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She woke to pain and blood, and the sun seemed so bright, so very bright. Sansa realized what the blood was, and she noticed, too, that she had a strange mark on her thigh, red as a brand, like a scar. It was gone a moment later, the dragon that had been wrapped around her leg, burned into her skin.
It was just a stupid dream—this was what mattered, and it overwhelmed her, the knowledge of what her blood would mean. She couldn't do it, she couldn't—as her fear closed in around her, there was a burst of sunlight, cold winter sunlight, and the room spun. It was all fear, fear and blood and light and stone.
When her vision cleared again, she was in the throne room, chained and naked, and she would have been afraid except that Joffrey really couldn't do anything right, it seemed, for the manacles were far too great around her ankles and wrists to actually hold them.
"Good," he sneered, and held up his sword. "I wanted to make sure you knew who it was that took your head."
Sansa said nothing. She didn't try to hide herself, and she didn't even cry—not that she didn't want to, but it seemed like all her tears were burned up, that was all—she just stepped out of the manacles and saw that he staggered backwards, running into the whitecloak behind him as he did so. "What happened?" she asked, but she knew, a little, knew that she had changed.
She also knew, though, deep down as the bottom of the sea, that she hadn't been a wolf, and that's when she realized she still had some tears left, and everything went bright and cold again then, and they all seemed very far away.
As she felt herself change, she thought, briefly, of killing Joffrey, killing them all, but when she was changed, when she was circling above them, it all seemed less important than the song.
For someone was calling to her, someone was saying her name though she had never met them before, someone knew where she was and wanted her, someone belonged to her and she belonged to them.
She screamed an answer, and saw the glass blacken with her breath. Sansa burst through the great window behind the throne and felt the shards bounce off her hide like berries. "I'm coming," she tried to say, and it came out as another scream. The call was like an ember in her heart, and the open sky pressed itself against her like a brand.
When she woke again it was warm. There was something nearly hot on her legs, like the weight of Lady except not soft, like Lady in armor. She was going to go all red with the sun, lying out in it like this, she thought, and that would look so awful with her hair. Perhaps Arya had stolen her clothes, Mother and Father would see to her—
Something in her belly twisted and clawed at the stuff around it, and Sansa curled up and felt the wet there, the blood, and opened her eyes, because she couldn't be in Winterfell and Father was dead, and so was Lady, and probably Arya was too.
She was in a courtyard, someplace bright and, she knew somehow, very far away. She remembered only a little, like flashes of vision in the midst of a blizzard. She did recall the world spread out below like the maps she'd seen in the Maester's tower during lessons, only so much bigger than she ever dreamed, and colder.
There was no one else around, except for the animal resting on her legs, and then she looked down and tried not to scream.
The dragon didn't seem angry when she gasped and jerked her legs out from under it; it opened an eye and gave a little grumbling noise, like those irritated cats Arya used to chase, and then it drew closer and laid its head into her lap. She was too afraid to move, at first, but then she realized it was helping, that the clawing twisting thing in her belly had settled down a bit with the warmth on it, and that the dragon almost seemed to have gone to sleep.
When she looked up from the dragon again, someone was standing in the doorway, a girl with long snow-white hair and a lovely blue dress. "I've never seen them so calm," she said, and she sounded to Sansa like she was laughing.
Sansa was afraid to say anything, afraid to wake the dragon, to break whatever spell was keeping her safe from it, and she only watched as the woman approached. "I've never even heard of this," she said, sitting down there, on the ground, next to Sansa, and draping a blanket around her shoulders. "You must tell me all about it."
The 'must' made her flinch and shudder like trees in the wind. "But—you called me here."
Her eyes widened, and she tucked a lock of hair behind Sansa's ear. "I thought I dreamed that," she murmured. "I think—I called you, perhaps, but you came here. You found me."
Sansa shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know—I thought you brought me here."
"No," the woman said, and Sansa realized that her hand was still on Sansa's cheek. Girl, really—she couldn't be much older than Sansa was, except that Sansa didn't feel like a girl anymore, either.
The sorceress took Sansa's face in her hands and stared at her from behind her strange mask. Sansa didn't know what she expected, but she thought it would be a little more elaborate than this. They were out on the terrace, under the faraway sun. Daenerys's maid had poured them all watered wine, and the drops were growing fat and heavy as fruit on the outsides of the glasses.
The sorceress's eyes held Sansa's, and she couldn't look away, even though she felt nothing she would have expected, no iron holding her eyes open.
"They have something like it, where you come from," the sorceress said at last. "They call them skinchangers. It's more common than this, though still rare enough." Daenerys's face remained blank, which Sansa hoped meant she was as confused as Sansa felt.
"But…they turn into wolves, don't they?" she asked, digging deep into the places in her heart where she tried not to look much because they made her too sad. She thought maybe Old Nan had told stories about such creatures, though.
