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Ghost
There is only so much wayward fur a person can withstand on their clothes, on their beds, on their everything before actions must be taken.
In the end, Sansa lasts almost two entire days of shedding. Either Ghost gets brushed or he and Jon move out of the keep. It isn’t really a choice.
Ghost would never let the kennel keepers touch him, and Jon has already proven that he is not fit to the task. It falls to Sansa then to corral the direwolf into an empty room - her own bedroom, she is already mourning her bed covers - and trick him into sitting down for a good brushing.
She already has a basket ready next to her chair to try and keep as much of the shedding contained as she can. Ghost sits in front of her almost instantly, drawn in by the perceived promise of pets. She indulges him, her hand burying itself in the deep fur of his neck, but it doesn’t last long, the cloud of white hair rising in the hair with every movement a strong reminder that she has a task.
She grimaces as she shakes out her hand in the basket, her containment plan already halfway thwarted. She grips the brush Serah collected from the kennel earlier in the day and sets off to actually relieve Ghost of his shedding fur.
There’s a lot of wolf.
Direwolves are huge, that is a known fact, but Ghost has been actively around her long enough that she doesn’t really notice how big he is anymore, until now, with him sitting in front of her, his head slightly higher than her own and so much fur exploding out of him with the minutest of movements.
Sansa is in for a long night.
She focuses on the neck first, plucking the most prominent tufts of blown undercoat with her finger before starting in earnest with the brush.
Despite the frankly unnatural amount of endless white hair coming from the wolf, the task itself is relaxing. Fortunately, the coat is not matted too badly, and Ghost is cooperative, clearly appreciating both the lighter load of fur and the scratching of the brush. The movements come natural and methodical to Sansa, muscle memory from-
The movements come natural and methodical. The size is off, too big. The color is off. White, not grey. The texture is off. Rougher, hardened by years in the northern snows.
Years that her sweet, gentle Lady never had.
Jon has probably never touched a brush, but Sansa had spent hours over those precious months pampering and training her wolf. Lady was so good, so intelligent, poised and polite. Her mirror in wolf form. If only Sansa had known how true that was back then. If only her father had known.
The tears come unbidden, although they are not a surprise. The tightening in her chest is a familiar tell, and even years of learning to hide her weaknesses can’t help her choke back the sob that is stuck in her throat.
She hasn’t thought about Lady in so long.
Eyes closed, Sansa barely registers the brush falling from her fingers as she brings a hand up to her mouth to help silence her laments.
She feels, though, the gentle weight on her lap, the coarse hair under her free hand, the brush of furry ears under her chin. Sansa opens her eyes and finds Ghost looking at her, his head leaning against her chest.
In the same red eyes that had unsettled her as a child, Sansa finds grief akin to her own. It is most probably a fantasy, a projection to make the pain hurt less, but it is also a cruelly grounding and comforting thought.
The direwolf in her lap is not the one she wants, the one she needs, but he is there and he understands, and in the ruthless world Sansa must live in, that’s good enough.
When a knock on her door lets her know that her time for herself is over, her limbs are rigid and there are salty tracks caked into her skin. She grimaces as Ghost adds his slobber on top of that by licking her cheek.
“Must you? Really?”
She doesn’t feel lighter as she rises and hastily fixes her face with a handkerchief, but she doesn’t feel worse either, and again, that’s good enough.
When she opens the door and steps out, if Conin, her guard, notices that her eyes are more wrought than usual, he wisely does not comment.
–
The next time she corners Ghost in her room to handle his out of control shedding, she picks up the brush and takes a grounding breath.
She gets to work. The movements come natural and methodical.
Shaggydog
Rickon
There is a deep-seated fear in Sansa that she is very aware of and would never publicly voice, that her brothers might be taken from her again. It’s why she loathes any time she must send Jon away from Winterfell even if it’s for the good of the North. It’s why she spent as much time as she could watching over Rickon’s sleeping form as he recovered from the long journey home.
It’s also why she’s now restless and hurrying to her little brother’s chambers - Robb’s old bedchamber, as the heir of Winterfell - in the middle of the night, unreasonably anxious that he might not be there anymore.
Her heart slows minutely as she reaches Rickon’s door and the guards are calm and at ease. She catches their startled and curious gaze for an instant before they collect themselves and bow with a quick “My Lady”, but she doesn’t pay them too much attention.
