Paragraphs with a star at the start have descriptions of violence in. Skip if you don't want to read that.

Sansa had been trapped in the Red Keep for years, the residence of the dignified Lannisters. In those years, she had dreamed of escape. Though it was easier said than done. Guards stopped her at every corner in her various attempts, and this had only meant more beatings from her 'beloved' Joffrey.

*White slivers of scars covered her back now, where she had been whipped as a punishment for her betrayal. The betrayal, of course, being her desperate yet vain attempts to leave her tormentors. There had been eyes full of pity and sorrow as they watched her writhe in pain as she tried to struggle from his bodyguards' hands, though they were all too strong. Those eyes did nothing but watch her. Nobody stopped him, too afraid of their own fate if they stepped in to help her. Not even his own mother, Cersei, whom she had once held respect for. She had idolized her. That was all gone now.

*Joffrey sat at the high table in the Lannister ballroom as he watched the whips slice through the pale skin, a smug grin permanently fixed to his worm-like lips. Once she had found him attractive, she thought once through the searing pain across her back. But that was long ago. Before her father's mysterious disappearance, followed by her sisters, and then her two younger brothers. In the next year her mother and brother were killed in a car accident, or so they said. It was no accident in her mind.

But now she had conceived a plan. It had taken her the past six months to think it through, to plan the movements of his guards, to find the security cameras that watched her every move. She had even made some allies. And tonight was the night she had been waiting for. Joffrey's 21st name day. He would be drunk as he was so often now, and his guards would all be by his side as they looked for potential assassins. She would, or should, be able to slip out the back door without notice.

As she prepared for the huge, Great Gatsby style party that the Lannisters held for each name day in their family, she went through the details a last time. Sansa's bruises were hard to cover, even with the expensive concealer she had bought for this purpose, though her slightly swollen eye might be easy enough to cover with the smoky-eye look she had chosen. Once her makeup and hair was fixed in the fashionable way of King's Landing, she started to dress. Her mother had bought her this dress on one of her last visits to King's Landing. It was knee length in blue, flowing silk. Formal enough for such a party but not so formal that she would not be able to escape unnoticed.

She went downstairs then. The party had not yet started, as she was expected to welcome the guests, being from a dignified family herself. Cersei clapped her hands together when she saw her, a false motherly pride on her beautiful features.

"Oh, look at you, Sansa. Such a stunning little dove, aren't you?"

Sansa smiled courteously, as was expected of her.

"Thank you. You look beautiful too, Ma'am."

She cast a glance over the rest of the family. Tommen, Joffrey's younger brother of eight, was a sweet little child. He was a little vision in the smart suit he wore. Next to him was his older sister, Myrcella. She too, beautiful in a red dress, complimenting her golden hair. How could such lovely children be relate to that? She looked at her betrothed. She once would have thought he looked handsome in his suit, top buttons undone and his skinny tie slightly loose around the neck she had wished so many times to strangle. He nodded at her, casual as could be.

Almost instantly after she greeted the family, the guests started arriving. First was the families in the Lannisters' law firm; the Baratheons, the Trants... so many families after that that her face ached from smiling, and the evening had barely started. She shook hands and kissed cheeks of the corrupt lawyers, men whose eyes raked over her body and women who cast her glances of hatred and jealousy. Sansa was disliked by all.

It was halfway through the night Joffrey started to get drunk. He danced with her a few times, though only at his mother's command before he started to dance with other women. A girl who she knew as Ros was the last person she saw him dance with before she slipped out of the ballroom she had been whipped in just hours earlier. She hurried to the bathroom on the ground floor, keeping her composure until she was safe in the room, the door locked as she rooted through the cupboards to find the bag she had hidden in the panel under the sink the day before. It was a huge duffel bag, and she did her best to push it through the small window before quickly unlocking the door and hitching herself through as well.

As her feet touched the ground below, she breathed a sigh of relief. Step one was complete. She picked up her bag and hurried to the road as she pulled her phone out of her purse and called a taxi company. Telling them the address of two blocks over, she hurried to the destination and waited for the cab to arrive. It was only a couple of minutes before a car pulled up, enough time for her to pull her coat over her dress and use a hat to partially cover her telltale hair. She got in the backseat and sighed again, wiping off the red lipstick she had worn that evening on a tissue.

"The airport, please?" She asked as she double checked the contents of her bag. Money, a credit card, passport, phone, clothes, shoes, jewelry... it was all there. The trip to the airport was a short one, thank the Gods, and she arrived just before midnight. She paid the cabbie the fare, plus a tip if he didn't tell anyone he had seen her, and went into the airport.

The first flight out of King's Landing was Clegane Keep, wherever that was. It was near Lannisport, apparently, but a good few hundred miles away would keep her hidden enough. After passport control and security, she waited just forty minutes for her flight, and as the plane took off, she couldn't hold in her laugh of relief.