Chapter Text
Sansa is running in the snow.
It is dark, only the moon and a few stars light her way. She doesn't need light to guide her, though. What guides her is the howling of the wolves, the call of her family. They are waiting for her.
Her four paws barely touch the ground, her muzzle is raised to the inky sky. Her heart speeds up. They are not far away.
The red she-wolf gives a long cry that tears the silence of the peaceful night. Only a few more steps and she will finally find them, after all this time. The snow melts under her paws. Summer is coming back. She enters a small clearing.
A huge wolf licks the ears of a smaller wolf while watching the two smallest cubs in the litter. The biggest one watches a small, agile wolf squabbling with a white wolf.
Everyone turns to her. Sansa lets out another howl, this time it's a cry of relief.
They are finally together.
.
When the day breaks and Sansa opens her eyes, a few tears run down her cheeks.
It was only a dream.
.
(It's strange. When she dreams about her parents, her family, it's almost always in the form of wolves. As if their faces were beginning to fade. As if there will soon be nothing left.)
.
The days at Winterfell are one and the same. The North is trying to recover from the Long Night, to heal its wounds - slowly, very slowly. Everyone savors the luck of being alive, they try to smile, to laugh, sometimes. That's what Sansa does. On the surface, at least.
Inwardly, the red wolf is howling.
(What is happening in King's Landing? Has the battle already taken place? Is Cersei Lannister dead? Has Daenerys seized the Iron Throne? What's going on? What's going on?)
Then Sansa runs to find Bran, sits down in front of him, looks into his eyes and watches him go far, far away from Winterfell.
Her answer is always the same.
"Not yet."
She clenches her fists, takes a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm the frantic beating of her heart.
(It never works, of course.)
.
Sansa hears Brienne crying, sometimes. She isolates herself in her bedroom or in an another empty room and lets a few tears fall before quickly wiping them away and pretending that everything is fine, that her heart is not in pieces.
One morning, Sansa finds her alone in the armory. Brienne is startled and lowers her head, like a child caught in the act. Sansa slides against the wall and offers her silent support.
(She hates Jaime Lannister, curses him. Are lions destined to destroy everything in their path?)
"Forgive me, my lady," Brienne says, her eyes still downcast, as if ashamed to be so weak, as if she hates herself for it.
(There's no shame in being heartbroken; Sansa knows something about that.)
"Would you like to talk about it?" she asks in a soft voice.
Never has Jaime's name been spoken since he slipped away into the shadows of the night. The morning after he left, Sansa simply found Brienne alone in the courtyard, her eyes blank. She always trained with Jaime in the morning.
Sansa understood right away. The sad thing about this is that she wasn't even surprised.
Brienne shrugs her shoulders.
"I don't want to bother you with this, my lady. You are quite busy enough. I-"
"You do not bother me, Brienne," she cuts her off. "You never bother me. I promise you that."
She nods softly, runs her fingers over Oathkeeper's blade. A gift from Jaime, Sansa thinks. A constant reminder of his betrayal.
"Do you think he'll make it?" she finally asks.
Sansa doesn't know what to say. Is Jaime foolish enough to think he'll have a chance to escape the Dragon Queen's wrath? She forgave him once. She won't do it again.
Is he naive enough to think he'll manage to escape with Cersei?
(Why did he go back to his monstrous sister? Why did he give up the love of an honorable woman, why did he abandon her without hesitation to return to poison?)
"I don't know," Sansa answers honestly.
That's the worst part. Not knowing. Waiting.
Sansa reaches out, grabs Brienne's hand and squeezes it gently.
.
(Where is Jon? Where is Arya? She feels bad, her pack is in danger and she can't do anything to help).
.
Sansa likes to take refuge in the Godswood. She finds herself praying again sometimes, even though she said she would never pray again.
(When have the gods answered her prayers? She doesn't think it's happened yet, but she prays anyway, prays for Jon, for Arya, for her wolf pack).
The snow soothes her. Snow is ice, peace, solitude, serenity. Snow is her mother's smile, her father's eyes, Robb's strength, Jon's kindness, Arya's determination. Snow is Bran's agility, Rickon's innocence. Snow is Winterfell, the home she should never have left. The home she must protect.
(Protect from what? The army of the dead has been defeated, the night is over. Sansa knows it's not over, though. Fire and ice are not meant to be together.)
She thinks of Daenerys. The mother of dragons. The Unburnt. Her future queen - if all goes well. She can't stop thinking about Aerys, about what happened to Brandon and Rickard Stark, about the bloody legacy the Fire Queen brought with her.
Maybe it's unfair to distrust her so much. Maybe she should stop looking back, and try to believe her promises and her fine words - a free world, a fair world, a world without tyrants, without slaves.
Maybe.
She would like to believe it, really. She would like it to be the end of the war, she would like peace to return, she who has suffered so much, lost so much.
She would like to trust her.
(And then she remembers the fire, the one her dragon spits out, the one that shines in her eyes and she remembers that fire is the enemy of ice, they are not meant to be together, not meant to get along).
Then Sansa gets up and goes back to the castle to seek refuge.
(Victory, defeat, victory, defeat - she doesn't know what exactly she's praying for anymore.)
.
(Cersei, Daenerys, Cersei, Daenerys - she doesn't know which queen she wants on the Iron Throne.)
.
Sansa is running through the streets of King's Landing. She has only two legs this time, not four - the red she-wolf is back in human form.
She is running from something, something burning, powerful, devastating.
Fire.
