The Sun and the Moon: Sansa wants nothing more than for her sister to return and ruin everything again.
Nobody ever told Sansa that victory can be so…quiet.
For that is how Winterfell has become, mere days after their great triumph over the dead. A land of ghosts.
The girl who was once called Alayne Stone spends her mornings around the castle, tending to the remaining wounded. She nurses the others back to good health, and spares a prayer or two for those who never make it. She may not believe in the gods as much as she did when she was younger, but their names can still be a comfort to a man about to join them.
It is an arduous task, one she is not accustomed to. Still, she dedicates herself to her chosen duty. With the other women, she can be useful. Her small and steady hands, so perfect for needlework, are the best at stitching flesh together. She can fold and stack cloth faster than any maiden from north and south of the Neck, and her voice, once praised for songs and poetry, is now the last thing countless dying men will hear, wildlings and Dothraki alike.
It humbles her, this task. And if as a result, it keeps her away from certain people, from conversations she may never be prepared for, it is only by chance. The bright, red hair and pale skin that used to set her apart, now allow her to blend in, to go unnoticed.
Her home is now nothing but blood and snow, after all.
"Umm…m'lady?"
Sansa was on her way back from Winter Town when two children stop her by the gate. When she first sees them, her breath catches and for a moment, she wonders if her brother's visions are always so painful. If being confronted by the ghosts of your past means losing air and sense all at once.
When she looks down, she sees two girls. One has short, dark hair, with leaves sticking out of tangled strands. Her grin is mischievous, and her bright eyes are alight with glee. Next to her is another, taller child, with hair as bright as flames, styled into two braids that fall on each of her shoulders. Her chin is raised, and her lips are curled in a manner that is just a breath away from a proper sneer.
There's an ache where her heart should be, but Sansa finds it difficult to look away.
"Lady?"
Only she blinks, and the memory is taken from her.
"You are, right?" the taller girl asks. She has blonde hair. "You a Lady?"
Sansa stops mid-breath, and considers the question.
Her father and mother had been lord and lady, and she was once promised to a prince. One true-born brother was crowned king, and another, baseborn, after him. Now, another brother wears the crown, and a cousin is heir to a southern throne.
And my sister is the savior of the world.
"I am," she tells them, blinking through unshed tears. She has become rather good at it, these past few years.
When she looks down again, she is able to regard her tiny intruders properly. She sees the way they push at each other, and how the older one quietly sorts her thoughts. Sansa finds she approves. It is always best to be very sure of your words before you speak them.
It is one of the things she learned from Petyr.
"Oh, all right!" the one with brown hair and brown eyes exclaims. Sansa is now sure they are sisters; they have the same nose. The younger one makes no attempt to hide her annoyance, and it is an achingly familiar sight.
Sansa braces herself for a question about the dragons, or perhaps about the war. She has grown used to queries about how long the winter will last, or if she has any bread to spare. Either way, she is just beginning to conjure the voice she often uses to spin tales suited for curious little girls when she hears the child continue.
"Is she awake already?"
It seems curious little girls are still the best at surprising her, even after all these years.
Arya? Is that really you?
"…What?" Sansa whispers, suddenly lost.
"The prince's sister," the blonde supplies, her voice softer but no less eager. "The Sleeping Wolf? Is she awake yet?"
Before she can stop it, Sansa's mind goes to a wreath of blue, winter roses, hung on one of the doors in the great keep. She passes by it every morning, every day. Sometimes, when she feels particularly brave, she will even run her finger against the petals, and let herself remember.
Arya, wait!
"Oy!" shouts the shorter girl who asked her first. "She ain't no sleeping wolf, she's the Night Wolf! I heard 'em call her it."
"She is, too! Elrick said so!"
"And you believed 'im?"
Sansa is finding it harder and harder to breath. Before her silence dooms her, however, a deep voice cuts across the cold, winter air.
"Don't you two have better things to do than bother the lady?"
Jaime Lannister waltzes out of the east gate, a golden hand on top of a sword at his hip. Sansa briefly notices that one of the fingernails is missing, no doubt another casualty of the war.
"Well?" he repeats, giving the little girls a flat look. It's enough to scare them, and soon, the two are running back to the town.
"What?" Jaime turns to her, an impressive display of mock confusion playing on his face. "Was it something I said?"
Sansa can't help but roll her eyes. "Was that really necessary?"
"My lady," Confusion shifts to offense with ease, "how else can I be the kingslayer if I can't scare little children?"
"Was that what you came out here to do, then? Scare little children?"
In an instant, the older man's comely face changes and his eyes drop to the ground. Before she can help herself, Sansa's back straightens.
