Ice

"The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below," Ernest Shackleton.

Sansa Stark opened her eyes in the cold, utterly beautiful, and familiar place she thought forever lost.

It was not the physical place, exactly, but rather the people that made it home that she wakes too.

She does not realize it at first, as all she can understand is that she is breathing. Functionally able to bring air into her lungs and exhale it when the last thing I remember was the horribly brilliant dance of emerald and jade flames, the smoke filling my chest, and stilling my lungs. She loses herself in breathing first, unable to even register what is in front of her eyes. All she can do is bring one breath after the other. It is a startling, disturbing thing to suddenly have the ability to do.

A relief- perhaps- but mostly, Sansa is just stunned.

She stuttered into hacking and wheezing in her surprise. Her lips tremble with the effort, her chest burned as she took breath after breath. Shallowly, quickly, air pressing cooly against her lips and her chest. Then, despite her trembling breath, she registers what is above her.

It is both stone and wood, dark beams that cross above her in a rib-like pattern across the even darker stone. The beams, she knows with dead certainty, are made of Northern oaks: they are that distinct rich brown I have never found in Southern woods. The wood was ancient as well, and in true Northern design, they have not withered away to polished beams that blend seamlessly with the stone- the wood is alive with both the knots and whorls it had grown in life before it had been cut down. A reverence for the life given by the tree to house them. The traditional etchings of the language of the first men line the wood as a compliment, not a defiance of the life once held within the wood. She did not know the words well. She had little care for that language of the first men as a child, had found tedium in the mandatory lessons, one of the few in her girlhood. They had been too austere, too rough in structure to her, not flowing as prettily as Common or Valerian, and not used nearly as much as the two other languages she had been taught. They were hardly even spoken, in the North, and on her tongue, they had always felt too heavy, too rough for her to perfect. In adulthood, like much of the traditions of the North, Sansa had wished to know better but had not the time to understand.

But she remembers enough to recognized 'child' and 'growth' amongst the rough cut wood, to see the words of 'care' within the beams above her. She vaguely can guess the meaning of the rest, all above her, but cannot be sure. She only knows that the runes of the first men stand above her, sentries in protection. The dark stone was more precisely cut, the Mansory old, but ruthlessly symmetrical, and it took her a moment to recognize the stone as another Northern native, one mined for centuries to support and construct the majority of the Northern keeps, traditionally exported by some of the Mountain clans.

Where am I...?

She bolts upward as tears start blurring her vision in her sudden panic, in a way that she has learned to usually conceal-Something is not right, even with my control. But Sansa cannot stop the sobs threatening to tear her apart. Her hands clutch at her chest, feeling desperately at her heaving body, at the thundering bolt of her heart. She wonders, for a second without understanding why she is in such a small room when the last she remembered was killing herself with her sister, far from Winterfell. The wildfire. The wildfire is...Gone. Questions arise in her panic, in her incomprehension of what has happened since she and Arya had lit the flames. Where am I? Where is my sister? What has happened to the wildfire?

She forced herself to settle her breath. Forced herself to even out the heaving breaths she was drawing in. She dried her tears and squashed her growing panic with more effort than she could ever remeber needing. I am steel, I am a wolf, not a trembling dove in its cage. It took her minutes to settle herself. More than she had ever needed since she had first learned the power and the functionality of emotional control. It is only when she forced herself to bend her head between her knees and shut her eyes shut for a moment did Sansa manage to bring back some semblance of order to herself. Because she needs to just think and understand what in the seven hells and heavens is occurring, and what is causing her to blubber like a babe.

The bed she is in is large, she notes, clutching the material in her hands, trying to take in as many details as possible. It is large, a featherbed, and is lined with soft furs and even softer wools. The furs are of white, possibly winter hare or Northern fox fur, and are so soft. More Northern animals, once again. The wool is dyed blue, achingly close to Tully blue. A color she had avoided for so long. She needed to be not a vestige of the South, not an echo of her mother, but her own. All of this is expensive, fine to match the fact that I am in some sort of Keep, and with someone noting my Mother's House... Who would own such a thing? Possibilities whirl in Sansa's mind, and as her breath completely evens out she knows further exploring will give her the answers she needs. Cautiously, she stiffly tumbled out of the enormous bed, with admittedly fine if unfamiliar furs and unfamiliar wools, spine stiff and hands clenched. She tries to land like Arya had attempted to teach her- lightly on the balls of her feet, crouched low and ready to forcefully leap up. But she is inelegant in her roll, lands awkwardly and painfully against the stone.

