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Sansa Stark smiled and lifted her face to the sun. It warmed her pleasantly and in way that had not been possible only a few moons prior when winter still settled upon Westeros.
Spring was here now though and the intoxicating scents of mud and freshly budding foliage was enough to almost make her dizzy with delight. The feeling of opportunity and new beginnings was in the air.
The wagon that she travelled on jostled her as she and a small group of the Stark household made their way to Storm’s End. They had been travelling south for only a dozen or so days now, staying at inns along the kingsroad when they were available and camping rough when they were not.
Sansa had made this journey once before, the memory not a pleasant one that she cared to recall in much detail. Instead, she focused on what was before her: Arya.
Her sister was getting married of all things – the thought of it causing a soft laugh to escape from her mouth.
“Something funny, my lady?” Ser Davos asked beside her, taking his eyes from the reigns in his hands to appraise her.
“No, Ser Davos. My pardons. I was only being nostalgic.”
It wasn’t funny, really. Sansa was glad that her sister had found happiness in this newly anointed Baratheon boy - Gendry, a former bastard from King’s Landing and now the sole heir to the Baratheon Lands and titles.
As children, Arya had never talked about getting married though. In fact, Sansa recalled that Arya had said frequently and loudly that she would never marry a lord and that she most certainly was not a lady, nor would she ever be one.
And yet here she was about to do just that. Soon, she would be known as Lady Baratheon, though Sansa doubted that her sister would act the lady in any traditional sense of the word.
Arya had travelled the Seven Kingdoms and had crossed the narrow sea. She had lived as an orphan and had killed men. She had helped Sansa and Jon rebuild Winterfell. She would not be contained by the simple life of a dutiful wife and Sansa just hoped that this Gendry knew what he had gotten himself into.
When they were young, Arya had always acted more like one of her brothers than how Sansa had thought a little sister should behave. She wore breeches under her dresses and was always coated in a layer of dirt. Her knees were scabby and her hair always a tangled mess. Their mother used to say that Arya was likely to be mistaken for a stable boy.
Upon Arya’s return to Winterfell a few years ago, Sansa couldn’t help but notice what beautiful young maiden her sister had become though. She was still strong and fierce, of course. And she was still as stubborn as a bloody aurochs, insisting on wearing breeches, now with only a tunic instead of a dress. But despite all that, or maybe because of it, she was beautiful.
Her grey eyes, so much like their father’s, and raven hair stood in sharp contrast to her alabaster skin which was only marred by a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones from spending so much of her time outdoors. Her face was no longer too long for her features as it had been as a child. Instead, it was balanced by strong eyebrows, thick lashes, and a wide mouth. And whenever she laughed that outrageous laugh of hers a small dimple appeared on her left cheek. No one would dare call her Arya Horseface again.
The memory of the name caused a twist of shame to pool in the pit of Sansa’s stomach and she turned to look at the contents of the wagon behind her.
Two rows of potted roses sat nestled between their party’s luggage in the back of the wagon, their crisp blue colour contrasting with the world of green and brown around them. To Sansa they looked out of place outside of Winterfell’s glass gardens, like a foreign confection amongst rows of peasant’s bread.
The roses were familiar to her and yet sometimes she could not quite believe that they existed, so strange they were.
Winterfell had always had winter roses in its glass gardens when Sansa was a child. Her father had told her they had been her Aunt Lyanna’s favourite, his eyes crinkling whenever he spoke of her. Both Sansa and Arya had loved the roses too, Sansa for their beauty and Arya for their tie to Lyanna whom everyone said Arya took after.
Sansa would never forget the jealousy she felt one morning when she was nine and Arya was seven, their family quietly breaking their fast in the great hall. Her father had come late and the family had already started without him. When he finally arrived, Sansa noticed he was carrying a beautiful winter rose in his hand.
“The most beautiful rose from this flowering,” he had declared as he approached the table and held it out for them to see. Theon had rolled his eyes but her father had succeeded in gaining Sansa’s as well as her mother’s and sister’s curiosity.
“A rose this fair,” he continued as he approached, “should only be gifted to a lady whose beauty it matches.” He was standing in front of her mother by this point and Sansa knew he would give it to his lady wife, her heart swelling at the romance of it. Her parents were as if out of a song and some day Sansa would have a husband just as gallant as her father.
But then her father had turned and placed the flower behind Arya’s ear, her sister’s soulful grey eyes betraying as much shock as Sansa felt. “A finer setting there never was,” her father murmured and playfully pinched his youngest daughter on the nose. Arya had smiled as if embarrassed and gazed intently at her porridge.
Jealously had bloomed in Sansa’s heart then, the memory of it still causing her shame today.
The rose should have gone to my mother, she had thought furiously. And if not to my mother then certainly he should have given it to me? I am the eldest daughter, a stream of angry thoughts now racing through her mind. Everyone is always telling me how beautiful I am, telling me how much I look like my lady mother. Arya does not look like mother at all, Arya isn’t – well, Arya looks more like father, she caught herself, her thoughts threatening to shame her even then and even if they were true – Jeyne had chanted “Arya Horseface” at her sister in the yard only the day before.
Sansa smiled at the memory now though. True, her reaction had been an ugly one that day but looking back on it now she understood that her sister needed that rose more than she or her mother did and her father knew it.
Arya hadn’t cared about pretty dresses and southern hairstyles like Sansa had. She could ride nearly as well as Jon and Robb back then and could shoot an arrow better than Bran. But she still must have felt the sting of being called ugly and Sansa was glad her father had seen that, even if she had been too foolish to see it herself.
Now Sansa carried the roses with her along the kingsroad as a wedding present to her sister. She was sure that Storm’s End would have a spot for them in their glass gardens. But Sansa hoped that her sister would consent to wearing one behind her ear on her wedding day, for a finer setting for these roses there could not be.