Catelyn

She moved about Riverrun, trailing her fingers along the stone walls. She remembered this place so well… or at least she'd thought she did. But now it felt like she was a stranger in her own home. There were so many things she'd forgotten about and even now, as she looked at them, she felt that she should remember them even as she failed to do so. Out one window she saw the Tumblestone, looking so blue and deep that she wondered how the ocean could ever hope to compete with it. She walked over to the sill and stood upon it, looking down at the water that was so far below yet was so clear in that moment that she could see all the fish swimming about happily, practically winking at her. It made her smile and feel young again which was something she needed because at times she felt so very old despite still being a young woman.

Catelyn looked back and saw several mirrors hanging on the wall and was startled by the images they reflected back. One was her as a little girl, so headstrong and opinionated, taking command of Riverrun as was her duty seeing as her mother was not there to do the job. It rather reminded her of Arya and in that moment she heard echoes of Maester Luwin telling her how good Arya was at managing the play books he'd created to teach her and Sansa how to run a household. Every time Sansa tried to do it she got confused and made mistakes but no matter the challenge Luwin threw at the Little Wild Wolf he received back only a smug smile from Arya before she revealed the true answer.

Another mirror showed her how she saw herself, longed for the world to see her: beautiful still, successful in helping Ned rule the North, able to serve as a role model for every future Queen of the North that would come after her. This was in direct opposition of another mirror that kept drawing her attention, the image heeping all her fears and nightmares of how the world would see her into one image. A little more than a red-haired Cersei Lannister, grasping at power, abusing all around her, scorned for being a Southern She-Devil that all in the North cursed for causing them to end up in this war.

The final mirror was shattered but the image she saw there was… disturbing. A creature with skin like pudding and the coloring of curdled milk, with green and brown rot blooming from her flesh. Her throat a ragged, destroyed thing, once tinged with blood but now merely stained with it. The face was torn with bits of skull visible and Catelyn lurched away from that vision, the red orbs that one could barely qualify as eyes following her as she fumbled for at the door knob and plunged into a room from the creature with the gapping wound in her chest and a stone where her heart should have been.

The room was one she was familiar with, though she'd never admitted it to a soul. This was where her mother had died and Catelyn walked to the bed, staring at her mother as she laid there, brought down by sickness and a body not recovered from birthing a child.

"Be good, my little Cat," her mother whispered to her. "Be kind. Be loving. Family… duty… honor."

"You betrayed her," Jon said, emerging from the shadows. He was taller than she remembered, broader, looking so much like Ned that at times it seemed as if his face and her husband's had been switched. But then he was Brandon when he had been full of rage, insulted by a jape and unable to hide the wolf's blood that thundered in his veins. Then in the next instant he was a woman, beautiful and daring and Catelyn remembered how much she'd wished Jon had been a girl because a bastard daughter would be so much easier to deal with than a bastard son who could steal Robb's birthright. "It wouldn't have mattered," Jon snapped at her as he became himself once more. "You would have hated me all the same. All you have in you is hate. Family, Duty, Honor?"

"You weren't my family," Catelyn spat at him, that old fear and loathing rearing up once more. "You were Ned's blood, not mine!"

"Blood…" Jon whispered and suddenly his hair was like beaten silver and his eyes shining a deep black… no… they were- "And FIRE!"

And suddenly he was a great red dragon with three heads and Catelyn was forced to leap away from him as he let lose a gut of flames that consumed her mother and her death bed. But even then she didn't burn but instead pleaded with Cat to be good. Be kind.

Catelyn pushed herself up, her hands aching as the sharp grass tore into them, cutting into them like an assassin's dagger. She lifted her head and saw Brandon staring at her, shaking his head in disappointment. "How many people were ruined because you begged me to spare that boy?" He turned away and Catelyn reached out to him, trying to stop him, to beg him to let her explain, only for a boot to come down hard and smash her fingers.

"I did warn you about trusting me," Petyr taunted her.

"Make her fly!" a robin called out from a tree. "I want to see the bad woman fly!"

