Chapter Text
The cold still bites, but tenderly. It has eased into the soft form of her oldest friend. Winters in Winterfell have always been sharp, have always been demanding, but it is in that insistence that the Northerners grow unyielding.
In the half-dark of her bedchambers, with the last embers of a crackling fire, Sansa Stark can almost imagine she has slipped down the river of time into some greener, plainer winter.
She closes her eyes and lets the sound of the lashing wind fill her completely. She welcomes the force and its loving arms with such starling affection that it almost cracks her ribs at the expanse of it.
The door creaks open and she does not need to turn to know who it is. She has not expected it, but the idea has been simmering in her mind since the beginning of the end and has not vanished in the interim.
She hums softly to greet Tyrion, who is in love with her, but spares him only a glance. He is as familiar as the old winter of her childhood, his presence as demanding as the wind outside the keep – muted but echoing deep within you. Unmistakable for anything else.
If they were different people, she would make an effort to find some wine. She would brave the cellars – the crypts of the new age – and allow herself to indulge. But Tyrion, who is in love with her, seems to know not to ask, and she, who holds no one's respect the moment the light reveals her as human, does not allow herself lowered inhibitions.
She does allow herself to reminisce, on the other hand. In the rare moments when there is no one to judge but herself, in the safety of her mind, she wonders. Some may call it daydreaming. Some may call it regret. To her, it’s strategizing for moments of future weakness.
The lone wolf dies, but in her mind, in her memories, she is always surrounded by people. She is never alone.
And right now, her lonesome is broken even in the waking world. Tyrion, who is in love with her, moved away from the door – quietly shut – but still stands at a safe distance. Sansa wishes she could ask if he really sees her as a wolf, if he really thinks her dangerous. A less-than-rational part of her mind says that the answer has no value at all since it does not make a difference.
Tyrion, who is in love with her, thinks they should have stayed married.
Imagining it is achingly easy. She sees the treacherous hallways of King’s Landing, Tyrion’s room that might have become a haven, the quiet death of the war.
She can just as easily picture Joffrey’s agonisingly slow death – revel in it, even though he did not die by her hand, and she was never as desiring of assassinations as her sister seemed to be – and Petyr spiriting her away. She remembers the boat, the Eyre, the false southern snow.
A thought away is the man who would be her husband. The man whose association would have made her less of a Tully and more of a Lannister. The man who might have proven his innocence if the die was cast slightly to the left. The man who might have stayed on their shores.
The man who might have sent men to get her back. Away from Petyr, away from Winterfell once more she would be brought. Back to King’s Landing, or maybe to Casterly Rock if the gods were so merciful to give her child. The only thing that would have kept her safe. The only thing that would have given her peace.
It sounds like a sad faith for all that Tyrion, who is in love with her, was the best of them. For all that neither of the two of them wanted a marriage.
Still, a single glance is enough to convince herself she could have fallen in love with him somewhere between their wedding and Daenerys’s arrival. Somewhere between one death and another. And that is how it would end, she is certain: with fire and blood and a queen who never stepped foot in Westeros before she demanded it falls on its knees.
What a way that would have been to die though – to be burnt alive. Legendary – the tale as old as time – on the surface, and painful – slow and excruciating – deep at its core. And all because had they stayed married, the Dragon Queen would be a Hand short.
Sansa unravels the threads of stories like bad embroidery, sinks into the illusion of choice. She can foresee every stitch of this alternate history, as bold and as true as any.
But gleaming more than any other is a change she would have liked killing Petyr herself to see immortalised. Because if she and Tyrion, who is in love with her, had stayed married she would never have stepped foot in any vicinity of dying northern lands. She would never have been sold a second time. She would never have been a lousy bride fit for a legitimised bastard.
She would never have gotten to know him – whose name she doesn't speak not because she is frightened of him, but because she believes he does not deserve such invocations; there are enough tongues, living and dead, that whisper his legacy, and hers will not be one of them - in anything other than vague rumours from a place that would have eventually ceased to be her home.
