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Chapter Text

Sansa sees her father’s head being cut off on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor. The sun is shining, and she is screaming, screaming, screaming-

Blood spurts, Joffrey laughs, and Sansa faints away.

...

She wakes up on... grass?

Grass and mud , and her gown’s a mess, and- 

And-

And she’s alone.

Oh. Gods. Joffrey’s abandoned her, hasn’t he? He’s kicked her out of King’s Landing. Left her to her own devices. Probably hoping she’ll die out here, just like he did to-

Don’t think about him.

But if he wanted that to happen, then she’ll not let him. Sansa is a Stark, like her fath-

Don’t think about him.

-like her brothers and sister. She’ll survive this. She must. She has to, even if all she wants is to weep. 

Slowly, she drags herself upright. Her stomach hurts; she hasn’t eaten anything in too long, and there are probably bruises there from one of the Kingsguard holding her back from going to her-

Don’t think about him.

Sansa picks a direction, and starts walking. 

It isn’t easy: her shoes are impractical slippers that cause blisters- which she ignores until they get slippery from the blood- finally, she walks barefoot on the side of the road, on the cool grass. But by then her legs are aching and her dress is drenched in sweat. Her throat is parched. She feels numb, detached; even the pain is lessened. Sansa doesn’t even have the strength to feel scared or angry or hateful.

Then she hears the sound of rushing water. It isn’t much; Sansa doesn’t have food, either, but the thirst has become a raging issue, and so she rushes towards the sound until she sees the stream. She doesn’t have anything to drink with- no cups- but if she curls her fingers in and gathers the water that way, it serves enough to sate the thirst.

The rest of her gown gets wet, too, but it’s almost refreshing after so long in the sun.

A sound makes her go still. 

She doesn’t know what to do: go towards it or away? Can she rely on a stranger for help? Where will she go?

Joffrey likely doesn’t want her back in King’s Landing. The North’s too far. And how can she trust anyone now, when she’d trusted Joffrey so much and he’d done this to her, to her fath-

Don’t think about him.

But before she can decide whether she wants to hide or not, a man walks through the trees. Her heart starts thundering. He has dark hair; a long face; if he turned to look at her, they’d be stern grey eyes. Sansa’s certain of it.

She squeaks, a little, and he whirls around, almost drawing his sword.

Father. 

She stumbles backwards. Father’s face twists, looking horrified, and he reaches a hand out, and Sansa recoils. 

Recoils a step too far.

The mud beneath her feet slips into water, and Sansa falls backwards, straight into the water, crying out. Her skirts get tangled in the water so it takes her a minute to get her bearings, then another to break above the water. It’s not too fast of a stream- the water’s shallow enough, all told- but it’s cold, and she yelps miserably, trying to wade her way back to shore.

Warm hands on her waist help lift her out. Sansa goes to thank him and sees his face.

“Father!” she gasps, and turns in his hold, and throws her arms over him before squeezing hard. 

Arya’s far more likely to act like this, but Sansa doesn’t care. Not now. Propriety didn’t save you from Joffrey, she thinks fiercely, and feels her father’s warmth, his beating heart, and refuses to let go.

Her father doesn’t return the embrace for a long moment, and when he does it’s a ginger, awkward hold. Sansa doesn’t care.

She has him back when she saw his head cut off. 

Absolutely nothing else matters right now.

...

Right, thinks Boromir.

It’s not like life’s complicated enough as it is. Now he’s got a child clinging onto him like a limpet, calling him something that sounds like she thinks he’s her father, between the sobs.

“Lass,” he says patting her shoulder, hoping she’ll stop weeping at least long enough for him to see her face. Right now it’s just buried in his ribs, and she’s soaking through all four layers of cloth he’s wearing. Thinks about what he’s going to say: Are you alright? Can we talk about this? Why are you alone here?

The first has a clear answer, she’s in no shape to talk about anything right now, and the last probably doesn’t matter if she’s willing to tackle strangers and call them her parent.

“Would you like to sit down?”

She sniffles, and so Boromir takes her to a nearby tree and guides her down before getting up to get his packs. At that, the girl makes a high-pitched sound of protest.

“I’m just going to get my packs,” Boromir tells her, forces his voice to turn soothing. “Breathe, lass. I’ll be back.”

She watches silently, barely blinking, and then drags him back into an embrace after he’s brought them closer to the tree, and doesn’t let go of him even when he offers her some food. Finally, finally, she says, “I thought Joffrey- he- he asked for your head.”

“I’m not sure who Joffrey is,” says Boromir slowly, “but it’ll take more than just asking for my head to take it.”

“I saw him cut it off!”

Oh, merciful Valar.

A girl of this age, seeing an execution? Seeing her father’s execution? What manner of land is she from? What kind of a savage land allows that to happen?

“Not my head,” says Boromir.

The girl breathes in sharply. “Oh,” she says. 

There’s a world of desolation in that voice. 

Boromir sighs. But it would be worse to let the girl believe him to be someone he isn’t; better he tell her the truth before she lets the wound be bandaged improperly.

“I’m not your father, lass.”

She looks up at him tremulously, and the tears look like they’ll start again, though she looks away before they fall. “You look so much like him.” Then, even quieter, curling into herself, “Who are you, my lord?”

“Boromir, son of Denethor,” Boromir tells her proudly, but she doesn’t seem to know the name- or at least, she doesn’t have any visible reaction. “And you?”

“Sansa, of House Stark.” 

She is pretty enough; the red hair isn’t often seen in Minas Tirith, but wouldn’t be out of place in Rohan. Perhaps she’s from there- though Boromir’s met Theodred, and he’d not seemed the kind of man to countenance executions that demanded the children watch.

“Well, Sansa of House Stark, to where are you headed?”

“Headed?” she asks, startled. “I don’t- know. If my father’s dead- if Joffrey’s sent me out of King’s Landing- I don’t know where I can go.” Her lip wobbles, but she pulls herself together remarkably well. “The North’s too far.”

“Is your home to the north?”

“No. Well, it’s in the North. You know- Winterfell.” She blinks at him. “I’m a Stark of Winterfell.”

“I can’t say I’ve heard of it,” says Boromir. “But I’ll tell you what- I’m headed to Rivendell, and Lord Elrond has enough maps there to drown us both whole. If you deign to accompany me that far, you can see where and how to best get to your- Winterfell.”

“Oh,” says Sansa. “I couldn’t possibly impose on-”

“I’m not in the habit of letting young women wander the wilds unprotected,” says Boromir firmly. “I am the son of the Steward of Gondor, Lady Sansa; we have taken oaths to protect innocents and children, and you are both. No harm shall come to you so long as I am here.”

She doesn’t respond for a long moment; her gaze is far away. Then she says, softly, “I would be in your debt, Lord Boromir.”

Right, thinks Boromir heavily.

He’s lost his horse, and he’s gained a girl. This shall make for either the best or worst of tales to tell Faramir when next they meet. Whatever else, thinks Boromir, as he tells Sansa to sleep and settles in for the first watch, it’ll not prove uninteresting.

Chapter Text

Uninteresting is definitely not what he’d call it. 

A sole man traveling the land is given little notice and a wide berth; a man traveling with his daughter- even if she’s young enough to have the coltish awkwardness of youth, Eru above- seems to draw more attention than Boromir’s entirely comfortable with.

Especially when he doesn’t have a horse, and cannot ride away quickly enough from them.

They stop at a few inns- more for Sansa’s comfort than his own- until she asks him if there’s no quicker path to Rivendell. 

“It cuts through the forest,” Boromir tells her. 

She fingers a strand of hair and lifts her chin to meet his gaze. “I’d rather return home,” says Sansa. “A few weeks in the forest would be worth it to go home quicker.”

“A forest is not anywhere near so comfortable as an inn,” Boromir says.

“No,” says Sansa. “But if lacking for that comfort is the price to be paid, I’ll pay it, my lord. I promise you’ll hear no complaints from my mouth.”

The next day, they cut into the forest instead of staying on the beaten path.

Only later does Boromir suspect that she’s seen his discomfort in the inns and taken steps to alleviate it. But then, they’d spent the time in towns telling everyone to call her his daughter, and that had been another measure of salt on her still-raw wound.

Boromir hears enough to know her reluctance well; they sleep in the same room, and though Sansa is perfectly courteous and calm enough during the day, she spends her nights sobbing and twisting in her dreams, making tiny sounds in the base of her throat that tear at Boromir and leave him sleepless on the cold ground.

No child should know that kind of pain.

She’s told him a little more of where she comes, and he’s stymied by it all. A kingdom as large as she speaks of should definitely be one he knows, but he’s never even heard whispers of it. Sansa doesn’t look addled, but she’s just lost her father; perhaps the grief has knocked something loose in her. Whatever it is, hopefully the elves will have a cure. 

Even if they don’t, she will be safe there. No king as evil as this Joffrey would be allowed within Elrond’s domain. 

If ever he has the chance to meet him... 

Well. 

Boromir is not a truly violent man. He wields his sword well- nay, better than well- but his captains and officers have never had to discipline him about overmuch enthusiasm in his actions either, as certain others have required. 

And yet, if Boromir meets Joffrey, he will not hesitate to strangle the king until his face turns blue. 

For all that she’s suffered, Sansa has remained a kind girl; unfailing in her kindnesses, and no matter how hard he pushes to reach Rivendell, she continues without protest. It must be difficult for her, for Boromir himself is exhausted by the time they rest- but she only retreats into herself and keeps walking.

A few days in, he hears her saying- chanting- something under her breath. It takes all his concentration to catch it, and when he does, something like shame rattles him: Sansa keeps whispering the names to her family, holding them close, like Boromir can remember he had done on his first campaign away from Minas Tirith.

“Tell me about them,” says Boromir finally, unable to take the silence between them. Sansa jerks, turning to look at him, and Boromir smiles a little, unbidden, at her astonishment. “You say I look like your- father. But you look nothing like me.”

“I take after my mother,” says Sansa slowly, jaw flexing as if disused. 

But she continues, and soon the words are coming easily, and she looks far more cheerful than she’d been just a few hours earlier. 

She’s a truly lovely girl in that sense- easy to get along with, intelligent, and funny when prodded at. Boromir laughs aloud for the first time since his dream of Isildur’s bane when she tells him about her brothers’ prank in their family’s crypts. Sansa’s eyes sparkle at that, and she keeps him supplied with such tales for long enough that Boromir calls for an early halt and collapses, sides aching with laughter.

“I’d like to meet them, I think,” he says, watching her duck her head, pleased. “All your brothers- and your sister- ah! Such rascals. Your parents must have been glad for you. A little peace in their lives.”

“What of you, Lord Boromir?” asks Sansa, gnawing on her lip. “Were your parents- did you make them worry?”

“I’ve only a brother,” says Boromir. He waves a hand. “He’s far the better child than I, though my father’s always found steel a better pursuit for his sons than books. My mother passed when Faramir was very young; if she’d lived, she might have allowed him to become a scholar. And worried more about me, of course.”

Sansa smiles, but it’s pale and shadowed. “I didn’t know your mother had-” she shakes her head. “My apologies, I-”

“It was a long time ago,” says Boromir firmly, and she falls silent, watching him with those blue eyes. They see everything, which Boromir hadn’t entirely expected from a girl of her age. But then again, few enough girls would have experienced as much as Sansa has. He finds his mouth opening, explaining things he has never wished to explain before. “The pain never leaves you, but it lessens. Like any wound: it will ache on rainy nights, or when you wish them most beside you. But there is a life beyond death, Lady Sansa.”

Her chin wobbles. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“You are young. I was younger then than you are now- but old enough to know that my Ama would never return, and of an age to miss her terribly.” He clasps her shoulder and draws her into a loose embrace, because she looks miserable enough to warrant it, and promises, quietly, fiercely: “It will get better.”

...

They reach Rivendell soon enough- or at least Boromir doesn’t look irritated at any delays- and Sansa feels the difference when they enter the land.

“Yes,” says Boromir grimly, when he sees her eyes widen. “Elven magic. Be wary of them, Lady Sansa; they are not all as they appear, and can use words as prettily as any courtier.”

“What are elves?”

“Elves,” says Boromir, flat as unleavened bread. “The- the Immortal Ones. The first children of Eru.” Sansa shakes her head, still uncomprehending, and Boromir shakes his in response, as if in disbelief. “Your parents have kept you protected over-well.”

Have they? 

Sansa nods, but doesn’t say anything else; she has a feeling it’s more complicated than Boromir is making it out. 

“Anyhow. Keep your wits about you when speaking to them, lass. They are long-lived, and do not see the world as we do.”

“You don’t like them,” murmurs Sansa.

Boromir’s eyes cut to her. “They’ve left it to Gondor to defend against the south,” he says grimly. “Against the orcs and the darkness that lies there, there has been only one shield for the rest of the world, and that has been Gondor. Gondorian blood and Gondorian lives. But of course- elven lives matter more than men’s, and we must not quail from bitter truths.”

“But you’re still going to their home.”

“I had a dream.” Boromir tilts his head, staring into the distance. “The Stewards of old were prophets, and we have learned not to ignore such omens. When both Faramir and I dreamt of the same thing, we knew one of us had to come.” His face tightens, minutely. “I will get my answers from them, even if I must throttle one out of them.”

“I do not think throttling them will make them more likely to speak,” says Sansa, picking at the stitching on the side of her gown. She looks up through her lashes, but the tense anger on Boromir’s face doesn’t soften, and she continues, holding out a hand to the very air that feels golden and soft. “It feels beautiful, though.”

“Beautiful does not mean good,” Boromir says shortly.

Sansa remembers Joffrey and Cersei- how coldly, how cruelly they had decided to take her father’s head. She should have trusted Arya. She should have trusted her father. She should have learned her lessons already.

It’s fine, she reminds herself. I have Lord Boromir to warn me.

It’ll be enough. It will have to be enough. 

And hopefully this Lord Elrond will have the answers she’s looking for. Sansa can only hope that Boromir doesn’t know his geography- which is looking more and more unlikely as he tells her who he and his family are- or that Elrond knows something she does not. Otherwise, Sansa is lost: somehow, she is somewhere else, as in the stories of the fae. Only there is no fairy queen’s crown that she can steal to escape, and Sansa is all alone, is completely dependent on others.

Every time Boromir says something unthinkingly, assuming she’ll know, the knot in her belly twists deeper.

Still lost in thought, she almost flinches when Boromir’s hand comes down on her shoulder, and it’s only because of her trust in him that she doesn’t recoil when the elves spill out of- somewhere.

“Hail Boromir, son of Denethor,” says one of the- elves, it must be; for he is beautiful beyond imagining, with long, loose hair and eyes brighter than the stars, and ears that lengthen into sharp points at the very top. “Imladris welcomes you and your companion.”

“You have both mine and my ward’s gratitude,” says Boromir coolly, hand flexing on her shoulder before he lets go. “I’ve important matters to speak of with Lord Elrond.”

“The Lord Elrond is in private meeting with Mithrandir. Shall you partake in refreshment until then?”

“Very well,” says Boromir, and places a hand flat on her shoulder-blade, and propels her up the stairs without hesitance.

Sansa wants- 

She wants time.

One after another, the things are happening too quickly. And she cannot let herself think about any one thing too closely lest she miss what is going on in front of her.

Do what’s most important, she thinks. Quickly, now, Sansa; you are the nimble one. If you are to be queen, you must be able to master things more difficult than this.

Little matter that she’ll likely never be a queen. Sansa was born to be one; she was raised to be one; it doesn’t matter if she has a crown on her brow or not.

So she listens, carefully, to what the steward is telling them. She doesn’t speak much, but when they enter what is- ostensibly- her room and Boromir turns to leave, Sansa cannot keep silent.

“Lord Boromir,” she calls, and he pauses, and she nearly shrinks into herself. “I- that is- is it possible to ask for a room near mine?”

Boromir turns and approaches her. Sansa lifts her gaze to his and has to fight not to gasp at the dearness of those features.

“Do you remember who I am, Lady Sansa?” he asks quietly.

“Y-yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Lord Boromir,” says Sansa, ruthlessly battling the tears down. She knows this, down deep in her heart. This man is not her father, no matter how much she might wish him to be. “Son of Gondor’s steward, Denethor.”

“I am not your father,” says Boromir, and it isn’t half cruel.

But you called me your ward!

A ward is no simple thing to name someone; it is an honor, done between the closest of friends, family, or to maintain relations between noble houses. Boromir hasn’t known her for very long at all. He isn’t gaining anything by naming her his, but he’s placed her under his protection anyhow. 

Unless such practices are different in this land.

The dread of that thought cuts through the hurt, enough that she can answer.

“I know that, my lord,” Sansa replies. “But this is all so- new. And different. I simply wanted... I thought it would be more comforting to have someone I knew around.”

The shadows in Boromir’s eyes lighten, just a little. “Yes, I can understand that,” he says, and steps away. “I shall try, my lady. Ready yourself; once refreshed, we shall speak to Lord Elrond.”

Sansa nods, clenching her jaw to keep from saying anything more. It’s only after he’s gone and she’s in the room alone that Sansa lets herself think.

There are elves here, and magic she does not understand. The stories that her parents had sung to her mention them, sometimes, but not tales such as these- of immortal beings, with pointed ears and skin so bright as to be luminous.

Tales that she does not know, and people she does not trust. 

Save for Boromir.

For now, Sansa tells herself, looking around the small, airy room. But I loved Cersei so well, and Joffrey even sweeter than that, and both of them repaid that with murder.

Boromir bears my father’s face, but he is not my father.

In that sense, his reminder had not been anything but a reminder; the truth, bitter though it was.

And Boromir had told her, hadn’t he: Sweet truths can be told often and well. But the mark of a good man is one who does not flinch from even the darkest and bitterest of truths- even in the darkest and bitterest of times. Unflinching we must be, if ever we wish to rule any men; and we must never lie to ourselves, even if we let the rest of the world repeat those lies.

They had been lying on grass, watching the stars, weary after long hours of trekking- and he’d said it half-asleep; Sansa had learned, over the weeks, that Boromir did not speak well unless he felt it necessary, or he felt that none would pay attention to his words. But his voice more than the words had softened her, soothed that little hollow in her chest that had felt brimming with tears.

There shall never be someone so stalwart in your defense as your own memory, he’d said, and then Sansa had fallen asleep, and could remember nothing more of any of it.

Sansa surrenders to the ministrations of an elf, who shows her a gown and how to clasp it about her shoulders, then the private bath they’ve drawn for Sansa. But then she leaves, and Sansa allows herself a moment to press her forehead against the soft wood of the mantel, lets the weariness and terror swamp over her for a long moment. 

She wants her mother. She wants her mother to hold her close and promise her safety, and she wants Robb to be there beside her, warm and laughing, and she wants her father, she wants Ned Stark, who would hug her easier than Boromir, who laughed less but did not stoop as much, who would tell her stories when the night turned dark, who was her father.

“One step in front of another,” she murmurs to herself. 

The voice- despite how quietly she’d said it- is too loud in the silence of the bathchamber, and echoes around the stone. It gives her courage enough to slip out of the gown and into the water, which is hot and turns her skin pink.

Remember your family, she thinks, and closes her eyes, leans into the steamy warmth. You owe them that much.

...

Boromir shaves his face and washes the grime from his hair and face, though he doesn’t dare enter the full bathtub the elves offer him. 

If there is time after meeting with Elrond- both for his own dream and for Sansa’s matter- then he shall relax into it. But he feels the prickling of their condescension and the distant, sun-hot rage of it still, and anger has always sharpened Boromir’s mind into something far more intelligent than when calm.

It slows the world down for him; it speeds his reactions up to others. 

Better to keep himself off-balance for the length of time that it takes to finish this conversation, and then to shut himself up for the night. He’ll need the rest if he’s to be ready for whatever the morrow brings.

But he feels more human, too, with the crusted mud flaked off and the itches of too long in one set of clothes diminished. And with that comfort comes the guilt: he’d been harsh with Sansa, far harsher than warranted. A reminder might well have been necessary, but the method of the reminder had not needed to be like that. 

So he breathes in, sharply, when he knocks on her door, the words heavy on his tongue.

Only to stutter to a halt when he sees Sansa.

She’s lovely, yes, but that’s not what makes him almost swallow his tongue; it’s the glow to her skin, and the height the elvish gown she wears lends her slender form, and the brilliance of her hair, freshly washed and braided over her shoulder. Even in the childish lines of her face, there is something there- an edge, a promise of something far beyond the simple girl he’d met in the woods. 

Numenorean, thinks Boromir, but it isn’t that, not truly. 

He has known many beautiful and regal women in his time. Perhaps it is just the gown, which is certainly royal in cut and cloth. Perhaps it reminds him of someone else- some queen of old- but Boromir would not know enough to name what he thinks now, not even with access to Gondor’s libraries. All he knows is that Sansa looks different- and there is something to that difference that makes worry clutch at his heart.

These are difficult times, Boromir reminds himself, offering Sansa an elbow. Look not for hope in people that cannot give it.

“My lady,” says Boromir slowly, pushing the rest of the thoughts out of his mind, “I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?” 

“For my words earlier.”

“Ah.” Sansa smiles up at him, and though it is but a glimmer of what he’s seen of joy on her face, it is a fair enough attempt at one. “No apologies are necessary, my lord. It- was a timely reminder. One that I needed.”

“Sansa-”

“Unflinching we must be,” she says quietly, and Boromir falls silent, struck.

He hadn’t thought she was paying attention then. It had been an arduous trek that day, through bogs and under an unseasonably hot sun; Boromir himself had been so tired that he’d been half-asleep, and any words he’d said had been only the teachings of his own youth drummed into him over long years.

“Aye,” he says, patting her arm. “But we can speak the truth kindly. Remember that, too- cruelty is the last path to walk, and only when all others have been exhausted, though it may be easier and simpler. I should have remembered that.” Boromir smiles wryly. “And so: my apologies.”

The smile she gives him larger this time, and brighter. “Accepted, then, my lord.”

“Hmm. Unflinching- that we must be, yes, but also: we must know our own minds, even when all say otherwise.” Boromir turns to Sansa. “When you go to speak to Lord Elrond, speak your mind, Sansa. Do not be afraid.”

She nods and straightens, a little, spine going stiff; despite her age, Sansa almost reaches his shoulder. Her head goes up, and her chin tilts back, and her eyes remain calm even when they leave her chambers for the rest of Rivendell. 

The ages of queens has faded, Boromir reminds himself, once, and twice, and thrice- the third when Elrond comes upon them, and pales, seeing Sansa with eyes too wide and too old.

...

Do not be afraid, Sansa reminds herself. I am a Stark of Winterfell, and my blood is of the North. 

But this elf-lord is frightening. He looks at her like she holds secrets he doesn’t understand, and she remembers how Boromir had looked at her upon seeing her in elven garments: stunned, and scared, and a little surprised, like he didn’t recognize her at all.

“I am Sansa of House Stark,” says Sansa, and sinks into a curtsy. She rises, and looks at Elrond, and lets herself smile at him, gracious as any queen. “You have my gratitude for your hospitality.”

Elrond nods at her gravely. “We are glad to have you here, Lady Sansa. Please- come. I believe we’ve much to speak of.”

Sansa sits at the wooden table he gestures to, and places her hands on the table, flat, wrists bent. Her head aches a little; she thinks she needs to sleep, and eat some food other than the things she and Boromir could forage on their travels, and then likely sleep some more. But she wants to meet her family first.

“Yes,” she says, focusing on that desire, letting it burn high in her chest. “My lord- I come from Winterfell. I wish to return there- I’d require nothing, I promise you, just a raven to there and then Robb will come. Or one of Robb’s men. But-”

“Peace,” says Elrond, holding up a hand. “Go slowly; where is this Winterfell?”

Sansa’s hands spasm, nails digging into the wood. She closes her eyes. 

So. She is somewhere else, then. Sothoryos? But no, she suspects that this is beyond even that. How could she have gotten from King’s Landing to Sothoryos, anyhow?

“In the North,” she says quietly, but the hope has drained from her voice, audible even to Sansa. “Near the White Knife. Its walls are of grey stone and the direwolf is my family’s symbol.” She breathes in, shallow. “Tell me, have you heard of Robert Baratheon? Perhaps- the Targaryens? House Lannister? Ned Stark?”

Her voice breaks awfully on the last name, and Sansa averts her face at it, wishing Elrond would look somewhere other than her eyes. She knows his answer, even when he doesn’t speak. It’s all but confirmed when she looks up at him.

“No,” says Elrond.

“No,” echoes Sansa, shaking her head. 

“Perhaps a book from my libraries can-”

“This is not a history to be written of,” Sansa flares. “It is my- it is my family’s life. What we have been born into. And I have seen your land’s maps. They are not my own.”

“Perhaps you were mistaken,” offers Boromir.

“I’m not,” says Sansa. She turns to Elrond. “You don’t know who I’m talking about, and Robert Baratheon is a king who overthrew another after three hundred years of that dynasty. My father is Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North- he stood by King Robert’s side for all those days of rebellion, and the Starks have held Winterfell for eight thousand years, and I am his eldest daughter, and I know what I speak of.”

She is standing. She is standing, and shouting at Lord Elrond, at Boromir- who has never been anything but kind to her. Sansa feels the flush of shame heat her cheeks. She turns away, staring out at the balcony and its gently swaying branches. She will not cry here. She will not.

“I believe you, Lady Sansa,” says Elrond, finally. 

Boromir places a hand on her shoulder, and Sansa turns back to them. 

“I know them,” she whispers.

“Yes,” says Elrond. “You do. I believe I know what you are- there are tales of you, or people like you, through history. Travelers that appear and disappear, without history or name unless offered some by people of our own world.”

“You know what I’m doing here?” Sansa asks, the hope swirling back up her so fast it almost leaves her dizzy.

“I’ve heard of others like you,” Elrond corrects. “Often, I’ve found that it’s because of a- trauma in your homeland. A healing is necessary before you can leave, and you shall stay here until that is achieved.”

Sansa doesn’t dare let her eyes flick to Boromir. She slumps into the chair instead. “What kind of a healing?”

“Did you bring anything with you? Of importance?”

“No,” says Sansa. “Just- my shoes, which I didn’t keep, and the gown I came here in which is more rags than cloth. Nothing else.”

Elrond frowns. “That does not make sense.”

“The lass lost her father and disappeared from her land in one stroke, and it does not make sense?” asks Boromir. 

“Twice before have I seen this. And both times, it simply needed the action of a material.” Elrond rises and returns with a book. “Yes- once, the person simply needed to be reunited with their material; in the second, the person needed to go to the ocean after reuniting with their material. But both people knew what they were missing as soon as they came here.”

“I don’t,” says Sansa, throat dry, the whiplash of the lost hope 

Elrond nods. “Perhaps there are things I am missing, Lady Sansa. A few days- I shall be able to help you once some other matters are taken care of.”

Sansa blinks, only for Boromir to speak before she can: “I would have your word to watch over her.”

“And you shall have it.” Elrond inclines his head. “Lady Sansa- you are welcome here for as long or as short it takes for you to find whatever you need. If you wish to become a ward of Rivendell as opposed to Boromir’s, that can be arranged.”

“Watch over me,” says Sansa slowly. She looks at Boromir. “You are planning to leave?”

Boromir tilts his head backwards, looking at Elrond. Whatever is in his face, Sansa cannot understand it, but Elrond does; he leaves, with a sweeping bow and a swift stride.

“I’ve a responsibility to Gondor,” Boromir tells her. “I must return there, and quickly; there is a shadow that grows from the south. They have need of me.”

Anger prickles over her arms, like sunshine on a hot day. Boromir won’t even look at her before handing her over to someone else, like some- some unwanted laundry!

“You’ve a responsibility to me, as well.”

“I am a soldier,” says Boromir wearily. “What would you have me do? You are safe in Rivendell; Lord Elrond shall keep you safe until you can go home.”

“And if I would wish to be with my own people?” Sansa folds her arms about her waist, chilled to the bone. I am alone, always and always. I was right before; I should not have trusted him. Not even with a portion of my heart. Just because he looks like Father does not mean... “You have not asked. Just- assumed. I thought- I thought- my happiness mattered here. That I wasn’t just- another prisoner-price exacted to keep people well-behaved.”

Boromir’s face turns taut, like a chain pulled tight. “I am not your father,” he grates. “You are my ward, and-”

“-believe me, my lord,” says Sansa, drawing all her anger and all her fear and all her loss into a flowing, twisting shield about her body, “I know you are not my father.”

My father would not have done this to me.

She turns and flees, and does not let the tears fall until she is certain that Boromir has not chased after her.

...

Boromir sighs. He feels old and weary when he sees Sansa; she is so sprightly and so fervent, her angers high and her despairs deep. When have the years passed him by? When did he become this- this creature, so weighted by expectation and duty that the bright star of youth only tends to weary him with its untempered brilliance?

But he must go to the Council, now, and await the answers of both Gandalf the Grey and Elrond. Hopefully with less obfuscation than he’s experienced over the morning.

(When he walks in- there are elves there, and dwarves, and a single man: a Ranger, scruffy-faced and shadow-eyed.

Very well then, thinks Boromir, son of Denethor, heir to Steward of Gondor, and straightens his broad shoulders, takes up this burden unasked for and unwanted, unhesitatingly. If I am to represent Men here, I shall do that as well, and do the task properly.)

...

“Why do you weep?”

Sansa looks up from her hands to see an elf. A she-elf, this time, with dark hair and pale eyes, in a simple gown made of rich material, as everyone seems to wear here. Her throat hurts; she wants nothing more than to be left alone. What can this elf know of Sansa’s loss?

“I’m sorry,” she says, instead of any other words, and rises to her feet, brushes off the dirt from her skirts. "I did not mean to intrude.”

“It was no intrusion,” says the elf, stepping forwards and putting a finger under Sansa’s chin, lifting it to her gaze. “But when young women weep in my garden- it would be remiss of me not to ask why.”

Sansa looks away. “I cannot,” she says, and it wrenches at something deep, deep inside of her. “I cannot go home.”

The elf seats herself next to Sansa and pats the stone, waiting patiently until Sansa sits down again. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says softly. 

“Have you ever known pain like it before?” Sansa asks. She looks up, up, up: to the sky, scudded with white clouds and as beautiful as on the day of her father’s death. “I did not wish to come here. I have lost- everything, now; my father, my mother, my brothers and my sister. My sister- I don’t even know where she is! She ought to have been with me, and then she wasn’t, and now I don’t- I won’t- ever see them again.”

“Is that so? Has my father told you that?”

“Lord Elrond is your father?”

“Yes.”

“No,” admits Sansa. “But he has said that he has never seen anything like me here before. That with the others he’s seen, a healing was necessary, and an object to take them back; but I’ve nothing that I brought with me.”

“A healing,” says the elf thoughtfully. “Are you a healer, back in your home?”

“I am a lady,” says Sansa. 

“And a lady cannot be a healer?” The elf seems amused. “Tell that to Lady Galadriel of Lorien, or Luthien of old. And anyhow, healing takes many forms; as many forms as a wound can take. Wounds of flesh, or the heart, or the soul; wounds of a nation, of a family, of yourself. Take heart, little lady. Keep faith.” She turns, staring at the sky herself, and her long hair stirs in a wind that does not touch Sansa at all. “And remember: when all looks darkest, there shall be a dawn.”

“And if there isn’t a dawn after all? If it only gets darker, and darker, and darker still-”

“-then,” says the elf, gentle as a falling leaf, “it is not yet the darkest times yet, and there shall be a dawn to come.”

She rises and helps Sansa up, too, and smiles, plucking a leaf out of her hair. Sansa doesn’t recognize it; the leaf is narrow, with little golden veins that illuminate it from within. 

“These are dangerous times,” says the elf. “Dark times. I regret that you had to come now, when you are likely to see the worst of us.”

Sansa bows her head. “Dark times,” she echoes, slowly. “Why?”

“There is to be a Council,” says the elf. “One where the future of Middle-Earth shall be decided; attended by dwarves and elves and men alike. I believe your foster father is there now.”

Foster, Sansa reminds herself fiercely. Not father.

“It sounds- important.”

“And so it is. Do you wish to see?”

I want to sleep. I want to be held by my mother. I want-

But her desires have not mattered since leaving Winterfell. Not since Lady died. She has watched her father die and her sister disappear; she has watched her world be made anew. I must choose between comfort and curiosity, thinks Sansa, and closes her eyes, and opens them, and lets the part of her that still wants to weep shrink and shrivel within her chest. 

“Yes,” she says, and takes the elf’s hand.

...

The dread that curls over Boromir’s heart is nothing new. He has known it well; he has lain beside it, and fed it, and tended to it with the grim surety of a man who knows his actions are necessary. Such fear keeps men’s minds sharp and so has Boromir let it hone his own. But here do five stand: men and wizards and elves and dwarves alike, and of them all Boromir does not see the fear that sings in his own heart.

Only with true fear can a soldier know true courage.

The prickling in his mind, the weight across his lungs- he steps forwards, lets it carry him to the forefront of the rest of the Council, and only then does he speak.

“If this is, indeed, the will of the Council-” he breathes, in, out, watches the rest of them, “-then Gondor will see it done.”

“No,” he hears, through a small bush, and amid the clatter of other halflings- Valar, but they’re numerous; are they dividing before his eyes?- a pale, red-haired shadow lunges forwards and seizes him around the wrist.

“Sansa,” says Boromir, startled.

She glares back at him. “Mordor,” she bites out. “An evil ring- you cannot.”

“Someone must,” he says quietly. “There is no other. What are you-”

“Arwen,” says Elrond, exasperated, and a tall, black-haired woman steps out of the shadows from which Sansa had done just a few moments earlier. “I believed this to be a private Council.”

“Private indeed,” says Arwen, arching an eyebrow. “Nigh on twenty members of three races, with all of Imladris knowing what the topic of conversation is on.”

“She is a child.”

“Whose only link to this world has just volunteered for the most dangerous quest in all of Arda. She deserved to hear of it.”

“And I would have told her,” says Boromir. “Just-”

“-after the decision,” finishes Sansa tremulously. She shakes her head. “You cannot go. You must not go. You said it yourself- your people need you!”

“I can best serve them by delivering this ring.”

“I know what happens to men that walk into evil lairs,” whispers Sansa. “Please, my lord, please- that is not a fate I would wish on Joffrey himself, much less you!”

Boromir slowly extracts his wrist from her death grip. Places it on her shoulder. “I shall go,” he tells her, and watches Sansa’s face crumple in on itself like paper on flame. “I shall try to return, Lady Sansa. Until then, you shall be a ward of Lord Elrond- and safe, in Rivendell.”

Sansa backs away rapidly, pale as death; her gaze is on his face, but she is not seeing him. Boromir knows what she sees instead: her father. Her father’s execution, and the pain of everything that came after. He curses his features, holding out a hand to her, and Sansa shakes her head once, tears standing in her eyes like ground diamonds.

“I saw my father’s death once,” she whispers. “And I’ll see it again, and again, and again-”

She cries out and turns and, dodging those that try to capture her, flees. Arwen follows after throwing him a dirty look- apparently Boromir is to blame for simply telling the truth- and when Boromir looks around, everyone’s staring at him suspiciously save for Elrond, who looks utterly resigned.

As everyone is leaving- with the Council disbanded- Boromir walks up to Elrond.

“Tell me she doesn’t have the gift of foresight,” he says lowly.

“I did not believe she did,” says Elrond, just as quietly. “But now... her face... Be careful on this quest, my lord. Be very careful.”

...

Sansa watches Boromir from afar the rest of the day- he spars for some time with one of the elves, and though he is not so fast or so strong as the elf, he holds his own well enough; Boromir’s a fair swordsman, better by far than Sansa’s own father, and knows his own abilities well. Sansa takes heart in it. 

But this enemy is thick and swarming, with numbers enough to blot out the very sun.

And any man may be turned aside by an army, and there are things here that Sansa could never have imagined to exist in reality; dreams, the wildest tales of history, now breathing and ruining even the world of her songs with their cruelty. Things that are a thousand times larger than any man, no matter if that man is king of the Iron Throne or heir to the Steward of Gondor.

It had not been a prophecy that she spoke in the Council. 

But it had been a fear, now her deepest fear; to see Boromir’s head again, only this time detached from the body and sightless, long hair hanging limp about slack features. To see the blood run, thick and red, and be unable to stop it.

“Sansa,” she hears, and looks up, and sees- Arwen, yes, that had been what Lord Elrond had called her. 

Arwen, who kneels, and captures Sansa’s wrists, and draws her into an embrace so tight and warm and motherly that Sansa cries out, succumbing to the twisting grief in her chest.

“He’ll die,” she whispers.

“Have you seen it?”

“I don’t need to see something to know that he is a man alone among legends and myths,” cries Sansa. “A man bound by duty and honor- what nonsense! Why? Why? Why send me here, and bind me to him, only to lose him here, now- like this?”

“You haven’t seen anything,” cautions Arwen. “It is a- fear, yes, but-”

“I saw the way you looked at King Aragorn,” snaps Sansa. She feels the guilt of her words when Arwen pales a little at her words, but does not stop. “You don’t mean to tell me that you’re glad he’s going, too.”

Arwen shakes her head. “I am not. Only, I know that he shall not be turned from his path. My gladness does not mean that I’d keep him safe in Imladris; such a wish would turn him away from me, for I could not ask him to put my desires above his own.”

“His life matters as well,” Sansa tells her sharply. “And I am not like you- I’m not in love with Lord Boromir. All I know is that he has protected me, and cared for me, and treated me as well as my father ever treated me, and it would break my heart to see him dead in the same manner.”

“Oh, Sansa,” says Arwen sadly.

“Call it selfishness. Call it greed.” Sansa rises to her feet. “Call it what you wish. But I have seen what happens to good men in this world. And I’d not wish that death on Lord Boromir.”

Arwen looks at her, and her gaze is piercing; in that moment, for no longer than a heartbeat, moreso than Elrond’s. She is very beautiful, and likely has been alive for longer than the Red Keep has stood, and Sansa wants to shrink away, wants to cry at it.

She’s so tired. 

“Sink your roots into the rock and face the wind,” murmurs Arwen, “though it blow away all your leaves.” She bows her head. “You asked me if I could imagine leaving my home behind, Sansa, and I answer you now: if I wish to live with Aragorn, I must. I must choose mortality. I must choose to never see my father or brothers, and fade into the fabric of the world for the sake of the few years I would get with him.”

“Highborn women do not get to stay with their families in my land,” Sansa tells her quietly. “Once wed, we go to our husband’s homes; to their castles, to their realms. And it is... I loved the idea, when I first left my home. I still loved it. I loved it, right until Joffrey took my father’s head.”

“It does-” Arwen wrinkles her nose, “-sound like something to be endured.”

Sansa laughs, a little, despite herself. “But my mother loved my father, and they built a home in the North that they could both love. Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight- they never even got a home or family together, but they loved each other from afar.”

“Now that sounds like a tragedy.”

“It’s the romance of it,” Sansa tells her. She sighs a little. “The tragedy is in the ending, but the beginning and the middle... that was lovely.” She sneaks a look at Arwen. “You know, if you asked my mother- or Naerys- if they’d exchange another lifetime’s worth of time for none with my father or Aemon- I’m fairly certain they wouldn’t take your offer.”

Arwen lifts a brow, and she looks amused again, eyes aglow. “And what about you?”

Sansa traces the ground with the toe of her boot. “It depends on the man I’d wed, doesn’t it? If it were Joffrey- likely always. But with someone else? Someone kinder and better, good and sweet and strong and handsome? I don’t know why I would.”

“Well.” A smile still plays about the corners of Arwen’s mouth. “Are you still afraid for Lord Boromir’s future?” She doesn’t wait to hear Sansa’s answer, just continues on. “It will mean hard work for you- harder work than you’ve ever done before, and I will not be an easy mistress.”

I am a Stark of Winterfell, and I do not shrink from challenges.

“I don’t mind hard work,” says Sansa stoutly.

Arwen’s smile grows, to a grin bright enough to rival the sun. “Very well,” she says. “Let us keep this between us, then, Sansa. But take heart: this shall not be the last time you see Lord Boromir. That much I can assure you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You need not; not yet, at least.” She winks. “For that which you do not know cannot be revealed. Bid him goodbye tonight, when they leave. And keep your head tilted high, Lady Sansa of House Stark. Your tale of Middle-Earth shall not end in the safety of Imladris.”

...

Sansa approaches him in the evening. She is still pale and red-eyed, but her gaze is steady and her voice soft when she hands him a ribbon of silk.

“Be safe, my lord,” she tells him.

“I shall,” says Boromir, and embraces her, and Sansa returns it with enough warmth.

He does not ask her to stay safe as well, or to heed his orders. 

He does not even think on it. 

Boromir has heard his uncle Imrahil curse his daughter Lothiriel many times in his life; for all that she is a kind and good woman, there are times that Lothiriel can act without thought and bring down the best-laid plans, plans years in the making, within a scarce few moments. But Boromir doesn’t remember that then. He only smiles down at his ward, and thanks his stars that she’s proven to be so understanding.

Later, Boromir curses himself to be a fool.

Chapter Text

The morning after the Fellowship leave, Arwen wakes Sansa at dawn.

“You’ll need training,” she tells Sansa once they’re down in a cold room, Sansa still yawning and rubbing sleep from her eyes. “If we’re to leave, you’ll need to be able to defend yourself.”

“That will take time,” says Sansa. 

“Time that we have. The Fellowship shall go south first; their burden is such that they must take a longer path than truly necessary.”

“There’s a shorter path, then?”

“A shorter one, yes. But also more dangerous.”

Arwen opens a chest and reveals a pack of daggers, glittering as if jeweled. She eyes Sansa and then shakes her head and pulls something else out, a sword- no, a pair of swords. One is of white metal and the other dark; the pommels are set in contrast.

“Ringil and Duril,” says Arwen. “One of brilliance and one of darkness. They are the lightest swords here in Rivendell.” She lifts an eyebrow at Sansa. “It will be a difficult and dangerous journey- you shall need to know how to wield them both well before we leave.”

“Swords,” says Sansa faintly, abruptly awake.

“Swords,” says Arwen. “I considered a bow and arrow, but we haven’t the time to build the necessary strength in your back and arm, much less the training necessary to aim well. These swords are light enough that they won’t weigh you down, and with some practice you’ll be able to move quickly; with some luck, you won’t be half so defenseless as you are now.”

“I’m no swordswoman!”

“No,” agrees Arwen peaceably. “Not yet.”

Sansa swallows, hard. But she’d sworn to Arwen, hadn’t she? And she’ll keep that part of her word, because Sansa is nothing if not her father’s daughter. She won’t let Boromir run off to Mordor alone. If nothing else, Sansa will be there beside him.

“Very well,” she whispers, and takes the swords, and feels the weight of live steel for the first time in her life.

...

Arwen is a truly terrible mistress: merciless, and steady, and incapable of understanding that Sansa has never done this before; she never shouts at Sansa for failure, only insists she repeat the steps again, and again, and again, ten times over if she feels that Sansa’s capable of doing something better.

Sansa wakes before dawn so Arwen can teach her the forms, and they spar through the morning. Then she’s allowed half the afternoon off to loiter around Rivendell, which she mostly spends exploring some of the rooms or reading some histories. At the height of the sun’s warmth, Arwen demands Sansa do endurance tests, which are the worst of all: running until her muscles turn limper than noodles; stretches that burn and ache and bring tears to her eyes; further practices with the swords so the twist of her muscle and flick of her wrist is embedded deep, deeper even than the fear.

...

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” pants Sansa, flopping onto the ground. 

“I’m doing this because you were right,” says Arwen patiently. 

“About what?”

“Love. Seizing love.” She lifts an eyebrow at Sansa, until Sansa sits up and wipes the dust off the blade. “It does not matter to me whether Aragorn will love or not. Whether he will love me at the end of this or not. I could not have lived with myself if I chose to remain in Imladris and heard he died on the road. Aragorn may walk dangerous paths- but that does not mean that I should not try to make them less dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My father would not have enjoyed hearing our conversation- the one after you disrupted the Council,” says Arwen bluntly. She purses her lips. “But then, I do not believe Lord Boromir shall enjoy seeing you outside the bounds of Imladris. It seems we both shall have to risk their disapproval.”

“You’re still helping me,” Sansa points out.

Arwen tosses her hair back so it shines in the sunlight, so brilliantly it could blind Sansa if she paid close enough attention. “Of course I am. Our fathers would always bid us to remain safe and sound. To them we shall never be but the infants they held in their arms, no matter how old or capable we grow.”

“How do we change that, then?”

“They shall be angry, if we defy them,” says Arwen. “That does not make them right.”

“Wait,” says Sansa, delight and horror warring within her chest. “Do you mean to say that-”

“-we shall leave Imladris, and meet the Fellowship on the way?” Arwen nods. “There is a pass through the mountains that we can take- one that the Fellowship dare not for reasons of secrecy; and from there, we may follow the Anduin down to Lorien, where we shall be safe under my grandmother’s watch, and meet the Fellowship well before they reach Mordor.

“Now. Stand up, little one: you’ve much to learn before we leave.”

...

Lord Elrond calls her into his study after a few days.

“I don’t understand,” he says, frustrated. “You can think of nothing you brought with you?”

“You haven’t found anything else out, my lord?” asks Sansa, and it is almost a relief, for all that she wants to see her family again, for all that she wants to go home. There are more important things going on that 

“No,” says Elrond. He sighs. “Perhaps there is something that I have not seen. I shall check the books once more, Lady Sansa.”

Sansa bows her head and leaves him. 

...

That night, Arwen sneaks into her room, wearing a robe of dark purple that leaves her with more freedom of movement than the gowns she’d been wearing before.

“If you are ready to leave,” she whispers, skin shining silver in the moonlight, “we can go.”

Sansa rolls out of bed and dresses in the plain, sturdy clothes Arwen had snuck to her. Binds her hair up, with enough pins that it can’t come undone unless someone attacks it with a knife. The pack of dry food and waterskins and some healing herbs that she’d sewn shut days previous goes on her back, and the paired swords at her waist. The boots Boromir purchased for her when he saw her impractical slippers lace up, and Sansa’s ready.

“A cloak,” murmurs Arwen, holding one out: a mottled green and brown, made of some strange material that slides through Sansa’s fingers like silk.

“My thanks.”

“Now,” she tells Sansa, “My father believes he knows all the paths in and out of Rivendell, and therefore all about my travels from here.”

Sansa ducks her head, hiding the smile that threatens to surface. She remembers Bran and Arya at first- their wildness, their irrepressible wildness- but it’s not them that Arwen reminds her of, not truly. 

