another piece of the Game of Thrones commission series going on between me and a few other writers. Sansa gets pulled into more political conflicts and conflicted struggles as she's attacked by her own aunt.
Sansa had been forced to retreat to the Eyrie, the old castle in her aunt’s name. It was all she could do, or so Petyr had said when they fled her own kingdom. The accusations, however false, would have landed her on a chopping block. So here she was, putting up with Aunt Lysa. She was kind to her… sometimes. The woman was about as stable as a weather vane, with moods that came and went quicker than you could notice. It was startling, to say the least, but something Sansa could bear with for now. She had no other choice besides a rather quick and unfair execution.
The place was high up in the mountains, the beautiful castle providing a view to match. The towers rose above the clouds from its perch above the rest of the world, overlooking its domain and beyond. The grounds had contained the beautiful Godswoods and the waterfall called Alyssa’s Tears that cast out a fine mist and plunged into the bottomless depths below. The castle had plenty to be seen, but Sansa couldn’t help but be aware she was being watched by her aunt.
As the one woman who knew the truth, Aunt Lysa was not much of a comforting presence. The older woman was sweet around her at first. She seemed nostalgic about her sister (Sansa's mother), and especially so about Petyr. The longer she stayed, though, she found the woman to be mad and unstable. Her moods switched erratically and quickly, often dangerously. There were moods that had triggered Lysa to spit groundless accusations about her and Petyr, even pulling sharply on Sansa's wrist or even her hair. She seemed trustworthy as far as providing a hiding place and Sansa was able to keep up a polite demeanor about the incidents, but it was her own personal safety that was in question now.
One night, she went sightseeing around the castle. The vast place had so much to see and admire, and she was comfortable with taking walks around the grounds. The Moondoor was the current subject of her admiration. It was a great, well-like hole through the ground in a part of the castle, acting as a sort of vertical window to the incredibly deep and beautiful view below the cliffs. The lovely view also provided an unbelievably long drop, so Sansa was up on the nearby stairs, standing on the dais and looking over the stone railing. The door is also used as a clean way to execute prisoners, but that is something Sansa preferred to not think about at the moment
"There you are, Sansa."
Sansa turned and saw Lysa approaching, alone in the entrance to the open chamber, smiling warmly. Sansa knew as well as anyone by now that a smile didn't necessarily mean friendly, but she returned the gesture anyway. The fact that her aunt used her real name instead of her alias assured her that she was alone. Lysa wouldn't want to bring down anyone's wrath on her castle, and more importantly, she wouldn't want to upset Petyr. There was no missing her infatuation with the man, and Petyr knew how to play her like a fiddle to get what he wanted.
"Hello there, Aunt Lysa," Sansa replied, accompanied by her pleasant but non-committal smile. Lysa stepped up to the railing beside her.
"Quite the view isn't it? It still gives me chills after all these years." Sansa nodded, eyes subtly darting between the older woman and the view down the massive pit ahead of them. Lysa went on with a bemused smile that somehow did little to put Sansa at ease. "Makes you sort of... step back and see how small everything really is."
Sansa sighed and leaned on the short stone wall. "I don't know about that. Things seem awfully 'big' right now."
Lysa chuckled and stroked her fingers down Sansa's hair. Sansa tried to blame the goosebumps on the cold of the mountain air coming up through the hole. The woman was thinner than she was. Paler too, and her hair a far more subdued shade of red than her niece. She had larger breasts that pushed out at her fine but simple dress. "Oh, you pretty little thing. You see things so simply, and in such a small picture." Lysa gestured at the Moon Door. "Look at the world below. Even as highborns, they barely know of our names. We're two of dozens of royals in the kingdoms." There was a moment of quiet that made Sansa shift her weight uncomfortably. She had grown rather comfortable here in the castle, but not with Aunt Lysa. The unstable woman kept her on edge, no matter how she wanted to go back to trusting everyone and believing that the sweeter songs and fables held some truth to them. She had been to dark places where those songs didn’t reach. They certainly would not protect her. "Why if one of us were to disappear, who would truly notice? Petyr, of course, but he would get over things quickly. He always does..."
