A/N:So, um, this happened. It kind of just popped into my head. No flames please-if you don't like it, just don't read it, duh. I don't own Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire, only my characters (I wish I did, but alas…) Anyway, happy reading~!
-Jax from planet JUKEBOX
In terms of a glorious death, dying in a desert definitely wasn't what I, Sarah Murphy, was thinking. I was a leader, in charge of a battalion that ended up getting killed. We were outgunned, outmanned and there was nothing we could have done but fight as hard as possible, so we did. I was the last one standing, literally, as the enemy dragged me away to stab me repeatedly in the stomach and chest and then left me to die. As the sun beat down on my face and I lay dying in the heat of the desert sun, all I could hope for was that I could bleed out as fast as possible.
My soldiers were dead, I failed them, I was dying, I failed my country and fought in a stupid-ass war that no one wanted in the first place. I only volunteered because I had nothing for me after high school. I was rejected from all of my university choices, I was broke as hell, and well, I was offered free university tuition, so I thought, "What the heck?" and did it anyway. I wasn't thinking that something like this would happen, where we wouldn't have a single chance of survival. Yep, and here I was, bleeding out. What I would have given for something better than this.
I felt my body sink a little further into the sand, damp with my blood, and felt it burning into my skin. All around me were the bodies of my soldiers, beheaded, organs popping out, bone scattered across the sands and in death, I was about to join them. I think I was a little happy at the time; I had no one waiting for me back home, I was miserable and if I lived, who else but me would have had to face these poor kids' parents? Damn...that was selfish. Fuck.
I felt the world closing in on me. My breathing slowed and I was growing numb with each shaky breath I took. Darker, darker, darker, darker, dar-
Great. There went the sun.
A little half past midnight, Sasha of House Santagar gave birth to Emmanuelle Rivers in the Twins. With sweat dripping from her brow, she stared at the ceiling praying to whatever gods would listen to bring her home, back to Dorne and the sun. Back to the way things used to be when she didn't have to worry about having a child or being stolen away by some lord. Back to when her fantasies of her true love never took hold of her mind and she hadn't turned into a stupid lovesick girl. Her blood was pounding in her ears and she had to breathe, she had to breathe, that's what Lady Sasha kept reminding herself, for the sake of her babe. Sweet little Emmanuelle would grow to be a Dornish beauty in the Riverlands. A shame she would never know her real father, she thought. After all, Walder Frey was a fool.
The door creaked open and the man himself stepped inside. "Oh good, you finally finished," Walder Frey drawled, the wrinkles in his skin growing more pronounced with each word, a disgusting old man as always. "You kept us all up, woman."
Clutching her child to her breast, she looked away. There was no need for her to speak with this man. He was foolish, a cruel old man who had a knack for fucking women younger than his own children. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of hearing her retort.
"Ah? Not going to speak? Well, what's the bloody name then, wench?"
Narrowing her eyes, she whispered, "Emmanuelle."
"You women and your ways."
She turned her head, furious and vengeful, with her mind still clouded by milk of the poppy. "Get out."
"What was that?"
"Get. Out." She was breathing heavily now, "Now."
"Please, M'lord, she has had enough. It was a hard birth," A nursemaid attempted to drive Lord Frey out of the room.
A grotesque chuckle left his throat. "Just another bastard to deal away," Lord Frey hobbled out of the room, leaving a heaving new mother and her child to be attended to by nursemaids in a room with a chill colder than the winds of the Lands of Always Winter.
Before death and the army, Sarah Murphy learned about memory formation and how after around 2-3 years of age, infants would start remembering events. Well, maybe not exactly like that, but it was what she was able to remember at the moment in time when she realized that after being stuck in some sort of limbo, she must have been alive.
As nonsensical as it was, it did in fact begin to make sense, as she began to see the face of a woman who must have been her mother. Yeah, that's right, Sarah was now a baby. After managing to grasp this inconceivable probability, she had to accept the fact that she would undoubtedly need to go through puberty. Again.
"Emmanuelle," her mother would call her. Who was this woman? She was without a doubt beautiful, with freckled olive skin, hair as black as a raven's feather and yellowy-gold eyes. Definitely exotic, so then, where were they?
"My Lady," a feminine voice called out behind her new mother. "Lord Frey wishes to speak with you."
The beautiful woman leaned on her palm as she rolled her eyes. "The great Walder Frey wishes to speak with me, how exciting." She drawled.
Wait. Wait. Wait a minute. Did she say Frey? With the word "lord" before it? Shit. Shit. SHIT. This wasn't anywhere she wanted to be, no no no. She was in FUCKING WESTEROS. No, Sarah-wait, wait, should she have started calling herself Emmanuelle? Might as well begin to embrace your new identity, right Sa-Emmanuelle? Okay...well then-Emmanuelle, get a grip! Get a grip, think through it just. Oh, what the fuck, she was a baby, she was allowed to cry.
So she let a big one rip.
Her baby was crying, screaming in fact, and it boggled Sasha's mind.