And then Sansa is once again completely stunned at the sight of her much too small feet.

Sansa breathed a shuddering breath, straightened her spine, and looked at her hands. Too small… The hands… The hands of a child. But they- they must be mine. She curls and uncurls her hands to understand such a thing is really her's. Unease settled in her stomach, as she looked past her hands and sees her body. It is not what she knew. But it was fitting with the small hands and feet. The body that meets her sight in a sweat-soaked shift is thin and gangly. The form of a child. The limbs are long and her chest is flat, the belly soft with youth. Sansa forces herself to blink as if it will all fade as an illusion, before she realized, as she forced herself to touch her chest that this body is indeed the one she was controlling. She even wiggles her toes for good measure, but she cannot deny what her senses are telling her. I am in the body of a child, she reached for her head, and receives a handful of lush, silky hair if tangled. She drags it forward and shudders as the bright flame of her hair meets her eyes. It is paler than her memories, closer to copper than the richer pitch her hair had turned as she had grown older, but it is recognizable.

Sansa looks up, and it's by the glint in the early morning light, dawn, that she sees the mirror on the wall. It was a plain sort of mirror; sliver frame, with leaping trouts and prancing wolves amongst the bramble of soft winter-vines. It is plain, if slightly large, and Sansa knew that mirror. It had been a luxury she faintly remembered begging and pleading for months until her amused parents had granted. It had been a mirror she had adored, and a mirror she remembered had disappeared when she had returned to her rooms a few weeks after her father's execution. In its place had been a large, floor-length thing with prowling and roaring lions, golden frame with precisely cut red-colored glass, a luxury she had hated for what it had represented. I could not even reflect myself in the trappings of my House, I had to be the perfect Lannister woman to be. It is within that mirror, that she realized that she was within her childhood bedroom in Winterfell, and as she looked into it she was indeed inhabiting her childhood body.

For the girl staring at her in the glass is not her anymore, not the woman she had become. No. The girl in the mirror is a babe, perhaps eight name days or as far as ten- Sansa has forgotten how she had looked at that age.

She has rounded cheeks, full of youth and prettily plump, and her eyes are large things that looked almost odd against her face. Gone are the sharply shaped cheekbones of a woman, the bowed lips of peach, and the elegant tilt of her Tully blue eyes. She is so small, not the tall proud woman, full of fierceness, not the Red-Wolf of Winterfell, not the Queen of the North. No, what is looking back at her is the dove, the little bird she had been. A hand, a hand in the mirror lifts, and it is only when Sansa feels that hand cup her cheek that she realizes she had raised her hand to touch the face in the mirror. Her skin is soft, as is her hands, devastatingly so, not cracked and peeled with the cold of Winter, not roughly skeletal with the lack of food.

She blinked, wondering, for a moment, if she has gone mad with the coming of the Others and the Fire… And then she moved away from the glass, and quietly slipped out of her childhood room at Winterfell. Not a person in sight, not a soul meets her eyes. The halls are abandoned, the walls lined with paintings and tapestries long burned away from Theon's ill-fated betrayal, the Boltons' glee, and Sansa's reluctant need to dress the people pouring into the North. She wanders a whole Winterfell she barely remembered. It is not until she reached the door that she realized her feet had moved her to the room she had been occupying for nearly two years at this point. Not even a dragon queen had displaced her.

This is a spell or a dream. I must understand why I am so young and away from my proper place.

She threw the doors open carelessly and as much strength as she can muster, faintly annoyed as no guard stands outside the rooms. I will have words... She slammed the doors against the wall, a boom that echoed deep into the hallway. Two shapes callout in surprise from the bed, muttered oaths, a shirl shrike of surprise. They are tangled in the bedfurs and wools. Scramble in the enormous expanse, reaching for each other in a moment. And then they move to leap out of bed, two adults, a man, and a woman judging by their cries. People in my bed, she thought with cold fury, How dare they. One of them, a large, hulking figure of a man, grabbed at a sword next to the bed. And unsheathed it in a fluid, practiced motion, charging for her in a second. It is an enormous thing, larger than her current body, the blade. She watched with slight detachment as it swung in her direction. It froze mere inches from her head, gleaming dark metal just a hair's breadth away from her delicate head.

