew up with every turn of her head, nor to the sparkle of her blue eyes. And as an additional mockery of the gods, Sansa was almost four years younger than him, still just a girl, and therefore the only thing that could at least temporarily extinguish the fire that had flared up in Prince Baratheon's ardent heart was impossible and unthinkable: - to kiss her all over, leaving not a single inch of her body unexplored.
The next day, Lionel was convinced that the gods had a peculiar sense of humour: his father invited Lionel to his chambers and congratulated him on his engagement, also informing him that both Sansa and her father, the strict and honest Lord Eddard, would be travelling with them to King's Landing. It was a peculiar version of purgatory, unknown to the theologians of Westeros: the prince, stunned and in love at first sight, was promised heavenly bliss, but on condition that he would first be roasted over the slow fire of his passion for several more years, unable to forget himself in debauchery or escape the beauty that had captured his heart.
Lionel tried the first part, though: in Winterfell and on the way to the Trident, he drank an unusual amount even by his standards and partied hard, but it didn't help much: in the morning, he'd wake up with a hangover, then it was time to take Sansa away from Cersei's tent, where she wouldn't learn anything good, and then the remorse for the evening's antics reached a new level when Lionel rode alongside Sansa, a little way off the road, and if Sansa had been older and aware of the power of her beauty, she could have twisted the prince into a pretzel at that moment.
The boil burst on the Trident when the prince decided to improve his health in the morning, then added more, and this resulted in unacceptable loose and boastful behaviour, ending in an ugly scene by the river. The next morning, Lionel overslept, went through another bout of remorse, and went to Sansa to apologise, although his fair heart, freed from the alcoholic haze, was already telling him that he should first go and try to find a doctor for the butcher's son, whom he had miraculously not cut in half, and actively repent to Lord Eddard, who was searching for the runaway Arya. But perhaps the gods had grown accustomed to the dashing Baratheon lords over the past three hundred years and looked upon their drunkenness, passion, and daring as a game of the elements established since time immemorial, and on this morning, Lyonel was able to see Sansa with a pure heart and unclouded eyes.
In the month since they had met, Sansa had fallen in love with him, even though she had not seen him at his best — during the day he was not always charming and sometimes awkward, and Sansa could not help but hear about his evening activities. But Sansa's tender and faithful heart forgave him everything and justified him in everything, and even now she did not want to see him guilty, preferring to simply forget what had happened. If the heavens had opened and the Virgin Mary had descended to Lionel, walking on air, he would have been less shaken than on that morning when he realised what a treasure he had been given, how terrible it would be if this loyalty and capacity for love were directed towards an unworthy person, and how great his guilt would be if he were to become that unworthy person.
Every prince prepares to accept the crown, aware of it as a burden and as an obligation to be worthy of it, and this preparation helped Lionel pass the test of fate with dignity. Prince Lionel made no promises he could not keep, either to himself or, even less so, to Sansa, simply promising himself not to appear near her drunk or hungover. He continued to see Sansa in the mornings, spending the afternoons with his men or with Barristan Selmy, who had joined them at the Trident and was still his teacher. Lionel had changed without changing, simply holding on to the best in him that had always been there, but now neither Sansa nor Barristan could help wondering where it sometimes disappeared to.
Sansa sometimes envied Arya's ability to get along with all kinds of people, and now she even envied her ability to sometimes find herself in unsavoury company, because Sansa had already learned everything there was to learn from the respectable women around her, and now she probably needed some unsavoury conversation partners. Lionel had somehow made his way across the rooftops to her bedroom window and appeared every day at nightfall, nimbly climbing the sheer wall, but the ballads describing such visits by knights in love were obviously full of lies. The young king was taciturn and certainly not eloquent, although every word he uttered made Sansa's head spin, and he had no intention of holding Sansa's hands and gazing at her with loving eyes: in the semi-darkness, he immediately pressed her to him, as if trying to embrace her with his whole body, sought her lips with his, then began to kiss her neck, moving lower, and then it was time either to break free or to torment him again with kisses, and this was already a little indecent, because even the cook preferred not to mention it in Sansa's presence. Sansa felt like a firm and slightly painful pressure in her navel. And Sansa felt sorry for her passionate and self-sacrificing Leo — she felt that it was hard for him, as if it was being transmitted from body to body, and Sansa's head also understood something, even if only in fragments, having heard all sorts of things in her father's house: if there is always a guard passing by your windows at midnight, it is better not to sit by the window with romantic thoughts, lest they be disturbed by the harsh truth of life contained in stories about dismissals and leave.