It was Sansa's tension that saved her, as Lysa snapped and turned on her. She grabbed Sansa by her dress and hair, wrenching on both and trying to hurl her over the railing. The sudden and savage strength would have thrown Sansa right out of the Moon Door if her braced legs and one of her arms hadn't caught onto the railing.
"Stupid whore!" Lysa hissed through her teeth. "You won't take him from me! Not again!"
Sansa kept herself braced against the railing, knowing her life depended on it, but she looked back in wide-eyed alarm at her aunt. "What are you talking about!? Auntie, I've never-"
"Don't you 'auntie' me, you filthy little liar!" she snarled, pulling back on Sansa as if changing her mind. Instead she shoved her forward again, slamming her chest and stomach into the smooth, hard stone. Sansa grunted hard, but still held onto the railing with all her might. She had known Lysa wasn’t exactly stable, but she was blindsided by this outright attack. She had gotten comfortable here at Eyrie, to a point where living in a majestic castle like an actual princess for once. She wasn’t the cold and heartless woman she’d had briefly become; the person that Joffrey had forced her to turn into to survive.
While she struggled with that, she was simultaneously struggling to keep herself from going over the ledge. Lysa seemed to finally grasp through her frenzied brain that she wasn’t getting far with that approach, so she pulled sharply on Sansa’s red locks and threw her to the floor of their raised platform. “Thieving little whore,” Lysa hissed venomously, spitting on the stunned niece. “No one will miss you.”
Sansa was still too overwhelmed in disbelief when her aunt struck again. Lysa kicked her niece in the stomach, too caught up in her self-righteous fury to bother with anything beyond inflicting pain and spewing insults at her. "You think he wouldn't throw you away? Just because you are a beautiful toy to him like your mother?"
Sansa's aunt grabbed her by the skirt of her dress and threw it aside, baring Sansa's bare legs and thighs. Sansa gave a few frantic kicks at Lysa while trying to push her away, but the disturbed woman dragged her nails down the inside of her niece's legs. Sansa gave a sharp gasp from pain, but her noises only intensified when Lysa pushed past her legs to reach her real goal. Her rage lent her strength and ferocity enough to pin Sansa down and squeeze her talons around Sansa's privates.
"This is all he wants from you," Lysa snarled, climbing over Sansa's thrashing legs and sitting herself on her younger victim's body. With Lysa's clawing and grabbing and Sansa's flailing, she could feel her dress tearing amidst the struggle. "This is why he protects you like his pet whore! He came back to ME!"
"No! You're wrong! Stop!" Sansa wailed, even though she was far too distracted right now to deeply consider her relationship with Petyr. She justed wanted to escape. She just wanted to be somewhere that didn't house someone trying to kill or torture her. A small part of her wondered if there were no such place, but it was steadily getting louder.
The wide-eyed lunatic that was her aunt straddled her stomach and latched a hand around Sansa's throat. The younger of the brawling nobles gagged out of instinct when she felt the pressure on her neck. She threw a sharp slap across Lysa's face. It was meant to snap her out of her violent outburst than to truly hurt her, but at least she was starting to fight back. Lysa only seemed to grow more angry and insulted as she squeezed tighter.
"Auntie... please... don't..." Sansa sputtered faintly, eyes wide and watering in her confusion and fear.
"Don't you grovel at me after what you've done," Lysa hissed, eyes so full of hate that Sansa thought she could hardly believe this was a relative anymore. She knew this wasn't something that a loved one would do to someone. This wasn't what family should do. This was what people like Joffrey did to her...
That distinct memory of her near-death experience made something inside Sansa snap. She needed no goading opponent to guide her to the breaking point this time as she grabbed Lysa's wrist, pulling her aunt's arm away from her throat. Sansa wasn't able to fully overpower the madwoman; not with herself already clawed and beaten and Lysa still out for blood as she was. With a bit of extra force applied, she was at least able to stop her strangling. Lysa grabbed Sansa by the hair, lifting and slamming it down to bang her head against the stone with her crude but effective attack. Her head spun and a quick surge of nausea ran through the younger royal’s body.