No: it’s Robb. Robb, who’d been the perfect child and heir in front of their parents or tutors, and turned into a hellion as soon as they turned their backs. Robb, who’d once spent weeks convincing Theon that they cracked the bones of Stark lords and poured the marrow into the water to produce the hot springs, all because Theon cheated in a sparring match. Robb, who always walked the delicate line between arrogance and kindness, and never made it look difficult.

“But he doesn’t,” says Sansa.

Arwen shakes her head. “We shall have to be quiet- and careful- but it is possible.”

If only I hadn’t known what you meant by that, Sansa laments, thinking on the burn in her thighs, aching in muscles she didn’t know she had- but she’s smiling, and she could not have stemmed the surge of excitement, giddy and blazing in her gut, for anything in the world.

The path Arwen refers to is indeed difficult: it’s a steep climb up the side of a waterfall, and then crossing the waterfall itself is a challenge. But it had been completely impassable a few decades ago, according to Arwen: a rockfall and Arwen’s own care have ensured the waterfall turns shallow at a particular location. It wets Sansa’s boots but doesn’t affect much else, and by the time the sun rises, they’re at the edge of Rivendell’s boundaries.

Sansa looks behind her, to the valley glowing gold in the dawn-light.

Arwen places a hand at her shoulder, and Sansa turns to look at her. 

“Chin up, little one,” she says quietly. “A long road is ahead of us.”

“I look forward to it,” replies Sansa, and steps away from safety, towards her adventure.

...

They walk for a long time. Eat breakfast while still walking, and barely stop for a few minutes to scarf down lunch. Arwen does call for an early halt at supper, but they spend the hours before the sun goes down sparring and not resting. 

Sansa’s sore by the time she sleeps, worse than she’d ever been with Boromir. She doesn’t regret it.

...

By the fifth day, they’ve reached the base of the mountains that they need to cross before reaching the river Anduin. It’s turning colder by every minute that  she breathes, until they finally stop under an overhang. 

“There are orcs nearby,” whispers Arwen. “Be careful, little one; our only chance is to hope they do not notice us. There are enough orcs and goblins here that we shall have to-”

She breaks off, staring at the stone.

“Arwen?”

“Don’t move.” 

Arwen presses a hand to her shoulder and rises, moving swiftly and silently into the shadows of the crevice. She pushes the snow and dirt aside until it reveals something innocuously green and shining. Sansa can see the moment Arwen’s entire body tightens, the muscles clenching in a long, sinuous movement visible even through her heavy cloak. 

“Arwen,” says Sansa, again, stepping closer to her. “What’s- what is it?”

“A marker,” whispers Arwen. She hunches over it, curling around whatever she’s clutching so close. “A grave.”

“What?”

“There are few elves that are banished from their homes,” says Arwen quietly, voice barely above a whisper. “The Arbar- once forced to leave, they shall not be received by any other home in all their lives, not in all of Arda. Tauriel was banished by Thranduil, but... it was cruel. And needless. She was so young- she is so young.” 

Arwen shakes her head. “In one stroke, she lost her home and her family and her love. But when I met her, she was so kind. She saved me from orcs when we were attacked- with no thought for herself. I gave her a cloak made of my own hands as a token of my gratitude.” Her hands spasm on the leaf. “I pinned it to her shoulders with the silver brooch of Lothlorien.” 

“Perhaps it got torn?”

Arwen lifts her gaze to Sansa. The grief in them almost makes her recoil: Arwen’s eyes look depthless as the sea, unfathomable and furious and enormous. 

“The leaves of Lorien do not fall idly,” she says. “This has been here for too long- days, days. Days of Tauriel tortured at the hands of orcs, or dead-” her face whitens. “I have seen what orcs do to elf-women. That fate...” Arwen shudders. “I would not wish it on anyone.”

Sansa thinks twice before speaking. She really, truly does. But Arwen is so lost in her own thoughts- some ancient grief- that Sansa’s fairly certain Arwen isn’t thinking properly. 

“Tortured,” says Sansa delicately, “is not dead.”

Arwen does not move for a long moment. She does not look up. But her body is tense, where just moments earlier it had been lax and half in mourning. 

“It would be suicide.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Sansa swallows. “But we are going to meet Lord Boromir for my- for me. If you would wish to go to rescue your friend- for what she’s done- I would not stop you.”

“You do not know what you’re offering.”

“Maybe not,” says Sansa quietly. “But I offer it anyways.”

Arwen closes her eyes. Then she opens them, and they glow as bright as stars.

“The path is easy enough. Dangerous because of the orcs, but not of itself. You could make it down to the Anduin without a problem.”

“And what then? Stay there?” Sansa lifts an eyebrow. “I cannot steer a boat.” She reaches out and closes her fingers over Arwen’s, holds the brooch tight between their frozen hands. “And I will not leave you.”

“I cannot,” says Arwen.

“A princess has duties to her people that a lady does not. A queen has even more.”

“I will not be queen,” says Arwen. “Not without Aragorn taking the throne, and he will not. You know that.”

“My mother used to tell me that it does not matter whether a queen wears a crown or sits on a throne; that can be given to anyone. For any reason. It’s the person that works for their crown- that proves themselves worthy of it- that is important.” Sansa brings their joined hands up to her lips. “You’ve given me steel and a hand that can wield it, Arwen: I would go with you into the depths of the seven hells themselves.” 

Then she smiles, because that is how she would like to be remembered: brave and smiling and true, even in the most frightening situation Sansa’s ever been in her life. The songs do not sing of a hero’s fear or cold hands, and she’ll not have hers be the first.

Arwen does not smile. She brings their joined hands back to her lips and says, softly, “I am honored by your trust.” Then, bowing her head over it: “Promise me you’ll stay quiet, and let me handle the worst of the battle.”

Sansa swallows. Her heart is pounding, and she doesn’t know if it’s from excitement or from fear- but she knows that she will not back down. She remembers her father. He’d never been the best swordsman in the seven kingdoms, but he’d defeated Arthur Dayne in Dorne. Sansa had once asked him how, and he’d looked at her, and he’d said, slowly, When fighting for what we love, there is a strength to our feet and a speed to our swords that is never present elsewhere. Sansa might not love Tauriel, but she loves Arwen well and truly, and Arwen loves Tauriel enough that Sansa would walk into a mountain full of orcs for her.

“I promise to protect your back,” she says, and does not flinch away from Arwen’s stern look.

...

The mountain entry is ridiculously easy to find for Arwen- and far closer than Sansa’s expected. Just a few wrong turns might have sent the two of them into orcs’ arms without any warning, and that would have been true disaster. 

But as it is, they are able to see and enter the mountain without too much worry- the orcs are large and dark, with fearsome teeth and eyes that look like they’ve been plucked from snakes or lions or some fell creature of the deep, and it’s them that frighten Sansa. She almost falters, her grips on her swords loosening, but Arwen turns her head and her gaze is hotter than sunfire, and some of the courage returns to Sansa.

I am a wolf of Winterfell. I am a queen-in-waiting. I will not let this be my end, not by these cruel, evil creatures!

They sneak further into the mountain. Arwen’s cloaks- mottled gray and brown and green- aid them to blend into the shadows, and anyhow, the orcs don’t seem to be concerned with creeping creatures; they are the most dangerous creatures here, and they know it.

Not for long, thinks Sansa, satisfied, and keeps herself moving right behind Arwen, placing her feet as Arwen does, angling herself as Arwen does.

They stop in a small shadowed cleft when Arwen waves her over. 

“They hold her in the cells,” says Arwen hoarsely. “I can hear the orcs- talking. And her screaming.”

“So she’s alive,” whispers Sansa. One of them must search for the brightness in this dark, ugly mountain, and Arwen is in no shape for it. “Where are the cells?”

Arwen bows her head. "Not very far.”

Her voice shakes, how Lady had shook when Sansa’s father approached her with a knife. Sansa knows this fear- and she knows that this is why she had to stay with Arwen. 

(The reason to bring people you love along with you is so that they can be your strength when your own falters.)

It is time for Sansa to be Arwen’s strength.

“Come,” she says, and presses her hand to Arwen’s shoulder, and guides her out of the crevice, and doesn’t let go until Arwen straightens, until Arwen is strong enough to take up the mantle of queen once more.

...

They make it further and further into the twisting corridors of the orc fortress, and it is getting hotter as they go- the heart of the mountain, hisses Arwen, when she sees the sweat beading on Sansa’s face- but it’s less the temperature and more the size of the corridors that worries Sansa. Everything’s getting narrower, which means fewer shadows for them to hide.

They move quicker, then.

“Here,” says Arwen suddenly, flatly, hand coming up to stop Sansa. “She is- down that corridor.”

“Go get her,” says Sansa. 

She reaches into her cloak and reveals the swords’ hilts: Ringil and Duril. One that shines like starlight and another that shines like the spaces between stars. They are paired now, the blades slotted together to form one heavier sword that glitters and shifts from darkness to light like the sky at deepest night. 

“No- you-”

“She will need healing,” says Sansa. “Healing that I cannot give. I am here, Arwen. Let me do this.”

After a moment, Arwen nods, and flies down the hall. Her sword is out and gleaming, too: this sword, named Hadhafang, is as golden as the sun, and she hacks at the doors to the prisons with an inhuman grace. Sansa hears a rising, wailing scream- too high to be elvish, too cruel to be elvish- cut off, finally making the quieter sounds- sobs- that must belong to Tauriel audible. 

Then Sansa lifts her head and sees orcs coming down the corridor. 

Be ready, Arwen had taught her. Be ready and be fierce, for there shall never be anyone who can save you if you cannot save yourself first. Be ready, be fierce, and offer the flat of your blade only to those that will not stick a knife in your spine.

Mercy is not for the weak. But mercy- it ought to be sparing.

Sansa must choose now.

There are things in this world that are not choices. There are things in this world that are inevitable. And then there are things that are choices. 

She’s so afraid. She’s so angry.

And then, then: Sansa chooses.

Sansa steps up and cuts an orc open, bowel to neck, black blood spurting all over her cloak. She ducks another’s fist, and slides under its guard to lop off its arm. The orc stumbles in pain and Sansa cuts its head off. The third orc dies when Sansa lunges at it, driving both swords into its spine.

Sansa kills them, and turns to see the wave of fresh orcs coming at her- larger than the three she’s just killed, better-armed, more in number- and swallows, unclasping the cloak Arwen gifted to her for better ease of motion. She unpairs Ringil and Duril so they sit easy in her palms, balanced, and looks at the orcs snarling at her, ready to slaughter her and Arwen and Tauriel and probably do worse. 

...

There is nothing else in all the world but blood and pain and guts and motion. There is nothing else in all the world but the swords in her hands. There is nothing else in all the world but the death that Sansa is dealing, and she will not stop now, not for anything.

...

“Sansa- Sansa-”

A hand catches her. Something wraps around her, and it’s the weight over her arms that makes Sansa freeze. She blinks, and looks, and through the haze surrounding her, she recognizes-

“Arwen?”

“Yes. Yes.” She grips Sansa’s arms very tightly. “You must- oh, sweet girl, I hadn’t thought-” Arwen shakes her head. “No. Come. We must go. You did well, Sansa. Very well. Better than I could have hoped.”

“I don’t-” Sansa shakes her head. “Tauriel?”

“I will have to carry her.” 

That’s bad, says a voice inside of Sansa’s head, in the part of her that isn’t surrounded by a kind of white shock. There’ll be more of those orcs out there. And you’ll have to get all three of you out.

Sansa swallows, very hard, and swipes at her face with a hand that can’t seem to let go of her swords.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” says Sansa. She knows what Arwen is asking, and she answers that unasked question instead. “I’m fine. I can get us out of here.”

She cannot read the look in Arwen’s eyes. No; she dares not let herself read the look in Arwen’s eyes. Not if she is to have strength enough to lead them out of this.

“I will have Hadhafang in case it becomes necessary,” says Arwen. “I shall tell you where to go- but it shall be up to you. Can you-”

“I said I could,” says Sansa briskly. She takes off the cloak again, and hands it to Arwen. “Wrap Tauriel in that- it will keep her warmer than otherwise.”

“You won’t need it?”

“It’s hot enough in here,” says Sansa. She does not smile, but her lips twist, and she bares her teeth, the stink of orc blood rich on the back of her tongue. “I'll be fine.”

...

Sansa moves with preternatural grace through the orcs. She doesn’t know where she’s going, not exactly; her motions are more rote than thoughtful, and all she knows is that there is a thread of air that cools her overheated skin in one direction and even hotter gusts from the opposite direction. Her swords are blurs of light, and her muscles- though they twitch and scream with exhaustion- do not betray her. Few enough orcs get through her guard for Arwen to cut down, and she manages those one-handed with ease.

At least until they spill out into a large cavern.

“Arwen,” whispers Sansa. “This is-”

“Death,” says Arwen.

“Take Tauriel.” She swallows. “The door- I see it. It’s not far. If they focus on me, you can...”

“Escape? Without you?” Arwen shakes her head. “They’ll follow us outside of the mountain. Too closely.”

“We have to get Tauriel to safety.”

“The orcs will follow,” Arwen repeats quietly. Then, suddenly, her voice goes sharp, like the razor-edge of sunlight after a dark night. “No. We do not end here, Sansa Stark. Listen to me: hold them off. Be strong.” Her hand presses down on the side of her neck, cool and slippery, and lets go just as quickly. “Do not despair, little one. I will be back.”

Sansa can see the orcs coming at them, slowly, toying with her and Arwen, eyes gleaming with bloodlust. If she allows herself to feel the fear, then Sansa will not be able to breathe.

So she doesn’t.

Ringil and Duril seem to shine even brighter, as Sansa steps forward. The orcs scream defiance. 

Sansa breathes in, breathes out. 

A death sentence indeed. The Starks have never accepted their deaths quietly or peacefully or gently: her uncle had died choking himself, and her grandfather had burned alive, both in the court of the Mad King. Lyanna Stark had been stolen, and her stealing had led to the destruction of the Targaryens. Sansa’s father died, and Sansa knows, down deep, deep, deep: the Lannisters shall pay for that. 

Peace is not her inheritance, and she’ll live up to that blooded, red, vicious gift today.

If this is to be her tomb, if this is to be her death, then Sansa will make her killers pay dearly for it.

She breathes in. Breathes out. Breathes in. Breathes out.

One more time.

And then, Sansa attacks. 

She doesn’t know when Arwen runs, only that it’s faster and fleeter than she’s ever done before, taking full advantage of all the attention that’s focused on Sansa. Sansa is surrounded, surrounded by darkness and death and blood and teeth-

And still she cannot stop. She dares not stop. It is fire and fury, a blur of silver and a whirl of darkness, her motions swift, without pause and without hope. Sansa doesn’t know how she knows how to act against such an overwhelming foe- she doesn’t know how she can twist her wrists like that, why she ducks, what is making her survive for this long. But she is surviving, and so she surrenders to the rush of knowledge wrapping around her. 

It doesn’t matter for long, though: no matter how skillful, no matter how lucky, the sheer numbers are enough to defeat even the best swordsman, and Sansa is not that. 

She closes her eyes when Ringil is finally torn from her wrist. Then she opens them, because even hopeless, even worn down to the very dregs of her soul, if she is to die, Sansa will not die blind. 

She is a daughter of House Stark, and she is to be a queen. 

That matters.

She opens her eyes, and tilts her head back, and sees the black blade fall.

...

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

...

Sansa opens her eyes to light. She sits up, and there is no pain, and it is that which convinces her that she is dead.

“What is your name?”

She whirls around, eyes widening, and sees another elf: this one has hair as golden as Arwen’s was dark, and eyes so bright they make the rest of the room- which is well-lit- look dank and black in comparison. She is lovelier than the loveliest being that Sansa can imagine.

“Sansa,” she says, through the shock. “Of House Stark.”

“Well met, Sansa of House Stark,” says the elf. “I am Findis of Valinor. I have waited for some time to meet with you.”

“I,” says Sansa. “What?”

“Ringil,” says Findis calmly. “Tell me. How came you by the sword?”

“It was given to me. By a... friend?” Sansa shakes her head. “Where am I? What is this? Who are you?”

“I smithed the sword that you bear,” says Findis. “And you- you are in that sword now.”

“Inside it?” asks Sansa, aghast. “How is that possible?”

“It is possible because that is how I made it.”

“You made Ringil?”

“Not the sword as you know it. But the initial blade, yes: I made it for my brother Fingolfin- and a sword made of love always holds greater strength than one forged for any other reason.” Findis looks at Sansa curiously. “Ringil has a mind of its own. Me.”

Sansa sits down very hard. “I don’t understand.”

“A ghost of me,” says Findis. “That is what I am, as I appear before you. The true elf Findis lives in Valinor, but I am the shadow of her spirit that she bound to the sword before she pressed it into her brother’s palms.”

“So you’ve been... what? Sleeping?”

“The blade was broken when Fingolfin dueled Morgoth.” Findis shrugs. “I, too, was broken with it. And then Turgon reforged Ringil into two swords, and I slept until someone would wield me again. But there has not been anyone who dared to wield me for many years.”

“I’m sure,” mutters Sansa. Findis frightens her, down deep, in some hollow of her soul. The way she stands is not the kind of stance of a woman unused to fighting or death, for all that her face and hands look soft. “But you’ve been helping me.”

It isn’t a question. All those movements that Sansa could not have known. The speed of her attack when she should have been frozen for fear. The sword had been guiding her, which Sansa would have dismissed as impossible until it became clear to her that the impossible isn’t truly impossible in Middle-Earth.

Findis smiles thinly. “Fingolfin was a fine swordsman. He taught me many things. And I rather like you, Sansa of House Stark- your courage, your determination. The hand of destiny sits high on your brow. And Ringil has ever been a sword for greatness- it is not meant to sit in dust and rust from disuse.”

“It isn’t as if you can help me now, though.” Sansa fights to keep herself from sounding bitter. “I am dead, and Ringil and Duril shall fall into orc hands. If they haven’t already.”

“Ah.” Findis steps forwards and lifts Sansa’s chin to meet her gaze. “But you are not dead. Only very, very close to it. The blade falls still, the black blade- it has not yet cleaved your head apart.”

“I’m not-”

“No. I wished to speak to you before that.” Findis moves away. “Three things I will tell you: first, that you are not yet dead, but death approaches- and it will take more strength than you know to avoid it. Second, that the only way for anyone to survive now is to trust- in themselves, in their friends, in their companions. And third, the healing needed for you to return to your home shall be done not by your hands.”

Sansa blinks. Findis smiles, again, wider, fuller. A gibbous moon, and not a crescent.

“Tell me, Sansa of House Stark. Do you trust me?”

“No,” says Sansa. She eyes Findis warily. “But I trust you to want me to stay safe.”

“Good. Good.” 

Findis closes her eyes and then opens them again, and her gaze is like flame. Her gown shimmers and flows around her to replace the silk with steel, and when she opens her palms, two swords rest in them: one pale as ice, one dark as blood. 

“When Fingolfin wounded Morgoth, the blood that fell on the blade stained it black. Turgon reforged the steel into two swords, then, one white and one black. Take it, Sansa of House Stark. Take them, and let them be wielded as they were meant to be wielded.”

Sansa steps forwards and reaches for them. Her palms ache distantly when she closes them over the hilts, and the pain grows the longer she holds them- centered on her knee, on her waist, on the side of her head.

“Remember,” whispers Findis. “Pain is only ever a warning. It tells you that you are hurt. But sometimes there are more important things than your body’s hurts.”

“I am a Stark of Winterfell,” says Sansa. She swallows and grits her teeth. “I know what it means to be brave.” Like my mother, my father, my sister. I can bear some pain. “I can do this.”

“Good,” repeats Findis, and her hands drop away, and Sansa bears Ringil and Duril alone.

The pain is white-hot. Stunning for a moment, not much longer, but long enough for her to gasp, for the shock to start set in.

Pain is a warning. 

And I am far beyond heeding such warnings.

She opens her eyes- Sansa doesn’t know when she closed them- and the blade is falling, still, black and glittering malevolently, and she cannot move-

A blade of gold stops it.

Hadhafang! thinks Sansa, and uses the breathless moment to writhe, sharp and furious, though the pain flares with the motion and her vision whites out briefly. Arwen’s returned!

She manages to kick one orc away for just long enough to get Duril further into her hand, and then the blade jumps- jumps!- upwards, sliding into an orc’s eye and allowing her the barest space to move. A twist of her shoulders and a shimmy, and though Sansa ought not be strong enough to force the orc to move, it staggers backwards, and then she is on her feet in a movement too fast for her to know how she managed it. A proper punch to an orc transforms her knuckles into a mass of pain, but it surprises the orc enough that Sansa manages to wrestle Ringil out of its grasp.

“Sansa!” shouts Arwen. Then, swinging her sword in one screaming blur of golden light, she grips Sansa’s forearm. “Get down!”

Sansa obeys, dropping to the floor. The orcs don’t.

“Let forth the shining light of the Evenstar!” shouts Arwen, and the light that bursts from her breast is bright enough to be visible even through the hands that Sansa has clasped to her face. 

The orcs howl as one and recoil. Arwen hauls Sansa back to her feet.

“Run,” she orders, and they do, past the dizzied orcs, straight into the freezing cold of the open air. 

Sansa staggers to a halt. But before she can collapse, she’s stumbling forwards, and her swords clip together to form the greatsword once more, and she saws away at the strings keeping the wooden gate to the mountain open. It isn’t much more than a few breaths, but the wood slams shut, and then- finally!- she collapses.

“Oh, Sansa,” whispers Arwen. She, too, looks awful: her hair is sticky with blood, and her face and clothes are spattered with orc guts and viscera, and there is a long thin slice along her arm that’s still dripping blood. But Sansa’s certain that she looks worse. “Please tell me this blood isn’t your own.”

“Not much of it,” says Sansa. Her voice sounds strange; it’s raspy, probably from how much she’s been screaming, and hoarse. She breathes in, out, through her mouth. Thinks about all the pain, and tries to focus on where it actually hurts. “I think my knee’s bruised, and I’ve probably broken a rib.” She shakes her head and winces at the stinging pain behind her eyes. “They slammed my head into stone- multiple times, I think. Where’s Tauriel?”

“A ways yet. We’ll have to hurry.”

Slowly, grimacing, Sansa straightens. She doesn’t know where she gets the strength to continue on. Only that she must, and therefore she shall. 

I am a Stark. I am the daughter of Ned Stark. I will not die here, not after all of this.

“Lead on, then,” she says, and follows Arwen into the dark shadow of a snow-full mountain.

…

Arwen’s deposited Tauriel under the same overhanging stone in which she’d found Tauriel’s brooch. The snow there is red, and not just from Tauriel’s spilled hair- there is blood, shining and darkening the ice. Arwen swears under her breath and stumbles forwards, grabbing Tauriel’s hands. 

“No,” she cries. “No, no-”

“What’s happened?” asks Sansa, leaning against the stone. 

She cannot find enough strength to stand of her own volition now, but she also cannot let herself sink to her knees either; Sansa has a dreadful feeling rising under her breast. She’s fairly certain that if she lets herself sit down, she’ll not rise again.

“The bandages- the healing-” Arwen shakes her head violently. “It is not enough. These wounds are beyond my ability to heal. She needs someone better. And rest, in someplace safe.”

“Can you move her?”

Arwen doesn’t answer for a long moment, measuring Tauriel for a long moment. Then she nods. 

“Then we take her to Lothlorien. You said your grandmother could-”

“-none of them will let one of the Arbar within their borders.”

Sansa closes her eyes and sways, a little. The world seems to spin, before she grits her teeth and focuses on Arwen, on Tauriel, on the panic that’s still so bright on Arwen’s face. It is still Sansa’s responsibility to think right now, what with Arwen so lost in her own mind and all the fears of yester-year.

But she doesn’t know what to do. 

“Then we shall find somewhere safer,” Sansa tells her. “We’ll take Tauriel somewhere closer to the river- and you go to Lothlorien, and you bring some healer back.”

“Bring some-” Arwen finally looks up at her, pale under the dirt and grime. “You wish me to bring my grandmother out of Lorien to save an Arbar?” 

“Would she not come?”

Arwen swallows. “If I asked it of her… I do not know. Anyone else- no. But she’s always loved me well. Perhaps.”

“My father always taught me that there is never harm in asking,” she says quietly. Then, gently: “If it seems this dark, then the dawn has not yet come. I do not think we can afford to lose hope now.”

Slowly, hands trembling, Arwen unsheathes her knife and slashes a strip of cloth from her tunic to better bind the wound that has soaked through the cloth already present. Then she lifts Tauriel into her arms, hefting her dead weight without any seeming effort. Her face looks lined and old, older than Sansa’s ever seen her.

“The wisdom of the young,” she murmurs. “Too long have we not heard you. Come, Sansa. We shall walk this path swifter than any before us, and more daringly besides.”

Then, as they’ve been doing for far too long, they start running.

…

They descend the mountain in two days’ time over a path that should take them three full days and nights. The orcs don’t seem well-equipped to track them, and Arwen pushes both of them harder than she’s pushed Sansa ever before- her strides are long enough that Sansa must take two of her own to match, and she is ever-ready to strike, Hadhafang gleaming in her free hand like a sun at noon.

When they finally stop, Sansa can hear the Anduin, rushing in the distance. Arwen finds a cave close to the river and lays Tauriel down on it with infinite gentleness. 

“Stay here,” she orders Sansa. “It is safe. I can sense no orcs in or around this area. Even if they come, the cave is easily defensible; they can only come at you in a few numbers.”

Sansa nods. “And if she gets worse?”

“I have placed her under a sleep-spell. Deep healing.” Arwen hesitates. “If she gets worse, then there is nothing to be done. Already she walks too close to death. Any closer and she will tip and fall. If she gets worse, Sansa: run. Flee. An elf’s death shall bring the orcs down here even if they have not been tracking us.”

Slowly, aching, Sansa sinks down to her knees, then slumps over so she’s lying prone on the ground, half-sideways. Her scabbard digs into her hip, but her hands still hold her swords tight in her palms. She allows herself to breathe in the smell of the earth- that sweet, strong scent, which she’d never before considered good until she’d had to spend days covered in orc blood.

“And you?” she asks, muffled into the earth.

Arwen kneels next to her and hauls her upright, and keeps her upright with both hands firm on Sansa’s shoulders. “I will go to Lorien,” she tells Sansa. “I am the granddaughter of Galadriel, the daughter of Celebrian; the blood of rivers sings strong in me. By swimming down the Anduin, I can reach Lorien within a week. The earliest I can return is in ten days, if my grandmother decides to use her gifts. If she does not come herself I will come with the best healer they can spare- but that will take a fortnight.”

“Can you manage this after- all we’ve done thus far?”

Arwen smiles, and her face looks hard and harsh, like the stone jutting around them. “If an orc comes near me now, I will not hesitate to gut it. If the orcs that did this to Tauriel come near me now, I will give them a death so slow and painful that they will learn the meaning of mercy and beg for it. I can swim to Lorien, Sansa. Fear not. I find that my anger lends me strength. I can manage this much.”

She rises, and ties her hair back, and then she empties out her packs so the lembas and the rest of her food is stacked neatly beside Tauriel. The knives tucked into the packs- for cutting food, or for gutting fish, for some other purposes Sansa hasn’t yet divined- Arwen secrets away on her body. Then she places Hadhafang on the floor of the cave.

“I travel light,” she says, but her hand rests on the blade like she doesn’t want to let go. “I cannot bear a sword through the river.” She looks up at Sansa. “Take good care of it, Sansa. Keep it sharp. It has saved many lives and shone in the darkest of times.” 

“I shall,” says Sansa.

Arwen rises fluidly to her feet, and goes to the river. There, she unlaces her boots and hands Sansa her cloak, and sits for a moment to plait her hair back. She slides the slenderest knife through the loop of the braid, pinning it in place. After a moment’s thought, she removes her outer tunic as well and hands that to Sansa as well.

“If I return even an hour earlier because I did not have to worry for this heaviness,” she says, “I would do it gladly.”

Then she smiles at Sansa, and wades into the river- it runs sharp and cold and swift, but Arwen doesn’t seem bothered. Her eyes are brighter than the water. The hair pinned back sharpens her face and lends her a look not unlike that of the falcons that Sansa’d once let fly from her arms: wild, and free, and untamed as a tempest. 

If I never see you again, I’ll remember you like this.

Sansa lifts a hand in farewell, and Arwen disappears beneath the waves, arms knifing up and done to carry her forwards even faster than the current. Sansa watches for a long moment, and then she returns to the cave.

…

It is cold in the cave.

Sansa hadn’t expected that. She sleeps, for so long that the sun is rising when she wakes, not setting. When she wakes she’s ravenous, and her feet are bloody from the popped blisters. 

Sansa eats, takes off her shoes, and falls back asleep.

Then she wakes again, just before dawn: shivering, the air cold enough to bite. She builds up a fire, and sets out to fixing both Tauriel’s and her own wounds. It’s a good thing that Arwen left her tunic- when cut into strips, it makes for a decent set of bandages. 

But it’s absolutely filthy. 

Cleaning it’s another task and a half; Sansa manages to unearth a tiny iron pot from Arwen’s pack, which she uses to boil water from the river and the cloth, and by then it’s high noon. The sweat’s wicking her clothes to her skin almost as much as the dried blood. It’s hard work. Especially when she’s got blisters in places she didn’t know she could get them, and strained muscles that she didn’t know existed, and bruises on all the parts of her skin that don’t have either muscle or blisters.

By the time she’s finally finished, the sun is low in the sky. Not quite afternoon and not quite evening; the air is cooling, but not cool. 

There is food in their cave and fresh water. The bandages Sansa took off from her own body and from Tauriel’s body are boiled on the fire, the strips hung out to dry and ready for quick use. Tauriel herself sleeps, face pale and drawn, but not worse than the day before. Sansa doesn’t feel half so miserable as she’d felt a few hours before: she’s washed her shirt quickly, and even used some of the thinner cloth from Arwen’s tunic- that looked about two weeks from falling apart into thread- to scrub the dust and blood from her face. 

Tomorrow, I wash my hair, thinks Sansa, satisfied. And the day after, I’ll sharpen the swords.

This is manageable, really.

…

Days pass. The work lessens day by day, or Sansa gets quicker at doing them. And it’s boring in the cave: there is no one there to speak to her, nor any distractions. Just Tauriel, who would look dead if her chest did not move. The lembas is soft and crumbly and about as tasty as a block of sawdust, for all that it fills her belly. The only sound is that of the rushing river, and Sansa spends long hours staring at its white froth, aching.

Sansa takes to sharpening Ringil and Duril almost compulsively, hoping that Findis will return to speak to her.

She doesn’t.

…

Then, on the sixth day, Sansa’s getting the water back from the river when she hears a low, rumbling echo.

She freezes. Holds very still. Her hair is freshly-washed, and shining, and a bright red; if someone looks, they will see her. But Tauriel’s hair is also red, and Tauriel is far less capable of defending herself now. And Sansa doesn’t even know who’s coming, though the coil in her belly tells her that it isn’t a friend.

Slowly, Sansa drops down to her knees. Even slower, she makes her way back up the forest, and- against all sense- towards the sound.

She stops when she sees the dark, steel-shod boots. She’s seen them before.

Orcs. 

How did they find us!

But it doesn’t matter. Not now. Not with Tauriel in a cave not too far from here, helpless, and the area crawling with gods-knew-how-many orcs. 

And Sansa is here, weaponless!

She curses herself. The swords are sharp, perhaps, but not at her waist. She’d take even a dull blade now, if it means she’ll not have to face the orcs bare-handed.

Not bare-handed.

Think not of what you don’t have. Think of what you can do, and what you must do. 

Then, says Arwen in Sansa’s mind, do it.

She must save Tauriel. To do that, the orcs cannot find their cave. And Sansa doesn’t know how many of them are around. She’ll need to be very careful. 

Then she sees where the orcs are headed.

Scratch that. 

She need not be careful to save Tauriel. 

She’ll need to be very brave.

Sansa takes a deep breath. Closes her hand on the cookpot. Judges angles, looks around her, and gets her ankles underneath her, flexed, ready for a sprint. Takes another breath, and one last one, so as her heart speeds her mind remains calm and even and controlled.

Then she chucks the cookpot to the side, hard enough to dent a tree trunk, and runs.

…

She leads them on a merry chase.

It’s fun, when she lets herself think it’s Robb and Jon and Bran behind her, and not a group of ravening orcs that will feast on her flesh. But the fear when she reminds herself of the reality gives her a burst of fresh energy, so Sansa keeps a running commentary of that under her breath.

…

It’s past evening when she treks back to the cave. The orcs have- thankfully- left Tauriel alone. But there’s an uneasiness to the air that leaves Sansa jumpy. The cave is undisturbed. 

She grips Ringil for all of a moment before she realizes what it is.

The sword shrieks in the air and deflects the blade of the orc sneaking up behind her. It leers at her, for just long enough that Sansa can slide Duril into its heart. It dies still smiling. Sansa looks up, and sees the others scrambling over the hillside, watching. 

“A trap,” she spits. Perhaps it is her mind’s imagination, but she thinks Ringil warms. She steps forwards to face them, and it is only the deep, buried seed of fear within her that allows Sansa to see reason. “We can’t fight them all. Too many corpses will draw attention. And we cannot run. Not with Tauriel like she is.”

She’s led them here. Nobody else has made this happen. Her backtracking must not have been quite as good as Sansa thought it was. 

Well. Of course it wasn’t. Sansa isn’t trained in this, for all that she’s survived thus far by chance and luck and something that seems eerily like fate. Her skills in backtracking and surviving the woods and killing orcs are the result of common sense, bloody-minded Stark stubbornness, and the swords that Arwen’s gifted to her. None of the three can help her now.

But Sansa had said it, hadn’t she?

No harm in asking.

“If you can help me, Findis of the sword,” whispers Sansa, “I beg of you now. Do something.”

It is Duril that flares warm, and guides her arm up, up, up. A few select hacks at the ceiling causes some stone to trickle down. Sansa inhales as she realizes what Findis wants her to do. It might prove fatal. If luck is against her, they’ll both be crushed to pieces of bone and flesh. But if Sansa does nothing, they’ll both die sure as the sun will rise in the east. Between sure death and a chance of death, Sansa knows what she’ll choose.

She inhales. Inhales. Inhales. Deep as the belly of the earth. 

Deeper.

Then she spins, and the pommel of Ringil smashes into the stone without hesitance. It pulverizes the stone holding the ceiling up, and Sansa launches forwards, curling over Tauriel’s skull, shielding her with her spine. 

The entire world shakes, and keeps on shaking.

But no stone falls on Sansa. 

The only light to come is from the blades: Ringil shines with the dim, distant light of the stars, and Duril glows an eerie black, but Hadhafang lights up the entire room well enough, gold and brilliant.

“Mother save us,” whispers Sansa. 

They have food, and some water- in the canisters- and weaponry. No stones have fallen on either Sansa or Tauriel. But the orcs are still out there, growling, audible even through the cave-in. And there are at least four days left before Arwen will return.

The fear claws at Sansa’s throat. Rips into her lungs. Shreds her inside and out. 

I’m too young for this. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.

A man can only be brave when he is afraid, she hears her father say, soft and warm and unyielding in her mind. But Sansa buries her head in her hands. I am no man. 

I am just a girl, and this is too much for me.

…

Arwen’s hands scrape on stone. She drags herself up out of the river, onto the rough shale, and ignores the stinging pain on the fronts of her thighs. A moment to catch her breath. Another to undo the braid she’d plaited back when she left Sansa, the dark strands tumbling free around her body wetly. The air is cold enough that a human might shiver.

But Arwen is an elf, and the cold, the hunger, the fear- they are all but distractions for her.

She gets to her feet. Loosens her arms, unsheathes two knives. Looks at the stars, ensures her position is correct. Another half-day’s distance to Lorien, and monsters swarm these hills when the sun goes down, and it is already past noon. Arwen breathes deep, and starts running.

…

The days pass in a haze of terror, alternating between that terror and boredom. There’s nothing to do when trapped inside of a cave, waiting desperately for aid; any possible sound makes Sansa’s heart leap high in her throat, fluttering like a wild rabbit, sure that the orcs have worked their way through the cave-in. 

Until the third day.

…

“I need aid, Grandmother.”

“You are injured,” says Galadriel, drawing her up and into her arms. Her fingers clasp Arwen’s arms, and the pain is soothed away. “Oh, Arwen. What have you done now?”

“I come from near the High Pass.”

“Not Imladris?” asks Celeborn sharply.

“I left Imladris with a woman,” says Arwen. “We wished to follow the Fellowship. To find them, and aid them as necessary.” 

Another sword can only help them. And if Aragorn has ever loved me- if he has ever been the man I knew- then having me beside him can only spur him onto the greater heights of valor. Arwen looks at Galadriel, and does not look away from her grandmother’s beautiful, terrible eyes. We shall all need to plumb the depths of our courage and perform the greatest deeds of valor that we have seen in this age to even have a hope of success. I will not do less than my duty.

Galadriel does not speak aloud, but rather in the privacy of their minds. And that you wish to be present for these momentous events should not matter?

I am not here for pride, says Arwen coolly. I did not leave Imladris for my own pride, or my ambition. I left Imladris and my father’s protection for the love I bear a man and for the love I bear this world.

“Arwen,” says Galadriel quietly, aloud. “What do you need of me?”

“Aid. A healer’s aid. The woman I left with- she is near the High Pass, with Tauriel, formerly of the Mirkwood.”

“Formerly?”

Arwen hesitates for a moment. “She was banished by Thranduil.”

“You would heal one of the Arbar,” says Celeborn, surging to his feet. “You would ask us for this aid? For this- this- travesty?”

“She has saved my life,” says Arwen levelly. “And she was captured by orcs in the High Pass. Orcs held her for days. For days.” 

Her hands still shake when she allows herself to think about it for long enough. Arwen knows the darkness that orcs can inject into an elf-woman’s soul. She knows the darkness far, far too well. It haunts her dreams and sinks fangs into her happiness and threatens to destroy the warmest memories of Arwen and her mother and her childhood.

She looks up at her grandparents. Her mother’s parents, who had to let their daughter sail to Valinor after she was so shattered by what had been done to her. Her mother’s parents, who Arwen has loved well and truly and deeply, for all the years of her life.

(There are things they don’t speak of. There are things which remain buried in their minds. Some thoughts cannot be stopped, but Galadriel and Celeborn can- and do- ignore them. But words…

Some words cannot be forgotten.)

Her mother’s parents, who Arwen has loved. But Arwen walked into a mountain to save Tauriel, and she crossed the mountain swifter than even a raven’s flight to save Tauriel, and she swam for a full week to save Tauriel, and Arwen will not let her love of her grandparents soften her tongue now, not after all that she has done and all that she must do.

“An elf is an elf,” says Arwen. “I would not let any one of us suffer so cruelly, banished or kingless or not. I thought both of you would understand that desire.”

In her mind, she looks at Galadriel, and she asks, How can you wish my mother’s fate on anyone?

Galadriel flinches. Not much, but visible. Arwen takes no joy in it. Only satisfaction. She looks up at Galadriel, and she waits, patient and immovable as stone.

...

The third day is when Tauriel starts to twitch. She convulses once, twice, and when Sansa rolls her onto her side, she drools blood. 

Already she walks too close to death. 

Sansa stares. Tauriel shivers, her face twisting in pain, and she has a fever- her forehead burns the back of Sansa’s hand. There is nothing more that Sansa can offer her apart from wetting some strips of cloth with water and placing them on her forehead, but even that is not helping much.

Any further and she will tip and fall over.

Sansa hunches over her middle. She feels sick to her stomach. Even if Arwen comes, even if Arwen saves Sansa- everything they’ve done, everything they’ve risked- all of it- all of it is useless. For Tauriel surely cannot survive this, too. 

She will die, and Sansa will be trapped here, in this dark cave with nothing but swords as her lights and a corpse she could not save beside her and orcs slavering to crack her bones apart to drink the marrow. Tauriel will die, like Sansa saw her father die, but a more awful death: tortured, rescued, and still it wasn’t enough. Isn’t enough.

No, thinks Sansa. 

It’s some bone-deep revulsion. Something deeper than bone, than marrow. That defiance which makes Sansa Sansa. That which makes her human. That which led her away from Rivendell. That which led her to the orcs’ den. Sansa will not stay silent as people suffer around her. She refuses. She has seen what happens when she is selfish: she’d wanted to stay in King’s Landing, and her father lost his head for that. Sansa will not let that happen again.

No. Not again. Not ever again.

Sansa doesn’t know from where she gets the surety. She runs a hand over Tauriel’s brow- the sharp edges, the place where the bone slopes down, the thin, easily-bruised skin. She is so beautiful, and so fragile, and so much stronger than Sansa will ever be. But she needs help, and Sansa is the only one here who can help.

When all looks darkest, there shall be a dawn. And if it only gets darker and darker still, it is not the darkest times yet, and there shall be a dawn to come.

She remembers her home. Winterfell, of the shining grey stone. Robb and Bran and Rickon, red-haired as the dawn, with laughter in their eyes. Her mother’s hands, soft in Sansa’s hair. Arya and the wind in her hair. Her father: strong and stalwart and true, hands ever-warm, voice ever-rich. Once, he’d sung her a song of the morning that came after the Long Night; how it was beautiful and shining and good, and all the brighter for the darkness that had come before.

Ned Stark’s voice had never been the kind that silenced halls or caused princesses to weep. But it had been more than enough to drive away the nightmares for a frightened child of ten, and Sansa reaches for that kind of strength now: the kind that lifts an entire room, the kind that does not let anyone be left behind, because it is too strong for it. Because it will lift the burden besides those that cannot. Because it offers aid, and does not demand anything in return.

Sansa lets the tips of her fingers rest on Tauriel’s jugular, where the blood yet pumps frighteningly quickly. Her other hand tightens on Ringil, on the starlight that elves so love.

And, head tipped back, eyes slitted closed, Sansa sings a song of dawn.

…

“I cannot go,” says Galadriel slowly. “But I am not the only elf with the power to heal such wounds within Lorien.” 

She turns to Celeborn, who doesn’t answer.

Celeborn, who does not love easily. Who loves with the light of the stars; distant and fixed and unchanging. Celeborn, who has never aided one of the Arbar in all the millennia he has stood on this land, and never will of his own accord.

Slowly, Arwen sinks down to her knees. She does not drop her head, but does not look at her grandfather either- instead, Arwen looks up, further, to the stars wheeling above the tops of the highest trees. 

“For my mother,” says Arwen. “For my mother, who could not bear this pain. For my father, who had to watch her leave. For myself.” She closes her eyes. “The enemy is strong. We have need of all who can help. Tauriel is fierce with her blades and even steadier with her bow. If she can turn the tide of this war- if she can save even one life- do we not bear the responsibility to try to save her?”

After a long silence, Arwen hears footsteps. She keeps her eyes closed. Hands wrap around her shoulders, lift her up off her knees. And when Arwen opens her eyes, it is not the gold of Galadriel’s hair that shines in her vision, but the silver of Celeborn’s.

“My granddaughter,” he says, and sounds strange, and does not let go. His fingers are very warm. “You need never kneel to me, Arwen.”

“Will you save her?” whispers Arwen.

And this time, he does not hesitate. “Very well. For you. For you, my daughter’s daughter, I shall go to heal this Arbar.”

Galadriel steps forwards and winds her fingers through Arwen’s hair, combing through the snarls and tangles. It feels like she’s young again; safe and sheltered in Lorien, the child who swung from the pale trees, and screamed loud and long to the stars, and caused no little grief for her mother and grandfather. But always, at the end of it, Galadriel would be there to brush out Arwen’s hair and sing quiet, sweet songs that none else in all the world will believe came from the mouth of one so accomplished and notorious as she. Arwen has ever known her grandparents as her grandparents- loving, beyond all else. Beyond everything else they have ever been or ever will be.

“I can help you both, I believe,” murmurs Galadriel. “To go swifter up the Anduin.”

And finally, finally, Arwen’s shoulders slump in relief.

…

When she stops, Tauriel’s pulse is slower. Her face doesn’t seem so taut with pain. If Sansa were to be fanciful, then she would imagine that Tauriel has even flushed a little, no longer as pale or drawn as before. 

Sansa sags, and curls around herself, and sleeps. 

She wakes to Tauriel gasping. The blood is a dark, dark red: the color of muscle and things that ought to remain on the inside.

Sansa closes her eyes. Straightens, so her lungs can expand the full amount. Reaches for the words that she wants- not of dawn, not any longer; but rather the work songs of the laundresses, that echo around Winterfell in the morning. Sansa sings of the difficulty of life, of the challenges; of the joy, too, in white sheets on a line. The sun chasing away the morning dew. Of hard work, work done by the hands, work so hard it made them all collapse into their beds and sleep until morning, when they’d do it all again. 

It is good, meaningful work; but it will not win wars or crown kings. But someone must do it, and so they do. Someone must do it, and if that someone is to be them, they shall not spend their days miserable or mourning.

There is a joy to be found in even the smallest and simplest of tasks. There is a meaning to be found in them.

Sansa lets that sing out, her voice soft, her words laughing. The syllables trip over themselves like fish in a spring pond: happy, plentiful, fattened and ringing.

When the songs finally end, Sansa realizes that it isn’t her imagination: Tauriel does look better. 

Well, thinks Sansa, taking a small, measured sip of her water. If this will help you, I cannot resist.

She does not close her eyes. 

Instead, Sansa reaches deep inside of her, for those songs she’s known and heard all her life. All those songs she’s never truly imagined need to be sung by her. Some need a harp, or a violin, or a flute; Sansa has no accompaniment now. Just her voice, which is holding Tauriel back from death.

If this will help her, if this will save her, Sansa will sing from now until Arwen breaks down the stone barrier, even if her throat is to bleed raw.

Chapter Text

Arwen stands, feet braced, on the prow of the ship. Waits, and waits, and waits, for the vision of the riverbank on which she’d left Sansa. Then they approach the stretch, and she sees black blood staining the sand.

“Orcs,” snarls Celeborn, unsheathing his sword with a ringing cry. 

Arwen’s hands fist tightly. She wishes Hadhafang were in her palms: the sweet joy of it, the gold blurring along her vision. But all she has are the knives she’s secreted away and the weapons her grandmother gave her- those knives are larger and curved, with wickedly serrated edges that need only a twist to slice through proper steel armor.

She weighs her hands down with that steel. “Orcs,” agrees Arwen, and throws herself off the ship.

…

The water has been gone for almost a day, or so Sansa thinks. She’s lost track of what she’s sung and what she hasn’t. The world itself feels blurry and fading, but she dares not stop singing. Even a few moments of silence now leave Tauriel shaking, shivering, convulsing. Even with her voice cracking the majority of the time, Sansa keeps on at it.