The sorceress shook her head. "Usually, it is one animal, but most can change into more—they simply feel no need to do so. That one is everything they feel when they change. It may be the wolf is in you, as well as the dragon, but it wasn't the wolf you needed when the change came upon you. I know you would like more, and I do wish I could give it to you—"
Daenerys gave a sound that sounded very much like a snort. "How much do you want for answers, then?"
The sorceress released Sansa, who grabbed her glass in search of something to hang onto, something cool and solid as she tried to swim in a warm, strange sea.
"It's not a matter of cost," the sorceress said, rising. "There are the Faceless, but this is something different. This gift is rare enough within the Seven Kingdoms, and nearly unheard of outside of it."
"So are dragons. And you said 'nearly'—"
But the sorceress was already gone.
"Did we offend her?" Sansa's voice was quieter than even she expected. Daenerys shot her a look.
"I may have," she said, shrugging. "You didn't do anything wrong, Sansa. It doesn't matter. We'll figure it out, eventually."
She picked up her own glass, and raised it to Sansa, and then set it down again. "Truly," she said, and took Sansa's hand in hers. Sansa forced herself to look at her, for she could feel Daenerys's gaze on her. But her eyes were gentle, when Sansa managed to meet them, and her touch was warm and steady.
"Am I your prisoner?" Sansa asked, finally, and noted that her own voice, quiet as it was, didn't shake.
Daenerys blinked, and Sansa realized she was confused. "Of course not," she said. "I keep no one who is not willing. Gods, is that what you thought?"
Sansa didn't know what to say to that, but it wasn't like a void where words should have been at all; not having words was something she choked on, and she felt tears rising. Stop being such a stupid baby, she told herself, except it sounded like Arya this time, for the first time in ages, not Joffrey, and that did it.
She felt something uncurling inside of her, and that strange branding sensation, except on her arm this time. At the same time, Daenerys's face was changed entirely, taken over by an unbearable grace and kindness. She wanted to look, to see what it was this time, what the mark would tell her, except that she couldn't look away from Daenerys, and she didn't need to look, after all.
"Oh," the Princess said, and the next thing Sansa knew, everything was bright again, and warm, and the voice that had called to her, the voice that had promised her a home, that had promised belonging, was fire glinting through blue glass, or blue fire glinting through ice. Things didn't look smaller this time, or distant, she smelled blood and smoke and oceans of grass on the woman, who laid a hand on her head and stroked her fur.
"Where do you belong?" she asked, leaving her seat and helping Sansa, untangling her paws from the dress. "Somewhere far away," she answered herself, the both of them. There was something on her breast, Sansa could just see it, like a scar or a long-faded tattoo—but she knew it was there, more importantly, she didn't need to see it, because her heart could feel it. Finally, when Sansa was free, Daenerys bent and pressed a kiss on Sansa's head. Sansa felt her lips even through her fur—her fur, she thought, and wanted to weep again with joy, except of course wolves couldn't weep, and that woke her up, again, at last.
Daenerys laughed when Sansa wobbled, unsteadily, on human feet, and Sansa did, too, except that then her vision went sparkly in that more ordinary way that it did sometimes, when she'd been sitting too long, and she grabbed onto the table. Daenerys caught her and helped her back into a chair. "And I only just got that dress off of you," she said.
Sansa laughed, too, and Daenerys wrapped her up in an embrace, and only when she kissed her cheek did Sansa realize she was crying.
"You need to eat," Daenerys whispered. "You'll feel better with some food."
Sansa shook her head, but let Daenerys help her back into her dress anyway. "It's not that," she said. "I didn't know I was crying—I'm not crying because of that. I never—I never cried like this before," she managed, as the sobs and the laughter came too hard for her to get the words out straight.
"Freedom is a heavy thing to carry, when you've never had a chance to get used to it," Daenerys said, and pressed the glass into her hand.
"Yes," Sansa agreed, for what else could she say? How else could she describe this, the feeling of belonging, the feeling that, no matter how far away she might be from Winterfell, from the Seven Kingdoms, she was home?
She felt it choking her again, and so she kissed Daenerys instead, because she feared it might rip her apart, the joy as she understood it, understood this belonging. And Daenerys kissed her, too, wrapping her arms around Sansa and holding her in place, reminding her what her body's shape was. Her mouth was warm and soft and perfectly-shaped to keep Sansa here, to help her remember.
Freedom, she had named it, and Daenerys's body seemed to press the word into Sansa's skin.
"I'm sorry," she said at last, because it seemed as though she should, but Daenerys hadn't yet let go of her, nor called for anyone to have Sansa's head struck from her shoulders.
"Don't be," she murmured. "We're meant to be together in this, it seems, whatever it may be." And then, under this faraway sky, she kissed Sansa again.