A huge thanks to TopShelfCrazy for fishing out some inconsistencies from this chapter :-))
Sansa
Sansa had never believed Old Nan when the wet nurse told her stories about the Night King's dreary castle in the Lands of Always Winter. She even admonished Bran for paying so much attention to those frightful inventions.
The true songs could only be beautiful, Sansa thought, even when they were heart wrenching.
But the tales of horror had proven to be accurate as well… And, despite that Sansa had never fancied them or wished to hear them, they had a way of finding her; ugly and life-threatening. She could cry or she could be brave.
She held her craven breath between her teeth and waited for her latest gaolers, three heartless, indifferent Others, to close the door of her chamber. Her dungeon. At the sound of the wrong click of the lock, she exhaled.
She was successful. Yet her breath was stuck painfully in her throat, cutting her like an invisible, sharp blade.
The hairpin she slid in the lock moments ago, when she was escorted back to her room, prevented the door from closing.
Sansa counted to ten and then padded towards the exit with soft, silent steps, striving to contain the nervous fluttering of her bird-like heart. Sandor would have mocked her for it in the past. She wondered if he'd do it now, or if his heart trembled when he thought of her; his wife, the captive of the Others. She thought that it might as she pressed the handle. Her palms sweated when the door fell open with a prolonged, shrill creak, echoing in the dusty and, thankfully, fortunately, empty corridor.
She put the pin back into her hair, for next time, and stepped out of her cell.
A faint ray of dirty grey daylight stretched vertically over the old, rotting rushes on the floor. The light would be pretty to look at, if Sansa did not have precious little time. The days were unbelievably short, almost non-existent; gone before they began.
She hurried towards the courtyard, taking the shortest way.
Boots, heavy steps!
A thud of several pairs of feet right behind her.
Wights.
Sansa melted into one of the walls, wishing to look like a tapestry, hiding in the shadows. Truth be told, the Night's King castle didn't have any hangings or decorations of any kind. This didn't stop Sansa from considering that it should have some.
The dark, blood red of her gown was a rusty splotch on the utmost greyness of the walls. She did not breathe or move a hair until the dead passed.
She would visit this place, all of it, and commit it to memory.
Knowledge could help win wars.
Her heart pounded like a frenzied drum when she finally exited the castle and took a good, long look around.
Old Nan had never mentioned to Sansa and her siblings that the Night's King was a son of Winterfell…
Or, rather, of Winterfell as it could have been ages of the world ago, before the second, lower castle wall was built. A monumental fort built of timber and stone and, in some places, of ice, stood as proud if not as high as the Wall. Its battlements seemed taller to Sansa with every new day of her imprisonment. Maybe they grew like hair, or people, or their unnatural abilities in this strange, evil winter.
Square, sturdy towers and smaller turrets of rough-hewn masonry Sansa had never seen adorned the fortifications. The First Keep, the oldest part of Winterfell, appeared to be new. And an adjacent, broken tower, struck down by lightning and turned into a ruin in the castle Sansa knew, loomed high and intact; just like the maester's turret, burned down in the sack of true Winterfell.
This Winterfell had a much larger surface. Had Sansa's true home been this big, it would have swallowed at least half of the wolfswood in its proximity.
The Others slept at daytime, Sansa knew. She was almost not afraid of them anymore.
Almost not.
The wights remained awake, slow and clumsy. She did not trust them to spare her life in the absence of their masters' whip. She sensed they hated and most of all envied the living. The Others, on the contrary, merely wanted all insulting life, different from theirs, to end; they had no longing to replace their beautiful icy existence by the disorderly sensations belonging to flesh and blood. She had stopped trying to touch the white walkers with her mind a few days ago, having learned all she could in that fashion. The effort was too painful to be continued. Possibly, the path to madness lurked on that road.
She had to keep her wits.
Sansa breathed deeply and began crossing the spacious, huge main courtyard of this Winterfell. Her long, many-layered skirts trailed behind her over icy ground. Together with the cocoon of crystal spider web woven around Sansa by the Others, her gown formed a sea of rustling sound, betraying her position.
She also needed to establish if she could get out in daytime. For all she knew, Sandor could be near the walls, looking for her.
She hadn't seen him in a week... at least...
Or two or three weeks - it was unusually hard to tell how much time had passed. Every day was the same since the gates of the castle of ice had closed behind her.
