A Need to Suffer

Discoveries

Chapter Twenty-Two

Discoveries

The news of the trip's extension seemed only to make the days tick by much more slowly. To stave off boredom alongside an offer of kindness, Sansa took turns riding in and out of the carriage with some of the soldiers that were most weary. This allowed for Sansa not to feel as though she might go insane staring at the small space's drab décor as well as help all members of their traveling party to be better rested and prepared should an incident on the road occur. As it was, there were very few journeying the roads during this time of year, and the ones that were tended to be brief not wishing to linger any longer than need be in the winter's chill.

When Sansa did decide to brave the cold gusts of wind and flurried snow, she did so alongside Ser Davos or Brienne and Podrick (the two parties would not intermingle since Brienne still holding pangs of loyalty for Renly could not bring herself to trust a man that had been advisor to Stannis Baratheon.) Even at Sansa's behest that Davos was a good man that held the interests of the Starks close to heart, Brienne would thank Sansa for her counsel yet made no move to further the relationship. Ever vigilant, Brienne always refused to take Sansa's offer for her and Podrick to take a turn in the carriage (which Podrick never espoused that he'd still wished the offered break, but he visibly sagged at Brienne's proclamation that to keep Lady Stark safe, they would not be able to do so sequestered within the confines of Sansa's carriage.)

Brienne's sentiment, steadfastness, and courage was always appreciated, but something was niggling Sansa as the group traveled on. Although Brienne had never been overly talkative; when they had made the long trek to castle Black, the two had still spoken in sparse clips then and mostly of what their primary objectives were in reaching Sansa's brother Jon and how Sansa planned to retake their home from Bolton occupation. The mind cannot dwell on the grim for too long before a needed spark of optimism must prevail, and it was in those times that Sansa and Brienne found solace in fond memories of Catelyn Stark. Brienne had not served Catelyn long, but it had been long enough for the loyalty, that was no less a part of Brienne than air was sustenance for a gasping lung, to forge a lasting bond that the warrior woman would honor until her death. Brienne, Sansa knew, would always hold true to her vow to serve her, and she did not question Sansa's choices although since the reclaiming of Winterfell and after her return from Riverrun with Podrick, Brienne of Tarth had been particularly reserved. This was in part because she could not get Jamie Lanister out of her thoughts but more so because of the discoveries she gradually made of the woman she'd sworn an oath to attend.

Sansa had been so taken with first her revenge and then her growing fascination with Ramsay that she'd hardly spoken to Brienne since they'd resettled within the keep, but Brienne had never wandered far. In fact, unbeknownst to Sansa, Brienne had seen glimpses of what she had done to Ramsay that shook her to the core. It wasn't the violence that Brienne disagreed with as not unlike Sansa's father and at the onset Jon, she would have seen Ramsay simply cut down for his crimes.

That was not what bothered the Lady of the Sapphire Isles; what clung to Brienne now were the images that she had witnessed when her concern prodded her to check on her mistress' whereabouts. Brienne was a woman honor, but the acts that she briefly observed taking place beyond the dungeon door held anything but. Looking through the small slits carved into the dungeon door Sansa's abnormal choice of torture in having a large wooden phallic object inserted and bonded to the man in tightly fastened ropes had taken Brienne's breath away and ultimately marred her vision of the bold woman that now rode beside her.

The knight's horror only multiplied upon the announcement three days after the capture of Ramsay Bolton that he would become the night's entertainment not unlike an awful attraction at a seedy brothel house for even seedier men. Of anyone, Brienne understood the struggle of being a woman in a largely patriarchal culture, and she held an understanding for why Sansa had a reason to loathe Ramsay Bolton and wish him great harm for the atrocities he had reigned down upon her. It wasn't Brienne's place to tell the lady of the house in what ways to treat her enemies, and as long as she herself was never asked to partake or bear witness to what Brienne considered debauchery unfit of House Stark, she would not object.