With Sansa wincing in pain, Lysa pulled up on the hair and tried to rise. She started to move towards the railing once again, but didn't get far. Sansa tried to pull away once more, but when her aunt's grip proved too strong to break free, she grabbed the older woman around the waist. It halted her in her tracks, but Sansa wrestled her away from the railing and pulled her the other direction: right down the stairs.
Their instincts reigned for a split second, making their feet tangle briefly in a frantic dance for balance. Gravity won their struggle and both women went tumbling down the rocky steps. The open chamber filled with their grunts, shrieks and howls as they bounced and thumped their way down, clinging to each other relentlessly. Every few steps, Sansa would manage to land on top of her aunt, bringing the full force of that step on her only to get the same treatment a second later.
They finally spilled onto the lowest level of the room, both of them bruised and winded. Sansa rubbed her neck and hair, wincing as she slowly got to her knees. Lysa appeared to have taken the fall worse than she did, holding her ribs and belly region as she shambled back to her feet. Sansa was recovering slower from the fall, but she also had less to recover from. Sansa finally got to her feet, Lysa doing the same a moment after.
"You need to stop this, Lysa." Sansa spoke with authority now. It was a stern warning, not the pleading of a frightened girl. She didn't want this. She didn't want the kill or be killed world she kept having thrust upon her. But there it was, staring back at her in the form of her psychotic aunt.
"Petyr is mine," Lysa seethed back at her. "And so long as he sees HER in you, you're going to tempt him away from me." A sour grimace went across Lysa’s face, and Sansa thought she saw some kind of twisted delight tinged into the corners of her mouth. Perhaps Lysa’s madness made her see this as unleashing all her envy she had for her sister on herself. "You're going to die. And they will never find you."
Sansa drew a deep breath between her teeth. If her aunt was this far gone, there was no turning back now. “Far be it from me to prove a crazy old woman wrong...” Sansa replied. While she never smiled, it was something of a relief to get the insult off her chest after all this time being so courteous.
Lysa reacted with predictable rage and lashed out at her. Sansa was still sore from the ambushing attack, but Lysa was acting out of her delusional vengeance rather than practicality and logic. If the woman were thinking straight, she’d have sent some guard or assassin rather than doing it personally. So when Lysa went clawing at Sansa’s face, her niece grabbed her wrist and pulled it aside. She couldn’t entirely avoid the vicious swing, making it tear at the top of Sansa’s breast instead. It left a shallow scratch but mainly tore at the younger woman’s dress, ripping the fabric with her pulling fingers and baring one of Sansa’s tits to the cold open air. Her nipple was already hard from being in the drafty room and landing on the cold stone, and when Lysa’s attention turned to it, Sansa belted her across the chin with an unpracticed but effective punch.
Her aunt stumbled from the blow and caught her arm on one of the railings directly beside the Moondoor. She rubbed an arm across her jaw and a moment of hesitation appeared in her eyes. Sansa stood ready for her to attack again, but didn't press her attack just yet. Lysa let out a loud snarl and threw herself at her niece, grabbing her by the arms and tearing into her. She dragged her nails down the sides of Sansa's arms and flailed to tear at her breast and legs as they tumbled to the ground. Sansa didn't waste her time with the superficial scratches, throwing another punch across Lysa's face and then another higher at her temple. The disoriented woman stumbled off of her as Sansa took her aunt by the hair, lifting her head up briefly before slamming it down into her rising knee. Lysa let out a labored grunt, clutching her aching face with one hand before her other lashed out for Sansa's throat. The younger woman was ready for it as she shoved it aside, but Lysa drew her hand back with a savage slash of her nails that raked her shoulder just short of her neck. It drew blood, but Lysa looked at her with a mix of concern and renewed fury when she saw Sansa barely even flinch. She scraped it in the other direction, scratching over Sansa’s breast with a similarly lacking response.
