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Chapter Text

Sansa Stark dies in the Crownlands, separated from her family and utterly alone. She is a prisoner and a hostage, and before she dies, all she can think of is the many Starks who died in King's Landing. Then, she recalls all the misery the south brought her family. It helps, just a touch, to list these things—to take her mind off of what is and remember what was.

(Rickard Stark, her grandfather, burned alive in his armour. Brandon Stark, her uncle, strangled by the noose around his neck as he tried to get to his father. Lyanna Stark, her aunt, stolen away by a southern prince. Eddard Stark, her father. A traitor. Beheaded on the steps of the Sept of Baelor.)

Now, Sansa was sure it was her turn to die. And, if it wasn't she would make sure it was because she refused to marry a man like Joffrey Baratheon. He was no fair-haired prince; she saw that now. He wasn't even a lion. He was just cruel. He did what he pleased, no matter the consequences. Her father was right to send her and Arya away, no matter how futile the attempt was.

Arya, oh, Arya

Sansa wanted Arya more than ever now. She needed her. She needed to know that Arya was safe. All their fights felt childish in the grand scheme of things. Sansa wanted her sister more than anything. They had never been the most conventional of sisters even when they weren’t fighting, but she could care less now.

(She wanted to talk to her younger sister—to ask; ’Did you know I was the first to hold you? Did you know I used to sing to you? Read to you? Hold your hand when you were scared and wiped the tears fresh from your face? Did you know that I was the one who sewed the plush wolf you hold so dear? Did you know? Did you know? Did you know?’)

These thoughts had plagued her ever since her father died—and they plagued her even now as she follows her betrothed through the Red Keep. She doesn’t feel real. Reality doesn’t feel real anymore. It doesn’t truly feel like her father is dead or that Arya is missing or even that she is a thousand miles away from her home. She feels like a ghost, watching her body walk steadily behind the prince—king.

As she walks, she wonders, has Arya Stark joined the ghosts in haunting the keep? Has she run hard and far? Has she found her way north? Found her way back to their home, their family?

She desperately hopes it’s the latter.

Sansa, despite the disconnect between her mind and body, does not miss the looks shot her way. She knows she makes for a pretty prisoner. Knows that the nobles they pass look at her with ill-disguised humour. They think that she doesn’t realise what she is, a hostage. They think her as dull as her siblings did—a pretty northern winter rose wrapped up in the spectacle of court.

(Sansa had faced scrutiny, being the least northern of her siblings—being less wild—being more like her mother and less like her father. But they forget, that when she trailed after her mother she wasn’t just playing; she was watching—learning. She saw the way her mothers political mind functioned—the way she dealt with the personal matters of her father’s bannermen with an ease even her father lacked. Many thought Sansa was a bland child; too taken with her stories and dreams and her head high in the sky. They didn’t know that whilst they judged, she watched, picking apart the minute changes in their expressions.)

She doesn’t know where she is going. She is not home in Winterfell where the walls seem to speak to her—guide her. Winterfell she knows as intimately as her own body. Even when she feels lost, she always seems to end up where she needs. The Red Keep is nothing like Winterfell. There is a wrongness in its walls that reach her and seep into her dreams.

(Her dreams are filled with a great many things—one of her first was of two dragons. They were black and white respectively and small, the same size as the cats that plagued King’s Landing, with the white one just a touch smaller. They run through the halls of the great castle, ducking and diving at each other in playful leaps—but they never fly, no matter how they flap their wings. Then they disappear, into separate rooms and when Sansa turns around the walls change. At the end of the hall sits an old black cat, one ear missing and scarred. The walls though—the walls ooze and before she can figure out what is coming out of them she wakes.

Sometimes she dreams of a man whose steps leave behind ice. There is a greatsword in his hand—one she recognises. The tip drags across the ground, splitting stone and leaving a trail of red snow.

She dreams of faces she doesn’t know and doesn’t remember. Of lands that burn with heat and dense forests that are too humid. She dreams of animals—spiders and birds; yellow stags and grey worms; groups of weasels and a lone bat above a river. She dreams of plants—fields of roses and forests of weirwoods; fallen trees and growing moss; wildflowers and mushrooms. She dreams of people from folk tales—booming giants, people made of plants and bodies made of ice.

Sansa has many dreams. Ones of parchment; of a man who can raise buildings with his breath and a man who can coax flowers to bloom; she dreams of crowns made from pure lightning; magic hiding in a shadow, in a wink; people with silver hair and armour made of scales.