She is not fast enough, she knows it, it will eventually catch her, consume her, what can ice do against such an inferno? The ice melts, the ice cannot hope to prevail. Sansa is out of breath. When she no longer has the strength to run, when she collapses, her legs shaking, when she feels like her heart is going to explode, that's when they come - the ghosts. She no longer knows the difference between the ones she's trying to escape and the ones she'd like to find.
Jorah Mormont and Jon chat like old friends. Jaime walks away from Brienne after putting a hand on her stomach. Daenerys, followed by two silver-haired children, runs after Cersei but she takes Tyrion's hand and runs away with him. The Unsullied chase Arya but she grabs Needle and starts fighting them.
The ghosts disappear, engulfed in fire.
"Burn them all!"
The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Sansa does not try to get up. It's no use. The wolves have lost, the ice has lost. The dragon cannot be stopped.
Just as the fire is about to consume her, Sansa wakes up screaming.
.
(It was a nightmare, nothing but a nightmare, so why does Sansa feel like it was real, that the dragon burned King's Landing to the ground?)
.
It wasn't just a feeling, after all.
Bran's words are hotter than the fire that turned her dream into a nightmare.
"The battle is over," he said in an emotionless voice. "Daenerys Targaryen has prevailed."
Sansa waits for him to continue. Her hands are shaking.
"The bells rang to announce the surrender, but Daenerys did not listen. She burned the city to the ground."
Sansa has only one desire, to run to the Godswood and forget those words that taste like ashes, those words she dreaded, those words she expected.
(She is horrified, she is dismayed, she is angry, but she is not surprised - and she wishes she were, really. She wishes she hadn't seen the coming storm, wished she could be like Jon, like Tyrion. She wishes she could be ignorant.)
"Almost all the inhabitants were killed."
"Jon? " Sansa immediately asks. "Arya?"
"They're alive."
Sansa puts her hand on her chest, wipes away the tears at the corners of her eyes, she was scared, so scared.
The wolves are alive. Her pack is safe.
"Jorah Mormont and Davos Seaworth made it out, too."
Brienne, who is at her side, purses her lips, Sansa can easily guess the name she is burning to say.
"And Tyrion?"
She thinks of her former husband, the one who looked at Daenerys with stars in his eyes, the one who went to war against his own sister for her.
(Love makes you blind.)
"I don't see him," Bran replies.
"What do you mean? You mean he's dead?"
"I don't see him," he repeats without clarifying.
(That's impossible, right? Tyrion can't be dead. Not like this, not already. He can't be dead burned by the same fire he used to worship, cherish. It's impossible.)
Brienne can't take it anymore, her broken heart overriding her reluctance.
"What about Jaime and Cersei?"
Sansa is a little surprised that she doesn't disassociate the twins' fate, it's really sad, it's accepting that Jaime left her for Cersei, it's hoping that they both made it through, it's wishing that he lives, even if not with her.
(Brienne is willing to accept that Jaime lives, even if it's away from her. Cersei would rather have seen him dead than in the arms of another woman - how could Jaime choose her?)
"I don't see them."
Brienne frowns, this is not the answer she expected, and Sansa didn't either. Why isn't Bran being more specific? Is he refusing to tell them about Jaime and Tyrion's death to keep them from being hurt?
(That's what Bran Stark would have done, but Bran Stark isn't really around anymore. The Three-Eyed Raven certainly doesn't care about their broken hearts.)
Sansa nods slowly and turns away.
When she finds herself out of the room, Sansa leans against the door, clutches her head in her hands, and begins to cry.
Tears of relief because Jon and Arya are alive.
Tears of sadness because all those innocent people died in agony.
Tears of rage because she knew it would happen and did nothing to stop it.
.
(She knew that her worst nightmare would come true, she knew that dragons cannot be trusted, they always end up destroying everything.)
.
When the night comes, Sansa can't sleep. Only one question haunts her mind.
What now?
Tired of tossing and turning in her bed, she gets up and walks down the dark corridors.
What now?
Daenerys has gotten what she came to Westeros for, what she wanted, the dream of her life. Her destiny.
The Iron Throne.
Will she decide to burn the rest of the realm in her madness? Will she fly to Winterfell, will she burn her home to the ground in revenge? Will she go after Jon and Arya?
"Lady Sansa?"
She gasps. Brienne's voice abruptly pulls her out of her thoughts.
"You can't sleep either?" Sansa asks.
"No."
"Would you like to walk with me for a bit?"
"It would be my pleasure. "
They start walking again in uncomfortable silence. How do you put words to such horrors? How do you talk about the massacre without being haunted by images of fire and ashes?
"I loved the castle at night, when I was a child. Everything was quiet, peaceful. The wolves were out at night. I felt like nothing bad could happen to me."
That was before her life began to crumble around her, of course. Before King's Landing. Before Ramsay. Before the night meant pain and despair.
"Everything is going to change, isn't it? " Sansa whispers, her voice breaking a little.
A new era is coming, a new day is dawning. Daenerys Targaryen will become Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, for better and, Sansa is convinced, mostly for worse. How to protect her home? How to protect her pack from the dragon's fire?
"Yes," Brienne confirms. "Everything is going to change."
They both step out into the courtyard and look up to the sky.
When the sun rises, nothing will seem to change. Not the white snow covering the North, not the trees of the Godswood, not Winterfell - her home.
It will only be an illusion, of course. It will go up in smoke as quickly as King's Landing.
"I won't let her destroy everything," Sansa said in a determined voice. "I will protect my family, I will protect the North. I will protect my home."
Brienne smiled sadly. A mournful smile.
"I will stand with you, my lady."
This time, it is she who gently squeezes her hand.
Sansa closes her eyes and savors these last few moments of peace before they belong to the past.