(Made rebloggable by request!)
Sansa curls her knees to her chest and huddles in the corner of the cave, her furs wrapped tight around her. The sticky residue of dried tears still lingers and cracks on her cheeks, and she feels a warm burn of shame as she tries yet again to wipe it away.
“You ought to be grateful- we haven’t had fresh food in days,” Jaime had snarled when he began skinning the baby snow rabbit. And she knows that he’s right- in spite of her anguish, her stomach grumbles at the smell of meat roasting over their meager fire.
And yet, she’d been so pleased to warily tiptoe out of the cave and find the fluffy creature perched on a nearby rock. It hopped right up to her and nuzzled its tiny nose against her outstretched palm, and her heart had swelled and warmed until she nearly swooned from the joy.
But then Jaime came upon them, and he whipped out his dagger quick as lightning. He crushed the tiny rabbit under the weight of his golden hand, then slashed the knife into its belly. A tiny chirp of anguish, a shudder, and then stillness, nothingness, emptiness.
“The meat is cooked,” he calls to her; in the dimness of the cave, all she can see is the green glitter of his eyes as he stares in her direction.
Pique prickles up and down her back and her arms, and she thinks for a moment to refuse, to deny herself out of principle.
But Jaime approaches her, a sliver of warm meat in his hand, and impulse reigns. She gobbles it up, the grease slicking her lips and chin and fingers-
Then she remembers the little rabbit’s soft pink nose, its downy fur, its wide and innocent eyes-
The tears return, flowing free down her cheeks. And although she can see the tension of his muscles, although she can hear his sigh of frustration, she soon feels his arms around her, cradling her to his chest, his one hand rubbing circles into her back until her breathing levels once more.