Catelyn was hauled to her feet by grasping hands and dragged through the Godswood, the whores of King's Landing taunting her from Petyr's brothel, hanging out the windows with their tits on full display, cackling about all the things they'd done with Ned and with Brandon and with Petyr and every man she'd ever cared about. How they dreamed of them and never her. She tried to cry out, to tell them to stop, but when she tried to open her mouth she found she had no lips or tongue but rather smooth skin. It so startled her that she was on the very edge of the moon door that opened up right before the Heartstree before she realized the danger she was in. She twisted and squirmed before finally rolling onto her back to see who was restraining her.

"I died because of you," Sansa hissed, her head half caved in, maggots and worms falling from the holes in her face.

"Don't look at me," Arya said, a phantom standing just out of reach, "you never really loved me… why should I love you?"

And then she was flying, flailing about she dropped into the inky blackness that was the Seven Hells that awaited her for her failure. She spun around and tried to grasp onto something, anything, but every handhold her fingers brushed against turned to ash and crumbled before disappearing, leaving her all alone.

"Am I dreaming this?" Tyrion Lannister asked, his hands bandaged and face filled with confusion. He was wearing exotic clothing and had a scruffy beard but there was something… different… about him compared to the others she had seen. Something more real. "Or are you?"

But then she wasn't falling anymore. She was standing on the ground and she couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. Or much of anything, really. Just that she was now standing on the ground even though in the pitch black darkness of the world she couldn't actually see it. The walls and the ceiling and the floor seemed to merge together into one solid mass, without seam or joint, so that everything was just the inky night. It wasn't dark though because Catelyn could see herself. She looked down at the dress she was wearing and touched the fabric. It was so smooth and silky and it grounded her and helped her focus. The way the emerald fabric felt against the tips of her fingers, how the yellow ribbons and sashes that adorned it flowed with the slightest movement of her form. She'd never seen such a dress before and that helped he realize just what was going on.

"A dream," she murmured, or maybe she thought it. Or both. "This is just a dream."

She had felt this sensation before, of dreaming only to realize the world made no sense as it played out before her eyes and as such wasn't real. Sometimes that woke her right up but other times she tried desperately to cling to the dream, to make it real. Her mother alive and healthy, Arya finally behaving like a proper lady, merely spending time with all her family in one place without a care for the pains of the real world. But it never lasted. Trying to hold onto a dream was like trying to catch the fog. It would dissipate into nothing between her fingers and then she would awaken with only the gift of the memory to tide her over.

But this time… she remained.

And that was when she became aware that she wasn't alone.

That wasn't to say that there were others close by. Far from it. Though she could see those gathered they were so far off that she'd never be able to reach them. A raven with three eyes that beat its wings and tried desperately to fly towards her only to become caught in the air like bugs she'd seen get trapped in sap. A tall, spindly woman with no eyes who sat in the middle of a spider's web, fingers pressed together and brought to her lips while never budging from the throne she sat upon. Another figure, another woman Catelyn realized, who was surrounded by adders, her gaze promising altered destinies but not necessarily kind ones. A set of glowing blue eyes that shone in the darkness that made her shiver against the sudden chill in the air.

None approached her.

They were scared of the door.

A simple door, made of wood and banded with iron. She'd seen thousands of them in her lifetime. Nothing interesting about it. Nothing special.

Save the heat.

She could feel the fire behind it… no… the inferno. It was raging right behind that door and Catelyn knew that if she opened it the blaze would engulf her and she would burn-

Her eyes slowly opened and she rose up a bit from her bed, Ned still sound asleep beside her. It took her a moment but she remembered where she was; it was the keep of some minor lord, a day or so ride from the Twins. They had arrived after a long day of riding, desperation to get to Winterfell and find out what had happened with the Iron Born attack and why Robb requested their return making them push the horses to their breaking point. If Catelyn had been given her way she would have ridden all night till the animals died on their hooves and then taken another mount and continued on.