Once, she dreamt of a great mountain snuffing out the sun. She had woken from that one in tears and her father had barely been able to quieten her to stop any guards from calling. The dream struck her in a way no other had—this one felt personal, like a warning. That night, she joined her father in his bed and slept in his arms like she was a little girl again.)

This wickedness leaves an uncomfortable, damp feeling against her skin. The longer she walks, just a step behind Joffrey, the more the feeling increases until she feels close to drowning. Her head is aching and her throat is dry. This feeling is so overwhelming she desperately needs a reprise, even if she has to find it in the company of her callous betrothed.

“My prince?” She speaks gently, like a little bird that Joffrey’s mother so loves calling her. He holds a hand, stopping their entourage of the Hound and Ser Meryn from continuing further. There is a smile on his face and Sansa doesn’t meet his eyes. She hopes he takes it as submission.

“Yes?” Joffrey replies, though he says it in an impatient way, like he is itching to continue walking.

Sansa swallows the lump in her throat. “I would never doubt your judgement, but may I know where we are going?” She nearly winces at the poor attempt to hide her fear. Her courtly manners are severely lacking and she braces herself for the relentless scolding that is sure to spew from his mouth.

After a moment of silence, Sansa looks up. He is still smiling and he looks downright giddy at her question. She doesn’t bite her lip, it would only betray her fear and give him more satisfaction. He steps forward and takes her hand.

“Worry not, my princess.” He says assuredly. “I would never lead you astray.”

That wicked feeling returns tenfold. Daintily, Sansa curtsises, hand still held by Joffrey.

“Of course,” she demures, a gentle smile spreading across her lips.

Joffrey nods, releases her hand and steps back into place. Then, the group continues their pace through the Red Keep. Once they reach the end of the hall, Sansa expects to turn but Joffrey (and as though expecting it, the Hound and Ser Meryn) stop at the first step of the staircase.

Sansa’s heart sinks.

Before she can stop herself she speaks. “This is—” She glances at Joffrey whose smile has turned and inspires a shiver to roll down her spine. She swallows thickly once more, eyes damp.

“Ladies first.” He says and she cannot refuse. Not only is he to be her husband but he is the King. She is alone as she always has been since her father’s death. No ladies-in-waiting to aid her or knights to guard her. No. She is surrounded by Lannister people.

With trembling hands she grasps her skirts, lifting them and starting to walk up the staircase. It’s wide enough for two people to stand side by side. Sansa knows Joffrey is delighting in the fact that she is forced to step up first, to see what awaits her at the top without the comfort of another beside her—of him beside her.

Perhaps she should thank him. His presence beside her would only make her feel worse.

Impatient with her slow pace, Joffrey walks past her, but the two older men remain at her back. Their pace is faster, forcing her to speed up.

Once they reach the top, She stares at her feet. She knows where she is—maybe she belongs here too, after all the daughter of a traitor is surely a traitor too.

(A part of her wants to be a traitor—to have stood in front of her father’s beheaded body and screamed that his words were false; that his confession was false. That he was right in naming anyone but Joffrey King. Even now, she wants to stand on the battlements, to look down at the smallfolk and yell ’your King is cruel! He is Aerys the Mad reincarnated and he will plague our world with war!’)

Joffrey talks and talks and talks and it is only when he stops and looks at her does he realise she isn’t looking. He steps into her space, not at all intimidating (Sansa hasn’t been intimidated by Joffrey for a while. His power? Yes. His mother, his guards? Both yes. But Joffrey himself? Not since she realised that he was just a cruel child screaming for attention). And Joffrey whines and tells her to look. She is not scared of him, but she can feel Ser Meryn’s anticipation and thus raises her eyes.

Sansa stares at her father; head dipped in tar and she barely recognises him. Still, her heart hurts. Her father is—was an honourable man. His death, his supposed betrayal of the King didn’t feel real. Not until now. Her heart aches and she knows deep down that this is where he will stay, in the South away from his homeland. Her mother and siblings will never have the closure of a funeral and her father will never join his family in the Winterfell crypts. He is not the only head on this wall, and she mourns for them all, even the ones she doesn’t recognise.

(In the sanctity of her mind, she lists the people she does recognise. Septa Mordane—perhaps her closest confidant. Jory. She had thought his remains had already been sent back to Winterfell but they must have stopped mid-preperation as she can see where his skin has been stripped from his jaw bone.

She can see the girls who became part of the kitchen staff; the stable boy; guards who had followed her family south. She stares at all these heads—these people who she can and cannot put a name to and wonders why they’re here. Did they die because of her father? Because of her actions? Did they commit terrible crimes? Or were they just trying to live?)