He is alive, Sansa repeated to herself like a prayer. She believed she would feel if Sandor died or was badly hurt. Though this was perhaps only her latest illusion. The strength of her twisted warging ability had grown more than her hair, but the cocoon of icy cobwebs narrowed the outreach of her mind. She could not speak to Sandor over distance. And the Others could direct her movements by pulling the strings of the net they'd made, without being burned by touching dried dragonblood.
Wights suddenly invaded the yard from all directions, running errands for their sleeping masters.
Sansa froze in place, exposed, miserable and alone in the open air; in plain sight in the middle of the yard.
Her fear was soon revealed to be unnecessary and futile.
The dead avoided Sansa. Perhaps they were just too busy with their orders. Some bowed to her in her shell of soft ice, careful not to touch it. Or perhaps the spidery substance could hurt them just like it caused Sansa's hands to bleed whenever she brushed it by chance.
She considered heading to the godswood first and decided against it. She could always pray in her heart. Instead, her attention was caught by the First Keep.
From nearby, it was in excellent condition. There had to be a reason for this. It was… it was the seat of the Night's King, it must be! Her father's modest rooms were surely too humble to be quarters of the arrogant white walker who styled himself king, if he could have an entire keep and a tower to himself.
Possessed by insatiable curiosity, Sansa arrived at the entrance of the once-broken tower, and climbed a long, unique flight of spiral stairs, made of sturdy, black wood. There was no ice here, no crystal spider webs. The space was almost… human.
On top, she was surprised to find the Night's King sleeping in his solar, sprawled on the largest weirwood throne Sansa had ever seen; much greater than Bran's or any other in the cave of the old gods conquered by the Others. The weirwood and its main branches were hewn recently and savagely above the level of the throne, perhaps not to breach the ceiling. Sap ran down the walls like blood. The chopped tree was left eyeless, blind, with half of its trunk gone, but its remaining auburn leaves continued to murmur and hum with hidden knowledge and power.
Please, Sansa prayed fervently, overwhelmed by the desire to do so. Let Bran return to Winterfell. Let him find his way.
What do you dream about? She wondered next about their enemy, resting on his usurped throne of winter. What do you see?
The Night's King crystal sword was unstained, abandoned under his feet, though Sansa suspected he'd performed the woodcutter's task in person.
Only last night he had hewn ten of his own soldiers during training, exhibiting fabulous, self-assured swordsmanship like Sansa had never seen. The dead Others became mists. New Others took their places as soon as they fell, thinking nothing of their passing. Blue nebula was good. Better than flesh.
Sansa wondered if Sandor could defeat the Night's King and yet wished she would never witness that fight.
Could Jon?
She vaguely remembered hearing Ser Rodrik inform Father that Jon was one of the best boys he'd ever trained in the use of sword, showing a stunningly high degree of both own initiative and anticipation of the moves of his opponent. Father had nodded with both pride and worry. How he must have been afraid for Jon! If his prowess had somehow made his true paternity recognisable, King Robert would have had him killed, Sansa had no doubt.
Mother had thanked Ser Rodrik for the information and asked him to pay more attention to Robb. The future lord should be trained meticulously.
Jon and Arya, even Bran, adored swords at that time. Robb… Robb was a better lance. And Rickon was a baby who stole kitchen knives. Sansa thanked the gods that ladies did not have to be trained in arms and wished she could avoid riding as well; the sores and the smells it brought. Courtesy was her only weapon and her armour.
But now…
No guards were in evidence and the Night's King slept.
Maybe she could grasp his sword and cut his head off.
Maybe if she did that, all the Others would turn into mists and the winter would be over.
Or maybe she could cut her cocoon open and run away.
However, most likely, she would barely be able to lift the sword. Its blade was as large as the two-handed greatswords Sandor preferred. The immaculate weapon exhaled an air of calm greatness.
Like Ice.
Hesitating, not quite certain of her intentions, nor of the limits of her strength in this, Sansa reached for the hilt…
...and was stopped by the wrinkled, bony arm of the Night's King. His parchment-dry skin merged with the intricately engraved armour, forming an inseparable, repulsive whole. His grip was infinitely cold and as firm as Sandor's had been in the past, when her husband was still unkind to her.
"I see everything," he answered her silent question in a serious, deep voice. "And it is most uncourteous of a lady to sneak around her noble host in his sleep and plot a strike at his life. You are fortunate that I am being merciful."
Until I undress willingly and can be killed, Sansa thought rebelliously, not bothering to deny the accusation.
"I admired how the sword was wrought," she forced a half-truth on her lips to continue the conversation. The blue crystal blade was truly beautiful, deeper and richer in colour than an average white walker weapon.
