Fire

'The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire,'

Ferdinand Foch

Sansa Stark understood, with a dead certainty, from the battle camp, as she watches her brother and his dragon fall in a suicidal rush of blaze of fire meeting ice, that all is lost. High Queen Daenerys had fallen just moments before, her dragon roaring flame and pain as a great lance of ice from the Night King pierced both rider and dragon. It had been a horrific sight, watching as the ice spread through the small figure, through the Drogon himself in sharp spears that penetrated through scales and flesh in vivid red. The splendent, quiet Queen Sansa had come to know had fallen like a stone- not beautiful nor graceful as the small young woman always appeared, but ugly, wretched thing that crashed amongst the hard ice and snow with a deadly crunch heard as far as the camp and she had watched as her first husband, had screamed in grief, before dashing forward in with the rest of their armies at his back, his brother, haggard and golden, at his side, with Brienne, fierce, at his side. She had watched them go, numb, fear, eyes straining to look for her brother.

The white, stolen child from the Mother of Dragons had roared in triumph, spewing icy death. And Jon, oh Jon, had decided to give one last effort, one last rush of fire and blood his blood, to try and give them all a chance. Ghost had howled and followed at the heels of the armies. She had already organized escape to old, the young and the unwilling to stand to run to the Kingdom that Cersei Lannister held in her iron, foolish fist.

Winter has come. And we were fools to not be ready. Our words are from not.

Sansa turns, hands shaking, almost ridiculously calm as Arya screams in disbelieving grief, towards her tent, away from the doomed battle, away from the death of the last hope of humanity. People are screaming, rushing, fleeing, the chaos of craze certainty of the doom of the World, and Sansa finds she cannot find it in herself to do much but turn her back.

She reaches her tent, kneels by the heavy wooden chest that she had found in Castle Black, and brings out the small container of Wildfire she had hidden. 'Just in case', she had sworn to Tyrion, Queen Daenerys and Jon(King, her king), 'Just in case the Dragons fall, then we will fall with them in a blaze that will give time to those South'. Jon as her brother(cousin) had hated the plan, had hated it. But as King, he had understood and simply gripped her arm in understanding and praise. Sansa stares at the container in her hands, trembling when rough, calloused hands touch hers. She looks up, to Arya, her wild, beautiful sister, who had grown into her long face, her large ears and stern, long nose. She had become a well-muscled if lithe creature that was deadly and frightening. Invisible and lost. Her not quite curls sheared and close to her face, her grey eyes hooded with death and coolness gained from becoming a living, breathing weapon. Sansa licks her lips.

"Together?" her sister whispers and her voice is thick, rough.

Sansa sucks in a trembling breath.

"Flee. Take the rests of the people and run them as far South as you can, this is my plan, my burden," she whispers back because she just cannot anymore, and if her sister can live, if just a little longer, "Run, Arya."

Her sister gives her a flat, trembling smile.

"I'm done running, Sansa. The lone wolf dies. The pack stays together."

Unbidden, laughter escapes her throat, flat, ugly and hateful.

"I wish… I wish we had understood that all those years ago."

Because she hadn't. She had been a Summer child through and through, a pretty little bird chirping innocently when she should have been a wolf, a sweet singing dove who wished for knights and songs. She should have had sharp teeth and claws ready, should have had the thought of family, duty, and honor, instead of dreams of golden, green-eyed babes and a gallant golden King(her impossible, sweet dream that to this day haunted her with how much she had wanted it, how much she had kept that dream in her heart, and how much it had cost to have only the wish of the dream).

"Together?" her sister, whispers, again.

Sansa nods, clutching at her sister's arm. They stand together and go to the first Wildfire catches they had set about the camp. They grip their hands, clutched, tight, both trembling in the face of what is to come. She wonders if her biggest testaments of will are always done clasping onto the hand of someone else, and she knows this time, she will not live as she did when she and Theon lept from the battlements at Winterfell.

"I love you," says Arya, quietly, hardly audible over the din of the scattering camp, "All I ever wanted was for you to love me back despite how different we were."

Sansa does not stop the tears then, at the whispered words of her little sister.

"I love you too, Arya, I always did, I was just insanely jealous of everything you were, are. Beautiful, fierce and wild. A true Northern woman. Everything I couldn't be."

"Together?"

Sansa nods, transferring the small catch of wildfire to their hands. They grip it so delicately, so carefully.

"Together."

They smash the cache onto the hidden cache on the ground and watch as the wild green flames rapidly consume everything. Clinging to each other, releasing the last of their hope of surviving this Winter.

"What do we say to the God of Death?" whispered Arya, soft, a small bit of the one and ten girl she had been before all of this had started, "Today."

"I will not die in Ice, My King, My Queen. If the race of Men shall die because of the Others, it shall be in a blaze of Fire of our own making," she spat, because no longer would she allow anything or one to determine her fate.

Jon, sweet Jon, looks at her with furrowed brows and narrowed grey eyes. Sometimes it just hurt so much to see how much he looked like her Father. And sometimes it hurt, even more, to confess to herself that she knew not whether or not she had forgotten the difference between her brother(cousin)'s face and her father's. If time had taken the exact shape of his nose, the shade of his eyes from her, as it had taken everything else.

"Sansa-" said her first husband, reaching forward with small hands. To comfort, or to reprime, she does not know.

She can only smile at him, faintly, wondering at his kindness, his determination for good despite the entire world being ready to mold him, and everything into greed and hate.

"I know we cannot spare the Wildfire. But it may come to this, and I will not leave the rest of our people to become an added legion to the White Walkers."

"I am in favor of it," says the High Queen, sadness in her violet eyes, "We cannot rule out the thought that we will be overwhelmed. Fire is preferable to Ice, Aegon."

Part of Sansa always flinches at the way Daenerys refers to Jon. Jon, oh Jon, sighs. A deep, terrible noise full of weight.

"So be it."

The fire reaches her and Arya, and she cannot even bring herself to scream, and neither can Arya. They have died a thousand, small deaths in the too short decade of the last of their lives. And Wildfire burns so hot that all of their nerve ends blaze away before they can even form agony. It is all green, green, green, wretchedly close to the color of Lannister's eyes and she can hardly stand it.

So, Sansa Stark closes her eyes for the last time in blazing fire of her own making…