Co-written with K_R_Closson
Story Warnings: This story will make reference to events in Game of Thrones canon. This includes sexual assault, torture, violence and alcoholism. This story is less explicit than the show itself. In addition, there are references to suicidal thoughts. Sansa's relationship with Tyrion is dubiously consensual, because of her age and the political situation, but it isn't violent.
Chapter Warnings: Non-explicit references to the violence and sexual assault Sansa experienced with Ramsay at Winterfell. Suicidal thoughts.
Sansa clasps Theon's hand in hers and has time for a deep breath before they jump from Winterfell's walls. It's not a long fall, but it's long enough for her to have time to wonder if the drop will kill them. It's not the worst possible outcome. The worst that could happen is the fall could hurt her ankle or her leg, keep her from walking, keep her trapped until Ramsay finds her.
She drops into a snowbank, the impact knocking the breath out of her, and she has to bite back a shriek when the snow drops down her collar and melts against her neck.
She stands up, shakes out her legs, then her arms, making sure everything's in working order.
"Theon?" She asks, voice barely above a whisper.
She lost her grip when they hit, and they need to get moving. If he doesn't answer or he's hurt then she's leaving without him. She won't let Ramsay get his hands on her again. She pats her cloak, relieved that the knife she hid is still there. She's escaping or she's dying. Those are the only two options.
"Theon?" She calls again.
The snow next to her stirs and then he bursts forth like a great fish emerging from the water. His eyes are wide, still not quite lucid, but she grabs his hand and drags him forward. If they head north they'll reach a small village where they can get shelter or, even better, horses. All they need is to make it to Castle Black. Jon will protect her.
They make it out of sight of Winterfell before they stop running, and her legs are exhausted from both the unusual exertion and the hard work of moving through snow. She stumbles and Theon helps her up, his fingers pressing into bruises that haven't yet healed.
She hisses and yanks her arm back and he ducks his head, embarrassed.
"We don't have time for that," Sansa says. "We need to find food, horses, and the King's Road. We can't be too close to it or we'll be easy to track."
Theon casts a pointed look at the tracks they're leaving behind them in the snow.
It's a fair point.
"Horses and then we'll ride the King's Road as fast as they'll carry us."
It's not a great plan, but it's the only one they've got. She has no friends further south, and any friends she might have had at Winterfell are dead or too scared to help. Jon is her only option. Their only option.
She casts a glance at Theon and urges them along faster. She doesn't know how long Theon has been a captive of the Boltons, but she knows she'll hold up just as poorly to captivity as he has. She's not going to let Ramsay break her.
She can't help but wonder how she escaped Joffrey only to end up with a man possibly worse than he had been. Is there something about her that people want to hurt? First Joffrey, then Cersei, Petyr, Aunt Lysa… and now Ramsay.
Maybe Arya had it right all along, learning to fight so no one could hurt her.
But Arya is missing, maybe dead, and Robb knew how to fight and look how well that turned out. She wonders if she can run far enough north that no one in the Seven Kingdoms can reach her.
She's getting ahead of herself. They have to escape Ramsay and his hounds, and they need to survive the trek to the wall. The wind chooses this moment to whip through the trees, bits of snow and ice stinging her cheeks as they're carried by. She wraps her cloak tighter around herself and continues on.
"At least we avoided the field of bodies," Sansa says, the wind picking up her words and pushing them forward.
Theon grunts in reply.
Sansa decides to conserve her energy and focus on moving forward.
Her nose is frozen and her fingers are stiff by the time the sky begins to darken. She thought they would've found help by now, and she's not sure they can survive in the woods at night. She looks over at Theon to see if he shares her fears, but he's hugging himself, mumbling under his breath as he stumbles forward, clearing a path for her to follow.
He pulls up short, and she almost crashes into him, ears straining to pick up on what's alarmed him. It's faint, difficult to hear over the creaking of the trees, but it's the neighing of a horse. Even if there's just one, it's better than making their way on foot.
Sansa slips her stolen knife into her hand, her only possession beyond the clothes she's wearing, and they adjust their path towards the sound of the animal, making an effort to be quiet. If the horse is alone, they don't want to spook it. If it has a rider, they don't want to alarm him.