"What is wrong with you?" Lysa demanded. She grabbed onto Sansa's naked breast and squeezed, gouging her nails into the soft flesh and only then did Sansa's face seem to furrow in concentration. She still didn't reward the lunatic with a scream of pain, but her flinching allowed Lysa to grab and tear at Sansa’s hair as well.
"I've had far worse done to me," Sansa replied coldly before she drove her knee up into Lysa's crotch. The woman's bloodthirsty expression turned to utter surprise as a sharp groan escaped her lips. She withdrew her painful claws from Sansa to clutch her aching crotch, face twisted with mixing rage and agony.
"You whore," Lysa groaned as she held her groin. "You filthy little cunt mistress." Sansa ignored her angry insults, simply hitting Lysa with a swift punch to the throat. The older woman gagged and recoiled as Sansa tried to grab her to hold her in striking range, but she only managed to catch her dress. The fine but relatively fragile fabric tore away from her upper body, baring her bigger, milky-white breasts as she struggled to breath and regain her footing by leaning on the railing to the stairs.
"I am NOT taking him from you," Sansa snapped, storming after her aunt and making no efforts to cover what her increasingly tattered dress failed to protect. "Just like I will not have you taking anything from me."
"Liar!" Lysa blurted. When Sansa drew close, Lysa threw a kick into her niece's stomach. Sansa at least flinched from that one, encouraging Lysa to throw a punch that bruised the younger woman's cheek. Sansa took the blow head on to power through it to hit her aunt back twice as hard. Lysa reacted far more intensely from the blow as she fell to one knee. Sansa was quick to take Lysa by the hair and knee her in the chest, crushing her bigger breasts against her ribs. Lysa shook violently with each hammering impact, causing a wet grunt escaping her lips. Her adrenaline and psychotic fury was starting to burn out, and she couldn't shrug off the pain as easily as the not cold but no-less determined Sansa. The tips of her breasts started to feel cool, her hardened nipples leaking over her and moistening the front of her dress.
Fearing she was losing what early edge she had, Lysa swiftly reached under the remains of Sansa's skirt and raked her claws over her niece's twat. Sansa gave more of an angry growl than a pained scream than Lysa would have preferred, but at least it was something. Her rage still fueling her fires, Lysa pushed and lifted her niece with her digging claws to slam her clumsily into the stone floor. She removed the attacking fingers from Sansa’s privates to bury them into her hair instead. The younger noble could smell the aroma of her own loins brush past her face before Lysa lifted her head and bashed it into the hard floor. Sansa’s determined scowl broke as her brains were rattled by the jarring blow. Seeing its success, Lysa straddled her niece’s stomach. Her legs spread over her niece’s midsection and she shook Sansa’s head with both hands. The vigorous banging of her head not only kept Sansa stunned, but jiggled Lysa’s breasts until her teats started leaking from the motion.
Lysa didn't bother with words as allowed herself to become consumed up by her delusional fury. She bore her teeth in a furious smile, only for it to be interrupted by a sudden fist launched into her eye. With Lysa's hands tangled in Sansa's hair, she had no means of stopping the startling counter attack. Her aunt gave a startled cry and fell back clutching her face. Sansa shook her head, Lysa's attack leaving her more dizzy than truly injured.
Despite her dazed state, Sansa forced herself to stand rather than risk being pulled off the dooming heights. Lysa turned to her angrily, hissing out some syllable of a threat or curse, but Sansa didn't bother to listen. She kicked her aunt in the mouth instead, dropping her back to the floor with another thump of flesh on stone. Sansa strode purposefully after her mad aunt, Lysa scrambling to pull herself back up to her knees. Sansa was ready to cut her off if she tried to flee, but while she looked as if her blind rage had faded some, Lysa charged at her niece as soon as she had her footing. It helped to justify the thoughts going through Sansa's head, not that she needed them especially justified in the first place.