It is years of practice that restrain her fright and allows her for a second to merely blink at the gleaming, cool steal above her head.

She stared at the man, furrowed brow. Then she feels herself relaxing and understanding the fact that he had taken her bed. But who is with him?

"Sansa?" he said, bewildered and scolding.

For scaring him, or perhaps for appearing as she did. She should be scolding him, but she is too confused. He hastily lowers the blade, chest heaving in panic and fright. She cannot blame him. She looked at him, his grey eyes, his frown, and can only give a slightly furrowed brow in return.

"Jon… Jon something has happened to me," she told him, a little unnecessarily, after all, he has eyes, "I don't-"

"Sansa, sweetling?" and that voice- that voice she had never heard again. Oh, she had seen a poor imitation of it, a rasp and rattle of the Lady Stoneheart, but not… Not this.

The woman that comes around Jon, is fair and rosy, with red hair nearly to her knees in an elegant wave of fire. Kissed by fire, the Freefolk had called to Sansa, fondly, the Fire-Kissed, Red Wolf. The woman's hair is frightfully similair if a slightly paler shade. Her body is shapely, and for a brief moment, Sansa wondered if this is her mirror. The woman in front of her, dressed in a shift and hastily pulling a robe across her shoulders must be a distorted and softer version of her... Then reason wins out. Because the woman in front of her is older than her twenty name days, and there is a softness in her that Sansa had never had. She has a more rounded face then her, freckles across her skin, rose in her cheeks to Sansa's devastating Stark pale, and her hair has a slight curl then Sansa had never had.

Mother.

She blinked and is horrified at the fact that tears have started to fall from her eyes again. She has yet to cry since Arya had come to the Northern Camp against the Others, grey eyes cool, blade in hand. And today she has cried more than three times. First in death, then in a panic, now in affection. What is this?

"Sansa?"

"Mother," she said, voice high and impossibly hoarse at the same moment. Startled she can only gape at her before she looked to Jon, "Jon, Mother is back- she isn't Lady Stoneheart anymore… She's-"

"Sansa, stop addressing your father as such!"

Sansa paused at her mother's, her mother's shouted words.

And she looked at the man again.

A head, a head on a pike, and she feels tears in her eyes and she feels such rage. She moves forward, just a step, to push him to kill him, when a looming figure of the Hound warns her, protects her in that one, small movement. She stared at him, disbelief crawling in her throat. His brows are thicker, she noted, faintly, his eyes are a darker shade of grey than Jon's. His hair not as curly, but straighter, browner, and he is slightly shorter. But he has to be Jon. He can only-

"You are Jon."

The man blinked, brows furrowed.

"Sansa, I am Eddard Stark, your father," he said softly, a deep rumble of a voice. Not the soothing deepness of Jon.

She does not really know this voice.

If she had, it had faded with the laughter of lions. With the passage of too much time not allowed to even think of her family. More tears find her, they slip past her eyes, down her cheeks and she hates them. For they are weakness and they show a lamenting dove.

"But-But- He took your head. He made me watch as he thrust it through a spike. Made me look at what had happened to you and then he laughed," she whispered.

Her mother, let out a gasp of horror, while her father blanched.

"Sweetling, you had a nightmare."

This is the most beautiful nightmare I've ever had.

She stands in her thin shift, a small coolness trickled down her spine. If this is a dream is what she thinks it is-

"Robb," she whispered, suddenly.

She can only run.

Away, away from these people she had thought long lost. Her movement is abrupt, her small limbs feel stiff and unpracticed as she bolted away. And startled shouts follow her, but she can only run. She hiked up her sleeping shift to keep it away from her legs, uncaring of the unseemly sight. Because if mother and father are here if I look as young as I am- She slammed into the doors that had lead to Robb's old rooms. He woke much as her parents had, with a startled shout, tumbled out bed. Sansa feels her chest heaving as bewildered blue eyes look at her. He is so young. Hardly three and ten name days and she feels something give at the innocent look in his eyes or his wild mop of red curls. They had beheaded him, she thinks, just like father. Only they had made a mockery of the Young Wolf by sewing Grey Wind to the remains of his neck. Joffrey had jeered and laughed about it. Promised to serve me them both at my wedding with Tyrion before he threatened to rape me.

