Sansa sat for long in silence behind the high table, alone in the hall with only Ghost keeping her company as his fur warmed her feet, while she kept staring at the mark on the floorboards. The servants did what they could to scrub it up, but it was there, clearly visible as the reminder it was ought to become. 'It's funny really', she thought, 'how little becomes of a man in his final moments.' Her thoughts travelled back to that day standing in front of the great sept of Baelor. "Bring me his head!" Joffrey shouted with a grin on his face. Sansa remembered father. He was silent. He prayed, she still remembered how his lips moved silently as he offered his soul to the gods. Father was brave, and true. He died brave, though whether true, Sansa couldn't tell. In the end, he's lied to save them, to save her. She's begged for that lie and he's done it, forsaken his integrity and honour and lied what ever he's been told to lie, hoping it'll keep them safe. That is how Sansa learned what a Lannister equaled. A monster.

Joffrey died clutching at his throat as bile bubbled from his mouth, his eyes bleeding, his nose running, his face distorted and his skin turned blue. A befitting death for the monster who wanted father's head brought to him, despite everything father said that day, despite how father gave them everything they asked of him. Sansa never doubted the justice of the monster's death, in truth, she was glad to have seen. Those moments gave her more relief, more justice than years of tormenting Joffrey could've. Seeing his begging eyes as his mother held him, how he cowered one last time filled Sansa with joy albeit she'd never admit it. Joffrey was a true coward and he died true to his nature just like father died true to his. A wailing piece of shit as Jon would've called Joffrey. A Lannister, a monster.

Just like Littlefinger, albeit he was a different monster altogether. He was no Lannister, he had no blood ties urging him to become what he became as if family tradition. Sansa wondered if she'd ever learn the extent of how far Littlefinger's lies went in destroying families, alliances and kingdoms. Chaos is a ladder, Bran said, but it sounded more like something Littlefinger would've said. In the end, he was a coward too. Strip away whatever power he amassed, and all he could do is fall on his knees and beg her. He had the audacity to beg her. Now he was nothing more but a pile of ash somewhere, and a blood stain on the floorboards of the hall. The pack survives.

She's heard the wheels of Bran's chair before she could see him, pushed by Master Wolkan. She nodded in greeting toward the strange creature that was left of her brother.

"I am glad you stayed," Brian said in his usual monotone voice, waving away the master. "We have a visitor."

"Who?"

"A black lizard."

Sansa raised an eyebrow, for a moment wondering what kind of new riddle Bran could've come up with. Then she remembered, her hand on her mouth as if she could stop the gasp at the realisation.

"Howland Reed," Sansa whispered, and Bran looked toward the main entrance of the hall.

"He brings a present."

Sansa leaned back in her chair, watching her brother. He knew, of course he did. There was little Bran didn't know these days.

"I've not sent for him, perhaps Jon..." Sansa begun, only to be interrupted by Bran. "No, I did. It was time."

The heavy oak doors opened, as the guards allowed in an aging, skinny and somewhat frail man, with piercing blue eyes and short, pale hair, on his back a worn saddle bag, and in his hand a long package wrapped in leather and strings. The man came close, and bowed deep as he stopped in front of the high table.

"I came for the king, I mean to speak to him, my lady," he said, in a voice somewhat alien to Sansa's ears.

"The king is not here."

The man merely nodded, his eyes settling on Bran. One could cut the air as silence dawned on the hall.

"I know you," The man said finally, and Sansa's surprised gaze followed his to her brother. Bran had a certain smirk on his face.

"So it is you whom I conversed with this past months," the man added, and Bran smiled.

"My Lord Reed," Sansa stood. "I shall have a room prepared and bath drawn for you. Your daughter Meera is still among us I believe, we shall advise her of your arrival. As for the king..."

"She knows," Bran interrupted her again and Sansa rolled her eyes.

Howland Reed's face portrayed a sense of relief, as he walked to the high table.

"This," he's put the leather wrapped package on the table, "is for Jon Snow. And so is this," he took his saddle bag, and a leather pouch from it, and laid it beside the leather wrapped package.

"What is it?" Sansa asked curiously.

"It is for the king," Lord Reed repeated.

"But what is it?"

Bran looked up at her then. "Jon's inheritance."

Sansa's expression must've given in to the annoyance she felt as she turned to Bran, because Howland Reed took a step back from the table. "Forgive me my lady, I mean to explain to the king in person."

"You shall do more than that, Lord Reed," Sansa said firmly, her eyes settling on old Howland Reed. "You shall remain with us and if needs be, explain it to the realm."