'Family, Duty, Honor,' she thought to herself as she quietly slipped out of bed, her bare feet padding across the hard stone floor. She shivered, her nude flesh goose pimpling, and she moved through the darkness to claim her robe, wrapping it around herself. Many would have thought that years spent in the North would have helped her get used to the cold but the Starks had been cunning; where many Southern Lords scoffed at how Winterfell was built in the worst possible place, making it utterly helpless against any attack, Bran the Builder and chosen the perfect place for a siege. A NORTHERN Siege. For you could do all you wanted in surrounding Winterfell and trying to choke out its people but when they were able to stay warm thanks to their hot springs and the heated water that ran through the walls of the castle they wouldn't care. They would watch your armies freeze while they remained happily warm.

Thus Catelyn had slept in rooms warmer at times than her old room in Riverrun, with only Ned's urge to always open the window and let the Northern chill fill their bedchambers spoiling the wonderful heat. So the cold of this minor castle made her shiver, nipples turning to hard pebbles even as she pulled the robe together around her form. It made her feel like an old woman huddle under her shawl which was utterly ridiculous. Catelyn wasn't an old woman! She was only 35 years old and plenty of high born women lived twice as long… some neared three times! And while she would never be a beauty like the cold Lannister Queen Catelyn could admit to having a bit of vanity when it came to her looks and her form.

'Especially after Lysa,' Catelyn thought to herself, remember how the years had not been kind to her sister. 'She brought a single child to term but allowed her form to become so puffy and bloated you'd think she had twenty!' Meanwhile Catelyn had given birth to five strong and healthy children and managed to keep, for the most part, her body from showing too many changes that came from bringing a babe into the world. Oh, she'd never be a thin and lithe as she had been when she'd said her vows to Ned in the Godswood but she still tried her best to avoid the pitfalls so many other noblewomen fell into. She watched what she ate and though she never let the children see (for if she did it would only encourage Arya!) she did in secret perform her own 'exercises' like Ned would occasionally do in the training yard. Maester Luwin had suggested them to her and it kept her strong… in fact he believed that they had allowed her to bring all of her and Ned's children to term.

'My children,' she thought as she pulled the robe tighter around her. She wondered what they were doing right now. Was Robb being held close by his wife or had he left her bed to stare out at the night sky and brood? Was Bran able to sleep or did the ache in his body, the phantom pains in limbs that would never feel again, keep him up? And what of little Rickon… did he slumber peacefully or wail for her still as Robb had complained about when she'd kept her watch over Bran?

'You love your children,' a voice whispered in her ear, cold and taunting, 'but you seem to only have a little love to give. And rather than divide it up you heap it all onto one while leaving the rest in the cold.'

She wanted to deny that. Catelyn loved her children. Each and every one of them… and yet the memories of all her mistakes and failures flowed over her like the waters of the Northern Seas, drowning her. Of how she would focus only on Sansa and never praise Arya… but then would abandon her eldest to her lessons with her Septa because she had to coo and tickle Rickon, never being there when Sansa needed her mother's lessons on how to be a good and clear-eyed lady. Spending all her time scolding Bran only to then stay at his bedside when he was hurt… then leaving him before he awoke. How she'd loved Robb so very much but never liked it when he asked her for attention and help when she wanted to focus on someone or something else. The confusion in Ned's other son's eyes when he didn't understand why she didn't cuddle him and love him as she did his brother.

'So little love, Catelyn Tully. How can you hope to do your duty and rule with honor when you can't even help your family?'

She didn't have an answer.

~MC~MC~MC~

Sansa

She moved through the Red Keep, doing her best to be a silent as possible. That was the best way to survive, after all, to be silent. She was under no illusions that there were allies in the castle, not after Cersei had opened her eyes. The Tyrells had invited her to dine with them but she was terrified that all they wanted was to determine what threat she might be for Margaery. It didn't matter that there was no one more excited for Lord Tyrell's daughter than Sansa… though that was mostly because it would be her suffering under Joffrey's cruel torments rather than her. She remembered well the lessons her Septa had told her about Aerys the Mad King, how he had beaten his wife for imagined slightest and raped her not because she wasn't willing but because he just loved to rape her. Normally such talk would have been frowned upon by her mother but the Mad King was fair game and anything that taught Sansa and Arya and the rest of her siblings how horrible that man was the better! That was Margaery's fate now, Sansa knew it… she would be the one to suffer at Joffrey's hands because there was nothing anyone could do when it came to how a man treated his wife.