Lysa grabbed her by the hair as she moved in with a quick and desperate lunge. They tumbled towards the Moondoor, but Sansa planted her feet before they reached the deadly opening. She struggled with the mad woman's wrists a moment before Sansa simply turned her head and buried her teeth into her arm. Lysa screamed but didn't relent, so Sansa kept biting into her aunt's forearm until she tasted blood and felt it run past her lips.
The older woman let go, allowing Sansa to throw a punch into her chest. Lysa gasped and fell back, seeming like she was bleeding for a moment before Sansa recognized it as the flow of milk from her mature bosom.
Both women looked at the stream of white in surprise, but Lysa was clearly far more used to it than Sansa was. She lunged once more, tearing at Sansa's skirts as she powered her towards the dooming hole once again. Sansa managed to brace herself once again, but Lysa reached under her dress and squeezed her niece's pussy.
"Damn your thieving cunt," Lysa hissed, though a twinge of miserable sorrow mixed in with her fury. Sansa gave a short gasp from the intimate pain, but she swung her fist into the side of her relative's skull. Lysa stumbled and fell to the cold ground, feeling the draft from the Moondoor blow at her hair. Sansa came after her while Lysa grasped the railing with one hand, kicking at her approaching niece wildly. The clumsy blows were easily ignored or evaded, but she managed to focus just long enough to throw a single sharp kick into the side of Sansa's knee. While it drew no cry of pain from her niece, her resistance to pain did nothing for her body's sense of balance. The knee bent with the kick and made Sansa tumble suddenly but harmlessly to the ground.
Lysa grabbed onto Sansa's torn dress and pulled hard. Sansa was still getting her bearings for a moment, so at first she thought that Lysa was trying to save herself from falling. Whether it was her intention or not, she was only pulling Sansa closer to the Moondoor as if her sense of self-preservation had been forgotten as soon as she’d entered the fight. Sansa’s, however, most certainly had not. She planted a foot against the railing and pushed away, the dress tearing loudly but leaving Lysa with nothing but a handful of useless fabric. Lysa looked at it in surprise, only for her startled expression to be slammed by a kick to the nose from Sansa. Lysa dizzily tried to rise, but Sansa climbed onto and sat on her stomach. She threw several punches into Lysa's face, pounding her weathered face side to side. Blood trickled from her aunt's nose and lips as she tried to cower behind her raised hands. When she seemed beaten near submission, Sansa grabbed her by what remained of the upper half of her dress. She used it to drag Lysa the last of the distance to the gap in the Moondor's railing, holding onto her aunt with her back to it.
Now Lysa looked properly afraid, the monstrous rage vanishing slowly from her expression. "Sansa... dear, please. Don't do this. You don't know what you're doing!"
"And you do?!" Sansa snapped at her. Her expression was stern and harsh, but not visibly angry in a conventional sense. Her heart pounded but her mind and eyes remained clear and purposeful. "You tried to murder me! Over NOTHING!"
"I... I didn't know what I was doing! I was just so... you're so young and beautiful, and all the time you spent with him..." she stammered starting to break into tears. Sansa could feel her own hand shaking, but she didn't release Lysa in either sense just yet. It was... logical to kill her aunt. It would make this place safe again. It would protect her and remove an enemy. She was beaten and powerless, begging for her life. Raw, cold logic said that she had to die. It was only her conscience stopping her now, and it was unclear how long that could hold out against the steady temptation of the easy way out of this awful moment. It was her own logic against her own willpower now. What she wanted versus what she knew.
"You're so much like your mother," Lysa went on with her pleading. "For all that happened, I loved her. We're family, you and I... just like she was."
“My mother was a kind proper lady," Sansa murmured to herself, a shadow of hesitation passing through her face, “she was a proper lady and she died because of it. I am nothing like my mother.”Sansa hissed. What doubt lingered in her vanished as the steely resolve pushed through it all. She gave a short, callous shove as she let go of the dress, Lysa giving a drawn out wail as she fell down to the earth far below. Sansa turned as soon as she saw her fall beyond the roots of the castle, turning to the stairs. Suddenly, she saw Petyr, silently standing at the top of the stair. How long he has been there, what he has seen and heard, she dared not think There was a guard with him as well as Marillion, Lysa's favorite singer. While the other two looked on shocked, Petyr held his customary slightly amused expression on his face.