"Sansa, what is the matter with you?" he cried, and his voice breaks, not the man she had left in her doom trip South, but a gangly youth.

More tears. But suddenly, they are mingled with laughter, both joyous and hysterical. Because if Robb is here-

"Bran."

She ran further still, slipping just past her father's reaching hands as she to the next room.

This one she rushed into with hands out, reaching, grabbing, dragging at the already awake boy lounging in his bed. She rushed the startled boy, reaching, pleading that the stern, distant and mythical thing he became was gone from her younger brother. When he stands on his own feet, she gives more breathless laughter. His eyes are clear, innocent, and no longer entrenched with knowledge beyond human understanding. Tears fall, blurring, freely as she moves away from the confused boy, but not before kissing him gently on the brow with more laughter on her tongue. Vibrating on her lips in a joyous, insane song.

"Arya."

She is as free as the wind, a spirit of pulsing joy that gave her mobility and the means to slip beneath her father's waiting arms. She does so by sliding right under his feet in a striking movement that burns her pale flesh against the polished stone, tears, and rips at delicate linen of her sleeping shift. But she does not care. The slide has her laughing all the more, fueling her wild joy even as shouts follow her. Arya is already awake, spread across the floor in her sleeping shift, of all things playing. Like a child. And Sansa laughs and laughs, at the fact that Arya's hair is so long, or that her features are the awkward shape that she would grow into. Guileless, not cold, but innocent eyes stare at her. Sansa's chest is heaving, her eyes are prickling with unshed and shed tears, and laughter, both joyous and hysterical are bubbling in her throat.

Her sister, barely six namedays in form, stared, brows furrowed, clutching at a soft cloth toy of a wolf. It is so unlike the Arya Sansa knows, but it spoke of a younger, freer Arya that Sansa had missed and still mourned.

"What are you doing, stupid?" Arya said, suspiciously, a worried frown on her face. Her voice is high, a chime of bells, and utterly marvelous to Sansa.

She can only laugh in joy at the sight of her sister. Before sprinting away, towards the nursery. Rickon, little Rickon is there, barely three name days, alive and she breathed another laugh for her Wild little Wolf, lips pressing against his sleeping brow. Before she is running again, past her parents, screaming for Jon. Her King.

"JON!" She bellowed, laughter and tears escaping her, I never have to stop them ever again, "JON!"

A boy, just a boy, appears at the end of the hallway, barely dressed in trousers, not in the form of her King, not the man that had taken Winterfell back for her. Not the King that had fallen down with his dragon in a blaze of glory and fire and blood. But it is still Jon.

He is shirtless and so terribly thin, barely gaining muscle and all but scarless, wild tossed curls black and looking half awake. She breathed, a soft joyous laugh escaping her again as she ran as fast as her short legs could take her. He has just a chance to blink, to have his lips to fall slightly in surprise. And then she reached him. Slammed into the boy, so young, from a time of innocence in all of us. He grunts at her weight and is startled when her legs and arms wind around him. He barely kept his footing, barely suppressed a startled and filthy curse as he automatically moved to hold her up.

She only laughed at his clumsy movements. As he awkwardly started to pat on her shoulder, only focusing on the warmth of him. Please, gods, old and new, please let this not be a dream.

"SANSA!" shrieked her mother.

Sansa only laughed again, because why not? The tears flowing down her cheeks in a steady trickle. She kissed him, on the mouth, on the cheeks, on his forehead, on his nose, on his neck, any skin she can reach. Because Jon is here and we are all here.

"Jon. JON! YOU IDIOT! " she screamed in righteous joy and marvel because she had watched him fall, but all of that is behind them. She has been granted heaven, and nothing matters anymore, "Look at us, home, again!"

The boy, oh the beautiful boy, just struggled with her weight, lifting her awkwardly by her thin thighs. She can only press herself closer, kiss after kiss on his brow, on his chin in her joy.

