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A song drifted in,
"My featherbed is deep and soft and there I’ll lay you down,
I’ll dress you all in yellow silk and on your head a crown.
For you shall be my lady love and I shall be your lord."
When it stopped Sansa licked her lips and stared at the mist at her feet. Scratching at her arm she dared to look up and stood in front of the tree. Watching, it was watching her while she looked at it. It didn't have a face, it was just a tree. A groan came from the ground, and her mouth fell open as its bark began to twitch, and a mouth began to form. The bark separated and tugged back with the same ear splitting cracking, and then its cheeks formed into the worn face of an elder. Full of wrinkles and lines, perhaps on a man or an old woman the face would've been friendly, but on the mighty god tree it looked too hard, too stern, too alive. She could feel it in her breast she had to make sure, she had to touch it. Creeping closer she stretched her hand up to its lips. That one moment stretched as she stretched her fingers out, sweat forming near her eyes, she didn't want to walk closer, but she had to-her fingertip brushed its lips and its eyes shot open. They were an evil and a dark bloody red, no—dark like her father's eyes. The old gods looking into her horrible soul, and so many voices called out from the gnarled tree at once.
She could her Father's, her Mother's, Robb's, Bran, Rickon, and dear sweet Arya all screaming together as the branches reached and tore at her clothes. "Sansa, Sansa! Traitor! Kinslayer! Murderer! Whore!“ She kept turning to see them, all of them screaming at her at once. "Traitor! Traitor! Whore!" She saw Robb's head roll from the shadows covered in blood and stare into her eyes, his eyes were a pale blue, and his direwolf was walking and bumping into things without any head at all. Her mother jerked her down by her shoulders, over the mossy log and her father's body walked without its head from behind the shadow of the god tree. She screamed at the red of her hair crowning around her and covering her face as the sword swung down.
Sansa jerked up and stifled her scream with both of her hands. She shuddered and looked around her bedroom. No one was there. Cold and stinking sweat sticking to her body the salty air thick and choking seemed to pull her down as she flung back the covers and flew from the bed. She retched violently into her basin, until all she felt was water leaving her mouth. She listened to the ocean pressing the heel of her hand into her chest over her heart.
The ocean was low, but less of a sound and more of a thick blanket of noise than anything else. The water came up, and went down; with the slosh of wet and clink of pebbles it came up and went down. The ocean and all its glory was everywhere, on the shelves in cups, on floor in bowls. Everything had a seashell, pebble or little fish etched onto it.
'I'm not a traitor Arya. I'm not! I don't have a choice.' Sansa picked up the sponge in her basin and watched it release the water as she smushed it. The sun was coming up and when the sun rose in east the golden lion pendulum on the gates of Casterly Rock cast gold onto everything. Even in the dark caverns underneath its feet the gold reigned, the crowning glory, the pendulum has swung every morning to clear the debris that floated in in the night so ships could come easily into harbor.
Rinsing her mouth, she sat in front of her mirror and stared off out the window. She was a Stark not a Lannister, not a Lannister. She didn't want a Lannister baby; she looked at the waves again and sobbed.