Sansa stared at the interrupting party for what seems to be an eternity, frozen on the spot as she wasn't sure what to do. It was an act of passion to kill her aunt, but she did not regret it. The doors were locked by her aunt when she'd entered the chambers.
For a brief moment, Petyr pondered, an expression of callous amusement on his face, then, he gave a small shrug. "Knock the boy out."
Marillion turned to him and got out half a word before the guard bashed a strong hand into the back of his head. The performer went down in a heap.
“Ser Lothor, will you be so kind as to remove his pants and dump him there in that puddle of milk?”
Then Petyr stared down at Sansa with a grin that for once reached his eyes and said, “Run and get the guards, my dear. The singer has tried to rape you and murdered my wife. And, my dear, do remember the tears.”
Words of Lysa’s murder spread fast. Not everyone in the Vale believed that a singer could murder the Lady of the Vale, but whatever doubts they harbored were removed when three days after Lysa’s death, Marillion confessed before a group of nobles of his crime. The singer, clad in clean simple garments and fine leather gloves to hide his eight missing fingers, gave such an emotional confession that almost fooled Sansa.
It was well past midnight when the other nobilities fell asleep, but Petyr was still awake in his chamber. He was reading a letter by the candle light when Sansa had slipped quietly into the room.
“You summoned me, my Lord?” Sansa whispered quietly.
“Yes, I hope I did not disturb your dream,” smiled Petyr.
“Haven’t had much sleep since Lady Lysa died, my lord. The screams… I never would have believed that someone with such a beautiful voice could produce such horrifying screams.”
“Ahh, yes. The screams are...unfortunate. The Eyrie could certainly use some better soundproofing. Marillion is a most talented singer, but I’m afraid that he is extremely slow at learning new songs. And he only had three days to prepare for his… performance. But rest easy; there will be no more screams. The singer, tormented by his guilt has just followed my beloved Lysa out of the Moondoor. But the screams are not the only things keeping you awake, are they?”
“No my lord.” At that, Sansa broke down and wept for the first time in an eternity. "I had never meant to!" Sansa sobbed softly, her lovely face tensing with sorrow. "I didn't want to! I keep seeing the faces of the women I killed. My own aunt, Petyr! I never... they made me. They came to kill me and I never asked for any of this. I didn't want to become a murderer, but this damned world keeps betraying my trust and making me become one! But Lysa... You know what they say about kinslaying! The gods cursed it as the worst sin of all!"
“Hush now, my dear.” said Petyr consolingly. “There was once a time when I placed my faith in the Gods. But then again, if the gods intended us to be good, why did they forge such a harsh cruel world. There is no need to fear for hell and monsters. We already live in one where monsters roam large. The only question is, will you shut your eyes and let the creatures that hurt you and your family roam free, or will you do everything you can to survive and force justice upon those who harmed you.”
Seeing that Sansa has calmed down a bit, Petyr clapped his hands and a brown-haired, plainly dressed girl walked in. The girl was not particularly pretty, Sansa thought, but there was something about her postures that stirs people up. “This is Genna; she will be your handmaiden for the next few weeks and will be sharing your bed at night. She is quite talented: I found her while on a business trip in Pentos. Take tomorrow to rest and heal, In two days, you will start a new training. By day, you will be in my solar and help me with letters and receptions, charming the lords and knights whenever needed, and by night, Genna will take over your training. I’m afraid that between her and me, you won’t be getting much sleep for the next few weeks but time is too short.”
“In two months the stage will be set and you must be ready to play the central role. Many heads will soon turn for you, and many more heads will roll. For now, my dear, go to bed and grab some sleep.” said Petyr with a wicked grin. In the candlelight, the pink wax (that which had recently taken the shape of a man) that had sealed the letter in his hands seemed to glow blood red.