Sansa pushes the door open and a rush of panic runs through her as she steps inside and the bed is empty, the furs disorderly and crumpled at the end of the bed, reminiscent of a struggle. She looks at the window, finding it closed and latched securely. Then, the sound - light, rhythmic breathing - registers to her ears and she tracks it to the floor.
There, barely illuminated by the moonlight sneaking in from the window, Rickon and Shaggydog lay curled around each other, the massive wolf enveloping his human half, acting as both blanket and pillow. Rickon looks so comfortable and relaxed, Sansa realizes it must be a position they held on innumerable nights while on the run in Skagos.
It looks out of place inside the heir’s chambers of an ancient keep.
Sansa knows that Shaggydog doesn’t enjoy spending time inside the castle for long stretches of time. He may follow Rickon around or play-hunt some poor servants for a little while, but soon the restlessness takes hold of him and it’s much easier to find him prowling the Godswood or even the Wolfswood at times. And, if the more-than-occasional, barely concealed vacant stares are any indication, Rickon joins him more often than not.
Shaggydog is a wild beast and Rickon is a wild boy, and the restraints of living in a castle are unsuited to both of them. Alas, for his own safety, Sansa cannot spare Rickon from his duties, and where Rickon is, Shaggydog must follow.
In the room, Rickon doesn’t stir, but Shaggydog’s yellow eyes are looking directly at Sansa. He is studying her, but Sansa does not feel an ounce of unease. She knows - has known since the day they were reunited - with unnatural certainty that Shaggydog claims her as part of his pack, He might be a wild thing and he may not enjoy spending time in the castle, but she has noticed that whenever she is outside the keep, he is never too far behind, keeping watch over her every step, a silent, deadly guard added to her retinue. She wonders how much it’s pack instincts and how much it’s Rickon’s own anxiety, a mirror of her own, of losing anyone again.
The wolf stares at her for a few more seconds, before yawning and snuggling his head against his boy, having assured himself that there is no danger for the moment. Rickon, still asleep, curls even more in the fur, a hand sneaking down to reach for Shaggydog’s tail, draping it over his own flank.
Sansa allows herself a few more moments to take in the scene, before quietly stepping out of the room and closing the door.
There is a thin smile on her face as she walks back to her own chambers. Rickon may be half wild, but he is home and he is safe, and for now that’s enough.
–
Sansa tries to brush Shaggydog once.
It ends with a brush snapped in half, several minutes of wailing, a terrifying screech from Rickon several halls over, a very offended direwolf that avoids her for an entire week, and her brother’s former caretaker hiding her smirks every time they cross their path in the keep.
Sansa never tries to brush Shaggydog again.
Nymeria
Nymeria comes to Winterfell and brings her own pack.
It is clear within days that while Ghost is mute and silent, and Shaggydog is a wild beast, Nymeria is the most unsettling of the Stark direwolves.
Nymeria is not wild the way Shaggydog is, she is savage.
Her littermates had their humans, the warg bond mellowing out their beastly instincts while sharpening their companions’ animal side, a delicate balance between man and wolf. A balance that Nymeria had been denied, the distance from Arya stripping them both of a part of their soul.
(Not completely, though. Not like Sansa. They don’t feel that faint emptiness at the back of their mind. Arya and Nymeria’s bond might be frayed but it is still there. Nymeria will always answer Arya’s call.)
Nymeria and her pack stalk the grounds of Winterfell with possessiveness. They are not an allied army lending their strength to the keep, they are children coming home. Their presence unsettles most, but Sansa has observed them enough to know that she doesn’t need to worry. Nymeria rules her pack with steel in her teeth.
It is mighty ironic, how Nymeria is the one wolf Sansa cannot bring herself to feel fondness for and yet in a bizarre twist of fate, she is her kindred spirit.
Both exiled from their family and their land, now reclaiming them, hailed as leaders of their own people.
Sansa wishes she could feel the same affection for Nymeria as she does for Ghost and Shaggydog. Or even a sliver of the affection she feels for Arya. Instead, the resentment from that day in Darry all those years ago still burns at a simmer in her stomach.
If only Nymeria hadn’t attacked Joffrey then, maybe-
Sansa cannot linger on what ifs, though. The reality is as is. Nymeria is alive and Lady isn’t, and every time Sansa is faced with her sister’s wolf, she is reminded of that and she can’t help the bitterness coating the back of her tongue.