"Please inform Lord Frey that I shall see him within the hour." Her voice was barely above a whisper. In a world that seemed only now to rain around her, she found that the only beautiful thing in her life now was Emmanuelle, Emmanuelle who was now crying, much to her distress.
The maid behind her seemed exasperated and rather apprehensive. "My Lady," she started. "He means for you to be there now."
Taking a deep breath, Sasha turned her head. "Did he say why?"
"No, my lady, he only said to leave the babe in the nursery with the other children."
No, no not again. Her heart began to pound loudly in her chest. She would rather be anywhere else. She probably wouldn't even be able to see her darling child until two days time passed.
"I see." Gulping, she stood tall, straightened her posture and brought her child to her chest, holding her tightly for a moment. "What is your name?"
"Brunhilde, my lady." The young woman's voice wavered out of nervousness as she tightened her hands against her skirts. Sasha of House Santagar stood tall, head raised and eyes looking down at Brunhilde. "I am at your service, my lady."
"My dear Brunhilde," her Dornish accent still thick from a two and a half years prior, "I need someone I can trust to take care of my child while I am absent. Can I trust you to be careful and protect her from Lord Frey's...dogs?" She grit her teeth.
Brunhilde's eyes widened as she exuberantly nodded her head. "Yes! Of course, my Lady."
Signalling for Brunhilde to come closer, she placed little Emmanuelle in Brunhilde's arms. Emmanuelle's cries were beginning to lessen as her little eyelids began fluttering shut to sleep.
"Brunhilde," Sasha gathered her skirts around her, smoothing them out. "Please watch over my dear Emmanuelle. I am afraid I may not return in time to retrieve her tonight or tomorrow night."
And with a brave face, Sasha of House Santagar, stolen away at the age of seventeen, made her way towards Lord Walder Frey's chambers.
They called her a child prodigy, a brilliant little girl, a miracle child. Supposedly born five months early, little Emmanuelle was growing steadily for her youthful age of four. Her fourth nameday just passed, and from her mother, she received twelve books-medical texts, history tomes, and fairy tales. From Brunhilde, a porcelain doll, her favorite older half sister Margaret gave her a new blanket and her father….well, he gave her a lovely lecture about being a woman and how she would eventually need to give it up for a man who would only want her for something between her legs.
"It must be so miserable for you." She said solemnly.
Lord Frey looked down at his bastard daughter, with her eyes downcast and her thick black hair in her face. "What was that?"
"You must feel so sad that no one will ever want you for that wrinkly old piece of flesh that sort of dangles between your legs...assuming that still happens at your age." She finished, "I mean, after all, you must be a shriveled old prune all over by now, Father." Her arms spread out, emphasizing how wrinkled he must have been. He seemed to be shaking in his skin a little. Good, she thought, she should milk it even more and see how far she could take it.
"Is that why you like to bed women, especially younger women, so often? Because it makes you feel young again? You know, you are rather old, if I do say so myself, and I do say so myself. Were you alive when there were dragons? What about before then? How old are you? I would say a thousand, because Septa Lorraine said that age shows in one's wrinkles and you must have over a thousand of them! I hope I can live to be a thousand just like you father!" She babbled, hands waving enthusiastically and eyes wide.
As one might imagine, Walder Frey was not amused, however his sons certainly were. She has been sent to her room immediately and her mother sat by the fire roaring with laughter as young Emmanuelle told her tale. It was nice to see the woman smile since she was often seen with a solemn look on her face.
Although he would never admit it, Emmanuelle Rivers was Walder Frey's favorite daughter, and that was saying something.
As her most trusted friend and confidante, Brunhilde found it imperative to keep Emmanuelle and Sasha safe. It was her duty that compelled her to make sure suspicion of anything strange concerning Emmanuelle was improbable and that she was truly only a smart little thing for her age. Three days past her nameday, Sasha decided that perhaps she should speak with Emmanuelle about her own history.
Brunhilde's home was small, filled with jars of perfumes and beads and flowers picked from the fields around the Twins. Emmanuelle sat herself at Brunhilde's small table, plucking at the cloth covering the oak wood as Brunhilde was preparing tea in a kettle. Sasha stared out the window at the river right over yonder, watching the rapids flow by. She turned her head, black hair swishing as she walked to sit across from her daughter.
"Emmanuelle, I have something to discuss with you."
…
When Sasha of House Santagar of Spottswood in Dorne was a younger woman, she fell in love with a man and slept in his bed. She was sixteen, born in 266 AC, foolish with her own girlish dreams of marrying Prince Oberyn of House Martell. Her father, Lord Symon of House Santagar, told her she needed to open her eyes and stop fantasizing things that could never be. She believed her father would pen a letter to House Martell, arranging a marriage between their two houses.
She dreamt of Prince Oberyn giving her the world and bringing her by his side. She dreamt of bearing his children and growing old together, seeing their grandchildren, and hopefully great grandchildren, side by side. They would live together, they would die together, but more importantly, they would love each other until the very end of time.