The King of the Others glared at her when she dared mentioned the making of his sword. "Sharp as no other," he argued with passion and halted, closing his eyes… to calm himself, perhaps.
Sansa took the statement as a welcome confirmation that the blade could harm him. Some other time, my lord, she thought unwillingly, when you will be lost to your dreams again.
The Night's King did not scorn her further for being unthoughtful and rude, so he probably only saw all from his throne. It was another bit of useful knowledge.
For all his boasting, he hadn't seen Bran in the cave and Sansa had.
A cold breeze blew right through her from behind. She felt her three guards climbing the stair, woken while it was still daytime by the unbreakable will of their master. The Night's King gaze flashed in the dark, acknowledging the timely arrival of his servants. In his tower, his eyes did not look blue. They were almond-shaped and almost hazel in colour.
A hopeless thought took hold of Sansa. Did you lure me here on purpose to witness your power?
Did you let me open the door to allow me a semblance of freedom?
Was her flight a lie, a ruse to make her… undress?
Well, it failed. She would not take off her gown for anything in the world.
Because the Night's King would surely desecrate king's blood. He would abuse it. This was not right.
And because Sansa could still disobey the order to undress if she so wanted and nothing could be done about it by force.
She would cry and suffer and fear for her life. And remain clad.
Sansa trembled from cold and despair and led the way back to her dungeon, without another word for her conceited host.
Outside, the weak sun was setting, in tones of red and purple over the white and grey walls. There would be maybe three or four more days left before the Long Night came.
Once Sansa was in her room, a different lock was mounted on her door by a pair of wights, rapidly and efficiently. The Others did no such mundane tasks. They only strolled around and issued commands.
The hairpin had no effect on the new mechanism.
Her flight must have been real, but she could not repeat it.
Sansa's chamber was on the first floor of the Great Keep, close to what would have been her parents' rooms in the past. The ice-web infested ceilings of this castle were much higher. There were no fireplaces, no torches and no candles. The Others didn't need them, from the humblest swordsman to their king.
Only starlight and moonlight.
Sansa's gown kept her from freezing, but she was never truly comfortable. She felt like she would never be warm again.
The cup was on the table where she had left it. She forced herself to be a good girl and drank from it the unknown, dark red liquid providing sustenance. She sipped her quaint supper in a ladylike fashion and watched the frozen, darkening wasteland. The windows opened to the outer side of the castle. Sansa gave herself to pondering if her hair was now long enough to lower it as a rope for Sandor, should he find her in the last remaining days… She surmised he would not, if he hadn't done it already, but the fantasy was pleasing and it kept her mind occupied.
And well away from the consideration of throwing herself down to end her misery.
If Sandor came for her, and if they ran away as they should have done immediately when they were reunited, she could… she could live in her ice bubble. Maybe it would wear off with time. Sandor could enter it without hurting himself. If they ever returned to her family and the society, it would not matter what people thought. So many men and women who knew nothing about Sansa and Sandor stared at them, making assumptions founded on their appearance. She understood more acutely now why both the well-intended looks of pity and ill-hidden aversion had cut her husband so much in the past.
Sansa backed to her bed with fresh tears in her eyes.
A hand clamped her mouth, scaring her.
But only for a moment.
Her frozen bed felt hot as coals. The smell of her most welcome attacker was warmly acid, lacking the reek of blood and wine.
"Good girl," Sandor rasped mockingly, sounding as if he didn't mean to be awful at all. "You never scream."
Yet it was his awfulness she craved. His and no one else's.
"And if I did?" she answered, breathless, thoughtless, overjoyed. "Would you kill me?"
"Don't say that!" he barked at her, ashamed and… poked by her words.
Apparently she should not tease him back, not with certain events in their past. Or the present, when she thought better about it, probably that bothered him more.
That he could not save her now.
His reaction was a tad unfair. She had no intention of hurting him, by either word or deed. "I'm… I'm sorry," she began-
"Don't be," he reacted matter-of-factly, "you can remind me all you like about how dumb I was."
"Not only for speaking my mind," Sansa explained herself. "I have been foolish again, expecting there would be a better, safer moment for us to leave. We should have run into the woods immediately after finding each other. They will never take this off," she yanked hard her cloak of ice cobweb in utmost frustration, felt her fingers bleeding, felt Sandor gently pressing the wounds on her fingertips until they closed.
She found calm joy in his gesture and most of all, in closeness of her husband. Alive, warm, smelly, huge, wonderful. "How did you enter?" she inquired softly.