Howland Reed smiled at her then, genuinely. It was clearly what he wanted to hear.

xxxxx

Darkness. Steps and more steps. Damp walls and sounds of steady water drops. Flickers of light from their torches dancing on black stone and dragonglass walls, as the men moved swiftly, silently. More steps down, broken and narrow. One has to be careful not to break a leg or a neck here. One has to walk here sober, not after two flasks of wine. More corridors, lined by black stone cells. Starlight. Sand and the sounds of waves. Men loading baskets in dingies, grey direwolves on their chest. More baskets, and crates, filled with black stones shining softly in the pale starlight. Time to go home. Time to be free again.

xxxxx

"Your Grace..." Missandei's voice was soft, yet firm. "Your Grace."

Daenerys sat up, her mind registering the first lights of the morning. It was early, unusually early.

"Your Grace." Missandei stood in front of her bed, her face betraying a sense of shock, and shame.

"Your Grace, forgive me... they are gone."

Daenerys looked up at that. "Who?"

"King Jon, Ser Davos. Their men. All gone, Your Grace."

She jumped from the bed, frozen in motion for a moment to steady herself after the sudden rush of blood into her head, as the girl moved swiftly to hand her a shift, and one of those woolen long dresses she favoured against the cold when none else saw. She didn't care, she took it, dragged it on herself, and Missandei tied the strings on her back.

"How?" Daenerys asked finally, slowly starting to make sense of the news.

"We do not know, your grace. They are gone. They left... something. In the solar."

"What?"

"A large wooden chest Your Grace, and a black dagger. And this," she handed Daenerys the note.

'Fire or dragonglass.'

Daenerys rushed out of her chamber and through the corridors, straight into the solar where just last night she so bitterly argued with Jon Snow.

A dozen unsullied stood encircling what seemed to be an old wooden travelling crate. Varys, Tyrion and Ser Jorah stood back as Grey Worm walked around it.

"What is it?" Daenerys asked impatiently.

Grey worm didn't answer, none of them knew what it was. He handed the dagger to his queen instead. It was a rough piece of carved dragonglass, it's handle made of old wood carved a long time ago, she could tell. Fire or dragonglass.

"Open it," she instructed.

"Your Grace, perhaps we ought to..." Tyrion began, only to be cut off.

"I said, open it!" She hissed.

Two unsullied unbuckled the two sides of the crate. Grey Worm kicked off the lid. There seemed to be nothing in it but a pile of old, moth eaten blankets. A funny joke, Daenerys thought as she walked to the window. There was no ship with direwolf sails in the bay. They were truly gone.

Varys came close and sat down by the table next to her, followed by Tyrion, watching as she held up the worn dragonglass dagger in her hand.

"You've let them leave," she said, her tone cold as ice. "We've had the king who rules half of Westeros and you've let him slip through our fingers."

"He wasn't going to bend the knee," Tyrion reasoned.

"No, he wasn't. But I wanted him here."

"Your Grace," Ser Jorah stepped beside her. "Northerners are stubbborn people. They trust only those who earn their trust. They don't take lightly to southern rulers, never did."

Daenerys smirked. "Thank you Ser Jorah, but it's too little too late. Jon Snow told me this much three times over before..."

The sound was unlike anything they've heard before, mixed with the desperate cry of an unsullied soldier.

That thing... that thing was on his back, ripping at his throat with its teeth, screaming. And it's eyes... Gods, it's eyes were blue like ice on a frozen river, shining. It's flesh rotten, it's clothing torn and it's face distorted yet Daenerys saw it was a mere boy. The soldier fell, blood squirting all over the walls, the ceiling, even her dress. That thing bit his throat open, Daenerys registered in dread.

Ser Jorah draw his sword and stepped in front of them, the unsullied trying to encircle the creature. It hesitated, looking at them one by one until it found an opening between two unsullied and launched at Missandei. Daenerys looked down at her hand, visibly shaking, gripping at the old wooden handle. She thought to give it, but couldn't let it go, her heart pumping so fast she could barely make out the sounds in the room apart from her own heartbeats.

A scream, and another soldier fell as a third impaled the dead boy, only to have it pull on the lance, and it grabbed the soldiers head in its two rotten hands, thumbs crushing eyeballs.

"Fire!" Tyrion shouted. Daenerys barely registered what he meant, as he watched Jorah and some others grab the torches from their sockets on the walls. One of them threw his torch at the boy and it shrieked once more, the sound deafening Daenerys, shaking her, carving itself in her mind forever.