Either way, they're getting that horse.
Sansa's stomach growls loudly, and she almost hopes there is a rider, because he'll probably have supplies, except neither she nor Theon is in shape to be taking on any one. She wonders if perhaps she should give him the knife, but she's seen the way his hands shake when he's serving meals or caring for the horses in the stable, and besides, if only one of them can have a weapon, she wants it to be her.
They get close enough to see the horse, and the cloaked figure at its side. The horse is as white as the snow, the cloak as black as the trees. They are fortunate the horse is restless, because the two blend into the nature around them all too well.
Sansa nudges Theon one direction and she goes the other. They at least have the advantage of numbers, and perhaps they can surprise and overwhelm the rider. It probably means sentencing the rider to death-the weather in the North is unforgiving-but watching Theon push Myranda off the wall has clarified one thing for her.
She is going to survive no matter the cost to anyone else.
She and Theon are now on opposite sides of cloaked figure and she motions Theon to approach. She'll wait until Theon's engaged the figure and then she'll charge in. She adjusts her grip on the knife. Like stabbing a bear steak or punching her needle through a tough bit of leather. Thousands of men have died in the War of the Five Kings. It can't be that hard to kill someone.
Right?
Theon stumbles forward, and she winces at the unintimidating figure he cuts, then winces again when he pulls up completely short.
That was not the plan.
The cloaked figure pushes back the hood, long dark hair spilling out, and Sansa realizes their cloaked figure is a woman.
"Are you lost?" The woman asks, her voice soft, melodic, and Theon looks trapped between running away and shuffling closer.
They get this far, and Theon gets distracted by a woman. If they were in any other situation, Sansa might find it amusing, but since their lives are actually at stake here, all she can muster is annoyance.
And then Theon looks past the cloaked woman to Sansa and annoyance turns to anger, because the woman follows Theon's gaze and she smiles when she sees Sansa and beckons her closer.
"Not lost," the woman says. "Running away, perhaps? Young love?"
Both Sansa and Theon visibly recoil, enough that the woman raises her eyebrows.
"Perhaps not," she says, "but running from something."
"We don't have much time," Sansa says. "We need your horse."
Her knife is tucked back safely under her cloak, a last chance at a surprise attack, and she keeps a hand on it, ready to strike if she needs to. But her father taught her to negotiate first, then resort to violence. It's not as effective the other way around.
The woman tightens her grip on the horse's reins. "I'm afraid I do as well. But -" the woman pauses, tilts her head to the side and studies Sansa, enough that Sansa is thinking about making a run for it again. "Perhaps you are what I am seeking."
Definitely time to run again. Theon can stay and stare soulfully into the woman's eyes, Sansa is getting out of here.
"Wait!" the woman says, like she can sense the direction of Sansa's thoughts. "I didn't mean to alarm you. I sensed something calling to me, some power."
Right, because that's not alarming at all. Sansa clutches her blade tightly enough it must be leaving marks in her fingers. "I don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps the cold is affecting you."
"I am Melisandre," the woman says. "Priestess to the Lord of Light. I believe he has directed me here."
Marvelous. A religious fanatic.
Theon, curse him, chooses that moment to remember how to speak, and mumbles his way through a reciprocal introduction. Naturally, his words are clear when he looks to her and says, "Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell."
Technically it's Bolton, now, but Sansa has every intention of leaving that name behind her, and anyway, they have bigger concerns.
Now they're going to have to kill the woman. Or at least hurt her enough that she can't go running to Winterfell to tell Ramsay where they're going. Is it wrong to kill a priestess of a god you don't believe in?
"Stark? Daughter of Ned Stark?"
Daughter of a traitor to the crown. The response is on the tip of her tongue before she remembers she's in the North now. Here her father is a hero, a martyr, though opinions are mixed on his children, and Sansa hadn't even considered that this name isn't safe for her either.
"I served Stannis Baratheon, the One True King of Westeros. Your father was loyal to him as well."
"And now they're both dead," Sansa says. She would rather not meet the same fate.
"What if I told you I could change that?"
"I don't think resurrecting the dead is a good idea. We bury our dead for a reason." Or burn them.