"We arrived three nights ago," he grumbled wearily. "I walked around the castle until I saw you up here, looking out. A proper maiden in the tower. Waited for daytime to climb in here. Only to find the bed empty. I was about to leave, thinking I was wrong, but then you returned."
Sansa noticed that one of the windows was not fully closed and went to remedy that. The illusion of more warmth was welcome to her in this moment.
Sandor was a giant pile of furs in her bed which was already stuffed with blankets and animal skins. If Sansa didn't know better, she would say that the Night's King had a lady who had arranged for her accommodation. She had everything except fire. And freedom. And love. And family. In truth, Sansa had nothing, like in the Red Keep, after a brief respite of having everything.
It was just… life, she told herself calmly, breathing deeply, basking in the moment of happiness she now held in her hands.
The beloved pile of furs stirred in her bed and Sansa wanted to sing. Instead, she lay next to her husband and nested in his embrace. Her head was a feather weight on his broad shoulder. The cocoon of ice enveloped them both, pristinely white and beautiful now that they were together.
"My new friends, the giants," Sandor rasped dryly, pulling Sansa even closer to him with a giant, strong arm. "When I told them about your crippled brother, they wouldn't let me go into that cave. They decided to send out two of our number to find Rhaegar and toss him in there. Better him than you, they said. They never said why. Later they informed me solemnly that the children had come out of the cave, and found men. The giants hate the children, I learned. They avoid them whenever they can, but they still decided to help your brother for some reason, and spied on the success of their endeavour from afar."
Sandor rubbed the small of Sansa's back and continued with befuddlement. "Sansa, I am not a child-loving man, your sister can confirm this," he claimed. "But the contempt the giants have for them is beyond me. What I mean to say is, I still don't understand the giants as good as I would wish, but I think that your crippled brother is free and that he met some wildlings with whom he's heading for the Wall."
Sansa listened avidly, enraptured by her husband's tale. The gods would help Bran, they had to! "You wanted to save him from the cave yourself, take him farther north with you and with the giants?" She guessed warmly.
"It seemed like the easiest thing to do, but they wouldn't have it. No children, they said. Mag had been very adamant about it." Sandor turned towards the moonlight and showed her a poorly scarred bite on his ruined cheek. "He spared the pretty half of my face, I'll give him that. And you should see him now. He is one ugly giant since I bested him."
Sansa hurt for Sandor. Will this ever stop for you? By instinct, she reached out and stroked him there like so many times before. "And then you say you are not fond of children," she teased him gently.
"It has nothing to do with fondness," he replied defensively. "It is just that…" he muttered, "so many ugly things can happen to them."
"Or to anyone," Sansa murmured. "We just…" she stuttered. "We just can't let this knowledge become a poison to us," she claimed with passion.
In King's Landing, Sansa used to think she might have deserved punishment for her sins, for not being good enough, for wanting to stay with her stupid, golden prince and unwittingly betraying her father. Now she thought that life simply… hit everyone equally.
The difficult times had to be endured.
Sandor was here now, in her bed, and the gown she didn't dare take off did not cover her face. The night was young and so terribly long and they could kiss.
Her husband thought the same.
How could she ever live without kissing?
How could he?
He removed all pins from her hair and let it hang loose, caressing her face in quiet anticipation, breathing slowly, then… raggedly.
When their lips finally met and their arms grasped each other tightly, Sansa felt the slow waking of desire within her body, wishing to break free. It never ceased to amaze her how she could sometimes cross the frontier from indifference to mild interest and thirsting for her husband in short time. Like a tiny stone that begins rolling very slowly down the mountain and causes an avalanche.
Boots, chunks of ice being cracked in the corridor.
She had almost forgotten her nightly routine.
"Under the covers, please," Sansa hissed, wrapping her husband in a pretty cocoon of furs.
Sandor obeyed. He was brave, but he didn't want to die uselessly, much like Sansa.
"What do they want with you?" his voice was an intimidating whisper in the dark.
She would listen to the sound of it forever.
"They take me for a long walk in the castle every night," Sansa whispered back. "They will return me before morning. They… they want me to be tired. So that I oversleep the day and have no force left to sneak around."
"I wait and then we go?" he asked with longing.
Sansa nodded. Before she could say yes or kiss him a short farewell, the Others barged in and approached the couple slowly, sniffing every inch of her room.
They must have sensed Sandor's blood; the blood of the living.
