Work Text:
For the first year after she is rescued from the flames, Shireen fears Sansa will change.
Sansa is kind, as kind as one wrought in winter can be, but she does not shelter Shireen from what life in the North is now, nor does she shelter Shireen from winter’s chill. She does shelter Shireen from those who Shireen does not wish to see, like the soldiers Shireen knows she should not blame but does in the deepest parts of her heart.
“There are those among the Kingsguard I would not see again,” Sansa says to the unasked question, one day when Shireen has spent the entire day in Winterfell’s rebuilt library.
Shireen has seen the scars on Sansa and does not need to ask why. It is enough to cling to this understanding, unspoken as it may be between them. It is enough to hope that this time will be different, that this safety won’t be swept away in the tides of those who seek to rule.
The Dragon Queen comes eventually.
Sansa offers Shireen a choice, and Shireen does not hide. Cannot hide, when she is so curious about this woman her uncle had so hated, and her father had let escape as a baby, according to the rumors and her uncle’s drunken accusations.
Shireen does not think her father had actually chosen to do so, but perhaps he had. That was before the loss of three other children and Storm’s End had pressed upon her father, though his choices still had been-
Shireen does not let herself fall into thoughts of Ser Davos’ fingers, now, when her father’s other choices are still written in the memory of the screams before she had been rescued from the flames.
It is too late for those thoughts, when Daenerys is before them, and Sansa stands before Shireen, cloak almost hiding her from view.
“Shireen will not be forced to look upon your dragons’ flames,” Sansa says firmly, eyes fixed on Daenerys.
It is clear that Daenerys does not know from the way Jon and Ser Davos look at one another, and how Daenerys turns to them as though waiting for an explanation.
Shireen does not hear the explanation, for Sansa grabs her arm and drags her from the room and the others, guiding her towards the safety of the inner walls. But Daenerys comes later that evening to visit, Ser Davos following her and Sansa scowling behind the both of them.
Daenerys is less and more than Shireen had expected and feared. She is not the mad queen of rumor, ready to blindly destroy all in her path (and Shireen knows that now she is very much in Daenerys’ path according to Daenerys’ supporters, even if the few Baratheon loyalists left look to Shireen’s bastard cousins and not Shireen as Robert and Stannis’ heir). Shireen is glad for that, for Shireen does not think she could take death coming once more to her on wings of fire.
Daenerys is kinder than expected, and dodges the questions Shireen does not ask of R’hllor and Essos. Shireen avoids too the questions of the Baratheon lands and who will inherit them. She does answer Daenerys’ questions of Dragonstone, especially when Daenerys asks questions of what it was like to grow up there, a look in her eyes as though she has wishes and dreams from her own past.
Neither of them speak of fathers to the other. Shireen does not know what Daenerys has been told about Aerys, and it seems best to not broach the subject.
Daenerys has been told everything about Shireen’s parents and the fire, she suspects. If she has not, she has been told everything publicly known, and what she does not know is Ser Davos’ private thoughts and Sansa’s knowledge from the nights spent beside Shireen’s bed comforting her as she cries. Shireen would prefer Daenerys not to know all, but does not dare hope for it.
The others leave eventually. Daenerys first, the handmaiden Shireen realizes she still has not learned the name of meeting her at the door and following her down the hallways, the two falling into quiet conversation in a language Shireen cannot speak. Ser Davos next, though he leaves only when Shireen reaches for his hand and holds it for a moment, the unspoken grief they both share lingering between them for a moment. Sansa last, as though this room is the entirety of the North, and she will not leave the lands of her family again.
Finally, though, Sansa sighs, picking up Shireen’s hand in hers.
“The White Walkers come. I cannot spare you the sight of fire entirely, but I will try,” Sansa begins.
Shireen does not want to see fire.
Shireen wants to see the lands that are slowly becoming a home destroyed even less, and fire is among the only things that can stop them.
“No,” she says, lifting her eyes to meet Sansa’s as she hopes Sansa cannot hear the quiver in her voice. “Do not consider me. What must be done must.”
Sansa does not completely listen, of course, and Shireen is unsurprised to find herself among the first in the crypt. It does not keep Shireen from seeing the White Walkers or the flames, not when the fires seem to engulf all of Winterfell, but it does help her keep from panicking as they do.
And then it is over. This battle, at least, and Shireen stands beside Sansa and bids the others to return once the next battle is over when they leave to fight again.
Sansa is nervous, Shireen knows, though she does not show it until finally the news comes that those she had most feared losing are still safe. Sansa collapses then, a sudden breaking of tension like the cracking ice in a stream when spring comes. Shireen can only laugh and cry in happiness and disbelief.
There is a letter on Shireen’s desk when she returns to her own room, with news of the south from the queen. Shireen looks to her window instead of picking up the letter.
Sansa is in the courtyard.
The war with the dead is over. The war with the living is over as well, and Sansa has not changed in the ways Shireen had feared, has not fallen into desperation and sacrifice.
Shireen takes a breath, and picks up the letter. It is time to decide what she will do.