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He watched as she came riding in, auburn hair flowing behind her as she sat astride her horse. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment but he could feel no warmth in her gaze.
The colour of her eyes and hair, the shape of her face: these are all reminders of a past thought lost long ago. Although her stare is cold there is something southron about her, something that is out of place with the void of winter weather swirling around her.
Maybe it is the Tully look that confuses him as she continues riding. Or maybe it is the army that surrounds her, he can not be sure. All he can see is that his sister rides before him, and there is no kindness in her eyes.
Maybe Lady Catelyn has come back to haunt me, Jon Snow thinks with a solemn smile.
When he learns that she has killed Jeyne Poole he stands outside the door to the King’s Chamber in Castle Black. He listens as she sobs and sobs. He knew that death had followed her wherever she went, but he had not heeded the rumours that she took lives with her own hand. She was Sansa, not some vengeful knight.
Yet here they were; Jon standing on the other side of a heavy wooden door listening to his younger sister cry. Although he sensed that their relationship had changed slightly (she had dropped the half before the brother, he had held her and kissed her brow), she was still on the other side of the door shutting him out.
He thought to himself how childish she is being. She is a queen now, not a suckling babe and she should not be crying like this. He listens as she screams her words of resentment to the Gods.
“Perhaps it is not Lady Catelyn, but Rickon who has returned”, Jon Snow mutters under his breath.
Slowly but surely, Sansa begins to open her door. When she is out and about among her soldiers she plays the ice queen, even more so as she stands unmoving by Jeyne’s grave. But Jon knows his sister, and he knows that something is amiss. His memories of Sansa are not warm, but that does not mean that they were unkind. When he was not close by her, he remembers her laughing. It was always a ladylike giggle, but that was a feature that made it all the more Sansa-like.
Even though he has foresworn his past and his Stark upbringing to the NIght’s Watch, he can not help but feel like he has a duty to make Sansa smile again. He understands that in order to keep her army she must be strong and still, but he knows that she does not always have to be that way. He thinks that surely there must be a way to get her to open up to him.
His prayers are answered when she invites him for supper in her chambers. The King’s Chamber was not meant to hold supper, but for the two of them it did more than just suffice. She started off with political matters, discussing what was going to occur when Daenerys Targarean finally arrived at the Wall.
But soon the talking changes, and Jon finds himself reminiscing with Sansa about life at Winterfell. He can not place his finger on how they arrived at that point of discussion, but he welcomes it nonetheless. He listens as Sansa apologizes for her terrible behaviour towards him in childhood, and he laughs. To his surprise and joy, Sansa joins in with a hearty laugh that he has never heard her make before.
They laugh and laugh and Jon leans over to muss his sister’s hair and he thinks to himself Perhaps it is Arya who has come back.
He takes her to the weirwoods to pray and he is surprised when he is met with an array of questions about the Wall and what lay beyond it. Sansa, he learns, knows much of many things but very little about anything further north than Winterfell. Like a child, she practically skips through the snow. He figures it is because it is only the two of them; his brothers and her guards have not followed.
With a laugh he answers her questions, and each new answer brings upon a new one. He finds himself telling her about the time he spent beyond the Wall with the wildlings, and although he knows that she is paying attention he watches as she moves listlessly and wildly, eyes never quite focusing on anything.
When they reach the trees the first thing Sansa does is reach up and pull herself onto a branch. She grins broadly at him as he rolls his eyes. And before he can react, she’s taking the snow off the side of the tree and rolling it into a ball.
Jon thinks to himself as a snowball hits him in the head All this is Bran. Brandon is the one who has returned to me.
Although she remains ever a lady during matters of politics, Sansa has taken to sword fighting to bide the time she does not spend waiting for the dragon queen. Jon Snow quickly learns that this is not the first time she has picked up a sword. Along her road from the Vale to the Wall she has been practicing. She has been putting people to the blade, from Petyr Baelish in the Eyrie to House Bolton in the north. She has been executing her justice the only way she really knows how.
Watching her, Jon can see how hard she is trying. From the determination in her eyes he can see that she is trying so hard not to be useless, trying to be something more than a prim lady. Although this is the first time he has ever seen her swing a sword, there is something about the action that grabs his attention. He thinks of Arya and the tiny sword he gave his little sister before they parted and wonders how Sansa would have reacted if he had given the same to her.
