A Shadow and a Wolf

Sansa XVIII

Sansa's fingers twanged the wrong string. They had begun so well this time. She thought they could finally get through the music without her doing a single mistake. She released her hands from the golden harp before her, and sat back deep in her seat.

"Don't worry, Sansa. It will come back with time. Everyone does wrong notes from time to time." Cerenna was trying to make her believe none of this mattered as always, but Sansa wished she could get back the talent she had before she left Winterfell.

"I was better at playing the high harp than everyone else in the North three years ago. Now I can't play two minutes without making at least three false notes."

"That was last month. Now you can play for five minutes without making a single false note."

"And I always make one at the fifth minute," Sansa replied.

Cerenna smiled with some exasperated appearance at her. "Let's stop for a moment. We've been playing for more than an hour now."

Sansa wouldn't argue against this. She needed to rest her fingers. More than a month ago, while they walked together in the godswood, Sansa and Cerenna had discovered they both loved music, so they started to play the high harp together. Sansa had learned to play the harp and the bells when she was at Winterfell. Septa Mordane taught her. However, she stopped after her father died, first because she no longer had a harp to practice afterwards, second because she had no taste for music anymore. But now, she felt free to start again. However, more than two years without practicing weren't without consequence on the quality of her play. She would need time before she could get back to the level she reached at Winterfell.

The harp before her was all made of gold except for the strings. Everything was made of gold here it seemed. Even the clothes had gold on them. That was strange but Sansa had the impression to reconnect with her childhood dreams. Casterly Rock was so much the sort of place she dreamed to live in when she was a little girl. The girl she had been would have thought the king should have lived here instead of King's Landing. The place was beautiful, a splendor for everyone who looked at it, an embodiment of the wealth and power of House Lannister. The castle was so huge that Sansa didn't have the time yet to visit it all, two months after she arrived. But Sansa knew better than to fall back into her dreams of little girl. Her dreams blinded her about Joffrey and King's Landing, then about Loras Tyrell. She wasn't about to do the same mistake with Casterly Rock and Tyrion.

All the same, Sansa loved her new home, and she loved or at least appreciated the other people living at the Rock. Sansa managed to be accepted by almost everyone here. All the household accepted her as their lady after some initial reluctance from some people. Sansa had to admit she owed a lot to Genna for that. It became very obvious to Sansa that Genna was the real womanly power in Casterly Rock before she arrived. Everyone obeyed her and no one dared to question her authority. Tyrion's aunt was introducing Sansa to all her duties as Lady of Casterly Rock. Some of her tasks were the same Sansa saw her mother perform as Lady of Winterfell. She had to greet guests, organize special events like feasts and celebrations, and run the castle and its household. The running of Casterly Rock proved to be quite a challenge. The castle was much larger than Winterfell and, in fact, Sansa was never really interested in the management of a castle. As a little girl, she assumed everything would be perfect and she would live without any trouble to face once she would be queen or a lady. The reality was far from it. The management of Casterly Rock implicated hundreds of servants, stewards, cooks, handmaidens, guards, squires, stableboys, singers, dressmakers, and many other workers who maintained the castle. She also had to act as some sort of superior lady for all the other ladies of House Lannister who would ask for her advice on many little details. All matters concerning family affairs were to be brought to her.