The thoughts of her scattered, dead family come with bitterness. She know that the spite is ugly, but sometimes it feels like spite is all she has.
She thinks of Robb, her oldest brother. Sweet, handsome Robb whom the maids of Winterfell would swoon over, who used to play-joust with their siblings, her favour tied to his arm. Sweet Robb who wouldn't trade the Kingslayer for her. Sweet Robb for whose victories she was stripped and beaten. Sweet Robb who died betrayed. Dead Robb.
Jon. Her bastard half-brother. Serious, scorned, sad Jon who couldn't run far and fast enough once given the chance. Who had tied his hands with his oaths. Who had washed his hands of them. (Maybe she could understand that urge better now that she herself was scorned. Was a bastard.)
Arya. Dead Arya. Arya Underfoot. Arya Horseface. Arya who didn't have to sing sweet songs for murderers and monsters. Arya who wouldn't have sung anyway. Arya who would have spit on them rather than sing. Dead Arya.
Dear, broken Bran. Never to leave Winterfell. Never a knight, never unsafe, never hurt beyond that great hurt. And death. Always death. Dead Bran.
Baby Rickon, who would never have a chance to forget her. Dead Rickon.
Mother. Foolish mother who believed people she should distrust and shut her ears to good advice she didn't like. Dear, kind, ladylike mother whose corpse was thrown in the river. Dead mother.
Father. Honourable father, Stark to the end. His epitaph a rotting head on a pike, proud decoration in this festering heap of lies and deceit and greed that ate all decency like maggots on a carcass. Her fault. His fault. Her fault. His fault. Why did he try to save monsters? Dead father.
Starks died in the south. But not her. Why not her? Not the traitor's daughter, the traitor's sister. But she is not a Stark any more, now is she? Petyr, her false father, insinuates and lies and plays games, but that is all familiar from King's Landing, and otherwise she prefers to be overlooked. Being Alayne Stone suits Sansa.
Alayne doesn't remember what happened. Maybe noting did; maybe she is mad, or dreaming. Here she is, back, a child in Winterfell again. All she can see is the inevitable spiral of destruction, her family caught up in its wheels. As always, she is helpless. How can she hope to save her family from themselves?
Shamefully, she isn't even sure she wants to save them. They abandoned her and she is not their perfect little lady Sansa anymore. She is a bastard. A Stone of the Vale, hardy but hardly ladylike.
All she wants is to go far, far away and never feel armoured fists on her body or to have to sing that acid-sweet song of falsehood or smile at snakes again.
A maid, hair modestly covered, face turned down and huddled in on herself seeks help from the wise woman in Wintertown. When she peeks up at the old woman, a bruised cheek and split lip becomes visible. She asks for moon tea and bruise balm and a way out, to her aunt in White Harbour who had promised to take her in and find her work. Please! She simply can't stay any longer, he is everywhere she turns.
(Later, when little lady Sansa fails to return from her walk, the whole castle will be in an uproar. They will search, first the castle, then the Goodswood and Wintertown, before blood and torn clothing will be found in the Wolfswood, and most damning of all, a trail of something having been dragged ending at a rapid river. Winterfell is in shock, is grieving, and couldn't care less about Mya Snow leaving with a caravan of merchants out of White Harbour.)
A few weeks later, at White Harbour, Lyra Snow boards a ship for the Vale making port at Old Anchor. Then Misa Stone makes her way to Gull Town, where dark-haired, solemn Serasy Waters gets on a ship bound for Dorne.
After a long journey, red-haired Alayne Stone finally arrives in Planky Town.
Alayne finds room and board with a widow who rents rooms to unmarried working women. Alayne herself is deft with a needle and quickly finds work mending. Her sure, neat stitching gets her compliments and soon commissions making new clothes instead of merely repairing tears. She sews practical, everyday dresses for merchants' wives, and prettier, festive clothing for feasting days. Once word spreads she even gets the occasional order from ladies, lavish gowns in silk that she covers in embroidery. It is a good life.
Women in Dorne have different prospects, and the widow and her lodgers gladly tell Alayne that the name of Stone isn't a black mark against her any more. They also delight in first teasing her over her abysmal skills at keeping house, then in teaching her. She tells them of being gently reared and unprepared for a life outside of a Lord's household. Though a bastard, her Lord father had doted on her and she had been set to marry reasonably well before he was called away by his liege lord. Upon his departure, his Lady wife had made it amply known that Alayne had no place left under her roof. It was either leave, or being forced into the nearest sighing house.
But Alayne has other skills than those of a low-born woman. She can read and do sums, which makes her able to help keep track of finances and serves her well when taking commissions as a seamstress of increasing renown. Little by little, Alayne makes a life for herself in Dorne.
The wheels of politics keep turning outside of sunny, languid Dorne. Alayne hears, late and in few details, about the death of the Hand of the King and later of the Great Progress North. A new Hand is appointed, the far-way, honourable Lord Stark. The return of the Court to King's Landing is soon followed by the King's death and the Hand's incarceration for treason. The Dornish scoff that the Usurper's crows are finally coming home to roost.
War breaks out, brother against brother against nephew, and a Stark declaring the North independent. It is all so far away, though, and not of much concern for Alayne. The Baratheons continue to squabble, but the newly crowned King in the North, His Grace Eddard Stark, returns home after being exchanged for the Kingslayer.
(Somewhere deep down it rankles. Sansa wasn't worth exchanging for Jaime Lannister, but father was. And now, in this new life, her family is alive, as far as she knows. Winterfell remains, no Red Wedding, no head on a spike, no betrayals. It seems her presence only ever hurt her family, as they hurt her.)
Alayne Stone, bastard daughter of the Vale, sews on.
Edit: so apparently ff-dot-net ate all my breaks, I just put them back in.