Joffrey had threatened to keep her around but she'd come to realize that wouldn't happen. Lord Tywin hated whores and would not allow her to become one, nor allow Joffrey to use any one of such low morals. He also understood how important she was… Littlefinger had said as much. He wanted her to trust him but Sansa simply couldn't. Too many people had betrayed her, spoken sweet words and then allowed Joffrey to beat her and break her. All except Lord Tyrion but he was the Imp and had been made Master of Coin.

The only person Sansa could even rely on… not trust but rely on… was the Hound. He protected her though why she didn't-

Sansa paused, looking at her reflection, and saw it was not her at all but a great snarling wolf. She stumbled back only for the image to twist into a demon made of ice that roared and leapt at her from the mirror's glass…

She awoke with a start, panting slightly before giving her body a full shake. Sansa looked about and saw that she was still under the same tree she'd gone to sleep under the night before. She wasn't in the Red Keep. She wasn't Joffrey's plaything. She was free.

The moon was still shining over head but she easily rose to her paws, jaw cracking as she spread it wide. She didn't need to sleep that much, she found… only a few hours would do her. Her time was spent heading towards the North and hunting… usually both though sometimes the quest for a fresh kill would cause her to wander West or East… but never South. No, never towards the South. More than one animal had escaped her jaws because it had turned in the wrong direction but Sansa didn't mind… freedom was worth more than a full belly.

The body of Lady had begun to grow again when Sansa's soul had filled it and brought it back to life and she sensed that her growth spurts were far bigger and faster than they should be normally. It seemed that the dire wolf she had become needed to catch up to her siblings and was doing in 1 day what should take 40. She was huge now, far bigger than any dog she'd ever seen, and there was power in her limbs. The fine fur that she'd spent hours caring for was now matted and splattered with mud and blood but Sansa welcomed that as it warned any that crossed her that she was a predator. She would kill to protect herself.

Darting forward Sansa fell into an easy loping gait, rapidly leaving the clearing behind her. The air was filled with so many different scents and she sniffed as she went on. She wouldn't need to hunt just yet, as she found she much preferred to making a kill a few hours before it was time to sleep; too early and it made it harder to run on a full stomach. Too late and she would have to sleep near her kill, which would attract other animals and lead to her having to defend herself. Already she'd been forced to kill two smaller wolves that had tried to attack her to claim a slain boar. No, she'd just run now. Run and think.

Her mind drifted back to the dream and she was thankful that it was only that. 'Though I wish I would dream of something else,' she thought as she zipped past trees and went down a small hill towards a stream. 'Dreaming of being a human is so foolish. Why would i-'

She stopped and if she could have seen herself she would have chuckled at how comical she looked, skidding to a stop with her eyes wide. But she wasn't laughing at that moment… she was terrified.

'You are the Red Wolf… but you are Sansa Stark. You are HUMAN. You are a Wolf but you are also HUMAN. HUMAN!' That was her greatest fear, that she would forget who she truly was. That her memories of her life as a human would be washed away and only the wolf would remain. Old Nan had told her stories about that, of how Wargs would become trapped in the animals they slipped into and forget they were ever men, til eventually they became the beasts. She had to remember that. Remember Old Nan's stories. And remember herself. Remember her fingers and her toes and what her face had looked like.