Sansa leapt off the bed, lifted her skirts and ran through the rank of the white walkers towards the open door, desperate to attract the undivided attention of her gaolers.
Instead of scurrying to the yard in the usual way she was forced to take before, she ran in the direction never chosen for her by the Others; to her mother's and father's room. She wanted to visit that part of the castle before she left. For if the Others never took her there, maybe it contained a secret. And maybe that forbidden knowledge would force them to follow her now and protect her husband.
Sansa ran swiftly, lithe as a wolf. A brief glance behind revealed her triumph. All three white walkers were after her.
Splendid.
Her breath never hitched.
She was at the door she sought before they could overpower her.
If the Night's King is staying in the First Keep, let's see if there is anyone here.
Maybe there was another lady prisoner like Sansa, wearing a gown of king's blood.
She pulled the door open very decisively.
And gasped.
A lovely young lady, not much older than Sansa, combed her long black hair. The handle of the brush she used was made of mother pearl, shining in the pervasive greyness of the interior. She was seated on a large featherbed, seemingly much softer than Sansa's. The chamber had a fireplace. Real fire cracked merrily in the hearth… A candle was lit in the window. Carpets adorned the floor. And there were wall hangings, golden and red, but in much softer tones than those favoured the Lannisters.
When the strange lady heard the door open, her face beamed and she said something hopeful, but unintelligible to Sansa's ears. Yet her face hardened with displeasure when her eyes measured her uninvited guest.
She waved to Sansa's guards to take her away, and it was then that Sansa noticed the dark grey hue of her face and haunted blue eyes. The lady could have all the fire she wanted. She had no need for it. She was dead like Jeyne Heddle used to be. She was not a perfectly cold being born from a blue mist; only a wight jealous of the living…
"You should have stayed away," the Night's King claimed murderously, materialising from thin air behind Sansa's back. "Now I will have to kill you immediately after you cede the king's blood to me and my men."
Your men? Sansa saw only the Others.
"I'm sorry," she apologised instinctively. "I,"... she invented shamelessly. "I miss my home!" In truth, she was snooping around, wanting to run away and learn the Night's King's secrets. "This was my mother's and my father's room. I miss them so much!" This wasn't a lie and her tears came. Or maybe it was the best of all lies, the one based on truth.
The Night's King did not quite believe her, she could tell, but he chose not to press the matter further. Contrite, he went to one knee before the dead lady, who stood up, pressed his monstrous head to her flat stomach and spoke to him very nervously in the Old Tongue, glaring at Sansa as Aunt Lysa once did.
"I didn't kiss your lord," Sansa blurted. She loved a scarred man, a very special one who had somehow sneaked into her heart and stolen it for himself. She wouldn't and didn't fall in love with just any dangerous, disfigured monster with a deep voice who was awful to her. "Nor would he ever want me too," she realised this was true as well in the moment she claimed it.
The Night's King gazed at the lady like only Sandor looked at Sansa, with devotion and adoration. Sansa could never mistake or miss that expression in a man's eyes since she had learned of its existence.
The lady seemed not to understand Common Tongue, so she must have been a wildling who had never set foot close to the Wall. She studied Sansa's loose, beautiful hair and covered her lips to stifle a sob. Sansa for her part noticed that the lady's sand-coloured gown was narrowing in the bottom, not widening as it ought to. The garment hugged her hips very tightly; stitched together with a twinkling silvery thread.
Like… fishtail.
The Night's King and his Mermaid Wife.
Sansa had heard a woman crying when the Night's King tried to trick her into undressing by posing as a handsome knight. Her mind had brushed his on that occasion; cold and cruel.
Old Nan had known it all, as if she had visited the Winterfell of Ice in person.
Sansa's cocoon was suddenly yanked backward by her guards. She was forced to leave.
In place of another night walk Sansa had expected, she was made to stand in a host of a hundred men, as the Night's King just called them, or rather, the Others, thirsting to end human lives.
There were two kinds of them, Sansa had to admit, if she was completely honest with herself, though the Night's King might not have made or even perceived that distinction. He probably thought of all Others as his men.
One group, a much smaller one, still felt and smelled human to Sansa, at least in part, like one of her first white walker guards, whose mouth made a funny sound and who had disappeared after the Night's King ordered his men to ambush Jon. Sansa hoped fervently that the absence of the Other she otherwise almost favoured, meant that the planned surprise attack on her brother had failed miserably.
The rest of them were just, well… Others… They were not human. The suffering of the living was of no consequence for them.