Something changes in the cave. It takes Sansa a moment to realize what, and then another to get the strength to react: she grips her sword, rising to crouch over Tauriel’s body. The rocks are shifting in front of her.

The orcs have come.

It’s far too early for Arwen to come back, so it must be them. Which means...

“Gentle Mother,” whispers Sansa, “font of mercy, save our sons from war, we pray.” There is some kind of strength in the words, now, that had never been there before. Her own father had prayed on the headsman’s stone; Sansa had seen his lips moving, mouthing. If she will die here, then she will die with her gods’ words on her tongue, as honorable as her father has ever been all his life. “Gentle mother, strength of women, help our daughters through this fray.”

A howl echoes through the stone, and Sansa lowers herself into the proper stance, ignoring the burn in her thighs.

“Sooth the wrath and tame the fury.” One stone falls, chipped away. Sansa lifts Duril, so it supports Ringil. A whisper, a prayer, a desperate, bleeding hope: “Teach us all a kinder way.”

There is light beyond the stone barrier, bright enough that Sansa will likely be blind when the rocks finally fall. She closes her eyes instead. Waits; she trusts in Findis to aim to kill easier than Sansa herself. Then there’s the crash of stone giving way, and the sound of someone stepping forwards, and Sansa moves.

The swords meet hard steel. Sansa whirls under something, tucks her shoulders in, comes up with the sword slanted and ready to attack. A breath, no more, to balance herself; and then she slashes one sword up and another one down, wrists loose, fingers tight. She hears some curse. Another voice- loud, strangely familiar. But not one that she trusts. Not one for which she will stay her swords.

“Enough,” says another voice, then, and it trembles in her bones like a clap of thunder.

Sansa spins aside, and the numbness surrounding the swords fades, enough that she opens her eyes. She regrets it immediately. The sunlight is physically painful; too bright and too hot. But she also sees, in that moment, a face she knows.

Her grip on the swords falters. 

“Oh, Sansa,” says Arwen, and steps forwards, and gives no heed to the swords clattering on stone, instead drawing Sansa into an embrace. She doesn’t seem able to say anything other than those two words: “Oh, Sansa, Sansa, Sansa-”

She’s crying. Arwen is crying. Sansa collapses into her arms, letting herself fall; trusting Arwen to take her weight. The relief feels like an ocean wave cresting over her head: vicious in its strength, but warm in the feeling. Sunlight after too long in the dark. Heat after too long spent in ice. Painful, perhaps, but good.

“You’re early,” whispers Sansa. Even that hurts and scrapes along her throat. “How?”

“I told you my grandmother would aid us. She did. And I brought my grandfather to-”

“Is the Arbar inside?”

Sansa looks up at a tall, silver-haired elf, with eyes the same shade of his blade. She cannot find words to answer; she nods instead. 

Arwen’s arms tighten on her. “How is she?” she asks quietly.

“Bad,” croaks Sansa, and closes her eyes.

She doesn’t quite have the strength to open them again.

…

“Arwen,” says her grandfather.

Arwen turns to see Celeborn. Sansa had all but fainted in her arms as soon as he went into the cave, and Arwen hadn’t the heart to wake her- she’d carried her to the boat instead, and laid her out on some blankets. The poor girl’s lost weight, and her face looks both sallow and exhausted underneath the grime of days in a cave. 

“How is she?” Arwen asks again. 

This time, she gets an answer: Celeborn nods, once, firmly. “She will survive. You mended her physical self well enough; the hardest task remaining was to guide her on the path to the light. A few hours and she should wake.”

“Guide Tauriel?” asks Arwen slowly. “You did not need to remind her of anything?”

“No,” murmurs Celeborn, frowning. “Her feä remembered the light without requiring any of my own aid. I simply had to bring her forth towards us.” Another might not see the way he flexes his wrist like he’s rotating a sword and bringing it into position, but Arwen does. “It was a far shorter path than I’d assumed.”

Meaning Tauriel was not so badly injured as Arwen’s mother. Or so Arwen assumes. But Tauriel had been worse off than Celebrían; her wounds had been deeper and crueller than Arwen’s mother’s had been, and she’d been a prisoner of the orcs for longer. 

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“No,” agrees Celeborn. “It does not. Tell me, who is she?”

He nods to Sansa, and Arwen looks at her in some surprise. “A friend,” she says. “Why?”

“There is something different about her. Is she of Númenor? Her bearing speaks of it, at least; even if she still looks quite young.”

“Young, perhaps, but she is wise as well.” Arwen shrugs. “And good-hearted.”

“How long has she been training with those swords?”

“A month? Perhaps a little longer.”

“Nobody wields swords that well after a month’s training,” says Celeborn flatly. “There is something more to her. Something even beyond her ancestry- I can see it. I can feel it. It does not feel hurtful or evil to me, but there is something cold there that can easily become frozen over if left untended.”

“She is a child,” says Arwen. “A child, who’s seen her father’s beheading, who’s been forced away from all that she loves. You know she came from somewhere else- from the same place as the other two women did. Hers is not an easy path. Will not be an easy path.”

“The other two were warmer,” says Celeborn. “You do not remember either, Arwen. But I was there, in Doriath and then in Eregion, and they were warmer and kinder and older than her. This world is not a kind one for children- we cannot ask her to do what must be done. Not as the other two did.”

Arwen sighs. Drags a hand down her face. “What would you have me do? Send her with you to Lorien to hide in the forests?”

“I would have you protect her.”

“Protection does not mean imprisonment,” says Arwen coolly. “I might not have known the other two that came, but I know what happened. Morwenna did not take well to your entreatments to cloister her away, did she not? And Analysa reacted even worse to attempts to chain her. If Sansa is more powerful than them both-”

“-she healed the Arbar!” hisses Celeborn, and finally the truth of his fear sweeps over Arwen: the fact that he does not know Sansa’s capabilities, the fact that Sansa can wield those swords, the fact that there are too many people he loves caught up in this entanglement. “A feat that none other can manage- no other human! She healed her, and she would have sliced my head off if I’d not had my sword in my hand, and she is not what she looks like!”

Sansa stirs at the sudden noise, and Arwen reaches over her to press two fingers against her cheek, sending her spiralling deeper into sleep. Then she looks up at her grandfather.

“She is dangerous,” she says quietly. “But I have made her more dangerous. ‘Twas I who gave her the swords, Grandfather, and I who taught her to wield them. Perhaps there are things we do not know. But there are things that she does not know either: truths that were lost, histories that were forgotten. I have not had the heart to tell them to her.”

He sighs, the anger fading as quickly as it’d come. “A healing,” says Celeborn, just as quietly. “She has already proven to be adept at the art, without training and half out of her mind with terror. The other two would not have been able to save the Arbar, I know that much. And a healing…” he shakes his head. “Take care that she heals those on our side, Granddaughter, and not those on Sauron’s. There is a thing as too much mercy. She is young enough to make that mistake.”

Arwen flushes, a little, at his words; they aren’t meant in cruelty, she knows, but they are not necessarily kind either. Her own youthful mercies had led, once, to the burning of half a hundred trees in Lothlorien, and while her grandfather might well have forgiven her, he had not and would never forget.

“Tell her the stories, Arwen.”

“Perhaps it would be better coming from you,” says Arwen. “For you knew both of them, where I know only the tales.”

“She does not trust me. And if she knows nothing of them- if that history has been forgotten, as you said- then the blow will not be softened coming from the mouth of a stranger. You shall have to tell her, Arwen, and you shall have to do it without bending the truth. Remember that.”

“Yes,” she murmurs, and turns back to Sansa.

In a few years, the girl will have grown into her beauty: the shining red hair, the large, lotus-shaped eyes, the warm, pleasing curve to her lips. The hair like autumn leaves and the eyes like an autumn sky and the smiles warm as autumn afternoons. 

As I shall pass, she shall not, thinks Arwen, with the heavy inevitability of prophecy, though she does not feel compelled to speak the words out loud. And then, from an old memory, an old, old rhyme: Autumn is the hour for justice.

She presses lips to Sansa’s forehead and rises, and goes to see Tauriel. Her friend shall have need of someone when she wakes, and the only friendly face around is Arwen.

…

Tauriel wakes slowly. 

Her body does not ache much; it is her soul that hurts, and that too is distant, not the jarring knife-sharp pain she’s expecting. When she opens her eyes, the stars greet her, twinkling and lovely, and there is a brisk wind on her face. A slow, steady inhale brings to her the smell of water and flowers and grass, and smoke, too, like the wash of the air a little ways from a campfire.

Not orcs.

“Tauriel,” she hears, and turns her head, and sees Arwen of Imladris and Lorien, Arwen Undomiel. Her hand skims over Tauriel’s face, runs down her hair. “It is good to see you among us again, dear friend.”

“I don’t understand.” 

“We rescued you.” Arwen’s hand continues its soothing path down Tauriel’s face, from her forehead down to the bottom of her jaw. “I saw the clasp of your cloak- in the High Pass. Do you remember anything of our flight?”

“I remember…” Heat and pain, and hands tearing at her skin with nails sharp as stone. 

Tauriel had been so afraid, and she’d had to run, because the darkness grew and with it came-

“News. From the High Pass.” Arwen pales, and Tauriel forces herself to continue even when the pain lances through her skull. “Orcs from the High Pass are marching towards Isengard.” 

“Isengard,” whispers Arwen. “Whyever-”

“To replenish his forces.” Tauriel breathes, in, out, then in once more. “For Saruman the White wishes to attack the Gap of Rohan. He will invade the country through that pass if allowed, or he will kill as many as he can in the process.” She drops back, so her eyes can see the stars; it’s a reassurance, of sorts, to be able to see something that isn’t the fire-red of the mountain’s insides once more. “It will be a bloodbath.”

“One that we can prevent,” says a rich voice, from behind Arwen.

Tauriel forces herself upright. “Lord Celeborn!”

“Do not trouble yourself,” says Celeborn, holding up a hand. “I’ve messages to send, if we are to halt the spread of this evil. We can spare a force to Rohan, at the least, even if Dol Guldur and Saruman send armies our way.”

“And what of Gondor?” asks Arwen.

“What of Gondor?” Celeborn looks at his granddaughter, and he sighs. “There is only so much that Lorien can provide, Arwen. Gondor has stood for this long against the darkness, alone and proud for it. It shall have to stand for a while longer still.”

“Just because someone’s capable of something doesn’t mean you should ask it of them,” says another voice, this time a raspy, hoarse one. Out of the shadows of the ship, a pale, red-haired young woman- woman, not elf- steps forwards. She is tall, and though Tauriel cannot see much of her face, her voice stirs some memory in the parts of Tauriel’s soul that still feel tender and bruised. But she glares at Celeborn, head held high, and there is nothing of the sweetness that had guided Tauriel back to life in that look. “Gondor needs help. Needs it.”

For a long moment, Celeborn doesn’t answer. It must have been a long time since someone spoke to him thus, Tauriel thinks; much less someone so young and inexperienced. 

“And you would rather I see to Gondor’s strength than Lorien’s own?” Celeborn asks finally.

The woman pauses, but forges on nevertheless. “I’ve seen the maps of Middle-Earth,” she says. “Gondor’s the first defense against the south. The best defense. And you’re abandoning it in favor of shoring up your own lands. Well, fine, that might work in the short run, but if it falls, do you think you can resist the armies that are going to come up from the south? Because everything I’ve seen thus far says you won’t.”

“We stand together as one,” comments Arwen, “or die separately.”

“I understand your argument,” says Celeborn, bowing a little- and the woman doesn’t seem to understand whatsoever the kind of honor that is, in and of itself- before he clasps his hands behind his back. “But I cannot- and will not- leave Lorien undefended. There are other armies besides that of Saruman and Sauron, and they will target the havens west of the Misty Mountains first. Lorien is the foremost of them. As Lord and wedded to its Lady, I cannot justify such irresponsibility.”

“Not from Lorien, perhaps,” says Tauriel slowly. 

Arwen arches an eyebrow down at her. 

“From- near Dol Guldur. Another force.” Tauriel swallows. “I was- banished- by King Thranduil. Decades ago.”

“I am aware,” says Celeborn calmly.

And you still saved me?

“But I was raised in the Greenwood. My mother and father taught me to love it, and I remember well when it was the fairest realm in all of Middle-Earth.” Tauriel swallows. “I could not bring myself to leave it, even when I was no longer welcome within his court. I- I headed south instead, where the taint of the Shadow lay heavier, and began to… work to lessen it.”

Fine, pretty words for what Tauriel had actually done after the Battle of Five Armies, where she’d watched such death and such destruction: she’d fled, south, a stolen bow in her hands and twin daggers light on her back. She’d slaughtered orcs and goblins and wargs mercilessly, killed spiders with relish, and thrown herself into battles that should have resulted in her death.

Would have, if not for the presence of two of her guard that had followed her into exile. Jenpher and Raendin had saved Tauriel’s life then and multiple times after that. They are the best lieutenants she could imagine for what she’s spent seventy years accomplishing.

“I was not myself,” Tauriel continues. “Not for a very long time. But two others chose to leave King Thranduil’s service in favor of fighting, for they believed- as I believe- that it is better to fight the darkness than let it swallow the trees we so love.” She raises her chin; she will not feel ashamed for instigating a rebellion against her king. Not now, not after so long spent resigning herself to the fact. “We fought. We fight, still. Where we can and when we can- from the High Pass, patrolling the Forest Road, down to the East Bight and further. Over the years, more have joined us. Not many, but good elves: ones who are tested and capable of battle.”

“How many?” asks Arwen.

“Not many.” Tauriel hesitates. “Twenty, perhaps?”

“Twenty battle-tested elves are a force to be reckoned with,” says Celeborn.

“If I can get a message to them, I can ask them to come to Gondor’s aid.” Tauriel can feel the exhaustion creeping up on her again. It will have to be her that goes to them, because they won’t trust any messenger birds or people that are not her; loyalty in the southern reaches of the Mirkwood is not easily given or trusted. With her so tired and worn, Tauriel doesn’t know how she’ll manage the trek. “But it will have to be in person, and I’ll have to be that person.”

“Whatever else happens, you’ll need to heal first,” says Arwen firmly. Her hand closes on Tauriel’s shoulder and arm, guiding her to lie down with inexorable force. “And that will take time. Let us first see Gondor’s forces; that is where we are headed now anyhow. From there, if it becomes necessary, we shall send you for your forces. Rest, Tauriel. We’ve the time, and you’re safe.”

The sleep creeping over her vision is undeniable, sweet and black and soft as a thousand deaths. Tauriel resists it for long enough to reach up and clasp Arwen’s fingers in her own.

There are calluses there that Tauriel would not have expected on Elrond’s daughter, and it’s the calluses that give Tauriel strength enough to whisper, softly, “Time, I think, is something we’ve too little remaining to us.”

…

Celeborn departs from the boat with the rest of his force where the Anduin passed through the edge of Lorien. “Rohan will stand,” he says, and it is a promise to Arwen that he cannot hope to keep, for all that he’d said it out loud. 

Arwen must remember that. She is not a child any longer; her grandparents and her father are not infallible. She’s taken steps to shape this world away from their guidance. The time of the elves is dimming; the time of men has arrived. And Arwen, for all that she loves Aragorn, for all that she’s been content to let the world pass her by for centuries upon centuries, finds that this last battle is not one she’ll accept silently.

“Let us pray it does,” says Arwen, and accepts his hand pressed to her brow with grace. 

…

The ship they are on flies through the water, skimming through the water like a bird’s wings, and needs no oars or wind to guide it on its way. The dusklight on Sansa’s face is soft and warm, and doesn’t hurt at all. When she turns, Arwen is there beside her.

“How are you?”

“I am- better,” says Sansa slowly. “Better than I was yesterday, and better still than the day before. The tea you gave me helped my throat immensely.”

She’d been afraid that she’d lost her voice entirely; Sansa’s heard the tales of how Aegon the Mad had forced minstrels to sing for so long that they could never sing again after that. But Sansa can now speak almost to the same tone that she’d had before being trapped in that cave, and a few more days of rest and healing should leave it back to normal.

“I’m glad,” says Arwen. “You are young, Sansa; you heal quickly, faster still than an elf can.” She smiles, very faintly, and it brightens her face like starlight through clouds. “‘Tis the gift of mankind, I think.”

“That and death,” says Sansa. She closes her eyes. Her heart hurts. They’ve lost so much time, and Celeborn had said that the Fellowship has left Lorien already, and her fear sings in her bones like a strummed harp. “Do you think we shall reach them before- before?”

“Before they reach Minas Tirith? Certainly.” Arwen’s hand closes over Sansa’s fingers, cool and dry. “We ought to meet them at Rauros Falls, if our speed holds true and my grandmother offers them no further enchantment.”

“And why should she not?”

“Enchanting is not easy, little one,” says Arwen, amused. “I am Galadriel’s granddaughter; I have lived for long years in Lorien. For that love and that trust and that knowledge can she allow this boat to fly beneath our feet. But there are none in the Fellowship who have such bonds to her, or to anyone else in Lorien. They will go at the pace of their slowest members, and that means that we ought to reach them at Rauros Falls. Soon. Another day and night; perhaps by evening.”

Slowly, Sansa unwinds. Lets herself sink back against the soft wooden planks. 

She’s so afraid, and she doesn’t know why she even chose to go on this journey. Boromir isn’t her father. She’ll likely not even be of help to him, only an unwanted and undesired tag-along, as Arya was to her so often back home. Someone to be protected. But Sansa is tired of being afraid, too. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking, gwinig.”

“I’m thinking that… that I would not wish to see Lord Boromir’s face when he realizes that he must protect me on top of the Ringbearer,” says Sansa quietly. “I’ve never wanted to be a burden. To anyone.”

“And if you had to be thusly protected, I would not have helped you leave Imladris,” says Arwen firmly. “Look at me, Sansa.” She waits until Sansa does, and when Sansa finally obeys, she wraps her fingers around Sansa’s face, cradling it. “You have saved a life already on this path that you chose: a life I could not have saved if I were here alone, or if I had never left Imladris. You managed to save Tauriel, when I told you to flee; you kept both of you alive long past the point that any other would have lost heart. There is a power to faith and a power to kindness, and you have demonstrated that better than any words I could speak.”

“I don’t think Boromir will see it that way.”

“His unhappiness is not worth anyone’s life,” says Arwen. “Not for anything. Not in all the world. If all we do now is walk in Aragorn’s and Boromir’s steps for the rest of their paths into Mordor, we would have done enough. Remember that. And remember that you are much better with those swords than anyone could have dreamed.” She smiles, impish and bright. “I do not believe anyone has made my grandfather look so confused as you did when he broke down the barrier to the cave.”

A clash of steel; eyes shut; the slide of sword on sword that Sansa’d trusted to keep her from death.

“It’s not natural,” she whispers, before her courage deserts her. “The swords- they’re smart. They have a power. I didn’t do anything.”

“A… power?”

“Do you know- Findis? Of Valinor?”

“I have heard of that name,” says Arwen carefully, dropping her hands. She doesn’t look away from Sansa. “Findis, daughter of Finwe. High Princess of the Noldor. When her brothers chose to come to Middle-Earth, she chose to remain in Valinor with her mother. She was a singer, I think; one who adored the Valar as deeply as others of her family loathed them.”

“A singer,” says Sansa. That does not tally with the woman that she’s seen in her visions. But then, Arwen is supposedly a weaver, and ought not bear either swords or songs or healing herbs with the grace that she does. She supposes Findis might have other talents. “Well. Nevertheless, she forged the swords. The sword. Before it became two, it was just one, and it was wielded by-”

“-Fingolfin,” says Arwen, a peculiar look on her face. “I’d no idea it was the same sword. Swords. I thought this named after his, for that one was shattered and- lost.”

“Her brother,” agrees Sansa. “And she poured her spirit into the sword.”

Arwen pales. “You’ve spoken to her shade?”

“She likes me, apparently.”

“Be careful. Be very careful. Finwe’s children were ever-great. It would not surprise me if Findis managed to put part of her spirit into a sword she gifted to her brother; it would surprise me less to learn that she knew of swordsmithing even as she never wished to lead anything less than a peaceful life.” Arwen tilts her head, a little, like she’s thinking very hard about something. “But Finwe’s sons’ tempers were as tempests, Sansa, and I would not see you rely on inconstant hope for your safety. We shall have to continue your studies.”

“She’s very kind to me.”

“I do not doubt it,” says Arwen softly. “But we cannot rely solely on the kindness of shades to survive.” She shakes her head and continues briskly. “Now. There are things I must tell you. Things my father did not wish you to hear, and I did not wish to speak of, because there are truths that are painful. Things that should not be placed on the shoulders of children. But if I hide them from you further, then it is more a disservice to you than a service.”

“Things?” asks Sansa.

“Things.” Arwen nods and rises. “I shall speak to you at dawn. The first light of a new day, with hope on the horizon. Yes. Such stories should be begun then.” 

“But-”

“Tauriel will wake soon- wood elves always love the stars dearly. She’ll want to see them again.” Arwen sketches a bow, and leaves on silent feet.

Sansa closes her eyes and tries to will the whirling edges of her mind to slow, to soften, to let her slip into sleep.

It doesn’t work.

…

When she wakes, the sky seems almost the same as when she’d closed her eyes; the color rises instead of fading, but the scarlet of dawn is not too far off the crimson of dusk. She feels tired, still, and worn thin with worry and regret, her stores of excitement and joy all but spent.

But then she looks at Arwen, Arwen who saved her and loved her well and true; Arwen, who’s saved her, and Tauriel, and thanked Sansa for giving her the motivation enough to leave her safe home; Arwen, who’s saved her, and given her the tools to survive Sansa’s deepest, most selfish desires.

“You said you had things to tell me,” says Sansa quietly.

“Yes,” says Arwen, seating herself. The rising sun paints her face brilliantly, turns her skin so luminous it almost hurts Sansa’s eyes. “An old tale; one that I have only heard, though my father and grandfather have seen it of themselves. My father mentioned to you that there have been two others that came from another world, did he not?”

Sansa nods. “Yes. Both of them knew what to heal. And one- the first- simply needed to retrieve something; the other needed to retrieve it and go to the ocean.”

“Morwenna of Kubliath,” says Arwen. “She was the first. When she came to us, she was a princess of a desperate people, daughter to the queen leading them away from sure death and calamity. Taller than you, Sansa, and a fair few years older. With hair the color of the richest earth, brown and beautiful and long. She was exhausted and grieving when she came here, the last of their lines of queens, and heavy with child. Her people- they were of the ice, the ice in the land that never warms, but there was a curse upon them. A terrible curse. One that killed an innumerable amount of them.

“Her mother led them south, where she swore a treaty with one of the kings of the men of that time. The men of that land already hated those that had placed the curse on Morwenna’s people, so a treaty was hewn. Morwenna was the price of that peace.”

“She wed the king?”

“And lay with him, and was heavy with his child, when the terms of the treaty were breached.” Arwen’s shoulders lift, a little, shrugging. “Morwenna’s mother was wounded grievously in her husband’s actions; but before she died, she crowned her daughter with the obsidian crown of her people and, with her last breath, she sent Morwenna away, to the safety of Middle-Earth.”

“Oh,” whispers Sansa, pressing a hand to her mouth.

“She birthed her child and named him with love and with rage: Brann, for his noble blood, and Donn, for the sword she pressed into his fist before he even opened his eyes.” Arwen’s eyes slit half-closed. “When Morwenna came to Middle-Earth, the crown of her mother’s people shattered into a thousand shards. She learned to put them back together over the years, until she had remade her crown anew. And then she took her son, Branndonn, named for who he was and who she wished him to be, for the vengeances she’d gifted to him, and she departed from Aman, never to be seen again.”

Sansa can hear her ears ringing. The world feels very flat and very small. Eight thousand year old history, and she knows that Arwen is telling the truth, because it sits inside of her with the surety that only truth can have. 

“I know that name,” she says, very quietly. “It has changed. But- I know it, don’t I? Branndonn. Brandon.” 

Her brother’s name. Her uncle’s name. Her family’s name, hewn all the way back to the very first Brandon: Brandon the Builder. 

Theirs is the only land that names their children after Brandon. The only people to name their children Brandon have ever been Starks. All others- they name them Brynden, they name them after Starks. But Brandon is a Stark name, and always has been, and forever will be.”

“The second was Analysa,” continues Arwen. “She was a descendant of Morwenna, a daughter of her heart; if not a daughter in truth, and it was with her arrival that we learned what happened to Morwenna: of the fear, of the loss, of the peace. For when Morwenna returned, she met a world broken after long years of war and hate, her people shattered into shards smaller even than those of her crown. And into that dark, cruel time, she chose to build another treaty among both those who cursed her people and those who betrayed her people- a Pact, which ended with Morwenna leading her people north, and away from those that had slaughtered so many of hers. But her son had built too many things and loved them too well to accompany her to the life in the ice and cold. 

“So it was fear: for the death her people had only scarcely avoided; so it was loss: for the sundering between Morwenna and her only child; so it was peace: for the Pact she enshrined on an island of trees- and for her son built, in her name, the finest and largest monument in all the land, forever keeping the peace between the both of their peoples.”

A monument. A monument. A monument.

Sansa cannot believe what she’s considering. Because what Arwen is saying- her mind shies from the thought, rather than accept it. Surely she is wrong. Surely.

“Analysa was the second that we spoke to, she of hair the color of the clouds of a summer storm, rich and thick and black, with a temper to match.” Arwen runs a hand through her own hair, thick and dark, but hers shines in the early morning light with a hundred shades of red and amber that Sansa has not seen in her own father’s hair. “Her father was the descendant of Morwenna’s son. The leader of his time, king and lord. And when he came across Analysa and her lover- a boy he had raised and fostered as his own, a boy he did not think worthy of Analysa’s hand- he sought to separate them forever.”

“Arwen,” says Sansa, incapable of holding the words back any longer. “Arwen, who were they queens of? Which people?”

“In time,” says Arwen. “Listen. These truths must come in order.”

“Arwen-”

“And to separate them, he sent Analysa’s lover to the north, far to the north, to that monument which his ancestor had built in Morwenna’s name.”

“The Wall,” says Sansa dully. 

“Perhaps. But Analysa was not the kind of woman who would accept her father’s edicts with grace. She loved him too well and too truly, and so she left the safety of her father’s castle and went north, tracing his footsteps up and up and up, until she, too, had reached the monument. Until she went past it, and met with Morwenna.”

“She lived for so long?”

“The lives of their queens are long,” says Arwen. “But it is an exhausting job: and Morwenna was tired, so tired. Too tired to continue. And so Morwenna swore to Analysa to find and protect her husband, and Analysa swore to become queen of Morwenna’s people after Morwenna passed. But Morwenna wished to know whether she was capable of being true queen, and she sent Analysa to Middle-Earth. If she returned to Morwenna, she would have proven strong enough to bear the magics necessary to be queen.

“When she arrived in Middle-Earth, the necklace around her neck tore apart, scattering the sketch her lover had offered her. That was the craft that Analysa learned- that, and ruling- and she spent months learning to sketch his likeness before she walked into the ocean and never returned, and we believe she has gone to be queen to her people.”

“Which,” says Sansa, “people?”

“You would call them the Others,” says Arwen. “The glosspadon, that is what we have named them in our songs- the white walkers. Those who dance on the ice, and are of the ice.”

Everything flattens inside of Sansa, to a cold, howling wind. 

That she is- what, descended from them? She is human, gods above; she is no shambling corpse or soul-slaying demon. A more horrifying thought occurs to her: does everyone else think the same of her? Did Celeborn think Sansa one of the Others? Did Elrond think of Sansa as a cold, inhuman corpse queen-in-training?

“In my home,” she manages to say, “the Others are the things of nightmares. I don’t think you know what-” she shakes her head. “What we were told as children to frighten us into good behavior. You are saying you received their queens here?” Her hands are trembling. “They kill humans!”

“They did not kill anyone while here.”

“Their people killed mine!” cries Sansa.

But not so. Because if it is true- if what Arwen speaks is truth- then Sansa is of both people: both Other and human. Her people are not just humans, but those dark, terrible things that had made Bran scream and Arya- Arya! Brave, fierce, proud Arya!- shiver. 

“I am human,” she says, and it is as level, as cutting as a blade. “I am human beyond all reckoning. I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and I am of the North, and I do not have the blood of monsters running through my veins!”

“We all have the blood of monsters within us,” says Arwen softly. “Whether by choice or not. It matters not what that blood holds- ‘tis the choices that we ought to think on, our own, and our ancestors. Why they chose as they did, and what choices we ought to make better.”

“It is different to know that your ancestors might have been cruel elves,” Sansa retorts, “than it is to know that your ancestors might have been orcs!”

For a moment, Arwen doesn’t answer. Then she reaches out, and presses her fingers to Sansa’s wrists, cool and dry and soft. “You are right,” she says. “It is difficult indeed. But- Sansa- orcs are nothing but elves, or the descendants of them: they are those elves that were tortured and broken by Sauron and Morgoth before him, until all goodness fled from them. Always, we must live with the knowledge of what we can become if ever we despair.”

Sansa had not known that. She had not known so much, though.

She closes her eyes, trying to keep abreast of all this new knowledge: the shocks, like sparks to her system, and the yawing, clutching fear that sings dark and terrible in her breast. History has never been something she enjoys beyond those long, winding songs; outside of them, there’s been so much death and so much grief.

Morwenna of Kubliath: the queen of the Others, who managed to twist her story until the Others were the ones who were hurt; until the Others were the ones who were betrayed. Morwenna of Kubliath, of Middle-Earth, of Winterfell: Sansa’s ancestor. And then Analysa Stark, daughter of a King, who fled Winterfell for her love and walked into the ocean of Middle-Earth for that love.

Sansa imagines the grief of seeing her mother dead before her eyes. Of fleeing her own husband’s people. Of returning to her home, only to lead her people away from what had been their hope and dreams; of leaving her only son behind, never to see his face again.

She shivers. Morwenna’s story was a tragedy. The worst kind of a tragedy: nothing of joy in any of it, just loss after loss after loss.

“There is one more thing,” says Arwen quietly. “One last thing that Morwenna left with us, before she left: a scrap of a song. A whisper of one. The last few lines, and no more, but she sang the song before kings and princes once, and she did not falter when she did.”

She throws her head back, and her voice rings out, and though Arwen is no songstress, though her power lies in her hands and not her voice, the words billow up and up, like glittering pieces of ice untethered by laws of the universe.

“Springtime for mercy, 

“Summer for freedom;

“Autumn for justice, 

“Winter for wisdom.

“Morwenna was the mercy of springtime,” says Arwen. “She left her family behind, and did what was necessary for her people to survive, and did not leave them a choice in the matter, for she thought life of more importance than ensuring life was lived properly. And Analysa was the freedom of summer, that child of storms and warmth- she who loved freely, and rebelled at her father’s restrictions strong enough to become queen of the Others, and was as uncontained as any tempest.”

She waits, and Sansa’s anger drips away, replaced by old, old fear. She has never heard this poem before, but it echoes around her skull and settles somewhere beneath her heart, in some hollow that feels right. It shouldn’t feel right. Sansa doesn’t want it to feel right. She wants to deny it. 

But she remembers Boromir’s words: unflinching we must be, and Sansa holds to her courage as close as she can.

“And now,” she whispers, “there is me.”

“Yes,” says Arwen. “At the end of all things in Middle-Earth, here you are.”

“I don’t know what must be done. I don’t. I’m just-”

“Acting. Acting on the knowledge you have. Acting as best you can, doing the best you can. Yes. I know.”

“I’m so afraid,” whispers Sansa.

Arwen’s fingers tighten on Sansa’s wrists, but she doesn’t drag her into an embrace. “So am I,” she breathes back. “So are we all.”

They sit together, entwined yet separate, for a long, long time.

…

It is a difficult time for Tauriel. 

Her physical body has healed well, but her soul has not; she finds herself tiring at the simplest of tasks. Arwen assures her that she’ll heal within a few days- she just needs sleep, and rest, and good food. But the enforced rest chafes on Tauriel in a way that she cannot explain to anyone.

For decades, now, Tauriel has been free to do as she wished, and if the majority of the time that wish meant throwing herself into unwinnable battles, at least nobody had tried to keep her from them.

“Lady Tauriel?” asks the soft voice of the third member of their party.

Sansa, Arwen had told her that night, and smiled with a brilliance that shone brighter than even the stars. A human girl, walking from other worlds. Young but kind. Rich in power, and yet untrained. 

That she survived the mountain of orcs is surprising. 

That she saved Tauriel is even more surprising.

“Yes?” asks Tauriel, turning to look at her.

Sansa swallows. “Lord Celeborn left us with a few more provisions than I’d expected. Lady Arwen has made some tea for both of us- for all three of us. If you’re willing to join?”

Tea. Tauriel is fairly certain that Arwen doesn’t know of Sansa’s question to her; Arwen’s spent the past days trying her level best to keep Tauriel in bed, and would not suffer her to even walk on her own two feet if unnecessary. And Tauriel doesn’t even like tea. But Sansa’s gaze is calm and clear, like the pools of the summer sky, and she is asking Tauriel, and even if it’s only to the other side of the boat- even if it’s only to tea and nothing more- she would enjoy the change.

“I am,” she says, and grips the hand that Sansa extends. The pulse underneath is trembling, too fast, too strong. Too quickly will it fade. But Tauriel has spent too long living in the present to fear the future. “You’ve my gratitude, Lady Sansa.”

She ducks her head, a pleased flush to her face, and when she rises, Tauriel can see what drew Arwen to her, written across the soft, shining bones of her face- kindness and softness, and the underlying, steady warmth of determination running under it like a rush of fresh water.

Something warms in her chest, and she walks onwards.

…

The tea is sweet. 

Sansa has barely brought the cup up to her lips, barely let herself taste it, when Tauriel says something very loudly and very sharply, and Arwen draws Hadhafang from her sword-sheath with a ringing cry.

“Tauriel,” she says, and again, something long, in the liquid tongue of the elves. Then, in something approaching Westron: “Run! These are orcs that stand in the sun- I’ve not seen their like before.”

“Orcs?” is all Sansa has time to say, before Tauriel has taken a hold of her collar and drags her backwards, towards the little place hollowed in the deck of the boat for supplies. It’s when Tauriel starts to toss the rope overboard, without a care for the loss, that Sansa realizes her plan.

“I will not be locked inside of this place like something made of glass and jewels!” she snaps, throwing all of her weight backwards so Tauriel cannot throw her into the darkness.

Perhaps it is cruel. Tauriel’s face certainly pales from the strain, and she hesitates, when- had she been perfectly fine- she wouldn’t have paused at all. Sansa doesn’t care at that moment.

“It’s the only safe place we have!”

“I saved you once before,” says Sansa. “And from more orcs, then! You cannot-”

Then she hears a sound that rings through her bones like a clarion bell. It pierces through the trees, even through the thunder of Rauros falls. Even Tauriel’s certainty fades before the clear silver beauty of the horn.

The Horn of Gondor.

Boromir’s Horn.

For times of courage, and times of aid, he had told her, once, when she worked up the courage to ask. Borne by all the heirs to the Steward from time immemorial. My heritage, and my heirs’ heritage, when their time comes.

For times of courage. 

For times of aid.

“Boromir,” whispers Sansa, and she steps away from Tauriel, and looks to where it sounded from: the woods, yes, but not too far away. And Tauriel had looked in that same direction when she warned Arwen. And the clothes Sansa wears are not the same ones she’d worn from Rivendell; these are lighter, made for travel in the southern reaches of Middle-Earth. Made for the coming spring. And the water here does not look so deep.

And Sansa’s mother is a Tully, and Sansa herself is half-Tully, and there has never been a Tully that died of drowning.

I will not be the first, she thinks, and touches a hand to the hilt of her sword, of her swords.

(Sansa knows they are there. Their weight weighs her down, forces her to walk differently. Forces her to compensate for their weight and their length, so she can move without fearing little scabbing cuts all over her calves. It is impossible for her not to know that they are there. Why she touches it, she does not know. Steel has never been anything more than a burden for her. These swords do not represent anything more than the freedom to leave Rivendell.

So why does she do it?)

(In an ancient time, in an ancient world: a woman with hair the color of fresh-tilled earth and eyes the color of moss preserved in ice held pieces of obsidian in her palms, and considered taking their sharp edges to the unborn child in her belly, to her own throat. She gathered them instead, all of the pieces, down to the last shard, and took no heed of how they sliced at her palms and arms. Then she went down to the grand city she saw peeking over the horizon, and when she knelt to the king there, she pressed her palm to the sheathed knife still at her side.)

(This is what Morwenna of Kubliath meant, when she knelt to Elu Thingol, and placed a bleeding hand on her knife: peace, and peace that is chosen, and peace that is stronger for it. 

Sansa does not know any of this, of course. She knows nothing of Morwenna or Elu Thingol, nothing of Kubliath or Doriath or the shards of obsidian. She is just a girl, chasing after her father. Just a girl, chasing after the dream of her father. Just a girl.

But there are actions which echo down over centuries. Over millennia. Actions which are the same, but do not mean the same. Actions which represent more than actions. One hand on the hilt of a knife: peace. One hand on the hilt of a sword: death. And yet: the same.)

She steps away from Tauriel, and closer to the boat’s railing. Another step, and she is closer still. The water here runs sharp and swift, and Sansa is the daughter of Catelyn Tully, and she is at least as much a fish as she is a wolf. She does not turn around when she throws herself backwards, trusting instead to the cold, shocking embrace of the water.

Then-

Then-

Then, Sansa does not let herself think at all.

Chapter Text

“I’ll need weaponry,” snaps Tauriel, gripping Arwen’s forearm before she can disappear. 

“You are not well enough to-”

“I was the Captain of Thranduil’s Guard,” says Tauriel lowly, fiercely. “I have spent years chasing after orcs greater in number than you can imagine, Lady Arwen of Imladris. Believe me. I have done more in worse shape than I am now. And you’ll need the aid as well.”

“Where is Sansa?”

“Gone. To her father’s aid.”

Arwen pales. “She could not-”

“She dove off the boat.”

“The water’s too deep!”

“And she’s strong.” Tauriel had waited to see her make her way to shore; the girl’s smart enough to cut across the current, rather than fight it. Tauriel had waited until she was certain Sansa’d make it, and only then gone to bother Arwen. She holds out a hand now. “Weapons.”

“Put up the boat to anchor,” orders Arwen. “Then follow.”

“Very well.”

But Arwen hands her both the knives she’s sheathed at her side, choosing to keep the sword for herself. Which does make some sense; she’s been trained to the sword, and knives are a dangerous weapon to rely upon if one does not know their uses well. Still, half a chance is better than none at all.

“You’ll need a knife as well,” says Tauriel.

Arwen reveals the smaller knives she’s secreted away- one that curves, looking like it’s for gutting game, and another that looks built for a healing purpose. 

“A filleting knife will not help you here,” Tauriel tells her flatly. “Not against orcish steel.”

“Even the shoddiest steel of Imladris will hold up against orcish steel,” says Arwen, as if it’s so simple.

Tauriel gives in to the urge to roll her eyes. Trust the daughter of Elrond Half-Elven to be so proud of her people, even on the verge of a battlefield. It’s been a long time since Tauriel herself had such confidence in her king or her kingdom.

Not mine. The old scars tug and pull across her mind. Tauriel forces the pain away. She has spent too long focusing on the present to get lost in the past. Mine. Not mine. Mine. Does it matter?

No, thinks Tauriel, as she’s thought for every night of the past seventy years.

She takes the time to learn the knives, to ignore the splash of Arwen leaping off the boat, and to know what movements she ought to avoid in the middle of battle lest her body protest too loudly. Never before has she seen orcs move so easily in sunlight. And Tauriel will not let herself be the one who needs aid, at the end of this battle. She will not let her body betray her here, after all that she has managed and done.

…

Sansa drags herself out of the river and makes way to the horn. It feels like a lodestone, her blood full of iron; she need not think too hard. Just move.

…

I pray I’m not too late, thinks Arwen. I pray-

But she has too many prayers, and too many hopes. For Aragorn, for Sansa, for Boromir. For Frodo and the Ring, and all these orcs swarming over the land. In the end, her prayers go unworded. In the end, she does not pray at all.

…

Findis, thinks Sansa, and she is already sprinting when she sees Boromir take the first arrow- she is already screaming, and her swords are already up.

Before she knows it, she is whirling. She meets the first orc with the flat of Duril and slides Ringil into its guts, and uses its momentum to push away the one trying to circle around to her back. It’s not so easy as in the High Pass; these orcs are taller and heavier, and seemingly better trained. But Sansa is also more frightened now than ever before.

She is fiercer now than ever before.

…

Arwen sacrifices two of her knives with swift, accurate throws before she ever reaches the battle- one aimed at an orc’s eye, to keep it from separating Sansa’s head and her shoulders, and another to distract the enormous orc drawing an arrow, aiming at Boromir. Then she’s in the thick of battle, and she’s moving fast, aiming to reach the leader before they can overwhelm them all.

Until a scream splits the air.

…

The second arrow cleaves through the horn hanging from Boromir’s shoulder. Sansa sees it slam into Boromir’s body. She sees him stagger. She sees him gasp, and shudder, and slip to his knees. Sansa does not think she’s screaming, but the coppery taste of blood stings up her throat anyhow, and her ears hurt.

Then she’s in front of him, and defending him.

Her swords move without thought, so swift through the air that the steel almost sings. 

Sansa does not dare look back, to see what Boromir looks like; she knows what his face will look like in death already. She cannot believe that she’s too late. She cannot let herself believe that she’s too late. She does not dare let herself even think on it, lest the despair slow her down the slightest amount.

…

Arwen knows the moment that Tauriel joins the fray: the battle eases, some of the fighters trying to attack the third target- and she takes the momentary lull to scout out the orc with the bow.

It’s lifting another arrow, and it’s aiming at-

-Sansa.

Arwen shouts, but she’s too far away. The orcs are escaping with the halflings, and Sansa is at terrible risk; she’s still dueling two orcs at once, and not truly seeing the danger from above. And Arwen has nothing that she can throw, just a small knife that- while sharp- will not pierce the orc’s armor at all. Her last knife. She will have to be better than she has ever been before. 

One breath to steady herself, no more. Then Arwen throws.

She does not pray, and yet her prayers are heard.

The bowstring springs undone, and the bow’s snap reverberates through the clearing. The orc turns to snarl at Arwen, attention caught. It unsheathes a black, serrated blade, and stalks towards her. 

Arwen grips Hadhafang in a loose grip, because a tight one will make disarming her easier. She brushes aside her hair, and pays no attention to the blood-sweat dripping into her eyes. Then she sets her feet, plants herself strong as the trees of Lorien that have seen blood and fire and ruin and carnage, and she leaps headfirst into battle.

...

The tide of the battle truly shifts when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli arrive. By then, Sansa has dispatched enough orcs that there aren’t any more coming towards her; she’s torn, instead, between running to help Arwen and keeping Boromir alive.

Boromir, who’s a gasping, retching mess on the grass. He probably thinks Sansa’s some sort of a hallucination, because he isn’t protesting heavily; his eyes are half-lidded, and the tense lines are only deepening the more Sansa tries to keep his blood inside of him. But he’s still alive, and he still seems to feel pain more than he doesn’t, and Sansa’s fully going to take that as a good thing. Her blessings can be counted on one hand, and she isn’t going to be picky about them now.

“The halflings,” gasps Boromir wetly, and Sansa shushes him, probably a bit rougher than necessary, because he’s got to keep that air in his lungs, not trying to tell Sansa things she already knows.

Tauriel herself is helping Arwen as best she can, but doesn’t seem wholly willing to leap into action. She’d just thrown her daggers at the orc, and managed to wound him deeply twice over, but neither time had given Arwen more than the briefest of reprieves. 

Aragorn, on the other hand, doesn’t pause for even the briefest moment before he flings himself at the orc.

They both work together beautifully: Arwen and Aragorn, twinned dark hair, lovely fair skin; their bodies know this dance. They whirl together and apart, one in and the other out, one up and the other down. It would be lovely in a ballroom or for a courtly display. Now it’s just terrifying. Sansa curls harder over Boromir, presses at his wounds, and ignores the red staining her hands bright as any paint. She might well have to take up arms if Arwen and Aragorn are beaten- and though she doesn’t think she’ll survive the ensuing battle, she’ll not let the orc leader at Boromir without a fight.

Until Aragorn manages to thrust his sword into the orc’s guts, up and through, and Arwen then lops his head off. 

Then, and only then, does she realize that the clearing is silent, and all that remains are people she considers friends: Legolas, the elf not of Rivendell; Gimli the dwarf; and, of course, Boromir and Arwen and Aragorn and Tauriel. Only then does Sansa start to think about what to do next- beyond the next heartbeat, and to the next action. Beyond her own life and death, beyond ensuring Boromir’s blood stays within his body, and to-

To healing him.

…

“What is this?” asks Aragorn, son of Arathorn and the dark-haired man that had once given Arwen strength enough to battle her way out of a swarm of orcs. 

Legolas and another dwarf stand a little ways away, and Legolas is not looking away from her, gaze too wide and mouth pressed too tight for Tauriel’s comfort. She focuses instead, wholly, on Aragorn, whom she at least has no history with.

Tauriel does not know him at all- this is the first time they are meeting. But she can see the way he stands, firm and feet apart, a human but a human with strength of will and arm that she’s seen far too rarely in all her years. She can understand why Arwen might love him, for all that she doesn’t understand how Elrond’s daughter can love a filthy, bloodstained man that looks more like a vagrant than any prince. And all she knows is that, when beset by orcs, Arwen had despaired of survival until Tauriel begged her to remember someone who would await her in Imladris, and then Arwen had remembered him: not her father, not her mother, and not her brothers.

For a decade, at the least, Arwen has loved Aragorn well, and truly, and deeply.

It’s only because of this knowledge that she doesn’t bristle or throw the black-stained knife at his exposed throat. Arwen Undomiel deserves far better of a greeting than what is this.

“A rescue,” says Arwen coolly. “You certainly looked like you needed it.”

“You are supposed to be sailing!” exclaims Aragorn. “Your- Lord Elrond said that you would sail! That he saw nothing but-”

“-death,” says Arwen, and she is bloody and bruised, and she is still the loveliest thing in the entire glade by a far margin. “I am aware. If it is death that I go to, Aragorn, then I shall walk into that darkness knowing what I risk. Knowing what I fight for. Foresight is not a talent of only my father; I have it myself. And there is much death and much suffering that can be lessened when- if- we all fight; not just those of us that must.”

