REIGN | The Poppy Sequel

TWO

all my grief says the same thing:
this isn't how it's supposed to be
and the world holds my hope by the
throat and says: but this is how it is.

When does war end? How many people have to die before one side gives in? Before there is mercy? Before civility is restored?

Sansa had begun to question whether civility was an actual human characteristic, or if it was all just a guise people wore to further their own ambitions.

This war has spanned but months to a year and yet so much has changed, she can barely remember her girlhood. Remember Winterfell or her father's laugh, her mother's scent, or Robb's embrace. Sansa wants to remember them all even Arya, even Jon. She misses them day and night.

Now she will never see them.

Word of the Red Wedding had reached King's Landing but days after the massacre. Blood-filled stories were traded from drunken knights to servants, whispered down halls and into Sansa's ears.

Now everywhere she stepped people looked the other way. Her chances of survival had been completely severed and now Sansa was at the full mercy of the Lannisters.

There is nobody coming to save you.

Shae tried to get her to eat, but her appetite has shriveled up and died along with the rest of her.

Sansa heard footsteps and a new voice but she doesn't give them any mind until a hand gently caresses her own.

Aeron Lannister is there—for the first time sans his golden armour—sitting in the seat nobody had occupied moments ago. His smile his forced, weak, but a welcomed sight and quells the pain Sansa feels in her entire body fractionally. "You must eat something," he tries as Sansa pulls her hand away.

She stares into nothing.

How did they expect me to eat? To go on after what they did. To want to live after being orphaned.

"I lie awake all night staring at the canopy thinking about how they died. Do you know what they did to my brother?" Sansa asked. "How they sowed his direwolf's head to his body. They say they cut my mother's throat to the bone. And Hermione, how they raped her before they killed her."

There were, of course, differing stories but these were the ones Sansa heard the most of; how the Frey's killed her family on Lannister orders and left no survivors.

Once Sansa had dreams that Robb would burst through the gates of King's Landing, his army at his side and slay Joffrey while rescuing her and bringing her back to Winterfell. Once Sansa had dreams of escaping this wretched place and going home to her mother. Going home to the north and now those dreams had become dust.

I should've fled with Hermione. At least then I would've seen my mother, I would've seen Robb before I too was killed.

In truth, anything was better than the hell she was currently living in.

"What happened to your family was a terrible crime," Aeron said. "I didn't know your brother, heard stories of his triumph, but I didn't know him. He seemed honorable, strong. It might not mean much to you, but I have no doubt he died the same way. With a sword in his hand fighting for you. For his home."

The words cut deeper than she wished for them too and all too suddenly Sansa could feel tears brimming the edges of her eyes.

"Sansa," Aeron said in a softened tone. "You know it's true."

Sniffling, Sansa stood to her feet knowing another second here and she would break apart. "Will you pardon me, my lord? I'd like to go to the Godswood."

"Of course. Prayer can be helpful, I hear."

"I don't pray anymore," she said stopping to look at Aeron. He didn't want her her like a wounded bird, but something else. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on and she couldn't help but like it. "It's the only place I can go where people don't talk to me."

Narrowing her lips, Sansa walked away into the gardens in hopes to find peace in her decisions.