Her thoughts are interrupted as Joffrey ponders on whether he will gift Sansa something for his nameday. Sansa should have known better than to think he was actually being kind because the first thing he offers is her brother's head.

And a madness overtakes her.

She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t say a word. She just stews. Joffrey doesn’t even notice—too absorbed by his own fancies to spare her a thought. He is no fair-haired prince. He is a demon from Old Nan’s stories—a wilding who takes and takes and takes.

No longer is Sansa Stark a meager girl of eleven. Instead she is Sansa Stark of Winterfell—daughter of the honourable Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn. She is the descendant of the Wardens of the North and the Kings of Winter. Her bloodline carries a sacred promise—to protect the realm from demons.

She is a direwolf in a girl's skin.

A growl rumbles deep in her throat.

The guards around her shift and Sansa feels the Hound reach for her shoulder. 

His hand never makes it there.

Sansa Stark dies, falling to her death over the side of the traitors walk. Her death is not punctuated by suicide, but rather regicide as she digs her nails into Joffrey’s shoulders and pulls him down, down, down with her.

Sansa Stark is dead.

And then she is not.

And then Sansa wakes, in her bed in her room in Winterfell. It is just as it was before the King came, she can even see the dress she was making and hoping to wear when the King arrived draped over her desk. Her quill and paper rest on her bedside alongside a burnt out candle.

So Sansa laughs. Loud and boisterous and wild.

Sansa laughs so hard she cries.

Sansa Stark is alive in her bed, months younger than should be possible. Sansa Stark is dead at the bottom of the traitor’s walk, speared by its spikes. She is a walking contradiction. These two truths cannot exist at once, yet they do. She is a Stark of Winterfell, the daughter of Wardens and Kings and she carries magic in her veins. She is the amalgamation of all that have been and will be.

She is eleven. A little girl masquerading as brave. She is soon to be betrothed to Joffrey Baratheon. The King is coming to take her father as his hand. Sansa will lose her father to death and her sister will go missing. Her eldest brother will surely rebel and her half-brother will be alone at the wall. Her youngest siblings will grow up during a war.

The whole of Winterfell is woken by her wails.

Chapter Text

Sansa only realises that she is not dead; is not dreaming; when Lady wakes to her screams and presses herself to Sansa. This feeling of fullness—wholeness—there is no dream in the world that has ever matched its intensity, its realness. She knows because she has dreamt of this moment. All of her dreams are a pale imitation of this moment. Something between her and her direwolf turns to ties and knots between them.

She has—had—dreamt of being back in Winterfell, back in her bedroom. She had dreamt of Lady, bigger than she is now (the size she was in Darry), curled around her, fur soft in her grip and snout gently nuzzling against her cheek. Before, she had woken and realised Lady no longer had her head. She imagined her father grimly swinging Ice—of blood spilling from Lady’s headless neck. Of her body decaying and leaving only blood behind. That had been Sansa’s reality.

That was not her reality anymore.

She screams and wails and cries, pulling, pulling, pulling Lady to her. She pushes Lady into her chest as if she could meld them together. Lady whines and whimpers, wet nose snuffling against Sansa’s wet cheek and licking up her salty tears. In unison they howl and sob and wail.

They are interrupted but Sansa doesn’t notice, still clawing and grasping at Lady. Her parents and her siblings come running for her, the guards enter and look unsure of how to proceed. It is only after she finally comes to her senses that she notices she is no longer the only person in the room.

Her mother alongside two guards stand by the door. Rickon is in her mother’s arm and her mother’s hand holds Bran’s shoulder firmly. Jon and Theon are watching worriedly behind them. Blinking, she looks around the room. Arya is at the base of her bed, eyes blown wide. Robb is beside Arya, looking at her with a similarly terrified expression.

Her father, Ned Stark is standing beside her, hand hesitantly reaching out for her.

“Father—” Sansa sobs, an arm still around Lady as she throws herself at him. Her tears wet his shirt and she knows she is ruining the fabric but she can’t find it in herself to care when she usually would. There is a shuffling around them and she knows that everyone is leaving.

The door shuts and her father moves, pulling her into his side as he sits on her bed. His arm is strong around her shoulders and a wail rips from her throat as she recalls how limp his body had been without his dead.

She has to tell him—she has to let them know that going south will kill him. He has to know that the Lannisters can’t be trusted—that Joffrey is cruel and the Queen must have killed King Robert. King’s Landing isn’t safe for any of the Starks.

“Father—” she repeats, gulping in air before she continues. “You can’t go south, you can’t!”

He shushes her gently and rocks her side to side. He rubs his thumb against her shoulder, his other hand on Lady's forehead as she whimpers.

“I won’t leave you,” he promises.