“You are not supposed to be here,” says Aragorn, pale and furious.

Tauriel thinks he does look frightening. Or, if not frightening, then at least intimidating; there is something in the assumed power of kings that makes them a little larger than life. Tauriel has spent a lifetime deferring to hers, and only seven decades rebelling against him, and the ingrained urge to shrink before them has not quite had the time to dissipate.

Arwen, who has never met a leader she wasn’t related to or loved by, doesn’t have the same reservation.

“No,” she agrees, and continues on without pause. “But I am here, and I am well, and I have done far more good than evil when walking this road. And anyhow, you cannot send me back.”

“Can I not?”

Arwen smiles, and Tauriel twitches forwards minutely. She knows that smile: it’s the one Arwen wore when she cut an orc’s throat and did not flinch at the spray of blood, and the one that Arwen wore when she sliced through the orc’s bow just a few moments earlier, and the one that Arwen wore when she cut the same orc’s head off, her golden blade stained black. It is not a peaceful smile.

“If you try,” she begins, her voice so sweet as to be a provoking insult all on its own, only to be silenced by Sansa.

“Arwen,” she says, and her voice breaks halfway through the name, so clearly they all turn to look at her. She’s been so steady the entire time Tauriel’s known her- bright-eyed and smiling and prettily flushed- that it’s easy to forget how young she is. But that’s all that Tauriel sees when she looks at the girl now: her youth, and the heartbreak that runs through that youthfulness like the Enchanted River runs through the Greenwood. 

“Arwen,” says Sansa again. “He needs help.”

Things happen very quickly after that: Arwen and Aragorn and Legolas- all of whom have a far better skill at healing than Tauriel, who isn’t entirely terrible herself- gather around Boromir, and start operating. It’s a difficult process; Boromir quite clearly wants to die, some shame dimming his eyes and rattling his breaths. But Sansa won’t let that despair gain any purchase.

“You promised to keep me safe,” she says, and leans down, and whispers in his ear furiously, unendingly: of Gondor, of Boromir’s brother and father, of Boromir’s soldiers; of her own parents, of all that Boromir’s promised her, of the weight of words, of all the lessons he’s imparted to her. 

Tauriel would be surprised at how she doesn’t stop, but Sansa had sang for two days straight in an attempt to keep Tauriel alive, and this doesn’t seem altogether quite so different a task.

As they gather around him, Tauriel starts gathering their weapons. She’s accompanied by the dwarf- Gimli, son of Gloin, who flashes her a smile from under his rich beard that’s startling in its brilliance, and also strangely familiar.

“I do not know for what you smile, my lord,” says Tauriel, and yanks Galadriel’s knife out of the orc’s gut with a sickening squelch. “Your company is sundered, is it not?”

“Aye,” says Gimli, peaceably enough. “But we’ll go after them soon enough. So long as they are alive, we shall track them. And none of them have died yet.”

“Yet,” says Tauriel flatly.

“Yet. Perhaps not for a good many years. A dwarf’s got to have hope.”

Tauriel turns away instead of answering. Hope has not been an emotion she’s had much of in her life; Tauriel’s spent her years knowing the darkness slowly growing over her forest, fearing it and fighting it in equal measure. She has known it not to be the kind that anyone can survive, only delay, and that too not for overlong. Even her flight down to the southern reaches of Mirkwood had been borne of rage, not hope. 

This next knife is embedded deep in the bone of an orc’s arm. Stubbornly forced in, and she cannot remove it easily without shattering the blade. It takes some wiggling and some more awkward positioning of the limb before she manages to wrench it out.

“Stop her,” she says wearily, nodding to where Sansa remains hunched over the unconscious body of Boromir. Then she glances over at Gimli. “She’ll wreck herself trying to save anyone else, and we don’t need another injury among our party.”

“You can’t do it?” Gimli asks, accompanied by a wryly arched eyebrow, but goes without further discussion. 

Tauriel takes the opportunity to set up a little fire. There’s tea in the boat, but she doesn’t want to leave just yet; instead, she pours out some of the water from an orc’s canister and tosses some of the athelas roots she can find into it. It’ll make for a bitter concoction, but it’ll be bracing, and hopefully enough to jolt anyone who needs it back into themselves.

Sansa struggles against Gimli, briefly, but he’s far stronger than her. It’s only when he’s finally got her seated a fair distance away that he grips her chin and tells her, “He’s unconscious, lass. Take a breath. Can’t hear you even if you screamed. He’ll need the help when he wakes, and that won’t be for some time yet.”

“Drink,” says Tauriel, holding out the bowl of rough stone. It’s sun-warmed and probably chipped off of a statue, and the tea warms it further. “You look like you need it.”

And Sansa does: she’s pale, and shaking, and her hands are red up to her wrists, the blood not quite dry enough to flake off yet. She’s clutching the pieces of Boromir’s horn in her other hand, pressing them closed, and she doesn’t look like she’s going to let go of it in favor of anything.

“Sansa,” says Tauriel, and forces her voice to soften. This is a girl, a child; not one of Tauriel’s soldiers. She needs to remember that. “Please. Drink. I’ll hold the horn for you if you need it.”

Slowly, she does let go. It’s the only sign that Tauriel has that she’s capable of hearing her. Otherwise, she remains still and silent and shadowed, eyes too dark and too grieved for her age by far.

Tauriel lets her be. This kind of fear is not something she can aid. Instead, she looks over to where Aragorn and Legolas are moving slowly over the body, and Arwen is slumped over the side, head pillowed on her arms. By the time she goes over there to help, Arwen’s managed to drag herself upright.

“How is he?”

Arwen sighs and stands, brushing off the dirt caked on her thighs. It’s more perfunctory than anything else; a habit, rather than an attempt to get clean. Her clothes are far too filthy for that. They go over to where Sansa’s sitting, and Gimli’s managed to persuade her into sipping the tea- she makes a face every time she brings the cup to her lips, but there’s more color in her cheeks than when Tauriel left.

“It’s not good,” says Arwen carefully. Tauriel can understand: she doesn’t want to shock Sansa into some worse state, but neither does she want to lie to her either. “These wounds… they get worse overnight, with the darkness. If he lives to see dawn I think he’ll survive.”

“Dawn,” says Sansa, looking up at the sky hopelessly. 

It’s rather far away for ensuring Boromir’s survival. And if his condition will only get worse until then- Tauriel suppresses the shudder making its way over her shoulders.

“We cannot stay either,” says Legolas, then, appearing over Arwen’s shoulder. “The hobbits have need of aid. Frodo-”

“-there’s nothing more we can do for him,” says Aragorn. “The burden of the Ring is his to bear, now; his and his alone.”

“Alone,” says Gimli disbelievingly, and places a hand on his axe- less a threat to others, Tauriel thinks, and more a comfort for himself. “You let that boy go out into the wild alone?”

“The fate of the Ring lies not with us any longer,” says Aragorn firmly. “You’ve seen what it did to Boromir-” and they had; it’s that shame that sits so heavily on Boromir’s brow, and it’s that shame that must worry Sansa so deeply, “-and Eru only knows how it can affect the rest of us. Better we fight those battles that can be fought. Save those we can save.”

“I agree,” says Legolas. “But-”

“I don’t think we can catch up to them before they reach Mordor anyhow,” says Arwen, wrinkling her nose when she tries to push some hair out of her eyes; her hair’s splattered over with gut and blood, and matted together because of it. “But what of the other hobbits? The ones captured by the orcs?”

“We’ll have to save them,” says Aragorn. “Track them.”

“You’ve lost the better part of the day,” warns Tauriel. “To catch up to them will not be easy.”

Aragorn inclines his head. “But not impossible.”

“If that is your measure of success, then I’m surprised the Fellowship has come this far,” says Arwen caustically. 

“Arwen,” says Aragorn, a thunderous look on his face. 

She lifts her chin to level a look at Aragorn that’s colder than the snow on Erebor’s slopes. “I,” she says ominously, “think we need to talk.”

“Yes,” says Aragorn, and helps haul her to her feet, and they both stalk off some distance.

Tauriel lifts an eyebrow at that, and waggles them expressively at Legolas: they’ve done this before, poking fun at stuffy emissaries behind their backs with nothing more than an eyebrow or a spark in their eyes. It’s only when he fails to respond that she remembers where she is and when she is. 

“Perhaps we ought to speak as well,” he says.

I don’t want to, thinks Tauriel. Words have never been her tool of choice. 

But she owes Legolas far more than a little discomfort. And she cannot find it in herself to turn him away yet again.

“Yes,” she says, and lets him guide her away.

…

“Well,” says Gimli, ostensibly to the red-haired girl at his side, but she hasn’t spoken since he tore her from Boromir’s side; he’s fairly certain she’s not capable of hearing anything. “Looks like we’ve got to get through some arguments before chasing after those poor hobbits. Pah! Elves! Never know when to stop sitting around and act.” He leans into her side, confidingly. “Especially that poor yellow-haired archer, you know. Sorry elf’s the son of Thranduil. He’s probably spent more time walking in the past couple months than he has in a thousand years.”

…

“I’ve no need of your protection!”

“And I’ve no need of your devotion!”

“Well,” says Arwen. Aragorn pales, a little, and raises a hand to brush against her wrist; an apology, perhaps. Arwen pulls away. She has no desire for his pity. “When you find your courage,” she tells him, “come find me, Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Until then- you are not the man I loved.”

“Loved,” he says, strangled.

And may yet love again. But this? You? As you are?

Never.

“One of my grandmothers is wise and kind and fierce and powerful beyond measure,” says Arwen calmly. “And the other is Galadriel. I have not just peace and healing in my blood. Remember that, the next time you wish to cheapen what lies between us. Remember that, the next time you decide to insult me in this manner.”

…

“You’ve been safe?”

“No,” says Tauriel. “Have you?”

“No,” says Legolas.

“That,” says Tauriel, “is not entirely surprising.”

…

Elwing the White, of feathers and stone and shining light. Elwing, who threw herself from the highest tower of Sirion to save the Silmaril, and survived solely by the pity of the Valar. Elwing, whose sons Elros and Elrond survived- Elros to found Numenor, and Elrond to build Imladris. Arwen does not often speak of her, because she would rather not cause her father further heartache.

But that does not mean that Arwen is not proud, nor that she has forgotten.

Her mother’s mother is far closer to her. Many would call her more frightening than Elwing.

But Arwen knows Galadriel first as her grandmother, and only next as the tales sung around a fire. Her father’s mother- of her fear, and her grace, and her courage: Arwen knows nothing but the tales, and she has always been in awe of them.

“I would rather you be alive than with me,” says Aragorn.

“And I would rather you be safe in Imladris than on this quest,” says Arwen. She thinks of Elwing’s fall: how desperate she must have been. How much she must have loved her sons. She will never get to meet her grandmother now, but Arwen can imagine that ferocity well, for it sings high and true in her blood. “But you do not see me asking you to stay in silence and behind stone walls, do you?”

“I have been training for this all my life!”

“For this? For this?” 

“For battles!”

“Ah,” says Arwen. “And these battles- these battles that your comrade in arms has been so dearly injured by- he whom you had no reservations of allowing on the quest- shall not come to the West when you inevitably fail?”

“Inevitable!”

“I will not Fade,” says Arwen, and it is fierce, and it is strong, and it is no less than anything she has ever been in her life. “I will not live in the silence of Valinor, and I will not wait for war to come to my doorstep. I have chosen a life in Middle-Earth. Whether that is with you or not, it scarcely matters.”

Aragorn’s flush fades into a pallor so white he looks ghostly. “You’ve chosen,” he says, and sounds mournful.

Arwen walks away before she can hit him.

She walks back, though, before he can say anything else. “I do not regret it,” she bites out. “And I will not rescind it. No matter what you say.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to rescind anything,” says Aragorn. “Just- your mother. Your family. They are all there. I am all that remains here, Arwen: and I know how deeply you care for them. I know how you spur your horses to foam and exhaustion between Lothlorien and Rivendell just so you can spend more time with family than on the road. I know how you time your arrivals at Rivendell to be with your brothers. I know how you’ve worked on your mental arts to remain close to them when your natural skills lie elsewhere. I know how much you care for them.” He reaches out, and touches the bone of her wrist that protrudes outward the slightest more than a human’s would; rubs his finger over it very softly. “I cannot ask you to give it up.”

Arwen wonders how to tell him the truth. She looks into his dear eyes, so sharp, so clear- like the skies under a summer storm, honest and true and strong. She wonders, still, at her own surety: it matters not for Arwen to have children, though she would like them, or for Aragorn to bear his crown, though it would matter to her father, or for the family she is forsaking, though she will miss them like she will miss her limbs if ever she loses one. 

But she has spent every year since her heart sang to her of Aragorn desperately, furiously aware of the time slipping away. That is the person that Aragorn knows: the elf that knows the worth of time, in a manner that no other elf would probably understand. He does not know that she spurs her horses to be closer to her family because she knows her time with them to be limited, and more precious for it. 

Aragorn does not know, and Arwen will not break his heart to tell him.

“It is not your asking that drives me to it,” she says finally. “It is not the love that you bear for me that pushes me to make this choice. It is the love I bear for you that spurs me onwards.”

“They are not so different,” he says, but it is quieter, and Arwen can see that Aragorn understands, even if he is not willing to admit it.

“One is your choice and one is mine,” says Arwen, and lets her own voice drop as well, turn cajoling instead of furious. “One allows you the permission to send me away, and one denies that to you. And I’ve already told you: you cannot send me back.”

“I will be afraid,” he tries.

Arwen catches his palms between her own and lifts them to her lips, damn the blood and mud still staining them. “Let us then,” she says, not looking away from Aragorn, “be afraid together.”

…

“Where have you been, though?”

“In Mirkwood,” Tauriel tells him. 

“I thought my father banished you.”

“When have I ever listened to Thranduil,” says Tauriel, “when my heart sang a different song?”

Legolas ducks his head, but not before she sees the flash of laughter in his eyes. Warmth, familiar and comforting, spreads through her gut.

“Where in Mirkwood?”

“South. Near Dol Guldur.”

“And you’ve been alone all this time? You survived being so close- attacking-”

“Er. Not…” Tauriel wishes she had a bow. Or a knife. Something she could cut her own throat with. “-exactly?”

Barring everything else, the floor swallowing her whole before she has to explain to Thranduil’s son and heir why she’s seduced twenty other elves to fighting battles that essentially amount to dereliction, treason and- she’s really hoping Legolas’ inability to do proper politics kicks in before he realizes this one- attacking a foreign power that the Mirkwood isn’t officially stated to be a hostile one, seems more and more attractive.

…

“Lass,” says Gimli. “Listen. The last light of Durin’s Day was what led my father and his Company into Erebor’s secret entrance. But it wasn’t the green flash at sunset that everyone thought it was.” The girl rustles, seemingly brought back to herself, and Gimli lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. “‘Twas starlight.”

“You mean,” she breathes.

“Aye. There’s always light to be seen, if one knows where to look.”

“It can help his wound then!”

“And drive away the darkness, even if it isn’t so strong as sunlight.”

“Oh,” she says, and rises, swaying a little. But then she turns back to him, and bows: deeply, properly. “Thank you, my lord. I’ll never forget this kindness.”

And she turns and calls for Arwen, and when she appears, she does look better: she and Aragorn both, with little secret smiles offered only to each other. The other elf-maid- Tauriel, Legolas had muttered- does not look so content, and Legolas looks halfway miffed- but only in the manner of someone who thinks they ought to be miffed, and doesn’t really care. Between the two of them, they manage to explain Gimli’s idea to them all. Tauriel and Legolas lift Boromir gently, and finagle him onto the boat anchored at the beach, laying him out on the wood. The girl sits down after that, and sinks into herself, staring out at nothing, and Arwen leads the rest of them away, frowning at her compassionately.

...

Sansa closes her eyes, briefly, more because she doesn’t want to see Boromir than because she wants to see anything else, and when she opens them, she’s in the white room that she saw in the mountains once more. “Findis,” she says quietly.

Findis steps forwards, out of the brilliant light, and presses her hands against the flats of Sansa’s shoulders. 

“I, too,” she whispers, “know something of the grief of losing a father.”

“I haven’t lost him yet,” says Sansa. She doesn’t know from whence the hope springs- only that it does, and she does not know what will happen to her when it runs dry. “But I have lost another, and Boromir is not my father, and I don’t know why I’m so- so-”

She runs out of words. There is no one who can understand this pain, this sweet stinging pain; nor the fear that tears deep into Sansa’s marrows. 

“-because you love him,” says Findis, running a hand over her cheeks and wiping away the tears. “Because you love him, and that is enough. Come, come- sit, uruhina- and tell me. This is not just the grief of loss, is it?”

“It’s shame,” says Sansa. She can no longer avoid it, for all that she’s spent the past months pretending to far more peace of mind than she already has. “Shame, for what I’ve done, and can never undo.”

“I know something of that, as well,” says Findis. Sansa can’t help the way her face spasms- what can a thousand year old elf, shining and beautiful and good, know of this bloody, cruel shame in Sansa’s blood?- and Findis smiles again, this time sadder than before. “Let me tell you a story, then: of before my family left Aman, when I was the eldest daughter of House Finwe, and all I loved yet remained by my side.”

“I don’t think-”

“My brother Feanor once held a sword to Fingolfin’s throat,” Findis says, and Sansa sputters to a halt. “It was the first time anyone had dared to do something like that in Aman- and for being a disruptor of the peace, he was banished to Formenos. And my father chose to go with him into that exile.”

Sansa imagines it: Robb holding a sword to Bran’s neck, and then her father following Robb to the Wall. She imagines the betrayal of it, and the grief, and the bitter, bitter horror. Her throat closes over.

“I fought with him,” Findis tells Sansa. “When he chose to go to Formenos. Fingolfin had played enough of his part in provoking Feanor, perhaps, but no father should have so blatantly chosen one son over another. I do not think anyone has shouted at Finwe as much as I did then, when he announced his decision to our family: it shocked him. I was always the quiet one, you know; easily forgotten. Never so loud as the other four.”

“I- yes,” says Sansa. “I was the quiet one too. In mine.”

“But nothing I said changed my father’s mind.” Findis shrugs. “He left, and I refused to bid him goodbye. And that was the last I saw of him, after that. The last he saw of me, I was a red-faced howling creature as I’ve never been before or after.” Her lips twist into something approaching wryness. “For fifty years, I cleaved to my rage. Until Morgoth slew my father, and took from me any chance of forgiveness or pardon.”

Sansa closes her eyes. Leans into Findis’ warmth. The words are so thick in her throat. 

But there’s a difference between being stubborn, and being the cause of one’s father’s death. Findis never went to Morgoth and told him how and where to kill Finwe. Findis never…

“Ah, Sansa,” says Findis, gently, for all that she glitters bright as live steel. “A thousand things I’ll never forgive myself for. When he passed, I clung to my anger, and my grief, and then a hundred other tasks that needed to be done- I had to act, yes, because I was the eldest.”

“Feanor was older.”

“Feanor had lost himself to his anger. And for all that I love him, I have never called him reliable.” Findis shakes her head. “When Feanor swore his eternal vengeance and all else, there had to be someone there for- everyone else. Fingolfin was too prideful to heed any warnings, and so I sent Írime to care for him. And there was Finarfin to care for our people, who needed the succor. But there needed to be someone for my mother. She’d lost her husband, and none of the others were ready to care for her as well as she ought to have been taken care of. So I took it on.

“It was a thankless task: my brothers called me cowardly, and my sister never quite forgave me for it. Just as I never quite forgave Fingolfin for choosing vengeance over life. But then- I suppose I was the one in the family who knew what had to be done to keep us alive.”

“I don’t think that worked out… overly well,” says Sansa slowly.

Findis grins, sharp and golden as Hadhafang. “It kept them alive for far longer than anything else would have,” she says simply. “And believe me: I know it well.”

Sansa blinks. Then she says, quietly, “I don’t know who’ll be there for my mother. Both me and my sister are gone- maybe Arya’s survived, I don’t know- but me, and Father, and then-” she shakes her head. “I should have been there for her.”

“Yes,” says Findis quietly. “There will never be anyone who loves their mother so well as an eldest daughter, nor one who knows her so truly. ‘Twas in that grief and that despair that I forged these swords- and a crown for my sister, and a set of vambraces for Finarfin. That I poured myself into these items, for love and for fear.”

“With nothing for Feanor?”

“Feanor would have thrown anything he thought to contain my soul into the hottest fire he could build by then,” says Findis, and snorts. “No. I gave him nothing of my soul, nor of my hands. Just the last scrap of a gown of silver and gold- I handed it to Maedhros, and let him think of a way to give it to his father. His mother’s gown, preserved by our father for all the millennia of peace.” She sighs. “So now you know my regrets, and my sorrows. Will you tell me now, uruhina, what shames you so deeply?”

“I,” says Sansa, and ducks her head, and fights not to weep. “I- I loved him. Joffrey. The prince I was supposed to wed. And I loved his mother. And I trusted them even more than I trusted my own father.”

“Oh,” breathes Findis. Her hands tighten on Sansa’s hands, but not so tight as to bruise. “Oh, sweet one, and you paid the price for it.”

Sansa rips herself away. How can Findis not understand!

“If I were the one who paid the price,” she cries, “I would not care! But it wasn’t my head that rolled under the blade, was it!”

Findis has gone white. Whiter still. Lips pressed, thin and bloodless. 

And Sansa- she finds that now that the secret has come out, she cannot stop.

“And now Boromir is on his deathbed! And I was too late- I’m always too late, I can never do anything well enough- I’m here and I’m alone and I’m going to die because I’m not enough!” She pushes a shaking hand through her hair, trembling. “Or I’m going to see worse things.”

“Worse things,” says Findis slowly.

“Everyone I love dead,” says Sansa, and turns her face away. Buries it in her hands. “It’s what I see when I try to sleep now. All of them. Arwen and Boromir and the others; my family. Robb. Mother. Arya’s head, eyes unseeing, in Joffrey’s hands. Bran, falling from that stupid tower.” She sniffs wetly. “You know, I never got to yell at him for that? And now I probably never will.”

“You did not swing the sword that killed your father,” says Findis slowly. Then she slaps something hard enough for the echo to ring. “But those words will not warm you, will they? It would not lessen my own guilt. No. But you are not to blame, Sansa: for your father knew the dangers of walking into a lion’s den, and he was a warrior all his life. All his life. Of necessity, and not desire, but a warrior nevertheless. And an adult. What’s to say that he would be on the ship you were to take from the capital? What’s to say that he wouldn’t have remained behind? In another, kinder world, he might have survived.

“But he did not, and that cannot be changed.”  

Slowly, she draws Sansa up, and into her arms. “Listen to me. Feanor did not, and he passed into the darkness far too early for me to see him again- either the real me, or the being within the swords. But Fingolfin’s line lives on in Elrond, and Finarfin’s in Galadriel, and from the two of them there is Arwen. And under Arwen’s protection, there is you. Uruhina I name you, fire-child, for the brilliance of your hair, for your steadiness, and for your ferocity. For the spirit that I saw in my father’s eldest son’s eldest son.” She lifts Sansa’s chin, tips her backwards until Sansa’s on her back and staring up at the stars. “You are a child of fire and a child of ice. And the answer to your father’s death- whether it is your fault or not- lies not with despair. You are human: live for that! Burn fiercer! Burn brighter! Seek not for vengeance, if you do not wish it; but seek for justice, and seek to ensure such a death never occurs again.”

“He’s gone,” whispers Sansa. “He’s gone. And all that’s left of him here is me, and I’m not-”

Enough. Not Stark enough. Not brave enough. Certainly not strong enough.

“Your strength rises from a spring so deep it takes more time to bubble to the surface,” says Findis calmly. “But when it comes, it shall be colder and fresher, and purer for it. Your father’s death, your foster-father’s death: there is one battle here to be fought. There is only ever one battle to be fought. One gave his life for your survival. The other gave his life for the world’s survival. You are here, are you not? You must survive, if you are to follow their wishes.”

Sansa shakes her head. “I’m- I don’t even like swords,” she says. “I hate it, I hate this, I hate who I’m becoming, I don’t- I can’t be what they want!”

“Then don’t,” says Findis, without hesitating. “Don’t be anything but what you are. And listen to me.” She waits until Sansa looks her in the eye. “What you are- who you are- that is enough.”

She does not say anything more. Just folds her hands, and waits for Sansa to make up her mind.

“The world’s survival,” Sansa mouths to herself, working through the implications. Her mind shies from what might have to be done. But Sansa’s got both grief and determination in her hand like Ringil and Duril, and she’ll use both when necessary. For Boromir, she reminds herself. For Father. “If I fail…”

“If you fail,” says Findis, “then you shall at least have tried, and that is more than can be said for far too many others who call this world home.”

“Very well.” 

Sansa rises, testing herself. Breathing deep. Determination. Grief. Anger. Fear. Hatred. Love. She has all of them inside of her, and it is up to Sansa to prove herself the stronger. Boromir nearly died- perhaps already has- and Sansa will ensure that sacrifice isn’t in vain. For who he is, and what he represents, and the kindnesses he’s shown her. She is responsible for that much, at least.

Then she lets Findis release her back to the real world.

...

“We must move,” says Legolas, after they’ve gotten Boromir on the boat, rising. “Pippin and Merry need us- we cannot delay further. If you can keep Boromir safe- take him to Lorien-”

“They will not take him,” says Arwen tiredly. “He surrendered to the Ring. The scars on his mind are not ones that elves can heal; such terrible ones would kill us before we ever reached this point.” She hesitates. “And my grandmother has already begun strengthening the defenses. None shall be allowed within Lorien until the Ring is destroyed.”

“Someone must tell the other kingdoms of these orcs,” Tauriel points out. “Ones that can run in the sun! Bigger, too, than any others I’ve seen, and better equipped.”

“Our measures for their army movements will have to be revised,” agrees Aragorn.

“Lorien has spent too long hidden away,” says Arwen. “I don’t think there are ways to get a message to Thranduil, much less Rohan or Gondor, there. If you want to get that message out, Tauriel, you’ll need to go to-”

“-Rohan,” says Legolas firmly.

“But we’ve more need of your force,” says Arwen to Tauriel. “If they are the orcs making up Saruman’s army, both Rohan and Gondor will need all the aid they can get.”

Tauriel winces, a little, and Legolas flushes awkwardly, but neither of them look at each other. Instead, Tauriel says, “The boat won’t work without Lady Galadriel’s kin upon it.”

“And your force will need you,” says Arwen. “Which means both of us are necessary upon the boat.”

“Ah, if it’s bodies you want, there’s even more dwarrows that’ll aid you,” says Gimli. He lifts his brows at them. “And they aren’t as far as Erebor or the Iron Hills either.”

“Then where are they?” says Aragorn, brows pulled together.

“They’re in Thranduil’s dungeons,” says Gimli, shrugging. “Have been for the past months. Refused to pay the Mirkwood taxes because they’re idiots, and lost some three to the spiders before they wisened up. They’re a roaming band of mercenaries too; you’ll make good use of them.”

They don’t hold a particular affinity to anyone or anything, though the majority of their company tend to be Longbeards. Trifar, the dwarf who leads the company, had come to Erebor a few years ago and taken Gimli in for a few years of training. Erebor itself hadn’t cared about a few mercenaries locked inside of Thranduil’s dungeons who didn’t owe any fealty to Dain or Durin- they couldn’t, not when they needed Mirkwood supplies to survive the winter after Dale’s crops grew blighted- but Gimli did, and would have offered some of his own gold as assurance to Thranduil had this quest not taken precedence.

Which doesn’t mean he can’t do his best from here.

“If we can get them out,” says Tauriel.

“And if they agree,” says Legolas. “And if they can move fast enough.”

Which most dwarrows couldn’t; Gimli knows that very well. For speed, you’d want a man or an elf. But for strength, and steadiness, you went for dwarrows. And these orcs that could walk in sunlight and bear arms heavier than most men ever could- for them, you’d definitely want dwarrows. Elves always forget that in their hurry to think the worst of dwarrows; Gimli doesn’t think anyone’s really noticed, but he’d got the best of more orcs in the battle that morning than anyone save Legolas.

He’s rather looking forward to their next battle, and evening up the numbers.

“Get them on the boat, I think,” says Gimli. “If you can manage it, you’ll be up and down to either Rohan or Gondor quick as a flash. And these dwarrows can run if they’ve got motivation enough.” He rummages through his belongings, and ends up pulling out the old cloth that Thorin- Dain’s son- had gifted to him before he left: the seven stars of mithril thread marks Gimli of Durin’s line, and the gold of the Khuzdul underneath marks him as on a mission of importance. He holds it out to Arwen, who Gimli’s fairly certain is the one most likely to head north. “Give this to a dwarf named Trifar. He’ll listen to whatever you have to say if you show this.”

Arwen takes it with a nod. “So Tauriel, Sansa and I head north, again? To meet her forces and convince King Thranduil to release them. And another group shall have to go south. To Rohan, and relay the messages.”

“And a final group,” says Aragorn, “to track Pippin and Merry.”

“Lord Boromir comes with me,” says Arwen. “He’ll need the calm- his body needs rest.”

And with her party traveling the furthest, it makes sense. Which leaves Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn to go to either Rohan or to track the hobbits. 

“I go to find the hobbits,” says Legolas grimly.

“And I shall do the same,” says Gimli.

Aragorn pauses. “I’m the best tracker,” he says slowly. “You’ll have need of me on that quest.”

“The men of Rohan shall listen easier to you than either I or Gimli,” says Legolas.

“The men of Rohan will-”

“-be afraid,” says a quiet voice, roughened and scraping like nails on stone. Gimli turns to look at the red-haired girl, who’s been so silent that he’s forgotten that she exists. Then she looks up, and her eyes are bright, brighter now than Gimli’s seen over the course of the whole day, despite the darkening sky. “They’ll not trust people who come in out of the darkness, speaking of strange beings and eldritch things. My father-” her breath hitches, and she breathes out slowly. “If your people won’t trust your words without your presence, Tauriel, how can you expect that of Rohan?”

For a long moment, there’s silence. Then Aragorn says, tonelessly, “What would you have us do?”

“Take Lord Boromir to Rohan.” Sansa says the words just as evenly, and does not flinch under the measured regard of Aragorn, Legolas, and Arwen combined. Gimli’s rather unwillingly impressed. “They know him in Rohan, don’t they? And take me with him, and you. By then Lord Boromir will either be awake and well enough to go to Rohan himself and tell them the truth, or-” she inhales slowly, and finishes: “-or, we’ll have proof of what the orcs can do to the best warrior in all of Gondor.”

Which is kill him.

Arwen inhales sharply. “Sansa,” she says.

Gimli fingers his axe, eyeing Sansa closely. He wonders, briefly, how old she is, and how well she knows Boromir. Neither Arwen nor Tauriel had been forthcoming about why they’ve come this far, tracking their fellowship, and Gimli hadn’t felt cruel enough to demand answers of the trembling, white-faced girl while she remained so worried over Boromir’s fate. But now he wishes he had; the sheer bloodlessness of her suggestion’s enough to make him wince.

“He needs healing-” begins Aragorn.

“He would agree to this plan without a second thought,” says Sansa flatly. “No matter if it did mean his death. If it means others would survive- he’d do it. You know he would.”

“It’s cruel,” says Aragorn quietly.

“It’s what must be done,” replies Sansa. She turns to Arwen. “I can do this. It’s where I’ll be of the most aid. And I’ll not leave him again.”

Nobody speaks. Finally, Arwen steps forwards and presses a hand to Sansa’s shoulder, open-palmed. All she says is, “Aragorn is a healer,” and ignores the hissing intake of his breath or Sansa’s own sagging shoulders. “If any of us can keep him alive-”

“It will take too long!” says Aragorn. “Too long by far. If I go alone to Helm’s Deep, it might take five nights; with Boromir, and with her- it will take far too long for any use.”

“I can keep up,” says Sansa. 

“She can,” comments Arwen. “Aragorn: when I fled the High Pass, I was too fearful to check my pace. What takes most of three days and nights took us two days alone, and Sansa was by my side for the entire time. She’ll not slow you down noticeably. I can guarantee you that.”

Aragorn sighs heavily. Then he nods, and Gimli nods as well, readying himself. It will not be an easy tracking: these orcs are intelligent, more than the normal ones that they’ve all fought, and strong, and have a persistence that will be difficult to match, much less better. But it must be done. All Gimli must remember is Pippin’s grief upon fleeing Moria: the grief of one who’s lost someone for the first time in their life, that terrible sundering of innocence- and strength returns to his limbs. He’ll not abandon him to the orcs now, when Gimli can do so much else.

…

They fashion a sort of sling that can be carried across Aragorn’s back. It won’t hold for very long, but hopefully long enough to reach Helm’s Deep- which isn’t all too far from Rauros Falls, for all of Aragorn’s whinging.

And whinging it must be, because Sansa will not let it be anything else.

Boromir will live. Sansa stood by as her father was killed in front of her once already. To see it occur a second time is too cruel a fate for her to imagine. And if Boromir will live, then all of Aragorn’s protests and all of his hesitation is… something else. Not, certainly, the fear of one comrade for another. 

Gimli and Legolas have already left- they stayed only long enough to rearrange their packs, filling their stores of lembas and dumping all extraneous camping materials, before going to track the orcs. The others are planning to head out as at first light. 

Dawn.

Dawn, when she will know whether Boromir survives or-

Deliberately, Sansa turns away from the thought. When she looks down at her hands, they look queerly dark- then she realizes that Boromir’s blood still stains it, and she hasn’t washed it off during all this time, too worried about other things. But she isn’t so occupied now. The water runs a pale violet in the dark sky when she finally dips her hands in the river, but the rushing water’s good and clean, and soon all that’s left is the remnants under her nails, thick and grotty. 

“Is this your first death?” asks Aragorn.

Sansa feels her shoulders tighten in response. She knows it must be visible through the thin fabric of her shirt, but she cannot help it. No one’s spoken to her since Legolas and Gimli left- Arwen because she’s talking to Aragorn, and Tauriel because she’s busy putting all their materials together on the boat. Sansa thinks she’d rather preferred it that way.

“No,” she says, and doesn’t turn back to look at him. “It isn’t.”

Lady. Arya. Her father.

Her family, too, because Sansa cannot allow herself to hope that she’ll return to Westeros until she’s actually there. She isn’t so young any longer. Morwenna knew that she had to fix back her crown. Analysa knew she had to fix the necklace she tore. What has Sansa damaged in her arrival to Middle-Earth? 

Aragorn might know of grief, but he doesn’t know this grief: of losing everything and everyone. Of losing everything and everyone, over and over and over again, until her limbs feel braced for the next loss before she even knows enough to understand the danger. 

“No daughter should see her father die like this,” says Aragorn quietly. “But… even if he survives, he will not thank you.”

“For what?” demands Sansa, finally stung into anger. She turns, quickly, to meet Aragorn’s gaze. “For what should he wish to die? Because he made a mistake? That’s nothing new! Death is not the only water that can wash away sins.” Her hands clench into fists, tight enough to draw fresh blood, and the fury fades as quickly as it’d come, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. “It’s the least of them.”

“A daughter’s words,” says Aragorn, and there’s a spark of amusement in his eyes along with the concern.

“He is not my father,” Sansa tells him flatly.

“And because he is not your father, you do not care for his life?”

“If he were my father,” Sansa grinds out, “I would have spoken to him of honor, and all the ways he could regain it, and all the things he has already done to achieve it. But Lord Boromir is not my father. He is as close to a prince as Gondor has, and Gondor has been at war for all his life, and he knows what that means. My father was only ever a lord. Lord Boromir has ever been more. And just because they look alike… I will never forget my home. Not for anything that comes. I know the differences, and I know what they mean, and I know what must be done.”

“It is cruel,” says Aragorn again.

“And so is this,” Sansa tells him. “Do you think I don’t know? But you know the truth as well, and you know what must be done. 

She leaves before he can say anything more. Before she can say anything more- more foolish, and more cruel, and more despairing. All that Sansa has is dependent upon hope, is reliant upon it. And questioning it, deeper, only shakes her all the deeper. All she wants is for dawn to come. All she wants is her father. All she wants is to go home.

Everything Sansa wants, it seems, is impossible.

Chapter Text

But Boromir lives to see dawn. 

Perhaps the starlight helps. Perhaps it doesn’t. Sansa doesn’t much care. She dozes in and out, clutching Boromir’s hands, and doesn’t truly let herself rest until she feels the chill of the night ease. Then she waits, steels herself, and presses her hand as close to his mouth as she can manage. The breath that eases out of his lungs, warm, is matched by a gusting exhale from her own.

She doesn’t cry, exactly, after that. Just bends over his body, and there are some tears that drip down her face, but they could just as well be from her exhaustion.

Exhaustion I cannot afford, thinks Sansa, wryly. 

It’s a lighter thought than she’s allowed herself in a long time. 

“Sansa,” says Arwen, standing over her. Of course she would have seen; Sansa hasn’t been able to hide much from her. When she tilts her head back to look at her, Arwen’s gaze is calm and still, her eyes shining. “I am glad he lives.”

“So am I,” whispers Sansa.

The dawn is cold on her hands. Clean and cold and scoured afresh. Sansa’s reminded of the song sung at the year’s solstice festival in Winterfell, sung every year ten days before the year turns anew whether it be winter or summer or anything between: The rising sun lit hope in /  the breasts of those yet unslain / The dawn scrubbed clean despair from / the hearts of those yet to reign. It’s a low, deep song; sung by the men, always towards the end of the festivities. Sansa doesn’t remember much more of it, because she’s usually yawning and halfway to sleep by then, but these words now echo out around her, on the shining river and the glimmering boat and her own clean, white hands, and she feels them lodge deep, deep in her heart.

“You will have to be careful,” says Arwen. “You will have to be more careful than ever before. He is… healed, better than I might have expected of a man. But not well enough, I think, not yet. Are you certain you can manage?”

“Findis,” says Sansa, through a dry mouth. Then she swallows and continues. “Findis told me- she said- there is one battle here to be fought. There is only ever one battle to be fought. I believe her. One battle. I cannot forget that. There is one enemy, and it isn’t death. It’s- here, it’s Sauron. In my home, it’s the Lannisters. Or maybe those people that placed the curse on the Others, the way you were telling me about them. My father wouldn’t have ever forgiven me if I put his life above saving others, and in that, at least, Boromir is the same.”

She sighs, and then starts plaiting her hair back. A braid is the most practical fashion for this task ahead of her, especially now that Sansa has the time to pin the braid into a neat bun. Nothing for orcs to grab, and out of the way, and properly kept so ticks and lice won’t find much purchase as well.

My mother raised me to be dutiful, thinks Sansa. My mother raised me to be steady and strong, as a tree must be nourishing to the people under its shade, even as it bends against a storm. Even if my heart is to break with this pain, I know my answer. Even if my life is to be lost in this war, I know that I would not choose anything else.

She is a Stark. She is a Stark of Winterfell. She knows what that means, down deep in her flesh and marrow. Eight thousand years of unbroken rule. The blood of kings. Torrhen Stark knelt to Aegon the Conqueror but did not surrender his sword. Brandon Stark burned alive in the Red Keep and screamed loud enough to frighten the crows off of Baelor’s Sept. Eddard Stark’s head rolled on the steps of that same sept, and Sansa woke in a new world.

Sansa will not shrink away from fearsome things any longer.

“Sansa,” says Arwen.

She looks up at her. “I’m certain,” she says softly.

“I wish you luck, then,” says Arwen, and steps forwards, and embraces Sansa. 

…

They leave very soon after that.

Arwen hands Sansa a number of provisions- which are heavier than they look- and they strap Boromir to Aragorn’s back, and Sansa buckles Ringil and Duril to her waist. Arwen and Tauriel set off in the boat. 

Sansa doesn’t look behind her as they leave. 

(There is water damping her hair still, and she takes a grim comfort in that: in the chill of it, when the wind blows over her head and causes her ears to ache. Arwen had swum in that river to save Tauriel. Sansa will run to Rohan to save Boromir now. By the time the hair dries, she will not need to remember Arwen’s strength any longer. Or so Sansa hopes.)

…

The first night, Sansa doesn’t have the luxury of dropping to sleep. Or to catch her breath. She just unstraps Boromir from Aragorn and bears him backwards, and then she spends the next hour changing his bandages and tightening the ones that don’t need to be changed. Aragorn, white-faced and strained, joins her silently after a little while, and they move through the actions as swiftly as they can manage.

“You are stronger than I’d thought,” he says finally. 

“Arwen trained me,” replies Sansa, slumping back onto the grass. Her hair had held up decent enough for a full day of sprinting and running and brisk walking, but by the time the sun fell the bun had fallen apart. She grimaces at the strands now falling into her eyes; it’ll smell like the grass next morning, and Sansa doesn’t particularly like that smell. “I don’t think she really understood the limits of a human body; she kept referring to some books, and telling me that I had to match up to their training schedules.”

Aragorn snorts, and then looks a little startled at himself for the noise, as if he hadn’t meant to make it. “I can’t think what training manuals would be left in Rivendell. Perhaps for Elladan and Elrohir? Or developed by them.” He shudders a little. “I’m not certain which would be more exacting.”

“Arwen’s brothers?”

“Yes. The worst rascals you could ever meet- and the most dangerous. Most elves are at least a little like water: changeable and beautiful and dangerous, but Elrond’s line is a little more of that than most.” He shakes his head. “I don’t believe there’s another person alive in all of Middle-Earth that’s killed more orcs than either of them. If Arwen trained you as they were trained, or to their specifications, it’s no surprise that you’ve lived for this long.”

“Not at all?” asks Sansa.

He tilts his head. “Perhaps a little,” he admits, and Sansa lets herself laugh out loud.

…

They set out well before sunrise. Sansa’s more tired now, her limbs threatening to stiffen up, but the ache is a good ache. She doesn’t flinch from this ache. When the sun rises, again, shining scarlet and gold, Sansa doesn’t let herself remember the Lannisters at all. These are the colors of dawn, not the colors of cruelty. She must remember that.

“The sun is rising,” she says out loud, gasping. Aragorn turns to look at her, and she continues, pace unflagging, loud enough to be heard by even an unconscious man. “The sun is rising, and it is a red dawn, and it is beautiful, Boromir: it turns everything to rubies. You’d think it would make the grass look bloody, but it doesn’t. It’s all gold and shining.”

“And the air is cold,” says Aragorn, catching the thread of her thoughts with more alacrity than she would have credited him. “It is a fresh chill, Boromir, one that reminds us that we are alive.”

“It hurts in my chest,” pants Sansa, but she is smiling, she knows she is smiling. “The air. We’re running so fast, and it’s difficult to keep doing it for all the hours we must. But it is a good ache. It is an ache that means I am getting stronger.”

“It would be a better morning if you were to wake,” says Aragorn quietly.

Sansa feels the pain of that thought- of its implications- catch in her heart, killing the joy quickly. But the swiftness of their stride and the stitch in her side leaves her with little else she can do, and that pain distracts her from the twist in her chest quickly.

“Unflinching we must be,” she says, when she’s mastered herself once more. “Unflinching! Even in the face of death. Even in the face of a fate worse than death. That is what you told me. That is what you taught me. Do not dare to flinch now, Boromir of Gondor! We have work still to do.”

“A hard work,” says Aragorn. “A good work. Wake, Boromir of Gondor, and hear the songs we shall sing of you, of your valor in the face of death, of your strength in the face of certain defeat!”

“If there is a hope to be found in the dimmest of corridors,” says Sansa, “then there is a light to be found in the deepest despair: even dead, even when defeat is assured. Wake!”

He does not, and they fall silent, but when they take their rest again, Sansa spends the time exhorting Boromir to wake instead of sleeping. She can sleep when this is over, and they are in Rohan. Five days sleepless will not kill her. Silence on her part might very well kill Boromir. 

…

“Jenpher!”

“Tauriel,” he says, barely waiting for her to disembark from the ship to embrace her. At his shoulder, Raendin’s scarred face is lax with relief. “We’d feared that-”

“I know,” says Tauriel. She presses closer for a brief moment, then steps back, nodding to everyone else. “And what you feared- it almost came true. I was tracking orcs that had news of the Enemy when they ambushed me in the High Pass. They took me into their mountain.”

Raendin makes a low, hurt sound, her eyes shining. “How did you get out?”

“Lady Arwen Undomiel,” Tauriel replies, gesturing to Arwen, who inclines her head respectfully. “She broke me out. It was not easy; she did so at great risk to her own life.”

“You have our gratitude,” says Jenpher to Arwen. He shakes his head. “The Enemy is growing in strength. The sunlight barely touches the forest floor now, no matter how many spiders we kill. To continue this without your leadership- it would have been a thankless task.”

“It remains a thankless task no matter if it were you or I,” Tauriel says dryly. Then she smiles. “But come! We’ve much to discuss, and no little time to discuss it.”

…

Later, sitting with wine- Tauriel doesn’t touch the flagons, but Arwen takes a small mug- and some soft bread, Tauriel explains everything to her people. There aren’t many of them, as she’d said; twenty or so, though apparently they aren’t the same people that Tauriel had left a few months previous: some had returned to their homes, fearful for their families, and others had left their posts because they felt they could accomplish more here, on the warfront.

They all listen to Tauriel so intently that Arwen almost feels envy.

“The king won’t take kindly to you retrieving anyone,” says one of the newer entrances, with long golden hair that he’s pulled into three braids and tied off with… berries. Arwen ducks behind her mug of wine, swallowing heavily. Wood elves. They’re just so strange. “Not in the temper he’s in.”

“The darkness is not helping,” says Raendin quietly.

To that, they all fall silent. 

Tauriel closes her eyes, and nods wearily. “But it is why we are here, is it not? Just because we understand his pain does not mean we can accept his actions.” She pushes away from the tree on which she’d been leaning. “You think he’ll not hear even Elrond’s daughter?”

The golden-haired elf lifts a shoulder expressively. “He’s got no love for Imladris, and his son’s in danger, and you know what’s happening to his forest. If he doesn’t throw you into the dungeons, I’ll be surprised.”

“Well,” says Tauriel. She sinks back, so she’s pressing her hair to the bark of the tree. “Well.”

“Do you need the dwarves so much?”

“We need everyone we can get,” says Arwen. “As many of you, as well, to save Gondor. If Gondor falls, there is no stronger bulwark against the Enemy. None of us can hold Sauron back on our own. And if Isengard and Mordor can join armies- if Rohan falls as well…” she shudders. “It will be death and darkness, the likes of which we’ve not seen ever before.”

“It’s why I’m asking you to go to Gondor,” says Tauriel.