The she-wolf doesn’t shy from her scorn though. Nymeria looks at her as if she knows exactly what Sansa is thinking, and she shows no guilt in her eyes. She stands proud and unapologetic, holding Sansa’s resentful gaze as if challenging her, daring her to pass judgement. As if no innocent soul has died in Sansa’s own road to survival, she seems to say.
Nymeria is as much of a survivor as Sansa is.
Neither of them will ever feel fondness for the other, but neither of them is blind to the other’s usefulness. And even if the pettiest part of Sansa will never allow her to forgive Nymeria, they are not naive pups anymore, and there is still a lot of work to do to keep surviving.
Joramun
Tormund Giantsbane hands her a tiny, snapping ball of red fur, and it instantly collapses in her hands. He fits in her arms like he was made for them, holding him up comes as natural to Sansa as breathing. Just like that, he’s hers.
Adjusting to a newly forged warg bond, for that is doubtlessly what has happened between her and Joramun, is both the strangest and most natural thing Sansa has ever experienced. She wakes up with vague memories of prowling around darkened rooms, eyes a few inches off the ground. One night they have roasted venison and the taste changes mid-bite, becoming gamier and bloodier. At times, when she’s walking in her keep, she smells the cold muskiness of the Godswood.
Then, there are the spikes of emotions.
Joramun is an opinionated, brash, possessive pup. The polar opposite of Lady, and Sansa has to learn when her feelings are her own, or an overflow of Joramun’s explosive emotions, maybe too big to stay in his tiny body. Although, he’s probably the one getting the worst end of the deal, having to deal with Sansa’s emotions. Not that anyone will ever say it out loud in her presence - bar maybe her siblings or Daisy - but it is so very clear that Joramun is the embodiment of everything she has to keep tightly controlled and repressed, for the sake of her people and her kingdom. One only needs to observe Joramun’s demeanor on any given day to know the Queen’s mood, a worrisome weakness in the delicate Game Sansa has found herself playing. Not that it can’t also be a useful tool in managing her court. Sansa cannot deny the amusement at seeing unruly nobles cowed at the vicious snarling of a fast-growing direwolf pup, especially if backed by the steadfast, silent figure of Ghost.
It is interesting how the other direwolves react to the new addition to the pack. Ghost is gentle, almost intimidated by the puppy, and yet acting as his loyal guard; Shaggydog is playful, often acting as if he were himself still a puppy; Nymeria is stoic, looking from afar and avoiding interaction, though without hostility.
Sansa charges Rickon with training him. It is not the most ideal of solutions, but he is both one of the greatest experts on direwolves available to them, and the person with most free time that is less likely to be murdered by the murder furball (Daisy's words).
Within the first two weeks of his residence, most of her court has been bitten by Joramun. Sansa suspects in no small part that Rickon is partially to blame for that.
Despite his biting attitude, most people look fondly at Joramun. There are whispers in her halls that he is another good omen from the gods, for no Queen of Winter should rule without a wolf, and she has been gifted with a most apt companion. Through castle gossip, she is informed that any doubt that Joramun is anything but a godly blessing has been dispelled because he was spotted on his back, wildly wagging his tail while enjoying belly rubs by Daisy.
In the end, it helps that Joramun is so different from Lady. He doesn't feel like a replacement, rather an addition. She can allow herself to dream that they would have bonded regardless if Lady were here. And when she falls asleep with her red furball sprawled over her stomach, the snout tucked against her shoulder, the grounding weight on her chest makes her feel the lightest she’s felt in years.
The bones
The duties and obligations of her position mean, among other things, that Sansa doesn’t have much time to actively dwell on the grief of the past. It does not mean that Sansa doesn’t remember it though. That she doesn’t remember dates and how long it has been since she lost each of her murdered loved ones.
She knows perfectly well that today is the anniversary of the first of such losses. But it is also the first time in years that she knows where her loved ones are and that they are still alive. It is the first year in so long where she can almost confidently call herself happy.
It is perhaps because of this newfound levity - perhaps united with her wife’s not so subtle hints that she may need a “break” every once in a while - that she finds herself strolling through Winterfell’s lichyard.