"S-s-sansa?" he asked, confused, and when she looked into his grey eyes…

She does not see what she expected. She saw nothing of what should be in those much too innocent grey eyes. Not the same warmth that she had gorged herself on after years of coldness, hate, lust, and dismissal. Not the small worship he gave to her for coming back to him, to be the first of their siblings to reach him after years apart. Not the confidence of the man dead and risen again, not, her King.

She blinked, the joy in her chest deflating just slightly, just enough for Sansa to pull slightly back.

"Snow, you put my daughter down right now!" and that is her lady mother, fierce, cold and disdainful.

Panic clawed at Sansa. She locked her ankles around Jon's waist, jumping to wind her arms around his hilariously scrawny neck, tighter, panic giving her strength. He gives a frightful wheeze, but Sansa can only hold on tighter. Because this is Jon.

"NO!" she howled like the wolf she is. She bares her teeth and clings as her mother pulled on her arm, nearly sending them off balance. But Sansa cannot let go. She will not, "You can't take him away from me! I watched him fall- I watched him die. I watched him be taken from me like everyone else. Give me this."

"Sansa, you had a nightmare-" her father, her father pleads, and she stared at him, looked at him truly.

For he looked frightfully young. Barely two decades older than her age. His eyes are wide and staring at her in shock, in fear so potent she can feel it in her bones. His face is pale, his hands are reaching.

Sansa blinked again. Clung harder to her King.

"No," she whispered back, tears falling down her cheeks, she does not think they will ever stop, not here in this beautiful confusing place, "No, father. You don't understand. This is the dream. My heaven. My family whole, their innocence returned. My blissful Summer days after my haunting Autumn and the dreadful Winter come to kill us all."

Her father stared at her, brows furrowed. Dark grey eyes, stern, so familiar yet not, look at her. They are Arya's eyes, Sansa realizes. Not, Jon's, his are a shade lighter, and Sansa cannot fathom why she never realized her sister had their father's eyes. The man is looking at her with clear fear, and Sansa sets her jaw automatically. For when men and women look at the Queen in the North, they will not see weakness, nor will they see helplessness.

"Jon, son, put her down," said the man.

She growled, locking her ankles tighter. Jon, Jon gave a slight wince of discomfort, but she cannot help but cling. Please, please let this be real and mine again.

"Has she gone mad?" and that's Arya, small, blinking at her with that curiosity that always had Sansa frowning and irritated, but she found to be glorious now. And Sansa cannot see anything of Invisible Wolf in her sister, as she blinked up at her and Jon, grey eyes wide and slightly afraid, "Did Sansa hit her head?"

"Father, what is going on?" Robb said, softly, frightened and wide-eyed as he came up behind her father's shoulder, the Young Wolf, she remembered, staring, "Should I fetch the Maester?"

She stared back, thighs clenched around Jon, and she realized her breath has gotten fast again, and she wondered what this really is… I don't care. I don't care what this is, this is all I ever wanted in so long.

"Sansa, sweetling," Her mother pleaded, hands reaching out, face wild with fear, not with the eerie stillness of death and rotting flesh, an apparition that had come to them seeking justice and revenge, Sansa had burned her herself in order to lay her Lady Mother to rest, "Let the boy go-"

"What in the bleeding seven hells is all this racket!?"

Sansa gasped at the sight of Theon Greyjoy, whole, handsome but so very young came stumbling into the hallway.

He paused, no doubt at the odd sight of most of the Stark family disheveled and in their sleeping shifts, in the position of her with Jon. The boy in front of her is not the broken wreck of a creature with no semblance of self or dignity. Not the half-broken man coming back to himself in small bursts, not the brave thing that had flung himself off the walls of Winterfell with determination and self-loathing and regret with her in order to save her.

She stared. And stared.

"Begging your pardon, Lady Stark, Lord Stark," he stutters, realizing that they are present, blanching slightly.

A hand, Sansa's hand, reaches, faintly in his direction. A silent plea, that Theon simply stares at, uncomprehending.

"Theon," her voice is soft and is brimming with her joy.

"Sansa has gone mad!" Arya pipped up, again, going over to tug impatiently at Theon's sleeve.

Unbidden, a peal of delighted laughter leaves her, for the Invisible Wolf had been quiet and calculating. Not outspoken and blurting. Her laughter, so queerly high, rings out to uneased silence of her family around her.