Jenpher straightens out of his slouch. “And abandon our forest?”

“And save the world,” Tauriel corrects softly. “Lady Arwen speaks truly: if Gondor falls, so shall the Greenwood.”

“Our home is being overrun by darkness, and we’re the only ones who can do this- who-”

“I ask you to trust in our king’s ability to fight,” Tauriel continues implacably.

“We are here because we don’t trust it!”

“We are here,” says Tauriel, in a voice so sharp and cold it makes the very air swim like jagged spires of ice, “because of me. Because of my treason. Tell me why I was exiled, Jenpher.”

Raendin speaks up: “Because you wished to save the dwarves.” She lifts an eyebrow. “But that doesn’t mean that your motivations are the same as our own.”

“It means that the reason you are here is because you believe in a larger world than Thranduil espouses,” says Tauriel, lifting her head proudly. “It means that I am the reason any of you are here.” She inhales slowly, but does not shrink from the weight of her followers’ gazes. “I will not command you: I have no desire for it. But remember that choosing to defend the Greenwood because it is easier, or because you are afraid, or because you think it the only choice to be made- remember the consequences of that choice can result in the destruction of the free world.”

Then she stalks off towards the boat, pausing only at the plank that she and Arwen had climbed down just a few hours previous.

“Coming?” she asks Arwen.

“To…” says Arwen, utterly bemused.

“To the court of the Elvenking.” Tauriel’s lips twitch. “We’ve some dwarves to liberate.”

…

They rest for less than four hours, all told, and are up to keep going the next day. 

If it isn’t easy, well: Aragorn has been raised on stories of the perils of ease, and surrender, and silence. 

…

For that matter, so has Boromir.

…

He wakes on the third night, with a gasp that turns into a groan that goes soundless at the end. Sansa had all but collapsed on herself into unconsciousness when Aragorn called for a halt, and woken less than an hour later, but her movements are still blurry with exhaustion. It takes her mind a moment to realize what’s happening.

Then she’s at his side.

“Lord Boromir,” she says- forces herself to say, instead of just panicking. “Lord Boromir, do you know where you are?” 

Well, that’s a stupid question. Sansa doesn’t know where she is. She sighs and leans forward, unearthing the flask of water. 

“Are you thirsty?”

To that, he gives a slight, jerky nod. The lines of his face are taut with pain, but Sansa ignores that in favor of dribbling some of the water into his mouth. When she’s done, Boromir swallows, and tries to sit up.

“I don’t,” he says, voice hoarse and raspy. “I don’t understand. What… what’s happening?”

“Um. You aren’t dead,” Sansa tells him. That certainly seems the most important thing to ensure he understands. “The hobbits you were with were stolen, but Legolas and Gimli are tracking them, and they seem fairly competent at it. We’re on our way to Rohan to warn them of the orcs we saw: the ones that ran untroubled by the sun.”

“Sansa,” says Boromir, very slowly.

Right.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m Sansa.”

“No,” says Boromir, and his eyes are brighter now, and his voice is stronger, and Sansa feels the first licking fire of embarrassment. “No, you are not Sansa: for she is safe, in Rivendell, under the care of Lord Elrond.”

“She would have been safe,” says Sansa, biting her lip. “Had she not snuck out, and followed you south. Had I not snuck out. That is.”

He’s very pale already, but manages- somehow- to go even whiter. “Tell me you didn’t go through Moria,” he tells her.

“I didn’t,” Sansa assures him. At least this is not the worst of all possible decisions that she could have taken. “I took the High Pass. And I wasn’t alone! Lady Arwen- she accompanied me.”

“And where is Lady Arwen now?”

“Gone north, to Mirkwood,” Sansa says promptly. “They’re planning to get a company of dwarves out of King Thranduil’s dungeons, and apparently Lady Tauriel has another force of twenty elves under her command near Dol Guldur, and once they have them, they’ll come south to Gondor.”

Boromir’s brow pinches. “Who’s Tauriel?”

“Ah. An… elf. That we saved.”

“Who’s we?”

“Arwen and I. In the High Pass. She was captured by some orcs- we had to save her.”

“There’s a mountain full of orcs there,” says Boromir through gritted teeth. “Tell me you didn’t walk into that, at least.”

Was that the worst of all possible decisions? Sansa asks herself. Surely not. 

But it had been the worst gamble, certainly. And if luck had not been on her side…

“I wish I could,” she tells him instead.

Boromir opens his mouth to say something, but then Aragorn is there. Sansa wonders if he’d been there before; he’s certainly proven light-footed before. 

“We’ll need fresh water,” he says wryly. “And it might be good for you to get it before you cause Boromir to expire of shock- his lungs are fragile enough already.”

Sansa goes quickly. At the river, she pauses. Her hands are trembling a little, against her will, and she feels- strange. She’d felt excitement when she left Rivendell with Arwen; she’d felt pride when she saved Tauriel against all odds; she’d felt relief when Arwen told her that Boromir would likely live. But seeing him alive- seeing him question all her decisions- does not make her feel any of the joy of before. She feels… strangely weak, like someone’s shredded her rationalizations apart, or perhaps have shown that those excuses are truly as flimsy as wind.

“I wasn’t wrong,” she tells the river. “I wasn’t wrong to come here. I know that much.”

And Arwen had said it, hadn’t she? If all we do now is walk in Aragorn’s and Boromir’s steps for the rest of their paths into Mordor, we would have done enough. Sansa swallows, hard, and sits down, and starts braiding her hair, until her hands stop shaking and her mind feels a little calmer. Then she gets the water that she’ll need and heads back to camp.

“We’ll need to move again, soon,” says Aragorn quietly. He’s gripping Boromir’s arm in a warrior’s handclasp, but Boromir himself is very still and pale beneath him. “He fell asleep again only a few moments after you left.”

“How much further?” asks Sansa, and ducks her head at the whine in the words: she sounds like Bran, begging for more information on when they’ll reach Winterfell. But she’s chosen this. She’ll bear up under this burden, no matter how her eyes grit with exhaustion and her muscles curl under over-use.

“A half-day,” says Aragorn. Sansa blinks, and he smiles, and it’s clear that the expression sits uneasily on his features, for all that the emotion behind it is genuine. “We’ve been making much better time than I’d imagined. Arwen was right in telling me not to underestimate your speed.”

“How can you tell?”

“These creepers,” he says, kicking out one boot at the vines littering the floor with the grass. “They surround Edoras- and grow more numerous the closer we get to the city.”

“They’re rather pretty.”

They are: little white flowers dot the vines, and they smell very nice, like some Essosian oil sold to dab at a lady’s wrists and neck. But Aragorn stops her hand from touching it. 

“Don’t,” he says grimly. “It’s a slow and painful death. The first line of defence for Rohan isn’t just against the men: the queenflower is addictive to horses. And a quicker death for them than humans.” His nose wrinkles. “Their major advantage is their horses, and they ensure their enemy won’t have any left by the time they arrive to their stronghold.”

“Unless they know the truth,” Sansa points out. Then, frowning, “Queenflower?”

“Eorl the Young founded Rohan,” says Aragorn. “But it was his wife Haladwyn Queen who founded the Order of the Shieldmaidens: the women of Rohan who bore arms as well as their husbands, and answered to no authority higher than their queen. They say that when Eorl King was slain at the Wold, a number of the opposing army thought to attack the old capital of Aldburg, and it was Haladwyn Queen who, upon seeing her husband’s headless corpse, had her people lay out bundles of these vines amidst bundles of hay and dry grass before retreating behind Aldburg’s walls.”

“The army died,” whispers Sansa.

“Some of the army died,” corrects Aragorn. “And when the army was in the middle of recovering from a poison they could not identify the source of, the shieldmaidens burned the dry grass with arrows of fire. They died, and the Easterlings were defeated, and the old name of the vine was lost forever more.”

“They poisoned the army,” says Sansa. “I don’t understand. How is that- what kind of- where’s the honor in that?”

“The shieldmaidens are the last line of defence,” he says firmly. “Their’s is not honor to boast of, nor the warmth of battle glorious: their’s is survival. And their victory is measured in the lives of those that survive to see dawn.” He sighs. “Not that it matters much, now: the order has dwindled over these years, and Theoden King hasn’t taken a wife for many decades now. They’re leaderless and scattered through Rohan, and cannot be gathered swiftly enough for much aid.”

Sansa goes through a quick set of stretches to loosen up her muscles, and doesn’t complain as they set off once again. But her mind can’t stop thinking about it: blood and death, and poison spreading through an army like a dark wind. She doesn’t know what to say. Life, yes, might be the worth of a shieldmaiden’s victory, but is it worth having won like that? 

What makes a horse’s life inside Aldburg worth more than a horse’s life in the Easterling army?

But she has a feeling that Aragorn won’t be able to answer her very well, and even if he does, it’ll be an all-consuming kind of an answer, one requiring many long hours of lecturing. And Aragorn’s the worst kind of teacher: the kind that doesn’t know when to stop. Sansa will give a lot not to hear any speech from him regarding honor; she’s heard enough from her own father.

…

They reach within eyesight of Edoras before being met by outriders, which worries Boromir far more than anything else. Clearly Rohan is not at full strength; he remembers the years when they would have noted anyone three days hence from the capital and decided to hunt them down. 

“When we reach,” he’d told Aragorn after getting a proper explanation, “let me speak. They’re a proud people, and a suspicious one too. If it looks like you took me prisoner or are talking for me, it won’t end well.”

His consciousness has been wavering in and out, jarred when Aragorn lands too harshly or jostles him in the wrong direction. Boromir lets it happen; he’ll need to focus his strength for when they do arrive at Edoras. Hopefully, Theodred will be there; his presence will make a great number of things easier. But Boromir’s not holding out much hope for it. There’s still a number of battles to be fought, and he cannot hope Theodred will not be leading his people from the front.

“Hail!” calls one of the Rohirrim. 

“Hail and well-met,” Boromir calls back. It takes him a moment to recognize the man on the horse as he approaches closer. “Alfberg! I hadn’t thought to see you here!”

“Lord Boromir,” says Alfberg, sliding off the horse before it’s even come to a halt. “What is- I don’t understand!”

“Neither do I,” Boromir tells him. “Whatever are you doing in Edoras?”

“Regrouping.” Alfberg takes in the harness strapping Boromir to Aragorn’s shoulders, and what must have been the pale, waxy cast to Boromir’s face- and he frowns. “What news?”

“Of Gondor, I do not know,” says Boromir heavily. “I have not been to Minas Tirith in too long- I had other obligations. One such obligation nearly killed me a few days before; would have done, if not for the strength of Sansa Shieldmaiden and Aragorn, a Ranger of the North, and a few other companions besides.” He doesn’t let himself hesitate. “We learned of a new creation of the enemy, Alfberg. They were what brought me to death’s door.”

“A new creation,” whispers Alfberg, face going white. “You’ll need to speak to Theoden King then.”

“Quickly,” agrees Boromir.

“We’ll accompany you to Edoras. Do you need… assistance?”

“No,” says Aragorn. He cuts a quick look to Sansa. “The harness does not unbind quickly or easily. But she might-”

“I can make it to Edoras,” says Sansa. Her eyes lower. “I began this journey with you, my lord; I’d wish to finish it in the same manner.”

…

Edoras is- not large.

It seems rather dusty, actually, and shabby, too, though Sansa knows better than to show any of those sort of emotions. She knows all too well the kind of pride that comes from eking out a life in the coldest margins of the world, balancing on the knife-edge of starvation. And Sansa suspects that Rohan didn’t use to be this diminished, and the people remember better times, and are therefore probably even more touchy about their current straits.

By the time she’s caught her breath and wiped the sweat off her face, Sansa’s managed to wipe her face blank of all discernible emotion.

“Follow me,” says Alfberg. 

They make their way into the castle, though not the main hall; Alfberg brings them to a side-room, which smells musty and rarely used. Sansa doesn’t mind much, but Boromir’s lungs are still healing, and this doesn’t seem entirely risk-free to her.

“I’ll be fine,” Boromir tells her, and his voice sounds fondly irritated. 

Sansa doesn’t say anything- better not to, in this unfamiliar city, until she’s understood more of her surroundings and the traditions- but she’s also unconvinced; Boromir doesn’t even move his hand from where it’s gripping the back of the chair, and she’s fairly certain that it’s the only thing keeping him upright.

“Will you,” Aragorn retorts, and Sansa realizes that she’s not the only one who’s been eyeing Boromir with trepidation.

“Until we understand more about what’s going on? Yes.” Boromir’s lips tip upwards into a mirthless smile. “After that? I’m not certain.”

There aren’t other guards inside the chambers; it’s only Sansa and Aragorn and Boromir. She’ll take the risk of speaking.

“If you make Lord Aragorn and I go to Gondor with your dead body after we came to Rohan,” Sansa tells him quietly, “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of war between the two countries. And we need as many allies as we can get, don’t we?” 

Boromir looks at Sansa like he’s never seen her before, and Aragorn coughs into his fist. Sansa tilts her chin up. 

“Please sit,” says Sansa.

He sits. He doesn’t say anything- though he opens his mouth- because the door opens, and a golden-haired man with broad shoulders and an open face made for smiling bursts inside. 

“Boromir!” he exclaims, and doesn’t let the chair hinder his movements at all; he drops to his knees without a hint of reservation and drags Boromir into an embrace. He only pulls away when Boromir makes a small, involuntary noise, and even then, he doesn’t go far, just sits back on his heels and grips Boromir’s wrist. “Alfberg tells me you’re injured.”

“Better than before,” says Boromir wryly. “‘Tis good to see you, Theodred. It has been far too long.”

Theodred nods once, fiercely. “Too long indeed. Where have you been?

“Too many places” says Boromir. “Up and down the Anduin- I crossed the Misty Mountains to meet with some elves and dwarves. Events are moving apace; you must have seen more movement from Isengard?”

“Aye, and more orcs than ever before.” Theodred rocks back up, to his feet, and frowns. “We were almost overrun at the Fords of Isen. An emergency force from Lothlorien came to our aid. It’s the only reason half our force remains.”

“Lothlorien?” asks Aragorn, sounding stunned. “That is- good news indeed.”

Theodred lifts an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. “I regret to say I’m unaware of your name, stranger, and the name of the lady at your side.”

“My companions,” Boromir breaks in. “A brother-in-arms, who bore me to Rohan from Rauros on his back. And my ward, who saved my life when a company of orcs had me pinned down.”

“Which is which?” asks Theodred, relaxing. 

Boromir rolls his eyes. “Aragorn, son of Arathorn. A Ranger of the North. And that is Lady Sansa, whom I’ve taken as my ward.” He gestures to Theodred. “And this is Prince Theodred of Rohan, heir to Theoden King.”

“It is an honor to meet you,” says Sansa, sinking into a curtsy. 

“Likewise,” says Theodred, brows pulling together. Then he turns back to Boromir. “Why are you here, Boromir?”

“We’ve news of a new enemy,” says Boromir. “A stronger enemy. Orcs that can move in sunlight as well as night, with weapons and strength that we’ve never seen before. Any army from Isengard or Mordor will be able to move far faster than any of our previous estimates, and all sieges…”

“Are they coming to Edoras?”

“Not any army that we know of right now,” says Aragorn quietly. “But they will come. They will surely come.”

“If not to Rohan, then to Gondor,” says Boromir. “I must warn my father.” His face is very still and frozen, like the deepest ice floes of the North. “And some other realms as well.”

For a long moment, Theodred does not answer. He then kneels again, and clasps Boromir’s hands. “You know that I am not ruler,” he says lowly. “Boromir.”

“How is your father?” asks Boromir gently.

“Not well,” whispers Theodred. “You must take your request to him.” He glances at Aragorn. “The company of elves remains housed in Edoras. I’d suggest you go there immediately. Before Grima can get his- claws- in you.”

“I cannot-”

“-go,” says Boromir. “I can handle this. We’ll need the elves happy- I’m assuming it hasn’t been easy?”

Theodred snorts. “Grima’s furious. I’ve kept him contained as best as I’m able, but he’s got men everywhere. And he can speak, the foul worm: he’s worked his darkness into a number of my own company. The elves are safe enough for now, but…” He shakes his head. “There aren’t many I trust, now, Boromir.”

“You can trust in me,” says Boromir calmly. “And you can trust in my people as well.”

“Then you should go quickly,” says Theodred, nodding to Aragorn. “I’ll send one of my men to lead you.” He looks at Sansa. “And you will…”

“I’ll be staying with Lord Boromir,” says Sansa, folding her arms.

Boromir sighs. “She’ll be staying,” he confirms, under Theodred’s questioning look. Slowly, he rises to his feet, balancing on Theodred’s shoulder. “I suppose we must meet with your father before everything else.”

Theodred’s face goes taut. “Be clear with your words,” he says grimly. “Clear and concise. His attention wanders quickly, these days.”

Sansa follows them quietly. Her red hair doesn’t seem altogether unknown here; there aren’t many people simply staring at it as there were in Rivendell. But she’s starting to feel a little self-conscious about the dust and mud spattered over her cloak, especially in comparison to Theodred’s impeccable clothes. Especially when they’ll be meeting a king in a few minutes.

She doesn’t get much of a chance to do anything before they’re inside the king’s hall, and the doors close behind her and Boromir, and she realizes that it’s too dark within for anyone to care about her appearance.

…

“Approach the King,” says a slim, black-haired man standing half in front of the throne. 

Sansa makes sure she’s two steps behind Boromir the entire time, head bowed so she only sees his boots. 

“Who comes?”

“Boromir of Gondor,” says Boromir in a clear, steady voice. He kneels, and Sansa follows hastily. “And my ward, Lady Sansa. We come asking for aid, King Theoden.”

“Aid?” The black-haired man sounds mocking and affronted as well, which is a strange mixture of emotions. Sansa looks up, carefully, and sees the gleam in his eyes, fever-bright. The king hasn’t spoken at all, this entire time. Just looked dully off into the distance. “Aid for what, Boromir of Gondor?”

“Communication to Gondor and other realms,” says Boromir calmly. “Your messenger eagles, King Theoden, to announce to the free realms of a new enemy: orcs that can run by sunlight, with more mass and more skill than any we are used to battling.”

For a moment, there is silence. Then the man bends down to whisper into the king’s ear, and he doesn’t stop, not until King Theoden nods, slowly, creakingly slowly. 

“The King has decided,” announces the black-haired man, turning back to them. “Those eagles are necessary for Rohan’s safety. And the shadow grows deep and dark around us- as Prince Theodred has reported to us from the warfront! Sending them away shall cripple us when we most need them.” His eyes land on Boromir, still kneeling, and the satisfaction in them shines through, even when he affects regret. “Your request is denied.”

“Is this King Theoden’s answer or yours, Grima Wormtongue?”

Even the vestige of warmth fades from Grima’s face, replaced with revulsion so plain Sansa shivers. “I’ve no reason to speak for myself,” he says. “And you would do well to heed your manners, my Lord Boromir. Rohan is not so kind to outsiders as it was before.”

“I only ask,” says Boromir, voice going a little bit louder, “because King Theoden does not seem capable of-”

“How dare you,” snaps Grima, swooping closer. “Implying that the king is unfit- how dare- I have never seen- the audacity! You wish for Theodred to rule in his father’s place, yes, I see it now! The-”

“-I wish for nothing,” says Boromir, but he’s mastered himself once more and sounds only faintly strained. “Simply aid.”

“Aid which you will not have at the cost of our country’s safety,” says Grima. He inhales slowly, then, and musters a smile. “Quarters will be made ready for you, if you wish to remain in Rohan.”

“You have my gratitude,” says Boromir, bowing his head and rising fluidly to his feet.

When they’re in their quarters- a plain, utilitarian room, with a few furnishings that seem intended for warmth as much as decoration- Sansa finally speaks. 

“We have to do something.”

“I know,” sighs Boromir. He sinks down to sit on the bed. There’s sweat beading on his forehead, and he’s too pale for Sansa’s peace of mind, and he looks weary as well, like someone pushed too far too fast. “I am uncertain of what. If, as Theodred said, he has men everywhere… Gondor will not know.”

“Nor will the other realms,” Sansa points out hesitantly. “Rivendell, and Lothlorien, and- and Erebor, too. People will die.”

“People have always died,” says Boromir quietly.

Sansa breathes out through her mouth, so he doesn’t see the instinctive rage flushing through her chest. “We can’t just give up so quickly!”

“We aren’t-”

The door opens, and Theodred enters, and Boromir cuts himself off. Theodred keeps the door open- Sansa sees the guards at the entrance peering in interestedly, and she folds her hands in her lap instead of clenching them as she wants.

“Welcome to Edoras, Lord Boromir,” says Theodred, sketching a bow. “It is good to see you returned, even if the circumstances of your return are not- ideal.”

“Grima refused us use of the eagles,” Boromir says flatly.

Theodred’s back stiffens the slightest bit. “I heard.”

“And?”

“And…”

“People will die if we do nothing,” Boromir hisses, and sounds so abruptly furious that Sansa jumps a little. “Do not tell me to keep silent like a boy of ten years, Theodred. This is wrong. You know it is- you would-”

“-what I know and do not know scarce matters,” says Theodred calmly. “My father the king has spoken his mind.”

“Not his mind,” says Boromir.

For a long moment, Theodred says nothing. Then, softly, he agrees. “Not his mind.”

“Have you any influence left?”

“Well.” Theodred’s lips twist, and he lifts one shoulder in a surprisingly boyish gesture. “I was never interested in the court politics, you know that.” Slowly, he turns to the door- the guards there aren’t looking in any longer- and then back to Boromir, and smiles. “The most paperwork I have to do nowadays is the guard rotations.”

Boromir stares. 

Sansa frowns, but Boromir seems to have understood Theodred perfectly. He’s got a flush on his face, and his eyes are sparking, like something given new life.

Or new hope.

“It was a vain hope,” says Boromir, voice entirely even, though his expression remains blazing. “I would never ask you to defy your father, Theodred. Truly. Just- panic and fear, I suppose. And pain. I came quite close to death.”

“You never told me how close,” says Theodred idly.

“Too close.” Boromir tilts his head to the side. “Even climbing overmany stairs would be a challenge in my state. Alas, my boots have become quite heavy!”

“But your ward saved you, then,” says Theodred. “We are becoming infirm, are we not?” Boromir laughs, and Sansa- who’s becoming more certain that there’s a second conversation being had here- straightens in her chair, and Theodred sighs. “I’d never imagined you to pick up a ward from- nowhere, essentially. Your father will not be happy.”

“My father will have nightmares,” agrees Boromir, lips still quirked. 

“Do your blood not have portents? I can imagine him waking before dawn, horrified at your impulsivity-”

“-knocking the candles down-”

“-burning that awful tapestry from your aunt-”

“-and blaming it all on me.” Boromir ducks his head, snorting. Then he looks up at Theodred, and he nods, all levity gone from his face. “I shan’t keep you, Theodred. I’m sure you’ve much work to finish.”

“I’ll bring supper to your rooms,” says Theodred, nodding, before he leaves.

Sansa closes the door behind him and turns back to Boromir. “What,” she says, “was that?”

Boromir smiles, full of teeth. “Help,” he says.

…

“You must understand,” says Tauriel. “The things we’ve lost… the things he’s lost. They’re innumerable.”

“I don’t deny that,” says Arwen.

“Thranduil’s realm is larger by far than Imladris or Lothlorien,” Tauriel tells her. “And he has not the power of the Maia or of Lady Galadriel. He protects us by joining with the Greenwood. He is the forest, in the most basic sense of the term: and now the forest is being corrupted.”

“Which is corrupting him, too.”

“Yes.”

“If that is happening- how can you rely on him to come to his senses and save you?”

Tauriel smiles, thin and bright as a wolf’s claws. “You, too, carry the blood of Melian, do you not, Lady Arwen?”

…

The guards will be Theodred’s, and you need not worry about hiding from them.

But first Sansa must reach the messenger tower, and that is not easy. She cannot go through the front door; Grima’s guards are still there. She instead has to go through the window, and climb down the trellis, and make her way across the courtyard and the intervening corridors without being seen.

“Good luck,” whispers Boromir, before he opens the window and steps back. 

Sansa doesn’t answer him; she’s gone wordless from sheer tension. 

Climbing down the trellis is not so difficult as Sansa’d expected. It bears her weight easily, and her boots are supple enough that they don’t make any sound when she lands, flexing her ankles to take the force of the impact. Even the courtyard is not overly challenging. There’s some shrubbery that Sansa can duck behind, and she knows which door to use, and the air is a good balm to her flushed cheeks. 

It’s when she goes inside that the true battle against her fear begins.

There’s nothing to hide behind in the corridors. And they all look the same, all the doors and all the windows, and if she gets lost- 

Stay calm. Arwen’s voice resounds in Sansa’s ears. Stay calm, for it is panic that kills ever more than lack of knowledge. You know this. Breathe deep, let you fears go, and think.

Boromir’s given her the instructions. Up and down, left and left and then right. Sansa takes a deep breath and pulls on how she’d felt in Winterfell, going to speak to her father; the confidence of the gait, the ease of her motions. If she looks like she knows where she’s going, hopefully nobody shall stop her.

Until, that is, she sees the black patch on the breast of one of the soldiers guarding the entrance to the tower.

Sansa pauses. There’s a large, ornamental vase hiding her from view of the guards, which means that she can see them but they cannot see her. And she’s fairly certain that the other guard- though she cannot see if he wears the same black patch- is the one that had stood at Sansa’s door that morning. 

Both are Grima’s men.

So either Theodred’s didn’t manipulate the guard details properly, Grima overruled him, or these two are actually Theodred’s men, hidden in disguise as Grima’s. 

Sansa’s not sure enough that it’s the third possibility to rely on it, and it doesn’t matter which of the first two possibilities it is: she’s still trapped here, trying to enter a tower that’s too-heavily guarded.

Think. 

You’re a smart girl, Sansa. And if you want to be queen, you’ll need to be smarter still. Use some of those smarts.

She looks around. There’s nothing that can help her; the corridor she’s in ends in a doorway that opens outdoors, and the wind is chilly. There’s a vase, which, even if toppled over, doesn’t look like the kind that will shatter; it’s bronze and heavy, and might dent if Sansa puts her back into it. She’s got Arwen’s filleting knife, in a scabbard tucked into her sleeves, but nothing else.

I have a cloak. 

The plan that comes to mind is moronic. Boromir’s definitely going to yell at her. He’d probably want Sansa to return to their rooms, so he can plan something else that won’t be so risky. 

But he’s trusted her with this.

Granted, Boromir thought it would just need her to climb down a trellis and into the tower, no questions asked. 

Sansa still doesn’t want to disappoint him.

So she has a cloak. Slowly, making sure to make no noise, Sansa creeps down the corridor and outside, where she presses up against the wall and flattens the outside of her cloak against the wall. They haven’t washed it yet, and the cloak’s still so dusty from their travels that it’s taken on the same mud-color of the walls. 

The Rohirrim tend to like bright clothes. Even Grima’s black wardrobe would stand out against this sandy shade. But Sansa’s cloak, weather-stained and muddy, is perfect camouflage. 

“Nobody will see me,” she murmurs under her breath. “But climbing up isn’t going to be easy.”

Her eyes narrow on the smooth curve of the tower. It’s not that high to begin with; not truly. Bran’s managed higher towers when he was still learning how to walk.

Don’t think about Bran right before you go climbing!

Don’t panic, Sansa commands herself again, frowning heavily at the wall. Whatever you do, don’t panic.

Then she unsheathes the filleting knife, and, carefully, jams it into the place where she guesses the bricks give way to mortar. The blade goes in, if not easily, and doesn’t wiggle much either. One knife won’t be enough, though, not to give her leverage enough to climb, so Sansa goes hunting in the courtyard for a sturdy branch.

It’s not quite dawn when she’s finally found one. 

“Let’s hope Arwen’s made my arms strong enough to bear this,” she says, and, stretching, sticks the knife in. 

Takes it out, and stretches a little higher, as high as she can plead out of her spine, and sticks the knife in again. Sansa jams the branch into the first cavity, reaches up to hang from it by one arm and take out the knife, stick it higher. Hang from the knife briefly, and put the branch where the knife had been earlier. Breathe out, and repeat.

It’s not easy; Sansa’s muscles start screaming before she’s even halfway up. But she’s committed now; dropping from this height is going to at least break her legs, and it’ll make an almighty sound as well. Her only choice is to grit her teeth and bear it, and give all the thanks to the Smith for letting elven-made blades never bend, not even if they are for filleting knives.

…

She should have been back by now.

Boromir frowns, watching the sun slowly light the sky. He can’t imagine what’s delaying Sansa, but dread curls in his stomach anyhow.

…

When she finally manages to get to the window, her arms are trembling. It takes her what feels like an immense amount of strength to push up that last bit, before she collapses on the ground, sweating and shaking. 

The worst of all possible decisions, was this? 

She can’t feel her arms, gods above. Sansa has a feeling the plan wasn’t terrible, but also not the best. And she still doesn’t know how she’s going to make her way back down off the tower. 

If she’s lucky, the guards are going to be Theodred’s and she’ll have some leeway. If she’s not, then everything’s going to go very bad in a very short amount of time- Boromir had told her that guard changes tend to happen just before dawn, and guard checks at dawn- which means that Sansa has less than a quarter of an hour to release as many messenger eagles as she can.

Boromir’s written them down for her, in a quick, sloping script, and Sansa has them tucked up her sleeves. It’s a mess and a half trying to tie them to the eagles; it’s a worse mess ensuring the eagles don’t fly off one at a time- if they do, someone’s bound to see them, and if someone does see them and manages to stop Sansa- well, that would defeat the whole purpose of the mission, wouldn’t it?

In and out. In and out. In and out.

Sansa ties the last one off- to the Iron Hills- and takes a deep breath, and then she goes to where she’s tied the eagles to their perches and starts to release them.

She has two more to go when the door to the owlery bangs open. Sansa startles, fingers freezing on the knot tying the eagle to the perch, as Grima enters. 

“Well, well, well,” he says, eyes shining unpleasantly. “I should have suspected you before. Just because I thought Gondor would keep your innocence untainted-”

Sansa’s about as guilty as one can get. 

What does it matter if she makes it worse now?

One shallow breath in, and a deeper breath out, and another one in, and another one out, and then Sansa undoes the knot with one defiant tug of the rope. Grima breaks off into a stutter- probably at her sheer impertinence- and his men reach for her, but she’s moving already, not so much to escape as to free her left arm, and throw the filleting knife straight at the rope tethering the last eagle.

One of the men backhands her, hard, and Sansa takes the blow of his gauntleted hand across the full meat of her cheekbone. She stumbles, crying out, and he grips her by the arm, bruise-tight.

“I would have been merciful,” says Grima, standing before her, eyes colorless and furious and bright as stars. “But now- oh, now-”

Sansa shivers- she’s hoping she managed to hide it, but the guard holding her has a tight enough grip that she thinks he feels the shudder too. But when she closes her eyes, she feels like she’s back in the Sept of Baelor once more, watching her father die, watching Joffrey laugh, hearing her own screams like they come from someone else.

She’d fainted that day. She’d been too young then to do anything better, or to imagine a worse fate than what she’d seen.

(Now, Sansa’s seen Tauriel. She’s seen Boromir. 

She still believes watching her loved ones die is the worst fate of them all.)

She looks up at the monster before her, not golden as Joffrey, not kind as Cersei, not beautiful as Jaime. There’s blood in her mouth, from the slap. Sansa thinks of Robb and her mother, of their strength. She thinks of her father, knowing his death to be imminent, and still meeting it with dignity. She thinks of Boromir, gasping and hopeless, and still refusing to be anything less than honorable.

There is blood in her mouth.

There is blood in her mouth, and Grima put it there.

She thinks of what Arya would do, in front of a monster like this, and what Arwen would do, and what Tauriel would do: and Sansa knows.

She spits the blood at his feet.

Not his face, because Sansa’s not quite angry enough for that yet, but at Grima’s feet, so it speckles his dark boots. Then she looks up at him and smiles with as much fury and fervor as she’s ever seen on Findis’ face, and she says, “Do your worst.”

(It is not a dare. It is not even, quite, a promise.)

(Sansa, in the end, is a wolf, her claws and teeth tucked beneath her silks and her smiles and her courtesies. Grima does not know this. She does not know if he ever deserves to know it.)

(But oh, oh: it is a threat.)

Chapter Text

Sansa twitches in the darkness. 

Now that her temper has faded, and she no longer has her blood pounding quite so hard, the myriad of hurts are making themselves known to her. Her hands are scraped badly, but so long as she doesn’t flex them too much, Sansa thinks the wounds are superficial; the majority have already scabbed over. Her right shoulder is badly bruised, and her face feels very tender- Sansa doesn’t think she has a concussion, but the guard’s slap had been very hard, and she hadn’t been expecting it at all. 

But it’s her left shoulder that worries her more than anything.

One of the eagles had used it as a perch for brief moments, and its claws has dug deep furrows in her skin. Furrows that are still bleeding, sluggishly, if she doesn’t keep the pressure on the skin. 

Sansa’s only thankful that it hadn’t hurt that much: at first it had been because of the rush of surprise in being found, and then it stopped hurting because the entire area went numb. She doesn’t have enough energy to keep the pressure on the wound now, so she’s stuck her shoulder under the outcropping of stone beneath the window and placed a blanket on top of the wound and between the stone as a paltry sort of bandage.

The dungeon itself is probably meant to be cold; to a true southroner, it probably would be, but Sansa’s a child of the North. This is a balmy spring day for her: not warm, perhaps, but not so cold as to merit cloaks or coverings either.

And she’s so tired.

Nobody had told her that losing blood could make someone this tired. Nobody had told her that this kind of exhaustion existed- Sansa rather wants to close her eyes, and never open them again, if she can be guaranteed rest.

But Boromir had lost more blood than Sansa, and Sansa hadn’t let him die for five full days. She won’t let the first wound she suffers kill her.

“Lady Sansa,” says a voice that she hasn’t ever heard before. 

With a great effort, Sansa lifts her head. A beautiful woman is in front of her; for a moment, Sansa thinks it Findis- the hair’s certainly gold enough to match- but no, this woman is too short, and not quite shining in the same manner as Findis.

“Are you… alright?”

“No,” says Sansa, and winces at the sound of her voice. It’s so thready, and sounds so childish. “I think I need a healer.”

“Did Grima’s men hurt you?” The woman steps closer, waving for the guard to unlock the door with an impatient hand. Sansa can make out her features better, now: they’re eerily similar to Theoden’s and Theodred’s. But Aragorn had said that Theoden had no daughters. “Lady Sansa.”

“I,” says Sansa, jerking back to reality. “Yes?”

“Did Grima’s men hurt you?”

“No,” says Sansa. Then, wincing, she amends: “Not much. Not… like that.”

“But they hurt you.” Her voice goes cold, so cold that Sansa would shrink away had her back not been already against the wall. 

“It’s the eagle, really,” says Sansa. She considers shifting enough to show the lady her shoulder, but Sansa also isn’t certain that her knees will cooperate enough to get her back into position if she moves now, so she doesn’t. Her hand does twitch towards it, though she lets it fall before it reaches the actual skin. “Its claws. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

There’s no answer for a long time. Then the woman stalks away. Sansa sighs, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. 

It’s not that she hasn’t got pride. Just that- well, what use is it, when she can try to get help from people? If her pride’s going to kill her, then that’s fine, but she’d also like her death to mean something beyond collapsing in a hole because she refused aid from the one person who’s bothered to come down and see her.

“You’ll need to move for me to treat your shoulder.”

Startled, Sansa jerks, and the woman is back, this time with- healing supplies?- a basket over one arm, and a stubborn expression on her face.

“If I move, I think I’m going to fall over,” Sansa tells her, completely truthfully.

The woman sighs. “Come on, then.” Sansa eyes her dubiously; she’s taller than the woman, and uncertain if she’ll be able to take her weight. But the woman only rolls her eyes. “I’ve supported my brother in full body armor. I believe I can take you now.”

Slowly, hesitating, Sansa does; and she’s right: the single step of easing away from the sill and towards the woman causes her knees to collapse. The woman catches her easily enough, and bears her down to the ground. She hisses through her teeth loudly when she sees the furrows in Sansa’s shoulder- the reach down to a little below her armpit, and they’re deep- and continues muttering invectives under her breath as she places some sort of lotion on them and starts binding them with a cloth.

When she’s done, she starts wiping at Sansa’s face with a damp cloth that smells a little bit like mint.

“King Theoden has asked for your presence,” she explains, when Sansa jerks away. “He wished for me to ready you. None of us had thought it would be this bad, but… yours must be done before the afternoon sessions. I’ll try to ensure you have the last one- and get some food back to you before you’re required.” She hesitates briefly, before Sansa thinks she smiles. “Try not to faint before the court.”

…

Sansa doesn’t see the woman until she emerges out from the dungeon. Her hands are manacled, but her legs are free; Sansa doesn’t really see the point of that, not when her shoulders are already so badly hurt that she’d avoid having to use them at all costs anyways. There’s one move that Arwen had taught her that requires Sansa to flip onto her back and rotate her hips which would leave her shoulders free even while she knocked the guards off their feet: and she could probably manage it fast enough that she could get the two guards behind her.

Stumbling a little, Sansa checks out the guards’ weaponry- a knife in one man’s belt that she can probably snatch; a coinpurse in the other belt that she can use to bludgeon an unwary man; she’ll have to be wary of the first man’s sword, but if she can-

Violence is the last resort, Arwen had told her, and Sansa’s entire train of thought screeches to a halt. Use everything else until the point of no return. You have to make sure you’re good at attacking people: but be hesitant to use it, too.

The blonde-haired woman had given Sansa some food, but clearly Sansa’s still not recovered enough; she’s acting like Arya, not the queen she wants to become.

So, instead of trying to attack anyone, Sansa focuses on keeping her head held high and her back straight. Nobility is something more than wearing queenly robes- she’s seen Arwen look stately while covered in orc blood, and Joffrey look pitiable even while dressed in as much red and gold as Tywin Lannister could pile on his shoulders. A king sentencing a bloodied, unrepentant urchin is something very different from a king sentencing a hurt, bleeding noblewoman, or at least it will be once Sansa opens her mouth.

And she certainly doesn’t plan to keep quiet any longer.

Sansa’s tried to keep her head down. It isn’t as if she wants all of this trouble; she never has. But Boromir just had to decide to march into Mordor, and then those damned other orcs had to show up, and- and- and-

“Kneel,” says a guard.

Sansa slips gracefully to her knees, grateful for the chill of the stone beneath her palms: it grounds her, when she might have slipped into a proper panic.

She looks up- Chin up, she imagines Arwen whispering- and sees the woman from the prison standing next to the king. She’s got her hair braided now, not the loose golden tangle that it had been in the darkness, and her dress is a lot simpler than Sansa had imagined it. But she’s standing right up there, next to Theodred and Theoden, managing to look both impatient and compassionate.

Which makes her… royalty?

Then Sansa sees Boromir, standing amid the crowd of courtiers. There’s another man at his side- golden-haired, like Theodred, but taller and somehow even broader- that’s supporting him, or maybe imprisoning him- depending on how tight that grip is on Boromir’s elbow- and Boromir’s face is a tense mask that sends prickles down Sansa’s spine. 

Don’t look at him.

“Girl,” says Grima, voice a hiss of sound that silences the rest of the room. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“No,” says Sansa meekly. 

It isn’t that much of an act. Yes, she knows why she’s here, but the fear and the desire to cringe into herself isn’t false. Sansa just has to keep pretending. For which the blood loss should help: she’s fairly certain she’s paler and more wan than she’d ever have become otherwise. And her dress- half-shredded in places, baring one shoulder and dark enough to further emphasize the bruise spreading over her face- is not exactly helping Grima’s case.

Not that he needs much of one.

But who knows the truth? And does it really matter, if Grima’s going to be lying like he has been since the beginning?

“No?” demands Grima loudly. “No, you don’t know why you’re here?”

“I think,” Sansa says quaveringly, “I did something wrong.”

Her heart clenches, and she almost looks at Boromir. But no: she must not, because Sansa hates it when he acts like she’s younger than she is, and she has to be the youngest she’s ever been now, she has to be cringing and nobody noteworthy and entirely small and forgettable.

She’s seen the sword in the guard’s belt. Sansa has no illusions that if Grima tells him to cut Sansa’s throat, he will. 

There are two games being played here: by Sansa, who must keep herself alive, and Grima, who doesn’t know that Sansa doesn’t care about any other punishment he can throw at her.

“Something? Something? You broke curfew! You- you- you released the eagles from their tower against express permission of the king! You dared to defy Theoden King!”

“No, I didn’t!” says Sansa loudly, clutching the hem of her shirt. 

This isn’t about me. This isn’t about you.

This isn’t about the truth.

“You- what?” Grima sputters to a halt.

“I- yes- I broke curfew- but- but your guards hurt me,” says Sansa, and lets a hand flutter against her poor bruised face. The bandages that the golden-haired woman wrapped have helped, but there’s blood slowly seeping through. Sansa’d seen the red when she stepped out of the dungeons. Hopefully it’s a sad enough picture. “I couldn’t sleep, Your Majesty. I couldn’t sleep and I just- I wanted some hot water. For the nightmares.” Sansa sniffs pathetically and feels a larger cough loom in her chest, but bites it back. “And then I could hear these birds, and I love birds, they’re just- they’re always so beautiful, and they chirp if you touch the back of their necks, and I could hear them- and then you came in and your guard hit me! And they were so loud the eagles flew out! I don’t even understand what I did!”

She bursts into loud tears that are more real than Sansa’d like, and buries her face in hands. Then the guard seizes her about the shoulder to haul her up- the injured shoulder- and Sansa doesn’t have to affect the strangled scream this time. There’s some commotion in the crowd- Sansa thinks it might have to do with Boromir- but before anyone can really do anything, the golden-haired woman has swept forwards and wrapped her own rich cloak around Sansa’s shoulders.

“Enough,” she says coldly. “You would not allow any child to be treated like this in years past, Uncle. Have we fallen this far, that a simple stroll in the night will be punished with untreated wounds and accusations of treason?”

“She lies,” Grima says sharply. “Can you not see that? She is a trained spy- a- a-”

“We are better than this!” she says loudly.

“Her wounds are treated!” another lord shoots back. “Or do you think we leave bandages in our dungeons, Lady Eowyn?”

Eowyn. Sansa swallows and clutches the cloak closer, huddles in to make her body looks smaller. That’s her name.

“They are treated because I treated them,” snaps Eowyn. “Because I heard a rumor and decided to see if there was any truth to the idea that Grima had dared to harm a guest of the House of Eorl without reason and without cause.”

“Without reason!” spits Grima, face purpling with fury. “She was acting under her foster-father’s instructions! She was weakening us when we can least afford it!”

“I’d say we’re better equipped now than ever,” says Theodred boredly. He’s lounging on a seat beneath his father’s, inspecting a knife rather than looking at the proceedings. But then his eyes sweep up and meet Sansa’s, and they’re a lot brighter than she’d have imagined. “There’s that platoon from Lothlorien, for one, and apparently Gondor’s changing some of their policies.”

“Are you questioning your father’s words?” demands Grima.

“I am questioning yours,” he replies blandly.

And the court is swaying towards Sansa, away from Grima: she can feel it. She can see it. She’s a nothing. A nobody. More than that, she’s a nobody to these people, but she’s also a nobody of note, really; a nobody with some tenuous connection to Gondor. And for Grima to punish her so badly- so unrightously, in the darkness and in the silence- doesn’t seem to sit well with them. 

Hopefully.

Grima snarls, eyes the rest of the room, then turns to the king and starts whispering in his ear. When he turns back, there’s an unctuous smile on his face that makes Sansa’s blood go cold. Eowyn’s hand- on Sansa’s uninjured shoulder- tightens, minutely.

“It is decided,” he says. “Your lies shall hold no sway in court, Sansa of nowhere and nothing. You are-”

Before he can say anything, Boromir manages to escape whoever had held him back this long, stride forward, and punch Grima straight in the mouth.

“Sansa of Gondor,” he says, into the deathly silence that follows. “Remember that, you foul worm.”

Grima lashes out with a knife instead of words. Boromir manages to evade him, stumbling backwards, and in the interim Theodred gets Grima’s into a bruising hold, causing the knife to skitter over the floor and come to rest in front of Sansa.

“My cousin is correct,” he says, when Grima keeps struggling. “That is enough.”

“As Sansa of Gondor’s father,” hisses Grima, wrenching himself out of Theodred’s hold, “you are responsible for her. So enjoy your banishment, son of Gondor! If I ever see you again in Theoden King’s halls, I shall have your skin stripped from your skull and call it a kindness!”

Boromir, face white with fury, doesn’t say anything. 

“As for your daughter,” Grima continues, “we shall-”

“-do nothing,” comes a ringing voice from the entrance to the throne room, and Sansa turns as if in a dream to see a white-robed, gleaming figure, accompanied by Gimli and Legolas, striding closer to her.

No. Striding closer to King Theoden.

“You shall do nothing,” repeats the man that looks like Gandalf. “For you shall be banished from these halls before you do anymore harm!”

His staff glows so brightly it hurts. Sansa keeps her eyes affixed to it- she can’t look away, no matter how hard she tries- and even as her eyes start to hurt, even as everything starts to burn, she cannot move. Cannot twitch. It hurts. It burns. It blazes in her mind.

Very distantly, she hears shouting. Eowyn leaves her to catch her uncle, and Sansa, who’d been leaning very heavily on Eowyn’s knee for support, collapses before she can control herself. 

Her head hits the stone, and Sansa slips into blessed, dazed unconsciousness.

…

There is a woman waiting for her in the darkness.

She is not very tall, but there’s something uncomfortable about being around her nevertheless- something that bubbles and crackles like lightning shearing tears to ash. 

“My daughter,” she says, and smiles at Sansa with teeth that shine like diamonds. “Welcome. I’m sure you’ve many questions.”

…

Tauriel sneaks into the cells with a minimal amount of actual sneaking required.

To be fair to her previous subordinates, there aren’t many prisoners in the cells, but that’s really no excuse for this kind of incompetence. Not many prisoners doesn’t mean none, and it certainly means that they aren’t prepared for someone to come and steal the prisoners out.

Not everyone knows the wood and stone as well as I do, thinks Tauriel, then, as she watches one of them sneak away with a shiny-haired elf from Rivendell- a guard who should really know better- sourly shelves her sympathy. But they’d be incompetent imbeciles anyways, I suppose.