Then it fell. It burned. Their torment was over.

She looked around. All their gazes loaded with sheer fear as they all watched the thing burn. It was a boy, Daenerys thought. Gods, Jon Snow, it was only a boy.

She stood and rushed out of the room, tears of rage flowing freely on her cheeks.

xxxxx

"You can't!" Tyrion rushed, ran, trying to keep up with her. "The most important person in the world can't fly off to the most dangerous place in the world! If you die, we're all lost! Everyone, everything!"

She was already climbing atop Drogon but she turned.

"Then what would you have me do? I sat here for two days and you offered me nothing else to do, none of you advised me anything better to do."

"Nothing! Sometimes nothing is the hardest thing to do."

She thought for a second, her eyes settled on her Hand. How many times did he tell her, these were just stories? How many times did he tell her that he couldn't doubt an honest man like Jon Snow, yet he couldn't believe what Jon Snow told them? How many times did Varys and Tyrion urge her to wait, Jon Snow will break, Jon Snow will know her and see her for who she was, Jon Snow will bend the knee... how many times in these past two days did they tell her, it was only one boy, it was merely a trick...

"You told me to do nothing before. I'm not going to do nothing again."

She turned and climbed atop Drogon. The three dragons moved as one, as they stepped off the cliff edge and took to the sky. She will not do nothing again.

xxxxx

Pale sunlight washed his face as Jon sat on a chest, watching as the men worked the sails. The winds were strong and steady throughout their journey, he'll reach Eastwatch a day earlier at the least. In fact it could appear in sight any moment now, he thought, or hoped it would. His nausea didn't bode well with being at sea. He cursed himself for the wine, he cursed Davos for allowing him to indulge, to forget. It was so hazy in his memory, their so-called escape. If it could even be called that.

"Feeling any better?" Davos' voice was kind. The old knight stood beside Jon, his eyes watching him carefully as they often did these past two days.

"No."

"Good," Davos remarked with a cheeky smile. "You ought to learn from it, you know."

"If I learned anything, it's that you are a terrible drinking partner. You enable me."

His Hand laughed aloud at that.

"As if you needed enabling, Your Grace. I took your cup, you took to the flask instead."

"You should've stopped me."

"Aye I should've,"

'I should've stopped you when you stumbled and fell, I should've stopped you when you raged about how we'll never defeat the dead, how you wanted to burn them all, when you told me how you'd fuck the dragon queen and I should've stopped you when you lamented how your sister would never ever forgive you for it. I should've stopped you when you cried with HER name on your lips, when you begged me to kill you.'

"But raising a hand to my king is not advisable, even to a Hand."

Jon sighed. His pounding head didn't seem to want to let him be.

"We don't have enough dragonglass," Davos remarked with a stern face.

"No we don't, but we will."

"You seem to be confident in your plan," Davos remarked, glancing at Jon from the corner of his eyes. He didn't respond. He just sat there, and tried to figure if he was confident, or cocky. His mind wasn't willing to ponder on it just yet, or anything else for that matter.

It hit him, hard.

"We have company," Jon said as he stood. Davos' eyes watched him in bewilderment. But Jon recognised that familiar rush of energy, as he scanned the sealine towards Dragonstone. Nothing. He felt it, stronger now. He looked up to the sky and finally saw, and smiled.

Davos followed his gaze. Three figures, like birds flew past high above them. Except they weren't birds. They were dragons.

xxxxx

The flight was cold and long, way too long, and she did wonder time and again if it was the right thing to do. The winds blew strong towards her destination, as she flew on, occasionally looking back at her other two children. It may have been cold, but deep inside her anger still burned hot like the pire that brought them to this world, desperation still clouded her mind. How many times did he tell her? Dead men were rising, women and children, little children, he told her. If you want our trust you have to earn it like everyone else, he told her. She failed. Oh how miserably she failed, because she listened to those she shouldn't have and ignored the one she should've heard, she failed because she couldn't trust a stranger. She swallowed hard as she finally caught sight of land ahead.

It was beautiful. Standing strong, rising tall from the stone beneath where land met the sea, it's foundations washed by unruly, frothy waves. It shone in the pale sunlight as if it was made of hundreds of thousands of gems. Atop, tiny wooden structures lined up neatly, she could see them as far as she could see the wall.