“What wonderful weather we are given after having saved the world.” Tyrion, who is in love with her, always seems so harsh, so tired, and even now with his words as soft as cotton, she can still hear the echo of weariness he cloaks himself with against everyone else.
“It is,” Sansa murmurs, not really to agree with his complaint, but not really to oppose him either – even though she is sure he would see it as opposition, as he does with all things. They’re the same in that regard.
“I never was particularly fond of the wind, but I suppose it is useful for getting rid of the ash.”
“The wind has always meant cleansing.”
Sansa walks to the window and presses her hand to the freezing glass. It trembles under her touch.
“Sometimes all I wish is to throw a comb or a goblet at this and let it take away everything undesirable with it.” She does not mention that most of herself is included in that category. She does not mention that she sometimes wishes to be pulled away, somewhere far and cold and unhabitable and torn to pieces to be used in something more valuable.
Sometimes between the heaps of snow the Eyre was graced with, she would stand next to an open window and imagine a wonderful northern wind grabbing at her and pulling away every part that made her less than perfect. She cannot remember if she wished to be more like Sansa Stark or a truer Alayane Stone, but either way, the intention was the same.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then opening them to face the wind with all its cruel love feels like opening yourself up to the judgements of the gods.
“And here I was of the belief that things most often thought to be undesirable are actually those most pleasurable: food, drink, beautiful women… though I suppose one may argue the latter is more unattainable than anything else. At least to most.” He clears his throat. “Ah, desired by all, had by none – what a faith that must be… Perhaps loving such women is the part people count as undesirable.”
Tyrion, who is in love with her, pauses. Sansa doesn’t turn. She takes away her hand from the glass and her fingers curl against her palm on instinct. The cold has spread all over and she can almost imagine how hot any human touch would feel against her fingertips.
Tyrion, who is in love with her, takes a single audible shaky breath and then adds, “And yet here I am, unable to stop it.”
“You’ve been a heavy drinker since I’ve known you.”
“And before that time as well, dear Sansa, though you’ve labelled me a pervert as well if I remember correctly.” Sansa can hear the smile in his voice. “Even though I wasn’t talking about the drinking.”
I know, she says in her head and in her head only. She knows. She knows what he has implied, but whatever faults Tyrion, who is in love with her, finds within himself it is not her place nor her responsibility to acknowledge them.
Tyrion, who is in love with her, stays silent for a moment and then mutters, as if in an after-though, “After all we’ve done, I believe we can do whatever we wish… no matter how undesirable people less heroic find it.”
It is clear to Sansa that this is his idea of lightening the mood. If she were anyone else, she would giggle politely, agree, and pretend to be part of a wall for the rest of the evening. But Tyrion, who is in love with her, came to her bedchambers of his own volition so he should not expect her to be anyone else than she is.
“Some people do,” she says instead with the smallest of shrugs. Her mother would scold her for such unladylike behaviour. But these are her bedchambers. And she is not a lady. And her mother has been dead for a long time.
“I dare say that if anyone does it is you, my lady,” Tyrion, who is in love with her, responds, and it makes Sansa’s heart hasten as she cannot hear a single grain of hesitation in his voice.
“You might be the single person most deserving of enjoying things – undesirable or otherwise,” he continues, “of any pleasure and love and peace and happiness that you can imagine wanting.”
Sansa bites her lip to keep from speaking. It is a habit she had to break many times over the years. A maiden’s lips should be soft as a rose petal, and just as pink. The colour of blood is quite too dark for such an effect. Sometimes she’d imagine biting the whole thing off – one clean bite and she’d be done with it.
She’d be ugly, but it would be nothing she wouldn’t be able to survive. She wonders whether it would bring her freedom, if she was no longer the fairest of them all, or whether it would only make her more valuable. What a little bird she is – look how she has disfigured herself, she can imagine them saying. But in the end, she knows none of them would care what her face looks like. It is just like Cersei had said – her best weapon is between her legs. Always has been, always will be.
And what heaps of proof of that there are – they’ve lost the North to that power, haven’t they?