The respectable women who surrounded Sansa undoubtedly knew the natural way out of the situation, but it was both frightening and unseemly before her wedding night, and so Sansa needed the advice of women who were indecent, bawdy and scheming, and Arya, with her ability to make inappropriate acquaintances, would be of no use here: Arya was still young, and all she got from her dubious acquaintances was remedies for burns from wildfire and ways to tease lion tamers.
However, Arya could have been of some use: Sansa sensibly reasoned that someone who served her father for his money would be useful to the whole family, and she waited for Syrio Forel after his lesson with Arya.
"Serio, teach me how to hide," Sansa demanded, forgetting the rules of etiquette in her excitement, and not particularly intending to follow them: Serio was not a real dance teacher, he was a mercenary and a professional swordsman, and military men do not take offence at directness; it is even easier for them to understand.
"Why do you want that, my lady?" asked Syrio, who until that moment had considered Sansa a model little lady and was a little taken aback by her hunting attire.
"I'm going to play hide and seek for money," Sansa replied sharply: she was soft and affectionate with Leo, but she had harsh and cheeky answers for others, which, as Sansa already guessed, would please Leo — men love cheeky girls, but only when they are cheeky to others.
"You're much more like your sister than I thought," smiled the stern Syrio. "Perhaps you should join our lessons."
"I'm not going to kill people," Sansa replied seriously. "And without that, there's no point in picking up a weapon."
"Very well," Syrio bowed his head respectfully. "I will try to help you. For starters, we will cut off these buckles..."
Over the next few days, Sansa seriously expanded her knowledge of the Red Keep and its inhabitants, and after her lessons with Syrio, her only fear was bumping heads with Arya in some narrow passageway. But Arya seemed to have given up catching cats and taken up Braavosi gymnastics, and Sansa made her way unhindered even to the secret passage from the right hand's chambers, which led her to a very unsavoury place where Robert Baratheon's last illegitimate daughter lived and where the mistress, standing next to the secret door, was giving instructions to beginners in a low, drawling voice. "Just don't let Leo ask me where I learned that," thought Sansa, making her way home through the dark secret passageway and pushing away thoughts that men were learning practical skills in exactly the same place.
Lionel didn't ask anything that evening; he just froze, as if afraid of scaring Sansa away when her right hand slipped down where it shouldn't have, and only came to his senses when Sansa was momentarily distracted by the unfamiliar design of men's breeches.
"If you don't want to, don't," Leo warned her, but Sansa stubbornly shook her head.
"Not that," Sansa whispered barely audibly, hiding her face in Leo's chest. "It'll be easier for you. Just tell me what to do, I don't know anything."
Leo didn't need to be persuaded, and he placed Sansa's left hand on his chest, which embarrassed her even more, but she couldn't back down. She just couldn't kiss him, no matter how hard he tried to lift her head — she was too ashamed to look him in the face when she did that, let alone look down and see what was happening there.
But then it was very nice when it turned out that Leo didn't have to go anywhere, and she could lie down next to him on the floor, resting her head on his shoulder, and he would be so close to her that Sansa thought she could stop hiding in the secret passages of the Red Keep and just ask Leo everything, since half of what he said was incomprehensible anyway. Although Sansa immediately realised that she could only ask him at a moment like this, which she would never have found without her journey through the dungeons.
Lionel, meanwhile, thought that the trip to the Wall had come at just the right time: firstly, he would no longer have to climb roofs, and secondly, women's riding clothes, with their slightly loose trousers, were very well suited for similar indecent activities, and in this case it was much easier to get away with such attire than to climb under several skirts. Perhaps Lionel should have been a little ashamed of such base thoughts, but Sansa's thoughts were no better.
"Do the septons condemn all this?" Sansa asked, slightly annoyed at herself for using the word "all"; she had heard enough, but there was no need to reveal all her knowledge right away. "Well, the thing that prevents children from being born.
"I don't know," Leo replied cheerfully, but kept all the jokes he knew about septons and their rich sex lives to himself. "What about you?"
"We have the wildlings, they're not so interested in people," Sansa replied seriously. "You just can't lie to them, the wildlings don't answer liars. They say that the wildlings ask everyone, 'Who are you?', and when an unworthy lord appears before them as a lord, the wildlings stop hearing him.
"I love you," said Lionel. "Do you want us to have a wedding in the gods' garden, so you know that the chardreva will hear me?"
"I believe you anyway," replied Sansa happily, and yet she decided to look down, where the breeches were still rustling. However, Sansa had heard from the conversations of respectable women that the memorable night could be long and restless.
***
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