Both sorts could talk, but only very few individuals of each kind, including the Night's King, to make the matter more complex. Sansa never figured to which group he belonged. She tended to list him between those who were still somewhat human, but this was far from granted.
He was different from all of them together, stronger and more dangerous.
Yet he had called his soldiers men and he had a lady. Mermaid wife or not.
Please take me back to my room, take me back to my room…
As with many of Sansa's prayers, this one was not meant to be.
The hundred Others stood and waited and Sansa had to do the same.
She wondered what would befall her now, and if it was her time to die. She hoped not. Not for her, nor for any of her siblings. Nor for Sandor… Though he still sometimes had that stupid idea where he didn't much care about dying if his death would mean that she could live… Well, at least with her in some new danger, he would surely stay alive until they saw each other again. It could not be any different.
Sansa waited and imagined horrors that could come.
On some nights in Winterfell of Ice, the white walkers would bring a few living wildlings they had caught, the unhappy men and women who did not run south in time. Then, Sansa had to cover her ears in her chambers not to hear the screaming of victims as they were turned into wights.
Tonight, they had a baby, brought forward in a basket by the Night's King in person. Sansa's heart constricted. Her hands jumped unwillingly to her flat stomach which had yet to quicken with hers and Sandor's child.
The captured infant never screamed when a blue mist landed on him from the freezing night air.
At least the Night's King didn't chop him in pieces with his stainless sword.
A new fully-grown Other rose and stepped out of the empty wooden cradle where the baby had been lying. Moments later, he forged his own crystal blade from the layers of old snow and took a place in the ranks.
Sansa sobbed, unstoppably, copiously, convulsively. She hoped that what they did to the baby hadn't been painful.
But it wasn't right.
It couldn't be right.
Babies should eat and grow and play, not be swallowed by a mist and rise from it as warriors...
Sansa felt sick, so cold and so alone that she almost wanted to die.
Almost.
She would never want to die, not truly.
Until she would, one day.
Not now, not now, please.
The Night's King positioned himself at the rear of his army. He never walked or rode in front as a leader of men would have done.
The wights opened the gates of Winterfell.
Sansa was forced to march as a foot soldier, up the stony pathway leading to a hill. On top, she viewed a long, great valley surrounded by the mountains. Its end was lost in fog and ultimate darkness. But the stretch she could see was crowded with the Others, awake and armed. Thousands and thousands of them, more than there were people in King's Landing…. Maybe more than there were people in Westeros.
Sansa felt she would die or faint.
As always, her heart continued beating. Likewise, her legs were wobbly, but did not betray her.
The Night's King had mustered his army and observed it very attentively.
What for?
How cold must Sandor be in her room! Sansa expected they should soon go back, after this display of power, for the Others to sleep during daytime.
It was not to be…
The Night's King lifted his arms and pointed to the constellation of the Ice Dragon.
Showing the way south.
No daylight ever came after the last purple sunset in the Lands of Always Winter.
In the far north, the Long Night had fallen and the Others began their march to the Wall.
Sansa struggled to maintain her pace. Her feet were numb in her boots. Somehow she was fairly certain no body parts would fall off her as long as she didn't undress. She had been shivering from cold since she was kidnapped and she had yet to suffer from frostbite. The gown was keeping her alive though it could not make her feel good or comfortable.
She could only make this herself.
Her dress was nonetheless woven by magic.
The magic of the dragons...
She looked into the woods and wished she was a wolf, a four-legged one. Then she could run back to Sandor and tell him she was alright. She could leave with him. Maybe she could tear the cocoon of ice with her teeth. As she thought of that, Sansa saw a flash of white fur between the sentinels.
"Ghost!" she exclaimed uselessly, wishing her brother or her wolf were here. Jon had… Jon had a magic sword, even Sandor had said so, and Ghost and he had always been special. They could… they could surprise the Night's King. Maybe they could free her from the ice spiderweb Sandor had not been able to break in any way…
If Jon wanted to help her.
She was not Arya. They hadn't been close. And Sansa did everything to please her parents in the past... She never invested an equal amount of time and effort into pleasing her siblings.
Why would Jon risk his life for Sansa?
Remembering how he was and assuming he did not change, not fundamentally, just like she still believed in some songs… those that were true... Sansa decided he would always save her and Arya and Bran and Rickon… And Robb, poor Robb, may he rest in peace…
If he could.
Because he wouldn't be Jon if he did any different.
The white patch was gone when she came to that conclusion and it had probably never been Jon's wolf.
Only a pile of snow.