"Sansa, if you… If you are unwilling to part from Jon?" started her father, at her sharp nod, he continued, "Than will you both come to my solar? Sansa… You can further explain-"

"Only Mother and you and Jon?" she whispered, and its because if she spoke any louder she feared she will only laugh or cry. I can barely do more than that at the moment.

Her heart, she realized, is beating, rapidly as her mother ushered everyone to bed or to go dress. Quietly, Sansa still in Jon's arms, is ushered towards the familiar path of the Queen of Winterfell's solar. The hallways are familiar, yet not. For it is the Winterfell she had known before- the one she still had dreams of- the one before King Robert had come calling for her father's service as his Hand. It is ancient and hallowed, whole and untouched by fire. Or forever stained with the blood of those foolish enough to arouse Ramsey's attention. It is clean, dark stone adorned by unbroken windows, old wall hangings destroyed in Theon's foolish play of manhood line the walls. In walking alone, Sansa had vaguely noticed this. In walking in Jon's arms, Sansa felt a blow at each familiar sight. Her eyes roam, flitting between the sights she longed for, and the faces of her young King, her forgotten father, and the whole face of her mother. Her mother followed behind them, face carved into worry and dislike as Sansa clung. Her footsteps echo the beat of Sansa's heart. Quick and hurried.

In the room, Sansa realized she cannot cling to Jon forever, much as she wanted to. The boy had struggled with her weight, and his face was red with effort and so utterly confused. What a fool I'd been to him. How did I ever look away from him? She slipped down him, realizing with a jolt that he is still so much taller than her, more than two heads, and she frowned as she missed the fact that her head had reached his chin, within distance to always reach down and press a kiss to her temple. Now, he would have to bend down to kiss her brow as was his habit. Eyes, grey, innocent and worried, so utterly bewildered, staring at her. Searching for something in her features she cannot name.

Summer boy. I can see the summer snow and gentleness of innocence within those grey eyes.

She blinked, slowly, before she frowned.

"Jon," she said, firmly, and her heart clenched at the fact that he flinches, "I love you, dearly."

Wild, confused eyes stare at her with hunger and hope. She reached, hand tangling with his, calloused and rough and already dwarfing her hand.

"I- I love you as well Sansa," his voice is hesitant but warm.

And despite the indifference she had always shown him, that is true. He loves her back. Sansa smiles, wide, and reached on her tiptoes to kiss both cheeks before she turned to her father. He was sitting in her chair. No, not my chair. He is the lord. This is the Lord's solar. Not the Queen in the North' is not my place to dwell in now. Her mother, frowning, eyes narrowed at the display, no doubt, stared at her with disbelief. Both of her parents are.

Her paragons and invincible figures of her Summer days. Dead and mutilated in her horror-filled Autumn. Grief for them rose in her, and she wondered, with dawning realization if this is no dream.

They do not remember. In my heaven, they would remember so they could forgive a Summer Child's foolish mistakes.

"Sansa," began her father, the Quiet Wolf, she thinks, remembering his moniker distinctly, his voice steady, deep and his face still, "Will you please tell us what has caused you to behave… To behave so strangely?"

"Father, Mother… What year is it?" she asked instead of answering. Because I must know.

Her parents exchanged glances, brows furrowed. Her father turns to her, and he frowns.

"The year is 295," he answered, slowly, voice calm and soothing.

Sansa gave a bark of laughter, hand coming to her lips in surprise. Then, she wobbled to a nearby chair, dragging Jon with her, and he stood awkwardly next to her. She stared at their intertwined hands. At the uncalloused and pale, useless hands that only know how to sew. And the slightly tanner hands that are already strong and ready to fight.

I… This is not a dream.

She breathed, deeply, feeling the air in her lungs and in her chest, her rapidly beating heart. She closes her eyes. Relished the feel of Jon's hand in her's.

Life. Not green wildfire. I am alive. Everyone… Is alive. Three years before everything was lost.

"Father… Mother… Jon. I closed my eyes in the year 305 in a fire of my own making," she grinned, savagely, not a sweet girl of ten name days, not a child of Summer, but rather the Queen in the North, The Red Wolf, as she opened her eyes. She who had been broken down by cruel Winds of Autumn and reforged in the Ice of Winter,

"The North Remembers."

EDIT: 15 August 2020