One day, while on her way to visit her love, she stumbled upon him in bed with another woman. "My Prince! My Prince!" The woman moaned her love's name and Sasha Santagar's heart broke into pieces. She ran home, falling onto her bed, adorned with gifts showered unto her by the prince himself. On the eve of the ending of Robert Baratheon's Rebellion, she discovered she was pregnant and ran away. To bring this child into the world would shame her father, a dutiful and proud man, devoted to following the orders of his liege lord. She left home without a second thought and as she was making her way through the Riverlands in search of a place better to call home, she was stolen away by Lord Walder Frey's men. He raped her and when he found she was pregnant a few moons later (by that time, Sasha was already five moons pregnant), he brought her home to the Twins, keeping her there. He assumed that she was carrying his bastard.
She begged him to let her go home, to let her child come with her in order to escape this place, but he refused her. She told him her name, her father's name and her brother's name and all of their history and-what more did he want? What was she supposed to prove in order for her to go home? Why wouldn't he believe her?
She tried sending ravens home, only to be caught in the act and her letters all burned away. She grew cold and bitter and angry, crying herself to sleep most nights and others screaming into her pillow. Her belly grew bigger each day, a reminder of her stupidity. Perhaps she may have been a fool as a young girl, but she would not let this child grow to be a fool because that would be her undoing.
A little half past midnight, Sasha of House Santagar gave birth in the Twins to a bastard. Sweat dripping down her face and eyes drooping, she was exhausted. They called it an early birth, but they were fools, the lot of them. Turning her head to the midwife cleaning her wailing babe, she sighed.
"What," she swallowed heavily, "what is-" swallow "I want my baby."
A bundle was placed in her arms and she brushed the blanket away from the babe's face.
"You have a beautiful baby girl, my lady."
A girl. A little girl, thought Sasha. What a shame she would have to grow in this dreadful north, where the men were barbaric and the women too submissive. She would have to remedy this and give this babe a sharp tongue.
"What is her name, my lady?"
She thought for a moment, "Her name shall be Emmanuelle Santagar."
"She will be a Rivers, my lady, your daughter is a bastard."
"Well then, my daughter is a bastard. Her name is Emmanuelle Santagar," she breathed in, "And she shall bring truth, she will be the harbinger."
Emmanuelle sat silently while her mother told her long and painful tale. She never really thought her mother could have acted in such a manner. When Emmanuelle thought of her mother, she thought of a beautiful woman with a sharp tongue and an even sharper attitude. Her mother was a woman to be respected; when walking with her mother in the Twins, most people split in order for her to pass, she was a woman to be both respected and feared. A sharp woman, no, a strong woman, and it was certainly not what Emmanuelle expected from her mother.
She stayed silent for a moment more.
"Well, regardless of your past and my true parentage, I love you." She said with finality.
Sasha's entire face lit up as she laughed loudly, a beautiful smile gracing her face. "You are one of a kind, my dear."
They had a nice few days afterwards, until Emmanuelle found her mother with a noose around her neck a week and a half later.
After a wonderful day of playing "solder" with her half brothers in the tiltyard, Emmanuelle decided it would probably be a good idea to wash away the mud and dirt off her body and out of her hair. She walked through the dark halls and opened the door to the chambers she shared with her mother and as she opened the door, she walked in on her mother finishing the ties on the noose around her neck as she stood on a chair. The rope hung from the ceiling and her mother was on her tiptoes, making sure she finished her handiwork before she went and offed her head.
"Mother?" Emmanuelle's eyes were wide with fear. Her mother was going to leave her? With all these...strangers? But, why? "What are you doing?"
"It is time for me to go, my sweet girl."
"Go where? Why do you need to go? You can stay here, you don't need to go anywhere!"
"I-"Sasha choked on a sob. "I am pregnant once more, my dear. I cannot give life to another bastard, especially one fathered by Walder Frey. It is an existence too cruel and I cannot bear to do so to another soul."
"Please-please, please don't do this!"
With a watery smile and dead eyes, Sasha looked at her child for the last time.
"Mother, please don't leave me!"
"I love you. Don't ever doubt that. Be strong, my dear. May the men who attempt to break you fall at your feet in death." And with that, Sasha kicked the chair away, dangling like a fish on a hook as her neck snapped and her eyes bulged in their sockets, her young daughter screaming in the background.
Brunhilde found Emmanuelle staring up at her mother's dead body, tired and eyes swollen from crying. She said goodbye to a little piece of herself that day.
Sasha of House Santagar was dead, whatever small piece of life she had died with her the day she discovered she was pregnant for a second time. Emmanuelle Rivers of the Santagar line stood tall that night, braving for whatever darkness would come for her. It was time to prepare for this world, in this terrible, terrible realm of Westeros.
A/N:
So a few side notes: I like fact checking a lot so I like to make sure that if I decided that someone came from a house in Dorne that there would be a specific house that said person came from in Dorne. I also like checking to see how old people are supposed to be, so I figured that I'd use the ages from the TV Series instead of the books (ex: Robb and Jon are 15 in the books but 17 in the show when it starts). This means that most events are pushed two years back from the books-including births. No flames please. If you don't like it, give constructive criticism; it's a lot better.
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-Jax from planet JUKEBOX