She couldn't forget. As much as she wanted to. As much as it would make her life so much easier if she just forgot all the pain and suffering and torment she'd gone through. Not just how the Lannisters had betrayed her but of what the Night's Queen had done to her. How that dark creature of ice and cold had locked her away in her own mind and then used her body to do so many horrible, awful things. Sansa had seen it ALL. The Night's Queen brutally murdering those men during the Riots… yes, they had been rapists but she'd gleefully torn them to shreds. The poor servants she'd brought into the depths of her quarters and then killed in the quietest yet most wicked of ways; the lucky ones would have the blood in their veins freeze from her touch but she'd snapped necks and tore out hearts all the same. Sansa remembered that final night, when the Night's Queen had given her the most control in order to taunt her. And while that had given her the final edge to free herself what had happened before…

She could still feel Tywin Lannister parting her legs, hear the Night's Queen laughing as he unwittingly raped her-

'No. Don't think that.' Sansa shook her head. 'Remember who you are but don't think about that.' She growled, her lips curling back into a snarl. 'The list. Remember the list.'

It had been something that she had come up with in order to help with her studies. Septa Mordane would constantly quiz her on the names of famous Commanders of the Kingsguard or the Lords of Winterfell or the different High Septons. And to remember Sansa would repeat the names at night, whispering them over and over until she drifted to sleep. Or quietly murmur them while doing her stitches. Or while she bathed. Or dressed. Or ate. It allowed her to commit them to memory, made them a mantra.

She did the same thing now.

'Joffrey.' The start of all that had happened to her. He had tried to kill her father. Had killed her. Driven Arya away. Killed so many of her father's servants and personal guard. She had loathed what the Night's Queen had done with her body but she remembered how he had delivered death and pain and Sansa would tear the throat out of her 'sweet prince'.

'Cersei.' She had created the monster. Worst she was a traitor to their gender… she should have protected Sansa from Joffrey, saw to it he didn't violate her body; even if the Night's Queen had been the one in control Joffrey hadn't realized that.

'The Night's Queen.' For her. For the North. For all of mankind. She had to die yet again and this time Sansa would make sure it lasted.

'And the cunt will remember my name,' she thought as she leapt over a small ditch and kept running, scenting something that was emitting the odor of fear. That was always good… prey was often scared, especially the small ones that were easy to get her jaws around. She hoped for a rabbit… she had come to love rabbit. She continued on with her list.

' Tywin Lannister.' He had created the monsters, not just through his horrid paternal ways but also instilling within Cersei and Joffrey the sense that they could do as they liked and because they were of Casterly Rock all the Seven Kingdoms had to accept that. No… Sansa would show him the error of those thoughts-

"NO! NO! HELP!"

Sansa stopped, lifting her head and sniffing the air. The scent of fear was coming in the direction of the cries. A human. A girl.

She had avoided humans. She'd understood how dangerous they could be. A direwolf could die as easily as anyone else and she and Lady had already each cheated death once to become what they were now… she wasn't sure if they could cheat the Stranger a second time. So she had made her way around villages and towns even in the dead of night when no soul was prowling about. When she smelled the fires from camps she had darted away, silently and swiftly. She did not go along the King's Road even though that would have been the best way to ensure she reached Winterfell; rather she made the forest and the game trails her path towards home. The smart thing to do would be to ignore the cries of that child and continue on.

"PLEASE!"

But then she remembered her own cries for help, when she had been chained up in her own mind. How she'd sobbed for her father and her mother and Robb and even Arya and Jon. She would have taken Hodor or Old Nan, she was so desperate for someone to come and set her free and make her nightmare end. How many times had she wept and begged the Gods, the Old and the New, to save her? But they never had. The Gods never answered the prayers of little girls, even when demons of myth stalked the halls.

'If the Gods won't save her…' Sansa thought before rushing forward, sniffing for the scent of terror and listening to the cries and pleas. She'd been running for a long time and now realized the sun was beginning to rise. And in that dim light she saw a peasant girl, low born, probably never even been to a town with more than a few dozen people in it, let alone a city, trying to scramble up a tree while a brown bear snarled. It was a skinny thing, small too for its kind, but still larger and far fiercer than the girl it was hunting. The peasant was sobbing, screaming hoarsely, her voice giving out in her terror as she tried to get up through the branches but the tree she had selected was old and dry and the wood cracked as she put her weight on it. Her long dress was torn and there was blood on her hands, the smell making Sansa's mouth water before she shook those thoughts away… but the bear didn't mind, instead choosing to rise up on its hind legs and swipe at the girl-

Sansa let out a snarl.

