My god, it feels so weird asking you for a request when they were closed when I met you 😬 ANYWAY-
I feel like it's criminal that there's only one story about Sansa, let's change that, shall we?
Okay here goes, could you please write a Sansa x male!Reader story where he is the young fool of the court?
At the beginning of his job it was all laughter and fun, he juggled, played music, he loved to make everyone laugh with his jokes (especially King Robert's younger children), But since Joffrey became king, he was subjected to humiliation by the latter just to make the him laugh, something he cannot say no to, since, what is the word of a fool compared to that of a king? Something like:
But despite all that, he tries to keep Sansa company and try to maker her happy, knowing that she too has been through a lot since arriving in the capital, and the two begin to form a bond, trying to find comfort in each other.
An extra fact: Reader is (another) bastard son of Robert, but only a few people know it, this also makes him someone considerably tall for his age, making him stand out among the other fools.
- A/N: I've forgotten about that. 😂 Well, you found me and my stories. That's all that matters. 😉
The bells of the Red Keep rang sweet once, in your memory, a song in bronze that danced through the air like the echoes of a lute-string plucked just right. Back then, your days were filled with laughter—true laughter, not the cruel cackling that now echoed from the Iron Throne. You had danced in motley silks, a splash of green and orange, blue bells sewn at the seams, jingling with every bound and twirl. You had juggled apples and daggers, balanced on one foot while reciting ribald tales of knights and kitchen wenches. You had mimicked Lord Varys' whispery lisp, strutted like the Hound, snorted like Lord Renly’s prized warhorse. The children had loved you then. Tommen laughed so hard once he spat out his honeycake. Myrcella clapped her little hands until they turned pink. Even the queen, stiff-lipped as a board, allowed herself the occasional smile—if only because your antics amused her children.
But the air soured the moment Robert Baratheon died, as though the very stones of the Red Keep mourned him. The halls grew colder, shadows longer, and your motley bells didn’t chime so sweetly anymore. Joffrey sat the throne now. And your jests no longer brought laughter unless they came at your expense.
“Come hither, fool,” the boy-king’s voice cracked like a whip across the hall, and you shuffled forward with a crooked grin etched across your painted face. Your bells jingled mournfully, your knees aching as you bowed low on the marble floor. “Sing us your stupid little song,” Joffrey drawled, lounging like a drunk lizard across the throne’s arm. “Or maybe you’d rather bark like the mongrel you are. That’s what bastards are, yes? Mongrels.”
You blinked past the powder and paint, past the snickers of lords and ladies, past the blazing heat of the king’s words. You bowed again and began to hum, slow at first, a tune you once played in the Riverlands, light and lilting. But Joffrey wasn’t pleased. “Too slow,” he snapped, tossing a grape at your head. “Dance! On one leg. Like a cripple!”
So you did. You danced, fool that you were, a bastard of a dead king made to hop and jig for his trueborn son, sweat trickling down your neck under the jester’s cap. And you bore it. You always bore it.
But it was in the garden after one such day—after your leg gave out and the court erupted in laughter, after Ser Meryn’s boot met your ribs to hurry you along—that you found Sansa again, perched on a stone bench beneath the dying sun. Her hair was a river of auburn fire in the light, her hands clasped in her lap, eyes trained on some distant place the rest of you couldn’t see.
“My lady,” you said quietly, approaching like one might a sleeping bird. She turned slightly, not startled—nothing startled her anymore, not since the wolves were taken from her, not since her father’s head had been placed on a spike. “You shouldn’t speak to me,” she whispered. “You’ll only make yourself a target.”
You sat on the edge of the fountain, legs stretched before you, gingerly rubbing the bruise you’d earned earlier. “I already am,” you replied with a crooked smile. “Besides, I like talking to you. You don’t throw things at my head.”
She almost smiled, and that was a small victory. “You were better, before,” she said softly. “When King Robert was alive.”
“So was everyone,” you answered. And for a moment, you both sat in silence, two forgotten souls tucked in the garden shadows, watched only by the stone lions and the rustling of the trees.
It became a habit after that. When you weren’t forced to cavort before the throne, when your bruises didn’t scream loud enough to keep you abed, you found her. Sometimes she would read, and you’d offer voices for the characters. Sometimes she wouldn’t speak at all, and you’d tell her stories—some made-up, some half-true, some you’d stolen from drunken guards in taverns. You told her about a girl from Bear Island who could knock down grown men with a single punch. You told her about the time you stole a pie in Gulltown and ended up locked in a baker’s oven. You told her about the street mummers in Flea Bottom and how they swore one day to perform in the Hall of a Thousand Thrones.
“Did you ever want to be anything else?” she asked you one evening, her voice barely a breath.
“I wanted to be tall,” you quipped. “Turns out I am. Just makes it easier for Joffrey to spot me in a crowd.”