As she walks, she can’t help her eyes lingering on several of the plain, lichen swarmed headstones of the servants of the Kings of Winter, buried with honor in the names of their lieges. She can’t help but wonder how many names and bodies will be added in her name, marked as her faithful servants.
One is already there.
LADY
298 AC
Direwolf of
Sansa Stark
This is the first time she has visited Lady’s tomb. When she had first returned to Winterfell, she had briefly entertained the idea, discarding it quickly, lest she showed Ramsey even more weaknesses he could leverage. Then, dealing with a confused god, rebuilding and ruling her family’s Kingdom and preparing for winter and the looming invasion of mythical undead had kept the thought far away from her mind.
She is the Queen and for as much as her word is law, she is forbidden from things that most others are allowed, for the sake of her position. Thus, she should not kneel on the icy dirt and publicly cry, and yet she fails to uphold her decorum at this time.
Not that the lichyard is much populated at this time of day, while there is so much work still to do. Besides, how many people are still in Winterfell to care about the dead servants of the Starks? She can count on a single hand the headstones that are still unblemished by time, besides Lady’s.
As it stands, only Ser Brienne and Ser Loras are audience to her grief, and if someone outside her family must see her low, it might as well be them.
So, Sansa kneels and she cries, in silence, before the final resting place of half her soul.
She lays the palm of her hands flat on the frozen ground and her heart pangs at the absolute stillness that follows. There is no connection to be felt. Just bones, buried under the dirt.
Grief does work in strange ways.
The phantom pain of that bond, snapped too soon, too brutally, too undeservedly, rushes through Sansa like it hasn’t in years, worse even than when she first brushed Ghost. It is a discharge of pain, anger, loss, the release of all those feelings of helplessness that have plagued her ever since Ice fell on Lady’s neck.
Her own uncontrollable wails are thankfully drowned by the deafening chorus of howls rising from all directions. One might think that the wolves of Winterfell are hiding the Queen’s laments, one might believe that they share her grief.
A furry head softly bumps against her temple. Sansa lets out a sobbing exhale as she turns and buries her face in Joramun’s neck.
Ever since she first held him in her arms and felt that he was hers, Sansa has wondered if, given enough time, her bond with Lady would have resembled the one with Joramun. Would Sansa have poured her true self into her wolf during her captivity? Or would Lady have diminished herself too for survival?
Moot musings, for the most part.
In King’s Landing, when she had been most afraid, she had bitterly thought that if Lady had been alive she would never have felt so much fear. Her hard fought wisdom now tells her that the Lannisters would have never allowed her darling, gentle wolf to live. Maybe they would have killed her alongside her father, or butchered her in the night. Sansa doubts they would have given Lady the swift and painless (traitourous) death that Lord Eddard had.
If she really allows herself to dream, Sansa can imagine sending Lady away like Arya had with Nymeria. But as trained as she was, Lady would have been too loyal to ever heed her words and leave her.
Maybe Lady’s story did end with the most merciful fate that she could be allotted. Maybe one day Sansa might even bring herself to forgive her father for swinging the sword. Not today.
She reaches into her pocket to retrieve a handkerchief and gently dry her eyes. She leans on Joramun to get up, and finds three pairs of beastly eyes meeting her as she stands.
It is the briefest of flashes, but for an instant, Sansa swears she can see Lady, Grey Wind, and Summer standing in the gaps between their litter-mates, adult as she has never seen them.
With a blink of an eye, the image is gone and Sansa is left holding the solemn gaze of Nymeria, bracketed by Ghost and Shaggydog. Joramun keeps steady at her heel, her hand grasping his fur.
For once, it's Nymeria that drops the stare first. She lowers her head to the ground, maneuvering around the headstone and sniffing at the ground over her sister's bones. She paws at the frozen, grassy dirt, a low whine leaving her throat. Then, she raises her nose to the sky, letting out a howl, Shaggydog echoing her a second later, Ghost mimicking them but letting out no sound.
Sansa closes her eyes and tightens her hold on Joramund. Her wolf joins the mournful harmony, singing her grief in the only language that matters here.
When it's silent again, Sansa opens her eyes to find Nymeria sitting at her other side.
Sansa breathes deeply, spares one last glance at the headstone, and nods at the she-wolf. Nymeria answers in kind.
Sansa turns on her heels and starts walking away. All four wolves fall into step with her.
When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.
The pack survives.