The bear turned but she didn't give it a chance to even comprehend that it had been ambushed. She rushed it, leaping through the air, the sudden impact of her body colliding with the beast's jarring her for a moment before she sunk her teeth into the bear's side. She thrashed about, the bear bellowing and twisting before knocking her loose but she took a thick piece of meat and fat with her. She spat it out, licking her lips before narrowing her eyes. The bear let out a roar, trying to drive her away, but Sansa wasn't frightened.

'I was a guest of the Night's Queen, you fucking bastard. You are NOTHING!'

She leapt again, striking the bear and this time kicking with her legs against its face. For a brief moment she felt its teeth brush against her leg but she had already yanked her body away before the beast could snap its jaws and then she was rolling away, coming up with her hunches raised before she darted forward again. Sansa slammed into the bear, knocking it onto its side, and she didn't miss her chance. She dove at its throat, the bear's roars turning into higher-pitches screeches of pain as she sunk her teeth into its neck, hot blood gushing on her tongue and fueling her assault. She thrashed her head about once… twice… three times… and then the bear went limp.

Sansa panted, looking down at her kill before lifting her head up and letting out a howl of victory.

Lowering her head she looked towards the tree the girl had been hiding in only to find her on the ground, staring at her in shock. She was young, maybe a year or so older than Arya… it was hard to tell as she knew that common folk aged faster than the children of lords. They lived harder lives and needed to grow up all the quicker. There was a cut on her forehead and her hands were bloodied but not torn to pieces like Sansa would have suspected… most likely she had developed enough calluses to avoid such pains.

She was suddenly struck by the thought that the girl might bring other humans to her, drawn by her screams, and it was time for her to leave. Sansa looked at the bear, regretful she couldn't fill her belly first, but let out a sigh anyway; better to be safe and hungry than dead.

"You… you saved me," the girl whispered.

Sansa nodded before realizing what she was doing and both she and the girl's eyes widened at that.

"Do… do you understand me?"

Sansa fought the urge to shake her head no… doing so would only prove she was lying and that would be a monstrous mistake. The girl was a commoner but she wasn't stupid!

"You do… don't you?" the girl said anyway, slowly inching away from the tree. "You… you aren't going to hurt me. You saved me." Sansa, for reasons she truly didn't understand, sat down and stared at the girl, suddenly feeling the urge to stay. Perhaps it was because this was the first person she had talked to in over a year. Perhaps because it was the first person to simply show her kindness in ages. Perhaps because she just wanted to remember again that she was Sansa Stark, no matter whose fur she wore. "Did… did the Gods send you?"

Again Sansa wanted to shake her head no but this time she considered the question. 'No… the Gods didn't send me. I found you all on my own. The Gods don't care… or do they?' After all, what were the odds that she would have arrived at the right moment to hear the girl's screams? That it was a threat that only she could handle?

Perhaps she was just grasping about for easy answers, the way she had seen Rickon do when he tried to explain things like thunder. That she wanted a reason why so much of her life had been ruined for seemingly no reason. Because it was easier to find a reason, any reason, than to accept that the Gods had merely watched on and allowed her to suffer. But in that moment she couldn't help but wonder if the reason she had gone through all that was to put her there, to save the girl that looked at her so unsure and scared. That the young woman was destined for amazing things and Sansa had just ensured that her life would continue on and all those she would save and care for had been saved by her. Sansa Stark. The Red Wolf.

Sansa nodded her head.

The girl gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth, before slowly, carefully, creeping towards her. Sansa did her best to look nonthreatening, smelling the scent of fear on the child. The peasant finally came within arm's reach of her and Sansa slowly leaned forward, lowering her nose as the girl extended her arm and ever so lightly stroked her head.