And as she turned, before they could see her, whomever 'they' were, she saw snow covered land, whiteness that got lost to the sky in the distance. Tall pine trees stood hugging each other as if protecting themselves from the cold winds, their branches hanging heavy under piles of snow. She looked around and saw a land more beautiful than anything she ever imagined. Mountain peaks and valleys with waterfalls frozen in movement, long icicles where once water would've washed the stone now shining like countless crystals reflecting the sunlight. Fences and dozens of huts, scattered settlements barely visible under the snow, in the distance. There was no life. Not a bird, not a pray, no animal running on the hills or among the trees. The land was empty, abandoned, void of any soul.

Movement. A storm brew below in front of her. She looked around as her two riderless children flew closer to her now, as if tightening a formation, just as she flew past high above the storm. It was so contained, so unnatural. She passed it easily, as if was meant to cover only a patch of land. Soon enough it was nothing but a set of storm clouds behind her, strange anomalies above a strange land.

She flew on for a little longer before she decided to turn back east, to turn around. In front of her were now more hills. Broken huts beyond and the shores of the sea once more. A wooden fence lay shattered in the snow, with remnants of what would've been once a gate. Little tents or poles of what would've once been tents, their fabric torn in pieces dangling in the wind, and household items, jugs and cauldrons and the like, broken, scattered. She landed.

Slowly she climbed off Drogon as her other two children landed in front of her. She walked among the remains of the settlement, clearly abandoned in haste. Her eyes took in the sight. The freefolk must've lived here once, she thought. Jon Snow mentioned them to her, or was it Tyrion? Or Jorah? She couldn't remember. She wished she asked more, that Jon offered more, she wanted to know their story, what were they like, was it true they ate their enemies? She reached the gate. Her eyes caught the sight of a large wooden structure, broken into pieces, it's roof caved in. As she walked across the planks of the gate, her children around her, she felt it gripping at her heart. Arrows, countless arrows in the snow. Stains. She leaned down to touch.

Her eyes caught the sight of something black. She walked to it, laying in the snow half covered. Fur and fabric. Her shaking hand slowly reached to touch it as she crouched down. It was a cloak. She pulled at it and jumped. But it didn't move. She cursed herself as she pulled at it harder. Black cloak with black fur. It must've been worn by a man of the Nights Watch before. She stood and looked around, her eyes settling on the pier to her left. The snow still showed marks, endless footprints here, the sea washed the tiny stones where it met the land. Pieces of cloth, and more arrows lay in the shallow water. The pier reached deep into the sea, some planks broken, as it stood lonely and abandoned. Just like everything else here. She turned and looked around.

"I saw the Night King raise his arms, and all the dead rose with it. All those people I tried to save and failed, they all rose upon him lifting his arms. That is what I've done, I've fought, and I've lost." His voice was as clear in her head as if he stood right beside her. A knot formed in her throat, as she rushed back to Drogon. They had to leave. This place was no longer for the living.

The earth shook. She looked up and saw a storm approaching, fast, unnaturally fast. She ran. Rhaegal and Viserion took off one by one, as Drogon lowered his wing awaiting her. She ran faster, as the rambling noise grew louder, her heart pumping in her throat laden with fear as she felt the earth begin to shake under her feat. She could see her own ragged breathing in the air all of a sudden. She reached Drogon finally, quickly climbing atop as she looked up on the hill, in the direction of the noise.

Gods, dear gods... they were here. They ran off the cliff and fell dead. She sat atop Drogon, frozen with fear. Then they all stood as one, their ice blue eyes locked on her. She leaned close to Drogon, "Fly!" and Drogon took a step, then another, wings flapping gaining momentum in mere moments that seemed like hours to her. They ran after her with such speed, and she could see their rotten flesh dangling on their bones, their pale sunken faces emotionless beyond the ice cold of their shining eyes. She glanced ahead just as they took off and sighed with relief seeing Rhaegal and Viserion far ahead above the sea. Suddenly Drogon ducked and turned to side. A spear hushed past her head. "Fly!" she shouted once more, higher, she urged him in her thoughts as she watched the pier shrink underneath and disappear behind.

Drogon turned back at her will. She felt the safety of the sky, as Drogon lowered himself settling above the water, just high enough so that his wings merely touched the surface of the sea as they kept flapping, sending angry waves ahead toward the pier. They still kept running off the cliff, albeit there were so many now that they covered the ground, the mass of dead stood all along the shoreline. Their eyes, their cruel piercing blue eyes were all set on her.

'You stood here, in that boat,' she thought. 'You stood here escaping with your life to fight another day, and he stood there on the pier. He raised his arms and all those you couldn't save rose as one, as you watched...' loud sob escaped her throat as Drogon turned around, to take her far away, her sobs the only sound that broke the silence of the sky.