Winter's Fire → Game of Thrones

xxxix. Adjusting

A/N + Trigger Warning: Okay so it's not openly stated in this update but it's hinted at that Alessia's struggling with PTSD and depression. I'm hoping to treat these topics super carefully so that no one's triggered by anything.

After Sansa found me in the Kings Landing Godswood, we spent the next day catching up. I thought hearing what Robb went through upset me. Hearing what happened to Sansa was a whole different feeling.

I was so angry for my little sister. I was angry that she had been left with these monsters. I was angry about how they treated her. I was angry about her being used as a pawn. But I was also upset. It upset me so incredibly much to hear what she had been through whilst I was in exile or with Robb.

Sansa knows thinking she was in love with Joffrey was foolish. She knows how she acted around him until Father's death was foolish. And it made me want to cry when she recounted how she begged for Father's life and was promised it, just to have his head cut off in front of her and thousands of other people.

It made me feel sick to hear of the beatings Joffrey would inflict either himself or by commanding his Kings Guard too. It made me sick to hear that she had been forced to look at the heads of Father and Septa Mordane. The Septa was a bitch, but she had cared deeply for Sansa even when I was still in Westeros.

Hearing she had been forced to marry Tyrion Lannister was what upset me the most. Whilst he apparently is very kind and has not forced Sansa to consummate their marriage, he is not the problem. Nor is his dwarfism. The problem is that Sansa was used as a pawn by the Lannisters because they could. Because no one else in our family was there to stop Tywin Lannister from doing as he pleased.

I just thank the gods that Sansa did not have to marry Joffrey.

She begged me to recount the events of the Red Wedding. I did not want to, but I gave in. The events are burned in my mind and as I was re-telling them there were times when I lost touch with what was real and what was my memory. Once or twice it felt like I was there, re-living the events of that horrendous night.

After a terrible sleep filled with nightmares I had to go and have a dress fitting. I was having some dresses made, but also some riding clothes. All of my clothes would be in a style which would allow me to keep my weapons on me. Lady Olenna was kind enough to offer that to me and I really could not turn her down or ask to do it another time.

I was now standing in the gardens of the Red Keep. On one side they overlooked the sea, so that's where I stood. Well, it overlooked what was called Blackwater Rush, which was where part of the Battle of the Blackwater took place. I wish Stannis had won that battle and helped Robb crush the Lannister forces. Things would have been so different if that were the case.

When I looked out to sea I thought about how I was most likely looking in the direction of Pentos. I missed it there. I hated my life as an exile, but it was a simple life. I did not feel as destroyed as I feel now.

Destroyed was a good word for it. I was not quite empty as I still had one person to fight for. And the pain in my heart will never let me truly feel empty. But it was as if I had nothing left to live for sometimes. Sansa was the only person keeping me alive because I did not want her to have to lose everyone. I did not want her to feel how I do.

I used to be happy. Happiness came naturally to me. Even in exile. Even after Viserys died. But now it is gone. It is like I am laying in the middle of a snowstorm. I have lost my will to fight and have given it all up to the freezing nothingness around me. I was just waiting for the snowstorm to either end itself or end me.

A little over a year ago I would look out at the see, thinking about how Westeros was in the distance. I longed for what I believed would be happier times with my family. And they were happier times. Until my dreams turned into a living nightmare. Now my living nightmare haunts me both when I am awake and asleep.