The perils of pulling the best and brightest away from Thranduil. But as much as the blame for that lies on her shoulders, it’s at least half on Thranduil, too, and Tauriel’s not going to accept her share until he does. Knowing him, that day will not come before Morgoth himself tears open the Void and burns down the trees, so Tauriel doesn’t need to bother feeling guilty.

Jenpher provides the distraction that Tauriel had insisted upon- the distraction she doesn’t actually need, considering these guards- and in the shock of sudden caterwauling, she slides into the hallway containing Trifar.

“Are you Trifar?” she asks, pausing at the first cell.

The dwarf eyes her beadily and gives a short, sharp nod. Tauriel sighs and shoves Gimli’s mithril-sown handkerchief into his hands. 

“I come with Gimli, son of Gloin’s blessing,” she tells the dwarf, who opens the handkerchief, blanches, and promptly shoves the cloth back into her hands. “Now. Where is Trifar?”

“Two cells to my left,” he says numbly, and Tauriel nods crisply.

When she reaches Trifar’s cell, she hands him the cloth and waits for him to open it. Trifar doesn’t react in the same way as his friend; he only stares at it, then looks back at Tauriel and says, quietly, “Where did you get this?”

“From a common friend.”

“Gimli.”

“Yes.”

“How do you know him?”

“He’s a friend of a friend.” Tauriel shrugs. “We’re working to defeat the Shadow in the East. He marches on Mordor to defeat Sauron, in a company of nine. Or he did, but now there are many larger considerations at hand; he sent me to ask for your aid.”

“I cannot help anyone from inside this cell.”

“No,” says Tauriel peaceably, flashing her needle-thin knife at the lock. Then she smiles, and her teeth are just as shining as the lockpicking tool. “You cannot.”

…

“Analysa?” asks Sansa slowly.

The woman- black-haired, eyes glittering silver as lightning-laden clouds- smiles. “So you got the story from one of the elves. I’m rather proud of you, Sansa: you’ve been through so much, and every single struggle has only honed you into the sharper, finer blade. By the end of this, you shall be capable of cutting air in half.”

“You sent me away because you wanted me to cut air in half?” asks Sansa coolly.

“No,” says Analysa. “I sent you away because you are capable of so much more than your fate would have been, a captive languishing for someone to free you from those damned southerners. They killed your father. They would have killed you, too, if given half a reason.”

“So you decided to send me away from everyone and everything.” Sansa’s nails bite into her palm. “To remove the chance for me to ever get free.”

“Did I say that?”

“You mean-” Sansa stares at her, cutting herself off. “But you and- and Morwenna- both of you knew what you had to do. What you had to fix. How to leave.”

“Yes. And you should have as well. But then I heard your screams- they echoed in the godswood of King’s Landing- and I could not bear it. So I sent you away, far younger than I’d hoped to have to, far more innocent than I would have wished. But it was not a proper sending-away, and so there are cracks in the sealing between worlds: cracks I can exploit. Which is how we are talking now.”

“Why didn’t this happen before?”

Briefly, Analysa scowls. “In the beginning, you were too fragile for this kind of communication. By the time you were strong enough, something else was there, keeping you- smothered.”

“Findis,” murmurs Sansa, startled. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You seem to get protectors wherever you go.” Analysa lifts an eyebrow. “It isn’t often someone is trained in those arts, and even rarer that they’ll choose to protect others with the zeal that yours had.”

Mine was an elf who decided to put a piece of her soul into a sword, Sansa considers saying aloud. She was probably bored. And trying to see what she could do. Or maybe she really is that protective, I don’t know.

“I have good friends,” she says weakly.

Analysa smiles at her. “I’m glad for you. Truly. I think she must have told you that the thing you shall heal shall not be of your own hands?”

“Yes,” says Sansa slowly.

“Then know that the task is to do as the First Men of old- who wrote the Pact- did, and to work with other races. This cannot be done unless we are together. Do you understand me?”

“You still haven’t told me what it is.”

“You know what it is,” says Analysa, and smiles mysteriously. Then she reaches forwards and clasps Sansa’s hands between her own cold ones, mirth draining from her eyes. “You know what I’m asking of you, don’t you? This is a lonely life, and a long one. Your children shall die, if you have them. Your brothers, sister- everyone- shall be not even memory. History shall become myth, and myth shall become told and retold and told once more until the truth shall be confusing even to you, who lived through such momentous events.”

“I know,” says Sansa. Then she corrects herself: “I know what you mean. But I don’t know if I- if I can.” 

If I want to.

“I wish this was a choice,” says Analysa sadly. “But it is not. I would not have chosen you for this so early if I could wait. It was not just your screams for your father that tore at my heart: it was the reality that I am growing weak.”

“Weak,” repeats Sansa numbly.

“My people are growing uneasy. Restless.” Analysa pauses. Swallows. “The Others are said to be influenced very greatly by their queens. And for me… liberty was always of utmost importance.”

Sansa swallows as well, hard enough for her throat to hurt. “Summer for freedom,” she says softly. 

“Precisely.”

“And- springtime for mercy?”

“Morwenna walked away,” says Analysa quietly. “She led her people away from the south. She was the one to write the Pact between the First Men and the Others. She was the one who left behind her son, Brandon the Builder, all for the sake of peace. For the sake of keeping her people alive, for vengeance was not hers to battle.”

“But it didn’t last forever,” Sansa points out. “She- the Long Night-”

“Yes,” says Analysa. “Don’t you understand? The Long Night happened because of me. Because Morwenna’s power faded and her people started to reach for me, and what I desired more than anything else in my life was freedom.”

“They couldn’t be stopped,” whispers Sansa, horrified. “You couldn’t stop them?”

Analysa smiles, mirthless. “My people wanted freedom more than they wanted peace, and they bloodied the world for it. It wasn’t until my father swore to me that he would not invade north of the Wall that I left. It wasn’t until I was certain I had freedom secured for my people that I could even think of peace.” Her hand reaches up, tangling in a single, lovely ringlet tumbling down her unaged face. “Morwenna was as melting ice: sharp; beautiful; once set upon a path, she would not be shifted. And I am as steam, full of rage and full of grief and invisibly dangerous. But that makes you-”

“-water,” completes Sansa. “Water.”

The calm lake, and the raging sea. The water in her blood and the water of her mother’s womb. The water.

“Yes.”

“So they reached for freedom when Morwenna’s power waned, and now that your power is waning, the Others reach for what? Justice?”

“Yes,” repeats Analysa. “Justice. All those that accepted peace ten thousand years ago are willing to fight for their rights. To make the world safer for them. You have to understand, it wasn’t their fault that they had to leave their old cities. Kubliath melted on them, and they were made of ice, they needed land, they needed someplace safe. So they came up north. Further and further north. So far north that they started to go south.”

You mean- 

Well.

What’s on the other side of the Land of Always Winter?

Why were we always told going there would be our death?

“And they came to Westeros?”

“And they suffered for it,” says Analysa softly. “Greatly. Unjustly. And now they are not willing to remain quiet about it.”

“Why me?” asks Sansa, instead of So I have no choice. “My sister- she was always the one more obsessed with justice and fairness.”

“Because justice is something that sings out from a very young age,” Analysa tells her, “but it is also something that must be chosen, over and over again, even when it gets difficult and the path feels all too dark. You cannot turn from your nature when you are wearing this obsidian crown. It swallows you whole. If I’d wanted someone who understood it in their bones, I would have taken Arya Stark.” Sansa stares up at Analysa, but doesn’t say anything; the truth stings more than she’d expected. “But I wanted someone who understood the pain of justice and still searched for it. Who understood what it felt like to have every ounce of their body flinch, and still choose. You cannot lose yourself to the cold, here, Sansa: that is the one thing that can still kill you.”

…

They’re almost out the door when Thranduil’s guards catch them.

Tauriel would take her time with them, but Arwen has the boat ready to flee and she isn’t quite angry enough yet to sacrifice their mission to tell her king everything he’s doing wrong.

She leaps onto the bow of the boat, looses two arrows that pin two guards’ sleeves into the mortar of the stone behind them, and keeps a watchful eye on the slowly shrinking dot of Thranduil.

When she turns, Arwen has her hands trailing in the dark, frothing waters of the Thoriduin, and behind her, gleaming like starlight, are twin streams of white diffusing through the water.

“You’re cleaning it?” 

Arwen’s eyes slit open. “I am trying,” she says, voice tolling with echoes, unearthly in beauty and sound. “It is not easy- and it is getting harder as we get closer to Dol Guldur, I think.”

“But you can manage?”

“So long as you keep the orcs away from me,” murmurs Arwen.

…

“I would be- immortal?”

Analysa spreads her palm over Sansa’s, gentle and cold and dry, and she looks very, very sad.

“I am dying,” she says. “So: no. You shall die as well, when your power wanes. When you decide your desire for balance is not enough to counter your desire for justice.”

Sansa stares down at Analysa’s unlined, soft hands. “I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps you will understand if I tell you the tale,” says Analysa. “From the very beginning, as only a Queen can say it.”

“Perhaps,” says Sansa, but she doubts it. “I just…”

“Listen,” she whispers. “Listen, and remember.

“This story begins in the beginning of time: in a world of silver and cold and snow: where the world changed, and was safe for the changing. Winter would come but it would leave. Summer would come but it would leave. Three months to each part of the year, in a cycle built over and over again.

“But then there was a race that wished for summer to last forever.” Analysa closes her eyes, lashes a dark curve against her cheekbones. “That people wondered: what use is it, to live amid cold and misery for a fourth of our lives? And they wondered: what use is it, to mislike something, and not do something about it?”

Sansa presses a hand to her mouth. “No,” she whispers.

“They bound the world with a magic that was new and shining and lovely, and shattered the cycle into pieces- a spoke here, a rim there, a handle buried in the mud. And so winter did not last for quite so long as the summer, and soon enough it dwindled into something briefer than the blink of an eye.” Analysa brushes her hair back. “The Others died. Other cities melted. Were drowned. And finally, Kubliath of the Thousand Towers: the greatest city of all of the Others- it melted into water, its glittering spires of ice nothing against the fury of the sun. And so Morwenna’s mother- Nimarel the Wise- abandoned their lands to go north.”

“So far north, they started to go south,” whispers Sansa.

“Indeed.”

“And that was where they found- the First Men.”

“That was where they found a war already begun,” corrects Analysa. “Between the First Men and the Children of the forest.”

“And they allied themselves with the Men,” says Sansa. “Which means- they didn’t- the enemy- the faceless enemy- it was-”

“Yes,” says Analysa.

“The Children?”

…

The river is gloaming and beautiful: as stars emerge from the shining sky, slow and glowing, so is the dimness of the river being leavened by the stars of Arwen’s power. 

…

Analysa’s eyes shimmer, like stormclouds through a veil of rain. “The Children of the Forest,” she says scornfully. “Who dared to undo what they could of nature. Who wished for too much and were too greedy. Nimarel and the leader of the Men- a man by name of Durran- worked together to defeat the Children. Nimarel even promised him her daughter, and he wedded Morwenna, lay with her, swore to protect her. They found a way to channel the seasons through the Night’s Queens, to give a balance- a semblance of a balance, instead of an everlasting summer.” She pauses, breathes in, and says, “Until he fell in love with Elenei, who was one of Morwenna’s maids.”

Sansa pauses. She hadn’t thought there would be love as part of this story. But then, she hadn’t expected to know the individuals involved either: Durran, Analysa had said, and Sansa’s fairly certain he’s Durran Godsgrief, the founder of House Durrandon. “He didn’t love Morwenna?” 

“Of course not,” says Analysa. “He loved the idea of his own love: of saving his people. When you do not yet love anyone, it is easy to sacrifice it; when you find that you do love someone and have forsaken the chance for it, it is easy to go- mad. To do mad things.”

“Who attacked first?” asks Sansa, voice small.

Analysa’s smile is bitter as bile. “We did, but not before he stole Elenei away.”

“Then…”

“Then, in the darkness, by mistake or on purpose we don’t know- he wounded Nimarel.” Analysa draws her hands away from Sansa, but they still shine amid the gloom surrounding them like pale, fluttering doves. “Nimarel understood that she didn’t have much time- and that she needed her daughter to survive for the Others to survive. So she used her dying body to bring winter back to the world, and her last breath to send her daughter to another land.”

“Middle-Earth.”

“Precisely.”

“And then when Morwenna returned, she signed the Pact,” says Sansa slowly. “She ensured there was peace between the three races, and to keep it she walked away with all her people. But- there was a summer before the Long Night, wasn’t there? A summer that lasted for a long time.”

Analysa nods once, flickering in and out of Sansa’s view. “Morwenna’s power waned, and with it so did winter.”

Winter is coming, thinks Sansa. Because Bran the Builder’s grandmother had brought winter to the land with her body, with her life, with her fury and her grief and her knowledge that it was the right thing to do. Winter is coming, has come, will always be coming.

“Do you understand now?” asks Analysa softly. “I don’t have much time left- they’re waking you. But you weren’t born during this long summer, Sansa. You know what winter feels like in your bones, in a manner that your sister cannot. You were not born for this, but you are the best choice any of us could have made.”

“I understand,” whispers Sansa, and tries not to let the terror of that claim sink into her bones.

…

Tauriel grits her teeth and strains: she fights the orcs, tosses them overboard and lets them be swallowed by the darkness that’s quickly being chopped away, stabs them and forces their corpses into an advancing phalanx, snarls and stands with Jenpher to keep Arwen safe.

“This won’t get easier,” he says. 

“No,” says Tauriel, and pauses, takes a swig of sweet wine that she stole rather pettily from Thranduil’s storeroom, and bares her teeth in a smile. “No, it won’t.”

There’s still a while to go before the Thoriduin reaches Dol Guldur, and that shall be the worst of the battle. They’ll need to be ready for it, which means ensuring their boat isn’t overrun by these small, pitiful orc scouts.

She turns and rams a pike through three orcs, one after the other, merciless.

…

She wakes up, trembling, and immediately Eowyn is beside her.

“Careful, careful,” she says. “You hit your head on the stone when you fell- Gandalf said it was probably the light from his staff that caused it to happen.”

“I,” says Sansa raggedly. “Gandalf?”

Eowyn smiles at her sympathetically. “Yes, Gimli mentioned you thought him dead. It turns out that Maiar cannot die, not as-” her breath catches briefly, and Sansa wonders who Eowyn’s lost to make her look so fragile, “-as we humans can.”

I don’t know what I am, any longer. Human? Other? Not?

(Sansa would think Analysa a dream, but when she looks at her palm there are marks gouged into the skin, and they match to her nails perfectly.)

“I’m glad he came when he did,” says Sansa quietly. “I was- so afraid, there, in the- the- throne room. I thought Grima would have me killed.”

“He might have tried,” says Eowyn grimly. “Your lies won’t gain you friends among Theodred or my uncle now, but until Lord Boromir assaulted him Grima was certainly angling for your head. They’re all trying to pretend he wasn’t quite as bad as… it was.”

So I need to be careful.

“Speaking of which,” says Sansa, “where is my- where is Lord Boromir?”

Eowyn’s lips press together into thin lines, and Sansa already knows that she won’t like what has happened.

…

“You cannot leave!” Sansa shouts, striding into the room.

Boromor jerks upright. “Sansa,” he says, startled. “You- you shouldn’t be up.”

“I shouldn’t be up,” she repeats flatly. “I shouldn’t be up? You shouldn’t be leaving! I wouldn’t be up if it weren’t for you!”

Slowly, he approaches her, and puts his hands on her shoulders, guides her to the bed, presses her to sit. His eyes are dark and clear when he meets Sansa’s gaze.

“You fainted,” he says grimly. “You’ve suffered enough, Sansa. I should not have pushed you so far- I didn’t expect what happened, but that is no excuse for what you had to go through.”

“I don’t want your excuses,” says Sansa. “I don’t want- I don’t want anything from you, I just want you to be here, and I want you to be- to be safe, and- and-”

“-and I wish the same of you,” says Boromir. “To have you safe- there is no place safer than Helm’s Deep this side of the Misty Mountains.”

“But you have to stay here too!”

“I cannot.”

“Don’t pretend that-”

“I cannot,” he stresses, and Sansa’s mouth snaps shut. “Even if I wished it- and that is a separate conversation- I cannot stay, because King Theoden has already banished me.”

“Grima banished you!”

“Under Theoden’s orders.” Boromir’s lips twist into something that could be a smile, if a smile could ever be so mirthless. “So long as Theoden remains king, I am not welcome within his halls. I should be glad that I’ve been given as many supplies as-”

“-I was also banished!”

“The judgment was never pronounced.” At her unimpressed look, Boromir shrugs. “What can I say? Pedantry runs in laws, and-”

Before he can finish, the door slides open and Aragorn slips inside.

“Boromir,” he says, in greeting, and turns a questioning look at Sansa. “You do not look at all yourself, my lady.”

“She fainted,” says Boromir. He sounds irritable, but there’s a kind of guilty edge to his posture that makes Sansa’s stomach clench: it wasn’t Boromir’s fault, none of this was his fault, and he shouldn’t be trying to take it on his shoulders! “She lost blood when she went to release the eagles, and Grima’s men didn’t even try to bandage the wound when they threw her in the dungeons.”

Aragorn stills. “They wouldn’t,” he says. When Boromir just sighs, he goes on, sharply, “They wouldn’t! She’s a guest! A ward of- of-”

“You would think they’d be more careful,” says Boromir dryly. “But no, they were idiots. Dangerous idiots.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I’m still banished.”

For a moment, Aragorn just measures the scene with his eyes: and then he says, slowly, “If you’re leaving, take the elves with you to Gondor. There will be need of healing there, more than Helm’s Deep.”

“I’ll ask the dwarves to come to Helm’s Deep, then,” says Boromir immediately. “Better for them to reunite with Gimli. And- Isengard still represents danger, even if it isn’t so great as Mordor. We should still provide as much aid as we can.”

“If they can move fast enough.”

“I can’t imagine the person who got Sansa down the High Pass in two days can’t get some dwarves to get to safety.”

Aragorn glances at her, and then, lips quirking, takes his leave.

“So you’re not going to stay,” says Sansa quietly.

“No,” says Boromir.

“I’m going to come with you.”

“No,” says Boromir. “You are not.”

“My lord-”

“You have suffered enough,” he tells her. “You have suffered more than enough. I’ve already spoken to Eowyn and Gimli: you will be safe here, and you will not be leaving here, either.”

“You cannot mean to go alone,” says Sansa.

Boromir sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “You heard Aragorn: I’ll be going with the other elves. They’ll keep healing me, if need to.”

When Sansa doesn’t answer, too stricken to reply properly, Boromir comes to kneel before her and hold her hands- as Analysa had done, as Arwen had done- and says, gently, “I won’t promise that I’ll be able to see you again, but I want you to know that I’ll be working to come back to you harder than anything else.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if you die, too,” Sansa whispers.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m left alone again.

Boromir pulls away, and Sansa takes the moment to press the tears in her eyes out. When she opens them again, Boromir is cradling the cracked pieces of his horn in his palms.

“Keep this,” he tells her. “Keep it safe, and let it remind you of me, Sansa. How we might be broken, but not dead; how we might be shattered, but not unrecoverable. I carried this for many years. You’ll need to keep it safe now.”

Sansa takes the cool weight of the horn and runs her finger over the smooth, satined edge of the bone. There’s an iridescent edge to the horn and a pale, moonlit glow to the silver, and the entire horn feels- heavy.

Old. 

“If you don’t come back,” Sansa tells him fiercely, “I’ll break this into sand.”

“Sansa,” says Boromir, and laughs, a little, before he lifts her chin to meet his gaze. “Sansa. Remember my words, will you?”

Sansa inhales slowly. “Unflinching we must be.”

“Precisely,” he says, and embraces her. “Unflinching unto the end. Until every last dreg of hope is stripped from us, and then we must keep fighting until even the strength of our legs fails us.”

“It isn’t easy,” Sansa says, and thinks about Morwenna walking back to the home where her mother was killed by her husband, a sword and a babe cradled in her hands, only the hope of peace to guide her. She thinks about Analysa, fleeing her father’s home for the idea of freedom somewhere, no matter if it killed her. She thinks about Arwen, who’s willing to give up eternity for a few decades of love, and Tauriel, who lost everything and still built a meaning for her life out of the ashes, and Boromir himself, who’s spent years and years and years fighting a grinding, endless war. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You know,” Boromir murmurs. “You know, Sansa, somewhere deep in your heart. You know what you are capable of. The girl who walked through fire for Tauriel, the girl who waded through a river for me, the girl who risked her own peace of mind for Gondor- the girl who defied Grima simply because I asked- you know what you are capable of, because you are not so blind as to miss it.”

Sansa closes her eyes.

Autumn for justice, she thinks, and closes her hands over the pieces of the horn of Gondor, and lets the cold, welcoming weight of that power sink into her bones in the place of loneliness or grief or anger.

Chapter Text

Helm’s Deep is very large and very cold. 

Sansa’s used to the cold, but this isn’t a winter’s kind of chill: it’s mountainous and damp and dark, and the miserable kind of cold where the sky feels like it’s never going to turn bright again . For all that Sansa knows, it never will. Perhaps she will die here, screaming, weeping. Perhaps she will die like Aragorn.

For Aragorn is dead. He’s dead.

Sansa wants to curl up and cry. She wants to scream: she wants to scream all the time. Aragorn had been frustrating, yes, and he’d been annoying, but he’d been kind too. Kind in his own strange, small manner. He’d told Sansa stories! He’d told Sansa stories of the Rohirric Queens! 

And now he’s been pulled over a cliff by a ravenous warg, and he is dead.

Boromir doesn’t even know yet. He’s gone with the elves to Gondor to save Minas Tirith. He probably won’t know for another month- more-

Sansa shudders, hunching in on herself. Eowyn had offered Sansa a room all to herself when they first arrived in Helm’s Deep, but there were too many families crammed into smaller rooms for Sansa to feel comfortable with it. And those rooms were cold, too, enough that she’d woken after the first night worried that she might freeze to death overnight. Now she sleeps on a straw pallet near the kitchens, tucked into a small alcove for privacy.

Not that there’s much to be had.

She doesn’t regret giving up the room, but she regrets losing the distance between her and the other Rohirrim. Sansa isn’t there to make friends. She’s got enough already, and all of them are either dead or on the way to becoming dead. It helps to be a little curt and constantly busy, Sansa’s learned: helping in the kitchen, or making an inventory of the blankets, or even just looking like she’s headed somewhere very important.

The night is freezing. 

And their specters hang over her head: her brave father, sweet Lady, Aragorn. Of all of them, Sansa’s gotten used to her father and Lady- Ned Stark’s ghost doesn’t do much more than frown at her, and Sansa’s used to that from all the times she’d fought with Arya and then been scolded by her father; and Lady just gambols about like it’s forever springtime in her afterlife- but Aragorn is far more real, silver-hewn and dark-eyed. He’s even wearing clothing that’s perfectly rendered, down to those awful grey patches on his cloak.

Sansa scowls at him, abandoning the idea of sleep. Trust Aragorn to be frustrating even in death! 

She pulls on her boots. Loops Arwen’s cloak over her shoulders, trails a hand over the stone wall, and slips out of the room without stepping on too many toes. The cloaks of Lorien are more than helpful in keeping her undetected, and Sansa’s grown to enjoy the privacy- if she escapes before the morning rush, nobody actually realizes that she’s disappeared so long as she makes it back before night.

Sansa has her swords, and she has an itch about her shoulders, and she’s going stir crazy inside this place, full of people she doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know.

Outside, the stone corridors are dim and all but empty. Sansa avoids the guards skillfully enough and makes her way to the shadowy corner she’d marked out a few days into her stay in Helm’s Deep. The corner curves around to a narrow set of stairs, which go on endlessly. Sansa doesn’t let herself pause- if she does, she’ll lose all motivation to keep going- and by the time the stairs finally end she’s panting for breath. Her calves hurt, and her lungs ache, and she can barely find the energy to shove at the wooden door at the top.

But Sansa manages, and the gust of freezing air is a welcome balm to her hot cheeks. She slips outside, propping the door closed behind her, and makes her way gingerly to the low parapet.

It’s a tiny little tower, dwarfed by large slabs of stone rising around it. There’s a narrow view of the valley underneath, the sparse grass and mud, and during the day Sansa’s seen much of the rest of the valley that Helm’s Deep is set within- a silver waterfall set into the far side of the cliffs, a patch of forest that looks darker than the rest- but this tower is made to look at the stars. 

That is what Sansa does. She settles to the side of the door, head pressed against the cold stone at her back, and stares at these unfamiliar stars. Her hand runs over the smooth bone of Boromir’s horn. It’s the one request she’d made of Eowyn, for steel clasps to hold the twin halves of the horn together. A loud call might well break the horn- it certainly looks fragile enough for it- but it’s all she has left of Boromir now, and that makes it more precious than almost any other thing in Sansa’s possession.

It is cold enough that the tears feel like they will freeze on her cheeks. She welcomes it: the knife-sharp agony is not quite so bad as the hurt in her heart.

Arwen will be coming soon, with the dwarves of Mirkwood’s dungeons.

And Sansa will have to tell her what happened to Aragorn.

She doesn’t have the words for it. She doesn’t know how she’ll say it. She doesn’t know how to so much as spit it out. For days she’s been wrestling with it, thinking of words that might soften the blow; but they are all cruel. The truth is cruel. How is Sansa supposed to leaven the truth?

Movement in the valley catches her attention, and Sansa rises to her feet, gingerly making her way to the lip of the tower. 

It’s a low lip for all that it looks higher than it is; the tiny tower throws off her expectations. Sansa grimaces and forces herself to pay attention beyond the dizziness the height prompts in her: to the valley below, where a silver-helmed group is marching on Helm’s Deep.

Well.

She won’t have much longer to come up with the words, will she? That’s a group of dwarves marching down there, and if Sansa knows anything in the world, it’s Arwen’s banner, shining over them, blue and green and bronze as the banners that hung over Rivendell.

Sansa presses a hand to her mouth. Bites down until it hurts. Swallows, then undoes the clasp at her cloak, and runs.

…

She’s not the first in the courtyard, but she’s not too far off- Sansa has to push through a few people, but the crowd hasn’t grown so much that it’s an impossible task. When she finally bursts through, she can see Arwen, nodding gravely to Theoden, and Gimli saying something to Triful in a language that scrapes like a rockslide.

Sansa waits- barely- until Arwen’s done speaking to Theoden. Then she steps forward, and clasps Arwen’s hands in her own.

“Arwen,” she says, before throwing her arms over Arwen’s shoulders. “Oh, it’s good to see you.”

“For me too,” murmurs Arwen. Then she pulls away, and shakes Sansa. “Oh! I heard of your exploits in Edoras- what were you thinking- I can’t take you anywhere- you’ve made enemies in every city I’ve taken you to! It’s a talent! An awful one!”

“There were things going on that none of us could have predicted.” Sansa swallows, joy melding with apprehension. “There’s something I must tell you- something more important. It won’t be- I don’t- oh, oh! You should be sitting down for this.”

“Sitting down?” Arwen’s brow furrows. “Did something happen to Boromir?”

“No- no. It’s something- I don’t want you to- I’ll-”

“At least tell me what-”

“-it’s about Aragorn,” says Sansa desperately.

But Arwen’s face does not pale. She only stares, and then frowns, as if puzzled. “Aragorn?” she asks loudly.

“Yes- I didn’t mean to-”

“Yes, my lady?” asks- asks-

No, thinks Sansa, whirling around. But there is Aragorn there, in what looks to be completely shredded clothes, but alive, he’s alive-

“You fell,” she says numbly.

“Ah, Sansa,” he says, stepping forward and clapping her on the shoulder. “Not quite far enough to kill me, it turns out. Sauron shall have to try harder than that.”

“How did you-”

“His horse saved him,” says Arwen, face softening. “I’ll have to tell as much to Elrohir; he was the one to teach you to bear one, wasn’t he?”

Sansa rips away from Arwen to throw herself at Aragorn. It’s unseemly. All of it is unseemly: the swords, the affection, the fear. Her mother would be aghast to see Sansa like this. But how can Sansa stopper the relief surging through her? Why would she even bother?

“Well,” says Aragorn, and touches her hair very gingerly. “I apologize for making you worry, little one.”

“I thought you were dead,” says Sansa, choked. “I thought- we all thought- I burned a wreath-”

“I thought you didn’t like me very much,” says Aragorn, but he’s laughing. “Is this how to rise in your affections, then?”

Arwen draws Sansa away before she can attack Aragorn. “I found him on that horse,” she explains, and lets Aragorn turn to meet Legolas and Gimli’s joyous exclamations. “He was half-drowned, but he’d be fine in time even without healing.”

“You’ve made good time, then,” says Sansa, guiding Arwen inside as well. Eowyn will show Arwen to some chambers later, but for now she suspects that the chance to scrub off the mud and viscera will be more useful. “Better than we’d hoped for.”

“Thranduil didn’t change the layouts for his dungeons,” says Arwen, shrugging. She lets Sansa undo her armor, eyes half-slipping shut. “And it wasn’t easy escaping Dol Guldur, but the Thoriduin feeding it is as cleansed as we could have hoped for. The dwarves also moved faster than I could’ve hoped for. Good news, too: there’s an army coming to Helm’s Deep.”

“An army?” asks Sansa sharply.

Arwen inclines her head. Sansa starts unbraiding her hair, wincing at the dried stiffness of the locks.

“Orcs. And Uruk-hai. From Isengard.”

“A large army, then?”

“We’ve days before we’re under seige,” says Arwen softly. 

Sansa breaks the crust of ice over the water basin, and grimaces as she wets the rag. After Rivendell’s hospitality, these feel like such bare amenities; she knows that Arwen is accustomed to more. But Arwen doesn’t seem to mind. She only takes the rag and scrubs as Sansa remembers her brothers doing after coming back from sparring: efficiently, starting from the top and letting the water run down in rivulets before she reaches the base of the limb. 

“It isn’t going to be easy,” says Sansa.

“No,” says Arwen. She glances over her shoulder at Sansa, slumped over her own knees, and winks. “But take heart, little one! Sauron would have wished to dispatch this army to Gondor and clasp the city between two sieges at once; now, he must expend Isengard’s strength against the Rohirrim- and us. Gandalf’s actions have saved us from certain defeat, and your actions have lent us allies above and beyond.”

Sansa sighs. “Your- Aragorn is…”

“Oh,” says Arwen, and laughs. “Yes, please, tell me more.”

“Annoying.”

“I agree.”

“Frustrating.”

“Aggravating beyond all reason.”

“Frightening.”

“I can see why you’d say that.”

“He’s a grumpy man who looks like he’d be happier smoking a pipe than ruling!”

“Yes,” says Arwen, and abandons wringing her hair out to kneel before Sansa. Speckles of water dot Sansa’s arms: she shivers, but doesn’t pull away. “And he still aims to rule Gondor so that he can have my heart. He’s rather romantic that way.”

“He doesn’t seem it,” sulks Sansa. “And he’s awful at telling stories.”

Arwen gets back up. “You should’ve asked him to sing. He’s better at that.”

“Both of you are suited for each other,” says Sansa, rubbing her hands in a vain attempt to warm them up. “What was that you said- aggravating! Beyond all reason!”

“Have pity on Gondor then,” says Arwen, shaking droplets of water over Sansa, ignoring Sansa’s shriek of protest. “They know not what is coming for them!”

And finally, after so long spent fearful and worried and tense, Sansa lets herself laugh.

…

They prepare as best as they can for the battle. Sansa is sent down to the Glittering Caves with the rest of the women and children, her protests going unheard. She huddles there, with Eowyn, both of them not-quite seething. The distant noises of war seems worse to Sansa than anything else; there’s nothing she can do but flinch, and hold the little boy that Eowyn pushed in her direction a little closer.

And then the wounded start to pour in.

It makes sense to keep the infirmary here: if the orcs manage to get far enough to reach the Caves, they’re all going to be dead anyhow. Sansa thinks it’ll provoke more panic in people who’ve never seen this amount of blood and gore before, but clearly that isn’t a priority for Theoden or his advisors. 

She does the best she can to gather the children away from the makeshift infirmary; she can’t do anything about the smells or the sounds, but she can keep them from seeing it, and- more importantly- distract them. Sansa’s songs are different from their rhymes, and so she tries her best to keep them focused on that- on Daeron, on Aemon, on Brandon the Builder.

And then the dwarves are brought in.

“I can’t treat them,” says the head healer, wiping her hands off on a rag. Her pale hair has already gotten streaked with blood; Sansa doesn’t know what cleaning her hands are supposed to achieve. The dwarf looks like he’ll protest, but she only shakes her head. “I don’t know your healing, Master Dwarf. If I tried to heal an elf, the same would be likely to occur. Our cures might be your poisons.”

“Binding a wound’s the same in all races,” growls the dwarf.

“Binding with what?” demands the healer. “With what strength? At what angle?”

He looks like he wants to continue to argue. But then his companion touches his shoulder, and he turns to him, and they converse in rapid hand signals before the dwarf turns back to her.

“We’ll put them in stone,” he says gruffly. “Keep them safe. It’ll preserve them for longer than out in the open.”

“There are holes in the crystals,” says Eowyn slowly, pressing the head healer back. “Will that suffice, Master Dwarf?”

“Aye,” he says. 

There are enough people doing that work that Sansa doesn’t feel the need to get involved. She settles back, continues telling the tale of Visenya amid the Eyrie. 

…

A little later- not long- not short, either; Sansa has no way of measuring time- a man bursts in. He’s bloody: from head to toe. His sword is unsheathed. Sansa’s words falter; the head healer’s the only one who starts forward, furious, only for him to cry out: “You must evacuate! Go further into the caves! Save yourselves!”

Eowyn’s face twists and she catches him as he stumbles to his knees.

“Galeth,” she says lowly. “What in the name of all that is holy-”

“They are coming,” he cries, and buries his head against Eowyn’s shoulder. “The orcs have- the higher turrets are too well-defended, and so they found a black magic by which to penetrate the lower. Two tunnels collapsed- but the third was- it was strong- it held-”

“So all is not lost yet,” says Eowyn. But she has gone dead white, and everyone is staring at her. What does it matter if all is not lost, if they are all to die? “My uncle and cousin still live?”

“Aye. They all live. But they cannot- we are breached-”

“Enough,” says Sansa sharply. They turn to look at her, and she rises, pressing the children back until she stands in front of Eowyn. “Is there a passage out of these caves, Eowyn?”

“An impassable one,” says Eowyn, frowning. “A waterfall, by legend; it is driven by Helm’s Deep’s river. But I know not if it even flows now. If it is stoppered- if there was a collapse in the tunnels- none of us have ever used it in living memory!”

“Better than staying here,” says Sansa.

“Why?”

“Some hope is better than none.”

“You know not what-” Eowyn shakes her head, steps closer to Sansa, letting Galeth slump over. “It will be a wall,” she hisses lowly. “A wall against which we put our backs to die!”

“I’ve seen a waterfall,” Sansa hisses back, memories clicking together. “There is a small tower- well-hidden- and from it, I’ve seen one silver ribbon that flows, and if it’s the same one that I suspect, then you will only lead your people to safety, which is more important than dithering about here and wasting time you do not have!”

Eowyn stares at her. “You’re certain you’ve seen it?”

“I’ve seen a waterfall,” says Sansa.

Hope blooms over Eowyn’s face. She turns to the healers, and starts barking orders for them to start moving: the wounded are propped on the shoulders of the taller children, the elderly led by their grandchildren. It is happening swiftly, but the booms of the orcs’ feet are louder than ever- and the dwarves- the dwarves-

“What about the crystals?” Sansa demands.

Eowyn freezes. Looks at the healer, who says, grimly, “We cannot- we have not the time.”

“They’ll die,” says Sansa. 

“They’re well hidden,” says the healer, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “My lady-”

“They know where we are,” says Sansa abruptly. “Don’t they?”

“Yes,” says Eowyn. “Sansa-”

“They’re all coming down here, then. Because they think this is where we are.”

“Because it is where we are.”

“I can’t change that,” says Sansa. “But I can change what they’re thinking.”

She unsheathes Ringil and Duril. The swords are light in her hands, balanced. In the dim light of the caves, they shine inherently: something of the stars, something of the brighter world. Never quite so bright as Hadhafang, but steadier.

“I’ll lead them away,” says Sansa flatly. “Buy you time. Make sure you get the dwarves out. They came at my behest to Rohan-” A lie, but a small one; it’ll be simpler for the healer to understand Sansa’s personal obligation to the dwarves than the more complicated version consisting of Arwen, Tauriel and Gimli, “-and I’ll not see them slaughtered so heartlessly if I can stop it.”

Eowyn nods firmly. “I’ll join you.”

“What?” asks the healer. “No, you cannot- your uncle- Theoden King decreed that-”

“If my uncle desires to reprimand me for saving our allies, I’ll take the reprimand,” says Eowyn. She nods to the healer. “Take the dwarves out: get all of them out. All of our people, all of our allies. And do not stop until you’ve crossed the waterfall. You remember the rhyme, don’t you?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“Rhyme?” asks Sansa, after the healer’s gone.

Eowyn shrugs. “There’s a rhyme for the stones set beneath the river: which ones are safe and which ones are not if one attempts to cross.”

“Clever.”

“In certain situations, yes.” Eowyn hefts her own sword with ease: practiced motions to loosen her muscles. “Tell me, what is your plan?”

“I don’t have much of one,” Sansa cautions. Touches her belt, feels the weight. Firms her shoulders. “But we’ll have to leave the caves first.”

“Then,” says Eowyn, grimly, “that’s what we’ll do.”

…

The caves are at the lowest level, which the orcs haven’t yet breached; there are a few garrisons apparently working to hold them back. Helm’s Deep’s narrow, twisting corridors aid in that. But they need to do more than just that. 

Sansa and Eowyn pick their way to the other side of the hold, where the majority of the personal rooms are located. And then, after cautioning Eowyn to close her ears, Sansa blows the Horn of Gondor.

…

The horn blows true, and pure: loud and ringing and fierce and beautiful. For a moment, it is as if all of the darkness of the night has faded; it calls to mind a glorious army, pennants of silver and white on the horizon: Starks attacking the Red Keep, or perhaps Gondor attacking Sauron, or perhaps none of it, and all of it, all at once.

Then the steel bands holding the horn together that Eowyn so kindly gave her shatter apart under the force, and Sansa is left holding the broken pieces of bone, not a true horn. She stares at it. She shudders. The last memory of Boromir- of her father-

But no: for the memory of the battle still lives in her, and Sansa will not lose herself to grief before she can save thousands of people. 

She shoves the pieces of the horn back into her pocket, hefts Ringil, and waits for the thunder of the orcs’ army to reach her.

…

They fight back to back, Eowyn and Sansa whirling and dancing and cutting: Sansa’s two swords are helpful here, in these confined spaces, and Eowyn is more than adept at slaughtering those who aim at the holes in Sansa’s guard. Each foot they give up costs theorcs dearly.

But it still is not enough.

Not nearly enough.

They are fighting hard enough that the orcs believe them to be guarding something precious, but as Sansa and Eowyn give way to reveal only empty rooms, they get angrier and angrier. 

And more suspicious.

“We can’t-” Sansa ducks under one stroke, lets Duril stab through the jaw of one orc, “-keep-” she shoves the orc back to let Eowyn finish it off, “-this-” a twist, so she ends up with Eowyn at her back once again, “-up.”

“No,” agrees Eowyn. There’s blood streaking her face, black as a shadow, but her eyes are bright beneath. “Plan?”

“Your castle!”

“I haven’t-” Eowyn hisses, a gasp loud enough to echo, “-been here in ages!”

Sansa has to duck into a roll to get the next orc, but there’s a moment for her to catch her breath now, and she takes the beat to look around for something to help. The corridors are narrow, and they twist, twist like-

“Follow me!” she snaps, and snatches up her sword to run.

Eowyn follows, gasping. The orcs give chase, but they seem confused about the quick twists and turns- and Sansa is moving faster now because it must be done quickly, there is hope, but only if the timing is perfect-

“Where- did you- even- find- this?” pants Eowyn.

“Accident,” Sansa returns, barely able to breathe.

The orcs are at least slower than them. And they’re following in great numbers: she can hear it. Sansa slots Ringil and Duril back into one sword, and unsheathes the trusty little knife that Arwen had given her: the knife that had allowed Sansa to climb up Edoras’ tower. If it worked once, surely it’ll work again.

And so few people think to look up.

They burst onto the parapet. Sansa catches Eowyn before she can tumble over the low-lying lip, but lets go as soon as she’s certain of her balance. She doesn’t bother looking about- she hefts her knife, sends a swift prayer to the Smith that it won’t dull, and drives it into the shingle of the roof. 

“What are you- it’s a dead end,” Eowyn whispers. “What did you think! That it would be better to die in the open air than under a roof!” Then she sees what Sansa’s doing, and staggers. “You want us to-”

“-no time,” says Sansa. “Come on!” 

She pulls herself up, scrabbling awkwardly, and then loops her scabbard around the spire at the top for leverage. Her hands are shaking, she notes distantly. But there’s no time for even such things; she reaches out, and grabs Eowyn, and hauls her up.

“Unclasp my cloak,” she says, voice chattering. It’s so cold up here. 

Eowyn, pressed flat against the roof, makes a sound from deep in her chest. “What?”

“I’m holding you,” says Sansa. “I won’t let go, I promise. Unclasp my cloak.”

“Why the hell should I do that?”

“Because you can- it’s large enough to- spread. Over both of us.”

“We aren’t going to freeze to death up here,” says Eowyn flatly.

“It’ll give us cover,” says Sansa, exasperated. “It’s from Lorien. Arwen gave it to me.”

“I… I can’t. I hate- I hate-”

“I’ve got you,” says Sansa. “I promise. Come on. We don’t have time, Eowyn-”

Eowyn moves. Sansa’s hands are slippery with sweat and blood, but she grips the belt at Eowyn’s waist and doesn’t let go. Just tilts her head up so Eowyn can unclasp the cloak, and then shifts just enough that the cloak can slip from behind her to over both of them.

“This is- not warm,” says Eowyn.

Sansa breathes out a laugh that chokes off as the orcs finally burst onto the tower. Eowyn inhales once, body tightening into a tense bow, but neither of them move beyond that.

There are fading screams, and Sansa risks peeking over her cloak, just enough to see what’s happening: the orcs are falling off the tower, tricked by the low sides as well as the sheer numbers behind them forcing them forward. There are screams; there is confusion; they are dying more efficiently now than Sansa could have ever managed with her swords alone.

“Look to the east,” whispers Eowyn. “The waterfall…”

“Still flows,” says Sansa. 

Eowyn sags, and Sansa swallows. They stay like that, curled over each other, Sansa clutching Eowyn and Eowyn clutching Sansa’s cloak about them, for a long time. Even after the horns of Helm’s Deep ring, loud enough to shake the shingles beneath them, they remain. Even after the noises fade they remain on that roof, frozen stiff and terrified. 

“Look again,” says Eowyn, finally. 

Sansa does: she cannot see any orcs. She can see nothing but cold wind and ice-slippery roof. She tells as much to Eowyn. 

“You’ll have to let me go,” she replies.

“My fingers are frozen,” mutters Sansa. “It’s- I’m- I’ll try to do it slowly.”

“Yes,” says Eowyn gently. “Slowly. Come on, Sansa. Bit by bit. Finger by finger. You can manage.”

Eowyn doesn’t tumble when Sansa finally lets go- she slides a little, until her feet are braced upon the lip of the roof, and then she scuttles sideways, shifting slowly, so that she tumbles straight onto the tower. Sansa’s face feels raw from the wind now that her cloak’s slid off, but when she looks up, the sky is such a beautiful shade of gold that her heart thumps.

The sun thaws her fingers enough for Sansa to undo her scabbard from the spire, and by now she doesn’t have strength to do what Eowyn did: she slides down, gaining momentum, and might well have followed the orcs off of the tower had Eowyn not caught her and dragged her back. Both of them rest, backs pressed to the door, for a moment longer: panting, trembling, exhausted and giddy.

“I never expected to survive,” says Eowyn quietly.

“No?” 

“We have shieldmaidens in Rohan,” she murmurs. “And they are the last to fight: if ever they are called upon, I would be their leader. I would be the one to die first. I never thought to see dawn again, not after Galeth came to the caves.”

Sansa thinks about the High Pass, and then the cave in with Tauriel, and then Rauros Falls alongside Boromir: each time the scarlet of dawn had felt like a benediction. That relief is like no other in all the world. She’s been not only assured of death but resigned to it so many times in her life now. 

It feels strange to have more experience than Eowyn, who is years older than her, but Sansa chose this path with open eyes, didn’t she?

“It teaches you to love dawn,” she offers, and Eowyn’s hand tightens over her own, soothing the chilblains and the wind-chill. “It’s terrifying. But the joy that comes after is ever-sweeter.”

Eowyn tips her head back and laughs, full-throated. Then she says, “What joy? You shall have to explain to Lady Arwen and all your other caretakers how much danger you were in!”

“I do seem to attract it,” says Sansa wryly, and levers herself to her feet, groaning: still, unstoppably, smiling.

Chapter Text

She and Eowyn make their way down from the tower quietly, too tired to properly rush. The halls below are empty- the orcs’ corpses have been removed even if the blood and smell haven’t been aired out yet. Sansa is limping a little; she’s taken a blow to the head and the subsequent race up the tower’s dizzying stairs hadn’t helped. Eowyn is not much better off. Her hair is about as dark as Arwen’s hair now, and there’s a nasty cut running down the length of her arm that she’s barely bound.

“No,” says Eowyn, when Sansa turns towards the caves. She gestures up another set of stairs. “We’ll need to report to my uncle first.”

“Climbing stairs,” says Sansa, barely keeping from whining. 

Well. 

Not exactly: she definitely whines. Eowyn’s eyes brighten with some humor, but she doesn’t give in. And if she stops supporting Sansa, she’s fairly certain that she’ll just fall on her face, so it isn’t as if Sansa’s got much of a choice.

“Fine,” she grumps. “If they start shouting at me, I’m going to faint.”

“Is that a warning, or a threat?” asks Eowyn, amused.

“Tell me you’ll catch me,” says Sansa.

Eowyn’s hand squeezes her arm, almost to the point of pain. “Always.”

The rest of the way is made in silence; they come across some soldiers about halfway there, and a hush seems to spread around them. Sansa wishes they’d all stop staring. It’s one thing to be admired when in bright gowns and pretty braids; it’s another entirely to be ogled while bloodstained and wounded. If Sansa isn’t careful, she’ll get a reputation through Middle-Earth for wearing awful clothes- first it was in Edoras, in front of Theoden’s court; and now, the second time she’ll ever see Theoden, she’ll be-

“I suppose it’s too late to wash my hair,” she mumbles.