Pushing thoughts of his lost sister aside, he strides down to the sister he has in front of him, asking if she would fancy a spar. Sansa smiles her bright smile at him replying that she would love that. So they fight sword to sword, metal clanging against metal. Although he had begun with going easy on her, he finds himself pushing and fighting harder and realizes that he had greatly underestimated her stamina, determination, and skill.
Though Jon finds himself as the victor in the end, it is not achieved without large beads of sweat running down his face. Sansa stretches out her hand to shake his and, breathlessly, speaks words that are all too familiar to him.
“You beat me this time Snow but next time you won’t, I promise you that.”
Sansa runs off laughing with joy, and he stands there wondering if Robb and Sansa were always so similar.
The battle comes shortly after the Dragon Queen arrives, and both come forth with great speed and strength. The days that are full of fighting seem to fly by to Jon; every moment a great blur of ice and fire. He spends his nights shouting orders to his men, and his days trying to get something that could qualify as sleep.
There seemed to only be a day for Daenerys to rest, and during that time the Queen of Fire and the Queen of Ice have a conflict for a mere moment before the seem to become a sort of friends, strong allies for the upcoming fight. Jon learns that Daenerys has accepted Sansa’s sovereignty of the north, as long as she makes no move towards the south.
But there was little time for pleasantries as the White Walkers emerged in the light of a full moon, snow swirling all around them. Jon and Sansa stand at the top of the wall in the wind, staring at the horror that grows in front of them. Despite his resistance, Sansa is determined to enter the battle herself. She argues that it is her duty as a queen.
But the battle rages on, fire from the dragons engulfing the undead and lighting up the thick dark of the night. Black Brothers fall, Northmen fall, Unsullied fall; Jon burns all the bodies, Daenerys looks away, Sansa stares.
Jon watches in horror as a Walker grabs his sister by the arm. Time stops, Sansa smiles, Jon screams. As if in slow motion, Sansa stabs at the creature and it disintegrates, leaving only a thin layer of frost on her arm and dress. Jon runs to her as she takes a breath as if in a daze. But as he reaches her, Sansa’s gaze turns to ice as she looks back towards the battle.
She walks forward, sword in hand, and with a cold gaze slashes at the monsters.
She is unfrozen, he thinks in his shock.
But watching her fight he realizes something graver and more shocking. More Stark than Tully, more north than south, he thinks.
And if she hears him whisper “father”, she never says anything about it.
Sansa decides to go south with Daenerys, before returning to Winterfell to truly begin her reign. The Mother of Dragons is in need of her, she reasons, in her prosecution of the enemies of the crown. Jon knows that she wants to get her revenge as well, wants the people who hurt her and their family to feel the pain that she felt. Jon wants her to get her revenge, and he wants to go with her. He just didn’t wish it was so soon.
He knew that he had given up being a Stark. He knew that the men of the wall were his family, his brothers. But he also knows that he is not ready to give her up. He’s not ready to watch her fade into the distance once more. Sansa has become more than just his sister; she now represents every aspect of the life he once knew. He thought he was ready to give that up completely; he decides he is not.
That last night he makes one final ascent to her chambers at Castle Black. Each step brings a greater feeling of sadness. He tries to put a smile on his face but he senses it failing. If only he knew what was to become when he was just a boy, he would have tried to hold onto his sister a little tighter, even if she did not want to be held.
Knocking on the door he is quickly greeted by a smiling Sansa, whom, by the looks of the trunk on the floor, is just finishing up her packing. This scene, he thinks, is all to familiar and all too depressing. She babbles about the trip and her excitement and her nervousness, and in this state she is no longer the stern and terrifying queen of the north, but little more than a girl.
Then suddenly she’s gripping at his shirt her face covered in tears.
“How is it that we’re still here Jon? How is it that we are the ones who have survived this winter? Everyone is gone but we’re still here. The bastard and the perfect lady. Neither of us were meant to survive while the others are gone,”
And he grips her tighter, whispering his shared disbelief. And then she says it, and for the first time he can see Sansa again, finally returned. Not the shadows of their fallen family, but her. Sansa was always full of hope, a naive hope that could never came to fruition or truth.
“Bran is not gone Jon. He is not gone, he is just not here. I heard him breathing Jon; truly, I did,”
Sansa was always full of hope. But now he believes her.