"Is it—? Is she—"
As soon as her broken words start to make sense, Jaime stiffens, looking just as startled. "Wha—? Oh, no. No! It's not— I'm sorry, it's not…" He raises his good hand, an attempt perhaps to calm her down. It proves pointless, as Sansa's heart is already racing. "Sansa, it's not... I'm sorry." He takes a step to touch her arm, but something on her face stops him. "Nothing's changed. She…they told me she's still—"
"Right," she says, cutting him off. "Of course. No need to apologize. It's entirely my fault." Sansa wills her breathing to even out. It will not do her any good if she breaks now.
Steel, she reminds herself. I am steel.
"What was it you came here for, then?"
Jaime holds her gaze, and when the moment passes, he nods. Another thing she owes him, it would seem.
"Brienne told me the hour you'll be arriving. I was… I was just hoping to escort you back."
His words fall flat, but Sansa pays it no mind. She isn't the only one with people to avoid, after all.
"Well thank you, Ser Jaime," she tells him, dipping in a curtsy. She watches him shake his head in mirth, though whether it's for the display of courtly manners or for her continuous resolve to address him like a proper knight, Sansa isn't sure. "But I assure you, I was not in any danger."
"I'm sure." The former knight of the kingsguard nods, and offers her his left arm. "Shall we, then?"
As she takes his arm, Sansa chances a glance at the people around them. It would not be the first time that passersby openly stare with awe, confusion, and even disgust at the sight of Ned Stark's traitor daughter and Tywin Lannister's golden kingslayer.
I am steel.
What she sees instead is a lone figure atop the ruins of a turret near the great keep. With long, silver hair and a thick winter coat that resemble scales in the right light, it is difficult to mistake the dragon queen for anyone else. In her tower, Daenerys Targaryen is as lonely as she is lovely.
Did she…did she say something about me?
When Sansa first met her, she felt nothing but distrust for the Breaker of Chains. Sansa knows when someone is hiding something from her, and Daenerys, from the first moment her haunting purple eyes met hers, had been in possession of a secret she had no right to keep. Sansa knew it in her bones.
In the end, it was a secret she had to thank the queen for.
Is that really you?
It doesn't take long before they see Brienne, waiting for them in the middle of the courtyard. Watching her without Podrick still brings a small ache to Sansa's chest, but she brushes it right away.
"What took you lot so long?" Brienne exclaims, prompting a practiced eye roll from Jaime. The gesture does not escape the Maid of Tarth. "And you. Didn't I tell you to be quick about it? I told you to be quick about it. If I remember correctly, the bloody gate isn't miles away."
"And your memory is as sharp as always, my dear."
What would have flustered Brienne not so long ago, only serves to raise her hackles. Sansa then spends the next minute suppressing a sigh at the familiar banter of the pair. It reminds her of another time, another life. In it, beneath the gathering dusk, two knights and a squire whisked her out of her tower.
"It is almost supper, my lady." Brienne's light touch on her elbow brings Sansa back to the present. "Would you wish to eat with your brothers?"
Sansa suppresses a grimace at Brienne's stubborn nature. The lady knight knows the answer to this question, has received it countless times, but still she asks.
"I'd take them in my chambers, my friend. Same as always." She hopes her gentle reminder will dissuade the two them from whatever plans they may have, although Sansa knows better. Still, she takes it as a victory when they both simply nod. "Do tell Rickon I'll be expecting him at the library, first thing tomorrow."
Where have you been all this time?
She is exhausted by the time she finishes eating. The fire in the hearth is a comfort after an entire day outside the walls, and she wants nothing more than to bury herself in furs and sleep for days.
But Sansa would sooner offer her right arm to the frost than miss another night. She almost did, once, and what a night that had been.
"My Lady?"
She hears the sound of the door opening, and when she looks up, she is not surprised to see Jeyne. She is wearing a brown cloak, and her scars have started to fade, but Sansa can still see how much her old friend has changed.
"I have the threads you asked for," Jeyne says, arms full of fabric. The sight succeeds in extinguishing the weariness Sansa has been feeling, and she gets up from her bed with a little more enthusiasm.
It doesn't take long for them to reach their destination, and Sansa spends a long moment looking at the flowers on the door. They always manage to be fresh, every single time she sees them.
"Should we…?" Jeyne starts to fidget when the door remains closed. Sansa shakes her head and, after a brief moment of hesitation, carefully shifts a foot to the right. Her shoe makes the softest of sounds, and soon enough, the door with the winter roses is thrown open.
"Sansa."
Jon looks tired, and broken in a way he only seems to look like in this particular hour of the night. The light from the torch in the hallway dances across the scars on his face, but they fail to chase away the shadows in his eyes.
"Your Grace," Jeyne greets him, managing a small curtsy. And like every single night, Jon nods but does not look at her.
After a moment, the prince steps aside to let them in. As Sansa crosses the threshold, a strong wave of emotion grips her heart and she does something she has never done in all the times they've repeated this encounter. She speaks.
"How is she?"