Tyrion, who is in love with her, moves around the room lighting candles. She almost stops him – they are a precious thing, especially now, especially when they are not certain when the sun will turn spring-like once again. But he looks so uncertain – in his slow procession around a space that has never been anyone but hers – that she lets him be; the hearth has almost lost all fire anyway and she would not want to them to be left in the dark.
When he’s done, he turns to her and she cannot help but stare at his face. She cannot tell what he is thinking. She can hardly tell what she is.
Maybe that is why she is able to speak. Maybe it is the candles. Maybe it is the howling of the wind behind her. Maybe it is just the fact that they are alive. Or maybe it is because Tyrion, who is in love with her, thought that they should have stayed married.
“I’m wretched,” she whispers, and it echoes like thunder. “My wants make me wretched.”
Tyrion’s face falls. He opens his mouth to speak and yet says nothing. Sansa does not know whether she wants him to say anything at all or remain silent and pretend she hasn’t said a word. Before she can decide he takes a step towards her.
“Sansa, you are the most wonderful person that I’ve ever met; cleverest, bravest –”
“I wanted to be queen,” she admits, cutting him off, cutting the air, cutting the peace that has been gathering in this room up to this moment.
It leaves her mouth and her throat burns at the mere existence of the words. She shivers – Cersei is leaning over her shoulder, Petyr holding her hand. She glances towards the window, towards the uncertain morning of a bright new day, and tries to make herself believe she is not a bad person. And fails.
It is simple when it’s all laid out, as the cruellest truths often are, and it flashes in her mind like a beacon – a burning pyre screaming to be looked at. When all is said and done, when she finds respite in her bedchambers and allows herself to think of things usually buried deep within her – for the fear of accidentally pulling their threads to snare people she still cares about is an ever-present ghost in her chest – she knows that she resents Jon for being Jon. And she knows it is not fair.
It is not fair nor kind to think about a man she loves like a brother still – despite, despite – and wish for him to leave and never return, to pay for things he believed were right and she knows were selfish, at least in some respects.
The time of fairness, the time of kindness, has long since passed though, and frankly, her skin is too rigid and too hard to allow such notions anymore.
There is no fairness and no kindness left in the North, in Winterfell, in the Starks. And for all Jon is her brother, the moment he sacrificed their independence to a woman as revelled as the false gods, he renounced their name too. Jon Snow. Jon Snow who might have become Jon Stark in some other world, in kinder, fairer times. Jon Snow who sold their freedom to a foreigner.
Sansa Stark – who in some other world might have stayed Sansa Lannister or Sansa Bolton or Alyanne, or might have become Sansa Baelish – looks on to the scorched ice-land in the courtyard, and thinks about choices. Thinks about sacrifices. Thinks about things thought to be right.
Family, duty, honour, her mother used to whisper. Winter is coming, preached her father. Fire and blood, her half-brother turned cousin never once uttered, even though it has always been his right; it has never been his way – even though things might have turned out different, turned out better, if it had been.
Hear me roar, her first husband would mockingly throw around, but the two of them – Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark – they’ve always been more for the quiet moves. The game was the game no matter how one played it.
Her desire for the throne is not in any way similar to that of Queen Daenerys. She cannot help but respect the woman – for all their differences, for all the divided loyalties she’s caused – but Sansa will never understand her. She will never understand her desire for power. Pure. Unadulterated. People who made Sansa who she was, thirsted for it. But hers were different tastes.
She remembers Jon’s crowning. She did not resent him then. She worried. She schemed in her head. She planned. Prodded at the plots. She conspired to keep their home alive if not prosperous. And is that not honourable? Is that not her duty?
No one can claim that the man known best as Jon Snow was not a good man.
But good men make for bad rulers.
Jon Snow, her cousin, her brother – he loved the North. He loved Winterfell.
But love, for her, was as real as the monsters they fought before the dawn cracked over the horizon. Once out of sight, banished by the first morning light, love bled back into the realm of Old Nan’s stories. And now, here, with the taste of blood still on her tongue, and the smell of ash permanently stuck to her skin – things more real than anything else within her vicinity – the time for fairy tales was over.
