“What have you done? By the all the gods, what have you done to the poor girl?” 

“Dearest Uncle, I’ve made her a present for you! I’ve made her worthy of you! I’ve conquered her, as we will conquer her brother!”

She lies as still as she can in the bed, naked, broken, shaking. There is no blanket, no coverlet, and everyone is looking at her. Her body aches, but she does not scream. When the monster had gotten off her, her voice seemed to have melted away somehow, somewhere between her giving up the fight and him threatening her with a sharp shard of glass against her throat.

He assumed that he’d slashed her face with it in the struggle, and she knows he sawed off a lot of her hair, to mark her for his harlot. She felt warm liquid dripping into her eyes and felt warm blood trickling down her legs. She doubts she can even move if she wanted to. And there is a crowd surrounding her, a crowd that watched the assault of the little captured wolf and did nothing to stop it. No, they had reveled in the sport of their king, and he had promised them their turn in it when he had finished with her. 

There is laughing; everyone is laughing at her, and her face is turning all red. She moves her hand up to shield her bare breasts, knowing at the same time it’s all in vain. She is stripped now; her virginity taken. There is nothing sacred left to protect or preserve. She wants to die. She closes her eyes for a long, long time and wishes to fall asleep forever. 

She is Sansa Stark, the daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark of Winterfell, sheltered and loved and nurtured and protected like a beautiful little flower in her own home…

And now she is away from everything home ever meant, ripped out of her at the core.

And the dream of death is her only dearest desire. 

She hears someone yelling for the cruel audience to disperse, hears that someone wants to be alone with her. She feels so cold without her clothes, she starts shivering naturally. Then she feels…touch. Cold touch, hot touch, she doesn’t know. Cold feels hot against her skin, and hot cold. She recoils. Oh, oh, is it happening again? Oh, yes…they will all pick up where the boy king left off…

“Lady Sansa…” It’s the Imp’s voice. “Sansa, child…”

Oh, it’s him…the demon monkey…he’s looking at her, all naked, she knows he is…and he loves to touch women, everyone knows it…he’s a dirty-minded little man…

She can feel the glass shard still with her, in the bed. She clutches it, cutting her hand, and on an instinct, she slashes at him. It’s all a futile effort; she has no control over herself, and she is held down, and the weapon yanked away from her. 

“Sansa! Stop!” 

The rebuke from him chastens her, freezes her. Strange how she suddenly feels guilty for trying to hurt another, after she had just been so sorely hurt. She thinks he will make her pay for it in his rage that she has surely aroused. He is a man of temper, everyone knows that. She meets his eyes in the dark, waits numbly to feel glass bite through her neck, as Joffrey had threatened. She lifts her chin a little to make it easier for the sharpness to slice. 

Then she hears the half-man exhale and cast the glass onto the floor. She shivers at the clang it makes. Again, she tries to meet his eyes, mismatched in color, tries to read them through the glassy sheen of them, barely visible in the light of the dying candle. They keep darting from her body all open, to her eyes all open, as if tearing him from one side to another of his own nature. It unnerves her. 

“What…what would you…have me do, my lord?” Her voice shakes like the wind beyond the window. “How should I…please you?” She is defeated, she knows she is. And she is too broken to keep fighting against it. She has nothing pure left to preserve. Better learn how to make it less painful, at least…learn to be a pliable little toy…and try not to scream…

“No, my lady…no…” Now she is surprised to hear that his own voice is shaking. And she feels a sheet being wrapped around her, covering her up, shielding her, like a mantel of protection. 

“But you are…” She tries to define him by what others have told her, the trauma wearing away her sense of what to say and what not to say. She just doesn’t care anymore. Whatever comes out of her mouth will be unfiltered. 

“I know what I am, but I am not this…” His voice breaks, an intensity rising to the surface. “I may be a bad man, a very bad man…but I am not…not like this…I am not…this…” 

He is a Lannister; he could be lying. But somehow, she doesn’t think he is. She wants to believe him. She has no choice but to hope she can believe him…

“Ohhh…” She doesn’t know why she says this, but it also breaks for her into a flood, rushing down her cheeks, and then she’s half-weeping, half-screaming, and she’s pulled tight against the small frame of a man, who’s trying very hard, she thinks, to comfort the uncomfortable.

And before she knows it, she has thrown her arms around his middle and is clinging on for dear life, simply because she cannot think it all out and he is the only one she has to cling to. Maybe if she clings tight enough, long enough, he won’t be able to turn on her, to hurt her…

She wonders how long she cries into him. She feels his heart beating, pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat…an enemy heart, a little lion’s heart, beating softly inside. Such a strange thing. She couldn’t feel Joffrey’s heart when he was on top of her. But she can feel this man’s heart. It’s warming her up.

“He didn’t even…kiss…kiss me…I thought…I thought that’s how…how it’s done…I thought…” She is rambling, she knows she is, she is not making sense, she is a stupid, foolish little bird, gushing out to an enemy who will surely attack her as soon as he has the chance. But she keeps going anyway. “It wasn’t anything like…like they said it would be…”

She feels his hand run through her shorn hair, and he is quiet, so quiet, for there is nothing fitting to be said. Then he whispers in her ear, “Is it important for you…to be kissed?”

She imagines Joffrey’s first kiss, when he was still her courtly romantic knight, and she shudders. The Imp cradles her more closely, trying to warm her more, warm her and thaw her out from the horror icing her over. 

“Sansa, will you trust me, hmm? Will you lean back a little, and close your eyes for a moment? I won’t hurt you…I promise I won’t.”

She hesitates. She doesn’t want to move or do anything, lest he take advantage of her, the Lannister lion’s claws coming out and tearing her to shreds. But perhaps disobeying him will bring about the same thing. She is afraid, unsure of the outcome, but does as he says. 

She feels her eyes throbbing under eyelids, waiting for something…she knows not what. Then a touch, lips’ skin touching lips’ skin, and she’s afraid, she trembles and blinks. Then somehow…she trusts. She doesn’t know why she does, but she’s not afraid for the passing of moments, and her mouth lingers on another mouth that isn’t hurting her. He’s kissing her like she was still all whole…an innocent, a virgin, a lady…

And then she’s crying again, crying all over him, and slipping her face down onto his shoulder. She feels sweat on his neck, and the way his body is waxing and waning, the way suppressing sobs wracks the one trying so hard to conceal the torture. 

“Talk to me,” she chokes. “Talk to me about…anything…all night…oh, oh…don’t leave me alone and quiet, I…I’ll go mad…” 

 “I’ve never had a problem with talking,” he mutters, trying to make light of it. “Except for doing too much of it. Want me to tell you how I tried to run away from home once, when I was your age, on a horse too large for me?”

And he goes on like that, on and on and on, telling little drabbles of nothingness that make her feel safe, and finally, quietly lull her to sleep with her head on his breast.