You can't promise— No one can promise that. No can protect anyone when they—
[ when they could die themselves. because that's what sits at the heart of her pain, she realises: that even the best intentions are meaningless in the face of death. how could it protect her, if a well-meaning man dies in service to a promise to her? who will stand between her and the stranger when he calls her to his side?
no one can protect anyone. she can't even protect herself. father is dead and mother is dead and robb and rickon and bran and maybe even arya — everyone is dead. the only people she had ever trusted to find her and take her back to safety are gone.
but she so desires to believe it. to believe the promise that he will rotect her, that he will keep evil hands from ever touching her again. she's desperate to believe that ser red, whose true name she does not even know, would be her knight in this cold and terrifying place.
she must survive. if nothing else, she must live to see ramsay die, and to keep men like red from making liars of themselves.
she falls into silence for a moment. draws herself small, smaller than she is until her crying has slowed and her eyes do not sting as much from the heat of her tears. when she looks up at red again, she has an apology aching for freedom on her tongue. ]
I'm sorry I've lied to you. I'm not Lyanna. I never was.
My father named me Sansa. You shouldn't— make any promises to a lie.
no subject
[ when they could die themselves. because that's what sits at the heart of her pain, she realises: that even the best intentions are meaningless in the face of death. how could it protect her, if a well-meaning man dies in service to a promise to her? who will stand between her and the stranger when he calls her to his side?
no one can protect anyone. she can't even protect herself. father is dead and mother is dead and robb and rickon and bran and maybe even arya — everyone is dead. the only people she had ever trusted to find her and take her back to safety are gone.
but she so desires to believe it. to believe the promise that he will rotect her, that he will keep evil hands from ever touching her again. she's desperate to believe that ser red, whose true name she does not even know, would be her knight in this cold and terrifying place.
she must survive. if nothing else, she must live to see ramsay die, and to keep men like red from making liars of themselves.
she falls into silence for a moment. draws herself small, smaller than she is until her crying has slowed and her eyes do not sting as much from the heat of her tears. when she looks up at red again, she has an apology aching for freedom on her tongue. ]
I'm sorry I've lied to you. I'm not Lyanna. I never was.
My father named me Sansa. You shouldn't— make any promises to a lie.