She laughed—an honest laugh, small and soft—and your chest ached at the sound of it. You would suffer tenfold if it meant hearing it again.
One day she took your hand. It was brief, barely more than a brush of fingers on yours, but it stayed with you through every cruel jest, every cup thrown, every bloody bruise. You were a fool, yes. But you weren’t just a fool. You were her fool. And in that, you found something worth dancing for.
You had grown used to the taste of gold—how it clung to your tongue after every jest, how it painted your teeth when you smiled before the throne. The gold of your bells, the gold of the highborn eyes that watched you like a performing dog. But none of it glimmered as much as her, and none of it weighed as heavily on your soul.
The bond between you and Sansa had become something delicate, something stolen—soft conversations beneath the shade of stone lions, laughter muffled behind gloved fingers, glances that lingered too long. You brought her a carved wooden bird once, whittled in secret behind the rookery with a dull knife and your aching fingers. She touched it like it was made of glass. “You’re very good,” she murmured, and her eyes shimmered. “Better than the poets who flatter me with empty songs.” You bowed with a flourish, then made her giggle by dropping to one knee and proposing marriage with the bird held like a ring.
Of course, the illusion never lasted. The court was poison dressed in silk and perfume, and Joffrey’s presence infected every corridor like rot beneath a painted wall. The wedding was no different—grand, garish, and grotesque. The Sept of Baelor had shuddered with song and scent, flowers in bloom and oil glistening on every marble column. You had danced as part of the feast’s entertainment, paired with a dwarf in mock armor and made to reenact the War of the Five Kings, pretending to be your own father, Robert, though no one knew. You did it with a smile painted across your face, juggling swords as Joffrey clapped like a delighted child and Sansa looked away, her mouth pressed into a line of shame.
It was after the pie—doves fluttering, blood spattering white silk—that things turned.
“More wine!” Joffrey barked, raising his cup with a leer. “Let’s see the fool do a handstand! A bastard’s trick from a bastard’s bastard!” You were already halfway through your bow when you saw it. His face, the color draining like ink spilled in water. His throat bulging with the effort to breathe. And then the clawing, the sound of choking, of gasps and gagging. A scream. Another. The goblet clattered to the floor, rolling near your foot.
You didn’t think. You looked at her.
Sansa’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide in horror, frozen like a deer on a winter road. The musicians stopped. Ser Meryn shouted something. The Queen screamed. You lunged across the floor, grabbing her wrist.
“Come,” you hissed. “Now.”
She didn’t resist. She couldn’t. You yanked her from the chaos, through a crush of stunned courtiers and clattering plates. No one noticed you at first—what was a fool and a lady next to a dying king? But you heard the shouts. “He’s choking!” “Find Maester Pycelle!” “Seize him!”
You ran.
The bells on your motley cap jangled wildly as you dragged her through the back corridors of the feast hall, servants scattering in your wake. Your heart thundered in your chest—not from fear, not yet, but from some raw instinct burning hot and red inside your ribs. Her hand was cold in yours, trembling, but she kept up. Her skirts tangled around her legs, and she stumbled once, but you caught her before she hit the ground.
“You knew this would happen,” she panted, voice wild with disbelief. “Didn’t you?”
“No,” you gasped, yanking open a wooden door that led to the scullery. “But I knew it would be our only chance.”
Steam rolled from the kitchens. You led her through the heat and fire, past spit-boys and startled cooks, pushing down the scent of roasted pork and sweat. “There’s a passage,” you said, pulling her into the shadows of a pantry. “A rat-run I used when I used to steal lemon cakes from the cellar.”
“And where does it go?” she asked, breathless, voice trembling.
“Out,” you said simply. “To the docks, if we’re lucky.”
It was narrow, barely enough for one person to crouch through, and it reeked of damp stone and rot. You went first, hands slick against the walls, ears trained for the sound of bootsteps. Behind you, Sansa crawled, her breathing ragged, her soft silks dragging against the filth.
When at last the tunnel opened, it was night, and the sky was painted in bruised indigo, the air thick with the stink of fish and the creak of ship ropes. Dock lanterns flickered in the distance. You helped her out of the hole, pulling her into your arms as she emerged, wide-eyed and shaking.
“We did it,” you said, voice hoarse. “We’re out.”
She turned to you then, really looked at you—the fool in painted face, clothes torn and smeared, the bastard of the king whose name she had once prayed to, now her savior in the dark.
“Why?” she asked, and her voice cracked. “Why would you help me? You could be killed for this.”
You looked at her, the girl who had once dreamed of songs and golden-haired knights, who now knew better.
“Because I remember what it’s like to be afraid,” you said softly. “And I couldn’t watch them break you too.”
She threw her arms around you then, sudden and fierce, her breath warm against your neck. And for a moment, the city and its lies faded behind you, and all you could hear was the water lapping against the boats and her heartbeat against your chest.
You were still her fool. And you would follow her anywhere.