The question surprises both Jon and herself, and judging by the soft gasp behind her, Jeyne as well.
For a moment, Sansa fears she has shattered an unspoken rule between her and her cousin. They share this pain, but they never speak of it. At least, not in so many words. She has met with Sam and the maesters countless times, spoken to all the healers she has worked with, but a part of her still believes that when it comes to her sister, there are some things only Jon will know.
"My Lady…" Jeyne whispers, a feeble and uncertain attempt to save the moment before Sansa regrets her actions.
After what seems like an eternity, Jon speaks.
"I don't know."
His voice comes out as little more than a whisper, but Sansa hears it just the same.
"They keep on telling me the same thing. Over and over again. No fever, no poison. Nothing." When their eyes meet, Sansa almost weeps. "She just won't wake."
His sad, grey eyes are the last thing Sansa sees before the man who was once her bastard, half-brother bows and disappears into the darkened hall.
"Sansa?"
There's a firm hand on her arm, and Sansa almost jumps when she realizes it's Jeyne's. When she looks up, she sees a small smile on her friend's once beautiful face.
"We best get inside or we'll let the cold in."
Arya?
Sansa had been looking for Rickon, when the dead finally reached Winterfell. She had been struggling to move past a sea of bodies when the wights came, and when Sansa thought the gods had finally come to take her borrowed life, a beautiful stranger pulled her out of the fray.
A stranger with grey eyes.
Arya? she asked, struggling to be heard over the sounds of fighting. Is that really you?
The woman was taller, towering half a head above her. There were many other things, things that screamed wrong and changed and different, but Sansa knew it was her sister. It was Arya.
Rickon's inside, the stranger said, leading her to the crypts. You'll be safe here.
Arya, wait! Sansa held on to her arm, almost sobbing as she did. It was all happening too fast, just like the last time. It felt like her sister was being ripped from her all over again. Where have you been all this time?
Instead of answering, Arya held her tight and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head. A moment later, the doors were closing.
"Will you be all right?"
After depositing the bundles of cloth and the box of threads on Sansa's lap, Jeyne takes a moment to watch the woman on the bed, just like she does every single night.
Do you want her to wake up? she once asked Sansa, after a particularly diffiult night. It was an innocent query, devoid of any malice their younger selves would have been filled with, but the words stayed to haunt Sansa still.
"I'll be fine," she tells Jeyne, following her old friend's gaze.
In her sleeping form, Arya Stark is peaceful, and safe. What little she knows about what her sister has gone through makes her current situation a mercy, for some. What she's done for the rest of them should be more than enough for her to earn her rest.
But Sansa wants her sister to wake up. Only with Arya awake can she find her chance for redemption.
"Have a good night, Sansa."
Like the previous night, and the one before that, Jeyne does not wait for a response before she leaves.
When the Others fell and Sansa found herself running to the godswood, the first thing she saw was Daenerys Targaryen weeping on her knees. Her chest ached at the sight of the queen's soft cries, and it's the reason it took her a moment to see figures beneath the heart tree, why she was a moment too late to realize that it was her sister Arya who was lying lifeless in the arms of Jon Snow.
Did she say something about me?
"Snow has reached Oldtown," she starts, letting her hands work their way on a particularly lovely Myrish silk. "Can you believe that? Snow in the south in a long time. Do you reckon it'll reach all the way to Dorne? That would be something."
She does not have a thread that matches the exact shade of the fabric, but the darkest red she has will have to do.
"Have you been to Myr, sister?" The light from the flames follow the movement of her hands, creating shadows all over the room as Sansa worked on her stitches. "Daenerys said you've travelled to the Free Cities. Oh, I bet Myr was beautiful."
They said my sister came with you, she once asked the Targaryen queen. It was the first morning of burning the dead.
"Would you take me there someday? Perhaps not now, but when the spring comes." She looks out the window, into the night. She wonders if Nymeria and her pack are outside, in the snow. There is no moon, and it makes the evening seem without light and the winter without end. "Yes. I think I'd like that very much."
Did Arya speak to you about her family? Did she say something about me?
Daenerys Targaryen was grieving, Sansa could tell. They all were, but the sorrow in her purple eyes reflected something Sansa saw in herself. It was grief for a loss one has yet to accept.
For a moment, she wondered what her sister was to the strange, foreign queen, and just how a fugitive Stark managed to cross paths with an exiled Targaryen.
She has forgiven you, my lady. The smile on Daenerys Targaryen's face was soft and sad, and Sansa remembered her little sister, who ran, and played, and loved like it was all she was born to do. She's forgiven you a long time ago.
Sansa watches her sister, frozen save for the telltale signs of soft breathing, and wonders if this is what victory feels like.
She just wanted to come home.
(A/N: Title was taken from the classic fairy tale Little Briar Rose)
Gospel of the North series
(Part 1) a castle in the snow
(Part 2) Little Blue Rose