"Not resurrection. The Lord of Light gives us what we need most, and what we need now is a second chance, not just at life, but at victory. We need King Stannis to win the war, and he needs your father in order to do it."
"They're both dead," Sansa says because apparently that needs to be repeated. "The war is lost. The Lannisters have taken everything that matters, and the North is in ruins."
"Yes. The North is in ruins and winter is coming."
Sansa bristles at hearing an outsider speak the words of her family.
"There is no power in the North that can stop it now," Melisandre says. "Which is why you must go back and change things."
"Go back?" Sansa shakes her head. "I'm not going back to Winterfell. You can't make me."
Melisandre's eyebrows climb up and Sansa looks down to see that her knife is out and pointed at the other woman.
Oh.
"Back in time," Melisandre corrects. "I have the power to do it, and you have the power to warn your father to leave the capital in time to join his banner to that of King Stannis. With the North behind him, he will be unstoppable. He will turn back the winter."
"Time travel?" That's something out of Bran's stories, the stupid ones with giants and gnomes and all sorts of things that are impossible. "And what do you mean, I have the power?" If Sansa had any sort of power her life would be very different than it is now.
Melisandre looks around at the snow piling up around them. She looks at Theon's ragged clothes and the knife Sansa's desperately clinging to. "Is your life so good now that you won't have faith in what I'm offering you?"
"Nothing anyone has offered me recently has been any good for me," Sansa says.
"This is different," Melisandre says. "If winter breaches the wall then all of Westeros is doomed. We must stop it."
"But why me?"
"Death has power, and you have been touched by death."
Sansa is not impressed.
"Besides, I cannot perform this spell on myself. And even if I could, why would your father heed my counsel?"
"And you think he'll listen to me?"
Melisandre smiles. "You are a bright, brave girl, and I think you can do anything you dedicate yourself to."
The woman is crazy. Mother always used to say that religion touched people differently. In the North, they were private about their trips to the godswood. Speaking of your prayers caused them not to come true. There was no playing allowed amongst the great trees, only stillness and reflection. It's why the godswood came to be her sanctuary in the capitol.
She never dared to go to it when she came back to Winterfell, afraid Ramsay would destroy her sanctuary as effortlessly as he destroyed her childhood home, and her. She wanted one thing in Winterfell left untouched by him and that meant untouched by her as well.
And then he married her there. She doesn't pray much anymore. The gods aren't listening.
A hound's howl carries over the wind, and Sansa goes still, body locking up in fear.
"I don't care about your mission," she says, "or your power. I need your horse, and I will get it from you, one way or another."
"It's a long road," Melisandre says, "with an uncertain destination. I can send you somewhere they cannot possibly follow you."
It's tempting. She wants to believe. Badly enough that she knows it's ill-advised.
"If the spell fails, you may have my horse," Melisandre says, and that seals the deal.
"Fine," Sansa says. "Send me back."
"You will need an anchor, to be sure you return to the correct moment. Was the death of your father a significant moment for you?"
Sansa already regrets listening to this woman. She thinks her glare is answer enough.
"Yes… father, family, House, all lost with one swing of a sword. That will be a good anchor. I'll put as much power into the spell as I can, to give you a bit of… leeway. It could be as little as a few seconds, or as much as a few weeks."
"What good will a few seconds do me?" Sansa asks.
Melisandre gives her a tragic and mysterious look, and doesn't answer.
"Fine," Sansa says, gritting her teeth. "Any other difficulties you've conveniently forgotten to mention?"
"Actually," Melisandre says, "magic demands sacrifice." She glances at Theon meaningfully.
Sansa follows her look. Theon is huddled next to the horse as if it can keep him warm, desperate and pathetic.
She has no doubt that 'sacrifice' means death. Does she have it in her to kill this man?
He burned Winterfell, slaughtered the people they both grew up with. Her family took him in, raised him as their own, never hurt him, and he repaid that with betrayal.
She hands her knife to Melisandre blade first.
If this works, Theon will pay for his betrayal by making it right.
If it doesn't, he would only slow her down, and maybe the fresh blood will distract the hounds from her scent long enough for her to put some distance between herself and them.
"Remember," Melisandre says, "Think on the day your family died. Think to when you want to go. And also remember this: you must stop the winter."