The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

3.10

The Mock Queen makes a quick stop to the kitchens to leave a letter for a little bird and collect their food before attending to Sansa in her own chambers, a fire growling fiercely in the hearth as the night begins to fall upon them, subtly. Placing the meal on the table, Gabrielle gracefully steps up beside Sansa on the balcony, looking over the sunset-coated ocean whose waves pound in their ears and silence their words. She expects the girl to be unmasked--and though she is, Sansa is far from teary-eyed, but a picture of steely strength in her cheek.

"They know now. You're safe to cry," Gabrielle tells the taller girl, placing a hand on the back of her arm and brushing her thumb against the soft fabric fitting of Sansa's facade. And though she does not expect the girl to suddenly burst into tears, Gabrielle's surprised to find no change in Sansa's facade, that strength permeating through and unwavering as the sun diminishes below the horizon.

After a moment, the girl turns to paint a picture of perfection before the eyes of the strong female who long-ago saw the same in the eyes of a child, and now a strong woman. She knows then that something has changed in Sansa, that the death of her family has forced her into a new realization, which Sansa admits with blatant honesty as she responds to Gabrielle's gesture: "Crying will get me nowhere, not when their killers still live. I will not be the teary-eyed doe any longer."

And, for the first time in their friendship, Gabrielle smiles at Sansa as if they are equals, not a master and prodigy, but two cunning, intelligent women in a game of thrones. Those green eyes turn back to the twilight sky, a small grin twisting her cheek with a sense of victory over their enemies, finally revealing the truth of her business, "Plans are already in the works for your first fiancée." Sansa's eyes glitter at that, a sense of inspiring awe over Gabrielle's commitment to do the impossible. Her eyes turn back to the Stark then, more intent and absent of the smirk before, adamant: "But the Freys and Boltons are untouchable from King's Landing. We must get closer. You must get closer. And the only way you shall do that is through Petyr Baelish."

Sansa nods at her then, understanding the charge for what it is, responding solemnly but with conviction, "Tell me what I need to know."

If anyone were to see the two on the balcony that night, they'd see two girls of different families, backgrounds, and pretenses--united in the same expression of potent power in their equally malicious smiles as Gabrielle tells her all she knows of the Stark's--and Gabrielle's--enemies, all that Sansa needs to know to create her own plots and plans. And so, the prodigy becomes the master, and the master becomes queen.

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Two days later finds Walder Frey and Roose Bolton kicking back in the great hall of the Twins, eying the maids rather crudely as they wipe the floors of blood. And though the two are nowhere near friendly, Walder Frey and Roose Bolton killed a king together, and that creates a sort of kinship even between strangers. And as such, that kinship is built on the tales of the horrors that the murdered imposed upon them, the Frey quicker in his revelations and not noticing the Bolton's silence.

"'The late Walder Frey,' old Tully called me because I didn't get my men to the Trident in time for battle. He thought he was witty," the elder cries haggardly, his voice in a mocking tone as he mimics the dead man, "Look at us now, Tully. You're dead, your daughter's dead, your grandson's dead, your son spent his wedding night in a dungeon and I'm Lord of Riverrun."

Roose is not so drunk in the new power as Walder Frey appears to be, again reminding the man that, "The Blackfish escaped."

"An old man on the run with no allies," Walder scoffs, "I have Tywin Lannister backing me. Who does he have?"