Eowyn rasps a laugh. Her shoulder shakes against Sansa, sending a wave of dizziness down her spine.

“Yes,” says Eowyn. “Far too late. But you’ve nothing to fear, Sansa! Our valor shall excuse many sins. Including your impertinent… attire.”

“Impertinent-”

“Hush,” she says, but the laughter is still thick in her voice. “We’re almost here.”

And now that Sansa’s paying attention, she can hear other people behind the thick doors: Aragorn, speaking very urgently, like he’s trying very hard to convince someone.

“-might, it isn’t impossible! We’ve gone through the corridors and haven’t found them yet, have we? Let us not lose hope for something that has not even come to pass! There is still-”

Eowyn lifts a brow, then nods to one of the guards. “Open it.”

He startles- he’s been staring at the two of them, slack-jawed- and leaps to haul the doors open.

Theoden sighs at the resounding screech. “What is it now, Master-”

Then he looks up, and the goblet he’s holding in his hand clatters to the floor. Arwen and Aragorn- and a number of Theoden’s people, who are also in the room- turn, and Aragorn pauses, jaw dropping. Then he laughs, head thrown back, incredulous enough to reach the rafters.

Arwen leaps forward, moving so quickly she blurs. She stops a bare inch from Sansa’s face. 

“Oh, oh,” she says, and then Sansa’s being crushed against her breast. “I thought you dead,” she cries. “I thought- I was certain- what did you do! How dare you leave the Caves! I should have you put under lock and key, you’re a menace- how are you, you little fool of a girl!”

“Alive,” croaks Sansa. 

“Though not for much longer, I think,” says Eowyn, muffled through Eomer’s chest. “It would be a pity for her to survive all those orcs, only to be crushed at your hands, Lady Arwen.”

Arwen lets go of Sansa reluctantly, and it’s only Eowyn’s sudden bracing presence at her back that keeps Sansa from sliding to her knees. 

“Yes,” says Arwen ominously. “Tell me about these orcs, Sansa.”

Sansa has faced entire waves of orcs, and defied half a dozen rulers of Middle-Earth while she’s at it. She does not gulp at Arwen’s ire, no matter what Eowyn claims later.

…

Sansa is yelled at. She faints halfway through Aragorn’s lecture and wakes up in Arwen’s rooms, swaddled under enough blankets that she’s fairly certain she’s been wrapped up like an infant.

“Oh, you’re awake,” says Arwen.

Sansa stares at her. Her head hurts; there’s a piercing kind of pain behind her eye. “Have you tied me up?”

“No,” says Arwen, but she’s never been very good at lying to Sansa. 

“You have,” says Sansa, outraged. “Let me go! Now! I’m not some- some prisoner-”

“-of course not,” soothes Arwen. “You are no prisoner. Sansa, this is only for-”

“-I’m not a child either,” she shrieks. 

“But you are, little one,” says Arwen wryly. 

Sansa glares. 

Arwen smiles. “I’ll release you if you promise to stay in my quarters.”

Arya would’ve come up with half a hundred caveats before agreeing. Jon would’ve probably turned his face away- he always did sulk properly. Bran would’ve definitely cried. Robb would’ve smiled sweetly back at Arwen, and fled the room the moment she turned her back.

Sansa sighs, reluctantly, and gives in.

Patience. Fine. Fine. She’s worried Arwen and Aragorn. She’s put them in a difficult spot with Boromir, who’d asked them to watch over her; Sansa can acknowledge that. She might not have had a choice, but people can be overprotective when little girls do difficult things- Sansa remembers how much she’d had to persuade her mother to let her out falconry, when Robb had been allowed to ride out a full year earlier. So: patience. Sansa knows the rhythms of this game, and she knows how persuasive she can be, and she also knows that it’ll be another day before Arwen probably releases her.

“You should be glad it isn’t Aragorn that you woke up to,” Arwen tells her, as she undoes the swaddling. Which! Is infuriating! Sansa’s not a baby, no matter what else! “He’s been rather… irritated, you know, that you couldn’t wait until he was finished with his speech.”

Aragorn would be stricter than Arwen, wouldn’t he?

“It isn’t my fault that he’s a boring orator,” sniffs Sansa.

Arwen smothers her laugh in the sleeves of her gown. “I think it was the concussion that made you faint.”

“When I was seven, I had a tutor for maths,” says Sansa, rolling out her newly-freed arm carefully. “He was apparently one of the most decorated maesters in all of Westeros, and my father had to give him- well, a lot of gold, to get him to come to Winterfell. Robb and I both had him- and Jon, of course- and it was awful. I don’t like napping in the afternoon, but I made an exception for his classes.”

“Which is to say that…”

“That I didn’t faint,” Sansa tells her, and sits upright. “I fell asleep. Honestly, Arwen, you should find someone else to wed. I’m sure there are many other- better- men in Gondor, if you need them to not be elves.”

Arwen leans back, looking deeply amused. “Let me guess. You wish for me to wed Boromir.”

“You’ll become the wife of the Ruling Steward, so your father will be happy. And Aragorn doesn’t need to become king of a land that he doesn’t care about. And Boromir really does need someone to love. Doesn’t it fix all the problems?”

“Ah, Sansa! If only love were so simple!” A knock at the door comes, and Arwen says something in Sindarin; Aragorn comes in, grey eyes bright and warm. “Well, my love,” she says, and loops a hand over his wrist. “Sansa here has been trying to convince me to leave you for Boromir.”

“You aren’t content with scaring years off my life?” Aragorn asks Sansa. “You must take my love from me, too?” Then he pauses. “Did you say Boromir?”

“He’s nicer than you,” Sansa tells him.

Aragorn stares at her. “Well, I might fear it myself,” he says, after a moment. “Certainly Boromir is much better-loved than I can ever hope, and I would not dare to stop Arwen if she chose to offer her love to him instead. Only- I do believe there might be some stiff competition.”

Sansa narrows her eyes back. “Someone loves Boromir?”

“It isn’t like they’re particularly adept at hiding,” he says dryly. “And no, I shan’t tell you who it is, Lady Sansa. Some mysteries are better undertaken, not revealed.”

“As if I can undertake anything in this room.”

“You’ve an imagination, don’t you?” asks Aragorn pitilessly. 

Sansa huffs, settling back against the bed. Aragorn softens enough to ruffle her hair, and the throb of her head means that Sansa doesn’t know when unconsciousness precisely takes her, only that the last thing she remembers is the bright, sad glitter of Arwen’s eyes amid the dull stone of Helm’s Deep.

…

It is awful being confined within a fortress.

Sansa doesn’t want to disobey Aragorn- she’s still hoping he’ll relent soon enough- so she’s forced to while away her time in the boredom of Arwen’s chambers, working on mending shirts and learning some songs that Arwen spends the nights teaching her. It’s boring. It’s disgustingly boring. 

Three days after her mandated imprisonment, someone knocks on the door.

Sansa stares at it suspiciously. Arwen’s chambers are well-known and obviously hers, the entryway arrayed in green and bronze. Sansa suspects there are orders given to stay away from them, too; despite the stream of servants and maids, there aren’t any people of consequence who’ve visited.

A maid wouldn’t have knocked.

She makes a face, then goes to the door and opens it. When she looks down, her eyes widen: it’s a dwarf, dark-haired with silver shot through his beard and eyes green as fresh-turned grass. He’s scowling up at her.

“You the Lady Sansa?”

“Yes,” she says carefully, and curtsies. “I regret to say that I do not know who you are, my lord.”

His scowl deepens. “For a lass who claims to have brought us to Rohan, you seem rather ignorant of who we are.”

“Ah.” Sansa winces. “Would you like to come inside?”

He acquiesces. Sansa settles on one of the chairs, waving him to another. “I apologize if my claims made you uncomfortable- that was never my intention.”

“What was your intention?”

“To keep your people safe. Arwen brought you at Gimli’s behest, and I knew him well enough not to desire your death simply through… neglect.”

“So it was kindness, then,” summarizes the dwarf.

Sansa inclines her head. “It was- necessity. Speed. And also kindness, if you wish to call it that.”

“I do,” says the dwarf firmly. “Lady Eowyn explained well enough. Your actions saved half a dozen of my best fighters, Lady Sansa, and we’ll not forget that.” So then this is Triful, if he’s the head of the dwarves. “Tell me, have you anything that we can aid you with?”

His eyes scrape over the room rather expressively. Sansa pauses, taken with the urge to agree: she does want to leave. But to take the help of Triful would be to twist Arwen’s- and Aragorn’s- trust in their allies at a time when they cannot afford any such breaches. And these rooms aren’t all that bad. Boredom isn’t the worst thing in the world.

“Yes,” she says aloud, and rises, and takes a small pouch from one of the chests. Sansa passes it into Triful’s hands. “I do believe Lord Gimli mentioned that you’ve some excellent craftsmen in your ranks. Can you fix this?”

Triful looks up at her, and smiles like a wolf. “Oh, certainly, my lady.”

…

A week later, the beacon of Amon Anwar shines like the sun.

…

“You are leaving, then?”

“Yes,” says Arwen. She glances over her shoulder to Sansa. “We are all to leave. King Theoden is right to say that we must attack; we must attack swiftly. Only a few shall remain behind here.”

Sansa, in the middle of braiding Arwen’s hair, swallows. “I’d like to join you,” she says softly.

“Yes, I’m sure,” says Arwen. She loops one hand back and brushes Sansa’s wrist gently. “But these are difficult times, little one, and your foster father has taken it upon himself to ask us to protect you. And one more sword shall not make much of a difference.”

“Two swords,” says Sansa, glancing over to where Ringil and Duril shine so beautifully. Then she turns back, tugging on a strand of Arwen’s hair just a little too hard. “You let me leave Rivendell with you, even when it might have proved too dangerous. Why is this different?”

“Because there is a difference between sneaking around and walking into battle. You are trained for one, and not the other.” Arwen sighs. “I won’t ask you to braid my hair again if you’re that determined to rip it from my scalp.”

Sansa folds her hands in her lap. “You’re doing this because Boromir asked you to keep me safe. That’s it.”

“And that,” says Arwen, turning to meet Sansa face to face, “is enough. You have done enough, do you understand me? Leave this battle to-”

“-my betters?”

“Your elders.”

“As if any of you would have survived if not for me,” says Sansa coldly. “There is a difference between being protective and being stupid, and I have understood that, I have obeyed everything that you and Aragorn asked of me, and still you treat me as if I were less capable than a child.”

Arwen’s eyes are very large, and very sad. “You are a child, little one.”

“You handed me a sword and told me to fight,” says Sansa, and rises to her feet, and stalks away. “And now you tell me to sit quietly, silent and silenced.”

“You know nothing of war, Sansa,” says Arwen quietly. “Battle is different from single combat. The sights- the horrors- are something I’d never wish on anyone, much less a girl who hasn’t yet seen two decades!”

Yes, thinks Sansa. Yes. This is all about what you would wish, and what you would hope for, and what others have asked of you, and nothing about me, and that’s your mistake.

But to say that aloud would only hurt Arwen, and worse: make her wary. Sansa bites her tongue, and she accepts Arwen’s embrace, and she sits to finish braiding Arwen’s hair after that, with sweet, tinkling little gems that Aragorn had unearthed from somewhere to gift to his beloved.

And then, once Arwen has left, Sansa asks one of the serving girls to send a message to Eowyn.

…

“If you owe me anything,” she says grimly, “you will help me in this.”

“‘Tis madness,” says Eowyn. 

“I know where I need to be.”

For a long, frightening moment, Eowyn doesn’t answer. Then she smiles. “But I shan’t be left behind either, and my horse is strong enough to bear us both. Ready yourself. It won’t be an easy ride.”

Sansa thinks on carrying Boromir to Edoras, and Tauriel down the High Pass, and the corpse of her sweet Lady taken all the way back to Winterfell: dead for nothing more than cruelty, for Sansa’s trust and her naivete.

“I’ve had worse,” she says, and means every word with the surety of a sword thrust.

…

Triful hands her the pouch the night before he is to set out. He eyes the barely-hidden preparations for leaving strewn about the room- Sansa hadn’t been as careful as she should have been, perhaps, but she’d known that both Aragorn and Arwen were in meetings until midnight- with something approaching satisfaction.

“It is remade with mithril,” he says, nodding to the pouch. “It will take more than a single blow to shatter now.”

Sansa takes it with careful hands. “I- you have my gratitude. That could not have been… simple.”

“Or cheap.” He lifts his brows. “I will not be happy to see you squander that, Lady Sansa.”

“I don’t mean to squander it,” she says softly. “But is it not also true that to let it lie simply, silent and unused, is akin to squandering it?”

“It will be glorious in battle,” says Triful finally.

“And it shall see battle.”

“Then be safe. And be careful, lest your guardians see your preparations before you are ready.”

“Thank you,” says Sansa, and bows her head, and watches through her lashes as Triful leaves.

…

She bids goodbye to Arwen and Aragorn on the steps of Helm’s Deep. Then she returns to her rooms, and touches the mail that Eowyn had so kindly provided for her.

Eowyn had also given her a uniform and a helm, and it takes Sansa some time to understand how it works; she hasn’t ever worn something quite this loose before. Then she realizes why the tunic needs to be that loose- she’s gained weight in Helm’s Deep, particularly after being confined to her rooms- and her cheeks flush sharp enough to sting.

The helm covers her beacon-bright hair well enough, but not the length; and she can’t be going about braiding it and maintaining her appearance as a man. Even with the Rohirrim’s penchant for longer hair Sansa’s got uncommonly long locks. She grimaces, then takes the knife in her belt, swallows once- twice- thrice- and then she slices through.

The hair burns to ashes on the brazier. 

Sansa wraps herself up warmer, lifts her bare belongings into a neat cloth-sack over her shoulder, jams the helm over her head, and starts walking. If she wants to catch up with Eowyn, she’ll need to move quickly.

…

That first day goes by in a blur of green and grassy knolls, and Sansa falls into a dreamless sleep. The second day is more difficult- she’s sore, and it’s cold outside, and she’s chasing down people on horses while she remains on foot. But when she goes to sleep that night, she can smell smoke on the air: the baggage train, in sight at last. She rests easy.

This time she dreams.

…

The world is of ice and bone, silver and blue and still colorless. Sansa lifts her head and sees Analysa once more. She wears a crown in her dark hair, gleaming wetly and oddly. Her gown is rich and furred and beautifully embroidered, but her arms are bare; she does not seem to feel the cold.

But then, Sansa does not feel it either.

“Why am I here?” she asks.

“Because the time is almost upon you to make your decision,” answers Analysa.

“I didn’t know there was a choice in all this,” says Sansa slowly.

Analysa smiles. “There is always a choice. But there are also consequences for your choices as well. No decision you make shall leave your hands clean, Sansa. All you can do is choose what you can live with.”

“I don’t know if I can return,” says Sansa. “There is so much to do here. Boromir- I must meet with him. I must see him, at least, and all the others too, and if- if Frodo has survived, if Middle-Earth shall survive- we must-”

“-you are not necessary for all that, are you?”

Sansa blinks, thrown. “I’d like to be there for it, if nothing else.”

“And so would I, but time is passing swiftly here.” Analysa lifts her arms and Sansa sees a black rot creeping up her veins, dark as Analysa’s crown. “Too swiftly. If you are to be the next Queen, you must come soon. You must choose, which land you belong within and which land you shall stay with.”

“And if I choose this one?”

“Then,” says Analysa, “we will all die.”

And there is only one decision that Sansa can make, isn’t there? At the end of all things, she is a Stark. Born a Stark; always a Stark. She belongs to the North. She belongs to Westeros. She cannot not be that.

“Let me speak to Boromir, at least,” says Sansa. “Please. Please. You owe me- you owe me that, at the very least of all things!”

“Sansa,” says Analysa grimly, and lifts one thin hand to press against Sansa’s cheek. “Oh, sweet, sweet girl. If I could, I would give you everything you ask for and more. But I cannot promise you anything: events are moving past me swiftly. Too swiftly. I would not have even spoken to you now if not for the need to give you this warning.”

“I don’t- I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do! To fix! To heal!”

“Oh, Sansa,” says Analysa, and this time her voice is full of pity. “But you’ve already fixed it. Not with your own hands, but with your cleverness and your intelligence and your kindness.”

Kindness. 

The word knocks at her head like a stone, and Sansa goes dead white.

“You don’t mean,” she breathes.

“I’d thought you’d have seen it before this.”

“I thought- Boromir-”

“Well, Boromir carried it, didn’t he?” Analysa smiles at her. “You were drawn first to that, then to him. And you followed it across half the continent to ensure its safety, and when it was broken you fixed it. All without knowing its true importance.”

“It’s of Middle-Earth, not Westeros,” says Sansa desperately.

Analysa shakes her head. “It was mine, gifted to me by my lover. The last thing I ever had of him. I left it behind in Middle-Earth- from there it must have been changed hands half a hundred times before arriving in Gondor. But then, three thousand years and more… that is a long time. Many things can happen then. Many things can be forgotten, or changed, or lied about.”

“I didn’t mean any of it,” she says. “None of it. I just- it was his, that’s why I wanted it fixed, that’s why I-”

“-you landed in Middle-Earth such that you were close to it,” says Analysa gently. “And after that- perhaps it was chance, perhaps it was a bone-deep knowledge, perhaps it was a higher power: but you did it, and you have it, and now you know how to return to Westeros, do you not?”

Sansa hugs herself. “Yes,” she says finally, numb down to her lips. “Yes.”

“The choice of when you come is in your own hands, Sansa. I only beg of you to do it swiftly. As swiftly as possible.”

Sansa looks up at her, and sees- not just the Summer Queen. Summer for freedom, went the rhyme, but Analysa looks tired and worn, her rich beauty too saturated, like how using too-bright colors for a tapestry could leave it looking gaudy. There’s desperation there. There’s grief. Analysa is of Winterfell, and perhaps she does not wish to see it ravaged again. Perhaps her heart is swollen with all these long millennia of grief and bitterness and ice.

Perhaps she is just afraid of dying.

And the only person who can save her legacy now is Sansa.

“As swiftly as possible,” she says, and watches as the dream around her fractures into darkness.

…

She meets up with Eowyn a few hours after that- unable to sleep, Sansa chose to keep walking- and they bundle down together, curled on the unforgiving ground. Aragorn hasn’t been seen for hours, along with Legolas and Gimli, and they’re riding into almost-certain death, and Sansa must choose between her worlds soon.

Every minute she stays here is one more moment she takes from Winterfell. From her brothers, her sister, her parents- her mother, for her father is dead. From her people, whom she wishes to lead. Sansa was raised to be a queen, wasn’t she?

Wasn’t she?

“You don’t look very- fine,” says Eowyn slowly.

Sansa tilts her head to her. “No,” she agrees. “It was a long walk.”

“I should’ve left you a horse.”

“I thought about some things, that’s all,” says Sansa, and touches Eowyn’s elbow as reassuringly as she can. “Made some things- clear- in my own head.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Does it?” Sansa grins, and ignores the shove Eowyn gives her, and also refuses to answer any more questions Eowyn sends her way.

Some things are better kept as secrets.

…

The morning of battle, she takes a moment to speak to Findis.

If I go, will you come with me?

It will be an adventure, shall it not? asks Findis. I prefer that to withering away in shadows, and the time of the elves is over here. Yes. I shall come.

I don’t want you to feel- obligated- to-

This is no obligation, says Findis gently. This is desire. Just as it is my desire to kill those threatening my brother’s descendants. Let me loose upon them, Sansa, and see what a High Princess of the Noldor can wreak!

Sansa laughs and retreats to the world of the living, mood already a little brighter. At least- at least she won’t be alone, even if she must make this decision herself. Then she looks at her bowl and realizes there’s more meat in it than earlier- Eowyn must have added it from her own bowl when Sansa wasn’t paying attention.

“Do not be afraid,” says Eowyn, and her concern feels like prickles of warm stone pressing against Sansa’s spine. She wants to cry, and also hug Eowyn so tightly they’ll never untangle. “Walking into battle afraid is a mistake that too often leads to death.”

“If I had an elder sister,” says Sansa fiercely, “I’d wish her to be like you. As strong and as fierce and as gentle and as kind.”

Eowyn blinks, startled by her ferocity. “Well-”

“I won’t die here,” says Sansa. “And I won’t let you die either. Don’t worry.”

Eowyn stares at her. Sansa throws back the last of her meal, jams the helm onto her head, and holds a hand out. Eowyn takes it, still staring.

“This is a new side of you,” she murmurs.

“I know,” says Sansa. “I think I learned- I learned to move past my anger.”

“Sansa,” sighs Eowyn, but she smiles, and her eyes are bright, and Sansa will take that image with her to her grave, if it is the last of the good things she sees in Middle-Earth.

…

Sansa and Eowyn ride down Pelennor fields, howling. The horse gets cut out from under them, and Eowyn defends her uncle, and then she attacks the Witch-King of Angmar, and Sansa is hard-pressed to keep her alive while doing this, because the army they’re facing is absolutely- absolutely insane in size and bloodthirst and she has no tricks up her sleeves left, none whatsoever, all she can do is keep moving and hope it’ll prove enough- hope and pray and-

And then Eowyn stabs the King, and darkness billows over the field like a wave, and Eowyn falls.

Sansa screams. Findis screams in concert with her. They force themselves over Eowyn, force themselves to keep her alive. Keep her from being crushed. Their flank of the army has almost been utterly shattered, because the orcs they faced had the time to hunker down properly. There isn’t anyone coming to save them now.

Gondor’s armies haven’t come out yet, says Findis, in a voice like a snarl. And the gate is just over there.

Sansa chokes on a breath, then forces herself to keep moving through the hacking cough. You don’t think-

You’ve got nothing left.

But-

Do it, Sansa!

I’ll never see him again.

And you’ll allow them to see the sun set tonight, says Findis pitilessly. That, at least, ought to matter to you.

Sansa trembles inwardly, even as she fumbles at her waist. Findis is right: this isn’t a decision, not really. There is only one choice that Sansa can live with. She slashes one orc away before it can reach her, and then she raises the horn to her lips.

It glitters in the pale sunlight, the cracks of the bone filled with mithril. Triful and his smiths have done such a beautiful job remaking it.

But the sound remains the same, and that is what matters now.

She breathes deep, in and in and further in, and then blows it out: Boromir’s horn, Gondor’s horn, silver-carved, deep and bellowing and clarion. 

She can see, through the tears in her eyes, Eomer and his forces turn towards them- they start riding toward her. Gondor’s gates grind open. A dark-haired, fierce-eyed, silver-clad man rides at their head, wielding his sword like a hero out of a song. Eowyn’s hands are bruising-tight on her wrists. Findis is a whisper in her mind, sharp and cold, and the world is slowly blurring into silver and ice. 

Sansa chokes, again and then drags a breath into her lungs, and she blinks, and suddenly- there, there, is Boromir: blood spattered over his face, too far away to reach her in time. Too far away. Recognizable, but too far.

He sees her. He recognizes her. His mouth opens, anguished and furious in equal measure, and Sansa forces herself to focus: to memorize his dear face. She’ll never see him again. Not if everything goes according the plan.

The world is fading. The only thing that Sansa knows are her swords, is Eowyn clutching at her, is the horn pressed against her lips. Then, like thunder breaking over her head, comes Findis’ scream: Let go! Now!

And Sansa, mindlessly, flings herself away from Eowyn.

She drops to her knees, and the impact jars her, and the faint, wavering image of Boromir, straining to come to her, fades away as mist before the sun.

All that is left is bone and ice, as she’s seen before in dream after dream after dream. 

And Sansa: swords in hand, horn in hand, tears in her eyes and grief in her heart.

Boromir’s horn, yes, but Analysa’s before him, carved of a bone felled by her lover’s hand. Gondor’s horn, yes, but the Horn of Winter before that, meant to wake giants and fell Walls. Sansa’s key from one world to the next. The thing she has followed, from beginning to end of all her long months in Middle-Earth.

She looks up at Analysa, dark-haired and heavy-eyed, and she clutches her swords close, and she thinks, with the surety of every ounce of blood in her bones, fierce and furious and determined like Arwen had been to choose Aragorn, like Morwenna had been to end the war, like her father had been to be honorable unto his own death: This- oh, this ends with me.

Chapter Text

“It is impossible,” says Analysa. “Do you think I have not tried?”

Sansa bows her head and doesn’t speak for a moment. Then she says, quietly, “I understand.”

Analysa places her hand on Sansa’s shoulder. “You have time, little one. Not much, but a little. You had to come here to start the process, but you are not necessary to continue it for now.” Her hand is cool and dry on Sansa’s skin, gentle as Arwen had been: that is to say, not ever soft, but forever kind. “You should go to see your family. You won’t be able to after this. Not once you’ve taken the crown.”

“The process has begun?” 

“Yes. The powers have begun to shift from me to you, as it would not have been possible if you lived in another world. That horn- my horn- has sped the process forward.”

“Oh,” Sansa says faintly. “I hadn’t- realized.”

Or felt anything. Apparently the process of becoming an Other isn’t all that complicated. 

“It will take some time,” Analysa tells her. “Right now it’s the- responsibilities, that are being shifted. After that will be the other things: the awareness, the appearance; the abilities. You have time enough to go south and return, if you do not spend too long with your family.”

“You said the- horn- sped the process?”

“Using anything left from the previous Queen will speed the process,” says Analysa. “Nimarel gave Morwenna her crown; Morwenna gave me the necklace, and I put the sketch inside of it. The more that we wore each object, the more that the power of the previous Queen came into us.” She softens. “The horn is beautiful. It isn’t truly of this land; I was the one that hunted it in Middle-Earth, and I was the one that had them chase it with silver and gold, but… it is made of their world, not ours. You have done a marvelous thing with it, Sansa.”

Sansa frowns. Thinks it over: remembers, suddenly, with the force of a slap, that Analysa had once loved her family. There are more important things than Sansa’s desires now, but if she can just-

“But before I get all of the… powers,” she asks quietly, “I can go?”

“Yes,” says Analysa, and embraces her quickly, there and gone like a flash of lightning. “Of course you can.”

Sansa nods. “I’ll go,” she says. “Of course I’ll go.”

“You’ll have an escort. Ten- no, twelve. You’ll have to move quickly, but they’re skilled at that.”

“I’ve certainly gotten used to the travel.” Sansa smiles dryly. “Though this might be colder.”

Analysa smiles back. “You’ll find yourself better equipped to handle the cold now, I think.”

…

Frighteningly, she is.

…

They cross the Wall. Go south. Pick their way towards Winterfell with the unerring focus of the dead. Sansa doesn’t know any of the people that Analysa’s ordered to accompany her, and none of them seem all that interested in getting to know her, but she refuses to become concerned; Analysa had assured her, multiple times, that the understanding of the Others would come, sooner or later, as the powers transferred to her. 

It’s lucky that Sansa’d been pushed so hard by Arwen and Eowyn: she’d never have been able to survive the pitiless march of the Walkers otherwise. It’s further lucky that Sansa’d spent time with Aragorn on that interminable journey to Edoras: she doesn’t take her companions’ silence personally, and doesn’t find their grim determination off-putting either. 

But luckiest of all- of all the lessons she learned in Middle-Earth- is that Sansa has learned how to lie, and how to lie well.

…

Sansa is a model princess. She keeps her head down, her irritations quiet; she doesn’t complain even as their speed is increased, even as her feet start to bleed in their boots, even as her companions look at each other, concerned, when she maintains her silence unto the bitter, bitter end.

Is this our Queen? they wonder silently.

And day by day, their grips on their swords loosen, as they think her more and more frail. 

Sansa waits until they reach Winterfell- until they’re a day’s ride from Winterfell. She wants to be there; that much is undeniable. Sansa wants to ride for Robb and her mother, wants to hold them close. Wants to be their little Sansa again. Would give up almost anything for that.

But there is an entire world that she must abandon if she does as Analysa asks of her, and that is not something Sansa will countenance. Not now. Not ever.

(And there's also the fact that she’s made a habit of infuriating every ruler she’s met. It’s a list as long as her arm now: starting with Cersei, spanning Boromir, Elrond, Aragorn, Arwen, and Theoden. And those are just the ones she’s disobeyed direct orders from; never mind the treaties and orders she’s pushed others to break. That list would be longer than her leg.

There’s something that tastes half like guilt and half like determination in Sansa’s belly. Maybe she should have told Analysa, told everyone, told and argued and debated her way out of this- but Sansa bit her tongue and hid her plans, and she’s not feeling enough guilt to let it become remorse.

Analysa, unfortunately, isn’t special.)

Sansa goes to bed as she normally does. Waits for the guards to change- its Palieva on guard today, and she’s always so concerned about safety that she doesn’t pay enough attention to the inside of the camp. Sansa always sleeps with her swords beside her, so she doesn’t even need to appear suspicious about it. Her cloak will keep her warm. The rabbit’s blood she’s been slyly pouring into her boots as proof of popped blisters will wash out the moment she scrubs at them. There’s a flask of water by her side, and Sansa has experience in sneaking around places she shouldn’t be able to get out of. Which they know: it's their own fault for forgetting.

The moon is shining full and fat, and Sansa sneaks away from her companions, angles herself straight south, and gets going.

…

A normal girl would not be able to catch up to horses in two days’ time. A normal girl would not be able to keep up with Arwen Undomiel as she flies down a mountainside. A normal girl would have collapsed and perhaps broken a leg for her troubles.

But Sansa had managed all of it.

She hadn’t told her companions how quickly she could move either.

It’ll take them at least an hour to figure out that she’s gone; even if they move at full speed to find her, they’ll be estimating Sansa to be moving at a human’s pace. At a young girl’s pace, at that. And while they flounder trying to understand where they’ve gone wrong, Sansa will keep going. 

South, and further south, to the one place where she knows she can actually change things.

…

It is impossible, Analysa had said. Do you think I have not tried?

No, Sansa had not said. No, you did not. Not near hard enough.

…

Looming trees and plains of grass give way to marshland, then swamps. The air is weird here; muggily thick, oppressively cold. Sansa’s grateful for the thick boots that Analysa had given her. The mud itself is not cold enough to hurt Sansa’s newly cold-resistant body, but it still itches when it dries, and she’s wading through too much of it not to be aware of how disgusting she’s becoming. Even running across Rohan with Aragorn and a sweaty, unconscious Boromir- and dealing with the body fluids of that situation- hadn’t left her as uncomfortable as she feels right now.

She pauses at a particularly difficult crossing, scales a tree and belts herself to a branch so she can rest for the night without being concerned about falling out.

When she sleeps, she dreams about Findis: Findis with her golden hair, with her golden eyes; Findis who wears a gown of thin silk and bears a sword in her hand like a lamp.

“Are you certain?” she asks. 

Sansa straightens. Of course Findis would figure it out; she's been with Sansa the longest, and knows best how much Sansa can do. It certainly isn't that Sansa has been hiding her plans well either. Arwen would have figured Sansa out in ten minutes flat. Seven Hells, Boromir would have been suspicious too. It's just that the Walkers had no earthly idea of what Sansa could be capable of, then decided to ignore her when she lived down to their expectations.

And even if she doesn't think Sansa is capable now… well, that's not the worst that Sansa has imagined about this frankly ridiculous escapade.

“Certainty never won any wars,” says Sansa quietly. 

“It will be a long road. A difficult road.”

“Justice. That is what I am meant for, is it not? Autumn for justice. And justice- whatever else it is- justice is difficult.”

“All of them are difficult,” says Findis. “Mercy, freedom, wisdom- none are simple. Why does it fall to you to end this, when Morwenna did not? When Analysa did not? When even Nimarel did not?”

“Because I love them,” she says. Closes her eyes. Remembers the old song- the one from the solstice festival: The dawn scrubbed clean despair. She must carry the dawn within her now. “Because Morwenna chose mercy at the cost of everything she’d ever loved, and Analysa took exile as the price of her freedom, and that’s enough. It has to be. I’m so tired of it all, of giving and giving and giving- I have to try! I have to think I can, I have to try-”

“-or,” says Findis, gentle, “there will be nothing left.”

“Justice can be kind,” says Sansa defiantly. “I’ll make it kind.”

“I would like to live in your world,” Findis murmurs. “Oh, Sansa, I don’t mean that in a- patronizing- manner. Just that I’d like to live within this world where everything has meaning and purpose. Where no suffering is without- some lesson, at the end of it.”

Sansa grits her teeth. She’s not a child, she will not act like a child-

“Suffering has a purpose,” she says. “It teaches me that I can survive that. Even if nothing else comes from it, even if I lose everything else- I will know what I can live with. What I can overcome.”

“And Analysa’s suffering had a purpose, did it? Your father’s death had a purpose?”

“Analysa suffered for her people and survived it. My father’s death was- awful. Cruel.” Sansa swallows. “But my grief sent me to Middle-Earth, and to Boromir, and without that I could not have become what I have become. Do you understand?”

Findis leans forward, places her hands on Sansa’s shoulders. “When I say that I wish to live in your world, Sansa, I mean that it takes a very specific person to see the goodness in such tragedy. Justice is not kind, uruhina: it is nothing. It is the air in the mountains, the sword in your hand. An object. Less than that: an idea of an object. Justice is what we make of it. That, and nothing else.”

“So-”

“So when you say that you will make justice be kind, I believe you.” The light shining in Findis’ eyes is blinding. Scouring. Trusting. Her hand is like starlight on Sansa’s shoulder, guiding and guided in equal measure. “I believe you, Sansa, uruhina, sweet, sweet daughter of the North. Do you know why it falls to you to end this?”

Sansa is speared by the look in Findis’ eyes. Speared alive, golden and spread-eagled and helpless.

She shakes her head.

“Because you chose it,” Findis tells her. “And that makes all the difference.”

…

Sansa wakes fluidly, right hand unsheathing her sword even as she releases a knife with her left. She uses the shocked pause to release the rope from her waist and fall off the tree, right on top of one of the attackers.

Sansa grabs their hair and drags them against her, sword edge flat against their throat, then puts her back to the trunk of the tree she'd slept upon.

It takes her a minute to realize that the person she’s holding is too short, and another to blink away the last vestiges of sleep and see the green tinge to the person’s skin, and by then it’s almost too late: the tree’s branches come to life, lashing out at her. 

But Sansa has Findis, and more strength than she truly understands. She shoves the Child away from her and trusts in the strength of her own arms to slice through the branches. Then she starts moving, because the mud beneath her feet is churning angrily, and she’s got enough trees around her to be wary, and doesn’t stop until cold stone is steady beneath her feet.

“I’m just here to talk,” she says. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

After a moment, seven Children step out of the shadows of the swamp. One of them has red running down their arm: blood. And her knife is held loosely in another’s fist. Sansa winces, but doesn’t let her guard drop.

“Liar,” hisses one- Sansa assumes it’s the leader. “You are one of them. You are worse than one of them. You are their queen.”

“Not yet,” she says slowly, ignoring the way they hiss in unison, backs rising. “I’m here against the current queen’s wishes, so. Make of that what you will.”

“And why are you here? To take more of our heads as trophies?”

Had Analysa done that? Had Morwenna? Sansa tilts her head, steadies herself, and forces herself to remain focused. 

“I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

“You threw a knife at his head.”

“You were sneaking up on me while I slept.”

“A knife of cold steel!”

“Well, we certainly don’t make knives of wood anymore,” Sansa says dryly, and only realizes it’s the wrong thing to say when the Children go very still: as still as a mouse that’s been spotted by a tomcat. Prey, praying for deliverance. And nothing is more dangerous than a cornered animal. “No- wait. Wait. I didn’t mean to hurt him. Do you understand that? I just knew that someone dangerous was near me, and I had to defend myself. I was asleep.” She pauses. Forces herself to consider it logically. “If I’d known it was you, why would I put my back to the tree? I’m not stupid. I didn’t know.”

And Sansa might not be stupid, but what she’s planning definitely is. It’s so incredibly stupid. But Sansa can’t think of anything else.

She feels a ghost of a wind on her wrist- Findis, likely panicking- but ignores it.

She’s trusting that people that hate her, hate her wholly and hate her people with a hate running pure and true for millennia, will not kill her. But Sansa truly cannot think of anything else that she can do. Her mind’s blank, and her swords are too dangerous to use, and she cannot fight her way out of this: she’s dug this grave, and will need to let it close over her head.

Slowly, smoothly, Sansa steps off the stone and into the mud.

The Children stare at her. The mud squelches beneath her boots, and Sansa sheathes her sword. Keeps her gaze on the leader, a Child with mint-green skin and seafoam eyes. Their hair is dark, but shiny; wet pebbles. It takes a moment, but finally they relax- not much, not much at all, but enough to give Sansa confidence in her actions.

They have power in water and living things- trees, plants, birds, even- but not cold steel and stone. No. And, with a flash of insight, Sansa realizes: Winterfell had been built to keep out the Children first. All those walls of steel and stone, all those careful barriers made of cold marble instead of wood as literally another castle would have… the Wall kept away the Walkers, and Winterfell kept away the Children, because humanity needed those barriers to stay safe in a world where they had no powers of their own.

“I came here to talk to you,” she says quietly. 

“You have already chosen your path,” hisses the leader. “What more is there to speak of?”

“What- path?”

“Do not be foolish,” says another Child, one with hair white and floppy, like snowdrop petals in the midst of winter. “We can smell it on you: the snow and the death. You have no right to this land. You have no right to peace!”

“I am not the Spring Queen,” Sansa says slowly. “I am not Morwenna, and I am not Analysa-”

“-do not speak of-”

“-I am justice,” she finishes, and the clearing goes silent. “I am the Autumn Queen. I am change come anew, and I am looking for justice, but that cannot be achieved without knowing all sides to this story. I don’t want your heads or your blood- I am sorry for having injured you, and I will make amends as are commonly accepted among your community for accidental injury- but I will not leave either, not without answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“To ancient wrongs,” says Sansa.

The leader nods, then shakes their head, then nods once more. “Very well,” they say. “If it is the truth you wish, then the truth you shall receive.”

…

It sounds like a threat.

Knowing the Children, it very likely is one.

…

“There are not many of us left,” begins one of the Children. Their hair is braided back with bright blue flowers, vivid against their red hair; their skin is nut-dark and spotted, like the head of the mushrooms that Sansa’s been foraging for. “We were hunted. Slaughtered. First by humans, then by the Walkers, then by more humans. The times of peace in our history have been so very few.”

“The need for war runs bright in humans,” murmurs the one that Sansa wounded.

Sansa doesn’t let herself react: she sits, instead, cross-legged, spine straight, sword balanced across her lap. They haven’t set a fire, but the trees have bent down to provide a small hollow, and with this many people in one small area, there’s a kind of warmth to it.

“We are not meant for the cold,” says the Child with blue flowers in their hair. “We are meant for warmth and sunny days: for the trees that will grow tall, the flowers that will never die. The sun is our life. And the earth was going cold, in that time- every year it grew colder, bitterer, awfuler. We were dying. So our greatest scholars came together and performed the greatest magic any of us have ever seen. It could have destroyed everything- it should have- but it did not.”

“You just wanted warmth,” whispers Sansa. “Not- this.”

“A land of forever summer is a land of death,” says one of the Children steadily. “We know this.”

“But you still-”

“It went wrong.”

Sansa’s mouth snaps shuts.

“It went wrong,” continues the one with blue flowers in their hair, weary. “The earth was growing colder. The purpose of the magic was to warm the earth again, so that we would not need to suffer. And we did not do it alone: humans helped, too. We did not ask the Walkers, of course, but that was because we did not know they existed; not because we did not wish to.

“But it went wrong. Instead of returning the world to what it had been decades before the cold started to grow, the warmth never went away. And we rejoiced at first, we rejoiced for a long time, but then your people came.”

“The Walkers?”

“The bringers of death,” says the one that she’d wounded. They’re packing some moss onto their shoulder, wincingly. Sansa thinks distantly that she should be proud of herself: her aim had been near-perfect. “Yes, the Walkers! And they brought the cold death with them.”

Which is not the story that Analysa had told her while Sansa lay unconscious in Edoras. She’d only mentioned the drowning of the cities, the destruction of Kubliath of the Thousand Towers; the shattering of the wheel of balance. The death of the Walkers. But this is why Sansa came here- to hear the stories, to see what she can do. To try for something, because where peace has smothered dissent and freedom has fostered loneliness, justice needs resolution.

“You said,” she says, “that I chose my path already. What path did I choose?”

The leader of the Children studies her for a moment. “You do not know?”

“No.”

“You have not only the blood of the Walkers and humans,” they tell Sansa coolly. “We Children have mated with your line before, Sansa Stark. And it is the stronger blood. You might have chosen to become a greenseer in another world- in another path. But then your direwolf died, and then your father died: and heartbreak can open the body to things long dormant. Your Summer Queen took advantage of that.”

No, thinks Sansa. 

No. This is impossible. I cannot- I do not- I will not-

She would not do this.

But maybe she would. Analysa was desperate, wasn’t she? And whom could she have chosen? In Sansa’s own time, there were so few with the blood. Who could have been chosen. Who had the power. Bran was not ruthless enough; Arya was too ruthless; Rickon was too young. Robb might have worked, had he not been the heir, but he had other responsibilities. 

And it wasn’t as if Analysa had killed Lady herself. She certainly hadn’t been responsible for Sansa’s father’s death: the blame for that lies clearly at Joffrey’s door. 

If what the Children say is true- and that really is an if- then Analysa had simply taken advantage of a situation for her own use. Which doesn’t make her trustworthy, but it isn’t as if Sansa had offered up her own heart for Analysa to break; and Analysa’s always been clear about her motivations. She wants to keep her people safe. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sansa comes back to herself and looks up at the Children. Her hands are hurting, she realizes: she’d been clutching the hilt of the sword too tight. The Children are watching her warily.

“There must be an end to all of this grief,” she says, making an effort to soften her voice. “You’re right- I have made my choice. I will be their Autumn Queen, and there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing I want to do about it. But if I am your blood as well, then you know that peace is important to me: that balance is important to me.”

“So what would you ask of us then, Sansa of the White Death?” says the leader, smiling, thin-lipped, bitter. “I am old enough to remember your ancestor, Nimarel the Ruthless.” The smile disappears, replaced with such hatred that Sansa almost shivers. “I remember the storms she called down, destroying entire forests- ancient forests- all frozen, all slaughtered in waves of cold. I remember how we were as cattle to a slaughter: unable to leave our land, unable to fight back. I remember how little mercy she had.”

Nimarel the Ruthless. 

Nimarel the Wise.

The truth… the truth is something between these. The truth is something much more complicated.

“I remember,” says the Child, voice growing no louder but much deeper, ringing through the clods of earth beneath Sansa’s feet, “how it felt to be so afraid I could not breathe! And you come here asking me for more, always more, more, more- you and your people- greed, oh that does not do you justice: you would drink the ocean dry and ask for more salt, you would wring the light from all the stars in the skies and ask for more silver, you would swallow the life of this earth into your gullets and ask for more blood!”

The other Children are very silent and very still. Less prey, Sansa thinks, and more lionesses circling a wounded prey. But Sansa does not have to be what they make of her.

She lifts her head, places one hand on the hilt of Ringil. Does not smile, but does not frown either. Keeps her face clear as Winterfell’s tolling bells. “So,” she says, scrupulously polite, “I should not ask, then?”

The leader’s face, twisted with rage, sours further. “You are not welcome here.”

“No,” says Sansa, and rises to her own feet smoothly. Ignores the scramble of the rest of the Children for weapons; they don’t matter. They never have. “No, if you want me to leave, you’re going to have to do better than that. Nimarel killed your people? Well, you killed hers first! You watched your forests die before your eyes? Nimarel watched Kubliath melt before hers! There is grief everywhere on Westeros, in the skies and the earth and the rivers, I know that, you know that, everyone knows that!”

She’s shouting. Sansa acknowledges that in some cold, distant part of herself. She’s shouting.

“But,” she continues, forcing herself onwards, “there must be an end to this. Morwenna left instead of continuing the war. Analysa ensured the Wall stood tall between her people and her father’s people once she’d gotten what she wanted. They both abandoned what they wanted so desperately in the hope of survival, but it isn’t enough. And it’s been going on so long, this battle between the Walkers and the Children, that none of you can imagine a world without this grief.” It is impossible, Analysa had told her, because she had herself failed at the beginning of her own reign: because the price of failure would be too great. Nothing’s impossible, Sansa had not replied. Nothing’s impossible if you’re desperate enough. She wishes she had said it out loud, now, in this cold, tree-topped hollow in the middle of the Neck, surrounded by enemies and terrified and so furious she almost forgets about the terror. “Well: enough, I say! Enough. Enough. If the Walkers are greedy, then Children are hasty; if the Walkers are ruthless, then the Children are bloodthirsty.”

“Bloodthirsty,” cries one of the Children. “Bloodthirsty!”

“What else would you call it?” snaps Sansa, well and true at the end of her patience. “I am your enemy’s Autumn Queen and I come bearing peace on a platter and all you do is sneak up on me and threaten me and insult me!”

“Peace on a platter,” hisses the leader. “You brought questions and cruel memories, not- peace.”

“You think I came here to ask you questions?”

“To know of your greenseer heritage.”

“I don’t care about my greenseer heritage,” says Sansa flatly. “I have more than enough mystery in my blood to keep me intrigued for another thousand years.”

It’s a lie- she really does want to know about this greenseer blood- but there’s a time and a place for stories, and now is not that: now is the time for bargaining. She’s learned that much from Arwen and Boromir and their constant attempts to keep her locked away and safe.

“So you have an offer,” says the leader.

“I do,” says Sansa. “I want to put the world back into balance.”

“Back into… balance?”

“As the seasons existed before the Children broke them.”

“We don’t have that kind of power,” says the one with blue flowers in their hair. “That lore is lost. Destroyed. Ages and ages-”

“Not lost,” says Sansa calmly, and doesn’t look away from the leader: the leader, with eyes like seafoam. 

The Children are tied to a physical location- a tree, a riverbend, a meadow. Something of that location is tied to their appearance. And their leader has eyes like seafoam. Seafoam, arising from the sea, the sea that is-

Everywhere.

The leader watched as their people died, but did not die. Because the seafoam cannot be cornered. Cannot be killed. 

Just as knowledge cannot be killed. 

“Not lost,” Sansa repeats. “Just hidden. It is not the lore that you are missing: it is the power.”

“The result is the same,” says the leader. “Without the power we cannot undo what has been done. Without the knowledge, we cannot undo it either. What was done cannot be undone.”