Sansa is nearly hysterical. She wants to scream ’that’s not the problem! Joffrey is going to kill you!’ But she doesn’t. Mostly because she doesn’t think she can scream through her tears and with her throat dry from her wails.

“Promise me you won’t be hand! Please Father!” Sansa exclaims, crawling onto his lap and pressing her forehead into his neck; clawing at his shirt. “You’ll die! The King will take your head.”

His heavy hand is gentle as it cards through her hair. Sansa can’t remember the last time he had been so physically affectionate. She knew her father was stoic and as cold as the biting snow at times but not to her—never to her. Often, his affection came with his time, as he sat and watched over Sansa and her siblings. Or in his stories—though, those also petered out with her age.

“King Robert won’t kill me, he’s my friend,” he murmurs quietly into the top of her head. Sansa knows that—knows that perhaps King Robert loved her father almost as much as her. She knows that if her father did commit treason, King Robert would likely never make a move against him.

But Joffrey was not his father. They were both bad kings, but at least King Robert held some modicum of peace. He was a drunkard and a man who indulged himself much too often, but he was not vicious. He wasn’t malicious and never seemed to enjoy outright cruelty (no matter that he called for Lady’s head).

In fact, King Robert had been kind to her.

No, Joffrey was nothing like his father. Joffrey found utter enjoyment in his cruelty. He was sneaky, hiding behind sweet words and false sentiments. It was alone once they had returned to his home had his facade truly begun to slip.

(But that wasn’t true, was it? He had been terrible to the Hound, demeaning him and calling him dog. Was Sansa any better? She feared him for his appearance, even if she did not voice it. That was before they arrived in King’s Landing. Before Lady died. He had commanded her to tie Lady up and leave her behind. She was a fool. Direwolves were the symbol of her house—Lady was a part of her. The wild, wily part of her that she would hide.

Joffrey had been cruel to Arya—her sister. How did Sansa let that be? How could Sansa look the King in the eye and call her truthful sister a liar? He had attacked the innocent butcher’s boy and had him slaughtered like a pig. After Nymeria had—rightfully—attacked him he had been unkind when she tried to help.

Sansa was a blind fool to not have seen him for what he was.)

It seemed that whilst lost in her thoughts, time had passed. She wasn’t crying anymore and there was movement at the door. Shuffling in her father’s arms, she glimpsed Maester Luwin entering with a cup.

At her attention, he smiled gently. “Just some milk of the poppy to ease you back to sleep.”

Sansa swallowed thickly. She didn’t want to go back to sleep! There was so much to do—so many things she had to fix. She had to tell Arya how much she loved her—that she didn’t care if she swung or sword or wore breeches. She needed to tell Bran not to climb the broken tower; to take more care than ever before when he took to scaling Winterfell. Robb, Jon, Rickon. She had to tell them that she loved them, that she wanted them around her—needed them around her.

Before she could object, something warm was slipping down her throat.

“I—I—”

Her father shushed her, moving out from behind her and helping her lie down. “It’s okay Sansa. Just go back to sleep.”

Tears peaked at the corners of her eyes but now that she thought about it, she was tired. Her limbs felt weighted and her eyelids heavy. Letting out a gentle breath, she turned her head to the side, watching her father sit by her bedside, his hand still in her own.

“Goodnight Sansa.”

When Sansa sleeps she dreams. The only problem is that Sansa isn’t so sure her dreams are normal anymore. When she was younger her dreams were the stuff of fairy tales. The earliest one she could remember was of Jonquil and Florian the Fool and their meeting. She could remember the way the water gently lapped at soft, fair skin. The shining of metal armour and their jaunty conversation.

At the time she had brushed it off as her imagination getting away from her as it so often did. After that dream of Jonquil and Florian, it was like a floodgate opened and she dreamed of a great many tales. Every night she witnessed something new. Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys sitting in a meadow. Brandon the Builder watching over Winterfell. Arya Flint, dancing through the mountains. Queen Alysanne and her own Jonquil talking quietly. Symeon Star-Eyes with eyes as white as the driven snow and slicing through those who stood in his way.

These dreams were the clearest her dreams had ever been.

Were.

Her dreams in Kings Landing were unclear and often without direction. They contained symbols, places and animals often replacing people. Sometimes Sansa only dreamed of colours; meshing and melding together in a strange dance. When she did see people, it wasn’t often that she saw their faces.

Which is why she startled so badly when she fell asleep and saw the face of a woman. Her hair was dark as the midnight sky and straight like ivy. Her slender eyes glinted like starlight, barely differing from her sclera. And her skin—her skin was unbearably pale, making her look sickly (or dead.) Furthering the thought, her round lips were a pale purple.