In a way, it has been over for a long, long time.
She loved her sister. She loved her brother. She loved the people who look at her and see a girl who vanished into the throws of history the moment her father’s head rolled down the steps of a great, supposedly sacred place.
She loves them. But they are legends come to life. Heroes of old, free to love and adventure and grieve and love some more.
Compared to them she is just Sansa – a bit taller, a bit more grown up, Sansa who has been through things she doesn’t speak of, the oldest daughter of Ned Stark who seems a touch too jagged, a pinch too cold. She knows Jon trusts her. She knows he knows she has changed. But deep within his eyes lies the belief that if she breathes peace for long enough she will soften back up, she will dream in poems once more.
Neither of them has said it out loud, but she knows there between her and Arya a silent agreement is stretched: Jon was the kindest of them all. Jon was the softest. Jon was the one most human.
He would never understand then – even though Arya might, and Tyrion, who is in love with her, surely does – that after all the bleeding, asking for queenship is like asking for snow in Winterfell.
It should be hers. It is hers.
Who better to handle the throne of the North than she? Jon might have died for the things he thought right, but Sansa lived for the things she knew were her duty.
She gazes at the window one last time, the land of burned monsters, and stares at her reflection – a smudge in the distance. Flaming hair. Blank stare. Cold heart.
Aren’t all rulers meant to be monsters anyway?
“You deserve to be queen if you so wish,” Tyrion, who is in love with her, says. Sansa does not startle. “Even though I would have wished you a more merciful faith.”
"The world has no mercy left for me." She looks at him. "This is all the mercy the gods were willing to give me."
And for all that gods are gods because they have no mercy in the eyes of some, she can feel the heat of the dying fire in the hearth and not think of dragons, she can see her feather bed, clean and undisturbed just a step away, she can hear the breathing of Tyrion, who is in love with her, next to her, close enough to touch, and that is enough for faith to stay in her heart.
Once, a very long time ago, she pretended faith was all she had and they had laughed at the silly little bird in the gardens, running away from real life. Now, in the bedchambers that finally feel like home again, she thinks faith – faith that this will last, this peace, this quiet, this moment suspended in time – really is all she has. Faith and the scars and all the thoughts that once were not hers, but have since caught root too deeply within her.
She turns fully face to Tyrion, who is in love with her, and feels like praying.
"You deserve the whole world," he whispers. She aches, tries to laugh, tries not to cry.
"You're awfully generous tonight, my lord; you should not promise things that are not yours to give."
"I led a battle once to retain what was ours –"
"And you would again to acquire what is not?"
"In your honour, yes."
"In your queen's honour more like."
And Tyrion, who is in love with her, does not speak a word.
She allows him the silence, allows it to fester, allows it to imply things she cannot hope to believe, much less speak of. Instead, she tilts her chin up and looks away. Instead, she pretends not to hear, and hates herself for it, even as Petyr pats her on the back.
“Careful, my lord, what you speak of is not unlike treason. And the price of treason, I hear, is fire. Fire and blood."
Tyrion, who is in love with her, sighs. "What I speak of – Sansa, you know what I speak of is –"
"Tyrion."
Their eyes meet, pleading from both sides, for the same things, for things wholly different.
“Your Grace.”
Her breath hitches. She swiftly turns away from him.
"Do not call me that, Tyrion! Do not call me that while we both know you are bound to leave to kneel at the feet of another queen,” she hisses with malice, that is not hers, and pain, that is. “I do not blame you for it. You have made your choice. She has a crown. And a throne. And a dragon. And she is a queen who has chosen you as her Hand and that is a choice that I cannot find a fault in.”
Having fuelled her hurt into fury, she turns back, and her eyes meet his, unwavering.
“But do not mock me for desiring to protect my land and my people after all the bleeding I've done for it. You and I both know, my lord, that my people and myself should have been ash on the ground long before the white walkers came to Winterfell. I am not my cousin. I will not spread my legs to Daenerys Targaryen. I am not Queen in the North."
Tyrion, who is in love with her, kneels down and stays kneeling.