She couldn't remember the last time someone had touched her with only pure and kind intent.

"Oh," the girl said, letting out a gasp as she began to pet Sansa's head. "You… the Mother and the Maiden and the Crone didn't send you, did they?" She moved closer and Sansa allowed her to do so, amused at how delighted and startled the girl was by all that was happening. It was like one of the fairy tales Old Nan had told her, the ones she had dreamed of being in.

'Though I never dreamed I'd be on this side of things!' she thought, a laugh bubbling up in her that came out as a huffing sound that made the girl jump before returning to stroking Sansa's head.

"Did the Old Gods send you?" the girl asked. "Or… are you the Old Gods?"

Maybe that was what Sansa had been doing wrong. She had kept the New Gods, like her mother, because she wanted so desperately to be a Southern Lady. To wear pretty dresses and dance in flower fields and pray to the Maiden to give her a good husband, the Mother to give her strong children, and the Crone to give her a good life. Her mother had never been shy in telling her what a Lady should be like… and how the best ladies were the beautiful and sweet Southern Ladies.

'But was that my mistake?' Sansa thought to herself as the girl scratched her behind her ears. 'I am not a Southern Lady. I have been South of the Neck only a few times, and the longest was my time in King's Landing.' Her mother had taken her and her siblings (though not Jon… never Jon… and how she hated herself for being glad for that in the past) to Riverrun a twice but those had been for short times… they'd nearly spent more time on the road than at her mother's ancestral home. For most of her life she had lived in the North. She was a Stark, Winter was in her blood, and she had tried to take ice and make it into a rose. That simply wasn't possible. Sansa thought of the Northern Ladies she had met; the Mormonts, the Karstarks. None of them had been delicate and sweet.

And they had all worshiped the Old Gods.

'I prayed to the wrong Gods,' she realized in that moment. 'The Seven… they have never answered my prayers. The Old Gods did though but because I didn't honor them properly they twisted my desires and gave them back to me in the worst possible way. To punish me.' She looked at the girl before once more nodding her head. 'Yes, young one… the Old Gods sent me.'

Sansa started when the girl gave her a hug before rubbing her head against the peasant's cheek, offering her comfort however she could.

They stayed there for nearly 20 minutes before Sansa tensed, smelling someone else coming towards her. It was similar to the girl but older, stronger, and there was a masculine taint to the smell. A relative… her father… coming towards them…

"Sally!" the man called out. "Sally!" Sansa tensed and the girl released her but rather than run towards her father the girl placed her hand on Sansa's back and called out, "Here! Here!" Her father rushed through the underbrush, making a horrible racket that made her cringe, and then he was there, the joy at finding his child draining from his face as he stared at Sansa. His hands gripped the pitchfork he was carrying till his knuckles went white and he motioned silently for Sally to come to him but she shook her head.

"Its okay, father. She saved me from the bear! She saved me!" Sally looked down at Sansa and smiled wide. "The Old Gods sent her, they did."

"They did?" Sally's father asked and Sansa nodded her head, causing the man to leap back slightly in shock. "You… understand me?" Again Sansa nodded and the man slowly walked up to her, holding out his hand not to pet her like Sally had but to grab his daughter and pull her to him. But it wasn't out of fear or anything like that; Sansa could tell. It was a need to have his daughter close, to remind himself that she was alive, even with her right in front of his eyes. Sally came to him and he hugged her tight, running his fingers along her face, through her hair, making sure she was real.

Sansa swallowed, her heart aching within her chest as she thought of her own father and how she would give anything to feel him wrap her up in his arms and tell her that everything would be okay. To have him lie to her and tell her that life was kind and sweet and fair.

Sally's father broke away from his daughter and knelt down next to Sansa, swallowing before bowing his head and whispering, "Thank you for saving my daughter."

She gave another huff before darting away into the forest. Sally was safe, at least for the moment, and had been returned to her father.

And now it was time for Sansa to find her's.