Vitoria Martell had one goal in her life: gain revenge for the murder of her aunt and cousins.
𝙰𝚛𝚛𝚢𝚗. 𝙱𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚘𝚗. 𝙻𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛. 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚔. Those were the names on her list (in no particular order) and that's why she sees the com...
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"And how do you answer, Lady Stark, for your brother's latest treasons?"
Sansa stares, blood feeling like tea in her veins, at the crossbow Joffrey points at her. With the slight press of his fingers she could be dead and placed next to her father's skull. Distantly, she feels her heart hammering in her chest, but can't be bothered to truly concern herself with it.
"Please, your Grace," she cries, "whatever my traitor brother has done, I had nothing to do with it!"
She senses Draco shift in his heavy armor behind her. They had learned, with great difficulty, that he is able to intervene very little in these punishments the king so enjoys doling out. If the king is not personally present, Draco never allows anyone to raise a hand to her. This has saved her from the likes of Meryn Trant more often than not; but if the King is watching, Draco must allow some blows to land, else they risk Draco's head as well and then she'll be truly alone. Luna is gone and she imagines her cousin is dead for challenging Joffrey sometime or other. Draco is all she has of home now, even if he is of the East. Still, she knows how he rages each time, when he carries her back to her quarters and glimpses the bruises under her gowns.
"Your brother slaughtered an army of Lannister men; the Northerners then fed their remains to wolves, and slurped the marrow of their bones themselves!"
Sansa knows there is no cannibalism in the North, only the rumors of Skagos, but she stays silent. She thinks of the way her body used to ache when Vitoria trained her to use a dagger, and how she would love to have one in her person at the moment, so she could present Joffrey's body to her brother when he marches on King's Landing.
"Killing you would send your brother a message, but my mother insists on keeping you alive," Joffrey scoffs. "Stand."
Sansa climbs to her feet, careful not to trip on the long sleeves of her gown. Luna had made it for her, silver with white and blue. It's not enough for her to be in danger simply for wearing it even if the silver borders on Stark grey, she can claim the white is for her purity and that the blue contrasted nicely with her hair.
"There are other ways of sending your brother a message. Meryn," Joffrey calls, and Sansa feels her stomach begin to flip. "Leave her face. I like her pretty."
Meryn slams a fist into her stomach before she has time to process the man moving; Sansa doubles over and is quite pleased with herself when she doesn't vomit. He removes his sword and knocks her to her knees again, and she wonders briefly what the point of having her stand at all was. She knows Draco is shifting, hand on his sword, and briefly she turns her head to seek out his eyes. He's the only one in court that never looks away from her pain.
He mouths something to her that she doesn't have time to make out before Joffrey says, "My lady is overdressed."
Of course, of course. She won't be able to keep her silvery Stark armor. Meryn grips the back of her dress so tightly the hem cuts into her collar bones and rips it from her shoulders. Desperately, she grabs at the front in an attempt to preserve her modesty, but one sleeve falls and exposes her entire back to the man's sword.
