Chapter Text
It didn’t take Sansa long to realise that things would not be as she hoped.
Being back at Winterfell, returning to her home, was meant to be better, a respite from all she endured.
The still bleeding wounds of of heart from the losses of her father, her mother, her brothers, from Ayra and Jon, though she still kept hope her sister was out there somewhere. Those ever bleeding wounds would be balmed once she was ensconced within the high walls of her childhood home. Once she was within the safety she had so foolishly left so long ago.
Even the indignity and shame of being brought into the care of those who murdered Robb and her mother, those who broke faith with House Stark, those who committed treason against their King, it was a price she would have paid if it meant being safe in Winterfell’s walls once more.
Besides Littlefinger was sure that Stannis was on his way, she wouldn’t actually have to marry Ramsay.
But Littlefinger had left Winterfell, along with all the guards and knights who’d escorted them both North.
In another story this would have been a moment of triumph, or a moment of relief at least. She was no longer trapped under Littlefinger’s calculating looks and lingering gazes. She no longer had to suppress a flinch when a whispered ‘Cat’ reached her ears in the dead of the night. There was no more Sweetrobin to placate and manage all the time trying to keep her cousin away from Littlefinger as she wore the skin of Alayne. There was no more Harry the heir, she was no longer in the Vale.
She was home.
The red and pink banners of the flayed man fluttered in the wind.
She was in the castle that had once been the heart of her family.
It had once been the heart of the North.
Perhaps it still was.
But it didn’t feel as it once did to Sansa.
There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.
Her father’s words echoed in her head, she didn’t know how long it had been since her kin last walked these halls, since they had all broken that promise, though perhaps she had been the first to.
In any other story there would be cause to rejoice, the princess had been freed from her captors, she had been brought home and an army was said to be on the way to deliver her justice.
But this wasn’t any other story, it was Sansa Stark’s story.