She says it with the assurance of someone who has lived so long that they cannot think of another path. But that’s where old people all go wrong; it’s like age brings on a kind of blindness, Sansa thinks scornfully, like they’ve walked on this path for so long that they’ve forgotten that there are a hundred others winding through the same forest.

“No,” says Sansa. “But the future can be better. Just because you suffered doesn’t mean that everyone else has to!”

“The power is gone!” bellows the leader suddenly, hands clenching into fists. The rest of the Children frown at each other. “Gone! Do you understand? It was broken with our forests! With the slaughter of my people! It is gone and it will never-”

“-of course it’s gone, I only meant-”

“-return, not for all the years that we live, and you- you- stand there to mock us for our grief-”

“-how am I mocking?” she asks, baffled-

“-what else is this?” screams the leader. “What else is this, Sansa of the White Death? Without the power we have nothing. Nothing! And it was taken from us with the teeth of the Winter Queen’s grief, and so she dug her own grave and left us all to feast on the ashes of her body! And you are here with your demands- stirring up old griefs- asking for more when we have nothing to give! What do we have? What do you think we have? It is ash and ice and-”

“-not nothing.”

“Not nothing? Not nothing? The lore sits in my head like a stone and I have nothing to use it with! What power do we have? Nothing! Nothing at-”

“You have mine!” Sansa shouts back, and watches the Child stagger back as if struck. The rest of the clearing goes very quiet very quickly. “You have mine,” she repeats, quieter. “I am the Autumn Queen of the Walkers, and what is in my power shall be in yours.” A pause, and then she says, coldly, “Do you understand me?”

…

Sansa leaves the clearing after that- allows the Children to speak amongst themselves. She walks, instead, through the cool trees, until she comes to a place where they give way to the night sky. The stars flicker above her, in a thousand constellations different from the ones that Boromir had taught her so painstakingly. 

Ned Stark had never done that. Sansa remembers nights when he would lie outside, particularly in the depths of a heatwave, just peering up at the stars; presumably, he had liked looking at them. But he’d never shown any interest in teaching Sansa or any of her siblings. He’d just look at them, counting them off with measured flicks of his eyes, and smile in that fashion that nobody who didn’t pay close attention to him would recognize as a smile; a smile that began in his eyes and suffused his face, but never quite reached his lips. 

And then he’d close his eyes and fall asleep in the fashion of a man at war: quick and easy as death.

You died looking down, Sansa thinks, quietly bitter. You died after being imprisoned in the dark. And the stars are so faint in King’s Landing… Did you know when we went south, that you’d never see them this bright again?

Of course you didn’t, she thinks, then, and places her forehead against the smooth bark of the tree-trunk. Laughs, a little, sad and wet. If you’d known, you’d never have let any of us leave. I love you so much, Father. 

I love all of you so much.

I’m certainly not meant to be this- Autumn Queen. Not forever. Not as Analysa did, not as Morwenna did. And who ruled before Morwenna? Her name’s already lost to history. I’m not meant to be this.

“Why would you trust us?” asks the leader of the Children.

Sansa jerks away from the tree, only to lose her footing and slip into the mud. She laughs ruefully at the mud on her cheek. “I don’t,” she says by way of reply, slowly picking herself up. “I’d be stupid to do that, and for everything else that I am- I’m not that.”

“Coming into our territory was stupid. We’re ancestral enemies, little queen. We could’ve slit your throat as you slept.”

“I’d have fought you,” says Sansa, shrugging. “Just because I take calculated risks…”

“That was not calculated.”

“Your calculations are a little different from mine.”

“We could’ve killed you!”

“But you didn’t,” she says impatiently. “I’m alive now, and you’re going to remember how to break this thing that your people have done ten thousand years ago, and then I’m going to give you the power to break it, and then it’ll all be finished.”

If Aragorn had been there, he’d have narrowed his eyes and asked, in a voice promising nothing good, Finished? 

But he’s not there. The only person here is the leader of the Children, who has lived through Brandon the Builder and Brandon the Breaker; who has seen both beginning and ending of the Pact; who has borne witness to Nimarel’s slaughter and Morwenna’s exile and Analysa’s fury and now: Sansa. And for all that this Child has seen so much, they do not know Sansa. They do not know what she wants, or what she is willing to do.

It’s not that I chose this, thinks Sansa, and dredges up a smile through her teeth. It’s that I love them so, so much that I cannot bear to live apart from them. It’s not that I’m brave enough. It’s not that I’m desperate enough. It’s not even that I’m angry enough, though all are true.

It is, Sansa realizes, half-despairingly, that I am greedy enough to want it all.

“How can you claim to know it’ll work out?” the leader asks flatly, eyes narrowed. “You’re not even their queen yet. Just someone in- training.”

“You’re right,” says Sansa, calmer than she feels. “I’m not queen yet.”

She takes the horn at her waist, hanging off her waist, and lifts it to her lips. Smiles into the cold, mithril-rich curve. Analysa’s horn; Sansa’s object. To break this cycle she must first have the power to break it. To be with those she loves, she must first give up everything she has gained.

It blows strong and pure and clean, but nothing more than that. Nothing like Sansa thinks it should be; nothing vast and all-consuming. Just a horn, broken time and time again, remade with silver and with mithril by friends that Sansa had no business making.

When she turns to the leader of the Children, she sees, in their ancient, pain-ridden eyes: respect. Respect twinned with fear, twined with surprise.

“But I am now,” says Sansa, just as the cold pours into her.

…

The rising sun lit hope in the breasts of those yet unslain, chants a voice that she recognizes. The dawn scrubbed clean despair from the hearts of those yet to reign.

The rising sun lit hope in the breasts of those yet unslain. The dawn scrubbed clean despair from the hearts of those yet to reign. The rising sun lit hope in the breasts of those yet unslain. The dawn scrubbed clean despair from the hearts of those yet to reign. The rising sun lit hope in the breasts of those yet unslain. The dawn scrubbed clean despair from the hearts-

“Of those yet to reign,” croaks Sansa.

“What have you done,” says Analysa, voice shaking. “Sansa, what have you done?”

Sansa looks up at her. Analysa looks old- older, not old, not yet- but markedly so. Her hair is spotted with silver. Her hands are a little more bent. There are more wrinkles on her neck.

She leans forward- takes those palms in her own. Presses them against her cheek.

“I could have held on for a little longer,” whispers Analysa. She bends over Sansa, hair tumbling around them like a waterfall of darkness. Her eyes are very large, this close; very large, and very grey, and very beautiful. “You did not have to do this. The Children are treacherous. They have broken every treaty they’ve ever made. You will die of this!”

“This power that the Queens of the Others have,” says Sansa quietly, “do you think it is good? To turn their people as if they are dolls in a girl’s hand? From mercy to freedom; from justice to wisdom. What matters to you matters to them: like a mirror. Like they are nothing more than ice.”

“You will die,” says Analysa, despairing.

“Then it will be a good death,” Sansa tells her. “For it will ensure that no other suffers as they suffer now, this fate worse than slavery- for at least slaves can choose to disobey, even if that choice leads to death; but not the Walkers. Not them.”

“It is how we lived. In the time before time.”

“So for traditions’ sake we allow injustice to prevail?”

“Oh, Sansa,” says Analysa. “You do not know. You cannot know, because I never told you.” She sits up, and tears stand out in her eyes like little gems of chalcedony. “There is another land- or was another land- one that does not appear on the common maps. North of Ibben. It was where the Others existed, originally. A vast land, larger even than Essos. Full of ice and cold, fresh snow. But then the Children broke the seasons, and the ice started to melt, and the seas began to rise; and Kubliath melted. Kubliath melted. The last and highest of their cities melted. Their land was drowned. Do you think any of them wanted to leave? That was their home from time immemorial. They refused.”

“Not all of them.”

“In that time,” Analysa goes on tiredly, “they lived similarly to us: ladies had a household, and some measure of wealth; peasants would work off the land. The household- and only the household- was sworn to obey their lady’s every desire.” She pauses; drags a hand down her face. “Yes,” she says. “All of them. They all refused Nimarel. Every last one of them. The only ones to join her as she fled were her household.”

“Who,” Sansa says slowly, the full weight of the horror bearing down on her, “were all sworn to obey her.”

“It was her prophecy. The only one that Nimarel ever received, on the last day she rested in Kubliath: Springtime for mercy, summer for freedom; autumn for justice, winter for wisdom. Four queens, until the end of her people. She knew that. She learned that.”

“She wasn’t a queen,” says Sansa. “She was just- she was a lady. She became queen when there was nobody left.”

“Yes.”

“Dawn scrubbed clean despair,” whispers Sansa, bowing her head. She doesn’t let go of Analysa’s hand. “Even if they’re all descendants of those that swore the oaths- even if all of them swore- it’s not right. I’m going to break their oaths, Analysa. And I’m going to break the curse the Children placed.”

She thinks, briefly, about it: how furious Nimarel must have been, to flee her home. To never look back. An entire continent drowned by the arrogance of the Children; of course Nimarel turned the full force of her rage onto their forests. Of course she never allowed them peace. Her wisdom lay in her flight from Kubliath, but it had not meant calm. It had not meant letting others kill this last, paltry remnant of her people.

“The energy will kill you,” says Analysa. “It is too much. Far, far too much. It will destroy the world, if you are not careful, it will destroy us all.” 

She’s crying; steadily, shoulders trembling with it. Sansa touches her arm, then draws her into an embrace. 

“It is impossible,” she sobs. “I have tried, Morwenna tried- this is impossible.”

“Not impossible,” says Sansa evenly. “But difficult. Very difficult.”

“And you think yourself capable of it?”

“Justice,” says Sansa. “Justice, not vengeance. What would you have me do? It’s as putting plaster on a gut wound: not enough. Not nearly enough. We cannot continue as we have done.” She rises to her feet. “That’s the only thing I know. You asked me, when I first came here: What have I done?” She smiles, and Analysa pales at the look on her face, finally seeing what Sansa hasn’t bothered to hide because nobody here would look for it: the cool, blazing determination learned in Elrond’s whispering gardens under Arwen’s tutelage, on a snow-ridden mountainside with a bleeding Tauriel, over gusty plains with Boromir a dead weight on her back, beside a bleeding, broken Eowyn on the roof of the highest tower in Helm’s Deep. “I haven’t done much, Analysa,” she says. “Just given the Children some motivation, that’s all.”

She kisses Analysa on the forehead and feels the way her own lips feel too cold, frozen, frosted. Sansa’s chosen now. 

“Rest,” Sansa whispers to her, and forces herself awake once more.

…

She wakes up to the Children having an argument over her head.

Which is to say that Sansa sits up quick enough to crack her head against one of theirs, leaving her with spots dancing in her vision and blurry eyesight for long enough that she freaks out. Then someone douses her with seawater, and Sansa gets mad so fast she goes dizzy, and comes back to herself poking the leader of the Children in their chest with a soggy twig, because clearly Sansa loses her mind a little when she gets teased.

“Have you figured it out yet?” she asks, tossing away the twig disgustedly.

They look up at her. “Yes. Have you become Queen yet?”

“Crown me with autumn leaves,” says Sansa dryly. 

“So you have this power?”

“I do,” says Sansa. “When can we use it?”

The leader stares at her. Sansa knows what they’re thinking, knows exactly what they’re thinking, but she says nothing. She doesn’t owe them anything. If all goes according to plan, Sansa will survive. If what the leader fears will happen does happen, then Sansa will not shrink from her death. Her debts will be paid tonight, and after that…

Well. After that, it will be a brave new world.

“Tonight,” says the leader faintly. Then they rally and say, firmer: “Tonight.”

…

What is a queen without her people? asks one of the old idioms of the North. Sansa had liked it, once, had touched the nubby letters of ink and raised gold with a child’s fist; she hadn’t questioned why Winterfell would speak of a queen when they’d only ever had Kings of Winter. What is a queen without her people? asked a book first written in times of Brandon the Builder.

What is a queen without her people?

A hiltless sword.

All blade and bite and bile. Sansa remembers that, too: the slash of the silver sword across the page, the bleeding hand enclosed over the blade. Full to brimming with danger and desperation. A queen without her people is not dead, is not fallen; she is just alone, and she is only alone until her people find her again, and even that should not take too long.

The book had referred to the Queens of the Others. Sansa is certain of it.

I’ll be both blade and the hand that wields it, then, she determines. Blade and hand and blood all; both executor and executed.

…

That night, the Children kneel around her in a circle. Their leader wears a gown of sheer cotton and nothing else: but they do not shiver. The gown shimmers beneath the stars, seafoam-green like colored glass. Sansa waits in the middle, kneeling herself; the focal point of the energy the Children shall require and, eventually, release.

There’s a lot of chanting and getting up and kneeling once again. It gets tiresome very quickly. Sansa stops paying attention; she just fingers the horn hanging from her belt, runs over the soft engravings and mithril clasps. Never before had she considered that hope would look like a metal hinge, but that’s what she has now. That’s all that she has, now.

Then something rips out of her like a thread unspooling from her gut, and Sansa focuses.

The energy of something tearing apart: no, something slowly unraveling. One of the millions of bonds that Sansa has now to her people. 

Sansa breathes out and remembers how helplessly furious she had been when the guards held her away from her father, when the guards made her watch as Joffrey cut her father’s head off.

She’ll die before she becomes those guards.

The energy flows easier after that, from her people to Sansa to the Children. It creates an enormous web over their heads, each strand criss-crossing over the others until it looks less like a web and more like a glowing, pulsing dome. 

“What we have begun,” cries the leader, arms aloft, “let us end! An Age of greed and anger and fear-” they break off, overcome, before lifting their head to the shining dome above them, eyes gleaming bright enough to blind Sansa, “-shall end tonight! With us! To be replaced by an Age of balance!”

The energy ricochets out, and Sansa can feel it, speeding across the skies, from the damp of the Neck to the freezing cold beyond the Wall to the hot dryness of Dorne to the sharp gusts of the Vale and beyond, even further: to lands she could not describe but whose skies she now knows, intimately; in Essos, and in Sothoryos and over Ibben and north of that, too, to the land where the Others had once lived before their cities melted, to the last, watery remnants of great Kubliath, the city that will never be seen again.

It circles over the world, once, then twice, then thrice.

And as it does, another web reveals itself: an ancient web, crumbling in places; fierce across Westeros. Ten thousand years old. A web meant to keep the world’s winter at bay. A web of magic, upheld by an ancient and ferocious people’s sacrifice. This web- Sansa’s web- attacks it, rests on top of it, but she is faltering; she is so young, so little-

Sansa can feel herself losing ground. Forgetting herself. Giving into the energy, melting into it. She has blood of the Others but not enough- clearly not enough- she will die here, die as Analysa had feared- it’s too much-

Unflinching we must be, says Boromir in her mind’s eye, rumbling and low beneath the rush of the energy that Sansa has poured into the world. Unflinching unto the end. Until every last dreg of hope is stripped from us.

The ancient spell of the Children cracks open as the Children’s new magic batters at it. 

But this time the energy spirals back into the web. 

If Sansa had been certain that it was too much before, now it’s a bell announcing it to everyone in the vicinity. She thinks her skin has started to glow, which means she’s probably going to literally become a block of superheated bone and muscle and she’s not actually bursting into fire only because of the cooling effects of being the Queen of the White Walkers, who have ice in their veins.

The danger that Analysa had foreseen and the death that the leader of the Children predicted was because of this energy: because holding it in her bones would kill her as surely as flame would kill someone. And it is killing her. Quickly. Too quickly.

You know what you are capable of, whispers Boromir, and Sansa lifts her hand- it hurts to do that, like her bones are bending and melting under the force of the energy- but manages, finally, to get it to her face, to rest the horn on her lips, to inhale and then exhale into it.

Because this is the last of her secrets, the last of her tricks: this home away from home that Sansa built for herself with cold hands and laughter and love.

She’d told Findis, told Findis, but they hadn’t believed her; none of them would ever believe her. Why does this fall to Sansa? Why not Nimarel or Morwenna or Analysa? What makes Sansa so different?

She fell in love with Middle-Earth. That’s the difference. The whole of the difference.

She fell in love with them. 

And she won’t let them go, not for hell, not for high water, not for the crown that she’s inherited like a mountain on her spine.

Because the horn is Gondor’s horn. Analysa’s kill, Analysa’s choice, but Gondor’s property after so incredibly long. It belongs in another world. And everything in the world wants to return home. Wants balance. The horn gives a path back to Middle-Earth. It brings that world closer to Westeros. 

Bring it close. Give me the path to follow. I need-

The dome, gleaming around the circle of kneeling Children, shining above Sansa’s head, explodes outwards.

Outwards, tearing a rent in the very air. 

Nimarel had sent Morwenna to Middle-Earth with the last energy of her body. Morwenna had sent Analysa at the cost of her own life. Analysa had sent Sansa with the grief of her father still ringing in her veins. 

Now, Sansa pours the energy into the tear between worlds. The knowledge is there inside of her, the surety; all she must do is provide the energy. And the energy is there- all the energy of the ancient Children, all the energy of the bonds of the Others- so all she must do is act as the vase, pouring the power to rip both worlds open. She has so much energy that she deepens the channel between worlds, makes it permanent. 

Takes what should have lasted for a moment and makes it eternal.

It all goes. All of it. The vows of the Others to their queens; the ancient spell of the Children; the new magic that they’ve wrought. Sansa doesn’t hold any of it back. Doesn’t let herself hold anything back.

But- oh, but to give of herself to the energy is to give up the part of herself that belonged to the Others as well, and Sansa’s been training to be a queen for so long- 

-and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. She knows that there are more important things. She knows how much the rest of this matters. She knows why she set out on this path. She remembers all of it, but-

-but to let go of her first dream, to abandon the idea of a crown-

-it hurts.

Your strength rises from a spring so deep it takes more time to bubble to the surface, says Findis, and she is there, suddenly, golden and shining, not bright like the dome but bright in her own fashion: comforting and fierce; steady and brave. But your strength is colder and fresher and purer for it. Do you remember me telling that to you? You mourned your father then, and it was a deep mourning, but you had such little time to mourn. You had to let it go. You had to trust me to know you. And now I tell you: let it go, uruhina. Let it all pass through your fingers.

“It hurts,” says Sansa. Then, desperate: “It hurts.”

You know who you are. Findis steps closer to her. Presses a cool hand to Sansa’s cheek, then lifts the horn that’s dropped to the mulch. Her hands caress the silver. You know where you end and where the rest begins. You know.

“I don’t. I can’t!”

Breathe, says Findis. And find that which is yours, and that which you can abandon, and let what you can go.

Sansa sobs. She’d given Arwen advice on how to be a queen; she’d been raised to be a queen. She’s become a queen, now, for the brief period of a day. What is a queen without a crown, without a people, without a purpose? What do you call a queen who reigns for a day? Oh, she knows that this crown is nothing but a poisoned knife that she’s slid into her belly, but it is her knife after all this time working through the secrets and silence and darkness; it is her choice, after so long of people thinking they can take her choices from her. How can she abandon it so easily? How dare she think of abandoning it so easily? This, her people: lost and scattered, leaderless, free for the first time in their existence, terrified and alone, all because of Sansa. Sansa, who is nothing other than a girl. Who has decided that she knows best, when she very clearly doesn’t, when she’s so obviously just pretending like a child wearing her mother’s gowns.

Do you remember what I said? asks Findis sharply, kneeling before Sansa. What happens if you fail?

“At least,” whispers Sansa, trembling, sore and tired and terrified, “at least I tried.”

If you fail now, says Findis pitilessly, it shall not be because you cannot, or because you do not want to. It will be because you were afraid. And you will fail if you let your doubts swallow you. The time for thinking is past! Now is the time to act, little fire-hearted daughter, and there is no one in all the worlds that can act for you! 

And she leans in, and places both of her golden hands on Sansa’s blazing face, and holds her there, insubstantial, shining, the most real thing that Sansa has ever known, and snarls, Let it go!

Sobbing, Sansa does just that.

…

Sansa doesn’t collapse- she’s already on her knees- but she does lean on the comforting sturdiness of Findis’ sword. When she finally clears the tears from her vision and the world stops spinning long enough for her to focus, the Children are gone, all except for the leader, who kneels before her in that cotton dress studded with iridescent shells.

“It is over, then,” she says, throat rasping.

“Yes,” says the leader. “Your kin shall be here soon. And others- humans. They all saw the lights. I would suggest you leave quickly.”

“I will,” says Sansa wearily. “And you? You’ll be- you’ll survive?”

“I would be more concerned with your survival, little queen.”

“I’ll survive,” she says. “It’s holding all that energy that’s difficult, and I didn’t.”

“You could have given too much of yourself to the energy as well.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Mmm.” The leader rises, then bows to Sansa, and says something formally, a string of syllables that Sansa could not ever repeat even if she remembered them. “I am the oldest that is left of my people. You would call me their leader, but we do not have such things as leaders; we do not accept such restrictions. Unlike you.”

“I gave up my power.”

“Ten thousand years ago, Nimarel brought an army to Westeros and slaughtered my people,” says the leader. “She was merciless. She called herself a queen, but we never acknowledged her. We never acknowledged any of them- not Morwenna, not Analysa, certainly not Nimarel. A queen is more than her desperation.”

“But you call me-” Sansa grinds to a halt.

The leader’s face creases into something that could approximate a smile. “Little queen,” they say. “Yes. You will be their queen, still. And a harder job, that: ruling over those that you must convince to obey, not simply order. Ten thousand years, and the Children of Westeros finally welcome another sovereign to their land that we can respect.”

“I’m not their queen.”

“You will be,” says the leader. “As one ruler to another: you will be their queen, crowned in obsidian beneath a banner of a direwolf wreathed in ice. The last prophecy that shall ever be seen in all of this world.”

“The last,” echoes Sansa, because if she focuses on the first part she’ll probably lose her mind. “Why is it the last?”

“You have sung the last notes of magic in Westeros.”

“What?”

“Did you not know this?”

“No!”

“There is none left to be used,” says the leader calmly. “The magic of the ancients kept it going, but now there is nothing left of that; it is in the air, now, in the earth and in the rivers. It will take another eternity for the magic to pool anywhere in large enough quantity that it can be felt, much less used. And so the last notes of magic were sung in Westeros.” They smile, thin but bright, like the exposed bone of a cat’s claw. “And so it is finished.”

“Finished,” says Sansa weakly. 

“May your roads be bright and the stars steady,” says the Child, and bows, once more, before they leave. 

Sansa watches them go. Then she grabs Ringil, and the horn, and shoves it into her belt, and stands. She wavers at first, staggers to the tree; uses it as a crutch. Pressed against the tree, she hears distant sounds- footsteps. 

Before she can do much more than turn, three Others come into the clearing. Palieva comes to a dead halt. The others- Narred and Greath, Sansa recognizes them- freeze as well.

“My queen,” says Palieva, her voice like a stonefall, and kneels. 

Sansa bites on her tongue hard enough to taste copper in her mouth. “I abandoned you,” she says numbly. “Get up. Get up, I left you, this isn’t-”

“You are our queen,” says Greath. “From this day until you choose another. As Analysa did to you.”

“I have no crown,” says Sansa. “And I’m not- I abandoned you! I broke your vows!”

“Just because no magic enforces them does not mean that you broke them,” says Narred steadily. “You had need of the power. We saw- you broke the ancient curse. We can feel it.” He lifts a hand, touches the air around his shoulder wonderingly. “The noose that threatened us all has been cut.”

“Nimarel died to bring the world back to balance,” says Palieva, eyes like twin stars. “But she managed only to allow us to survive, not to thrive. Morwenna and Analysa maintained that. And then you came. We feared you, did you know that? Nimarel’s prophecy was for four seasons. Four queens. No more. And we were the last. The only ones left. Once you died- we would die as well. We were resigned to our fate. We could not imagine that you would- that you would- manage this.”

“Justice-bringer,” says Narred softly. “Life-bringer. Hope-bringer.”

“Balance-bringer,” corrects Palieva, and stands, and touches Sansa’s wrist gently, reverently: like she cannot believe the honor of being close to Sansa like this. “The brightest queen we have ever had.”

“Crowned in ice and fire,” says Greath, and smiles. “Queen of the Others. Sansa of the North.”

“I don’t-”

“-want it?” asks Palieva.

Sansa frowns, but can’t bring herself to lie. “I- no.”

“Good,” says Palieva. “Then you’ll be coming with us. We’ll crown you, and if there are any challengers to the Others, we’ll deal with them, too.”

“I can’t rule you forever,” Sansa says tiredly. She is human now- she knows that, she’s certain of that. The cold of the Neck itself is stunningly exquisitely miserable already; it’ll be worse up north, beyond the Wall, now that her Other blood is not protecting her. “I am- mortal. Human. More than ever I was yours.”

“Then appoint one of us as your heir,” says Greath sharply. “But until you’ve chosen one, you owe it to us to be our leader. Analysa is gone. There is no other that we have.”

Sansa wants to refuse. But…

But she has Findis and she has the memory of her friends and family like wings of fire around her, melting her, keeping her alive and keeping her happy. And she does owe it to them, and she really was born for this: ruling. She hadn’t considered that the Others would accept her even after she chose humanity. She hadn’t considered- so many things.

She touches the horn. For times of courage and times of aid, Boromir had told her. Look to the east, and watch the rise of the sun. Her other hand rests on Ringil. The hand of destiny sits high on your brow, Findis had told her, the first time they’d met. Yes, fire-child, I will walk beside you on this long and terrible journey.

But she is not alone, is she?

And one day, she’ll come back. She’s not letting anything go. She’s going to hold onto all of it with all the muscles and all the strength she’s ever had, and she’s going to have all of it now: Middle-Earth and Westeros, the Starks and the Others and the elves and Gondor. All of it. Every last drop.

“I,” says Sansa, then she nods, helplessly. “Fine. Fine. We’ll figure it out, I suppose.” A tremulous smile, one that grows as she feels the warmth of the sun on her back, the dawn of a new day: the first dawn of a new age. “We’ll figure it out together, won’t we?”

Chapter Text

“You can’t be leaving already!”

Sansa, in the process of climbing out of her window, doesn’t quite wince. “Vorale,” she says, sighing and pulling back. “You’re supposed to be downstairs.”

“And you’re supposed to be with me!” Vorale snaps back, folding her hands furiously over her chest. She’s got short dark hair and a long face, like what Sansa assumes Arya would have if she ever had her way as a child. But her eyes- like the rest of the Others- are a piercing, eldritch blue. “You can’t just leave now that-”

“-my duties are over?”

“I need you!”

“No,” Sansa says patiently, “you don’t. That is what we’ve been training you for, for nearly a decade now. You are fine. You are now the Queen of the Others, and you will build a city to rival Kubliath, and do a hundred other fine and glorious things without me hanging around you like a frustrating gnat.”

“I don’t want to do it without you,” she snaps, and Sansa feels the old impatience soften into affection.

“I’m not leaving forever,” she points out. “Just for a while. I’ll be back.”

“It’s a dangerous land out there.”

“And I’m a dangerous woman,” Sansa says mildly. “Vorale. You will never become a true queen if I’m around to guide you like a puppet. It is your throne: it is your people. Think of this as a… training period, if you wish. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“It’ll take longer than usual though, won’t it?”

“I’m going further south than Winterfell, yes,” says Sansa. “But it’s perfectly safe. You don’t need to be concerned.”

“Then why are you sneaking out the window?” demands Vorale. 

Which is a good question. Sansa sighs again. 

“Because Palieva’s going to want to give me an escort if she finds out that I’m leaving. And I don’t want one, nor need one.”

“But you’re just a human.”

“And yet, I still defeat you on the training ground.”

“Only every other time!”

“Enjoy your feast,” Sansa tells her little protege. “And work on your blocks. You’re all attack and no defense. I want to see that gone when I come back.”

Vorale studies her for a long minute. Then she nods, mouth setting in a firm line. Sansa smiles inwardly: that’s the look that Vorale gets when she’s made up her mind, and will bend the world to her before bending her own neck one inch.

“I love you,” Sansa tells her warmly, and then jumps out of the window.

…

She has more tricks up her sleeve now- ten years’ training with Palieva will do that to a person- and Sansa’s honed her skills in war rooms and sparring fields and diplomatic meetings to a shining, flashing point. Everyone knows about her now; the Stark girl that disappeared in thin air on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, that reappeared a year later at the head of an army of the dead, with a sword of starlight and darkness, a horn of shining silver, and a crown of obsidian and ice. She’s the Queen of the Others and she’s negotiated with the wildlings as well as the Starks-

-and hadn’t that been fun, to meet Robb and Rickon at the table, Sansa’s obsidian crown matching Robb’s steel one. They’d fought, then hugged, then fought some more, until finally they’d all bargained their way to a peace treaty that Robb could accept and Sansa wouldn’t call an insult, and they’d ended the day drinking spiced wine and giggling together-

-but that had still left Sansa unable to cross into technically foreign land without causing an international incident. 

Sansa had taken Arwen’s best advice: Just because people are angry that we defied them does not mean that they’re right . She’d dodged Palieva’s guard, crossed the Wall, and snuck into Winterfell in the middle of the night. She’d had to defend herself from Arya’s furious defense of their mother before they recognized her, but it’s become a habit now for Sansa to leave for a fortnight and spend time with her family before she returns to the Others. She’s made it into a habit.

What she hasn’t done is go south of Winterfell.

But that’s the plan now. And Sansa doesn’t know how long she’ll spend in the south- the roads are longer, and more treacherous for one thing- but she’s certain that she’ll enjoy herself. 

…

The Neck is as muggy and humid as Sansa remembers, but with less of the bite of winter. Her automatic flinch when she hears the telltale sound of the portal- a low buzz, like a hive of bees- leaves Sansa slipping through the mud like a wobbly fawn, and she ends up careening through the portal instead of walking through on her own two feet. 

But the other side is a slippery cave and not the forest that Sansa had expected.

Sansa, already off-balance, only comes to a bruised and breathless halt at the bottom of a very precarious pile of rocks. 

“Gods,” she mumbles, then forces herself up to her feet. Grimaces at all the small tears she’ll have to mend along her elbow and knee: these are good furs, and Sansa can’t countenance leaving them behind, no matter that Analysa herself had gifted them to her a decade ago and they’ve gone from a muted dun to ashy dust from a lack of washing. “I’d hoped for a better entrance.”

Thankfully, there’s nobody to see her indignity- when she finally picks her way out of the cave, she finds herself in a quiet forest glade. 

Sansa takes a minute to get her bearings and then goes south. Not much of a forest is south of Gondor, if Boromir’s maps are correct, so she’ll at least generally be heading in the right direction. It still takes her two full days’ trekking to emerge from the forest and find what could even charitably be called a road, but it isn’t as if Sansa hadn’t resigned herself to a fate of long, aimless hikes back in- Hells, Rivendell. 

And it isn’t as if Sansa’s concerned about Sauron having won: if he had, the forests would’ve been kindling and the world wouldn’t have been anywhere near as peaceful. She’s certain of that. Sansa had been very careful not to mention anything of that sort of concern to anyone back in Westeros- their reactions would have ranged from not good all the way up to lock her in a room and throw away the key- but that didn’t meant that she’d remained unprepared. She’d packed all her weapons, and enough supplies for both healing and food to last Sansa alone a decent month, a rationed three months, and a larger band about a week. 

She crests the grassy knoll and sees the white walls of Gondor emerge in the distance like the Winterfell of Westeros. And though it takes her yet another day, she finally ends up in a tavern that doesn’t look like she’ll have to cut throats to leave in the morning.

“For just a night,” she says, tossing the innkeeper a silver coin. “How far are we from Gondor?”

“You mean Minas Tirith?”

“...yes.”

“It’s been a while since I was here,” Sansa tells him. Settles at the table, accepts the bowl of stew he hands over. “I was up north- family things. Took me a while to work my way back.”

“Up north?” He nods to the hilt of Ringil, well-polished and clearly well-loved. “You one of the king’s people?”

“I know him,” Sansa says carefully. “I was closer with- Lord Boromir.”

“Mmm. And yet your coin is not one that I recognize.” 

“It’s silver. Nothing more.”

“It’s King Elessar’s policy,” he says, and has the decency to sound regretful. “We only take coin that he backs, and… I’m sorry to say we don’t have a blacksmith in town to ensure purity.”

“I don’t have any other coin,” Sansa tells him. She doesn’t twitch, but she does straighten. “I’ll leave, if there’s no other coin you’ll accept.”

“There’s no need for that!” He looks alarmed at her abruptness. “Tell you what- are you any good with that sword?”

“I’m decent,” Sansa tells him wryly. 

He nods. “There’s a band of wolves that’ve been hunting cattle near my sister’s farm. You help her out tonight and I’ll let out a room for you so’s you can rest tomorrow.”

Sansa considers it. It’ll delay her by a day, but it isn’t as if she’s in that much of a rush either. And a pack of wolves wouldn’t be too difficult to scare off- it’s the beginning of spring if Sansa’s correct about the weather, which means the wolves are probably just starving and don’t have any taste for human flesh, which really does simplify the entire process.

“You’ll need to take me down to them,” she says. 

Tension she hadn’t realized lined the innkeeper’s shoulders fades away. “Finish your food first,” he tells her. “I’ll get Tommy to take you down there.”

“You’ve my thanks,” Sansa replies, and tucks into the food. 

It’s nice to have hot food after so long of living off the land and the rations of the Others, and the stew is well-made; rich and thick and buttery. These aren’t wartime foods. And if they’re at peace, if they’re all alive…

I can only hope, thinks Sansa. I’m so close. I can only hope that I’m not too late.

…

“There are rumors of wolves in the north,” says Faramir. He’s already wearing his Ranger garb- the spotted cloak, the soft leather boots and well-worn leather belt- and looks impatient to be gone. “One of my Rangers has a cousin who’s an innkeeper. The town’s asking for aid.”

“I can send a platoon,” offers Boromir. 

Faramir shakes his head. “It’s been a while since I stretched my legs. Just wanted to know if you’d be interested in joining?”

Boromir frowns. Glances over at the papers on his desk. “Not this time.”

Faramir shrugs and leaves. It had been Arwen that took him aside after the last council meeting to ask him to get Boromir out of Minas Tirith: So that he stops moping over Theodred’s absence for one day, at the least! 

But if Boromir’s insistent on drowning himself in work instead of dealing with things equably, Faramir’s not going to let innocent villagers pay the price. There will be other opportunities.

…

They finally reach the town- a small one called Green Hollow, or so his lieutenant tells him- as the treetops are getting lit by the rising sun. There’s already a crowd gathered around the inn.

Faramir frowns questioningly at Herion, who shrugs back. Towns like this- at the edges of large cities, offering nothing more than a night’s rest for those too weary to travel further- tend to be quiet by nature, an almost deliberate contrast to Minas Tirith. For half the town to be up before dawn, crowding around the inn…

Before Faramir can call attention to himself, he hears a woman calling out.

“I’m fine- when I said it was a scratch I meant it! Tommy, if you come near me with that leech again, I’ll set it on your face before you can stop me.” A pause, and then, lighter, “You know that I’m capable of it.”

Somebody laughs, and the tension breaks as if someone’s taken a hammer to it. Faramir clears his throat. 

A moment later, the crowd parts as if before Aragorn to reveal a youthful woman. 

She’s very pretty, Faramir notes; but she also has the lean, rangy look of one of the Dunedain, paired with the fair complexion of one of the Rohirrim. Her hair is a blazing fall of scarlet down her back. Though half of it’s come out of her braid and her clothes themselves are a ruin of blood and gore- and she’s injured, a deep gash across shoulder and chest- there’s no hesitation in her face; she looks at him, very hard, and Faramir’s certain that she would take a sword to him if he threatened the townspeople.

“Lord Faramir!” cries one of the others in the crowd, and the woman relaxes at the name. 

“Good people,” says Faramir, dragging his attention away from the woman to nod to the others. “Mardil tells me that you had trouble with wolves. We came as soon as we heard.”

“Ai, Lord, you have our appreciation,” says one of them- the innkeeper, Faramir suspects. “But we called for aid too late, and were too unwary besides!”

“George,” says the woman softly, laying a hand on the innkeeper’s arm. Faramir tenses, but nobody else does. “You can’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known.”

“Known what?” asks Faramir tersely.

“It wasn’t wolves,” says the woman, turning to Faramir. She gets up, and doesn’t seem too bothered by her wound; her balance isn’t altered in the slightest. “They were wargs. George asked me to look after his sister’s farm for the night while you and your men arrived- and it was a good thing indeed, because the wargs were a vanguard for a group of orcs.”

“Orcs,” says Herion faintly. “There haven’t been orcs this close to Minas Tirith in- years.”

“They were hungry,” says the woman, shrugging. “Starving. Not in their prime. Desperation likely led them to such foolishness.”

“Why,” asks Faramir, “was it a good thing?”

The woman smiles. “Because I was there to defend the farm. They would’ve burned it down, you realize? Someone had to do something.”

“So you… did.”

“Wait,” says Herion. “You-”

“Yes,” she says. “That was where the gash across my chest came from, if you were wondering.”

“Who asked you to-”

“-George,” she says calmly. “Because he wanted to know if I was good with the sword, and I told him that I was, because I am. You’ll see the evidence a ways that-a-way if you’d like to confirm it.”

“You need a healer,” says Faramir.

She nods. Then pauses. “In… Minas Tirith?”

“Yes,” says Faramir slowly. “We’d bind the wound now, and then take you to a healer in the city.”

“Ah. And- that’s where- well. You’d know where he is, I’d hope.”

“Where who is?”

“Lord Boromir,” she says, looking startled that he has to ask. “Who else would you think?”

Faramir exchanges an incredulous look with Herion. “You know my brother?”

“Your brother?” She blinks once, then looks staggeringly amused. “Ah. You’re that Faramir.”

“You- who are you?”

She smiles again, and it lights up her face like sunlight off of a thousand spires of ice and stone. 

“Sansa,” she says. “Once upon a time, I was Lord Boromir’s ward. And then I was a queen, for a while, but now I’m just a retired woman with better swordskills than I know what to do with. And I would curtsy for you, but I’m afraid that doing that will worsen what healing my poor body’s managed in the last few hours.”

“Retired,” echoes Herion. 

“You’re that Sansa,” says Faramir. “Boromir- he said that you disappeared in the battle of Pelennor Fields.”

“How is he?”

“Boromir?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” says Faramir, still trying to process the idea that Sansa- Sansa- is back.

If it really is her, that is, but Faramir’s willing to bet quite a lot that it is: the details all match. Boromir wasn’t one to expound on the girl he’d all but adopted for a few months, the girl who’d saved his life and then got him banished from Rohan, but Arwen was, and Aragorn was even more generous with the details when he felt like it, and of course Eowyn had known Sansa as well.

Tall, red-haired girl; eyes like blue skies; a sword of silver and black like starlight and darkness. There’s a horn at her hip that Faramir vaguely remembers as Boromir’s, but it had shattered by all accounts, so this could just be a replica. 

“I came back for him,” Sansa tells him. “I swore, when I left, that I would see them again- Arwen, and Aragorn, and Eowyn- and Boromir, too, of course. There were things to finish in my home. Wars to be fought, treaties to be signed, heirs to be raised- but eventually… eventually things end. And I was free to return.”

“They all missed you,” Faramir replies gently. “And they will be very glad to see you again. Now, come: you must accompany us back.”

She pauses. “There might be other orc packs in the vicinity.”

“I’ll leave some of my men to watch,” he assures her. “But you have gone above and beyond in your tasks, Lady Sansa. Your duties are finished here.”

Sansa takes the compliment in stride. She also lets one of Faramir’s men inspect her wound, providing a better patient than Faramir’s seen in most of his own men, before acquiescing to riding on the horse that Mardil offers her. 

“You seem to have had a busy six years,” says Faramir casually. Wars to be fought, treaties to be signed, heirs to be raised! A lifetime’s worth of activity. 

She laughs. “Ten years,” Sansa corrects him. “Time passes differently in Westeros. And yes: it was very busy. I couldn’t be with my own family for the longest time; I was queen of the people that wanted to kill the Starks, and most of humanity in the bargain. Establishing a treaty that worked for everyone… well, that nearly killed me. And then there was raising the heir.” She shudders. “I was too young for it. For all of it.”

“According to my wife’s stories, you did a fine job of it in Helm’s Deep, no matter what else.”

“Your wife?”

“Eowyn.”

“Ah.” Sansa looks amused again. “Did she tell you that I hated Aragorn when I knew him?”

“Hated,” repeats Faramir.

“A strong word, perhaps,” she demurs. “But- well, I found him irritating, and he certainly found me irritating as well. I could not accept that Arwen would wed him! And there was Boromir, whom I did love so very well, all alone. I was certain that he and Arwen would surely get along.”

Faramir snorts. Even now, Boromir finds it strangely difficult at times to be around Arwen. He’s never been a deft hand at charming highborn women, much less highborn elves.

“Which,” Sansa continues cheerfully, “would have left Aragorn without anyone.”

“A truly disastrous position to be in.”

“What I’m trying to say is that, if you’d asked me ten years ago, I would’ve said that Eowyn would’ve made an excellent queen.”

Faramir laughs aloud, imagining the pairing. Aragorn and Eowyn are very good people, certainly, but too similar for anyone’s comfort. They sulk easily, snap when they’re grumpy, and while they’re both very good at what they do, they’re also exceedingly hot-headed.

Sansa grins back at him. “My thoughts precisely.”

“You raised an heir, you said. I beg of you to tell me that you made a better choice with your own husband.”

“I’m not married.”

Faramir pauses, taken aback.

Sansa waves aside his awkward attempts to apologize. “No, it’s a fair comment. I chose a daughter of one of the Walkers- the people I ruled over- to become the next queen. They needed someone to cherish that wasn’t a human, you know? And Vorale accomplished that very well. We crowned her just a few weeks ago.”

“Vorale? That’s her name?”

She nods. “I had very little time to find someone to wed. But- well, I suppose that as I grew up, I learned how bad I was at matchmaking.”

“Enough that you’d choose not to wed for the rest of your life?”

“Enough that I’d think twice,” says Sansa piously, “and queens that think twice tend to make their suitors think they’re contemplating killing them.”

“They do not!”

“The Walkers can animate the dead to form walking corpses,” Sansa tells him. “And I was their queen. Believe me, I didn’t get that many suitors that weren’t half scared to death already.”

Faramir stares at her. “I see why you get along with Eowyn,” he says finally.

Sansa laughs, and Faramir joins her, and the morning sunlight spills around them like falling gold as they ride south.

…

There’s a ruckus in the central courtyard. Boromir sighs and carefully doesn’t scowl. There have been disturbances for months now, and he understands that Rohan’s warring with easterlings and he understands that Gondor’s pledged aid to Rohan and he understands that a king cannot rule from another kingdom, he understands all of it, but there’s still a part of him that misses Theodred like a missing limb.

They’d sworn when they began all of this that their love for their respective kingdoms comes first. And it does. But Boromir is no youthful captain of the guard any longer; he’s a man grown and settled, a man that wants a family to care for and be cared for in return, and he’s old enough now that he misses-

“Lord Boromir,” says Aragorn.

Boromir jerks out of his thoughts quick enough to leave him dazed. “My King.”

Aragorn’s eyes are bright. “You must accompany me to the courtyard,” he says. “There are- developments- that require your attention.”

“Developments?”

“Yes.”

“On…”

“Things that will interest you.”

Boromir does scowl at him for that, but Aragorn just shrugs remorselessly and waggles his eyebrows. Which means that, while it was phrased as a request, it was certainly not. Aragorn’s the king, and Boromir must respect that.

They head down together. Aragorn is all but vibrating with impatience, which doesn’t make Boromir curious so much as it makes him wary.

And then they’re outside, and Faramir is grinning at him- the lout, hadn’t he had wolves to chase off?- and the sun is shining in his eyes, and Boromir blinks, hard, because surely he’s imagining that-

-that color-

-but no, because he isn’t. 

That’s Sansa, standing before him, older than he’s ever seen her, grown into her height and her beauty, hair as bright as he remembers it, as bright as he’d told himself he’d imagined in the long, bitter months after she disappeared. She’s crying, but she’s smiling as well, fierce, unencumbered joy written across her face. That blasted sword is strapped to her back, and there’s a wound across her chest, vivid blood staining a bandage, and his horn- his horn- is hanging off her hip, and Boromir staggers, presses a hand to his chest, tries to think-

“Sansa,” he whispers.

She throws herself at him. When she’d hugged him, for the first time in that river, soggy and weeping, she’d met his ribs. Now she buries her face in his neck.

“I missed you,” she sniffles. He can feel tears soaking his collar. “I missed you so, so much.”

“As did I,” says Boromir, and draws her away, so he can look at her face again. It’s so similar, and so different at the same time: older, more scarred. Eyes darker. She looks like a sleek, honed elven knife, drained of the clumsiness of childhood. “You’ve grown up,” he says. 

Sansa laughs wetly. “And you’ve grown old.”

Someone chokes behind them, but Boromir cannot be bothered to look away. “Are you here to stay?”

“Not forever,” she says. “But- for a time. I’m giving my heir time enough to rule outside of my influence.”

“You have a child?”

“Adopted.” She shrugs. “I got the idea from you.” Sansa looks away for a moment. “Though I must say that she causes more grief to me than I ever did to you.”

“Impossible,” declares Boromir loudly. “I have never met anyone more likely to incite treason and rebellion than you!”

“I learned it from the best,” says Sansa, eyes shining. 

“Not from me!”

“But from those that you love,” she counters. “From the family that I found here, in Middle-Earth.”

Boromir pauses. It’s an old refrain, one that he keeps telling himself- keeps reminding himself-

“I am not your father.”

“No?” asks Sansa gently. “You chose me. And I chose you.”

“Your father is dead-”

“And he is not the only father I can ever have. I mourned him when I lost him, and I mourned you when I left you.”

“Sansa,” says Boromir helplessly.

“You are not free of me yet,” Sansa tells him, and leans forward, and kisses him on the forehead: like a benediction, like a promise, like a kindness. 

Boromir finally looks around. They are all here in the courtyard: brought together by their love for Sansa: Arwen, who taught her how to stand tall even in darkness, and Aragorn, who taught her how to remain implacable even in the face of defeat, and Eowyn, who taught her how to fight for her desires even in the face of ignorance, and Boromir himself, who taught her how to be strong even unto the utmost weakness.

And Sansa herself, of course. 

Sansa, who taught them what it was to burn so bright it put the stars to shame. 

“I,” says Boromir, and laughs a little, helpless with joy, stupid with the surfeit of joy, “have no desire to be free, believe me.”

“Father, then,” says Sansa, biting her lip.

Boromir tightens his arms around her. “Daughter,” he agrees.