The unknown woman raises her hand, gently touching her long fingers (topped with nails filed to a point) to Sansa’s cheek. The finger is solid. Taking a shaky breath, Sansa doesn’t move. Never has she been acknowledged in her dreams. Never has she been touched.

Don’t worry. The woman says without words, her lips sealed shut. I can’t hurt you.

Questions forcefully strike Sansa. She wants to ask why she can’t hurt her—or if she means she won’t hurt her. Why does she look dead? Why does she look frozen? How can she see Sansa? How can she touch her?

None of her questions are answered.

Wake up little wolf.

There is something strange in the air. It lingers, changing the damp aftertaste of rain. This magic isn’t typically so potent so far North. She remembers when she was young and lived in the South—she remembers when magic had once been so present. She sniffs the air and grasps the familiar scent. It is the smell of flowers after the first spring bloom; the smell after birth; of blood.

She smiles a wicked smile. Times are changing, she understands that most of all.

This magic—the magic of spring; of birth; of living not based purely on survival; of change—this magic would perhaps be the catalyst of it all.

Spring magic was not the first to appear. The Winter had already begun setting in.

(She  never truly understood the usage of Summer and Winter as the only denominators for change in the world. The earth was so much more complex than that. Seasons not only depicted the weather but life. When the animals breed, when they hibernate, when the rain comes and goes. She lived in the far North where snow was a constant, true, but that did not mean she did not see the effects of the seasons.

She saw when the birds laid their eggs, when the trees grew stronger and the blizzards let up just a touch. These year-long winters and summers were nonsense, just an excuse for a slight uptick and downtick in temperatures. She knew better. Obviously, she also knew better than these ‘esteemed’ nobles who ran their world into the ground.)

The Winter magic had already begun to sink in, like a bad cold. This magic was unnatural. It had been stewing for decades—centuries even, she knew that at the least. It grew day by day but now it was more potent than ever before. It reached even the most southern corners of the northern north. She would not be surprised if it even reached those crows.

(Perhaps this spring-time magic had occurred because of the unnatural nature of the coming winter. Perhaps the gods had seen fit to aid them once more. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Generally, she was not a person who depended on the deeper questions of life. Perhaps it was her age getting to her.)

It didn’t matter where this lovely spring magic had come from, only that it was coming. She could feel the magical warmth to the breeze that curled against her cheeks like an assurance. No, it did not matter. It boded well for the winter to be short.

That night, she looked into their fire. She didn’t watch, but seek. The flames flicked and danced about the burning wood and she could hear that silly boy question her before Torwynd shushed him.

In the fire she saw.

A girl, not yet a woman. Her features morph from youth to a fierce direwolf, to a little bird, to a woman grown then back to the girl she is. There is trauma behind her eyes—which she is sure are meant to be a gentle blue. She is slender and comely enough. The way she holds herself is undoubtedly noble which makes her doubt a tad but there’s nothing for it. Noble or smallfolk, she is bringing the spring and that is enough for her.

There are others around her, ever-changing but not in the same way as her. She changes to show the different aspects of herself—what is, what will be, what was, what could be—these people change in different iterations of what may happen. Often she is surrounded by variations of people who look alike to her. Siblings, she assumes. Sometimes there is a girl, slightly shorter than the coming-of-spring and not as slender. She is already starting to grow into a more womanly figure.

She glimpses a man with a confident smile and a sword in his hand, a wooden one that then becomes metal as the man changes to be taller and in armour. When the girl changes back to a direwolf, sometimes a dragon accompanies her. There are changes, people who are not noble nor honourable but who stand beside her nonetheless.

Near constantly she sees a wormy boy with a crown atop his tiny head. Never is he a partner; an accomplice; a friend. He is always opposite her, always an enemy.

To her surprise, she sees the flicker of people she recognises. First, herself. Then her son and his children. Then people with the free-folk look about them. Then men who cannot be anything but crows.

Before it gets too much—when her eyes are on the verge of exploding from the strain, she sees something else.

She sees when the springtime dies.

She falls, impaled on a spike with someone in her hold. Burned to less than ashes by a dragon (a dragon!). Stabbed through the middle by her own hand. Executed by the hands of another. Collapsing atop another, blood spilling from her lips as she shields them from an unseen adversary. She is running as fast as she can when an arrow spears her through the throat. Her old wrinkled hands still as she falls asleep for the last time.

She can hear the clamour around her as she starts to teeter, the sight pulling too much from her. Her last thought before the flame snuffs out is: ’oh springtime—live for us if not yourself.’