Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Midsummer’s Eve Festival
A soft summer’s breeze wandered through Winterfell Castle, and Sansa welcomed its warmth on her cheeks. She almost felt guilty for loving this time of year as much as she did, for it was the complete opposite of what the Starks were known for. Sansa would have preferred “Summer is Coming” instead of what her family’s true words were. Deep down she was a Riverlander, born in the North, with all she loved in the North—but her heart had traveled South. She smiled whilst threading some flowers into her garland, thinking about the festival tonight. It would not just be a celebration of the summer solstice and the bounty that summer had brought with it.
The Midsummer Eve festival was also where the young highborn ladies of age choose a man to court.
If there was something Sansa especially loved about the North, it was the unique traditions they practiced. All of her father’s banner men—and sometimes even those who were allied with him—would bring their sons and daughters to the Midsummer Eve Festival. Of course there was a pageantry to the whole event that spoke to Sansa in a way it did not to her sister. Sansa always had an eye for fashion and beauty, and summer was the best time of year for this. Winter was harsh, cold, and lent itself to black and grey, but this festival was a celebration of color and life. It was also a time to feast, dance and mingle with young ladies and lordlings that you wouldn’t normally. Sansa felt a nervousness rise in her stomach, for this night would the first of the rest of her life, what she had been looking forward to since she was a child.
Humming to calm her nerves, Sansa continued to weave flowers for this evening, knowing exactly who she would choose. He would be a controversial choice, she knew that. Her mother would probably not approve, mainly because this man was so different than the other lords allied with her father or in his service. For her father, she couldn’t be sure. True, they had fought many a battle together, but her father did not talk about this lord as much as he did other younger lords. At nineteen years old, she had known the man she would choose almost ten years—he’d been allied with her father at least that long, if not longer. She almost couldn’t remember not having him in her life, though it had been a tumultuous ride between them.
“There you are!” Arya’s voice rocked Sansa from her musing.
Sansa’s sister was pointing at her in the most unladylike of ways with her eyes open wide. It was the look Arya gave when she was up to something, but Sansa couldn’t be sure what it would be this time.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.” Arya skipped over to where Sansa sat, stringing flowers from a bowl for the final decoration in the Great Hall.
Eyeing her sister suspiciously, Sansa knew it was better to keep quiet and not give her anything further to chew on.
Seeing she wasn’t getting anywhere, Arya pulled up a chair, turned it and straddled it facing her. “So tell me, sister dearest... Are you excited for tonight?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Sansa countered, still trying to figure out what Arya was after.
“And... is there a special choice for tonight?” Arya wiggled her eyebrows. “You know a lordling... of some sort?”
Sansa couldn’t help but smirk at her sister’s questions, putting her wants out on the table without any sort of class or style. It was so typically Arya. Doing her best to keep her face as schooled as possible, Sansa took her time to reply. “Of course I do.”
“Well?” Arya was practically begging for it by now, and they hadn’t even been talking that long.
“It’s not traditional to tell anybody my choice before the festival,” Sansa continued, focusing more on her work than her own sister with the hope that she would finally go away.
“But we’re sisters.” Arya got up from her chair and stood next to Sansa, so as to better capture her attention. “We can share secrets and other stuff that girls do.”
Stringing a few more flowers on her garland Sansa tried to act scandalized. “You only claim me as your sister now?”
Arya rolled her eyes at Sansa, the frustration bubbling to the surface.
Seeing she had her sister thoroughly hooked, Sansa threw her a little hint. “I guess he’ll be arriving very soon to rest up from his long ride.”
All the sudden Arya’s eyes lit up. “He’s foreign! Hmm.”
Most of the northern lords and their families had arrived the day before, leaving the foreign lords to trickle in today.
“You’d better go wait to see who else has yet to come.” There was a teasing quality to Sansa’s voice that made Arya smile devilishly while she skipped out of the Great Hall.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Sansa shook her head and smiled to herself. She was indeed waiting for a foreign lord to arrive, the very thought made her chest tense with excitement. Choosing him would be like meeting him for the first time all over again—though hopefully different at the same time.
Sansa thought back to the very first time she had met this particular lord—all those years ago. She had been nothing but a child with silly thoughts in her head. A little girl dreaming of knights, kings, and happily-ever-after endings. This man she would choose tonight was the furthest from that. He had frightened her the first time she had met him, and in so doing, had made an unforgettable impression.